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Bright Moon Ridge - A Search in China
von: Linus Treefoot
BookBaby, 2016
ISBN: 9781543937657 , 200 Seiten
Format: ePUB
Kopierschutz: DRM
Preis: 4,75 EUR
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1
Later, after listening to a couple of Heron’s yarns about “dem wild hippy years”, I was finally given Bartooth’s Journal -- I suppose I should call him “my dad”; it’s hard to think of this mythical stranger as my father -- and I read it non-stop for a couple of hours. At first I was only interested in the part of the journal that had to do with circumstances of my birth, and why my father left me and never returned. So I looked near the end and I found an entry dated June 1978, and started there.
BARTOOTH’S JOURNAL June 1978 Kwang chow [Canton City, now written Guangzhou]
It’s been a while since I’ve written in here. Haven’t had the urge mostly. Nor the time. Right now I am in the hospital recovering from a concussion and knife wounds. So for once I have plenty of time. And I have the urge too. These last couple of weeks have been really incredible.
When Murray from the Language School told me he was going to China, I couldn’t wait to sign up. I hadn’t realized it was opened up to tourists yet. I’ve never been on a tour group before, but everyone says it’s the best way to travel in China. The agency gets the visa for you, books the trains, and provides an interpreter/ guide. I know enough Cantonese to survive when I was working in Hong Kong, but I’d never be able to cope on my own in China. Very few people know any English at all.
Since I’ve been in the hospital, my Cantonese has improved 500%. I think now I could travel on my own – in Kwantung [Guangdong] – if I could ever get out of here.
Going into the Kowloon train station, I thought – I’ve started new adventures before, like stepping on to the tarmac in New Zealand and stepping ashore in Hong Kong, but this is more like beginning a journey into another time, or to another planet. China is a different world: The great socialist experiment that I’ve been taught to fear and despise. “The godless Slavery of Communism.” I thought – I am going to be there.
If I have lived a life before this one, it must have been in China. Why else do I have such a compelling desire to experience it?
At the border we walked across that footbridge I’ve seen in movies. Over the river, and I was so excited – I’m really here! – was all I was thinking. Then I started taking in the images:
-- the guardhouse, and the calm, unarmed soldiers – the People’s Liberation Army;
-- inside the immense customs building, the big character posters hanging on some walls, red with white writing, the color very faded;
-- the huge paintings of Chairman Mao and Chairman Hua, side by side;
-- the long, long customs entry forms, stiff officials speaking polite English.
At customs I saw a kwai lou [foreigner] sitting against the wall. There was a long wait anyway, so I went over to talk to him. Another Aussie, like Murray. He is married to a citizen of the People’s Republic, and when they were going through customs together, the official asked her, “What is your relationship to this man?” She said, “He is my husband.” So they made her take some tests for V.D. She was in a clinic at that moment getting a blood test.
I smiled and said, “Welcome to the People’s Republic of China!”
He smiled back. “Hsieh hsieh.” [Thank you.]
Then, from the train window, more images:
-- long, narrow brick farm village houses
-- water buffaloes pulling plows through rice paddies
-- farm workers and children waving at the train
-- fishponds next to village houses
-- sugar cane fields filling a whole valley
On the edge of some sugar cane fields there were shelters made of lashed-together bamboo sticks covered by clear plastic sheets, with straw piled inside. I said to Murray, “Those can’t be their houses, can they?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged.
At the Kwang chow train station, we were met by our two guides, Mr. Wang and Miss Wong (Try to not get mixed up with those two names.) from the China International Travel Service. They both speak English reasonably well. Miss Wong is cute, but not exactly playful. Murray asked her if we could call her by her first name. She said, “I prefer you to calling me ‘Miss Wong’.”
So I asked her the next logical question – did she want to go to a bar with us when she finished work? She ignored the question for a long time, and then, when she saw we were still waiting for an answer, she said politely, “I don’t want…. No, thank you.”
I had expected that the itinerary was already fixed in concrete, but the guides said we could request a visit to wherever we wanted, and they would try to take us there. So Murray and I immediately looked at each other, and started thinking of something preposterous.
I went first. “Could we see a struggle session, like where students shout at their teacher and beat her up?”
Mr. Wang looked a bit stunned. Before he could answer, Murray took his turn. “Could we go to a prison, and talk with some political prisoners?” He quickly put a hand on Mr. Wang’s shoulder, laughed, and added, “No, we’re just joking. Don’t worry…. We’re just joking, okay?”
Mr. Wang smiled a tiny smile. “Yes…. struggle sessions happened in the Ten Years, I mean the Culture Revolution, but not now days.”
Miss Wong was not smiling at all. I decided to avoid political jokes.
Then they took our passports – for safety, they said. I found it very hard to part with mine, but you had to trust them. We had no choice anyway.
It was starting to turn dark and the bus which was supposed to meet us hadn’t turned up yet. Mr. Wang asked us all to leave our suitcases where they were, and come with them to have a drink. Some tour group members started squawking about that, but the two guides assured us that it was completely safe – no one would touch them. So we all did leave the bags there unattended – the old teacher from the Peak International School went quite reluctantly, glancing back over her shoulder several times. You wouldn’t do that in Hong Kong -- or even in New Zealand these days.
They were right. No one took any of the suitcases.
Finally, Miss Wong came in and announced that the bus was waiting for us. Getting to the bus through the plaza in front of the station was total chaos. It really seemed like we’d stepped into another world. Outside the train station it was dark and very hot. There were people milling around everywhere, plus cars, taxis, and pedicabs moving seemingly with no order or pattern. I was getting edgy.
On the way to the hotel, I was glued to the bus window. A lot of streets had no sidewalks. There were people everywhere walking in the street. Even in streets that have sidewalks, most people chose to walk in the street instead. The bus driver leaned on the horn almost all of the time. Again there were people and bicycles crowded everywhere, no streetlights, the damp heat, lots and lots of honking – it was all so different.
The next morning, when we looked out of the window of our hotel, we could see the river from our room. Our hotel was hot in the early morning, even with the windows open. Both of our beds were canopied with mosquito nets. The ceiling was high and there was a marble floor. There was no T.V., but there was a huge old radio, almost 3 feet high.
Our first visit that day was to a fish farm. The fishermen demonstrated how they catch their fish. About eight guys jumped into the water, and gathered in their nets.
They walked us over to look at a new rice-planting machine. A little guy (after he talked about the Four Modernizations – everyone must mention the 4 Mods at least once, when they talk to anyone about anything--) spoke about how much time and labor the machine was saving. They started it up, and it went about 10 feet, then conked out. It was truly the highlight of the day, in terms of embarrassment. It was also pretty goddam funny. But I felt sorry for the poor buggers who were trying to get the machine moving again. Fortunately, they didn’t make us stay there for very long to watch them squirm.
Everywhere we go, people gawk at us. I think most of them have never seen real living kwai lou before. Or maybe it’s because Murray and I are so much taller. If you smile at them, they almost always smile back.
Not everyone stares. Many people don’t notice us as we pass. Or pretend they don’t.
After lunch Wang and Wong took us to a university. Several of our group are teachers, so that was a logical choice.
At the university we were seated and greeted in a large room. A group of seven people offered tea and cigarettes, and one gave a welcome speech. The man explained that the universities are now operating as they had before the Cultural Revolution -- normally. He described Mao’s vision of education,...