Surreal Quiet From China’s Millions

On Sunday afternoon every street was packed, like the hallway of a large urban high school at class change.

What seemed like millions of Chinese ghosted by on their bicycles or shuffled along the sidewalks, bumping, rolling off each other and sliding past in a constant stream.

Always, an uncanny silence filled the wide avenues, avenues that could have handled 10 or 12 lanes of rush-hour traffic, but which held, instead, only a few buses, trucks and VIP limousines, red flags flapping.

I never grew completely used to those scenes and now, after a 30-day journey through China, I think of them often. Traveling cheaply and independently in China among the Chinese, without benefit of officials or guides, is like being placed in the midst of some great but weird tragi-comedy full of lines we don’t know.

We watched, we stared, we groped, we grew exhausted, claustrophobic and tense. But we also had fun.

By Bus and Boat

One morning, for example, we boarded a bus, the first leg of a trip that would take 24 hours to travel 200 miles from Guilin to Canton. The bus was to cover 100 of those miles in 12 hours. A boat would take us the rest of the way.

For 12 hours we bumped over roads that at best resembled the lesser-paved country roads of America and at worst were like strips of the rocky moon laid through rice paddies. Craters and rocks in the road kept us from averaging more than 10 m.p.h. Some of the craters were so bad that, even when barely moving, we were thrown out of our seats.

For 12 hours a constant stream of people walked and pedaled along beside us. Like refugees, the line moved, sometimes only a few people, sometimes a mob. What were these thousands of people doing? Where were they going?

Empty-handed, they were like the ghosts of every person who ever had walked along that road. It was a stunning example of China’s millions, that 100-mile column of people.

Drawing the Picture

It was 7 o’clock when the bus deposited us at a hotel in Wuzhou in southeastern China. After an hour or so of standing around trying to find someone who could speak English and direct us to the boat to Canton, I drew a picture of a boat followed by an arrow pointing to the word Canton. Showing it to some people who had been with us on the bus broke them up with laughter.

Yes, they nodded, they all were going by boat to Canton. We should follow them. A few minutes later we all trotted off, my friend and I with our backpacks and they with their assortment of suitcases, small bushes and roots.

Our walk across the Xi-Jiang River on a towering bridge, perhaps 100 feet high, was a scene worthy of a great film maker. A light mist hung in the dusk, shrouding everything in a surreal glow, obliterating and rounding all corners and edges.

The river far below, cut into a deep valley with steep banks, was empty of traffic except for scores of sampans clustered in groups. On each, a weak light glowed through the mist.

Dreamlike Mists

On the opposite bank, rows of five-story European-style buildings looked as if each had lost crucial support beams. No lines were straight, no corners were true. A stiff puff of wind, it seemed, might send them crashing down.

Walking through Wuzhou’s wide streets was like walking in a dream. We saw no street lights and no cars.

With the mist, the dim lights from shops, the ting-a-ling-a-ling of thousands of bicycle bells and the people crowding every inch of the sidewalks and stores and flowing into the streets, it was again like walking through a town in which a millennium of ghosts wandered, stalking and haunting the places they once inhabited.

And yet Wuzhou was alive, it was of this world, with the smells of humanity, of damp earth and unwashed bodies, of onions and garlic and spices cooking and food rotting. I was tired, but exhilarated.

When four of us Westerners in Tsingtao told our taxi driver to stop at a tiny, shabby-looking building, he didn’t understand. Why would we pay two days’ salary ($1) to ride in a fancy car, after staying in the modern high-rise hotel (it was the only one in town and cost $7 a night), to come to this dingy restaurant? We could not give an answer that he would understand. We paid and went inside.

A People’s Restaurant

It was a tiny room, about 10 feet square, with a bare concrete floor. The walls, also concrete and once painted yellow, were a faded brown. Around four tables, sawhorse-like benches stood. Two small windows let in the only light.

Almost covering the floor, as in most restaurants in China unfrequented by Westerners, were the day’s bones, fat, and any other piece of food deemed inedible and spat out. With the concrete walls and floors, the dim light and the bones littering the floor, it felt more like a cave inhabited by Cro-Magnon men than a modern restaurant.

As the few customers stared at us over their dumplings, we were immediately assaulted by the family in charge: a dark- skinned man with huge teeth; his wife, a round-faced woman who seemed anxious to please, and a chubby boy.

