Tragedy at Sea

People tend to look at you wierd when they catch you talking to yourself.

That happened to me today, and I wasn't even talking to myself. Unfortunatly the fish I was talking to was too small for anyone on the beach to see, so I guess I may have appeared to be talking to myself.

Fragile people, be warned. This story in tragic.

I first met Mango swimming in the clear bluegreen water of Bintan Cove, around noon today. I was scanning underwater for jellyfish on my way to an outcrop of rocks when my eyes happened upon a small yellow fish with black stripes. He was about half the size of my thumb, with bright black eyes that held a stare.

At first I thought Mango was just another cute little fish, like all the others I had seen that day. I paid him no heed, until a few minutes later I realized this fish was still swimming with me, occasionally sampling me legs, but mostly just swimming as close to me as he could get. "What do you want from me!" I yelled, splashing at Mango. "I don't have any money!"

I kept swimming and he kept up with me, swimming right under my chin until I stopped, at which point he would swim behind me. I would circle around, Mango would circle, disappearing,and never responding to my shouts of "Where are you sucker! Quit following me!"

Then I realized something. Even if this fish was trying to fight me, I was bigger. And stronger. And a better fighter.

So I gave him the benifit of the doubt and soon Mango and I were the best of friends. I raced him to the rocks and challanged him to who could turn in more circles. He won both times, little devil.

Eventually I had to go in for lunch, so I swam back to shore. Mango came with me the whole way. He even tried to follow me onto land. I had to yell, "No Mango, you'll get stuck! Go back, go back!" Before Mango turned around and fought the current back out to sea.

Sadly from shore, I watched as a terrible thing happened. A gang of sand colored fish rose up from their camoflaged hiding spot on the sea floor and attacked Mango. I ran to Mango's rescue, kicking the water around him, screaming, "Noooooo! Stay away from him! You hear me! Stay away from him!"

The gangster fish left poor Mango hiding behind my ankle. He wasn't swimming so well, and I could tell he was pretty beat up. I told him to swim back to sea but he wouldn't listen.

"Mango, I can't stay. I belong out there. And they're all watching us," I wispered to Mango, pointing to the handful of people on shore. "But you can make it. I know you can. Be brave. Be safe."

I ran to shore without looking back. I couldn't bear the thought of what I might see behind me, and my heart filled with shame as I realized I had left a friend to die.

The Great Wall

Saturday morning I am jolted out of my slumber by my phone’s rude announcement of the arrival of a text message. “Are you coming?” It says. Suddenly I remember my first meeting with the Great Wall is today, a meeting that coincides with a friend’s birthday party being held at a remote section of the wall.

Getting out of bed I’m a little nervous about meeting the wall face to face for the first time. Will she look as good as she does in pictures, I wonder? Is her age obvious? Will her vast experience enthrall or intimidate me?

The clock beside my bed reads 10:57. The party bus is leaving in three minutes from Dong Zhi Men.

I step into the living room, glad I am already dressed. On top the living room table is an unopened bottle of whiskey, a pack of cheap cigars, a bunch of grapes and a note from a friend announcing he is on his way back to the United States.

Glad that he has taken the time to pack for me, I throw his gifts into my backpack and stumble for my shoes, yelling upstairs to wake my housemate, Gabe.

Gabe falls down the stairs, stuffing a frisbee and a fake chicken into a bag and we are out the door.

"Should we take a cab?"

"That would be like taking a cab from here to here," Gabe tells me. "We should just run." Before I get a chance to reply, Gabe grabs my backpack and takes off running, zigzagging through traffic across the busy street.

"Peaches, we need peaches!" Gabe yells, jumping onto the sidewalk towards a fruit stand. "No, theres no time for peaches!" He yells without stopping, cutting back towards our destination.

Fifteen minutes later we arrive at the bus stop panting and drenched in sweat, but its worth it. Three hours later I find myself at the Huang Huar section of The Great Wall.

The entrance to the wall is guarded by a fierce woman collecting a 2Y cover to cross what she says is her land to get to the wall. A boy with us refuses to pay, asking the woman to show proof of authority. He tries to muscle past her, but she blocks him with a swift hip check. As the boy tries to march past again the woman uproots a shrub and begings beating him with it. The boy admits defeat and leaves in a huff.

Although its not a battle I would pick to fight, I kind of understand why he was upset, as no one likes to be taken for a sucker, especially based on skin color and especially by a small woman wielding an uprooted sapling.

