T.I.C.
or
This Is China
For several months, armed with a few polite, badly pronounced Chinese phrases, I had the pleasure of roaming through China with a small team of Laowais to look at breweries for potential joint ventures. Lao wai is the Mandarin word for foreigner. On this particular day, I find myself deep in the Shanxi Province, the fringe of China’s Wild West--a coal mining belt with few redeeming qualities. This was to be a travel day and what started out as a seven-hour trip from LinFen to ZhengZhou City; ended up being a twenty-five hour marathon to see Hukou Falls; the 2nd largest waterfall in China. On the map, it’s a mere inches from the highway.
It’s been four hours since we left the highway and we’re still climbing through the LuLiang Mountains. I ask our interpreter how to say, “Are we there yet?” but somehow the humor is lost in translation. The road we are on has gone from chewed-up asphalt and now alternates between one and a half lanes of gritty rock and dirt, to little more than a dusty earthen path beaten down by thousands of years of travelers afoot. It would be rough by four-wheeler standards, and we are, by no stretch of the imagination, in a rugged four-wheeler.
My three laowai comrades, two interpreters, two beer company representatives and a grumpy driver are stuffed into a Jin Bei Minibus. Think 1960’s vintage VW Microbus and you’ve got a pretty accurate picture in your mind. I’m sure this particular vehicle might have been comfortable in its day, but its day was about twenty years ago. The seat padding was crushed and the shock absorbers were, well, they weren’t absorbing anything. Two years later I still have the bruises on my ass to prove it.
Yet, here we are, three Americans in the bowels of China, trying to catch up to the keys on our laptop computers as they bounce on our laps; writing reports that would somehow have to be transmitted back to the states by the next morning. Al Gore didn’t exactly have China’s countryside in mind when he invented the internet.
By now we’re testing the little Jin Bei’s lawnmower engine, rattling and skipping a beat that must be a fouled sparkplug. The scenery shifts to one of an alien world as the road turns sharply to the sky and the valley behind us falls away. The mountains rise in terraces like a giant’s staircase--each terrace riddled with monster-size mouse holes. Entire mountains had been chiseled down over thousands of years by a society that had no other choice but to pick out a living from the rocks. The people here live in soot and dirt and indescribable poverty.
or
This Is China
For several months, armed with a few polite, badly pronounced Chinese phrases, I had the pleasure of roaming through China with a small team of Laowais to look at breweries for potential joint ventures. Lao wai is the Mandarin word for foreigner. On this particular day, I find myself deep in the Shanxi Province, the fringe of China’s Wild West--a coal mining belt with few redeeming qualities. This was to be a travel day and what started out as a seven-hour trip from LinFen to ZhengZhou City; ended up being a twenty-five hour marathon to see Hukou Falls; the 2nd largest waterfall in China. On the map, it’s a mere inches from the highway.
It’s been four hours since we left the highway and we’re still climbing through the LuLiang Mountains. I ask our interpreter how to say, “Are we there yet?” but somehow the humor is lost in translation. The road we are on has gone from chewed-up asphalt and now alternates between one and a half lanes of gritty rock and dirt, to little more than a dusty earthen path beaten down by thousands of years of travelers afoot. It would be rough by four-wheeler standards, and we are, by no stretch of the imagination, in a rugged four-wheeler.
My three laowai comrades, two interpreters, two beer company representatives and a grumpy driver are stuffed into a Jin Bei Minibus. Think 1960’s vintage VW Microbus and you’ve got a pretty accurate picture in your mind. I’m sure this particular vehicle might have been comfortable in its day, but its day was about twenty years ago. The seat padding was crushed and the shock absorbers were, well, they weren’t absorbing anything. Two years later I still have the bruises on my ass to prove it.
Yet, here we are, three Americans in the bowels of China, trying to catch up to the keys on our laptop computers as they bounce on our laps; writing reports that would somehow have to be transmitted back to the states by the next morning. Al Gore didn’t exactly have China’s countryside in mind when he invented the internet.
By now we’re testing the little Jin Bei’s lawnmower engine, rattling and skipping a beat that must be a fouled sparkplug. The scenery shifts to one of an alien world as the road turns sharply to the sky and the valley behind us falls away. The mountains rise in terraces like a giant’s staircase--each terrace riddled with monster-size mouse holes. Entire mountains had been chiseled down over thousands of years by a society that had no other choice but to pick out a living from the rocks. The people here live in soot and dirt and indescribable poverty.