Eventually came the eight-inch prawns, like gigantic crayfish, and four cold beers. We ate, they watched. An English-speaking man, about 60 years old and looking as if he had been awakened from a deep sleep, had been brought in, and he sat next to us throughout the meal. His role was never clear to us.

Halfway through the meal more beers were brought. Our spirits, fed by those gigantic crayfish and the fresh Tsing Tao beers, rose steadily, turning the dinner into a kind of party or performance, with the Chinese sitting around us, staring and laughing at nearly everything we did.

Wedding Celebration

Suddenly an odd pair walked into the room. I had seen the man earlier in the day as we had walked through town. Beneath his ill-fitting checkered suit was a red and blue striped knit vest over which hung a long red, white, black and blue necktie.

Accompanying him was a woman straight out of a Chinese propaganda poster. Her newly curled jet-black hair framed a light-skinned face with a touch of rouge on each cheek. She wore a blazing orange silk blouse and butterfly-wing glasses.

The pair was a comic sight compared to the other customers in the restaurant who were dressed in the usual blue or green Mao suits. The absurd couple, we learned, had just been married and we had been chosen to benefit from the new union.

After laying two neatly wrapped pink bundles full of candy on our table, the bride chose a few select pieces. For each of us foreigners she unwrapped a candy and ceremoniously popped it into our mouths. An ancient Chinese tradition, we were told. The Chinese patrons each were given a candy.

Now it was the groom’s turn. He offered each person a Running Deer cigarette. In an effort to reciprocate, we distributed American matchbooks. They were a great hit. The diners examined each one before the woman restaurateur, full of laughter, smiles and energy, came out of the kitchen with a plastic bag full of coins. To each she gave a 1-, a 2- and a 5-fen piece.

Finally tea was brought and we asked for the bill. Jumping to their feet, each of the 10 people in that tiny concrete room discussed how much we owed. Apparently it was not the simple matter it seemed. But out of all the chaos a figure was produced, even broken into how much each couple owed. After a series of seemingly never-ending handshakes, smiles and thank yous, we stumbled out into the night and strolled along the edge of the Yellow Sea.

In our most courteous voices we asked the unhappy looking man at China International Travel Service in Peking, through which all hotel rooms must be booked, for two beds at the Guang Hua Hotel.

He shook his head. “There are only two beds left in the women’s dormitory and no beds left for men.”

“But we don’t want a dorm, we want a room.”

“No,” he said, “CITS can’t give rooms at the Guang Hua, just dorms.” He smiled and added, “Just changed.”

And with that I became an invisible man in China. Invisible because his response frustrated me and I yelled. My yell caused me to disappear in the eyes of all Chinese responsible for dealing with me.

Disappearing Foreigners

It is a curious phenomenon, this Chinese act of obliterating the odd Western foreigners from their consciousness. As far as the Chinese are concerned, it seems that often foreigners are not really in China at all. They are ephemeral, a wisp of smoke or a party official’s conjuration.

We had stayed before at the Guang Hua so I knew that half the battle was getting one’s foot in the door. My friend took a bed in the women’s dorm and I determined to secure one in the men’s dorm later.

My friend checked into her dorm while I scouted a room. The people in 421, a men’s dormitory, confirmed what I’d learned earlier, that three people had checked out at 1 p.m. And indeed, Room 422 was locked and the lights were off. Armed with this information I confronted the front desk clerk.

“Hello,” I said, “I’d like a room please.”

The clerk stared at me in disbelief. “Just a minute,” he said, and fetched a senior clerk. I repeated my request.

“We are full,” he said.

“I need a room, please, CITS is closed and. . . .”

“We are full,” he said again.

“I know you have rooms. I don’t want one free, I want to pay for it. Please, give me a room.”

It was useless. Like a robot he repeated his phrase. “We are full.”

“But three people checked out of 422 today; the room is empty,” I insisted.

Becoming almost frantic, he squealed his three words. “We are full!”

“Then where shall I sleep?” I asked. “I’ll sleep right here in the lobby if you don’t give me a room.” But with that foolish threat I disappeared permanently.

He walked out the door and down a corridor. I walked up the steps to my friend’s room. Nobody paid attention. I slept on the floor of the women’s dorm. Because I didn’t exist, it cost nothing.