Stumbling to the Unknown

A couple of weeks ago, I was introduced to an older gentleman who's a retired but supposedly legendary journalist. He asked where I was from, and I said China. "Oh," he said, "When I was working for xxx News, we shared a floor with a Korean news service. Also, I hired this girl from Macau. She was just wonderful..."

"That's great!" I smiled and nodded. What I really wanted to say, however, was, "What the %^&*! So I'm supposed to feel some kinship between us, because you happen to know a couple of my yellow-skinned cousins?"

Try that to a white guy: "My college roommate was German. He loved beer."

On a second thought, the legendary journalist's statements weren't really that outrageous. It's just human nature, I figure, to ransack your knowledge for clues and references when you encounter something novel. You search your memory for things that bear some resemblance to the novelty in front. You mark down those things, like familiar landmarks on a map, and then chart a path towards the unknown. Some people just like to think aloud.

When I took Charlie—a six foot three white guy—home with me to a small town in China, he was ogled everywhere he went. People pointed him out, invited their friends to join the sightseeing, and yelled, "look, there's a foreigner!" My family embraced this foreigner, although they were still doing the charting and mapping for a path to understand the novelty. We went to a dinosaur fossil museum in the nearby city. Charlie felt rather at home among those giant dinosaur skeletons, because for the first time in days he wasn't the only big phenomenon. Suddenly, my parents pulled Charlie aside and excitedly told him: "Look, your countrymen over there." They were pointing to a white couple. When the couple walked by us, we listened. They were speaking German.

Charlie's one eighth German, so I guess my parents were not that off.

Almost There

Bill, a reporter for the radio branch of my company joined me a couple of days later in Chengdu. He speaks little Chinese, so we did our reporting together and I doubled up as his interpreter.

For the entire length of my trip, I tried to avoid contact with the authority, for fear that they would ask me for my credential. Bill had no fear. He wanted voices from “the officialdom,” and I had to be there to translate. As an American citizen, he in general enjoys more protection than I do. Luckily, for the most part we were not asked to present any paperwork.

One day we tried to access Beichuan, where nearly eight thousand had died in the earthquake and thousands more were missing. After hours driving in hairpin mountain roads littered with boulders shaken down the slopes, we were, however, barred from entering. Police told us the town was sealed for fear of disease spreading. Right by the traffic check point, there was a military camp. Soldiers wearing medical masks were spraying disinfectant on vehicles and people coming back from Beichuan.

I walked out of our car and started filming the soldiers at a distance. A few minutes without being noticed, I was emboldened and walked up closer to the camp. Then one soldier, who looked senior to the rest, strode up to me and asked: “Hey, who do you work for?” His tone was casual and friendly.

“Oh, Shanghai TV.” I blurted out.

“Really?” He sounded excited, “I’m from Shanghai, too. Why don’t you stay with us!”

Several other soldiers hustled up and surrounded me. A younger one said: “Yes. Stay with us here. We have female soldiers. You can stay with them.”

“Maybe, maybe tomorrow.” I stuttered, “I have a deadline tonight and I need to get back to my colleagues.”

“What’s your phone number? Give us your phone number.” They were not ready to let me go.

“Eh, I, I don’t know. I mean, I just got this local number yesterday and I can’t remember it. How about you give me mine and I will call you.” I was thinking hard for an exit strategy.

“Who’s that?” One soldier suddenly sounded tense and alert and pointed behind me. I turned around and saw Bill.

“Oh, he? I don’t really know. He’s a hitchhiker we just picked up on the way here.”
I then whispered to Bill, “I told them I don’t know you.”

Keeping a poker face, Bill walked back towards the car.

The soldiers were quiet for a second, as if trying to figure out whether to believe me.

“I, I really need to get back.” I broke the silence, and started peddling back. “My deadline is approaching. It’s really nice to see you all. I’ll visit again tomorrow.” I backed out of the circle, waving them goodbye.

When I got into the car and drove off, they were still watching.

Aftershock

As soon as I got out of the mountain range, my cell phone was flooded with text messages. My cousin, my another cousin, my parents, and some friends all had the same thing to tell me: a magnitude 6~7 aftershock was in the forecast in the next 24 hours. They all wanted me to be careful.

The night had fallen when I got back to my hotel in Chengdu. I was staying at the International Students’ Center at the Sichuan Normal University. The building was abuzz with activities. Almost every door was open. People were shuttling backpacks, suitcases, luggage, food and water downstairs. Every inch of the lobby was soon covered with bed sheets and comforters. A dozen or so were making such “floor beds” on the basketball court outside.

Seeing the hustling crowd, I felt the urgency to prepare for something major as well. I packed my valuables—computer, video camera, cables, and some money—and staked a corner in the lobby.

