The Insulin Express Page 23

  It took us another nine months, but we finally took full advantage of our visas. And I am absolutely glad that we did.

  Long after I should’ve been asleep in our private little guard tower, I turn in, enjoying the solitude of the evening and the absolute wonder of the experience, knowing I will sleep well tonight after the day’s hike. In that regard, I am correct. For all of about two hours.

  I suppose it was statistically impossible that our tour guide was the only person in all of China who knew about this guard tower and considered it an excellent place to bed down for the evening. I just hoped whoever knew about the tower wasn’t intending to use it on this specific night.

  Just before midnight, two people arrive at the guard tower, making the kind of racket fifty campers would make if they banged all their pots and pans together at once. They haven’t seen us yet, or at least I’m pretty sure they haven’t seen us because I haven’t seen the beam of a flashlight, and they certainly assume they’re alone based on the cacophony of noise they’re creating. It briefly occurs to me that they may be here to rob us, but that notion is quickly dispelled when I poke my head out of the tent and realize they are as surprised to see us as we are to see them.

  Attempting to initiate communication at this point would be futile. I don’t speak a word of Mandarin (Tony taught me to count to ten earlier in the day, but my accent is horrible and a display of my numerical dexterity would only serve to convince them that I am, in fact, some kind of idiot), and they probably don’t speak a word of English. We all arrive at the same conclusion independently. It is best for us to completely ignore each other and for them to find their own spot to sleep somewhere else in the guard tower. In the morning when we go our separate ways, we can all pretend this was a bad dream. I suspect this is much how the first meeting between humans and aliens will go.

  I succeed in getting a few more hours of sleep until a heavily equipped group of Chinese cameramen show up at four in the morning to shoot the sunrise. At this point, I concede that the best course of action is to wake up and take more pictures. Sleep will come later.

  Our host shows up in the morning and whips up a small but delicious breakfast before we get moving again. He is quickly becoming my hero, with the greatest superpower of all: the ability to make decent food anywhere in the world.

  After breakfast, we start hiking again. We quickly approach the part of the Wall that is refurbished. After a day of hiking along an original, crumbling section of the Wall, this seems somehow inauthentic. We divert to Bei Gou, the village where we spend our second night.

  Our hostel, a cozy, family-owned set of rooms just off the main road in a town that can best be described as adorable, is empty, save for us. Tony learns from the owners that they have just suffered a loss in the family, and they have been closed for a few days. We offer to find a different place to stay for the evening, but they insist we stay with them.

  The owner fires up a small grill and throws all kinds of different skewers on the coals—some of which I can identify, some of which remain a mystery to even the most knowledgeable and experienced of culinary minds. They are all absolutely delicious. Lamb, chicken, mystery meat, vegetables, fish, and mystery substance (which may be mystery meat number two, I can’t tell)—everything is grilled to juicy, flavorful perfection.

  “How is it you speak English so well?” I ask Tony.

  “I learn from tourists. Almost all of the tourists speak English.”

  “Where else do they come from?”

  “I have tourists from Israel.” He counts to ten in Hebrew, which absolutely impresses me. “And Japan. I don’t speak Japanese, but we use the same symbols. I could write my messages, and they understand.” There is a deep and significant lesson in linguistics here that I’m sure could be used to draw parallels between different people from different countries, if only I knew enough about linguistics to draw it.

  “Do you always work for the same company?”

  “No. They call me when they need me.”

  “Why not start your own company? You could advertise on Facebook.”

  “I have a Facebook account. I checked it once … in Abu Dhabi. I was translating for a group of Chinese businessmen. I cannot check Facebook here in China.” Tony shrugs.

  Up until now, we have only seen China at the inherently shallow level of tourists. This isn’t a knock against casual tourism; it is the reality of the experience. You see something, you take pictures, you move on. Now, sitting across from Tony in a village that few Westerners have ever heard of, we live China.

  We drink round after round of Yanjing beer, having switched away from the horrific 2009 vintage Rove Ruby red wine, which instantly and unequivocally wins the award for worst wine of the trip, usurping the title from the wine we drank in Vietnam and not challenged again until the fermented grape beverage of Peru. Our host keeps churning out grilled mystery skewers, his hospitality unending.

  We turn in early. Tomorrow, it’s back to Beijing, the big city, but not before a bike tour of our small town. There, we stumble upon perhaps my favorite part of this village. Outside the town’s Communist party headquarters, there is a series of photographs of different villagers who have received various accolades. We spot a picture of our hostel owner’s wife on the sign. She has been named “Best Mother-in-Law in Bei Gou.”

  Chapter 20

  May 19, 2014

  39°54’46.0”N 116°23’51.2”E

  Beijing, China

  By my math, I took somewhere north of sixteen thousand pictures during our entire trip. Most of these I promptly deleted, especially since I never take one picture of something—I take four and pick the best one. Yet in all of those pictures I took, I rarely appear. Cassie yelled at me constantly for not taking enough pictures of us, and I have to admit she was absolutely right. But the universe inherently seeks its own balance, and even if I don’t have pictures of me, others do.

