Chasing the Albino

Pygmy Giraffe
A Novel

STORIES
OF THE

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URNA SEMPER



 A Novel

CHASING
THE ALBINO
PYGMY
GIRAFFE
CHARLES HADDAD

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 ©Barking Dogwood Press

Atlanta, Ga
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S.
Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without
the prior written permission of the publisher.

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 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or
are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ALSO BY CHARLES HADDAD

CHILDREN’S FICTION

Meet Calliope Day

Captain Tweakerbeak’s Revenge
Calliope Day Falls in Love

ADULT FICTION

The Red Book of Blue Magic

The Curse of the Bearded Girlfriend

NONFICTION

Pity the Poor Reader

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 BOOK ONE

千⾥之⾏始于⾜下

(EVERY GREAT JOURNEY BEGINS WITH

A SINGLE STEP)

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 CHAPTER 1
THE SCHNOOKERING

It's never a good sign when someone is knocking on the

door of your hotel room at seven in the morning. That's
especially true if you have been schlepping eight college
students across western China, as I had been for the past
week. I now heard in this soft rapping the death knell of my
fledgling professorial career. Wrapping a ratty, threadbare
pillow around my head, I tried to shut out the insistent
rapping. Of course that didn't work. Bad news has a way of
butting in.
"Professor B?"
That's what my students called me. It's short for Blabberus
of the Chatterati — or just Blabberus — which is what my
friends have called me since high school. As you get to know
me you'll understand why.
I recognized the voice on the other side of the door as
belonging to a junior named Poppy Slocum. Poppy was a
petite girl with skin the color of milky chocolate and a mop of
springy black curls. Her silky sweet voice belied her true
temperament. In class, Poppy always managed to find a
probing question that stopped me cold. She thought deeply
about any answer I managed to come up with. Such a
disposition did not make for a sound sleeper. Which is why I
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had paired her as a roommate with Lulu LaRue. I needed

Poppy to serve as an early alarm system.
Don’t get me wrong. Lulu was a lovely, intelligent young
woman. But she had the maturity — and balance — of a
large russet potato. A short girl with big breasts and tiny feet,
typically stuffed into high-heeled sandals, Lulu lurched from
place to place, as if she might topple over at any moment.
Since we’d left the U.S. a week ago, Lulu had forgotten
her Lauren Klein jacket on the flight over. Next to go was her
wallet, which she had left behind as we checked out of our
campus hotel in Beijing. Then she had forgotten her passport
on the train to Xi’an, where we had arrived earlier today. Is it
any wonder I came to call her The Hapless Wonder?
I tried to give Lulu the benefit of the doubt, thinking of
her as a novice Buddhist monk, someone required to shed all
her worldly possessions one by one as she approached
enlightenment. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. Which is
why I bunked Lulu with the reliable, ever restless Poppy. That
Poppy was knocking now could only mean trouble.
“What?” I groaned.

"It's Lulu."

I groaned deeper. "What's now?" I said, struggling to hide

my exasperation. I couldn't imagine she had anything left of
importance to lose.

"Lulu’s on the floor.”

"What's she doing on the floor?" I said, jumping out of

bed. I grabbed a pair of shorts and a ratty tee shirt off the pile
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 of clothes I had dumped atop the low dresser when we had

arrived late last night.

"I don't know. She didn't say."

Didn't — or couldn't?

I followed Poppy back to her room. There, I discovered

that Poppy had been wrong. Lulu wasn't lying on the floor.
Rather, she sat bolt upright against the wall under a low
window. She looked like Daffy Duck after a shotgun had once
again blown up in his face. Her eyes were rolled back and her
long thick brown hair stood on end. In a death grip, she held
the charred remains of a portable hair dryer. The dank room
reeked of melted plastic.

How had I ended up 9,000 miles from home with a

potentially fricasseed college student on my hands? My
journey to China had begun a year earlier when I
hoodwinked Driftwood University into hiring me as a tenured
professor.

Today, you could never do what I did back in the summer

of 2009. That year represented the high mark of a moment
when China opened its arms to welcome in the outside
world. I slipped inside that fleeting opening and got an
authentic glimpse of the place. What I found resembled more
a shotgun marriage than a modern nation state. Someone in
Shanghai couldn’t understand a word spoken by someone in
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Shenzhen. And neither of them could understand anyone

from Fuzhou.

CCTV, the national broadcaster, had to run subtitles under all

its programming, which airs in the Beijing dialect of
Mandarin. Otherwise, most of its viewers wouldn’t be able to
understand its roster of singing contests, news shows and
soap operas about ancient imaginary characters. Still, CCTV
doesn’t bother to translate its shows for tens of millions of
Tibetan, Hui and Uighur viewers, who don’t necessarily read
the Chinese script called Han zi.

Yet, for all this disconnect, the China I experienced was a

remarkably open place when I arrived with my student study
abroad group. Yes, the Chinese still spied on one another for
the government, yet that didn’t stop many students from
openly having illegal Facebook pages. And you could post a
revealing photo of a senior party member crapping bare
assed in the desert — and not get arrested for it. Ah, those
were the days!

None of this, of course, is true today. Now the Chinese

government films its people’s every moment. Those moments
are then saved, catalogued and scored, a tally kept on you
across your lifetime. Woe to those who wear tattoos or even
earrings. That might earn you anything from a government
scolding to a high interest rate on a credit card. But a woman
could bump up her score by staying home and breeding. If
you happen to be Tibetan or Uighur, well, you are simply out
of luck. There’s no way you can earn a good score in the eyes
of the Party.
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 Luckily, none of this was yet true back in 2009. My journey to

China began not with a plunge but with a toe in the water.

Growing up I thought I knew all about China and the

Chinese. That’s because nearly once a month my father used
to take us to Chinatown in New York City. You couldn’t find a
cheaper way to feed and entertain six endlessly restless and
ravenous kids back in the 1960s. After dinner, we would
wander the meandering narrow streets of Chinatown. Oh, the
marvels we would find. Take for example a rooster that could
peck out chopsticks on a tinny toy keyboard.

This rooster lived inside a smudged plastic box, which sat

within a narrow arcade cramped with Skee-Ball and bowling
machines. Drop a quarter into the rooster’s plastic box and it
would peck out a song. I knew then that the Chinese were a
people worth getting to know better.

My fascination with China grew in high school. I became

besotted with the lanky, red haired daughter of an Irish
Catholic Wall Street attorney. Her name was Irene, and she
carried everywhere a crumpled copy of Mao’s Little Red Book
stuffed into the back pocket of her raggedy jeans. At any
gathering of two or more people, she would whip out her
Little Red Book. Wagging a long pale finger in your face,
Irene would say things like, “All political power comes from
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the barrel of a gun,” and “Revolution is not a dinner party.”

Having attended neither a dinner party nor a revolution, I
took Irene’s word for it.

Still, Irene’s pronouncements often left me baffled.

Especially coming from someone who lived in a stone house
the size of Whitehall Palace. Still, I nodded as if I understood
and hung on Irene’s every word. I kept to myself what really
impressed me about the Chinese communists. Based on
pictures I’d seen in Look and Life magazines, they dressed
even more shabbily than me and my hippie friends. I didn’t
think such a thing was possible. It was quite humbling, really.

In college, I glimpsed my first real mainlander. It was a

girl who sat in the back of my macroeconomics class. Which
might as well have been Chinese to me, given the instructors
insistence on explaining the concepts only through
mathematical formulas. Math was a language I could never
master. This girl was so tiny that she sat with her mousy feet
atop her chair. Head down, she scribbled furiously away in
her notebook as the instructor spoke. She never asked a
question. In fact, I never heard her utter a word. I had tried
to approach once after class, but she scurried away from me
as if I had the Pox.

Later, as a young journalist, I befriended older colleagues

who had lived and worked in China. They loved to frighten
me with stories about how the Chinese authorities tapped
their phones, read their mail and followed them about, even
into the bathroom. I remembered that girl in the back of my

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 economics class. What had she been writing in her notebook,

anyway?

So, dear reader, I think you can begin to see why I was
drawn to China. Here was a place that felt compelled to spy
on you even when you were taking a pee; could entice
wealthy Irish catholic girls to spout Mao and had learned
how to train a rooster in a plastic box to play chopsticks. You
have to admit, that’s pretty compelling stuff.

Still, despite my many travels, I never had an excuse to

visit China. Until, that is, I met The Einstein.

It had been years since The Einstein had resigned as an

executive editor of a major newspaper, but he still raced
through every day as if chasing some big breaking story.
Rarely could he be caught sitting, let alone sitting behind a
desk. And if he indeed happened to be sitting, he would rock
back and forth, with the soles of his wing-tipped leather
shoes braced against the top of his desk.

The Einstein’s mind was a geyser of new ideas, every one

of which he loved as if it were his own child. Like many an
indulgent parent, the worse an idea, the more he loved it.
And the more you resisted one of his ideas, the harder The
Einstein tried to sell you on its merits. He could work himself
into a feverish, even frightening pitch. His long arms would
fly up over a Brillo-y crown of thinning grey curls, and he
would foam at the mouth.
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 In the early 2000s, one idea animated The Einstein more

than any other: starting a new undergraduate school of
journalism at Driftwood University, which sat about sixty
miles east of what I call the First City of the Third World.
Never mind that Driftwood, which had been named after its
region’s number one export of the 1700s, specialized in the
hard sciences. Or that it sat amid a market saturated with
struggling journalism programs. Or that, by the early 2000s,
news organizations nationwide were hemorrhaging tens of
millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. If The Einstein had
convinced himself that a thing was so, by golly, it was.

At first Driftwood proved an elusive prey. It kept rebuffing

The Einstein, but he eventually figured out the university’s
price of acceptance. He browbeat a local tycoon to donate
millions to the university — if, that is, it would agree to
establish a new journalism school in his name.

That donor was Herbert J. Loser, who had made a fortune

in supermarket tabloids. You’ve probably read some of his
headlines while waiting in the checkout line. “JFK’s brain
found in a Kansas fishbowl; "Crooked Hillary Really Trump's
Bastard." Now Loser wanted to use his wealth to buy respect,
following in the footsteps of such American luminaries as
Rockefeller, JP Morgan and Carnegie. And, what better way
to buy respect, then to have your name affixed to a school of
journalism, which is supposed to be a paragon of credibility.

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 I had crossed paths with The Einstein several times. Over

the years, we had sat together on various journalism panels. I
found his fervor amusing, even endearing sometimes. Still, I
was surprised when he invited me to apply for a tenure track
position at his new journalism school.

“But I don’t even have a masters’ degree, let alone a

Ph.D.,” I told him. But he wasn’t put off, assuring me, “Not a
problem.”

I may have not known much about the academy at this

point, but even I knew that most university professors had
advanced degrees. Which made me smell a con job afoot,
something that I did happen to know a lot about. I was no
slacker when it came to schnookering people.

As a teenager, I had persuaded countless drivers to give

me a free ride. I once hitchhiked 2,000 miles from my home
in Bad Haven, New Jersey to Freakerdam, Calif. My
schnookering continued into adulthood. I talked one of the
world's leading business magazines into hiring me when I
couldn't decipher my own paycheck. Later, I would convince
tens of thousands of readers that I, a 40-year-old man, could
speak in the voice of a 9-year-old girl in a series of children's
novels.

“Are you saying you can secure me a tenure track job

without a Ph.D.”? I asked again, to make sure I had heard
right.

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 “You’ll apply,” said The Einstein and hung up. This wasn’t
a question.

Now, I could have walked away from The Einstein’s

strange offer. But it had come at a key moment for me. After
25 years of news writing, I was burned out and ready for a
change. I was tired of writing what other people wanted me
to write. Now I wanted to write about what I wanted to write
about.

Still, I put my reporting skills to work and tried to figure

out why The Einstein might be so interested in me. It didn’t
take long. In reading up on Driftwood and universities in
general, I discovered that international experience had never
been in more demand within academia. University presidents
nationwide were fiercely competing among themselves over
who could import more international students while shipping
as many of their own students overseas. China had come to
be prized most of all, for both importing and exporting
students.

Driftwood was no exception. The university believed that,

by offering "study abroad" programs, it could market itself as
"global." This designation was coveted and was thought to
raise a university’s appeal, attracting a better caliber of
student. Never mind that most Driftwood students I would
come to meet showed little interest in traveling any farther
than the island's two baseball stadiums or the closest bar.

I now understood The Einstein’s interest in me. His

current professorial line up consisted of former journalists
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 who had spent their careers reporting on the small villages of

The Mississippi of the North. The closest any of them had
gotten to Asia was Orient Point, a village on the tip of their
long island.

In contrast, I had reported from London, St. Petersburg,

Amsterdam and Berlin, among other places. While nothing
special, my limited overseas reporting was still way more
than anyone else at Herbert J. Loser.

I accepted The Einstein’s invitation to apply and came to

Driftwood for a daylong interview. To a mixed committee of
retired journalists and tenured professors, headed by The
Einstein, I pitched hard my international experience. Leaning
back in a big leather chair, his wing-tipped shoes, braced
against his desk, The Einstein listened avidly. Then he pitched
forward and pointed a long finger at me. “Great! When can
you go to China?”

“Tomorrow, if you like,” I said, half in jest, winking at the

skeptical faces of the committee members that surrounded
me.

A tenured classics professor opened his mouth as if to ask

a question, but The Einstein cut him off. He slapped his desk
with both hands and then stood up. “Gotta run,” The Einstein
said, charging out of the room. He left behind me and the
other committee members to wonder: Had I gotten the job,
or not?

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 I didn’t hear again from The Einstein for three months.

During that time I had assumed that his offer had fallen
through. In fact, it almost had. Turned out, it took all of The
Einstein’s formidable powers of persuasion to secure my
appointment. Once I arrived at campus, I learned why.

Many of my fellow tenured professors had protested that I

didn’t have a Ph.D., let alone a Master’s Degree. Nor had I
ever published a single word in an academic journal. Not
even one with a handful of readers, such as the Journal for
Interpretative Communications & Media Studies. Once in the
academy, I learned that the fewer readers a scholar had, the
greater respect he earned from his peers.

In contrast, my writing had reached tens of thousands of

readers in popular newspapers and magazines. Then there
were my novels, one of which had become a bestseller. In
other words, academically speaking, I was a failure.

Now, I quickly accepted The Einstein’s offer and moved

three thousand miles across country to a place I came to call
The Mississippi of the North.

Driftwood University was named for the number one

export of its surrounding community during the early 1800s.
While its driftwood traveled the world, the natives of the
Mississippi of the North were content to stay put. Their minds
became as narrow as the long island they inhabited. Here,
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fear and loathing always received a warm embrace. I've met

Mexican immigrants, many of whom spoke three languages
— their Indian dialect, Spanish and then English — who
were more worldly than the natives of this long island. They
were better traveled, too.

The natives of the Mississippi of the North were a simple

people who lived by a simple credo: Drive Angry. Even their
cars were angry, with many of them displaying bumper
tickers that proudly proclaimed in big letters “Fuck You.”

Why were these people so angry? Well, for starters, they

resented stop signs and red lights, really anything that might
make them drive within the speed limit. That went double for
pedestrians. They just didn't see the point of them. Why the
hell weren't they in cars like normal people.

When I first arrived, I made the mistake of slowing down

for a crossing pedestrian. You should have heard the honking
by the drivers behind me. It was the equivalent of shouting.
And, oh boy, did the natives of the Mississippi of the North
love to shout. It was their favorite form of expression.

Now, all this might make The Mississippi of The North

sound like an unpleasant place to live. But, to be fair, it was a
kind of paradise, a paradise for the sedentary. Here, feet were
rarely required. Denizens went from couch to car to desk and
back again to couch.

I once made the mistake of telling The Einstein that I

walked to school. He growled that I was making it up.
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Actually, I don't blame him for doubting me. There were no

sidewalks between the school and my apartment, which sat
above a retired lady’s garage. And, even though my
apartment was less than a mile from campus, I never saw
another soul walking to school.

The Mississippi of the North sat 60 miles due east of what

I called the First City of the Third World. It was a place where
commuter trains broke down in both directions on a sunny,
70 degree day; where the main roads were pockmarked with
holes the size of basketballs. The rich lived walled off in
towering gated communities amid a sea of impoverished
immigrants. Only bribery could secure access to a decent
apartment or police protection. In short, it was a place where
anyone from Manila or Port-au-Prince would feel right at
home. Maybe that's why so many Filipinos and Haitians had
flocked to the First City of The Third World.

The children of these people represented a good many of

my students. Any class at Driftwood, whether news writing or
organic chemistry, looked like a meeting of the general
session at the United Nations.

Which made the inhabitants of The Mississippi of The

North drive really angry. And, if you look at it from their
point of view, you would, too. They had, after all, fled the
city neighborhoods of their childhood, which were crowded,
treeless and overrun with struggling immigrants who spoke
little English. Their flight had ended 60 miles east in a place
realtors had promised them would be a tree-lined
Whitetopia. And for thirty years it was.
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 Now they felt betrayed. It seemed as if they had awoken

one morning to discover that the children of those from
whom they had fled were suddenly in their backyard. And
they were not mistaken. Driftwood had begun to target first
generation immigrants as its key pool of potential students.
The university became an island of diversity, the yellow yolk,
if you’ll excuse the bad metaphor, amid the white of an egg.

Which made the residents of the Mississippi of the North

wonder: What was the point of fleeing if those whom you
had fled from were free to follow you; what kind of freedom
is that? If it was any consolation, I offered, think of it as
another good reason to drive angry.

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 CHAPTER 2
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ROLEX

As my plane descended, I looked out the window,

straining to see the city of some 20 million people beneath
me. Yet it remained hidden beneath a veil of smoky gray haze
as thick as egg drop soup. It reminded me of smoke that used
to choke my old neighborhood in Los Angeles during the fire
season.

Beijing International Airport was so busy that our plane

had to be parked and unloaded on the tarmac. We were
herded off the plane single file toward a long red bus that
curled along the tarmac like the winding tail of a dragon. As I
shuffled toward the bus, I had my first whiff of Beijing. It
smelled like an ashtray filled with day-old cigarette butts.

The Einstein had dispatched me to Beijing during winter

break after my first semester at Driftwood. I went as part of a
group of professors and administrators whom Chinese
government officials had invited to learn more about their
country. My own personal agenda was to scope out what a
study abroad program might entail; I also wanted to develop
my own ideas about how to organize an eventual trip.

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 I did indeed learn a lot, although not what I had expected

to. Would you believe? China turned out to be a lot more
wondrous and complicated than a chicken that can play
chopsticks.

I arrived in Beijing excited to meet real Chinese students

and professors. Yet, at first, I struggled to meet either. The
reason was that I found myself corralled with fellow western
students and professors. Sure, there were some Chinese
guides and interpreters mixed in with us, but they spoke
English as well, if not better, than my students back at
Herbert J. Loser. Each of these Chinese hosts not only knew
of Mark Twain, but had actually read “Huckleberry Finn,”
and not its Monarch Notes synopsis. You’d be hard-pressed to
find an American public university student who could make
the same claim.

My little band was housed — or should I say fenced off —

in a district far from Tiananmen Square, the commercial and
political center of Beijing. Five rings of eight-lane highways
separated us from the center of town.

On this fifth ring sat a ghetto of Chinese intellectuals,

western businessmen, visiting scholars and Korean
immigrants. The district reminded me of Cambridge, Mass.,
where Harvard and MIT sat across the street from one
another. Here the equivalent were Peking University, the
country’s leading humanities school, which the Chinese call
“Bei Da,” and Tsinghua, which produces the top-level
technocrats who run the country. These universities’ abutting
campuses were ringed by a skyline of glass high rise towers
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that housed the Chinese offices of Microsoft, Google, Siemens

and the like.

I had read up on both universities and found the history of

Tsinghua more interesting. It bore a striking resemblance to
the University of Virginia, with Federal Style red brick
buildings encircling a grassy green quad. The only difference
were the bullet holes in most of the buildings, a keepsake
from the 1960s, when rival students factions fought it out on
campus during the Cultural Revolution.

That Tsinghua resembled UVA was neither an accident nor

a cheap knock off. We Americans had built it as a diplomatic
effort to curry favor with China's last disgraced and fading
emperors, the Qings. They didn't seem to mind that we built
it atop part of the ruins of the emperor's summer palace,
which the British had burned down out of spite during The
Boxer Rebellion in 1899.

The idea was that Tsinghua would train a new generation

of Chinese rulers who would model their country after the
West. We all know how that turned out. Still, to this day,
Tsinghua requires all its students to be fluent in written and
spoken English. Hence, the proficiency of our guides, all of
whom were Tsinghua graduate students.

As the limo approached the high stone arch that marked

the entrance to Tsinghua, my heart soared. It fell equally
hard when we drove past it. Turned out, our group was to be
squirreled away in a western style hotel that was a notch
above a Days Inn.
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 I would later learn that our accommodations were

luxurious compared to what Chinese students and professors
had to endure. At least we had separate, private rooms, air
conditioning, hot running water and private shower and
toilet. Only the richest, most politically connected Chinese
enjoyed such amenities. In a typical Chinese dorm, students
lived stacked in bunk beds up to eight to a room. They
washed using a communal plastic basin in a public bathroom
with squat toilets.

Not our visiting entourage. The hotel included everything

an American exchange or study abroad student could hope
for. The televisions in the rooms offered reruns of Friends and
Sex in the City. There was an English version of CCTV, the
national government news network. Students and professors
alike ate at nearby Pizza Hut, KFC or McDonald’s. The hotel
bar served Budweiser and Heineken.

