Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation (29 page)

Oh sure, it’s not all rioting and chaos. Things get done in China. Lots of things get done. This is because the system that prevails throughout the country—the system that has always prevailed from the Imperial days of yore to the Maoism of recent years to the hypercapitalism of today—is
guanxi,
the network of family, friends, and contacts that grease the wheels of life in China. Monarchism, Communism, and Capitalism have always been inadequate isms to describe China.
Guanxi
is what makes China go. It is a society based upon connections.

But above this
guanxi,
and below it, too, there is anarchy. The government, of course, would dispute this. Despite evidence to the contrary, there are, in fact, rules. Technically, slavery is illegal. But this doesn’t stop brick-kiln-factory owners from kidnapping hundreds of boys to work in horrific conditions in northern China. Theoretically, it should be possible for a Chinese parent to buy baby formula with reasonable confidence that it won’t kill Junior. But you can’t. Hundreds of babies in China have died from counterfeit formula in recent years. Product safety, clearly, is not a high priority. While stores from Canada to Chile were busily emptying their shelves of contaminated toothpaste, did shops in China do likewise? They did not. Once the deluge of contaminated exports became a trifle embarrassing for the government, however, they did do something: They shot the head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration. But actually recall the toxic products within China? No.

From the madness of the roads to the endangered animals in the market, it was hard to discern the rule of law in China. And I kind of like laws—good ones, anyway. I’d spent enough time in the South Pacific, where laws are regarded as mere suggestions, to know that the absence of a fair and impartial application of law is a sure path to instability. True, somewhere there is presumably a big book of Chinese laws, but if no one enforces them, what does it matter? I had asked a lawyer friend of Dan’s in Beijing about Chinese law and he had scoffed at the very notion that there was such a thing. “Look. Here’s how it works,” he said. “Lawyer Zhang is doing pretty well. He’s a partner. He’s making some money. He buys a Mercedes, a very expensive car in China—more than twice what you’d pay for it in the U.S. The judge notices Lawyer Zhang’s shiny new car, so he says, ‘Lawyer Zhang, you must be very rich to afford such a car. I would like to borrow it.’ So what does Lawyer Zhang do? He turns over the keys. He doesn’t see his car again. But he wins his cases before the judge. That’s how law works in China.”

And it has become pernicious, this gotta-get-mine, screw-you, get-out-of-my-way kind of thinking. The toxic brown sludge that the Chinese call air is only the most visible manifestation of this abandonment of rules designed to foster the common good. But it goes beyond the unregulated air and soupy rivers: Thousands of miners in China die each year in illegal mines. Almost every hotel has a brothel. A sidewalk stroll can quickly become a walk of misery; from the abandoned old to the criminally abused young, one can’t wander twenty yards without needy hands thrusting out tin cups. The wonder I felt nightclubbing in Beijing or idling among the gilded skyscrapers of Pudong was increasingly supplanted by something far different. I was, in fact, appalled by much of what I was seeing in contemporary China. And I was beginning to feel like a bad host. I felt responsible for Jack.

“So what did you think of Guangzhou?” I asked him as our taxi sped toward the airport.

“Sing it with me:
I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free…
”

Few songs irritate me more. Somewhere in my formative years, I had heard something about scoundrels and patriotism. And that song in particular, with its love-it-or-leave-it pomposity, conjured up images of professional wrestlers,
Playboy
bunnies, and
American Idol
finalists leading the cheer as fighter jets swooped through the sky on their way to bomb some country few could find on a map. But that’s the thing about China. Suddenly, the good ole U. S. of A. starts to look, well, pretty darn good. But surely there were parts of China where one didn’t need a gas mask to breathe, where a China of quiet pagodas and babbling brooks could be found, a place where the country didn’t seem quite so cruel. I’d decided to look for that China in Yunnan Province, in the far southwest of China, where steamy rain forests meet the soaring pinnacles of the Himalayas.