  We arrive in Beijing and navigate the subway to Andingmen, a neighborhood in China’s capital that we know nothing about other than that it has a hostel with a private room at a suitable price. Once we leave the subway station, we immediately become completely lost. The hostel is on a street we cannot pronounce, and we are also on a street we cannot pronounce, which makes it virtually impossible to successfully navigate from one street to another, especially since all of the other intervening streets have names we cannot pronounce.

  With the conviction of people who passionately believe that everything will find a way to work itself out, we decide to purposefully and determinedly set off in one direction. The specific direction isn’t particularly important. What’s important is that we have faith in that direction, and a solid belief that it will lead us somewhere and that we will make the best of that somewhere.

  We end up on a street corner not unlike the street corner we left. It is the intersection of a major road and an alley. There are a few shops on both sides of the street, and people are generally milling about on what is otherwise a perfectly normal afternoon in Beijing. The only thing that stands out is us. Everyone else clearly knows where they are and what they are doing. We have no such information at the moment.

  Having picked up a local SIM card in Shanghai, I dial the number of a friend whom I haven’t seen for more than a few seconds at a time since my college years at the University of Virginia. In a city big enough to hold twenty-two million people, Adam is somehow only a few blocks away from us. He instructs us not to move. He will come to us.

  As we settle upon a direction in which to stare in anticipation of Adam’s arrival, a middle-aged Chinese woman pushing a stroller pauses across the street and looks at us for a moment. I don’t know what she’s contemplating, but it involves us in ways I cannot quite fathom. She is clearly not going to ask us for directions, since it’s obvious we’re the ones in need of direction. And she probably doesn’t speak English, so it’s not worth attempting to initiate conversation.

  Instead, she pushes her baby stroller o
ver to us and leaves it there. With the baby inside. She then walks back across the street, pulls out her cell phone, and starts snapping pictures of us. After ripping off a few shots, she runs back over, grabs the stroller (with the baby) and keeps moving. It takes me a second to realize what has just happened.

  We had been warned of this. White people aren’t all that common in China, not even in Beijing, which has a regular stream of Western tourists. And although I am not exceptionally tall, I am tall enough to stand out in China. Any time we are out in public, people snap photos of us. This happened to us once in Vietnam, but it is a never-ending photo shoot in China. We could choose to resist. We could yell at people for snapping photos of us and angrily shake our fists at them while we scream words they don’t understand. Or we could have fun with it. Every time we see someone taking a photo of us, we give them a big smile and a thumbs up. A few times, when the aspiring photographer walks right up to us, we pose for selfies. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying our newfound celebrity status, and it balances out the lack of photos of us in our personal camera. At least someone else has them.

  A few moments after our first photo experience, I spot Adam. Adam and I worked together at the local AM radio station in college. He took me out on my first story, helped me write it, and taught me how to work the audio board so I could record my voice. I thought he was a few years older than me, until our boss told me he was in his final summer break before college. We worked together for two years at the station, and Adam was always willing to help me out or cover a shift. We got to know each other over long late nights at the radio station while working on different pieces and lamenting about the old dude in the office who never went home and who, rumor had it, had never in his life left his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. We lost touch after college—I went into news, he managed restaurants—until I heard that he had upped and moved to China.

  This did not seem like an Adam thing to do. Adam is a white American Jewish kid from Virginia, with skin so pale it leaves no doubt that he is absolutely and completely Caucasian. He doesn’t speak another language, he’s a bit scrawny, and he never struck me as the truly adventurous type. He was definitely fun, but not crazy. Back in college, he sported a mop of short blond hair to go with a high, nasally voice. If something was funny, he didn’t continually laugh. He gave one forceful “HA!” that relied on quality, not quantity.

  As Adam approaches, I can see that little has changed. He has the same build, the same hair, and the same smile. Since I haven’t seen him in years, I missed the entire age progression from young college grad to working adult. All of the same features, just matured a bit. It is as if police used one of those age progression techniques for finding missing kids.

  “It’s the smog. When I moved here, I was twenty-five and looked eighteen. Now I’m twenty-seven and look forty.” He shrugs.

  Above all, Adam looks relaxed. He is wearing a flannel shirt with the top three buttons undone. His hair sticks out from under a woven beanie, and, as it becomes obvious a moment later, he smokes. It is, without question, awesome to see Adam, and I politely ignore Cassie for a few moments while we bear-hug each other.

  He takes us to our hostel to drop off our stuff, and we find our way to a pub where we grab a few beers and sit outside on what is a clear and beautiful day in Beijing. We ask about life in China—is it expensive, how’s the food, how’s the nightlife—and he asks about our trip—where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, what was our favorite part.

  “We have an obligation to travel,” Adam declares with the humorous confidence that feels like it deserves a slap on the back and some spilled beer on our shirts.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because right now is the greatest time to be alive. In history! Before or after. It’s easier to travel now than it’s ever been before. And with all the countries opening up, it’s all Westernizing so fast. Now—right now!—is the best time to travel.”