The closest any of us got to an authentic taste of modern

China was the General Tsao’s Chicken served in the hotel
dining room. Apparently, this was a western interpretation of
Chinese cooking because no one in Beijing had ever heard of
the dish. Oh, and there was also a never-ending supply of
jasmine tea, served in paper cups.

In short, my group was safely ensconced inside a Western

Bubble.

Our privileged treatment didn't seem to bother our

Chinese hosts. That was how it should be, to their way of
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 thinking. Their tradition called for a host offering a guest the

best of everything. But I also detected a whiff of
condescension. Of course the Americans couldn't survive
without their air conditioning and sit down toilets.

No wonder our Chinese hosts were perplexed when I

bitched about our sanitized experience. My fellow professors
were not so forgiving. One asked aloud, “Have you seen the
toilets on the rest of campus?”

“No,” I shot back, “but I would like to.”

I found our isolation suffocating. Which, in the end,

turned out to be a good thing. It jolted my imagination,
giving me a big fresh idea for a study abroad trip. What if we
left behind, far, far behind, the big westernizing cities such as
Beijing? What if I instead took my students on the road. Say
the Silk Road. Yes, I could take my students on a 1,500-mile
summer trek down the series of old trade routes that
traversed the heart of Western China. It was here that The
East first met The West. We would travel among the Chinese
people themselves, which meant by train, bus — or even
camel, if I could swing it. Along the way, my students would
see China old and new, everything from the ancient western
gate of the Great Wall to the giant wind farms of today.

I would call the trip “A Classroom Without Walls.”

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 I could also invite four to five Chinese students to join us

on my great trek. Ostensibly, they would serve as translators.
But they would be translating more than just Chinese. They
also would be teaching my students that there are many ways
to perceive the world; that not everyone thought The
Mississippi of The North was the greatest thing since sliced
bagels and cream cheese. In the end, my students would find
this the most disturbing, yet hopefully enlightening discovery,
of their arduous journey.

I hoped, too, my translator guides would help my students

see that China sat at a crossroads. Here, the developed world
met the undeveloped one. Shanghai, Chongqing and Beijing
were criss-crossed with gridlocked eight-lane highways lined
with towering glass skyscrapers. Yet you didn't have to
wander too far from these cities to find dirt villages in which
the only machine was a motorized bicycle jerry-rigged with a
hand built engine.

Indeed, I intended to lead my students so far astray from

American culture that there wouldn't be a Starbucks within a
thousand miles. Nor would they be able to find the comfort
of a private, sit down toilet.

Why subject my unsuspecting students to such

deprivations? Because I had a dream. I dreamt that the next
time one of my squat-toilet veterans heard a scholar, Fox
anchor or senator decry China taking over the world, they
could stand up and say, "Excuse me, but have you seen its
toilets?”

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 "Listen," they would continue, "Not only have I visited

China; I've also travelled across the length of it. I've eaten
raw pig ear, ridden a train that travels 10 times faster than
Amtrak and seen a Taoist God carved into the side of a sheer
cliff. Let me tell you what China is really like."

A fella can dream, can't he?

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 CHAPTER 3
MASTERING CHINESE

Once back home, I plunged into trying to master Chinese.

This was no small feat for me. Unlike my two sisters, I was
never good with languages. I had one sister fluent in Spanish
and Portuguese and another who spoke French and Arabic.
She could curse like a Casablanca merchant. Me? I struggled
to teach myself Spanish and French as a foreign
correspondent. Still, I managed to make myself understood,
although my pronunciation made many a Frenchman cry out
“Quelle navet!”

The easiest part of learning Chinese was finding lessons.

Free ones, both text and audio, abounded on the internet. I
downloaded them onto my iPod and practiced aloud while
doing my daily early morning power walk. This turned out to
be the high point of my learning. It tickled my funny bone to
watch as my fellow exercisers leapt out of the way when I
emerged from the shadows muttering poorly pronounced
Chinese. I guess they thought I was speaking in tongues.

Chinese was indeed a twister of both tongue — and brain.

Page 29

 Think of it as an ancient form of emoticons or pictograms.

Like emojis’ smiley faces, clenched fists and party balloons,
Chinese characters are symbols that represent concepts, not
words. Take the character"道,” which represents the concept
of a pathway to enlightenment. In English, that idea takes
many words to express. Maybe that's why westerners are
returning to the pictograms of the ancient Egyptians to
express themselves on social media. It can be so much more
efficient.

But pictograms are just the beginning of Chinese’s

complexity. The language is not only rich in homophones.
There were also plenty of characters that change meaning —
and even pronunciation — depending on the context. Then
there are the characters for he, she and it, which are all
pronounced the same.

And let's not forget the tones.

Pronounced one way and "Qing wen yi xia" means "may I

ask you"; pronounced another and it means "may I kiss you."
You can see the minefield of potential screw ups one faces in
trying to master Chinese.

I also discovered that spoken Chinese wasn't one language

but scores of them. Someone in Shanghai couldn't
understand someone in Beijing; neither of them could
understand anyone from Hong Kong and vice versa. Nor did
anyone have any respect for another's dialect.

Page 30

 Luckily, the dialect I was trying to learn, Mandarin, or "pu

tong hua," as the Chinese call it, had only four tones. Which
is why the Cantonese consider Mandarin a "barbarian”
dialect. To them, speaking with anything less than five tones
was equivalent to eating rice with a fork. Tres gauche. That
was one of many reasons why of those who lived along the
Pearl River delta didn't even consider Beijing-ers to be
Chinese at all.

Despite all these obstacles I decided to soldier on in trying

to master Chinese. Even if just for the fun of spooking my
fellow early morning exercisers.

Mastering Chinese wasn’t my only challenge back at

Driftwood. I had to sell The Einstein on my idea of traveling
down the Silk Road as a classroom without walls. Now, you
would think that it was just crazy enough for him to love.
But I had quickly learned that The Einstein loved only his
own ideas. That’s why I tried to make it seem that my idea
was in fact his own.

“Remember?” I told him now, as I sat in front of his

massive wooden desk, “just before I left, you said, ‘what
about we make our study abroad trip a classroom without
walls?’”
The Einstein, of course, had said no such thing. But he
didn’t call me out on it. Did that mean he thought it was
true?

Page 31

 Pressing the soles of his wing-tipped Italian shoes against

the edge of his desk, The Einstein leaned back in his high
leather chair. His long fingers twirled a greying curl as I made
my pitch. I made it repeatedly throughout the early winter
after my return from China. After each pitch, The Einstein
would say, "Interesting."

Did that mean he approved? His answer certainly wasn't a

definitive "no." But then again it wasn't a "yes." Neither did
The Einstein suggest another type of trip nor a different
destination. Maybe he was waiting to see what I could do on
my own.

I decided to show him and gambled that The Einstein

would eventually approve what I had done. This was no
small decision. I would, for starters, have to learn on my own
how to navigate the university bureaucracy, which I assumed
would present a daunting maze of necessary approvals. Then
I would have to design a trip that our public school students
could afford. Finally, I would have to figure out how to
recruit students for the trip.

A daunting challenge, yes, but, then again, no one was

better prepared to take it on than me. I had always been a
self-sufficient self starter. I left home at 16 when my father
had dropped dead of a heart attack. That left my mother with
five rather than six mouths to feed. I put myself through
college and then spent most of my life as a single working
parent who cleaned his own house and did his own laundry.
At Driftwood, I had shunned the template syllabi used by

Page 32

 most of the other faculty and designed my own from scratch.

I had even written my own text.

Still, one thing kept me up at night. Could I find Xi Dada

again and would he really sponsor my trip?

I sat now in the wobbly chair within the windowless,

concrete block walls of what had been given to me as an
office. In my hand, I held the business card Xi Dada had
given me. It listed a telephone number longer than my social
security number.

I cast a skeptical eye at my office telephone. It was high

tech, all right, circa 1980. You could neither make a
conference call nor see who was calling in. Besides, I'd heard
of colleagues who had been visited by the university's Budget
Police for trying to make a phone call to neighboring New
Jersey.

In 2009, I had heard of internet calling services such as

Skype and Vonage, but I had never used them. Nor did I yet
myself own a digital cellphone.

I fingered Xi Dada’s business card and sighed. He seemed

farther away than the 9,000 miles that now separated us.

Page 33



 CHAPTER 4
SCORPION TAMER

A sharp, unexpected clap echoed loudly in my windowless

concrete bunker of an office. Startled, I dropped the
assignment I had been savaging with a red pencil and looked
up. What I beheld was equally startling. There, standing in
my doorway, was a towering figure in an immaculate pin-
stripped suit and wing-tipped Italian leather shoes. I had
been at Driftwood almost six months now and The Einstein
had never come to my office. He always summoned me to
his. Now, suddenly, here he was in my doorway.

“Great news,” The Einstein declared.

Instinctually, I tensed. It's rarely "good news" when any

boss — especially a narcissist such as The Einstein — used
those words. "What's that?" I asked, trying not to sound
suspicious.

"You're getting an assistant."

"An assistant?"

“Yes — and paid!”

Page 34

 For a moment, I was speechless. Why would I, of all

people, be rewarded — or even need — an assistant? After
all, I had been at Herbert J. Loser less than a year. I hadn't
even won tenure yet. There were full professors who taught
hundreds of students while conducting their own research
that didn't have paid assistants. Sure, they had the modern
equivalent of Indentured Servants, whom you may know as
grad students. But full time paid assistants? That was a
luxury afforded deans and the handful of professors who
brought in millions of dollars in private research money. I
hadn't earned the university a dime, and I doubted I ever
would. Why, then, was I so lucky? My suspicion deepened
and I rebuffed the Einstein: "Thanks, but I really don't need
one."

"Sure you do," The Einstein insisted.

"I don't have anything for an assistant to do."

"I'm sure you'll find something."

"Like what?"

The Einstein beamed. "She can help you plan your

summer study abroad trip to China."

So I had won the dean's permission to carry out my

Classroom Without Walls. That he signaled his approval so
off the cuff neither surprised nor offended me. I had learned
that this was his modus operandi. It wasn't malicious; it was
Page 35

just the way his mind worked. He kept in his head an ever-
changing map of your career, which required neither your
input nor consent. Out of the blue, every now and then, he
would show you a glimpse of his map for you. It was his way
of caring and you'd better be grateful.

Usually, this career mentoring by ambush didn't present

much of a problem. The Einstein often forgot what he had
asked you to do. If you just waited, his plans for you would
change. Sometimes within the same week. If you tried to
point out the sudden, often contradictory change in plans,
The Einstein would just stare at you as if you hadn't heard
him right the first time.

Best now, I decided, to humor The Einstein. That was the

quickest way to get him out of my cell of an office. "Does this
assistant know anything about China?"

"Of course," said The Einstein, as if I'd asked a foolish

question. "She's from Beijing."

"What's her name?"

"Lee Mao… Lilly Chow — something like that," said The

Einstein. Then he suddenly turned and exited as quickly as he
had entered. Over his shoulder he called back to me. "I'm not
sure she speaks English."

I shrugged off the dean's parting words. Chances were

good that I would get no assistant. After all, where would she

Page 36

 work? There wasn't an empty chair, let alone a free office, on

the floor occupied by Herbert J. Loser.

During the first week of March, an Asian girl appeared in

the doorway of my office. Nothing unusual there. Many of
our students came from Taiwan, Korea, mainland China — or
the Chinese neighborhoods of the First City of the Third
World. I had three such girls in my classes this semester.

But there was something different about this Asian girl.

For one, her hair was jet black. It was fashionable among my
Asian students to dye their hair brown — some even blond or
blue — and wear it shoulder-length or in a bob. Not the girl
in my doorway. Her hair was pleated into a single braid that
hung down to the middle of her back.

Nor did this girl wear the winter tribal costume of most
undergraduates: Uggs, hoodie and flowered flannel pajama
bottoms. Instead, her long narrow feet were shod in shiny
black leather open-toed flats. And not only did she wear a
dress; it was a long, narrowly tapered one with a high collar
festooned with peach blossoms. I recognized it immediately
as a traditional Qi Pao. The last time I'd seen such attire was
at the farewell banquet in Beijing, where all the waitresses
wore one.

Was this girl a visiting scholar? It seemed unlikely, unless

she was a child prodigy. She looked no older than 18, with
Page 37

 long arms no thicker than a bamboo pole. Her almond-

shaped face was shiny and unblemished.

As I stared at her, the girl studied her shiny leather shoes.

Finally, I bravely decided to practice my bad Chinese. "Qing
zuo yi xia," I said to her, which roughly meant “y’all come on
in and sit a spell.”

The girl's eyes shot up from her shoes, but she neither
came into my office nor answered. Either she didn't speak
mandarin, which was highly possible, given China's countless
dialects. Or she had never heard a white devil speak her
tongue.

I tried again, standing up and extending a hand. "Wo shi B

lao shi," or I am Professor B.

This time the girl's almond face flashed me a bright smile

of straight white teeth — something you only saw in China’s
nouveau riche or party members. She began jabbering away
in Mandarin.

I couldn't understand anything she said other than — and

this was a guess — that her name was Xiao Li Li. Which
sounded suspiciously close to The Einstein's mangling of my
alleged new assistant's name.

“Ni yao bu yao he yi dian?”

Page 38

 I smiled, impressed with what I'd said. It reflected how

hard I had been working during my morning walks to
improve my Chinese. But now came the real test of whether I
had indeed improved. My first job for Li Li was to tutor me in
Chinese once a week.

We now sat in my office, me behind my desk, and she in

front of it. Had she been impressed with how I had invited
her in Chinese to drink some tea?

It was impossible to tell. Li Li sat perfectly erect in her qi

pao. Her almond shaped face smiled faintly, but she didn't
answer my invitation to try my tea. Still, I got the distinct
impression that she wasn't nearly as impressed with my
Chinese as I was.

Still, I poured tea into a big mug from a flowered English

teapot, which sat on the desk between us. Li Li peered into
the teacup I offered her, eying the steaming dark brown
liquid in the cup. Her nose wrinkled.

"It’s tea. Chinese Tea,” I said, pulling a box out from my

desk drawer to prove it.

Li Li looked skeptical.

I poured myself a heaping cup of the black tea and took a

sip, as if to prove it wasn't poison.

Page 39

 "Hmm, needs milk and sweetener," I conceded. I added

both and then offered the milk carton and a packet of Equal
to Li Li.

Li Li frowned at me.

"What?"

Still, Li Li said nothing.

I eyed her for a long moment. I think I knew what the

problem was. “Look,” I said. “Don’t be afraid to say what you
think.”

Li Li raised an eyebrow in skepticism.

“Really,” I continued. “Here, in America, even the low

criticize the high. Why, just this morning, the floor’s Polish
cleaning lady chastised me for leaving a wrapper on my
floor.”

Li Li still looked unconvinced.

“How am I ever going to learn Chinese if you don’t feel

free to correct me? Remember, right now you are the “shi fu,”
- the master - and I am the student.”

This struck a chord. Li Li cocked her head, studied me for

a moment, and then asked, “Where learn Chinese?”

"I taught myself," I beamed.

Page 40

 "Taught self wrong."

"Hao a!" I said, congratulating Li Li on speaking up.

Li Li grimaced.

“What? I said it wrong?”

"Hao a...boys don't say that. Sound like girly man."

Li Li’s critique stung me, but it made her smile for the first
time. "Mei wen ti,” she said, chortling. “I teach you how to
speak real Chinese.” Then she took her cup of tea and poured
it into the trash can. “And drink real Chinese tea.”

At our next meeting in my office, Li Li put herself in

charge of preparing our tea. Gone were my big English teapot
and mugs. In their place Li Li used a squat red pot and two
dainty handle-less cups. Inside the pot steeped a pinch of
shriveled green leaves.

That wasn’t the only difference. Even how Li Li asked me

if I wanted tea was different. "Ni yao cha ma?" she said, as
she poured a faint green liquid into my cup.

"Why not 'yao bu yao?" I said, taking the cup from Li Li.

"Only girls say 'yao bu yao'."

Page 41

 Which made sense, I guess, given that the instructor on

my audio lessons was a young Taiwanese woman.

“He ba, he ba,” Li Li cajoled, meaning drink up.

I eyed the cup in my hands but did not take a sip. Now it
was my turn to be skeptical. I was used to drinking tea that
was scalding hot. The cup in my hand felt not much warmer
than room temperature. Then there was the color of the tea.
How can I put this politely? It reminded me of the color of
monkey piss. And the coloring was so faint, I couldn't
imagine the tea had much, if any taste. I looked around for
some milk or sweetener.

“No need milk or sugar," Li Li mildly scolded me. "Real tea.

Drink!"

With a sigh, I raised the cup to my lips and took the

slightest of sips. My mouth curved up in a smile as I tasted
the tea. Who knew that a pinch of dry, shriveled leaves could
be so tasty — and without being sweet or milky? I gulped
down the rest of the tea.

“Duo he ma?” Li Li asked.

“Yi dian,” I replied, offering her my cup.

Li Li scrunched up her nose.

Page 42

 “Now what?” I was certain that this was how the teacher
on my Chinese podcasts pronounced “a little bit.”

“Yi di’r,” Li Li said, with heavy emphasis on the “r.”

“Yi dian...Yi dia’r,” I said, “what's the difference?”

Li Li slowly shook her head as if I didn't know the

difference between “Y’all come back now, hear” and “See ya.”

“Sound like from Hangzhou; worse Shanghai.”

“So?”

“Not real Chinese.”

“You're telling me that the people in China's two largest

cities don't know how to speak their own language?”

“Yi dia’r, yi dia’r,” she repeated, eying me like a

disobedient child.

I was beginning to wonder who was really in charge here.

Every Friday afternoon, when the university had emptied,

Li Li and I would gather alone together in my cellblock.
Officially, we were meeting to work on my Chinese. Over
freshly brewed loose-leaf green tea and a snack, usually

Page 43

 sugared ginger, moon cake or coconut candy, we would

struggle to improve my terrible pronunciation.

This particular Friday in March, we were working on the

basics: how to say “father.”

Like an orchestra conductor, Li Li used her hand to guide

me in the music of Chinese tones. “Ba...ba,” Li Li said,
holding her long thin hand out flat and steady.

“Ba ba,” I tried to imitate.

Li Li’s steady hand wavered, and then she brought it to her

mouth to smother a giggle.

“Now what did I say?”

“Baby word for poo poo.”

I glanced out into the hallway. Luckily, I heard neither the

clanking backpacks nor the banter of passing students. There
was no one to witness my 27-year-old assistant laughing at
me.

In truth, our lessons never lasted long. We soon drifted

away from discussing the difference between the second and
third tones in Chinese. Instead, our conversations ranged
from my romantic misadventures as a greying single man to
Li Li’s impoverished childhood of persecution.

Page 44

 Li Li told me that, under Mao, her family had three strikes

against them. One, her father was an educated professor of
chemistry. Two, they were Christians. Three, and this was the
worse strike of all, her grandfather had been converted by
Japanese missionaries.

None of this, I believe, represented her father’s true sin.

Rather, it was this. He was a good scientist who put his faith
in evidence, using it to question what was real and what
wasn't. Like any true believer, whether evangelical or Marxist,
Mao saw such skepticism as the most unforgivable of sins.

For these sins, Mao had banished Li Li’s father to Gansu

Province, nearly 3,000 miles West of Beijing. Mao was trying
to populate a rugged, sparse desert landscape with Han
Chinese. Li Li’s father found work as an elementary school
janitor in the small Muslim city of Tian Shui, which means
“Heavenly Waters.” I would soon learn just how un-heavenly
Tian Shui’s waters had become.

Li Li’s father and his extended family, which included two

uncles and a pair of grandparents, all lived in a two-bedroom
apartment without hot running water. They warmed
themselves with bricks heated in a fireplace.

Neighborhood residents shared a communal single-seat

toilet that sat in a dusty rear courtyard. The toilet had no lock
on the door. This, too, I would later learn, was typical of
inland China.

Page 45

 Li Li was long an animal lover, but her family could not

afford to keep a cat or a dog. That didn’t mean she grew up
without pets. No, Li Li made do with what was at hand —
and affordable. Which turned out to be scorpions. Not only
were they abundant in the high desert terrain of Gansu.
Scorpions could feed themselves. And they bred like rabbits,
if given the right comforts. That, Li Li learned through trial
and error, turned out to be a matchbox fitted with pulled
cotton to serve as a nest. They came to never try to sting her.
With a misty gaze, Li Li now recalled how specks of baby
scorpions would follow her about the house like a gaggle of
baby ducks.

Would a gaggle of college students do the same in China?

“My little scorpion tamer,” I teased.

Li Li blushed and put a slender hand over her mouth to

hide a giggle.

I had to admit. I was truly impressed, and not just by Li

Li’s resourcefulness. She recalled her childhood without
either anger or remorse. If anything, she considered both her
family’s persecution and poverty as virtues. Better to value
the simple pleasures in life: a loving family, a roof over your
head and a matchbox full of baby scorpions.

And yet that didn't seem quite right, either. As Li Li’s trust
in me grew, she swapped her qi pao and black leather shoes
for jeans and sneakers. But what jeans! I once saw a
matching pair in the storefront windows of Bloomies flagship

Page 46

 on Fifth Avenue. They were on sale for $250. The delicious

tea we were sipping? Li Li told me it cost $100 an ounce.