The driver balances the Jin Bei on a ridge between two mountains weaving back and forth brushing by pedestrians, laying on his horn and mumbling, while I squeeze my eyes shut, pretending not to see the thousand foot drop-offs on either side. The Chinese don’t have the equivalent of DOT or OSHA, so guardrails don’t exist. As the path levels out, the bus driver shouts at the locals shuffling along, burdened by bundles of coal balanced on long sticks across tired shoulders. There are no villages in sight, so I can’t figure out where all these people are going. This is China.
Everything here is veiled in gritty black dust from the mines. The air is thick and hard to breathe and many of the locals wear black-stained cotton masks or wrap dirty cloths over their nose and mouths to filter out the carbon particles. Finally, the road turns to hug the face of the next mountain and we veer close to one of the chiseled terraces riddled with human-size mouse holes. Odd wisps of black smoke curl from each burrow and drift upward to the dark sky.Before today, I’ve said many times, that nothing I see in China surprises me, thus our invented term, This Is China or TIC for short. Today is a first...well a first since the last time something really threw me for a loop in China. As the bus bounces by the mouse holes, I begin to make out the shapes of families huddled around small piles of burning coals for warmth in the back of each. I looked around to see my fellow laowais are as saucer-eyed as I am and it finally hits me. There are thousands of people walking about and not a single brick and mortar structure in sight. The mouse holes that began as coal mine shafts and air raid shelters had been converted to living quarters. There are cavemen still living in China.
The fortunate scrounge pieces of corrugated metal or scrapes of wood to tilt up at the openings shielding them from the wind and rain and prying eyes. The wealthy families near the road have all the luxuries in life, a custom fit wooden doorway, a stove pipe to carry out the noxious black soot, and electricity stolen directly from the main power line secured high on utility poles.Suddenly my cell phone buzzes; startling me from my gaze. This is China. Hundreds of miles from civilization and the cell phone service is flawless. I flip open the receiver and hear my wife’s static-ridden voice. Before I can describe what I’m seeing, she goes into a diatribe on her hard day and how the garage door opener broke and how she had to dig in her purse to find her key to go inside the house and how she broke a fingernail opening the garage door manually. At this point, all I hear is yada, yada, yada and I feel like shouting into the phone, “Sorry, I’m going into a tunnel.” Instead, being the insensitive jerk, that she later called me, I tell her that there are thousands of people living in caves here and they would die to have a door, let alone one that opens at the push of a button. I actually hear myself say, “Get over it and call a repairman.” Thank God I lose the signal shortly after that remark and we continue to bounce along the mountain trail.
It’s now been eight hours. Those few inches on the map have taken us six to negotiate. As the Jin Bei grinds to a stop, we crawl out to solid footing and take in the scenery. Odd, that we’ve come all this way to see the second largest waterfall in all of China and, stretched out alongside of us, is a mile-wide dried-up river bed with nothing that resembles a waterfall in sight, and we can see up and down the valley for miles. We all think it, “Where’s the waterfall?” Finally someone dares to ask. “Waterfall is still a few more kilometers. We will have a break here at the Jin Pu Hotel.” There is a unified sigh of relief, both for the opportunity relieve ourselves and that we hadn’t spent eight hours of hell for nothing.
After a short potty break; thank God for western style toilets; it was back in the bus. Chinese toilets are topic for another time. We bounce down the road for about a mile and pull to a stop next to a cute, petite young woman with an orange coat, wielding a megaphone. But the scenery hadn’t changed and the same thought comes rushing back. “Where the hell is the waterfall?”
The tour guide raises her megaphone and with a loud screech, starts a well-rehearsed speech. Her first interpreted words are, “Sorry, no water.” “What the hell?” A loud, confused discussion in Mandarin erupts and the corrected version is repeated, “Sorry LOW water.”