We flew to Kunming, the largest city in Yunnan, on China Southern Airlines. Kunming had recently begun to call itself China’s most relaxed city. The competition for that title, of course, was not particularly stiff. But not even such an alluring moniker was enough to keep me in urban China for a moment longer than I had to be. From Kunming, we would fly farther west to Dali, which had come highly recommended by a well-traveled friend. Ordinarily, I would have taken the train, stopping for a few days in Guilin and Yangshuo to admire the karst formations, the jagged limestone cliffs that are featured on every Chinese postcard. But Jack was pressed for time and I was eager to start acclimatizing to the lofty heights of the Himalayas. Besides, the travel agent I had spoken to in Guangzhou had described Guilin as very touristy, and I did not want touristy. Okay, maybe a little touristy, touristy enough for picture menus. That would be good.

“You know, it’s okay to let go of the armrests now and then,” Jack said as we took off.

“We haven’t flown together, have we?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, I’m not a really strong flyer.”

“I see. And yet your work takes you to faraway places?”

“It does.”

“Places that you have to fly to?”

“Yes.”

“I think, maybe, you just might be in the wrong profession.”

“Very possibly.”

In Kunming, we transferred airplanes. This was the first airport I’d seen that hadn’t yet been renovated into something glassy and shiny, and strangely this seemed good, to wander around a dingy airport. It suggested distance from booming coastal China. I noticed nursing rooms for mothers, which seemed like an unexpectedly thoughtful touch. On the runway, there were lines of blue fighter planes.

“So what’s in Dali?” Jack inquired as we took off.

“No idea, really. But it’s near the Burmese border. So I figure it’s bound to be different.”

I liked the sound of that—
near the Burmese border.
Surely, Dali would be exotic, intriguing, possibly even dangerous.

“Also,” I remembered, “most of the inhabitants there are not Han Chinese.”

Jack nodded. “And who are the Han Chinese?”

“Ninety-two percent of all people in China are Han Chinese. They’re the Chinese Chinese. But the people living in Dali, while technically Chinese, are called Bai, one of the fifty-six minorities Kenny was talking about.”

“Hey, wait a minute. You’re not taking me to some separatist region, are you? This isn’t going to be like Bosnia, is it?”

“Who can say for sure? But if there’s trouble, we’ll just cowboy-up and deal with it.”

Of course Yunnan wasn’t going to be like Bosnia. But I couldn’t help myself. I was traveling with someone who knew even less about China than I did. Still, I had absolutely no idea what to expect, which was why I was so immensely pleased when we found ourselves at the airport in Dali, surrounded by rolling hills awash in that strangest of things: sunshine.

“Am I mistaken or is the sky actually blue here?” Jack asked.

It was. Stepping outside, our senses were flooded with clean air, blue skies, and golden sunlight. Never had I been so grateful to be in the presence of the great bright orb in the sky. Here it was at last, along with sweet, undulating hills and villages that—from the air, at least—seemed to be more than large piles of rubble surrounded by toxic ponds. We had finally found bucolic China.

We checked into our guesthouse, which was done in the Tibetan motif with thick wooden beams and carpeted doorways. There were a number of Tibetans in Yunnan, including the owner of this particular guesthouse. We deposited our bags and walked toward the old city walls, past portentous signs that read THE THOUSAND YEAR VALUE OF HONG-LONGJING STREET WILL CONTINUE AND LEAP IN THE CONSTRUCTION THINKING. What is this? I thought. This was not encouraging. I had not come to Dali to experience CONSTRUCTION THINKING. I was looking to escape from that China. And then, once we’d walked through the city’s imposing East Gate, it soon became clear that we were not alone in our pursuit of escapist bliss.

Dali is tucked between Erhai Hu, a lake in the style of Tahoe, and the Jade Green Mountains, which are, in fact, green. Indeed, parts of them are even spray-painted green—the solution to the aesthetic problems posed by mining. Old-town Dali is small, with narrow streets bustling with people in traditional Bai dress, blues and pinks and soft knit hats, sitting on the ground selling walnuts. Outside the old walls is an ever-expanding Chinese city, but inside it feels like a village.