Then there were Li Li’s teeth. They were as straight and as

white as Angelina Jolie’s. In China, only high ranking party
cadres had teeth that weren’t stained brown, twisted — or
both.

In short, Li Li just didn’t add up.

Li Li was not the only one with stories to tell.

I am descended from a long line of storytellers. Hence my

name, which my father said meant “lover of stories” in Greek.
Of course, it meant no such thing. It was just a word he
invented. You get the picture, then, about my family. Anyway,
none of us can resist an audience. Never mind how
embarrassing the story we have to tell. And, in Li Li, I had a
rapt listener.

I suppose, too, that it was consoling to me that the

romantic misadventures of a 50-something bachelor gave
someone pleasure. That someone certainly wasn’t me.

And what stories I had to tell! Take the woman who had
emailed me a picture of herself as a ravishing 25-year-old
redhead. She showed up at our date as a gray-haired 60-
something who looked 80. Then there was the Korean girl
who had begged me to drive 60 miles to meet her at a
Page 47

 Starbucks near her apartment. No sooner had I arrived then

she texted to cancel the date. She never explained why.

My tale this week was no less vexing. I’d spent Saturday

night with a woman ten years my junior who appeared to
share a lot in common with me. Over bulgar, hummus and
lamb kebabs, we discussed our mutual love of Edith Wharton
and George Eliot. How many women today have read either
author? We swapped beloved lines from the Marx Brothers,
Monty Python and Margaret Chou.

The date went so well that the woman gushed that she
couldn’t wait to meet again, promising it would be soon.
Then she sealed that promise with a goodnight kiss. My heart
sank at the touch of her lips. I had learned that, in The First
City of the Third World, an unsolicited kiss on a first date was
the hallmark of insincerity. Sure enough, the girl ignored all
my emails, texts and phone calls. I never heard from her
again.

As always, Li Li listened intently. She never said a thing

until I had talked myself out. Now she clucked, “This girl, not
right for you.” Li Li said this as if she’d known all along that
this date would be a bust. Then again, I can’t remember her
ever approving of any woman I had dated. I doubted she
would approve of any woman who would kiss on a first date.

What made Li Li such an authority on romance? It

certainly wasn’t from her experience. The woman had never
dated. Li Li’s one and only paramour was her husband of nine
months.
Page 48

 Sometimes, I wondered if, by listening to my exploits, Li Li

was living a life she wanted but would never dare to attempt.
My stories gave her all the thrills of dating without any of its
peril.

Still, given her naïveté, Li Li often stunned me with her

romantic acumen. Maybe it came from all that ancient
Chinese literature she had read in university. The little of it
that I had skimmed would have made Shakespeare blush.
The stuff was rich in every sort of crime of passion, from
matricide to pedophilia.

Whatever the reason, Li Li’s assessment of my ever

lengthening roster of bad dates was usually dead on. She
could spot a looming disaster weeks in advance, although she
never said a word until after I had fallen on my face.

I dreaded her verdict now, so I changed the subject. “And

you,” I said. “Any luck this weekend?”

Li Li’s pale face blushed beet red, and she glanced down at
the leaves on the bottom of her tea cup.

Now, if I have learned anything about Chinese women it

was this: They didn’t make a practice of sharing the intimate
details of their romantic and sexual life with a single,
unmarried man. Yet, in the cement block confines of my
Page 49

 office, Li Li had done just that with me. And what troubles
she had! Her husband of nine months wouldn't sleep with
her.

Why she confided in me, I’m not sure. Was it because of

my powers as The Bearded Girlfriend? That’s what my
women friends called me back in high school, when I had a
scraggly excuse of a beard. Their moniker was a tribute to my
prowess as an empathetic listener. There was no secret too
dark that these women didn’t feel comfortable sharing with
me. Often I wished they hadn’t. Their burden became mine.

Or, with Li Li, was it something else? We both felt

marooned. Stuck in a place that didn’t appear to understand
either of us, nor really cared to. Now, you might ask, well,
didn’t Li Li have her husband of nine months? Turned out he
made her feel the most lonely.

It shouldn't have been that way, given that they shared

similar backgrounds. By Li Li’s telling, Xiao Nan, too, had
grown up impoverished, although he hailed from a family of
peasants. Which turned out to be most fortunate under Mao.
His father became the communist leader of his village and,
when Xiao Nan proved to be a math whiz, the party sent him
to earn a Ph.D. in statistics at Stanford University.

Big mistake. At Stanford, Xiao Nan fell in with a bunch of

evangelicals, and they converted him. What were the odds of
that?

Page 50

 Xiao Nan became a big data scientist who believed that

Eden was a real place, the Earth was only 5,000 years old
and that Jonah lived to tell about being swallowed by a big
fish. There was no biblical tale too big for Xiao Nan to
swallow. Nor did he approve of Halloween or Christmas,
which he considered pagan holidays that were an affront to
his god. Such an attitude was sure to bum out his future
children. That is, if he ever agreed to have sex with his wife.

All his faith in the evangelical interpretation of the Bible

bummed him out, too. In the real world, he had joined a
highly successful billion dollar hedge fund near campus as a
computer programmer. This made him a millionaire many
times over but tested his faith, which taught him that it was
God — and God alone — who had created the world and
controlled all worldly events. Yet Xiao Nan was predicting the
future for a living — and doing damn well at it. He was a
mathematician who believed his craft was blasphemy. The
more successful his algorithms the more Xiao Nan felt like a
tool of the devil. How could he purge himself of such a sin?
Short of quitting his lucrative profession, of course.

Xiao Nan came to see Li Li as his salvation.

It was evangelical Christianity, which was burgeoning

across post Mao China, that drew Xiao Nan and Li Li
together. Mutual friends introduced them at an underground
house church when Xiao Nan returned to China to visit his
Page 51

parents. Although a good ten years older, he immediately

asked Li Li to marry him.

As Li Li told me this story, I grew dubious. Sure, her family

were evangelicals like Xiao Nan. They, too, considered the
Bible a good book, but it wasn’t the only one. Li Li’s parents
had raised her to believe that equal to the Bible were such
books as the Chinese Classic A Dream of Red Mansions and,
yes, The Origin of Species. Li Li was taught to have little
patience with Biblical scholars who preached that dinosaurs
and man had walked the earth side by side. That, in their
view, was the stuff of the Flintstones.

So, why then, would Xiao Nan be drawn to Li Li? Here’s

my theory: Xiao Nan believe he could atone for his sins
through Li Li. If he could purge Li Li of her family’s faith in
science, history and skepticism then Xiao Nan might ease the
burden of his own sin of predicting God’s Will. I kept this
theory to myself, fearing Li Li would smack me upside the
head, or worse, abandon me.

Xiao Nan came up with a simple, if severe plan to break Li

Li. He would withhold sleeping with her until Li Li could
prove that she had given up her bad ways. Every Friday after
dinner he tested his newlywed. He would summon Li Li to
the living room, where he would require her to recite before
him a Biblical passage of his choosing. Xiao Nan favored the
most incredulous passages: Adam as the first man and Eve as
fashioned from one of Adam's ribs. As Li Li read, Xiao Nan
would listen, arms crossed, studying the ceiling.

Page 52

 Imagine how hard it must have been for the daughter of a

scientist and intellectual to swallow the story of Jonah and
his whale. Still, Li Li tried her best to please her new
husband. She would begin reading each of these passages as
if she really believed the earth were only 5,000 years old.
Inevitably, though, her voice would begin to waver. She
couldn’t quite block out of her mind the tens of thousands of
fossils dated back millions of years. And, once again, she
would find herself sleeping alone.

Most American women, of course, would have soon

abandoned such a husband as Xiao Nan. Especially one as
intelligent and well-educated as Li Li.

Why Li Li hung on to Xiao Nan bedeviled me. I mean, here

was a beautiful young woman who had the traits any good
man would covet: Li Li was intelligent yet down to earth;
well-educated yet not condescending; tough but caring. She
could have had any number of like-minded men, yet she
clung to a small-minded, intolerant one who did not
appreciate her best qualities. A man, in fact, who wanted to
expunge all that was good about Li Li.

I hungered to understand what drove this puzzling

relationship. Then, one day out of the blue, I got an
opportunity to meet Xiao Nan. Through Li Li, he invited me
over to their house for dinner. I jumped at the invitation.

While welcomed, this invitation puzzled me. Why would

Xiao Nan deign to meet someone such as me? Not only was I
relatively poor, especially when compared to him. I was as
Page 53

 religious as a communist guerrilla. Was I not, from Xiao Nan's

perspective, the devil incarnate?

I certainly like to think so.

Li Li lived less than five miles from my garage apartment,

but it might have been a world away. And a secret world at
that. Even the ever roving eye of Google had trouble spotting
Li Li’s house.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour of roaming among

the backstreets along the shore, my rusting Corolla stumbled
onto Li Li's street. It turned out to be a forested cul-de-sac
with only three houses. Li Li's house sat atop a high knoll
between the other two. My Corolla rattled up her long
winding driveway.

At the top, I found parked a BMW roadster and a Range

Rover Sport. I squeezed my Corolla between them. Then I
walked up a long winding walkway that led to the front door.
As I approached, the door opened. In the doorway stood a
short, balding man with a swarthy, pockmarked face and a
button nose. He smiled, revealing a mouth of brown, crooked
teeth. Even I looked handsome by comparison. “So wonderful
to finally meet you,” he said in impeccable English. He seized
my outstretched arm in both hands when I reached him.

Xiao Nan, I presumed.

Page 54

 He pulled me inside a cavernous vestibule. “I can't thank

you enough,” Xiao Nan gushed.

“For what?” I said, truly puzzled.

His warm reception caught me off guard. I had expected a

reception befitting Beelzebub.

“Why, your friendship with Li Li, of course! What a

difference it has made. She was so lost here before she met
you.”

Wasn’t it the other way around? I thought to myself.

I studied the brown teeth grinning up at me. Xiao Nan

wasn’t much to look at, but damn if his warmth and
enthusiasm weren't infectious. I found myself returning his
hearty, heartfelt handshake.

At the back end of the vestibule, I espied two eyes peering

around a pillar. At the sight of Xiao Nan and myself beaming
at one another, the hidden observer stepped out from behind
the pillar. It was Li Li, who looked at her husband and then
barked something in Chinese.

Xiao Nan chuckled and said, “Of course, how rude of me!
Come, let me show you the house.”

What Xiao Nan showed me looked more like a fun house

than a residence. It's three floors, which included four
bedrooms, a full kitchen, a dining room, dinette, tv room,
Page 55

 atrium and sunken living room, held more toys than

furniture. There was a big screen television mounted on the
wall of every room but not necessarily any chairs, tables,
dressers or beds. Laptop computers, digital cameras and
telephoto lens were scattered about the carpeted floors
throughout the house. The only truly practical thing I saw
was an electric hotpot burner, which was built into the center
of the dinette table.

My favorite part of the house was a cupola, accessible

from a finished attic. It held a working telescope worthy of
NASA.

“Go on,” beamed Xiao Nan, nodding toward the telescope.

I pressed my eye into a raised view piece. Far out into the
sound a Sunfish came into view. “Impressive,” I said, lifting
my eye from the telescope.

I noticed a pier at the end of Xiao Nan's backyard. Docked

there was a wooden craftsman motorboat. My grandfather
had owned such a boat in the 1930s. He still talked about the
boat by the time I came along, bragging that it was the finest,
most expensive of its kind. Imagine what such a boat must be
worth as an antique.

“You can drive a boat?” I asked, knowing that both Xiao

Nan and Li Li had grown up as landlubbers.

“I wish,” chuckled Xiao Nan. He added wistfully, “We did

try to take it out once.”

Page 56

 “And?”

“We couldn't even figure out how to untie it from the

dock.”

As we moved through Xiao Nan’s toy house, he gently

grilled me. “Your last name, that’s Jewish right?”

I nodded. “My father’s family were Syrian Jews from

Aleppo.”

“What temple do you belong to now?”

I laughed.

“What?”

“I haven’t been inside a temple since my son’s bar mitzvah

15 years ago.”

“But you were raised Jewish?”

“Sorta.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well... I had the bagels and cream cheese, all right, but I
never set foot inside a synagogue as a kid unless crashing a
bar mitzvah for the spread.”

Page 57

 Xiao Nan frowned. I suspect he didn’t appreciate my joke.

Which, in fact, was true. I tried again. “My mom once joined
a reform temple because she had a crush on the rabbi.”

This story only deepened Xiao Nan’s frown.

“Hungry?” asked Xiao Nan.

I slapped the little bulbous stomach protruding from

under my Polo shirt and said, “Famished.”

“Come,” said Xiao Nan, leading me back through the

house to the kitchen. There, we found Li Li directing an older
Chinese woman with a grey streaked bun atop her head. The
woman wore a stained apron and furiously minced scallions
with a giant butcher's knife.

"You have a maid?" I said, although I don't know why I

should have been surprised, given everything else I had seen
this afternoon.

"Ai ya!” said Li Li. "Not maid, aunt."

Li Li whispered something to her aunt in Chinese. The

aunt, who looked up at me without slowing her furious
chopping, smiled and said "Ni hao."

"Ni hao," I replied. Clearly, the aunt didn't speak a word of

English.
Page 58

 "She lives with you?" I said, puzzled. Li Li had never

mentioned the aunt. Nor did I remember seeing another bed
during my tour of the house. Now that I thought about it,
though, I did recall seeing some blankets rolled up in the
corner of a room.

"Dang ran a!" said Li Li.

Her answer, which meant “of course,” still left me puzzled.

I knew that both Xiao Nan and Li Li worked all day. “Does
your aunt drive?”

Li Li laughed as if I were joking.

I eyed the aunt sympathetically and thought, “some visit.”

She must be trapped inside this toy chest of a house all day.
There wasn't even a convenience store within five miles. Even
if she did walk that distance, it would do her little good,
given that she didn’t speak a word of English.

“Mei wen ti!” said Li Li, who must have read my mind.
“Aunt clean house, cook food. Very busy.”

“I’m sure," I said, watching the aunt dice up carrots and

celery now. “But doesn't she get cabin fever?”

Li Li and Xiao Nan looked at each other, puzzled by the

question. “Come,” said Xiao Nan, pulling gently on the sleeve
of my Polo shirt. “Let's eat.”

Page 59

 Xiao Nan led me to an adjoining dinette with a round

table, where a big pot sat atop an electric burner. Inside the
pot bubbled a dark broth. My nostrils tingled from the smell
of fresh cut chili peppers and garlic.

Like followers called to prayer, a vast array of little

shallow bowls gathered around the bubbling pot. I
recognized carrots, garlic and shaved lamb, but other things
were alien to me. One bowl held some kind of vegetable that
looked like Xiao Nan's button nose; in another was something
that resembled what you might imagine as a ghost's penis:
long, slender and pale.

I eagerly sat down and seized the closest pair of

chopsticks. But, as I aimed them at a bowl full of pickled
garlic, I felt the grip of a long slender hand on my shoulder.
"Deng yi xia," or “hold on a sec,” Li Li whispered into my ear.
Reluctantly, I lowered my chopsticks.

Li Li sat down to the right of me. She grabbed my hand.

My other hand felt as if someone had placed a doughy wet
bun in it. I turned to see Xiao Nan holding my left hand. The
aunt sat down directly across from me and took a hand each
from Xiao Nan and Li Li.

Of course. How stupid of me. Li Li and her family were

going to pray before the meal. Li Li had saved me from a
major faux pas. It was her house, after all, and I had no
problem obeying her tribal customs. I bowed my head, eager
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to get on with the praying. I was starving, and I hungered to

try a real Chinese hotpot.

“Oh dear lord, thank you for this meal we're about to eat,”
Xiao Nan said.

I glanced up, hoping to see Li Li raising her head, too.

Alas, her head remained bowed.

“Oh, Lord, I want to special give thanks today, for the

opportunity to share this meal with Professor B.”

I sighed. How long would this go on for?

“Thank you, Lord,” Xiao Nan droned on, “for bringing

Professor B into Li Li's life. How lonely she was here in
America until she met him; how selflessly he has helped her
to adjust to American life.”

Li Li squeezed my hand.

Okay, I thought, surely this must conclude the giving of

thanks. What else could he praise me for, my haircut?
Eagerly, I awaited Xiao Nan to say “Amen,” which would
mark the end of his prayers. But it didn't come. Xiao Nan
droned on and my stomach loudly growled in protest.

“Oh Lord,” said Xiao Nan, his voice rising, “please reward
Professor B for his kindness to Li Li. Send him a good
Christian woman with whom he can marry and settle down.”

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 Whoa there, now partner. I looked up sharply at Xiao Nan.

Thanks for all the unsolicited praise and all, but this last part
was a bit much. I've never told you my wishes, romantically
or otherwise. Nor have you even bothered to ask me. And I
have certainly never told Li Li that I longed to remarry.

I found Li Li glaring at her husband, too. I joined her in

glaring at Xiao Nan. He appeared oblivious to my feelings,
and continued, “And, most important of all, open Professor
B's heart to you, dear Lord. Then at long last he can know
true peace.”

“Peace” is not how I would describe my feelings at that

moment.

Blissfully, though, Xiao Nan did finally whisper “Amen.”

He looked up, beaming at me. He tried to let go of my hand,
but I tightened my grip. Nor would I release Li Li's hand. All
three turned to look at me quizzically.

“My turn,” I announced.

“For what?” Xiao Nan asked.

“To pray to my God,” I said.

Xiao Nan's swarthy pockmarked face darkened, but Li Li's

face flushed with excitement at the tone of my voice.

“Fair's fair,” I continued. “Equal time for equal gods.”

Page 62

 Xiao Nan tried to free his hand from mine, but I wouldn't
let go.

I bowed my head as if to start praying again. Truth was, I

was stalling. What god should I pray to? Jesus, Buddha,
Allah, Aphrodite? There were so many to choose from. Then
it hit me. Of course!

“Here's to Pi,” I intoned, “and its celebration of the infinite

randomness of the cosmos.”

I knew I had hit pay dirt when I heard Li Li struggling to

suppress a giggle. Her husband, however, acted anything but
pleased. His hand squirmed in my grasp like a worm trying to
escape a hook’s barb.

“Pi teaches us,” I continued, “that all men are equal, no

matter what god they choose to worship; or whether they
decide to marry or not; whether they drive a BMW Roadster
or a Toyota Corolla. And all men suffer the same fate: They
go out like the flame of a candle, and their energy returned
to fuel the cosmos. A destiny no god can save us from.”

Pretty highfalutin' stuff, don't you think? Especially given

that I made it up on the fly.

Still, I worried. Had I gone too far? Xiao Nan glowered at

me. So much for love thy enemy. He never did invite me back
to his house. Can’t say that I blame him. He was no dummy.
He quickly assessed that I was a lost cause.

Page 63

 But what about Li Li, whose opinion I cherished? Had I

lost her affection? She proved impossible to read. Her pale
face had reddened with embarrassment, but was that the
beginnings of a smile curling on the end of her lips?

CHAPTER 5
EMPEROR OF THE ROUNDTABLE

It was Friday afternoon, yet I sat alone in my office. A pot

of green tea cooled on my desk. Pressing the tips of my
fingers together, I stared expectantly at the open door of my
office.

I had not seen Li Li in the week since my visit to her

manse. Oh, how I could kick myself. Such smug insolence;
such a ridiculous, burning desire to always have the last
word. Now I may have driven away the one friend I had
made in the Mississippi of the North.

With a sigh, I reached into the top drawer of my desk and

withdrew Xi Dada’s business card. I turned to eye my
nemesis, the black plastic phone on my desk. Twice before it
had thwarted my effort to punch in the long string of

Page 64

 numbers on Xi Dada’s card. The furthest I’d been able to

reach was a rib shack in Kansas City.

From the hallway I heard the faintest of whirs. I looked up

from the phone to see Li Li appear in my doorway. I rose to
my feet to greet her, something I had never done before. Li Li
blushed and quickly took her seat opposite my desk. As she
poured herself a cup of tea, I remained standing and poured
effusive apologies down upon her. Li Li's face turned a bright
red, but she said nothing.

When I stopped to take a breath, Li Li looked at me for the

first time and said simply, but with authority, "Qing zuo yi
xia," or please sit down. I did as commanded, although I still
whimpered apologies. She waved them off as if swatting
away flies. Then she retrieved out of a pocket in her jeans a
crumpled piece of paper, which she then flattened atop the
desk.

“Find out all about Xi Dada,” she said, eying the crumpled
piece of paper on the desk.

“Really!”

Li Li nodded and then began to relate what she had

discovered about Xi Dada.

I was deeply impressed. This Chinese literature major

proved to not only be a better reporter than most of my
journalism students; she was better than many of the
professionals who had worked under me as an editor. Her
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reporting painted a nuanced picture of Xi Dada, which only

heightened my worry about whether he would want to host
my trip.

Here’s what Li Li discovered. Xi Dada was no novice when

it came to America or Americans. He had worked for the Xin
Hua Chinese news service as a Washington correspondent.
He'd gone on to write a book that accused the American press
of a conspiracy to purposely denigrate China in its coverage.
His book won great favor among Chinese officialdom, which
rewarded him with the deanship of the Tsinghua Journalism
School.

I sighed. "Doesn’t sound like he would want to host us."

"Oh, no, very promising," countered Li Li.

“How so?”

“Invite you to speak at big conference.”

I sat bolt upright in my chair. “ What...but I haven’t even

talked to him since I left China?”

“I call. Invite to speak at conference on “Ruan Li.”

“That means soft power, right?”