A unified sigh of relief sounds--still, we look around. The ticking of the bus engine as it cools signals that we have arrived, and no sign of a waterfall. But there, across the dried up riverbed is a raised concrete walkway to... well... to nowhere. The walkway ends about a hundred yards from where we stand, but sure enough, our tour guide, talking excitedly into her megaphone, starts down the path to nowhere. I turn around to see that most of our Chinese hosts decided to hang back to let us discover things on our own. I have this nagging feeling that this is all a huge, cruel joke. So here we are, our Chinese tour guide, shouting into her megaphone to a lone interpreter, who then has to shout to translate to the three intrepid lao wais walking on a raised concrete pathway to nowhere, inches above a mile-wide, dried-up riverbed to see what seems to be a phantom waterfall.
We reach the end of the concrete to be met by a dirty, yellow-tinged, jagged icepack, the result of a frigid Mongolian winter. Undeterred by the seemingly insurmountable obstacle, we throw caution to the wind, along with every ounce of common-sense we possess and pick our way along the silt-crusted ice without any clue as to how thick it is or whether we’ll disappear into the icy water below. Twenty yards further, our little guide stops abruptly, hands out as if trying to regain her balance and shouts. “Louk ie, louk ie!” It takes us a moment to realize she is actually speaking English. She points out across the expanse of ice to a faint mist rising from the ground. At the same time, I notice an almost imperceptible vibration in the ice and a low pitched, steady rumble sounds in my ears. Our pace quickens and the low rumble increases to a deafening roar. Still, except for the mist rising, there is no visual sign of the 2nd largest waterfall in China.
We climb up and over a particularly gnarly pile of ice and there it is. Hukou Falls. Not anything like I expect, but magnificent, none the less. Again, it’s difficult to find the words to paint a picture in your mind, but it’s as if we stepped back millions of years and were witnessing the Colorado River just beginning to carve out the Grand Canyon across the high plains of northern Arizona. Millions of gallons per minute of yellow-streaked, abrasive water from the Yellow River plummet hundreds of feet to the bottom of an inner-canyon no more than seventy-feet across. The awesome power of the river found a weak spot; a crack in Mother Earth; to exploit and worked at it with tireless fury. I stand on a shelf of ice twenty-feet thick, on the edge of the raging abyss, mesmerized by the sight.
Hukou Pubu translates to Kettle Spout Falls. The yellow, silt-laden water funnels into the canyon in dramatic fashion, throwing up a mist that transforms into a light show of shifting rainbows above. The sound is deafening and the feel is powerful as the rumble resonates through our bodies. Thank God the ice is gritty, as we are drawn in by the magnificence and find ourselves standing on the edge of the ice shelf. One slip and there would be more room in the Jin Bei on the ride back.
The next surprise clomps up from behind, in the form of a very elder man looking like pictures I’ve seen of Genghis Khan with a long thin mustache, blending with his flowing, grey beard. But this man is skinny as a rail under his shabby course clothing and carries a handmade long-stemmed pipe clenched in a toothless grin. A ragged mule stands behind him wearing a colorful blanket, harness and saddle. We are witness to the famous donkey of Hukou. We knew the donkey was famous because it’s right there, embroidered in plain English on his blanket. For a mere 5 RMB; that’s about sixty-five cents; you can mount the donkey for a quick ride on the jagged chunks of ice and take a picture with your own camera. We found that this was one of eight donkey men that live in Zhongshi Village. They make the journey to the falls daily and earn a decent living. Several have even purchased motorcycles. This is China.
The next surprise clomps up from behind, in the form of a very elder man looking like pictures I’ve seen of Genghis Khan with a long thin mustache, blending with his flowing, grey beard. But this man is skinny as a rail under his shabby course clothing and carries a handmade long-stemmed pipe clenched in a toothless grin. A ragged mule stands behind him wearing a colorful blanket, harness and saddle. We are witness to the famous donkey of Hukou. We knew the donkey was famous because it’s right there, embroidered in plain English on his blanket. For a mere 5 RMB; that’s about sixty-five cents; you can mount the donkey for a quick ride on the jagged chunks of ice and take a picture with your own camera. We found that this was one of eight donkey men that live in Zhongshi Village. They make the journey to the falls daily and earn a decent living. Several have even purchased motorcycles. This is China.