We walked around, absorbing atmosphere. From a window, we heard a child practicing her English “A, B,
xie.
” On the street curbs, there were many Bai in their colorful garb, selling things, laughing. And there were many Chinese tourists too, some stopping to stare and gape not at the locals, but at us, the foreigners. We had come to Dali to look at the Bai. They had come to look at us looking at the Bai.

A sign pointed us toward the Catholic church. This pleased Jack, who gets a little shaky without his weekly mass. We followed an alleyway until we found ourselves in front of what appeared to be a stone pagoda on steroids. It looked nothing like any church I’d seen. It looked, strangely, like a boat in heavy seas, with flaming eaves parting like turbulent waves. We went inside and met a friendly woman named Irene. Jack inquired about mass and learned that they’d have one at 6
A.M.
the following day, and we promised to attend.

“There’s always someone named Irene in a Catholic church,” Jack observed as we walked down cobbled streets toward Huguo Lu, which locals call the Street of Foreigners. Feeling hungry, we stopped and settled ourselves to eat at an appealing spot called The Yunnan Café.

“I’m having the yak,” Jack announced after perusing the English-language menu.

“I think I’ll have the same.”

The culinary possibilities in China are endless. Why not yak? Or cat? Or swan? Or bullfrog? Or live squid? Why limit ourselves to pigs, lambs, and chickens? And why dine on cow but not their big, shaggy cousin, the yak? I’d been in China for a while and it seemed only natural to sample this new offering.
In China, we eat everything with four legs except the table, and anything with two legs except a person.
Splendid, I say, now pass the chopsticks.

We sat on a wooden terrace, idly enjoying our surroundings, watching the street life.

“So,” Jack said after a while, “have you ever wondered where the hippies went?”

This seemed like the ultimate non sequitur. I hadn’t wondered where the hippies went. I’d just assumed they’d rechanneled their narcissism and become yuppies, before evolving into the self-indulgent, squabbling baby boomers of today.

“No,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” he said, “they’ve all moved to Dali.”

Just then a pair of fetchingly bedraggled young Western women in dreadlocks wandered past. Shockingly, they were barefoot. I could not begin to imagine what kind of altered state I’d have to be in to wander around China barefoot. Considering the rivers of piss and phlegm that flowed down Chinese streets, these women were clearly insane. Or very, very high. And they were not alone. As I looked around, I saw that there were dozens, hundreds even, of Westerners in Dali who looked like they’d boarded the bus for Woodstock. What were they doing here? And what was it about Dali that had made it the go-to destination on the hippie trail?

“Ganja,” whispered a voice.

I turned to see an elderly woman with a deeply lined face standing beside me. She was in traditional Bai dress and carried a wooden basket with a baby on her back. With a beatific smile, she leaned forward and whispered again, “Ganja?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

“Ganja,” she repeated, bringing her fingers to her lips in an imaginary toke.

“Ganja?” I whispered.

“Ganja,” she nodded.
“Smokee, smokee.”

“Er—awfully thoughtful of you, but I think I’m going to pass.” And then, feeling helpful, I told her, “We’re in China, you know. It’s a police state.”

“Ganja,” she said again. I shook my head and off she finally waddled, with the baby bouncing behind her.

We had arrived in a place where kindly elderly ladies gently inquired whether your stay might be enhanced with a little
smokee
of the ganja. I suddenly admired the Bai for their entrepreneurial pluck. There was no better way of luring a steady stream of backpackers than by offering them the prospect of readily available weed. And clearly, the dealers themselves were among the most genial and solicitous in the world. What’s not to like? We had solved the mystery of why the hippies had come to Dali.

Reefer Madness.

Jack looked at me, relieved. “Thanks for not buying a dime bag from grandma there. I don’t want the Chinese police after us. It would suck to end this trip in a gulag in Manchuria.”

I laughed. “You can relax. One thing I will not do is smoke weed in a country with mobile execution trucks.”