Li Li nodded that this was so.
I vaguely recognized the term from my college days.
“What do I know about soft power?” I protested.

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 Li Li shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

I leaned back in my wobbly office chair and rocked slowly

back and forth as I considered Xi Dada’s invitation. Now, it's
true, I am a world-class bullshitter. I can talk my way into or,
if need be, out of just about anything. I can also persuade an
ignorant audience such as my students that I am an expert on
something.

Then again, it was one thing to impress a roomful

students who couldn't find China on a map; quite another a
roomful of diplomats and diplomatic scholars.

At a modern state university such as Driftwood, Panera's

was considered gourmet dining, reserved only for such
special occasions as a campus visit by the governor. So, you
can well imagine what Driftwood would spring for when it
came to international airfare. Let’s just say “steerage” would
be a generous description.

I sat now, arms pressed against my sides, in a middle seat

in a long row on a flight to Beijing. My elbows rested on the
extended tray in front of me; my hands sagged under the
weight of an 800-page book titled, “Soft Power: The Means to
Success in World Politics.” This, of course, was the
masterwork of conservative foreign policy scholar Joseph
Nye.

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 I would have preferred the company of Li Li to Joseph

Nye, but she had begged off accompanying me to Beijing.
“Need to impress on own,” she had counseled. Maybe so, but
I missed her terribly now. I imagined her scolding me for
letting my attention drift from the tome in my aching hands.

I craned my neck to look over my seat mates, across the

aisle and out a window. Was that the frozen wastelands of the
Arctic I saw outside? If so, that meant we were only halfway
along in the 14-hour flight to Beijing. With a heavy sigh, I
turned back to the book in my hands and tried, once again, to
lose myself in Nye’s treatise. To me, as with much of the
scholarship I had encountered in university, Nye’s theory
belabored the obvious. It went like this.

Given the debacle of the Vietnam War, Nye argued that

military might be a poor lever to raise American influence.
Better, he reasoned, to encourage our best universities to
educate the children of the elites from China to Nigeria. Open
centers worldwide to teach American English. Encourage the
world's rising middle class to live in single family homes,
drive cars and crave everything from Mickey Mouse to KFC.
In short, the Poor World should become us.

Nowhere had "soft power" proved more effective than in

communist China. There, every week, fifteen thousand new
cars embarked onto the country’s ever expanding tangle of
eight-lane highways. Those highways carried drivers to a
broadening patchwork of single homes just beyond city
limits.

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 And, with ever more time spent driving, the once sacred
home cooked family meal had become as relevant as a rusted
wok. Now each family member grabbed a slice of pizza, a Big
Mac or battered chicken leg to eat while driving. Talk about
All American.

Today, Chinese cars and coal plants were belching out

more greenhouse emissions than their American
counterparts. So much so that Chinese smog was yellowing
the skies of Los Angeles and Seattle. In the ever-growing
whirlpools of suburban detritus choking the Pacific Ocean,
scientists were finding more plastic grocery bags and foam
cups with Chinese characters than English letters.
Increasingly, the Chinese were besting the greatest hog of
world resources that history had ever known.

The nerve.

But that's not the worst of "soft power's" unintended

consequences. In China, America now faced a ravenous new
competitor for everything from petroleum to iridium. That
rising competition was driving up the prices of gasoline,
sweat pants and fast food milk shakes, which are thickened
with a petroleum-based chemical. This is bad news, since
Americans guzzle as much petroleum as their cars.

In short, thanks to the Chinese, The American Dream was

becoming ever more unaffordable to many Americans.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Right-Wing Scholar. It's lucky for you that,
unlike me, most Americans don’t know your name.

Page 69

 My long hours of suffering aboard China Air flight 387

proved a small price to pay for what awaited me in Beijing.
From the moment I landed my hosts made me feel like
royalty. They treated me better than even my own university.
Yet, in the end, I struggled to enjoy my royal treatment,
which came to taste bittersweet. I had Li Li to thank for that.

But such complicated feelings were in the future. I was

greeted in the airport terminal by a delightful young
Tsinghua graduate student who spoke perfect English. Her
name was Rong Rong, and she escorted me to a long black
limo with blackened windows. It idled at the curb outside the
arrival exit.

I slipped into a leather back seat and was immediately

overwhelmed. I found myself treated like a visiting dignitary,
a regular Henry Kissinger, the Chinese’s favorite Capitalist
Roader. My traveling companions, who included Rong Rong
and another boy and girl, peppered me with flattering
questions: Was it true I had written five books; was I indeed
the most popular teacher at Herbert J. Loser and was I the
journalist whose reporting revealed the greatest financial
scandal of the dot.com bust? My hosts knew more about me
— and were more curious about my background — than my
own students and colleagues back at Herbert J. Loser.

Yes, ensconced in leathery comfort, talking about myself, I

didn't mind that this black limo chugged along for what
seemed like hours in gridlocked traffic. Nor did I mind that I
Page 70

 had no idea where we were nor where we were going. Nor

was I allowed time to ask, let alone think about it. My escorts’
questioning kept me that diverted.

Finally, our limo exited the highway and turned onto a

commercial street heavy with local traffic. I felt a bump and
looked out to see that the limo had crossed the curb. It
parked atop a crowded sidewalk. Back in the First City of the
Third World, only a billionaire such as Bloomberg or Trump
could pull off such a move without fear of getting ticketed.
Or, worse, towed.

A smattering of pedestrians gathered around our idling

sedan. I suspect they expected to see emerge from the car a
pop star or a Princeling, what the Chinese call the scions of
communist revolutionaries who have grown fat off serving
the people. You can imagine their disappointment when the
spectators saw me emerge from the limo. “Gui zi!” I heard
one of them grumble.

Later I learned that “gui zi” is a derogatory term the

Chinese use to describe westerners. The literal meaning is
“ghost.” But in spirit it is the equivalent of a Native American
calling a European settler “Pale Face,” or a Black Panther
calling a white boy “Honky.”

My hosts led me inside a building in front of the car. It

turned out to be the biggest restaurant I’ve ever seen. At five

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stories, it was bigger than even some restaurants I’d seen in

Las Vegas as a journalist.

Our destination was a private banquet room on the fifth

floor. In the center of the room sat a round table worthy of
King Arthur. A hive of students buzzed around the table. The
only one sitting was a small, plump balding man. Scowling,
he sat with a fist cocked knuckles down on the table. He
barked at the students as they assembled a dozen or so place
settings, each with tea cup, chopsticks, rice bowl and shot
glass. I couldn’t understand the man’s exact words, but I got
the drift. With his every bark, a particular student would
jump as if cracked in the buttocks with a bullwhip.

This Emperor of the Round Table was, of course, Xi Dada.

He glanced up at me as I stood in the doorway and his scowl
vanished. Grinning, he stood and beckoned me to come sit on
his right side. This, Li Li had coached me, was the seat given
to an honored guest at any gathering.

Xi Dada’s hive of worker bees retreated from our big table

to a smaller one off to the side. Every so often, Xi Dada
would turn and bark at the smaller table and a student would
jump up and dash off.

As for our table, its dozen or so seats were soon filled with
what appears to be professors, administrators and the party
functionaries who watched over both of them.

I might have been a Pale Face, but I was feted to a banquet

worthy of Sitting Bull. A swinging door at the rear of the
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banquet room swung open and a steady stream of waitresses

carrying plates began to load up the Lazy Susan in the middle
of the table. The food was steaming hot and smelled
wonderfully fresh. Famished, I wanted to dive in. But I
noticed that nobody moved toward the food. So, I sat on my
hands.

Li Li here, too, had coached me to wait and follow the

lead of Xi Dada in everything I did. What she didn’t do was
prepare me for what came next. Was it on purpose? I
pictured her back in the Mississippi of the North, tittering to
herself, hand over her mouth.

A waiter arrived with an opaque white bottle with a long

neck. He filled each shot glass around the table with a liquid
that looked like tap water but smelled like the Gowanus
Canal on a sunny day.

When everyone’s glass had been filled, Xi Dada stood. He

raised his shot glass and turned to beam down at me. “To our
honored guest, who has travelled thousands of miles to learn
about the real China — not the unrecognizable country we
read about in the Western press.” Then he tapped his glass
once on the table, and shouted, “Gan Bei!” The others did the
same and together they emptied their glasses.

I looked expectantly at the steaming food in front of me,

but noticed that still no one dug in. Instead, all eyes were on
me. So, imitating Xi Dada, I rose and raised my shot glass.
Here was a chance, I told myself, to level the playing field in
terms of hospitality. “I can’t tell you what an honor it is to be
Page 73

 here with you tonight,” I began. “On behalf of myself, my

dean and my university, I thank you for your generosity and
hospitality. It speaks well of you and your great university.”

Then, I, too, drained my glass. Holy Shit. A liquid that

tasted like homemade gasoline scorched down my gullet. My
head spun and my knees began to buckle. I quickly sat down,
almost missing the chair. What I had consumed was called
“bai jiu,” a liquor made from distilled grain such as millet. It
was the Chinese equivalent of white lightning. The more it
tasted like gasoline the better the Chinese liked it.

Through watery eyes, I surveyed the table. Smiles greeted

my gaze and everyone nodded, saying, “hao, hao.” I sighed in
relief, thinking I had survived the toughest challenge of the
night.

Hardly.

To my horror, I watched as the person on my right stood

and raised his glass in toast to me and Xi Dada. “Gan bei,” all
toasted. I sensed I was expected to do likewise. Oh boy.

At any one time, I never drank more than a glass or two of

beer or wine. I never touched hard liquor. To do so meant I
might try to pull my pants off over my head. I had apparently
tried to do just that once at a college bacchanalia. Or so a
friend later informed me. Blissfully, I have no memory of it.

Now, here I was downing glass after glass of Chinese

white lightning as each of the dozen or so guests toasted me
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and each other. And on an empty stomach, no less. I wouldn’t

say I was drunk. It was more like I had entered an altered
state, like a bad trip on LSD, which I had experienced a time
or two as a teenager. I began to see double and see things
that may, or may not have been there. Like the red horns
sprouting from Xi Dada’s balding pate.

Finally, the toasting ended and people began to eat. I

stared hard through my foggy double vision at the steaming
plates and bowls on the Lazy Susan. Little of what I beheld
looked familiar. And I had been using chopsticks since I was
knee-high to a grasshopper. Where was the chop suey, the lo
mein and egg foo young? And, most mysterious of all, there
was no white rice.

In their place, were chicken feet, a soup swimming with

fish heads and something my hosts called salad but looked
like filleted jellyfish. And that’s just what I could recognize.

Even how my hosts ate was new to me. Rather than load
up a plate with food, they snatched small portions from the
Lazy Susan and put them in a bowl. Then they raised the
bowl to their lips and shoveled in the food.

Watching my hosts eat I had an epiphany about something

that had long baffled me: How to use chopsticks without
spilling food all over yourself. The trick was to use the
chopsticks to shovel food into your mouth, not pick it up
from a plate. This insight would eventually save me a fortune
in dry cleaning bills.

Page 75

 I, too, raised my bowl and began shoveling food into my

mouth. “Hao ba, hao ba,” my hosts murmured in approval.

I also noticed that what my hosts savored most wasn’t the

flesh of chicken or fish. Loudly and happily, everyone
crunched away on the bones. Every so often someone would
stop and spit out well gnawed fragments onto a napkin. I
struggled not to smile as I watched top officials and
professors of the great Tsinghua University eat like a bunch of
toddlers at a preschool lunch. Clearly, I had much to learn
about the Chinese and their culture.

Here’s something else I noticed. The Chinese didn’t wolf

down their food, eating just to refuel, like most Americans.
Rather, they savored every bite. Little wonder. Unlike
hamburgers, pizza or bagels, all of which was either very
sweet or very salty, Chinese food offered a rich palette of
flavors. Sweet and salty, yes, but also bitter and slimy — and
flavors and textures so alien I couldn’t identify them. How to
describe the flavor of a fish head?

I heard a bang and turned to see the banquet door swing

open. A waitress entered carrying a large porcelain platter
atop the palms of both hands. Sprawled across the platter lay
a giant fish, its massive tail dangling over the side. The
waitress set the platter down in front of me. Xi Dada’s
chopsticks swooped down and deftly plucked out an eye of
the great fish. He offered it to me.

Now, when it came to my palate, I was neither squeamish

nor parochial. In my many journeys, I had tried everything
Page 76

from rattlesnake to grasshopper. I had eaten chicken hearts

my father used to grill on toothpicks over the flames of our
gas stove. Hell, I had even tried tonight’s jellyfish salad. But a
fella had to draw the line somewhere, and I had done so
above the neck or below the waist. I had turned aside sheep
brain and bull testicle, the thought of which made me wince.

Still, I felt every eye in the room, including the one

dangling off Xi Dada’s chopstick, eying me in anticipation.
Would I redraw the boundary between what I would and
would not eat? If a fish eye today, a bull’s testicle tomorrow?

Xi Dada didn’t make my decision any easier. As I eyed the

dangling eye, he explained that he was offering me what the
Chinese consider one of their finest delicacies. It was a great
honor to be offered the first eye of the evening. His lecture
left me with the distinct feeling that to refuse this offering
would amount to an affront from which I might never
recover.

What the hell. My tongue darted out and snatched up the

fish eye. To my surprise it wasn’t the taste that offended. In
fact, it had no more taste than cellophane. What offended
was the sensation of the thing. It refused to go down
peacefully, clinging to the inside of my gullet like a slug on
bark. You try smiling in appreciation with such a thing stuck
onto the back of your throat. It took another swig of Chinese
white lightning to force the damn thing down.

As if a reward for my courage, the white rice finally

arrived, which turned out to signal the end of the meal. I
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 wolfed down my bowl to cleanse away the sticky sensation

on the back of my throat.

Given my bai jiu induced stupor, I’m not sure how, or even
when, I got back into the limo. But at some point I found
myself once again staring out its blackened windows. I
watched as we drove through an arched stone gate and into
what appeared to be a lush gardened park. This, it turned
out, was the campus of Tsinghua. At last! I would see the
inside of a real Chinese university.

The limo pulled up in front of a one-story gray brick

building. Shaped like a horseshoe, it was topped with a clay
tile roof. This, I was told, was my hotel. It looked to me more
like the ancient pavilion of a Chinese prince. I wasn’t far off.
Turned out a powerful Qing dynasty lord once used this
pavilion to house his many consorts.

We exited the limo and approached two tall, heavy

wooden doors flanked by a pair of growling stone lions. This
proved to be a false entrance, opening instead to a lush
garden courtyard. The real entrance stood across the
courtyard in front of us.

I smiled a loopy smile. Xi Dada had been true to his word.

No more Western Bubble for me this time. I was about to
experience the real China. And how.

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 Emboldened by the bai jiu, I told Rong Rong, who had

escorted me into the hotel, to stand back and let me try and
register myself. The front desk attendants greeted me with a
friendly “Ni hao, ni hao.”

“Wo yao yi ge dan ren chuang fang,” I said confidently, if a

bit slurred. I had practiced hard for how to ask for a single
bedroom.

The two young women receptionists continued to smile at

me but didn’t respond. I tried again, speaking slower. This
time the receptionists turned to look at each other,
whispering among themselves. Finally, one turned back to me
and asked, “Zen me le?” Or “what?”

From behind me I heard Rong Rong speak rapidly in

Chinese. The receptionists nodded and said, “hao de, hao
de.” Soon they offered me a plastic card that served as the
room key. Too tired and foggy to feel humiliated, I followed
Rong Rong as she led me to my darkened room. It only came
to life, with lights and TV coming on at once, when she
inserted the room card into a sleeve on the wall near the
door. Then she bid me goodnight.

I pulled out the card and the room went dark again. I put
it back in and the room once again lit up. Clever! And so
energy efficient. Now all I had to do was remember to
withdraw the card when I left the room, a big challenge for
an absent-minded old fart such as myself.

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 In exploring the room, I soon discovered other sharp

differences from a western hotel. In the cramped bathroom,
there was neither a bathtub nor a separate shower. Instead, a
shower head hung down from over the toilet. Studying the
drain in the tiled bathroom floor, I wondered: Do the Chinese
shower where they crap? On the wall behind the toilet, a
placard warned me to never flush used toilet paper down the
toilet itself.

Instead, I was instructed to throw it into a trash can

abutting the toilet. Seriously? I thought, my nose crinkling
up.

I wandered out of the bathroom, looking for the bed.

What I found was long and narrow like a plank. It stood only
knee-high. I dropped butt first onto the bed and winced. It
was as hard as a wooden plank.

I slowly lowered myself back first onto the hard bed.

Folding my arms behind my head, I recalled what Li Li had
coached me about negotiations in China. They were a never-
ending struggle over who could make whom more indebted
to the other. Be wary, she counseled, of favors bestowed, gifts
given and toasts made in your honor. Fight back by
humiliating and ingratiating yourself more than your Chinese
hosts. Ask for nothing and, whatever you do, never discuss
the actual topic at hand.

With Li Li’s criteria in mind, I reviewed my evening’s

performance. I had braved jellyfish and fish eye. I’d downed a
jug’s worth of bai jiu. Not once had I tried to pull my pants
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 over my head. Nor had I raised once my study abroad trip.

All this had to count for something, right?

How little I knew the Chinese.

The rap, rap rap on the door of my room reverberated

inside my head like the clanging of a giant gong. I burrowed
deep inside my pillow and tried to go back to sleep, but it did
no good. My head kept vibrating with the incessant knocking
on the door. "What?!" I growled from under the pillow. When
I spoke my tongue still tasted faintly like gasoline, the
lingering effect of last night's bai jiu.

No one answered my question, but the knocking persisted.

I glanced at the clock radio beside my hotel bed. It was only
7:30. Who could it be at this hour of the morning? I could
think of only two possibilities: room service or state security.

The incessant knocking infused a righteous fury into my

weary bones. Casting caution to the wind, I dragged myself
out of bed. Blurry-eyed and head throbbing, I staggered to
the door. Never mind that I was only wearing a ratty tee shirt
and gym shorts. I flung open the door to find neither a maid
nor a policeman. Rather, a cheery little pixie of a Chinese girl
stood in the hallway.

“Ni hao!” The girl bubbled. “I'm Lan Lan.” She extended a
hand toward me, which I didn't take. I considered shouting,
"Security!" Instead, I growled, “What do you want?"
Page 81

 “I'm here to give you a tour of Beijing.”

“At this hour in the morning?” I growled.

“Of course! “Lan Lan giggled and said, “There's much to

see!”

When I still looked peeved, Lan Lan added, “Didn't Xi

Dada tell you?"

Quite possibly, I had to admit, as my aching brain

searched its memory banks. No recollection presented itself.
Which made me wonder. What else had Xi Dada told me last
night that had seeped out of my bai jiu pickled brain?

“Maybe tomorrow,” I said but the irrepressibly cheery Lan

Lan didn't leave. She eyed me like a child reluctant to get
dressed for school. Xi Dada's tour apparently was not
optional. I remembered Li Li’s dictate to humble and
ingratiate myself.

So it went for the remainder of my week in Beijing. Each

morning at 7:30 sharp, a different student, or sometimes two,
showed up at my hotel door. All spoke impeccable English; all
were a model of hospitality and charm. Yet not one bothered
to ask me what, if anything, I wanted to see. Instead, they
whisked me through a pre-programmed schedule of
museums, shrines and replicas of ancient hutongs, which
passed before my eyes like a blur.

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 Still, former journalist that I am, I was full of questions.

Yet not one of my student guides could tell me anything
beyond the dense, poorly written explanations written in
microscopic type on the placards tacked to the places we
visited. When I tried to push them, my guides would shrug,
as if to say "How should I know?"

One day, a group of students drove me to a replica of the

Great Wall, which sat just north of Beijing. My lungs breathed
a sigh of relief to be free of Beijing's suffocating smog for a
day. I thought my guides would be too. But no, they left me
to climb the steep steps of the wall on my own. At the top, in
a former guard turret, I looked down to see my student
guides huddled around our minivan, smoking their brains
out.

There was one thing I really did want to do, which was to
visit an authentic Chinese tea house. But not a student knew
of any. They didn't drink tea, they told me; only coffee at a
chain called “Xing Ba Ke,” which turned out to be Starbucks.
They did take me to a Starbucks, where the only thing grande
were the prices. A small cup of tea was priced triple that of its
U.S. counterpart. Was it brewed from liquid gold? I
wondered. Later, I would figure out, Starbucks in China was
more about status than taste. Your classmates would think
you were the child of a high ranking party member if they
saw you holding a Starbucks latte. The larger the better.

I’ll say this for my Chinese hosts. They sure knew how to
party. After every long day of rushing about Beijing, I was
treated to another dinner banquet. I had drunken more hard
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 liquor in a week than I had during my entire collegiate

career. I was beginning to fear that I would have to check
myself into a detox center when I returned home.

On the fourth morning of my stay I awoke desperately

tired. It wasn't just the rushed tours and endless drinking that
had worn me out. It was also the forced companionship. I
was never allowed to be alone, which I desperately now
wanted. Especially given that tomorrow was the big day of
my speech at the conference.

This morning it was Lan Lan's turn again to be my guide

and I turned her away. Or at least I tried. She stood frozen
with a stricken look after I told her I wanted to spend the day
alone preparing for my speech. When she wouldn't leave, I
closed the door in her face.