But I was sad to see him leave, not only because he would not make it to the wall, but because I was about to ask him if I could borrow 2Y.

My friend Annie and I, both stupidly without cash, plead with the woman to kindly let us pay later, but she refuses.

Just then a young Chinese couple walk by on their way down from the wall, stopping when they hear us begging in broken Chinese.

“Just let them go meet up with her friends,” the couple told the lady.

She refuses again and the couple, without hesitating, pulled out a 5Y note and paid our way. They walked on before the lady even gave them their change, smiling and telling us to enjoy ourselves.

When it comes to money, or anything else, I’ve found often people are more just good hearted than they are suckers. We thank the couple, and then, grinning, ran up the trail.

Meeting the Great Wall was nothing like I had expected. Instead, it was so much more than I could have ever hoped for, both beautiful and interesting in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

I found each piece of the wall unique. There is continuity in the structure, uniformity in the stones that compose it. Each step is built to suit the soil beneath, making the angle of the wall’s incline as nuanced as the topography it sits upon.

Fog descended thick as the day wore on, leaving everything invisible except for the wall. All I coud see was a long snake winding off into bleak white nothingness, testifying to more history that I could ever learn and to more distance than I could ever walk. I put my hand on a stone and wonder who else has touched it in the exact same spot.

On my way back, I see the woman who had been attacking one of the party members with the shrub. She smiles broadly at me, and I’m not sure if it’s a gesture of peace or an indication of her delight in watching me stumble barefoot across rocky ground in pouring rain. I decide to take it as the former and smile back, soggy and happy, promising myself I will return soon.

Beijing Bike Hustle

I have just realized that I left my bike at the subway station after not heading straight home after school today, and its too late to do anything about it.

Another way of saying this is, I have just donated my bike to crime. That’s ok though, crime has done a lot for me in the past, and I really like it when I get the chance to give back.

Good thing my ex-mountain bike only cost 150Y, or about $18. Tomorrow when I visit the bike store I will downgrade to a much cheaper one.

Let me describe my first trip to the bike store for you:

Three days ago my friend Annie and I head out to a street known to have a lot of bike shops and begin looking for gangsters. We immediately see a group of tough looking women who tell us, yeah, they maybe got some bikes.

We stand around awkwardly for a minute, looking around and not seeing any bikes. A second later two men pull up in a beat up grey car and tell us to get in the back.

'No way in hell,' we say, and then we get in the car.

The two men and the lady who introduced us drive us through a maze of back alleys, called hu tongs, while inquiring as to what exactly we are in the market for.

Do we want new bikes? Used bikes? Pretty bikes? Cheap bikes?

“Cheap bikes,” we say, stepping out of the car onto a dirt hu tong filled with puppies and watermelon rinds. A line of pool tables flank the street, each held down by a group of young men much like our current bike agents.

The man who drove us here, a friendly young fellow wearing his shirt tucked into his back pocket rather than on his back, leads us down a side side alley, and we wait, chitchatting about the weather and the joys of bicycling after a fresh rain. Soon the other man brings us a bike. It's a total piece and they're asking way too much. After realizing these two giggling American girls aren’t going to give them the contents of their wallets, our three bike agents get back in their car and leave without a word.

Annie and I decide to shop around and approach a pool table, asking them to direct us to a nearby bike shop.

After another hour or so of playing with puppies and browsing through bikes, I strike gold.

The proprietor of this shop is an older man posted by the side of the road with his feet on a table and his white tee shirt pulled up to show off an ample gut. He says he is closed and accepts serious offers only. He also mentions he only has new, expensive bikes, and he is not willing to open his store unless we are very serious.

I tell him I'm serious, and finally convince him to open his store. He leads me and Annie into an old brick building and down a very dark corridor with about 2 inches of standing water. A line of bricks rise above water level, upon which Annie and I hop along like trepadacious rabbits. We pass mountains of trash, a man asleep inside of a cracked doorway, and finally reach the door to the shop. The shopkeeper mumbles something about having lost the key and grabs a butcher's knife from off a table by the door.

For a second, finding Annie and myself alone with a large man wielding a butcher's knife in the dark corridor of a mostly vacant building, I think to myself, 'I might not get a receipt. I wonder if there's a return policy?'

But my doubts are unfounded. After several sharp blows with the butcher’s knife, the lock pops open to reveal the bicyclist's Ali Baba's cave. Bathed in the light of a single fluorescent bulb, an array of shiny mountain bikes and gleaming cruisers invite me to take my pick.

