Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation (8 page)

“You want to try?” Meow Meow asked. “Good for heart.”

We wandered into a crowded alleyway market. There were snakes, grasshoppers, crickets, starfish, and seahorses in buckets and cases strewn about our feet. And the black scorpions. A vendor approached me waving a stick upon which a half-dozen of the live scorpions had been impaled.

“He says it is very tasty,” Meow Meow translated.

But it didn’t look tasty. It looked like a stick squirming with scorpions.

“Do you eat this?” I asked, gesturing at these alleged delicacies.

“No,” she said. “But my grandfather eat one scorpion every year. He eat it for medicine. Sometimes, he eat snake too.”

Perhaps the ingestion of these critters had medicinal value, but as I watched these scorpions meet their end on a hot grill, I concluded that it would take more than that for me to eat one. Some kind of sauce at least. Or seasoning. Perhaps a dry rub. If I was going to swallow a strong dose of venom, it better taste good. And this didn’t look like it tasted too good at all.

We returned to the main streets of Beijing, where I noted the billboards featuring celebrities pimping for Dunhill (Jude Law) and Adidas (David Beckham) and, strangely, PETA (Pamela Anderson), and just as I thought my senses would be overwhelmed, we found ourselves in a blissful park just east of the Forbidden City hidden behind high, red ocher walls. Trees were in bloom. Ornate bridges crossed a babbling brook. The ponds were filled with glimmering goldfish. Decorative buildings graced the pathway. It was a genteel retreat from the havoc raging beyond the walls.

“This nice park,” Meow Meow observed.

In the midst of the serenity, I noticed a large group of middle-aged people lingering. They didn’t seem to know each other, but now and then one couple would approach another to engage in conversation.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“They are here to find husband or wife for their children,” Meow Meow said.

“Pardon?” I thought I had misheard.

“If they have daughter, they come to park to find a husband. Same with son. Come to park to find a wife for him.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“And is this something that only occurs in this park?” I asked.

“No,” Meow Meow said. “This occurs in all parks now. It is very new, only since last winter, but now it is very common.

“Getting married today is very complicated,” she went on. “Because of One Child policy, older people now have only one child. Before, there were more children who could take care of them in old age. Now who their one child marries decides how well they are taken care of when they are older. So there is a lot of pressure. And this,” she said, gesturing toward the middle-aged couples, “is the result.”

I would come to hear about this as the 1-2-4 problem. When one person marries, the couple assumes responsibility for the welfare of four parents, should they all be living. And the generation that is now approaching retirement is the generation least likely to have prospered from the changes that have taken place in China recently. Indeed, their formative years were spent being whipsawed by Mao in an era not particularly encouraging of 401(k) plans. So even with nearly a billion and a half people, China finds itself short of young people to take care of the elderly. As we left the park, a sign informed us that if we wanted to reenter the park, we would have to return to the East Gate. It was a one-way park. I thought about all the parents milling among the trees. Enter a father, and if you get lucky, leave as a father-in-law.

“So what you say? You want to go to karaoke now?” Meow Meow asked.

Karaoke? I didn’t want to go to karaoke. I would rather have major dental work done than engage in karaoke. Among the top ten bad things the Japanese have inflicted upon the rest of the world, karaoke ranks very high in my opinion. Possibly, my feelings about karaoke arise from the sad fact that I was born without the music gene. I listen to it. I like it. But I cannot produce it. I have tinkered with guitars and harmonicas and can manage to play nothing more than discordant noise. Nor can I sing. When I do, dogs cower, children cry, and everyone else looks upon me aghast as if I’ve just unleashed a deep, throaty, malodorous belch. I cannot even hum a tune. I can, however, whistle, and when I do my children plead for me to stop. A karaoke bar is, therefore, not my natural milieu.

“I can’t sing, Meow Meow. People whimper when they hear me sing.”

“I don’t believe you. I think you can sing. And you said you wanted to see how people in Beijing live. Karaoke very popular in China. Many businessmen relax with karaoke.”

I wasn’t entirely certain what Meow Meow meant by “relax.” There still remained an air of ambiguity about her. Perhaps she was a student. Perhaps she was a take-out girl. Perhaps she was both or neither. I wasn’t particularly concerned anymore. If my translator enjoyed getting dolled up and loitering outside hotel lobbies, who was I to question it? She was an agreeable companion. She spoke English. She was informative. And she was undoubtedly correct in pointing out the popularity of karaoke in Beijing. Every block seemed to have a building with a flashing, neon KTV sign. And so, despite my misgivings, I decided to engage in some pith-helmeted anthropological exploration of the karaoke phenomenon in Beijing.

I followed Meow Meow up a broken escalator to a landing where we were greeted by an attendant in a white shirt and a black vest.

“Give him 50
kuai,
” Meow Meow instructed me, using the local vernacular for yuan. “Better service.” We followed him as he led us through a hallway, past a warren of rooms that contained the warbling customers of this karaoke emporium, until he led us to a room with a long cushioned coach facing a television screen. “What do you drink in America?” Meow Meow asked. “Whiskey? Cognac?”

“Usually just beer or wine,” I said.

“You want to try Chinese wine?”

“Sure,” I said.

I had expected a glass, but the attendant returned with a full bottle of what the label informed me was Great Wall Wine, which he proceeded to pour into a decanter full of ice.

“What you think?” Meow Meow asked.

“I’ve never had red wine that’s quite so…icy.”

“Wine is very new in China. People are not sure how to drink it.”

“I kind of got that impression.”

Meow Meow turned to the karaoke machine. “I will sing for you,” she said, choosing a love ballad. She picked up the microphone, and as the words appeared upon the screen, she proceeded to sing…very well, as it turned out.