With a sigh of relief I plopped down on my bed. I was not,

I soon learned, free. About 15 minutes later I heard a
determinedly persistent knocking on my door. "Now what?" I
groaned, considering not answering for a moment. But the
persistent knocking drove me get up and opened the door.
This time I found Xiao Pei's oval face wrinkled with concern.
"Are you sick?" she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Lan Lan said something she shouldn't have,” Xiao Pei

declared.
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 “No! She was a model host.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I just want to be alone for a day!”

Xiao Pei looked at me in total confusion. “In room...all day

by yourself?”

“Yes!” I said, thinking I was finally getting through.

Xiao Pei shook her head as if this were impossible. “Lan

Lan say something,” she clucked. “I send another student.”

“Please, no. I'm fine.” I struggled to think of something to

say that would appease Xiao Pei. “Look, if you will leave me
to myself for the day, I promise not to tell Xi Dada.”

Xiao Pei eyed me for a long moment, as if assessing

whether I was trustworthy. I must have passed the test. She
left me to myself for the day, although I did find a student
waiting in the lobby in case I needed anything.

I know what you think. My Chinese hosts wouldn't let me

alone because they wanted to keep a close eye on me. There
was some truth to that, I grant. China was not an open
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society in which free speech or travel was widely respected.

But I was visiting at the most open time in modern Chinese
history. Indeed, my hosts were hungry to show me that China
was as open and free as America, although this wasn't true.
Still, they never blocked or interrupted any question I asked.
Not even if I inquired about what people knew about
Tiananmen Square. Nor did they even edit or censor what
other people said to me.

Over time, I learned that modern China remained highly

communal. The Chinese didn't even have a word for "I" until
the 20th century. My hosts truly couldn't understand why
anyone would choose to be alone — especially when a
stranger in a strange land. From their way of thinking, the
only possible explanation was that I had been deeply
offended somehow. And, in Chinese culture, there were few
worst offenses than mistreating a guest.

At a long table set atop a high stage, I sat amid a

distinguished panel of Chinese and English-speaking
panelists. There was a former deputy Secretary of State and a
current Australian foreign official; an American diplomatic
scholar and an acting Chinese foreign ministry deputy. Again,
I wondered what the hell was I doing here.

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 We panelists sat at the head of a cavernous auditorium

within Tsinghua University. Ahead of me buzzed an audience
of hundreds, including students, scholars, university
administrators and government officials. Amid the Chinese, I
heard a smattering of French, Japanese, Russian and Korean.
And those were just the languages I could recognize.

My gaze swept the audience. I saw Xi Dada, who sat in the

front row, his pudgy arms hugging himself, nodding
approvingly at the distinguished panel he had assembled.

Next to Xi Dada my gaze found an unexpected but most

welcomed surprise. In a sun dress and tight single braid, Li Li
sat next to Xi Dada. The minx! Had Li Li planned to come all
along or had she decided at the last minute? Either way, I
was glad to see her here now. She gave me an encouraging
smile and mouthed the words, “Jia you,” which meant,
loosely speaking, “you go, dude.”

My confidence rose as I listened to my fellow panelists

speak. Not one of the English-speaking ones attempted even
a word in Chinese; nor did the Chinese ones attempt English.
It was the perfect set up for what I hoped to achieve.

Finally, it was my turn to speak, and I strode to the

podium and confidently greeted the audience. “Da jia hao,”
“or greetings everyone” I said, watching my Chinese hosts
smile appreciatively. Emboldened, I continued in Chinese:
"Thank you for honoring me with the privilege to speak at
Tsinghua University today."

Page 87

 Or, at least, that’s what I had intended to say. I wasn’t so

sure after the Chinese portion of the audience exploded in
laughter. The laughter continued for an uncomfortable
amount of time. At last, it faded away, and I began my
speech. I skipped over all the other Chinese words I had
planned to use.

When I sat back down with my fellow panelists, the

Chinese foreign official nodded his approval. I would learn
that most Chinese are far too polite to correct or criticize a
guest.

When I stepped down off the stage, a giggling Li Li rushed

over to me and punched my arm. “I suppose I deserve that,” I
mumbled. “What did I say?”

“Say ‘frog’ — not Tsinghua — university,” Li Li chortled

through the slender fingers over her mouth.

“I did?” I groaned. So much for an invitation from Xi

Dada. Why would he want to partner with such a boob?

“No worries,” Li Li assured, reading my thoughts. “Still

invite.”

“After that?” I said, nodding at the stage.

“Mei wen ti. No one expect you speak good Chinese.”

I hoped she was right.

Page 88

 CHAPTER 6
THE TRAVEL CZAR

As usual, Li Li was right. Soon after my return home, Xi

Dada enthusiastically agreed to host our journey down the
old Silk Road. My heart skipped a beat at the news. Now I
had the opportunity to offer my students something I never
had a chance to experience while in college. Back then, I
would have jumped at an opportunity to explore such a far-
flung and exotic place as China.

Just thinking of it now gave me goosebumps: The

adventure. The advantage. The chance to skip a month of
classes — all for credit and with school permission. And there
was this added bonus: What college girl could resist a guy
who had ridden on a camel and eaten jelly fish salad?

Such a trip would have been impossible for me during my

college years in the 1970s. Remember, this was a time before
airline deregulation. It cost thousands of dollars just to fly
between New York and Los Angeles. I can't imagine what a
trip to Beijing would have cost.

Even if I could have afforded the airfare, I doubt the

Chinese Communists would have let me in. They were only
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welcoming in fervent anti-communists such as Kissinger and

Nixon in the 1970s. I, in contrast, hung out with the likes of
wealthy Maoists such as Irene.

Still, to my credit, I did live like a Chinese peasant. All I

could afford to eat in college were my own home-cooked rice
and beans, which cost me a mere $10 a month. Such meager
fare at my small elite college did make me a bit of a celebrity.
I doubt no more than a handful of my fellow students could
spell “lentil.” That included my two roommates, who would
invite their girlfriends to come and gawk at my coffee tin of
soaking beans, which I stashed under the sink of our
communal kitchen.

I suspect, too, that my distinction as the school’s token

peasant helped me win admission. The school certainly didn’t
admit me because of my SAT scores or grades. I only
graduated from high school at the last moment because the
principal pressured the chemistry teacher to change my grade
in his class from a D to a C. Apparently, another year with me
was more than the principal could bear.

It’s probably true also that my skills as a world-class

bullshitter didn’t hurt. In high school, my friends had dubbed
me Blabberus of the Chatterati. I had earned this moniker
because of my ability to talk my way into — and then out —
of all kinds of trouble.

Could I now talk my Driftwood students into sharing my

own youthful dream of international adventure? I thought I

Page 90

had come up with a pitch tuned to my audience. I called it:

“The Three As: Adventure, Advantage and Advancement.”

Adventure, of course, stood for the eternal call of the road.

What college student could resist that, right? Advancement
referred to the exceptional real world experience students
would receive through publishing stories, photo essays and
video on a well-designed school website. Many students
could say they had visited China. But how many could say
they'd published sophisticated work about it, too? And
therein lay the advantage. My students’ slickly published
work about their journey down the Silk Road would help
them stand out to graduate schools and employers.

Now, normally, I consider PowerPoint presentations the

pinnacle of intellectual mediocrity. Especially ones dense with
numbers and text, which a professor then feels obliged to
read word for word in front of an audience. Students aptly
call such presentations “Death by PowerPoint.”

But PowerPoint presentations needn't be the death of all

that is interesting — not if done right. My presentation about
a trip to China would be short on words and long on pictures
and sound. Think of an annotated Instagram posting set to
the music of a Bruce Lee movie. This presentation would
serve as a backdrop to embellish and depict the alluring tale I
would spin about the trip that highlighted Adventure,
Advancement and Advantage.

Of course, what sounded good in my head, or looked nice

in a presentation, wouldn’t necessarily work in reality.
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 Luckily, I had an opportunity to give my pitch a test drive —

and with a very demanding audience.

No study abroad trip could proceed without the consent of

The Travel Czar. His name was Dr. August P. Forenza, and he
occupied a musty, cluttered little office in an obscure corner
on the top floor of the five-story library building. His only
staff was a gray-haired secretary hunched with age.

To showcase the rising importance of study abroad,

university administrators had offered The Travel Czar a
spacious new office — and additional staff — on the library's
well traveled first floor. But The Travel czar had rejected the
spacious new digs, content to remain a mysterious and
obscure figure squirreled away in a far corner of the library.

Dr. Forenza's title had been hard-earned. A former Italian

professor, the man had taken a hundred students to the
University of Rome for a month every July for 20 years. Most
professors couldn't endure more than two or three such trips.
I would soon learn why.

Twice a year, The Travel Czar did deign to emerge from

his aerie. He held two semi-annual luncheons at which he
would hold audience with supplicants seeking permission to
take students abroad. Held in a cramped, windowless
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conference room deep within the bowels of the concrete

block administration building, these luncheons served three
purposes: One, to reward professors who'd taken students
overseas; two, to serve as a social club for the hardened
veterans of study abroad. And three to serve as The Travel
Czar’s ex officio privy council to consider new trip proposals.

The Travel Czar himself rarely, if ever, pronounced

publicly on the feasibility of any trip. Rather, he used the
luncheon's study abroad veterans as an ex officio board of
approval. Of course, the luncheon's professors had no real,
official power over trips. But he waited to see if the
luncheon's participants would pooh-pooh a trip, which then
discouraged a professor from going forward.

In short, these luncheons embodied the ideal of university

governance. They gave the illusion of open and free debate,
with decisions reached through consensus, while in fact
merely enforcing the status quo. It was Mediocrity at its best.

The Travel Czar invited me to pitch my Silk Road trip to

the April luncheon. I found the dozen or so professors who
were packed into the conference room feasting on what was
considered a pretty swank dining in the realm of today's
impoverished second tier public universities: a meal catered
by Panera's, which included not only ginger ale but also tuna
salad sandwiches. Usually, at such luncheon meetings, you
were lucky to get coffee and crullers from Dunkin’ Donuts.

Too nervous to eat, I watched and listened as this privy

council sipped ginger ale from recyclable paper cups as if it
Page 93

 were Martinis. The study abroad veterans regaled each other

with tales from the road. Now, I'm a pretty seasoned traveler.
As a journalist, I had visited shotgun shacks without indoor
plumbing or electricity in Louisiana; I had walked into East
Berlin after the fall of the Iron Curtain to find people still
living in bombed out buildings that had never been repaired.
But the stories these professors told left me stunned.

Take this one from Florence. It featured students who had

been housed in two, seven story dorms facing each other
across a narrow alleyway. One housed men; the other
women. One night, to the great delight of those housed in
both dorms, a drunken boy began to leap back and forth
through the windows of two opposing rooms on the 7th floor.
Later, some said he had done it to impress his female peers. If
so, he succeeded wildly. Women — and men — leaned out of
the windows up and down both dorms cheering him on. Of
course, the boy's stamina eventually waned, and he fell to his
death.

I don't know what appalled me most about this story. The

boy's senseless death; that not one of the dozens of students
watching tried to stop the boy, or that no one — neither the
professors in charge nor the cheering students — were
punished for this incident.

I made a mental note as I listened to this sorry tale. While

in China, I would never check my students into any
accommodations higher than a step ladder.

Page 94

 Finally, after about an hour of agonized waiting, the war

stories petered out and all eyes turned to me. Time to pitch
my journey down the Silk Road. I stood up, fired up a
slideshow presentation about the trip, and began to talk. My
luncheon colleagues watched with ever widening eyes as I
waxed eloquently about the exotic adventure of traversing
the Silk Road, complete with pictures of rolling dunes set to a
soundtrack of braying camels. And, of course, I hammered
home the three As of my pitch: Adventure, Advantage and
Advancement.

When I stopped after 15 minutes, I realized the room had

gone silent. Were my colleagues impressed? I knew I was.

The silence didn't last long. Soon my colleagues were

peppering me with questions.

“You're really going to ride a local train for 14 hours to

Xi’an?”

I nodded yes.

“And after that?”

“We'll hire a bus and a driver.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“Hostels or local hotels along the way. Even on the bus, if

need be.”

Page 95

 “Will these places have hot running water?”

I chuckled to myself, enjoying the role of provocateur.

“Most likely not. We'll be lucky to find rooms with showers.”

“What about the toilets?”

“What about them?”

“Is it true that most of China still uses squat toilets?”

I nodded, adding that some hostels might only have

outhouses.

Noses wrinkled across the room. I imagined what my

audience must be picturing: American students squatting
over latrines. I smiled at their dismay. In fact, though, I had
no idea just how bad it would turn out to be.

While my colleagues grilled me hard, no one objected

outright to my proposed trip. Still, I could feel a rising
frustration. Why wasn't the barrage of questioning prompting
me to back down, or at least modify my plans?

Finally, the questioning petered out and, for the first time,
Dr. Forenza weighed in. He had been sitting in the back of the
room, quietly savoring his paper cup of ginger ale.

“I say, this sounds like something out of a Kipling novel,”

quipped Dr. Forenza.

Page 96

 Aha, I thought to myself, he gets it.

“Wouldn't it be, easier all round — for you and your

students — to stay at a big university in Beijing or
Shanghai?,” continued Dr. Forenza. “After all, that’s what Dr.
Feng does.” He nodded at a petite middle age Chinese
woman on his right. Dr. Feng smiled faintly.

“And her trips receive the highest of evaluations,” another

professor chimed in.

I knew of Dr. Feng's summer program, which was held at

Beijing Foreign Language University, among the city's most
prestigious. Her students were among those I had met in the
Western Bubble where I had stayed during my first trip to
China. Dr. Feng might as well have taken her students to
Chinatown in any big American city, but that’s not what I
said. “I’m sure Dr. Feng runs an excellent program. But I
would like to do something different. I want my students to
experience the real China. Don’t you see?”

Both Dr. Feng and Dr. Forenza stared at me as if I was the

one who didn't see.

I tried to explain myself better. “What I envision is a

classroom without walls.”

“More like a classroom without students,” someone

murmured. A nervous chuckle rippled through the conference
room.

Page 97

 When the luncheon broke up, I dashed out of the

conference room. My bladder felt like it was about to
explode. It had succumbed to a toxic cocktail of ginger ale
and nerves. No sooner had I begun to relieve myself then I
heard the bathroom door open. Someone sauntered up to
the urinal next to me. Too absorbed in joyous relief, I didn't
look up to see who stood next to me.

“What was it again?” My urinal mate mused aloud.

“Adversity, abomination, abyss…?”

“Very funny,” I said, “but in fact it’s Adventure, Advantage,

Advancement.” I glanced sideways to see a wizened, gray
haired man standing next to me. I didn’t know his name,
although I did know him by reputation. He was a renowned
classics scholar who took students to Athens every summer.

“You plan to say that to the students, too?”

I nodded.

The Classics professor chuckled. “You know what they’ll

hear?”

I didn't answer.

“Work...work...work.”

I smiled proudly.
Page 98

 The Classics Professor shook his head. “You really don't

get it, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me put it to you this way: How many students have

signed up for your trip so far?”

“None,” I had to admit.

“Exactly.”

In my defense, I countered: “I haven’t yet begun to

promote my trip.”

The Classics Scholar reached over to lay a comforting

hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, what's your name again?”

“You can call me Professor B...that's what my students do.”

The Classics Scholar arched an eyebrow.

We walked silently together to the sink, each lost in our

thoughts. I don't know what was on his mind. But I had to
admit his skepticism worried me. Wasn’t hard-earned
achievement the point of studying abroad?

As we began to wash our hands, The Classics Scholar

turned to address me again. “Do you know why Dr. Forenza
gets 100 students every summer?”
Page 99

 I shook my head, “No,” truly mystified.

“To paraphrase that famous line characterizing the real

estate biz, it's drink, drink, drink.”

“Don't they do that now here?”

“Sure,” said the Classics Scholar, “but it's not nearly as fun
— nor as easy. You see, Italy, like most of Europe, has no
drinking age. Hell, wine is served at every meal. Not to
mention the added thrill of being able to drink to abandon
without fear of parental or school supervision. In short, the
trip is a bacchanalia from start to finish.”

My brow wrinkled in confusion. “I thought the university

forbid drinking on study abroad trips.”

“Of course!...on paper. But no one from the administration

has ever showed up on a spot inspection on one of my trips.
And I’ve been doing this almost as long as Dr. Forenza.
Besides, who's gonna tell if the kids do drink? Not the faculty.
And certainly not the kids.”

“How about that kid who fell to his death?”

The Classics scholar frowned. “Terrible lapse on our part.”

He explained that the faculty do work hard to tamp the
commotion down to a dull roar. “Most kids stagger back to
their dorms and collapse after a day of hard drinking. They
can barely rouse themselves before dinner the next day.”
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 “When do they go to class — or do their school work?” I

asked, perplexed.

“By the second week most don't bother to do either.”

The Classics Scholar chuckled at the puzzled look on my

face. “Think of it this way: an unspoken pact between us and
the students. We agree to let them run wild, reining them in
only when necessary. And they agree to give us good
evaluations. Everybody wins. Students get the bragging rights
of having partied large, and we faculty get a Roman Holiday
— an all expense paid vacation, courtesy of the university.”

“Surely not all students are hell-bent on an international

bacchanalia. There must be some itching for an intellectual
adventure.”

“That’s what worries me,” sighed the Classics Scholar.

“How’s that? I have no intention of raining on your Roman

Holiday. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

"Ah, if it were only that simple."

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Consider this: What if your students return from China

and start raving about the trip on Facebook or whatever?
Soon the administration will get wind of it, and then they
will start asking why the rest of us aren’t staying in hostels,
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 taking cold baths and shitting in latrines.” The Classics

Scholar grimaced and threw his rumbled paper towel on the
floor.

At first, it looked as if Cai Shen himself, the Chinese god of

good fortune, had smiled favorably on my student
presentation. The Einstein secured for me one of the
university's few and much coveted classrooms equipped with
a digital projector and sound system. Better yet, he arranged
it so my first audience was to be our journalism seniors,
whom I figured had the maturity and experience to best
appreciate an intellectual adventure such as a trip down the
Silk Road.

On the afternoon of my presentation, Li Li and I entered

the digital classroom to find it packed with students. This was
a surprise. Usually, the only way the school could get
students to attend extracurricular events, such as guest
speakers or professional symposiums, was to make them
required class assignments. Free pizza also worked well.
Otherwise, most of our students showed little interest in the
profession they were studying to enter.

No wonder I read the packed classroom as an encouraging

sign. Students today, I told myself, still craved adventure. I
would not disappoint.

Li Li took a seat in the back while I began my

presentation. For the students I had amped up the sound and
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the pictures. It seemed to hold their interest. As I spoke, they

pecked away furiously at their laptops.

After 15 minutes, I stopped, again breathless. I stepped

back, and glanced at Li Li. She flashed me a faint grin of
approval. “Any questions,” I asked.

My question was greeted with silence. I watched as

students squirmed in their seats and try to avoid my gaze.

“Well?” I pressed.

A lone hand rose limply in the back of the classroom.

“Yes?” I said, flashing the girl an encouraging smile.

“Silk Road...isn't that, like, the same name as the kebab

stand in the Mall food court?”

“Ooh,” another girl winced aloud. “I heard that place

serves goat.”

“People, people,” I cried, disrupting the conversation

between the two girls. I rarely lose my temper, but I lost it
now. “Why are you even here?” I exclaimed.

“Have to, man, it's an assignment,” grumped a boy. “We

have to write a story about your presentation.”

I watched as the rest of the students either grumbled or

nodded in agreement.

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 My expression must have shown my disappointment

because a kind-faced girl offered, “Seriously, dude, you did
make it sound, like, totally awesome.”

“Thanks,” I said, walking up to the girl. “Would you go?”

The girl scrunched up her nose as if I'd asked her to try

chicken feet.

I stepped back from the girl, not in defeat, mind you, but
to regroup. How to reach these students? I wracked my brain
and, coming up blank, looked out to Li Li for inspiration. She
said nothing but simultaneously held up her phone and a
dollar bill. Of course!

“Imagine,” I began, “if you could buy anything — shoes,

video games, even a slice of pizza — just by using your
phone.”

All eyes were on me now.

“Yes indeed,” I continued. “Chinese banks load digital

money right onto your phone, which you can use to buy
things in a store or online. No need for cash or a credit card.”

“Yeah, right!” a boy in the back scoffed aloud.

I recognized him from my intermediate writing class. His

name was Trevor, and he had been born and raised in the
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 Mississippi of the North. He still lived at home, driving to

school every day, even though the campus was within an easy
walk from his parents’ house.

“Oh, it’s true all right,” I said. “Just ask Li Li.”

All eyes turned to her, and she nodded that it was indeed
true.

“Oh yeah,” Trevor challenged, “where do you find this

digital money?”

“Well, Beijing, for starters.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s the capital of China and where we will go first on my

trip.” I was beginning to think I had at last piqued the
interest of our students. I pressed on, this time more
provocatively. “Not only are Chinese cities such as Beijing and
Shanghai more modern, featuring everything from digital
money to pristine, soundless subways. They also are more
than twice the size of our largest city. In comparison, where
we live is a cow town compared to a place like Beijing.”

“No way,” guffawed Trevor. “Everyone knows this is no

‘cow town.’ It’s the best place in the world.”

“Everyone?” I pressed.

The class murmured in agreement with Trevor.

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 “How do you know everyone thinks here is best?”

“What do you mean?” said Trevor, showing growing

impatience.

“I mean, based on what evidence?”

“Evidence?”

“Yes, evidence,” I continued. “For example, have you ever

been anywhere else?”