I test ride a few bikes before deciding on Bluey, a shiny blue mountain bike with front and rear shocks, decent brakes and smooth gears.

I ride home happy, through puddles and over curbs, Bluey as happy as I am to have been freed from the bike store.

That was three days ago. Who would have known our time together would be so short?

Tomorrow I will look for Bluey at the subway stop, but in my heart I know he is already back in a bike store, somewhere far away from me. It's my fault. I left Bluey alone in the dark, with nothing to protect him except a giant lock.

Easy come, easy go. As a friend of mine said to me, "you don't ever actually own a bike in Beijing. You just rent them."

Well Bluey, it was fun. Take care, my friend. May your wheels always spin straight and your gears always shift smooth, whoever your future riders may be. I will miss you.

Brush With Death

Today I left the house under my first Beijing blue sky, and returned under an equally blue sky, in sweltering heat, feeling sad and happy at the same time.
Happy because I found a skateboard for about US$25. Even happier that no one looks twice at me when I'm riding it, even in the subway terminals, which are long, often slightly downhill, smooth as silk and have lots of fun human obstacles.
Sad because of so many of the people I saw today. There are lots of beggars in San Francisco. Most of them are drunk. There are lots of beggars in Beijing. Most of them are missing essential body parts. A lot of them are younger than me.
I got off the subway at Tiananmen Square today, excited to find out what it would feel like to set foot inside history itself. I never did. The square was crawling with so many tourists, all with matching red hats and orange popsicles, that I couldn’t bring myself to go in. If I want sweat and involuntary human contact, I'll just get on the subway.

Which I did, eventually. On my way back I passed a crowd of people gathered around a young girl lying on the ground with her head in her father's lap. Her mother sat at her feet, shoulders hunched, face hidden, with a sign I couldn’t read and a donation pot in front of her.
The girl's hair had almost all fallen out, her feet were swollen, her skin was greenish, her eyes were rolled back in her head and she was covered in sweat. I couldn't even guess what she had, probably because it’s something we don't get in the United States.
I bent down by the mother and she glanced up at me, just for a half second, crying profusely and silently. My stomach lurched at the familiarity of the look in her eyes. I realized I had seen the exact same desperate look on my own mother's face when she wasn't sure if her own daughter was ever going to be ok again.
It caught me by surprise, so much so I could hardly move. Like when you smell something from childhood and a wave of memory surges through you.
All of a sudden I was lying in a hospital bed again, with stitches running all across my face and tubes sticking into my heart, my lungs, my veins, and my family huddled around me, praying- with my mother looking at me with those exact same eyes.
Except this time, I was standing strong, looking down on myself, hanging on by a thread exactly the same- except this time, I was lying in a street instead of in a world class ICU ward, and this time my parents were staring at grey bricks instead of green monitors. The only thing the same was my mother's eyes.
They were exactly the same.
Mortals. Capable of nothing more than praying our own delicate fleshy shells will withstand the harsh world around us. Remember not one of us is special. It could happen to you.
On the crowded subway home a young man gave a tired old man his seat. The old man half heartedly refused but of course the young man was already helping him sit down. The smiles these strangers exchanged were beautiful.

Things I Saw Today

I saw a McDonalds next to a Chinese fast food chain that sold noodles instead of burgers and had Bruce Lee instead of Ronald McDonald for a spokesman. Seriously. Bruce Lee.

I also saw my first Chinese KFC equivalent, which has a Col. Sanders, except he looks like Chairman Mao with a bow tie on.

I saw a distinct grimace on my French classmate's face when our Thai classmate, this beautiful funny girl, told him, "I can't pronouce your name. I'll just call you X1."

I saw a masked grimace on our teacher's face when Frenchy shrugged apathetically after pronoucing "lai" "li" for the upteenth time in a row.

I saw a Ferrari pocketwatch for 50Y. I bought it.

I saw a guy with absolutely no arms whatsoever. Maybe a three inch stump on one side. The other side was completely stumpless. There were scars all across the stumpless side. I could not help but wonder...was it sharp? Dull? Fast? Slow?

I saw a man over 60 riding a skateboard, the only person I've seen on a skate since I got here. He was pushing slowly, then cruising all slow and graceful with his arms way out. He wasn't going anywhere, just tooling around a parking lot. He is my hero, needless to say.

I saw the worst infestation of spider mites I have ever seen on my brother's kumquat bush. Does anybody know how the get rid of these things?