Slowly, people settled into their impromptu beds around me. Some were doing their bedtime reading. Some were lying on their backs staring at the ceiling, wearing bicycle helmets. Some were exchanging the latest information about the expected aftershock and complaining about the incessant anxiety they’ve been feeling. Soon all the chatters died down. I sat on the floor, hunched over my computer, which perched on top of my backpack. I had to edit the video I gathered during the day. It took me a couple of hours. Then, I had to go back to my room, which was on the third floor, to connect to the internet and transfer the video back.

I tiptoed around slumbering bodies, and went back upstairs. The upload speed was excruciatingly slow. I had no choice but to sit and wait. I kept the door open, and removed everything from the path to the door. At about 2 am, I was sitting in front of the computer screen, and nodding off. Suddenly, a tremor shot through my spine from my feet. Another one followed immediately. I jumped to my feet, and made a mad dash out of the door and downstairs. Two young men were running besides me, excitedly checking with each other: “Did you feel that? Did you feel that?”

We stopped in the lobby. Not a single one on the floor was stirring. I stood in the dark for a minute. Everything was back to absolute stillness.

I walked back into my room. The video transfer was complete. I passed out in the bed.

Into the Mountain

It seemed luck was compensating me after a sleepless night stranded in Shanghai. The cab driver who picked me up at the Chengdu Shuangliu Airport told me he had been driving into earthquake stricken towns a lot and that he knew ways to by pass the government's traffic control.

We set off immediately after I dropped off my luggage.

The cabbie's name is Lai Si, and I call him uncle Lai. He told me he had been working as a volunteer, sending rescue supplies to disaster zones and shuttling victims out in the fast few days.

We drove into the mountains. The road became narrower and steeper, some portions partially blocked by boulders or giant piles of mud. The force of the quake had stripped some of the cement surface, pushed some parts up and pressed others down. A four-inch crack split the road in the middle. Uncle Lai deftly navigated on this terrain and tried to stable the vehicle to accommodate my attempt to videotape the scene.

We picked up a villager on our way. A few more miles up in the mountain, he said we had arrived in Hongbai village, or what's left of if—piles of smashed bricks, broken wood columns, pieces of clothes, dangling concrete frames. Abandoned chickens and pigs were roaming in the debris looking for food. For miles and miles, not a single building was standing. The village used to sit in a valley. The villager pointed across the valley and showed us a mountainside covered by a yellow blanket of mud and rocks. "More than a dozen families," the villager said, "were buried by the landslide over there."

Some survivors moved to government supplied tents, but there were not enough for everyone. On the roadside stood a makeshift tent haphazardly cobbled together with wood columns and tarp. A woman stooped outside of the tent, washing some odd pieces of frying pans and bowls. I walked over and said: "Hi, sorry for interrupting." She looked up, eyes swollen, and stared at me blankly.

"Could you, could you tell me what happened?" I stuttered.

"My house was here." She murmured, raised one arm slightly and gestured towards the tent. The gesture seemed to be too much for her. Her arm collapsed into her body, her head dropped, lower than before, and started to scrub a pan again and again. It was too much for me, too. I turned my video camera away and walked back to my car.

Many soldiers and volunteers had arrived. They were busy distributing food and water and spray the debris with disinfectant. No one could tell how many died in the village.

Some told me more than a thousand had perished. One villager said the death toll was much higher than that. All said that the local government tried to understate the casualties to higher ups initially. They believed it delayed rescue and relief for them as attention was turned to other hard-hit counties and villages.

Uncle Lai called me back to the car and told me that we'd better head back before it turned dark. Deeper in the mountains, there are still towns that haven't been heard since the earthquake.

On our way back, a medical team stopped us and sprayed our car and ourselves with disinfectant.

Stranded

It's 10:07 pm now, and I'm sitting in a hotel room, still staring at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, which looks like a giant cocoon lit from within.

First Air China told us that the flight was delayed, arrival time unknown. Then it directed everybody on that flight to Shanghai Airlines, who agreed to take us in on its 7:30 pm flight to Chengdu. We had only thirty minutes to check-in, pass the security and board the plane. Immediately, there were people sprinting frantically all over the place. By the time my turn came, I had only twenty-two minutes. The agent took my passport, typed on the keyboard, and looked up at me blankly: "You are not in our system." "What?!!" I felt my fingers turning cold. "We don't have your record. Go back to check with Air China."

I left my luggage behind and raced to an Air China's counter.

"Yes, you are in our system. Here's your ticket number. Go back to Shanghai Airlines."

I raced back to Shanghai Airlines.

"No, we still don't have your record."

Finally, I brought an Air China agent over to a Shanghai Airlines counter. Ten minutes was left. The two spent five minutes conferencing, and they figured it out.