“Sure — my Nana’s in Weehauken, and it’s definitely a

dump compared to here.”

A chuckle rippled through the class.

“Ah, but have you ever lived or worked anywhere else?”

Trevor smirked as if to say, “why would I ever do

something like that?”

“Don’t you think that Angelenos, Bostonian's and

Chicagoans all think their city is the best in the world?”

“How would I know?” Trevor spat back at me.

“Exactly!” I said.

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 With a triumphant grin, my gaze swept the students

seated in front of me. Surely my tit-for-tat with Trevor had
provoked some curiosity about the trip. But, as my students
would say, “Not!” Instead, I found the students had returned
to either staring into their computer screens or studying the
chipped linoleum of the classroom floor.

My student presentation left me unnerved. The fire of my

enthusiasm had barely melted the block of ice that was
student resistance to adventure. Could the Travel Czar and
his privy council be right after all?

Li Li insisted not. And then she gave me a great idea. Why

not identify those students most likely to be interested in my
trip? Surely, there had to be 10 to 15 within our school of
two hundred some odd students. Find these students and
lobby them personally. It was an idea that would have
warmed the heart of any legislative whip.

It took a bit of work, grilling my colleagues and the

Einstein, but eventually we identified about 20 or so students
who looked most likely to be interested in A Classroom
Without Walls. Li Li and I worked them hard, cornering them
in cafeterias and bathrooms. We bought coffee and lunch. By
the study abroad application deadline, 15 students had
registered online for my trip.

“We did it!” I announced, barging into the Travel Czar’s

office. He soon disabused me of any sense of early victory.
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 The Travel Czar explained that the initial online registration

meant little. The first real hurdle would come when students
were required to pony up a nonrefundable $200 deposit.
That qualified them to attend a required orientation meeting.
And, even if they did attend that orientation, some students
would still drop out.

“Even after paying $200?” I scoffed.

“You can count on it,” said the Travel Czar, barely hiding
his glee. “So, you see, your trip is anything but a done deal.”

I paced back and forth, rubbing my hands together, as Li

Li and I awaited for students to attend our orientation. The
Travel Czar had assigned us to a room so obscure that Li Li
and I could barely find it. The place reminded me of my fifth
grade classroom, with its tight rows of dusty, rusting metal
desks. I wondered when it had last been used.

The Travel Czar popped his head into the classroom,

smiling at the rows of empty desks. I thought he was going to
tell us to keep up the good work.

I heard the faint squeak of sneakers on linoleum and the

Travel Czar turned to look down the hallway. His smile
descended into a frown. A head-full of wild springy black
curls appeared in the doorway next to the Travel Czar. “Is
this the orientation for the Silk Road trip?” asked a girl with
the complexion of milk chocolate.
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 “Poppy!” I rushed up to greet her. “Come in.” I turned to

smirk at the Travel Czar, but he had vanished as quickly as he
had appeared.

I beamed at our first catch. Poppy Slocum represented

everything I had tried to achieve in my recruiting strategy.
Thoughtful, curious and hardworking, she was the editor of
the campus’s digital alternative newspaper, The Indie.

As I had hoped, Poppy brought along two of her friends,

both of whom worked at the Indie. The first was Lulu LaRue,
who teetered in on her tiny sandaled feet. She was an
aspiring writer who hated to read. Nothing novel there, I had
learned as a professor. Still, Lulu had shown good potential,
as long as I continually threatened to fail her if she didn’t
perform. She was like a racehorse who wouldn’t leave the
starting gate without a swift kick in the rear.

Behind her came a chubby Chinese American boy with a

warm, quizzical smile whom most girls couldn't resist giving
a big hug. No wonder his friends had dubbed him “The
Panda.” He wore big round black glasses that gave him a
fuzzy gaze that hid a keen eye. His photos for the Indie were
renowned in the journalism school.

Next to show up was another kid on my list, although you

might wonder why at first glance. And I’m not just talking
about his attire, which consisted of the green and white silk
shorts and jersey of the Boston Celtics. Why a New York boy
would wear the uniform of a Boston team was a mystery to
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me. Especially given the rivalry between the two cities. But
even a bigger mystery was that Julio wore this outfit even in
the coldest months of winter. Which was odder still, given
that he was born in sunny Puerto Rico.

His name was Julio, and he was one of the many denizens
who inhabited the back rows of my classroom. Although a
lanky six foot five, Julio would sink so low down in his seat
that I couldn’t see the top of his head above the other
students. He never spoke unless called on, which was rare.
Yet he aced every one of my challenging news quizzes when
Cs were the average class grade.

I sensed that Julio was a diamond in the rough, and I

badgered him about coming to China with me. He never said
no; but nor had he said yes. Now here he was.

While I was happy with my catch of students so far, it

wasn’t enough to make the trip. Li Li and I nervously eyed
the door. We didn’t have to wait long before the next group of
students arrived. They were a surprise.

These were students who I had purposely not recruited.

Take Femi, whom I called Pajama Girl. Not once had she been
able to make my 8:30 morning class on time. And she always
arrived clad in a threadbare tee shirt, plaid pajama bottoms
and fuzzy pink bunny slippers. I made a point of never
looking directly at Femi, for fear I might inadvertently glance
at the bare nipples poking through her tee shirt. Such are the
perils of teaching today.

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 Femi never traveled alone and today was no different. At

her side were Angelica and Sissy. A gangly girl with auburn
hair and a long face, Angelica towered over her two friends.
She favored short, tight denim skirts and wore flip-flops most
of the year. Each of her toenails were painted a different
bright color, as if a bag of M&Ms were her artistic inspiration.

Angelica and I didn’t get off to a good start. Early in the

semester, I had to confront her. “Why does this assignment
read like Lulu’s?” I challenged Angelica, waving her
assignment in my hand.

“Duh,” Angelica replied. “Because, like, I copied it.”

“You know you are not supposed to that?”

Angelica shrugged her long arms. “What's the big deal?

That's what I was going to say, anyway.” Angelica never
turned in another written assignment after this confrontation.

Sissy, on the other hand, had turned in every assignment,

each rich in novel misspellings, misunderstandings and
syntactical snafus. In one assignment, she wrote, “Alyssa was
half French, half German and half Italian.” Another gem:
“The streets were littered with homeless hands.” And my all-
time favorite: “Raised in Antigua, Joseph experienced the
effects of growing up in a well-endowed family.”

You can see why I often turned to Sissy’s work for comic
relief.

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 Unlike Angelica or Femi, who were both pale and dark-

haired, Sissy was a strawberry blonde with the complexion of
a ripe peach. And, although as small and wiry as a mountain
goat, Sissy could be as graceful as a gazelle. Many times I had
seen her bound effortlessly up the five flights of stairs to my
classroom. You can see why I thought of her as my Artemis.

While each of these three girls were so different from each

other, they still were three peas in a pod. In class, Pajama
Girl, Angelica and Sissy all sat together in the back row,
where they spent most of the class giggling among
themselves. I had come to call them my Greek Chorus. Here,
too, they now sat together in the back row.

The last to straggle in was Tink Winkler, a boy I decidedly

didn’t want. While stroking his thin goatee, he liked to shout
at you his ill-informed and unsolicited opinions about rock
music and movies. Luckily in class, with his long bangs
covering his eyes like a blind, he usually fell asleep, often
while sitting upfront. Now Tink sat down next to Poppy and
immediately began lecturing her why Metallica was
undisputedly the best band. Ever.

Now, it was true that, to Metallica fans, it was indeed the

number one band of all time. But to most music buffs it was,
at best, the best Heavy Metal band. Metallica was typical of
Tink’s pronouncements. There was usually a grain of truth to
them. Which, to me, at least, is what made him so
maddening.

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 I studied the students before me with a furrowed brow.

They represented a vexing dilemma. On the one hand, the
Travel Czar had told me it was my call whom to accept. On
the other hand, I couldn't afford to reject a single student at
this point. I was still three shy of the minimum the Travel
Czar had told me I needed.

I shot Li Li a worried glance. She shrugged and said, “You

make hot pot with the ingredients you have.”

“I guess,” I mumbled.

Li Li punched me in the arm. “Start presentation…others

come later. You know how students are.”

That very well could be true, I told myself, and began

explaining the trip and the rules that would govern it. Tink
immediately fell asleep. Poppy winked at me in appreciation.

When I explained that drinking was prohibited on all

study abroad trips, I heard Pajama Girl whisper to Sissy,
“That’s not what I heard.” The Greek Chorus giggled in
unison.

Pajama Girl stop giggling when I added that flip-flops and

slippers could only be worn inside a hotel and that everyone
had to bring shoes good enough for a hard day’s hike. “You
mean, like, walking?” Angelica asked.

“Yes...for hours,” I answered.

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 “Seriously, awesome, dude!” said Sissy, but Angelica

grimaced. “But…but,” she stammered, “like, you said we’d be
on a bus.”

“True, but only between big stops.”

“That’s like seriously annoying,” grumped Pajama Girl.

I gazed around the room. “Any more questions?”

There was a long, awkward pause, through which I

expected the Greek Chorus to stomp out of the room, taking
the prospects of my trip with them. Luckily, all three stayed,
although they frowned in unison at me.

Lulu raised her hand. “Will we have time to buy gifts?”

“Of course,” I assured her. “But don’t bring more than

$200.”

“Two hundred dollars?” scoffed Angelica.

“Trust me, that will be plenty. It will be cheap once we are

on the ground in China. Any other questions?”

I turned to face Li Li, who had stood quietly by my side.

“Let me, then, introduce my partner. Consider her word as
my own. What she says goes.” I smiled at Li Li. “Anything to
add?”

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 Li Li stepped forward and said with a big smile, “Da jia

hao.” Then she walked over to Angelica and shook her head,
clucking.

“Oh my god, I knew it,” said Angelica, casting Pajama Girl

a dirty look, “the shorts clash with my blouse, right?”

“Color fine, but you can't wear that in China,” Li Li said,

pointing a finger at Angelica’s sleeveless tank top.

“Wait...what?”

Next Li Li turned her disapproving gaze onto Pajama Girl.

“Ai ya! Can see through.”

“You sound like my mother,” Pajama Girl snorted.

“Mother let you come to school like this?” Li Li said, with

an arched eyebrow.

I, too, arched an eyebrow but not at Pajama Girl. I had

seen plenty of young girls in China who wore tank tops and
short shorts. Besides, there was no university dress code
dictating what students could or could not wear on campus
— or overseas. They could come to class wearing their
underwear on their heads, for all the university cared. And
I’m sure, given what I’d seen, some students had done just
that.

Why was I starting to feel that the students weren't going

to be my only challenge in China? I had to stop Li Li before
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 she chased away any of the few students we had. “Okay,” I

said, clapping my hands together and moving to stand in
front of Li Li. “En,” Li Li grumped, “not done yet.” I ignored
her and asked the students, “Any other questions for Li Li?”
Before anyone could answer I said, “Good!”

Things, of course, were not good. We were still two shy of

the minimum number of students necessary for my trip to
make.

Gently swiveling back and forth in my wobbly office chair,

hands behind my head, I pondered the Travel Czar’s sudden
and unexpected change of heart. I had dreaded going to see
him after our poor showing at orientation. With eight
students signed up so far, I was still two shy of the minimum.
I feared he would kill our trip. My plan was to beg for an
extension, promising I could drum up a few more students if
given a little more time. This was a long shot, I know, given
the Travel Czar’s expressed reservations about my trip.

Turned out I had read him all wrong. Not only did he
waive the minimum requirement and gave us permission to
go; he told me I hadn't done bad for a first try. He might,
even, be able to send a student or two our way. Why this
sudden magnanimity?

My thoughts turned next to the cohort I had managed to

scare up. They reminded me of the immortal words of former
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who once said: You
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go to war with the army you have; not the one you dream of
having. Or something to that effect.

I, too, would do the same. Although I hoped to fare better

than he had in managing the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
It was true that this group didn't represent my dream
team. Indeed, I questioned whether it was wise to cross the
rugged western half of China with a girl who favored fuzzy
pink slippers over shoes.

I’ll say this for Pajama Girl and the others. All now talked
excitedly about the trip. Better yet, all had paid up in full.
Few other trips could make that claim.

And then there was this to consider. Eight students might

not seem like a lot, especially when compared to the 100 or
so who went every summer to Rome. But it might be just the
right number for Li Li and I. We were, after all, making our
maiden voyage as study abroad directors. If this first trip
went well, we might have much better luck in recruiting a
larger, more stellar cohort next year.

Yes, believe it or not, things were looking up. My gaze

drifted out my office door, which I usually left open. It helped
ease the cage-like ambiance of my windowless concrete cell
block of an office. Today that may have been a mistake.

The Einstein strode into my office and sat down in a chair

on the other side of my desk where Li Li usually sat. He
crossed his long legs and asked, “May I come in?” Before I

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 could answer he announced, smacking the palms of his hands

together, “Great news.”

Again? I flinched.

“I’ve found another student for your trip.”

“Oh really,” I said and reached into my desk to pull out a

folder of applications. “Did this student apply; what’s the
name?” I figured I must have overlooked someone and this
student had missed — or skipped — orientation. That
wouldn’t have surprised me. Students skipped class and
scheduled conferences all the time.

“You won’t find him in there,” said The Einstein, nodding

at the folder opened on my desk.

“Why's that?”

“He didn’t apply.”

“Oh, no?” I said, feeling my stomach beginning to knot.

“What’s his name?”

“You don’t know him,” said The Einstein, waving off the
question as if it were immaterial. “He doesn't go to school
here.”

“Wait...what? Didn’t you say I could only take our

journalism majors?”

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 The Einstein ignored the question.

The knot in my stomach tightened. I remembered what

the Travel Czar had said. It was my decision whom to accept.
And, after all, my trip had already been approved. “Listen,
thanks for the offer, but I don’t need another student.”

“I thought you needed two more.”

How would The Einstein known that? I certainly hadn't

told him. “Look,” I countered. “We’re okay with eight. We’ve
already gotten approval to go. Maybe next year.”

“Take him anyway.”

Before I could object, The Einstein stood up and strode out

of my office.

I considered it a personal victory that Li Li had come to

love peanut butter. She had turned her nose up at most of the
western foods I had introduced her to, including Basmati
rice. She sniffed once at the plate of it I had ordered for her,
and then declared the stuff looked like lice.

Now, we sat across from each other in my office enjoying a

private lunch together. Me, with my yogurt and dried nuts; Li
Li with a jar of Trader Joe’s all natural peanut butter and
sticks of pickled white radish. She dipped a stick deep into a

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jar. “Hao chi,” she purred, as she crunched down on a radish

stick slathered in peanut butter. That’s Chinese for “yummy.”

Was Li Li’s pickled radish and peanut butter what

Driftwood administrators meant when they talked about
cross global fertilization?

Our lunch wasn’t purely social. We were pondering the

meaning of the intelligence Li Li and I had gathered on the
mysterious new addition to our trip. Here’s what we had
learned. The student was a 19-year-old boy named Enzo.

The Einstein was right. Enzo wasn't one of our students.

He attended a small private college in Los Angeles that
specialized in students who couldn’t get into one of the top
20 private colleges, but whose parents still wanted to pay
$70,000 a year in tuition.

Enzo was the child of divorce and bounced back and forth
between a mother in Los Angeles, who housed him during
the school year, and a father in New York. He was supposed
to take Enzo during the summer. But this father often spent
his summers overseas, and he had come to dread taking his
son with him. At the same time, he didn’t dare leave him
alone at home. Yet the mother refused to keep Enzo during
the summer. Apparently, she needed a break from him.

None of this was reassuring, but it wasn't the most

troubling thing we had discovered. That would be this: Enzo
was the son of the Travel Czar. Which, of course, raised more
questions than it answered.
Page 120

 “Do you think Enzo wants to come on our trip?” I mused

aloud.

Li Li loudly crunched down on a radish. “Make him want

to come,” she said decisively.

If only it was that easy.

Page 121

 BOOK TWO

⼭⾼皇帝远

(THE MOUNTAINS ARE HIGH AND THE

EMPEROR IS FAR AWAY)

Page 122



 CHAPTER 7
AIR STINKO

My working-class students could not afford to fly on such

luxury carriers as KLM or Cathay Pacific. So, I booked us on a
state run carrier the Chinese affectionately call “Pi Ren,” or
“Fart People” airline. “Fart People” is what everyday Chinese
people call themselves. It means those who are neither the
scions of communist revolutionaries, party members,
government functionaries nor rich. In short, people who have
to make their way in China without any advantage.

True to its street name and to keep its fares low, Pi Ren
offered neither free internet service, Hollywood movies, fancy
three-course meals nor liquor. What it did offer, I would soon
learn, was an authentic replica of everyday life for most
urban Chinese. Who needs Hollywood movies and a glass of
wine when you can experience the congestion, rumble and
stink of modern China — even before you land there!

Would my students share my enthusiasm? They now

loitered about in front of the gate of our flight, scheduled to
leave at 1 pm on this Saturday afternoon in mid-July. Poppy
stood, twisting a springy curl around a finger while looking
up at an overhead monitor, which spewed an endless stream
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of data. She studied the flow of destinations, times and

weather as if it might reveal the mysteries awaiting her on
the trip ahead. The Greek Chorus shared a whipped cream
topped Frappuccino, the size of which could feed a small
village in China. Tink slumped low in a seat, his head bowed
low as he softly snored.

Luckily, I came armed to excite my students about our

upcoming trip. Li Li and I each carried a bagful of books and
magazine articles. “Here,” I said, thrusting Jonathan Spence’s
thick history of imperial China at Poppy. “You might find this
interesting.” Poppy hungrily snatch the tome.

“Hey, I want one too,” whined Lulu, eying Poppy as she

cracked open her book. Good, I thought. My evil plan was
working. I planned to pair these two girls together, hoping
Poppy would be a good influence on Lulu.

Next, I approached the Greek Chorus. “Don’t you think it

might be a good idea to read up on the place we’re going to
be visiting?” I said, thrusting a book at Pajama Girl. She
wrinkled up her nose and said, “Oh, gross.” I believe she
spoke for most of the others, all of whom spurned my offer of
reading material.

While disappointed, I let it go. Ahead Li Li and I espied

one of our students who might be in trouble. He looked like a
most un-jolly green giant. In his green and white silk jersey
and shorts, Julio’s head towered over a gaggle of Chinese
children who surrounded him. They pointed at Julio and
buzzed. A couple of them fingered his satin shorts. Julio’s
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 massive paw tried unsuccessfully to swat away the little

probing fingers.

“Why the fascination with Julio?” I asked Li Li.

“Think he’s an American basketball star.”

Reasonable assumption, I thought, but said, “Chinese care

about American basketball?”

Li Li nodded. “Very popular.” She waded into the throng of

gawking children and dispersed them with a few sharp
comments in Chinese. Next time, it wouldn’t be so easy to
disperse Julio’s adoring fan club.

On board, I noticed that my group was the only

Westerners. Maybe that’s why there were no English
translations of anything, whether the announcements or the
scratchy video that played on tiny monitors crammed into a
high right corner in every section of the cabin.

Our flight was crawling with more children than a rainy

Saturday afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese. Before long the cabin
air became increasingly thick and irritating. Just like Beijing!
I tracked the stench back to the cabin's rear bathrooms, the
smell of which reminded me of the latrines at my Boy Scout
summer camp. But, unlike at the Boy Scout latrines, this
smell was tenacious — and nomadic. It followed me back to

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 my mid-cabin aisle seat like an annoying acquaintance who

wants to befriend you.

None of this seemed to bother my students, to their credit.

“It’s dorm life,” said Pajama Girl, with a shrug. “Better, even.”
She wore the same pajama outfit now that she did in class.
Kicking off her flip-flops, she nestled her small frame into the
cramped seat.

“I hope you brought some sneakers,” I sniped at her.

“Jeez, can you chill?”

The Chinese passengers were very chill. They had come

well-prepared for any hardship. They carried onboard
handheld video players, which were loaded up with TV
shows and movies, including pirated copies of films that had
just been released in American theaters. The Chinese
passengers had also loaded up their carry on backpacks with
home cooked dumplings, pickled vegetables, white rice and
chicken feet. All which made me worry about the quality and
safety of Pi Ren’s food offering. If the Chinese wouldn’t eat it,
should we?

Li Li and I sat together in a window seat in the middle of

the cabin. Once airborne, we got up to check on our students.
We were also on the hunt for the mysterious Enzo. He had
failed to meet us at the airport cafeteria as the other students
had successfully done as instructed. Nor had he been at the
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gate, at least while we boarded. Had he even made the

flight?

I had to admit, part of me hoped that he was one of those

students who paid full fare and then failed to show. That
would be the best of both worlds: We wouldn’t have to deal
with a potentially troublesome student and his failure to
show would subsidize the trip’s cost for the other students.

We found our students scattered about the cabin like loose

marbles. The first one we spotted was Poppy, who sat in an
aisle seat with her face buried in Spence’s book. Lulu sat next
to her, but she stared out the window and thumbed through
the pages of the book on her lap.

Next we came upon the Greek Chorus. Sissy and Angelica

had joined Pajama Girl. Now all three of them were enfolded
into one another — heads on laps, arms draped across legs —
like a bunch of napping kittens.

Ahead I heard the authoritative boom of Tink’s voice. He

waved his hands as he spoke to his seat-mate, The Panda.
Now, if Tink’s hectoring bothered him, The Panda didn’t show
it. Through his thick round glasses, The Panda inspected a
Nikon camera. He turned it round and round in his pudgy
hands as if a jeweler inspecting a diamond for flaws. His
studied imperviousness drove Tink to shout ever louder. He
might as well have been shouting at a stone.