  In my opinion (and if you’ve gotten this far in the book you must be at least somewhat interested in my opinion), Adam is absolutely right. I can buy a plane ticket from the nearest airport and get virtually anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours or so. If there are layovers involved, forty-eight hours at the most. We have no excuse not to see the world.

  We can create excuses if we want. We can meet someone via video chat or see the world through pictures and websites. We can take advantage of the technology at our fingertips to learn so much about so many places. And yet these are half-measures at best. The rest of the world is closer than it’s ever been before, and we have a right to see it. It is up to us to exercise that right.

  Eventually, our conversation turns to beer, as it often does. I immediately inform Adam that I am a huge fan of India Pale Ales. Adam’s eyes light up.

  “Follow me.”

  Adam leads us down a few of Beijing’s alleys—called hutongs—until we walk into a small, dark, dank bar. This is, without question, a dive bar. The beer options are written in chalk on the board, and even though I don’t recognize any Chinese symbols, I know enough to know that the owner’s handwriting is awful.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll order for you.”

  According to Adam, the owner is one of the best local beermakers, a student of the guru of Chinese microbrewing, an industry I didn’t know existed until a few moments ago.

  “Two Catbird Asses.” I give Adam a look that is meant to say, “What in the name of all that is holy did you just order?” He gets the message and gives me a reassuring “Trust me,” which is not at all reassuring. Cassie, wisely, orders soda.

  The owner brings us two pints of beer and smiles at me. The beer—a light golden brown—turns out to be an excellent India Pale Ale.

  “This guy set out to make an IPA like Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA,” Adam explains, mentioning my favorite IPA on the planet.

  “He came damn close!”

  “Yes he did. So he figured China is the opposite of America, so the opposite of Dogfish Head is Catbird Ass.” Adam clinks my glass and we keep drinking. Sometimes the world makes a tremendous amount of sense, and sometimes it makes no sense at all. This is one of those times where I’m not sure which one it is.

  The next day, we explore Beijing, first on a bike tour (our guide asks us if we would like Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch or a local dumpling house and is clearly surprised when we pick the latter) and then with J. J., Cassie’s friend from graduate school at the University of Delaware where the two of them studied English as a Second Language together. J. J. isn’t her real name, but it is the closest English approximation to her native Chinese name, so she uses it with Americans.

  I can’t help but notice that J. J. looks stunningly Western when we meet her in the subway station for Tiananmen Square. She is dressed in a slim black skirt that matches her jet-black hair. Cassie is surprised, and so am I. The last time I saw J. J. a few years ago, she came to our place in Delaware looking like a young student. Now she looks like a confident adult woman.

  We aimlessly wander around Tiananmen Square as Cassie and J. J. catch up. I stay a few feet back, taking pictures every few minutes. J. J. is shocked and patently offended when a Chinese family asks to take pictures of us. We tell her it’s okay, and then we all smile together, flashing our ubiquitous thumbs up.

  As we venture toward the Forbidden City, which is across the street from Tiananmen Square, we see police activity in front us. No surprise here. We are two weeks away from the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The government has already started blocking websites that make any reference to June 4. A friend tells us that some websites have instead referred to the day as May 35 to avoid censorship. That’s a great solution, until the censors get wise to that too.

  Most Chinese have only the vaguest notion of what happened on that day. Some people died, they’ll tell you. A few criminals. Foreigners, right? No big deal.

  There’s no point in arguing or trying to explain othe
rwise, since they’ve been taught from day one that nothing really happened. Except something did happen. Something really awful that should be mandatory for everyone to learn about, not only here in China, but everywhere else.

  During the early months of 1989, student-led popular demonstrations filled Tiananmen Square and the streets around it. This is the cultural and political center of China, akin to the National Mall in Washington, DC, or Parliament in London. Many of the important government buildings are on the street that runs between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, which was China’s imperial palace for five hundred years. (Now it is a beautiful tourist attraction in the heart of the city.)

  The protesters pushed for liberal reforms in the political and economic systems. In response, the Chinese government instituted military law. On June 4, tanks and troops rolled into the area around Tiananmen Square. The protesters weren’t just kicked out. They were destroyed. Hundreds of protesters were killed, perhaps even thousands. The official party line was that nothing major happened back on that day.

  But as we get closer to the police officers, we see that something very real has just happened on this day. A half-dozen uniformed officers are standing near an ambulance. Another fifteen to twenty men are holding black umbrellas open and pointed sideways, as if it were raining from the left or the right, not from above. Adam had told us the undercover officers would be everywhere in the coming weeks. Now, they’re trying to hide something with those umbrellas. Intentionally blocking our view. What is it?

  I can’t see …okay … I see a bit … it’s … it’s a body.

  A middle-aged Chinese man is laid out on the ground. Judging by the blood everywhere and the gauze over his neck, someone cut his throat. There’s a 5 percent chance someone had told him not to move so he wouldn’t exacerbate the bleeding, which leaves a 95 percent chance that he’s already dead. I’ve seen enough dead bodies as a journalist to know he was killed ten minutes ago at most.