The Air China agent told me because I booked my flight in the US through the United Airlines, which has a "Star Alliance" agreement with Air China, I can only travel with Air China, not anyone else. The United Airlines could have cut a deal with Shanghai Airlines, but the United had closed their operation two hours ago.

All other Air China 4502 passengers successfully boarded the Shanghai Airlines flight to Chengdu, but me.

Since there's no need to hurry now, I started asking Air China agents what's happening to the delayed flight. Here's what's going on.

The Chengdu Shuangliu Airport—the only one in the city—is being used primarily for military flights for earthquake rescue efforts. All passenger flights have to wait in line for intervals between military flights, which are ten minutes openings every several hours. Right then, there was no telling when the Air China flight would be able to get an opening to fly back to Shanghai, so technically, the flight wasn't canceled, but "delayed indefinitely." In addition, two if Air China flights during the day were already taken away to transfer medical and other emergency supplies.

And because all those situations were above the control of Air China, the company would not pay for my hotel room tonight!

I started calling the headquarter and Chengdu contacts, sputtering mad. Air China's duty manager walked up to me and said: "We decided to put you on a Sichuan Airlines flight and we will work out a deal with United Airlines tomorrow. You should be able to leave at 9:30 pm." I was ecstatic. The manger took me to another terminal and handed me over to Sichuan Airlines's manager. "We are delayed indefinitely, too." She said, looking amused, "We are in the same shoes as you guys are and our flight is still stranded in Chengdu." My hope was dashed again.

So here I am, in an Airport hotel room, hoping to catch the earliest flight to Chengdu tomorrow.

The Sichuan I know

At an Air China's check-in counter at Shanghai Pudong Airport, the agent took a look at me and asked: "Why? Sichuan? Now?" "Yes," I nodded, "That's home." Yet never have I had such a heavy heart on my way home.

I used to travel by train from Beijing to Sichuan for my summer breaks in college. It's a thirty-two hour ride, starting from the dry and gray industrial north and sweeping horizontally to the arid and sandy west before heading south. When the train started streaking through one after another long tunnels, I knew home was close. The air smelled damper and the sight outside of the window became greener. My heart was instantly filled with joy.

Sichuan sits in a basin, surrounded by giant mountains. The mountains are its bless and its curse. They lock in moist and give the basin abundant rain, which nurtures its rich soil. The Chengdu Plain on which the provincial capital Chengdu sits has been an important grain-producing base since ancient times. Yet the mountains, in older times, isolated Sichuan from the rest of the world. An ancient poet famously lamented: " Roads to Sichuan are harder than the path to the sky." Nowadays, Sichuan is reachable by plane, by train, and even by bus. Curvy and narrow roads are carved on the faces of the rocky mountains. However, those are treacherous rides. The wheels have to navigate between straight down cliffs on one side and occasionally falling rocks on the other, all the while responding to sharp turns. The earthquake shook loose the mountains and caused landslides. After the first wave of tremors, all roads to the epicenter were blocked off.

Despite the difficulty to climb the mountains, Sichuan people spread far and wide, some escaping abject poverty and hardship brought by isolation, others curious about the world on the other side of the mountains. Sichuanese outside of Sichuan are seen as some of the most industrious people. They bring Sichuan cuisine with them wherever they go (which does not, however, include General Zuo's Chicken). Almost all Sichuan dishes are dominated by flaming spiciness and an indescribable fragrance that causes a numbing and tingling sensation on the tongue. Sichuan chefs can blend those two strong flavors seamlessly with a variation of many other spices and bring out the natural flavors of the ingredients. Sichuan people always try to replicate the perfect Sichuan dishes they remember. Yet they are forever lamenting that nothing is as authentic as those they can have at home.

Strangely, just as Sichuanese migrants are known as a hardworking bunch, life in Sichuan is famously slow. Chengdu, with its mild weather, scenic landscape, delicious food, and leisurely pace, is one of the top cities to retire into.

So as the train rumbled through the mountain's endless tunnels, I felt stress gone and heart lighter. There at home, I would meet my childhood friends. Our days were filled with visiting our favorite restaurants and looking for new ones, strolling aimlessly through streets and alleys, tasting all kinds of fruit-flavored drinks, napping, playing poker games or trekking to the countryside. When night came, a breeze chasing away the humid and stifling heat, we would find a roadside grill stall, drink icy beer, munch spicy kabobs and chat deep into the night.

It's no longer the same. The earthquake changed everything. Luckily, family and friends are unhurt, but they are shaken. Tens of thousands have perished. The living are terrorized by aftershocks, fear of nearby dams collapsing, nuclear plants leading, diseases, and tortured by rumors of more strikes to come.

This time, I'm not going back to the Sichuan I know.