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 We’d located everyone, except the elusive and mysterious

Enzo. I was sure now he had missed our flight. Dare I hope
he wasn’t coming after all?

Li Li tugged on my sleeve and nodded toward a silky head

of black hair, with a streak of orange. It dangled limply into
the aisle from a seat about halfway down the cabin. The boy,
who looked to be about 19 or so, slouched low in his seat.
His raccoon eyes stared glassy-eyed down the aisle at nothing
in particular. He wore matching faded black jeans and tee
shirt, which hung loosely off his scrawny frame. All in all, the
boy looked like a malnourished, sun starved Steve Jobs.

“Enzo,” Li Li announced decisively.

“You think?” I said, studying the slouched, glassy-eyed

figure who looked in my direction if not at me.

Li Li nodded affirmatively.

“What the hell. Why didn’t he come and introduce

himself?”

“Maybe scared.”

“He doesn’t look scared; he looks bored to tears.” Could

Enzo feel my gaze boring into his noggin? Apparently so, for
he turned to focus his glassy-eyed gaze right at Li Li and I.
But he looked right through us and then turned away.
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 “That’s it,” I huffed, standing up. “I’m going over there and
introduce myself.” Li Li tugged on my arm and scolded, “Be
nice.” I grunted a reply and marched over to the boy.

“Enzo Forenza?” I asked the limp head dangling down at

my knees.

“Yeah?” He mumbled without looking up at me.

I extended a hand down toward the slouched figure. “I’m

Professor B.”

Enzo glanced up at me for a moment and then went back

to staring down the aisle.

“Don’t you think,” I mused aloud, “it would have been a

good idea to introduce yourself to me at the airport?”

Enzo shrugged. “Whatever, man.”

I could feel my face turning red. But before I could

explode, I felt a tug on my elbow. I turned to see Li Li, who
whispered in my ear, “You found. Now sit.”

“Can you believe that?” I fumed, once back in my seat.

“Now I understand why the father didn’t want to take him to
Rome.”

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 Shaking her head “tsk, tsk,” Li Li said, “I know why mad.

Because he...how do you say it again?...he crashed onto your
party.”

“Crashed the party — and that’s not why. He’s rude and
insolent.”

“Uh huh.”

“Did you see how he treated me?”

“Saw boy who is lost and afraid.”

“What’s he got to be afraid of?”

“Plenty. He doesn’t know us, our school or our students.

And our students don’t know him — or even that he’s on the
trip.”

Nodding toward Enzo, I quipped, “He doesn’t strike me as

the shy type.”

“Now, now,” Li Li scolded. “Remember what always say.”

“What’s that?” I grumbled.

“Assess, not judge. Work first to understand; then work to

be understood.”

“Did I say that?”

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 Of course, we both knew I had indeed said these things.

Many times to many people. Clever girl. I quieted down. I
had learned better than to argue with Li Li when she was
using my words against me.

We both sat quiet for a bit and then Li Li spoke again, with
determination. “Have to give Enzo chance, make him feel
welcomed. We have to win him over.”

“Win him over?” I nearly shouted. “Shouldn’t it be the

other way around?”

Li Li eyed me like a naughty child and just shook her head

disapprovingly. “Should be thankful for Enzo.”

“Thankful?!”

Li Li nodded. “Without him no trip.”

While irritating, Enzo was not my biggest concern. What

worried me most, as our flight crossed the Arctic ice cap, was
the unanswered question of who would serve as our guide
across Western China.

I’m sure Li Li could book the 1,000-mile train ride from

Beijing to Xi’an, which would be our jumping off point. And
maybe, once in Xi’an, she could even negotiate to hire a
private bus and driver to take us down the route of the old

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Silk Road. But she knew only her hometown of Tian Shui,
which was but one stop on our trip west.

No, I needed a person who could navigate a 1,500 mile

route that crossed tiered, hillside rice patties, desert and
jagged mountains. It was a place largely populated with
villages and small cities. In these places, what constituted hi
tech was a bicycle jerry-rigged with a hand-built engine
running on home-brewed fuel. Few people spoke English
here, let alone Mandarin.

Our guide would have to be more than just a Chinese

Daniel Boone. He would also have to be able to explain the
history, landscape and people we were encountering. And
this guide would have to do so for a tough audience. It was a
group that drew its sustenance from cold pizza, cigarettes
and Frappuccinos. KFC was considered a delicacy. These were
a people who were loath to walk five minutes on flat ground,
let alone climb The Great Wall. I doubt Dale Carnegie himself
could have persuaded them to take a dump by squatting over
a hole in the ground.

I'm talking, of course, about my students.

In my quest to find a suitable guide, Xi Dada hadn’t been

much help, either. I batted away one of his suggestions after
another. No, I didn't want a bookish academic who had
traveled no farther than the university library. Nor did I want
a party functionary, who would surely offer a sanitized
version of the Silk Road's history that gloried China's role.

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 “Go,” Li Li said, her slender arms pushing me up and out

of my seat. “Walk...ease mind.” I guess my fidgeting had
awakened Li Li from her own restless sleep. “I have to use the
bathroom, anyway,” I said, standing up.

I made my way to the bathroom cubbies at the back of the

plane. All three of them were occupied. No matter. I decided
to stretch while I waited. Standing on my tiptoes, I extended
both arms high overhead. Damn that felt good, I thought, as
my back cracked.

I heard a slow creak and turned to eye the bathroom door

directly in front of me. A head poked out as if to check
whether the coast was clear. I knew that head. “Angelica?”

With a start, Angelica glanced up at me and then

immediately popped her head back inside the bathroom.

I softly rapped on the door. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure. No problem,” came the muffled reply.

Suddenly, the bathroom door flew open and Angelica

rushed out past me. Still, I couldn’t help notice that she had
tucked something under an arm. I could just make out that it
was a thick, battered paperback titled, “The Golden
Compass.” Damn, I knew that book and knew it well. It was
the first volume in a dark trilogy for young adult readers. I’d
read it myself — twice!
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 My gaze followed Angelica back to her seat. She stood for

a moment, gazing down at her still slumbering seat mates.
With a sigh of relief, Angelica sat back down. Then she
shoved the well thumbed Golden Compass into the knapsack
at her feet and kicked it under the seat in front of her.

“Angelica, of all people, a book lover,” I chortled to myself.

For that she must be, if she were reading something like “The
Golden Compass,” a 400-page tome of great depth and
sophistication. I doubt most of my students would — or could
— read it, although most had seen the movie based on the
book.

“Things are getting curiouser and curiouser,” I mumbled to

myself, paraphrasing the White Rabbit in Alice in
Wonderland. On the one hand, I had Lulu who dreamed of
becoming a writer but who refused to read. On the other, I
had Angelica who loved to read but appeared to hate writing.
My students were turning out to be a lot more interesting
than they were back in class. Indeed, I was beginning to
wonder if I really knew any of them at all.

Now that I was up and about, I was enjoying it. I cast

about to see if there was anything else I could do. Ahead I
saw a kitchenette in the middle of the cabin. It held a free,
self-serve buffet offering what looked like rubbery dumplings
and wedges of white bread sandwiches. There were also
several tall plastic thermoses and paper cups.
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 Better yet, I saw Julio, Lulu and Sissy milling about the
kitchenette. They looked exhausted yet uncertain about what
to do. I wandered over. “I thought you were sleeping?” I said
to Sissy.

“As if,” Sissy grumbled, her peach colored face almost pale
for the first time. “I tried, but Angelica kept kicking me. I
wish I was like her,” she said, nodding at Pajama Girl. She
laid curled up in her seat like a cat.

“Yeah,” added Julio. “That girl can sleep anytime,

anywhere. If there’s nothing happening she just powers
down.”

“That’s indeed a wonderful skill to have,” I agreed.

I grabbed a paper cup and poured myself some tea from

one of the thermoses.

“What’s that?” asked Lulu, peering into my cup.

“Hmm,” I said, taking a sip. “Jasmine tea.”

“Doesn’t look like tea,” said Lulu.

“Why, because it’s not black?”

“Like, yeah,” she said with emphasis.

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 I chuckled. “The Chinese rarely drink black tea,” I

explained. “They drink some form of green tea or teas
brewed from other plants, such as this.” I offered my cup to
Lulu. “Go on,” I said encouragingly. “Try it.”

Lulu wrinkled up her nose.

“Come on...anyone ?” I said.

The three students just stared at me. Finally, Julio

extended one of his big paws. He took the cup, slightly
crumpling it in his hand, and slugged the tea down in one
gulp like it was a shot of whiskey. His eyes watered. “There’s
no sugar,” he grimaced. “It tastes, like...leaves.”

“Ooh,” Sissy and Lulu said in unison.

“Yes,” I said, “The Chinese like all kinds of tastes besides

sweet and salty.”

“Even leaves?” said Lulu.

“Well, yes, leaves,” I said, nodding at the thermos. “Also

bitter melon and jelly fish.”

“Don’t they eat real food?” asked Sissy.

“What do you mean by real food?”

“You know, like bagels, hamburgers, donuts, pizza,

Frappuccinos. Stuff like that.”
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 “A bag of Cheese Doritos sounds real good right now,”

sighed Julio. “I’m starved.”

I nodded toward a big plastic plate on the counter, which

was stacked high with white bread wedges shorn of their
crusts. “There’s plenty of food.”

No one reached for a sandwich.

“Oh come on,” I cajoled. “You have your whole life to eat
Doritos and pizza. Try something new and different. That’s
why we are on this trip, right?” I grabbed a sandwich to
break the ice and examined it closely. It appeared to be
smeared inside with some indeterminate paste the color of
yellowing paper.

“How bad can it be?” I said hopefully and took a bite.

Apparently pretty bad, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I tried to
force a smile. No one was fooled.

“So,” asked Lulu, “what’s it like?”

As I stammered, trying to find an encouraging way to

respond, someone from behind me answered. “Like Cheez
Whiz flavored Elmer’s Glue.”

The girls immediately burst into giggles. I turned around

to see a slouched figure with a smirking face. It was Enzo,
and he stood facing us with his hands stuffed into the front
pockets of his black jeans.
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 I had to admit. Enzo’s assessment of the sandwich was

spot on. So, he was no dummy. I also sensed that he had put
much thought into his slovenly wardrobe. It was carefully
designed to prompt outrage. The bold white lettering on his
black tee shirt read, “Fuck Whitey.”

For the moment, I said nothing about the tee shirt. I

would leave that to Li Li, whom I was sure would have plenty
to say. How accepting of Enzo would she be now? Not very, I
would gamble. “Everyone, meet Enzo,” I said. “He’ll be
joining us on our trip.”

Lulu and Sissy, to my surprise, exploded with questions.

Did Enzo go to Driftwood, where did he get such an
interesting name; was he even American?

Enzo didn’t answer. At least not verbally. Instead, he

withdrew a hand from his pocket. It held a fistful of Hersey’s
Kisses. “Gee, thanks,” said Lulu, who lunged hungrily for one
of the Kisses. I didn’t care for the way she eyed Enzo as she
sucked on her candy.

“I’ve got plenty of real food,” Enzo said. “Jawbreaker’s,

popcorn, Doritos. You name it.” He led the students back to
his seat, leaving me standing alone with a mouth that felt
glued shut with Cheez Wiz.

Page 138

 CHAPTER 8
THAT’S NOT CHICKEN

“What's that?!"

Lulu pointed at something on a silver platter in the middle

of a round table. It looked like a small scrawny boy whose
head had been painfully crooked backward and then his body
stripped naked and tanned to a crisp.

"You're kidding, right?" I said with a chuckle.

Lulu's scowl suggested she was not. She planted her tiny,
bird-like feet firmly on the door jamb of the banquet room.
The other students crowded behind her in the narrow
hallway. They tried to peer around Lulu and into the room.
Although small, it was packed with round tables draped with
white table clothes speckled with cigarette burns and tea
stains. This private dining room on Tsinghua’s campus was to
be the setting for a welcoming banquet Xi Dada had planned
for me and my students.

Except, right now, my students felt more put off than

welcomed.

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 "It's a chicken," I reassured Lulu.

"No way," she scoffed, staring at the roasted creature's

gnarled feet. The other students behind her murmured in
agreement.

From Lulu's perspective, I suppose, she was right. As a

working-class kid from the Mississippi of the North, where
Red Lobster represented haute cuisine, she knew chicken as
something deep-fried that came in the shape of breaded
sticks or nuggets. It definitely didn't have a head or feet.

"I bet it's a stray dog," Tink mused aloud in his infinite un-
wisdom.

"What?!," I turned to give him a dirty look.

"Yeah," said Tink, studying the roasted chicken. "I'm sure

of it. Everyone knows the Chinese love to eat dog."

As usual, there was a grain of truth in Tink’s assertion.

Poor Chinese, especially those in the southwest corner of the
country, did indeed eat dog. It was abundant and cheap. But
the dogs they ate were farm raised dogs, not pets nor strays.
In the big cities such as Beijing, no one ate dog. Not even the
poor.

“Ai ya?” said Li Li, who had been bringing up the rear of
our group, shooing along stragglers. “She now slipped
through the group to the door of the banquet room. “Zen me
le?”
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 I nodded toward the unfairly maligned chicken. “They

think it’s a dog.”

“No dog!” Li Li said authoritatively. “Chicken.”

“Do you think I would try and trick you into eating a
dog?” I asked Lulu. She shot me a look that said she would
expect no less from me. After all, I had tried to make her
drink leaves back on the plane.

Lulu’s resistance represented what was becoming a

troubling pattern. It had first become evident on the flight,
where my students refused to try any of the food on board. It
appeared they refused to try anything new or different. My
students were defiant about playing it safe.

Which, quite frankly, caught me off guard. I couldn’t have

been more different in college. My friends and I scorned all
that was familiar or safe. We hungered for what was new and
different. The more alien, risky — and dangerous — the
better. We had a downright hankering for adventure. Mine
was so bad that, at 17, I hitchhiked with a friend across
country with only ten bucks in my pocket.

Now, I couldn’t imagine any of my students — including

Poppy — hitchhiking down the street, let alone across
country. How then could I hope to coax them into trying
something like Chinese roast chicken, let alone pickled pigs
feet? Finding an answer to this question, I now saw, would be
my real quest on this trip.
Page 141

 One thing was for sure. The answer didn’t lay in ordering
my students to eat Chinese food or putting them down
because they wouldn’t. As Li Li said on the plane, I would
have to first stand in their shoes and see the world through
their eyes. Only then could I trick them into trying something
different.

This would take some serious thought, but it would have

to wait. A more serious problem pressed upon me.

“Ai ya!” a voice cried out from behind us. I turned to see Xi
Dada coming down the hall, leading an entourage of
students, faculty and administrators. “Why aren’t you in the
banquet room?” he grumbled, eying me and my students
suspiciously. Did he see that my students had been trying to
back away? If so, he never said. Instead, he barked, “Inside,
please.” Then Xi Dada and his entourage pushed all of us,
including Lulu, into the dining room.

As soon as he entered the banquet room, Xi Dada began

barking orders. His students deployed with the precision of a
squad of West Point cadets. They took my students in hand
and gently guided them to seats across the room. Li Li and I
found ourselves separated. I was seated beside Xi Dada at the
head table; Li Li at a table in the back of the room with my
students.

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 Li Li had explained to me that banquets, as with most

things Chinese, were governed by an elaborate ritual of
status. The farther away you were seated from the top figure
in a room, the lower your status — and your status was all
important in China. What, then, was Xi Dada trying to say by
seating Li Li so far away from me? I'll tell you what it felt
like. It felt like I had been stripped of my social armor.

I tried to remember what Li Li had taught me about the

etiquette of a banquet. The thing that I remembered best was
her warning against raising any of my worries or complaints
at tonight's opening reception. I was to keep the conversation
light and cordial. But this was also the one thing I was the
least able to do. Especially without Li Li at my side to restrain
me. Nor did it help that I was consumed with worry. In two
days, my group would embark on a 1,500 journey across The
Third World, and we were still without an acceptable guide.

I turned to Xi Dada and blurted, "Have you found a guide;

can I meet him?”

For a long moment, Xi Dada studied the face of the

massive gold Rolex on his right wrist. Shrugging, he said, "I
was going to tell you when we met in private tomorrow
morning."

“You found a guide?”

“I think you'll be most pleased.”

“Who is it; is he here tonight?” I stammered.

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 “Perhaps.”

My gaze swept the packed banquet room, searching for

whom this mysterious guide might be. No one seemed to fit
the bill, although I was unsure what my ideal guide might
look like. A cross between Daniel Boone and Lao Tzu, clad in
coonskin hat and the flowing robes of a Taoist scholar?

Suddenly, I sensed that I was the one who was being

watched. I turned around to see standing behind me a lanky
Asian man with a shiny, oval bald pate. Dressed in rumpled
tweed jacket, bow tie and black Nike shoes, he struck me as
the epitome of an “egghead.”

“Ah,” said Xi Dada, “Let me introduce you. This is Dr. Kim.

He is a world renowned expert on the struggle over the
Korean Peninsula.”

“Please,” Dr. Kim said, in a perfect Midwestern twang,

“you exaggerate my influence.” He turned to me and seized
my hand in both of his own. “Here is the real celebrity,” he
continued, giving me a handshake stronger than his slender
wrists suggested. “It's a pleasure to meet the journalist who
brought down TeleWorld.”

“It is?” I replied, startled. My expose of the financial

scandal at the former telecom giant, published on glossy
magazine paper before the rise of the Internet and digital
Page 144

 archives, had long since been forgotten by my fellow

professors and journalists. I'd forgotten about it, too — until
this moment. “How did you ever find those stories?”

Most of my journalism students couldn't find the correct

spelling of my full name — and that was with the Internet.
Now this Asian egghead in the tweed jacket had dredged up
something I had written thirty years ago. I didn't know
whether to be flattered or frightened.

Dr. Kim chuckled to himself, as if pleased at his ingenuity.

His smile seemed genuinely warm, but I couldn't help
wondering, “What else might he have dug up from my past?”
Then I realized I wasn’t asking myself the right question: Was
Dr. Kim Xi the latest candidate for our guide?

“Why is Dr. Kim here?” I turned to ask Xi Dada, but I got

no reply.

He now stood, facing out toward the other guests. One

hand, he held high a wine glass, which he tapped loudly with
a chopstick. The room fell silent.

The great Xi Dada was about to speak.

“Let me tell you a story,” said Xi Dada, whose gaze slowly

swept the room. “I was raised in a yurt on a high grassy
plain, where I learned to ride a horse bareback at the age of
two.”
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 Only Poppy, I suspected, knew what a yurt was, but the

image of a bareback riding two-year-old grabbed the
attention of my other students.

“My family,” Xi Dada continued, “lived off fermented yak

milk and roasted horse meat. We roamed thousands of miles
a year searching for fresh water and green grass for our
horses.”

“Yet,” Xi Dada continued, “here I am today, dining on fish

head soup, speaking to all of you as the dean of the great
Tsinghua University School of Journalism.”

All the Chinese in the room, whether student, professor or

administrator, murmured approvingly in unison, “hao de, hao
de.”

Xi Dada thrust a leathery tan hand out toward his

audience. “Look at my skin. Is this the color of a Han
Chinese?”

The Chinese students and professors shook their heads,

“no.”

“When a Westerner asks me where I am from, do I say ‘I’m

the child of a poor Mongolian herdsman?’” Xi Dada paused,
slowly surveying his audience. “No!” He thrust his wine glass
high. “I say I am Chinese. Whether we are Mongolian,
Tibetan or Han, we are all part of one Great Family!”

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 Tell that to the Tibetans, who confront armed Chinese

troops in their town squares, I thought to myself.

The Chinese in the audience did not share my skepticism.

They exploded in applause.

Still, hypocrisy aside, I had to hand it to Xi Dada. The man

knew how to work an audience.

Xi Dada's sweeping gaze came to rest on Lulu. “To our

western guests, I ask but this of you: As you cross Western
China, traversing mountain and desert, meeting herdsman
and villagers, Muslim and Buddhist. Don’t forget we are all
one people!”

Another thunderous round of applause erupted and this

time many stood up, including most of my students, although
I'm not sure they understood why they were standing.

I, too, reluctantly stood, although I couldn’t help

remembering Li Li sneering at me for speaking Chinese in a
Shanghai accent the first time we met. If the Chinese were
one big family, it was a dysfunctional one at best. More the
Connors than the Cleavers.

Among the handful who did not stand was a man seated
in the back of the room. Wiry, with graying stubble, he was
dressed in denim shirt and pants. He looked more like a
Sherpa than a professor or party member. Both of his hands
were clenched atop the table as if he'd rather be in the street
brawling than attending this banquet.
Page 147

 How had I missed this guy in my earlier survey of the

room; or had he come in after Xi Dada began speaking?

“Gan bei,” said Xi Dada. He banged the bottom of his wine

glass on the table and then drained it in one gulp. Xi Dada
turned to look down at me.

It was my turn to speak, but how could I match Xi Dada's

performance? As I slowly rose to my feet, I decided not to try.
“Wei women de you yi,” I proclaimed. “Gan bei.” That was
supposed to mean, “To lasting friendship between us.” But
given the faint smiles on the dignified faces around my table,
I suspect I had once again flubbed the Chinese pronunciation.