Not many westerners make it to this remote region and we draw quite a crowd as children flock around us to say “Hello” and ask for money. After ten minutes of smiling, handing out Chinese coins and saying “hello” over and over again, our beer company delegation comes to our rescue and we say goodbye to the incredible site. We pick our way back across the ice field and prepare for another 6 hour butt-numbing ride back to the highway. The bus stops again at the Jin Pu Hotel and our hosts inform us that they have arranged a special surprise. The Mayor of Hukou Village heard of our visit and insisted on having dinner with us.The dining room in the Jin Pu Hotel is clean but Spartan. A round table dominates the room and centered on the table’s large lazy Susan is a beautiful centerpiece of birds and flowers freshly carved from local vegetables. Special occasions in China call for unusual food; fried scorpions, and spicy fried cicadas for appetizers, soft-shelled turtle (just like it came from the water) served over a bed of rice noodles along with various servings of vegetables and meats for a main dish and egg white ducks floating on fisheye soup for a finale. Determined not to be an Ugly American, I find I prefer my scorpions without the stingers, but they remind me of crispy potato chips. Cicadas, on the other hand, start with a tangy grit but finish a bit dry. That’s not necessarily a good thing when eating bugs and the wings tend to get caught between my teeth. Copious quantities of beer slammed down in Gan Bei toasts were followed by locally made apple wine. Two hours later as the sun dipped below the mountains, we bid Zai Jian to the Mayor and pile back in the Jin Bei for the treacherous ride back, this time under the veil of darkness.
The return trip to the highway takes about ten hours. With the exception of amber glows radiating from the caves alongside the mountain road, the scenery is covered in a shroud of black. Only the pail yellow of the Jin Bei’s dim headlights shed any light for much of the trip. If not for the incessant rocking of the bus, we would have no idea where we are. Each bang of a head against the glass panes of the bus reminds us that we are not anywhere near our destination. As we roll back up on the main highway, we pull to a stop behind a waiting car. The moment he clears the door, the driver lights up the cigarette he must have been craving for ten hours. Another spirited discussion springs up and our beer company representatives jump from their seats and join in. Voices raise as our interpreter explains that the man waiting in the car is a relief driver. But after seeing that the bus contains VIPs from the west, he doesn’t want any part of the responsibility.
The argument ends and the man in the car drives off--leaving our tired driver to continue on. Of course his mood is sour and he’s making no attempt to hide his emotions. The door slams shut, the lawnmower engine springs to life and, with gears grinding, we forge on. Our hosts speaking calmly as to relieve the tension, assures us that this is the very best driver in China and he will be fine. Only about six more hours to Zhengzhou City. This is China.
The final straw comes six hours later as we exit the main highway with the lights of ZhengZhou City glowing around us. The Jin Bei comes to a stop, about a dozen vehicles short of a toll booth. So close, yet so far. We sit in the line for an hour, as it seems the city gates are closed. At five-thirty in the morning, the line starts moving and it’s our turn at the gate. Another spirited Mandarin discussion, but the gate in front of us remains closed. The toll guard leaves his booth and boards the bus. He most certainly wants to know what on earth this bus driver is doing smuggling three lao wais into the city at this hour of the morning. A payment is made and the gate opens.
It’s been twenty-five hours since we left our hotel in Lin Fen as we pull our suitcases into the hotel for a quick shower, before boarding the bus to our next destination. It’s been a long day. A day we’ll talk about for years to come. Just another day in China. Yes--this really is China.
The argument ends and the man in the car drives off--leaving our tired driver to continue on. Of course his mood is sour and he’s making no attempt to hide his emotions. The door slams shut, the lawnmower engine springs to life and, with gears grinding, we forge on. Our hosts speaking calmly as to relieve the tension, assures us that this is the very best driver in China and he will be fine. Only about six more hours to Zhengzhou City. This is China.
The final straw comes six hours later as we exit the main highway with the lights of ZhengZhou City glowing around us. The Jin Bei comes to a stop, about a dozen vehicles short of a toll booth. So close, yet so far. We sit in the line for an hour, as it seems the city gates are closed. At five-thirty in the morning, the line starts moving and it’s our turn at the gate. Another spirited Mandarin discussion, but the gate in front of us remains closed. The toll guard leaves his booth and boards the bus. He most certainly wants to know what on earth this bus driver is doing smuggling three lao wais into the city at this hour of the morning. A payment is made and the gate opens.
It’s been twenty-five hours since we left our hotel in Lin Fen as we pull our suitcases into the hotel for a quick shower, before boarding the bus to our next destination. It’s been a long day. A day we’ll talk about for years to come. Just another day in China. Yes--this really is China.