“That was very nice, Meow Meow,” I told her. “But is this really what people do in Beijing for entertainment, sing to each other?”

“They make relationships at karaoke.”

Again with the ambiguity.

“You have wife?” Meow Meow suddenly asked me.

“Yes, I’m married. Very happily married. Excellent marriage. Great marriage,” I told her.

“You have picture?”

I showed her a picture of my wife.

“You lucky man. Very beautiful. She very skinny. American women very fat. So you lucky man. You have children?”

I showed her photos of my sons.

“Two boys. So handsome. Lucky man. Do you have car?”

“I do. It’s very difficult to live in America without a car.”

“What kind of car?”

“A Volkswagen station wagon.”

“You rich man too. Pretty wife, two sons, Volkswagen. You lucky man.”

Yes, I thought wryly. That’s what rich folks in the U.S. drive—VW station wagons full of strollers, diaper bags, and discarded sippy cups. But in China, VW was actually a luxury brand.

“Now it’s your turn to sing,” Meow Meow continued, handing me the microphone. Naturally, I demurred. I shunned the microphone. I explained in great detail to her my deficiencies as a singer. When I sing, I explained, people are sometimes scarred for life. They did not know that there could be such terrible sounds in the world, and their psyches suffer irreparable damage. Often they end up in counseling. But really, little can be done for them.

She was having none of it.

She pored over a small list of English-language songs, which included that well-known song by the Beatles, “Hey Judy,” as well as, mysteriously, “Starfuckers Inc.” by Nine Inch Nails, a song not often found on a karaoke machine.

“You live in California?” Meow Meow asked.

I nodded.
Please, no. Please, please no. Anything but…

“‘Hotel California.’ You will sing ‘Hotel California,’” she informed me, handing me the microphone.

And there on the screen appeared the words
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair,
and soon throughout Beijing, windows shattered, small children wailed, dogs howled, and a short distance away, inside the mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, even Chairman Mao was said to turn.

4

T
he Forbidden City was the longtime home of the Son of Heaven, and the Son of Heaven, of course, couldn’t live just anywhere. At least not this Son. What he (He?) needed was a home that would make mere mortals quiver in awe. And thus the Forbidden City came to be. It is immense, sprawling over nearly 200 acres and imposing to the degree that even today, when a mortal can enter with some confidence that he will leave with his head intact, it still leaves one shaking in awe. It intimidates. It overwhelms. It is also the most wickedly cool palace I have ever been to.

I had joined Dan one morning to have a gander at this home of the Son of Heaven. It was a warm and, invariably, hazy day as we marched with the crowds toward the red-ocher walls of the Forbidden City.

“So was Meow Meow helpful?” Dan asked as we approached the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the imposing archway that marks the entrance to the palace grounds.

“Yes, she was. She took me to karaoke.”

“Interesting. And did she turn out to be a take-out girl?”

“I have no idea. She did, however, refuse to be paid for translating for me.”

“She’s probably paid a commission by the karaoke bar for bringing people in.”

If so, Meow Meow had certainly earned her commission. I studied the cracks in the looming walls of the Forbidden City. I’d probably caused those cracks, I thought, with my rendition of “Hotel California.”

We joined a dense crowd of Chinese tourists and entered through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, walking shoulder to shoulder with the mass of visitors as we passed below Mao’s portrait.

“It’s a little crowded,” I noted, stating the obvious.

“Well,” Dan said. “If you don’t like crowds, the Forbidden City is probably not for you. Now that I think of it, if you don’t like crowds, China is probably not for you.”

This was undeniably true. From the outside, 1.3 billion people is simply a statistic. Inside China, the enormity of the country’s population colors everything.

“Also, it’s particularly crowded because of the Golden Week holiday,” Dan added.

I had, apparently, managed to be in Beijing during one of China’s busiest travel weeks. There are three Golden Weeks a year in China, officially mandated weeklong holidays when urban workers and students return to their home provinces, and domestic tourists descend upon the country’s most famous sights, including, of course, the Forbidden City. Up to 150 million people were expected to jam the bus and train stations during this time.

“Imagine traveling in the U.S. during Thanksgiving,” Dan said. “Now multiply the scale by a factor of five, and you get an idea of what Golden Week is like in China.”

Despite the crush of sightseers, once we were through the first gate, the Forbidden City revealed its magnificence. Before us stood the imposing Meridian Gate, an enormous red wall of brick upon which stood a palace with a golden roof. It was here, upon its ramparts, that the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties had ordered the decapitations of prisoners of war.

“It’s easy to imagine, isn’t it?” Dan observed.
“Off with their heads!”

It was, in fact, easy to imagine. Perhaps it was the towering walls. They are the color of blood. There were three central arches and we passed through the middle one, where once only emperors could walk. Beyond was an enormous courtyard, which was known as the Outer Court, where the Emperor had conducted his ceremonial functions. The purpose of the Outer Court was to intimidate, to banish any doubts that the emperor was indeed the Son of Heaven. Surely, back in the day, one could but conclude that only the divine could live in a place so vast and magnificent. Inside the walls, there were dozens of palaces and hallways, and the names alone of each towering edifice left me captivated. There to our left was the Hall of Military Prowess, which stood directly across from the Literary Glory Hall. Before us stood the spectacular Hall of Supreme Harmony, beyond which lay the riveting Hall of Preserving Harmony, which could be reached by passing through the Hall of Middle Harmony, which makes sense when you think about it. But it doesn’t just stop there. There is a hall devoted to Mental Cultivation, something every home should have. There is an Earthly Tranquility Palace and a Palace of Heavenly Purity, which should not be confused with the Eternal Spring Palace or the Western Palace. Should you need to step out, you’ll pass through the Divine Military Genius Gate.