Get Out of the Way

When I first moved to Washington, DC, my friend Joe had been there for six whole weeks. He was near the end of a summer internship at a Capitol Hill news shop. Joe and I went to the same college at a small town in Ohio. Seventy percent of the population in town belonged to a fraternity or sorority. Joe and I didn’t belong to any. We became friends because we had a hard time associating with others.
So as my friend, Joe felt obligated to help me navigate DC. He started with the metro. When we were standing on an escalator at the Dupont Circle station, he told me: “You don’t want to stand on the left. The left half is for people who want to walk or run.” He leaned closer and whispered to me: “People will yell at you if you stand on the left AND they think you are a tourist.” He then leaned back, nodding and looking at me from a corner of his eye with an eyebrow lifted, as if saying: “I know you think it’s ridiculous, but don’t say I didn’t tell you.” I did think it was ridiculous, so I said: “How long does it take for us to stand and ride up? Thirty seconds? How many seconds can you save by racing to the top? Ten seconds? Big deal!” I was also annoyed by his patronizing manner. He had been in DC for less than two months and he thought he knew so much better than me.
Several days later, Joe went back to Ohio to finish college. I stayed. He called me and said he missed DC. He missed the Capitol, the Krispy Kreme shop at Dupont Circle, and cab drivers who listen to C-SPAN radio and talk politics with all sorts of accents. Most of all, he missed the metro. He said he always felt lifted up in the morning riding to Union Station, when a train conductor announced: “This is the red train to Glenmont,” and dragged out the “en” so it became “GLEEEN-mont.” He wanted to leave Ohio as soon as possible.
I was sympathetic. I didn’t just leave that small town in Ohio. I fled it. It’s pretty and cozy. People were nice. But I resented been told: “You don’t look like you grew up in China. You are quite fashionable.” I also got tired of answering questions like “How did you manage to escape from China?”
In DC, nobody make any effort to welcome me to America. Almost everyone is from somewhere else. I can hear at least three languages at any random Starbucks anytime. No one seems to think they need to speak English slower to me. No one bothers to teach me how to dress American.
I’ve been in this city for more than three years now. When I ride the metro, I mostly stand on the escalators and wait for them to hoist me to the top. I’m too lazy to harvest the ten seconds I can save by walking up, even if I’m late for work. I stand strictly on the right, and I have developed an inconsolable anger at people who stand on the left, even though they are not in my way. It was just timid frustration when I was still relatively new in town, as I wasn’t sure whether I should identify with the locals or the newbies who are still learning their way around. I was also not sure whether it’s legitimate to fuss over such a trivial thing. The feeling grew steadier and stronger as I began to see myself as one of the town folks. I also understood the anger wasn’t about not being able to run and save time at all. It’s about preserving an etiquette, an etiquette agreed upon and diligently observed by all Washingtonians. It’s about protecting a norm, a norm to acknowledge that people have diverse needs and that all options should be kept open to accommodate the needs. In a city with such a fluid population, etiquette and norms can only be maintained if they are told to newcomers and visitors. The act is a little condescending but not hostile. It’s just one way to help newbies blend in.
Small town and big city America have different ways to say “Welcome to our town.” The former says: “You poor thing from a developing country, please enjoy America’s freedom and prosperity.” The latter says: “I am not in your business if you are not in my way,” as is exemplified in the metro escalator admonition. I appreciate both, but I’m more comfortable with big city’s tough love. In a small town, I am always a poor thing from a communist country. In a city like Washington DC, I have a shot at becoming a local.
Yet despite my strong feelings about enforcing law and order, I never spoke up and told the left-standers to move. I get nervous when I have to raise my voice, and my accent thickens when I’m nervous, so what should have sounded righteous and dignified would come out an unintelligible and embarrassing blur. I always feel redeemed, when someone else finally shouts: “ Could you please not stand on the left!” and watch those blocking the pathway scurry and scramble. I feel justice is upheld.
I kept my silence until most recently. One morning I emerged from the Capitol South station. The crowd split into two lines at the bottom of the escalator. People who wanted to wait to be heaved up moved the the right. Those who needed to rush charged along the left lane. I inched toward the right, getting ready to enjoy the twenty-seconds of doing-nothingness while the escalator hauled me to the top. The hustling rhythm on the left halted abruptly, when a young man in front of me stepped on to the escalator and stopped. He was in a T-shirt and blue jeans and carried a back-pack. He hang his head over a city map and was apparently unaware of his surroundings. With a surge of anger and a sense of justice, I cleared my throat, and said loudly and deliberately: “Excuse me!” Everyone around jerked their heads towards me, including the young man. I then jabbed my thumb toward the right and said: “Would you mind?” He appeared startled, and scrambled to move out of my way. I strode up wearing some remnant indignation on my face. But inside, I felt ecstatic. I felt I just completed a rite of passage. I defended the law of MY city. In a city where everyone is from somewhere else, I’m finally one of the locals.