As if in confirmation, a snort sounded at the back of the

room. I looked out to see the man in the denim shirt smirking
at me.

My gaze drifted back to Dr. Kim, who smiled up at me

encouragingly. Was he to be our guide? I sure hoped so.
Rather him than that grizzled man in denim. He looked like
real trouble.

As soon as the applause faded, we were besieged. An

onslaught of waitresses, each bearing a large tray heavy with
porcelain platters of food, descended upon us. With ever
widening eyes, my students beheld large bowls swimming
with fish heads, brimming heaps of gooey jelly fish salad and
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plates of gnarled chicken feet. Much whining ensued. To my

students, our hosts were Chinese who didn't even know what
Chinese food was.

“Where’s the white rice,” I heard Tink complain. He

pointed at a serving bowl full of stir-fried dou miao or
soybean leaves. “What’s this? It looks like weeds.”

I did have one student who didn’t complain. Poppy dipped

her chopsticks into the dou miao and took a bite. “Hmm,” she
said with a smile. “Tastes like my grandmother’s collards.”
Next she plucked up a chicken foot and happily gnawed
away. It, too, reminded her of the food she had grown up on.

Who knew, I chuckled to myself, that Black American and

Chinese cuisines were kissing cousins? I suspect it was
because both people were dirt poor for most of their
histories. If you could only afford to buy one pig a year, you
ate it from head to toe, including everything in between.

I shifted my gaze to Li Li, to make sure she was all right

seated among the students. She proved to be more than all
right. I watched her as she eyed Enzo mischievously. With
surgical precision, her chopsticks plucked out the eye of a
whole sea bass lying on a platter in the middle of the table.
Then she turned and offered the dangling eye to Enzo, who
was seated beside her. He started to recoil, but then caught
himself.

Every eye — including the one dangling off Li Li’s

chopstick — was on him, and I'm sure he felt it. In fact, that
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 dangling eye seemed to challenge: Just how cool are you;

cool enough to eat me?

We never did find out, at least not on this night. Poppy

swooped in and snagged that eye off Li Li's chopstick with
her tongue. Her fellow students watched eyes wide to see if
she would keel over. Even my own stomach churned at the
memory of eating a fish eye last winter.

Not only didn't Poppy keel over; she turned to beam at the
table. Everyone cheered, including the Chinese students.
Only Enzo, whose complexion turned even more yellow, sat
silent.

Poppy would become the first member of what my

students came to call The Fish Eye Club. Its membership
included all those who had braved eating an eye of a whole
fish. Most of my students would be members by the end of
the trip.

Tonight, though, only one other student followed Poppy’s

lead in trying real Chinese food. Julio began to dig into the
feast set before him. At the end of the banquet, I found him
still chewing on a chicken foot. A small mountain of well
gnawed bones were piled high on his plate. "Tastes like
chicken!" he enthused. Did I tell him that, in fact, he was
indeed eating chicken?

Nah.

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 Later, Julio told me he had only tried the food out of a

desperate hunger. I’m sure that was true, but there was more
to it than that. Julio was beginning to exhibit the promise I
had seen in him. He had an innate curiosity that drove him to
try new things. How could I marshal Julio's curiosity to tempt
his classmates?

As I pondered this question, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I

turned around to see Xiao Pei, Xi Dada’s assistant. Behind her
stood Xi Dada himself. “Lai, lai, lai,” he called as he hurried
off.

I followed him to a table in the back of the room and

found myself standing in front of the table with the grizzled
man in denim.

“Professor B,” said Xi Dada, beaming, “I’d like you to meet

your guide, Yoshi.”

Yoshi didn't stand, although he did extend me a tan hand,

which I shook. It felt like it had spent a lifetime crushing
rocks. I also couldn’t help noticing the hunting knife dangling
from the belt of his denim pants.

“What do you think?” said Xi Dada, proudly.

What did I think; what could I think? In two days, we

would begin the first leg of our long journey west. If I wanted
a guide it would have to be Yoshi or nobody. Talk about a
squeeze play — and from a man who probably didn't know a
softball from a Pomelo.
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 After the banquet, I went to round up my students and Li

Li. The students were all there but Li Li was missing in action
— and no one knew where she had gone. With my students
in tow, I set out to find her. It didn’t take long. I found Li Li
cornered, backed up against a wall by a huddle of Chinese
students. They grilled Li Li but not with exploratory
questions. Rather, the students seemed to be asking her to
confirm what they already believed to be true.

“You must own your own house, where, like in New

York?”

“I bet it has at least five bedrooms.”

“You drive a BMW, right?”

“Can we see your iPhone?”

The Chinese students’ questions left me with the

impression that they thought every immigrant became rich in
America. Which, in Li Li’s case, was true enough, although
not through her own hard work. She was richer, in fact, than
they even imagined. Li Li owned the most expensive iPhone
at the time and drove a Range Rover, not a Beamer. Her
McMansion not only had five bedrooms. It sat atop a hill that
overlooked the Sound.

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 None of this Li Li revealed. Instead, she chose to speak of

her humble, impoverished upbringing in Tian Shui. If Li Li’s
intent was to kill the curiosity in her, it worked like a charm.
Her inquisitors’ eyes glazed over. They apparently had no
interest in a comrade who had grown up poor, which I would
later learn most of them had, too.

A student asked one last question: “Where did you go to

school?”

When Li Li revealed it was a third-rate school in a poor

backwater province, the Chinese students’ eyes glazed over,
and then they drifted away.

This was my first exposure to what I would come to see as

one of the deep contradictions of modern Chinese culture. In
their poetry, literature and philosophy, the Chinese revere
humility and subtlety. Yet in real life there’s nothing they
worshiped more than a Gucci bag, a BMW or a Park Avenue
address.

“Are you okay?” I said, draping an arm around Li Li’s

scrawny shoulder.

“Fine,” Li Li snapped, and then hurried off to hustle the

students to their dorm rooms.

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 CHAPTER 9
THINK UN-AMERICAN

At 8:30 the next morning, Li Li and I stood alone in the

cavernous marble lobby of The East West Friendship Hotel.
We frowned as we surveyed the lobby’s lovely collection of
Ming vases, teak tables and hanging banners of calligraphy. It
was missing the one thing we had expected to see: our
students.

“Ai ya,” said Li Li. Then she turned and marched back up
the lobby stairs.

Soon, I heard above me the muffled sound of slamming

doors and thudding feet. Students began to trickle down the
stairs and into the lobby. Li Li came last, bounding down the
lobby stairs smiling like a farmer who has successfully
flushed out sleeping pigs and chickens hiding in the brush.

It was now 9, an hour past the time I had asked the

students to assemble in the lobby. I surveyed the group
sprawled before me, and they looked anything but ready for
a busy day. Not a one smiled, nor sat upright; some lay with
their heads on the laps of other students. The Greek Chorus
looked liked they were still dressed for bed, wearing slippers,
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ratty tee shirts and cotton pants covered in teddy bears and
smiling moons.

“People, people?” I said, throwing up my hands. “What did

I tell you last night?”

My question was met with blank stares.

“Really?” I cried out in frustration.

Finally, a hand went up. It belonged to Enzo, adorned

once again in his “Fuck Whitey” tee shirt. I glanced at Li Li,
expecting her to begin clucking in disapproval. She had to see
it, given how Enzo thrust out his chest. Yet, Li Li remain
silent; not even an eyebrow raised in disapproval.

For a moment, I considered ignoring Enzo, but all eyes

were turned to him. “Yes?” I said.

“How come we have to share rooms?”

“Well...,” I began to explain but was immediately cut short

by another question.

“Why are the beds so hard?”

"And so low, am I right?” said Julio.

Enzo had opened up a floodgate of discontent, which

threatened to swamp Li Li and I. “Think on vacation,” Li Li
whispered in my ear. I nodded in agreement.
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 “Why can’t we stay at another hotel?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah!”

With rising anger, I did indeed consider, if but for a

fleeting moment, moving my students. Why not give them
what they wanted, housing them in the dorms where their
Chinese guides lived? I pictured them living six to a room
and using a communal metal tub to wash themselves.

Li Li saw the devilish grin that flashed across my face and

guessed my thoughts. She violently shook her head “no.” And
for good reason. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Xi Dada
would let my students stay in a Chinese dormitory. It would
violate his sense of duty toward his guests.

But on the road, far from the prying, paternal eyes of

Tsinghua administrators, would be another story. There, Li Li
and I would have greater control. Then we would show our
students what rough was. I grinned at the thought.

My daydream was interrupted by the whoosh of the

hotel’s revolving front door. I saw Yoshi slip into the lobby. He
looked as if he had spent the night in a laundry hamper. His
denim shirt and jeans were rumpled and there was a day's
worth of stubble on his cheeks. I noted, too, that he didn’t
come up front to join us. Instead, he leaned up against a back

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wall, and watched us with a grizzled smirk. What, if

anything, was he trying to tell us?

I knew what I wanted to tell him. That, although my

students, in their rumpled pajamas and scowls, looked
unprepared for an arduous trek across 1,500 miles of high
desert and mountains, I could whip them into shape.

Slowly, I let my gaze sweep the lobby, making sure to look

every student in the eye. Only then did I begin to speak. “I
need every one of us to do something very... un-American.”

“Like eat fish eyes?” ask Lulu.

“Worse.”

That got everyone's attention. All eyes were open and on

me now.

“From here on out, I need you to think first not of

yourself...but of the group.”

“Huh?” grunted Tink, whose goateed head dangled over

the arm of a couch.

“I need you to ask yourself: Is what I am doing here and

now helping to keep the group safe and moving forward —
or am I holding everyone back?”

All the students stared at me as if I were speaking

Chinese.
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 “What I mean,” I tried again, “is what you're doing at any

given moment good for everyone else in the group or bad?”

My students looked at me for a long moment and then

began to take out their laptops and phones, some smart,
some not so smart. Thumbs began to clack away on screens
and tiny keyboards.

Did they truly not understand me? Cooperation was, after

all, a truly alien concept to them. Or was it that they were
choosing not to understand?

I tried again. “Each and every one of us is only as safe and

as strong as the weakest link in the chain. We must look after
one another.”

The clacking grew louder.

If my students thought they could ignore me, they were

sadly mistaken. I changed tack. “Enzo, that you were still in
bed at 8:30, was that good for the group or bad?”

“I dunno,” he grumbled, not looking up from his phone.

“Exactly.”

He nodded without looking up.

“From now on I want you to know the answer to that

question.”
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 “What question?” said Sissy.

In exasperation, I looked away. My gaze fell on Yoshi, who

shook his head as if he couldn't decide who was the bigger
fool: me or my students. His lips moved, and I thought I saw
him mouth the word “Bobo.” I would learn later that this was
Yoshi’s favorite put down, which meant “bourgeois.” That’s a
taunt I hadn’t heard since of teenage hippie days in the early
1970s. Was Yoshi referring to me, my students or both?

I decided to call his bluff. “Yoshi...what do you think?”

Before he could answer, the hotel revolving door turned

again and in came a Chinese student assigned to us whom I
came to call Mountain Girl. She was a lanky girl with a long
neck and a no nonsense look about her. Mountain Girl took
one look at my lounging students and sharply clapped her
hands together. They jumped at the sound. "Zhun bei hao le
ma?" Mountain Girl called out, like a camp counselor.

My students turned to look at me. “It means ‘are you

ready’?” explained Li Li.

“Ready for what?” Lulu asked suspiciously.

“For breakfast, of course,” said Li Li.

“At 9 in the morning?” guffawed Tink. “You're joking,

right?”

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 The stern look on Mountain Girl's face suggested she was

not.

Now, I’m sure the East West Friendship Hotel offered a

perfectly fine American style breakfast buffet of eggs, bacon
and sugary cereal. But that’s not what I wanted for my
students. Instead, Li Li and I wanted to march them across
campus to a cafeteria used by Chinese guests. That way we
could also squeeze in a campus tour on the way to breakfast.

“Where’s Yoshi,” I asked Li Li, as we set off on our tour. We

both craned our heads to locate him, but he had vanished
just as quickly as he had appeared. “Some guide,” I
grumbled.

“No problem,” Li Li said cheerfully. Indeed, she was the

picture of cheerful utility. She wore a simple white and peach
blossom one piece sleeveless dress and sneakers. Strapped
around her waist was a fanny pack. She wore this dress, or a
pair of many pocketed shorts, throughout the trip.

“Go help our poor guide,” I said, nodding at Mountain

Girl, who looked overwhelmed. She had arranged the
students in a single file and told them to follow her.
Apparently, the Chinese students she was used to did just
that. How little she knew Americans! Mountain Girl glanced
behind her with an increasingly wrinkled brow as she
watched our students struggle behind in a broken line.

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 “Mei wen ti,” said Li Li and scurried ahead on her spindly

legs toward the exasperated Mountain Girl. In no time, the
two of them worked out a plan. Mountain Girl would take
point while Li Li took up the rear, gathering up stray or idling
students and shooing them forward. She would play this role
during our entire trip. Li Li became our self-appointed Herder
of Stray Cats.

As for myself, I roamed between the tail and head of our

strung out group, trying to stay among the students, keeping
my finger on their collective pulse. Right now, I sensed why
they straggled. And I was not displeased.

My students were stunned by the difference between

Tsinghua and their own campus. Back home, most of the
campus buildings were windowless concrete blocks, glazed in
a fine grayish white coating of seagull poop. The buildings
sat on buckling, treeless walkways. There was a lone fountain
in the center of campus, but its water had been shut off long
ago during one of the state's endless fiscal crises. The only
flowers were those that people brought to their windowless,
concrete block offices.

In contrast, Tsinghua’s campus looked more like the

private garden of some Chinese nobleman than a university.
In fact, that’s exactly what it had been during imperial times.
Many of its wooden courtyard buildings were set along tree
shrouded winding paths. Here and there sat giant boulders,
as if dribbled down onto earth by the Gods. There were
wooden, open air pavilions, which sat overlooking ponds
choked with lotus and lily pads. Red, orange and yellow
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flowers blossomed everywhere. No wonder my students

couldn’t resist stopping every few yards to snap pictures.

No one took more pictures than The Panda. He seemed to

be everywhere all at once. He cycled rapidly through the
three different cameras strung across his huggable bulbous
frame.

“Getting some good stuff?” I said, sidling up to The Panda.

“Uh huh,” he mumbled. I didn’t push it. The Panda rarely
spoke and, when he did, he spoke so softly that you could
barely hear him. That was fine, as long as he was getting
some good photos and footage.

Tsinghua’s lush, historic campus turned out not to be what

fascinated my students the most. That honor belonged to the
people who inhabited it. On campus back home, especially at
9 in the morning, you were more likely to see a flock of wild
turkeys than students or professors. But here the campus was
alive with people. And many of them were doing things my
students considered odd, if not outright bizarre.

Take the three elderly gentleman who speed walked past

our group. “Do they have some kind of disease?” Lulu asked
me, marveling at the men, who raced backwards.

“No,” I laughed. “That's just how some Chinese exercise.”

“Aren't they afraid of falling down or hitting something?”

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 “I guess not.” Soon I would learn why Lulu was so

concerned about these sped walkers’ safety.

Poppy came up and pointed at a girl who stood alone

facing a large boulder. In her hands, she held open a heavy
book. The girl read aloud, and every so often glanced down
at the open book in her hands. “What’s she doing?” Poppy
wondered aloud.

“Studying for class.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Chinese students are graded on how well they

can recall passages from memory. Their teachers call on them
to stand up in class and recite aloud.”

“Bummer.”

“Truly.” I smiled at an irony that probably eluded Poppy. In

capitalist America, students studied together while their
Chinese communist counterparts competed against one
another for the professor's approval.

“Why doesn't she study in her room?” asked Poppy.

“Well, for one, it might be too crowded,” I said. “A Chinese

dorm typically holds six to a room — and it is no bigger than
a single back at our university.”

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 I watched Lulu and Poppy’s eyes grow wide trying to

imagine living with six other students. “That’s, like, so
annoying,” said Lulu. “Where do they get any privacy?”

“Out here, in public,” I said. But that wasn’t quite right,

either. I tried again to explain. “The Chinese — especially the
older generation — don't much value, or even understand,
the American sense of privacy.”

As if on cue, an example wobbled into view. It was a single

seat bicycle carrying three people: one on the seat, one on
the handle bars and one on a makeshift seat on the back
wheel. “In China, people live communally,” I said, nodding at
the passing bicycle.

“Communally?” Lulu’s nose wrinkled as if I had asked her

to do something distasteful, such as reading the New York
Times.

Our group came upon another odd sight for an American:

an outdoor weight room. In a circular plaza stood a series of
nautilus knock offs — leg press, bicep curl, and stomach
crunch — among a dozen different machines. Each of them
gleamed with a fresh coat of bright red, yellow or blue paint.
A grunting elderly man occupied each of the machines.

In the Mississippi of the North, an outdoor weight room

wouldn't have lasted long. Within a week, every machine
would have been pissed on — and later dismantled and
hocked. Indeed, I could see Enzo eying the leg press as if
trying to figure out how to dismantle it.
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 “Move along,” I said, shooing him forward.

Ahead I heard the clanging of metal cymbals. They

worked like a clarion call, summoning all my straggling
students — and their exasperated herder Mountain Girl — to
the plaza. Soon, Poppy, Lulu and I were there, too. We found
a dozen elderly women lined up, each holding an impressive
broadsword cocked high overhead. The women looked as if
they were preparing for attack. Suddenly, the clanging music
sounded again and the women, in unison, stepped forward,
swinging their swords in a wide arc from head to toe. Then,
just before reaching us, they wheeled about face, and
repeated the same motion in time with the music, which
blared from a nearby boom box. Back and forth the line of
women danced across the plaza.

The music stopped as suddenly as it had begun and the

elderly Chinese women and my students stood staring in
amazement at one another. The boys eyed the authentic-
looking swords with envy; the girls were fascinated by the
boom box, which I'm sure most of them had never seen, let
alone heard of.

Lulu began to clap and the other students joined her. The
Chinese women blushed and bowed, muttering, “bu ke qi, bu
ke qi,” or “you’re too kind.”

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 The Chinese women now studied my students. I suspect

they had never seen such an eclectic group of people: White,
brown and yellow; pudgy, short and tall. In my earlier trip to
Beijing, I had never seen a group of people voluntarily mix.
Tsinghua did have a handful of Black African international
students, but they always sat alone, whether in class or in the
cafeterias.

The women appeared especially taken with Julio. They

couldn’t take their eyes off this brown skinned giant in the
silky green and white uniform of the Boston Celtics.

As for the shy, cerebral Julio, he tried to shrink inside his

skimpy shorts and jersey. I didn’t have much sympathy for his
plight. Hadn’t Li Li explained to him on the plane about the
Chinese current love affair with basketball? Still, Julio
insisted on wearing this morning his faux Celtic’s uniform.

The women began to chant, “Lai, lai lai.” Li Li finally

joined us and explained that they were inviting Julio to join
in dancing with them. He tried to turn away, but The Greek
Choir blocked him.

One of the women peeled away from the line and walked
over to a long black bag. From it, she retrieved a monster of a
sword and, holding it flat across her palms, offered it to Julio.
His eyes shone as he took the sword. I noticed Enzo’s yellow
eyes glowed with envy.

Someone turned the music back on and the mousy

woman, holding Julio by the hip, guided him in how to
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 dance. Soon the other women reformed their line, with Julio
in the middle. Towering over all the women, he did his best
to follow their lead.

My students squealed and clapped in delight as they

watched Julio struggle to keep in step and not flatten anyone
with his flailing sword. Lulu and Poppy rushed the black bag.
They, too, now grabbed swords and joined the line. The
Panda broke away from us and captured it all on film.

This was my students at their best. Joyful and fun-loving.

They might be loath to crack open a book on Chinese culture
or history, but that didn't mean they weren't open to
experiencing Chinese life — especially if it involved music or
dance — or better yet — both. “See?” I turned to Li Li,
bragging. “My evil plan is working.”

I was also happy to see that my students’ antics wiped the

exasperated look off Mountain Girls’ long oval face. Li Li
sidled up to her and whispered something. Mountain Girl
nodded and said, “Hao de, hao de.”

Later, Li Li told me what she had said to Mountain Girl:

Americans students might not know how to walk in a straight
line, but they do know how to enjoy life.

True enough, but I hoped Mountain Girl didn’t now see

her job as showing my students a good time. I would soon
dissuade her of this notion.

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 Imagine a breakfast buffet at which you could eat all you

wanted, yet there was nothing you wanted to eat. Such a
dilemma now confronted my students. It didn't help that
most of them rarely ate anything before noonish, especially if
the choice of food didn't include a sugary latte, candied
cereal or cookies.

I surveyed the long rectangular table draped in red linen

that ran through the middle of the buffet room in the hotel
where most Chinese guests stayed on campus. Nary a box of
Count Chockula or a moon pie was to be seen. The Closest
thing to cereal was a crockpot of congee, a lukewarm rice
porridge. It was seasoned with fermented duck egg, black
lichen and seaweed.

This is not to say the buffet offered little choice. There

were a half dozen dishes, most of which were either spicy,
pickled or dried fish or vegetables. You could put these atop
either sticky white rice, the congee or wrap them in a thin
scallion egg pancake called a “bing bing.” Such variety was
typical of most Chinese meals. The Chinese believe your body
needs at least 26 different ingredients a day to remain
healthy.

If the din of slurping and clattering of metal chopsticks

that echoed in the cavernous room were any sign, the buffet
was delicious. Then again its customers were all Chinese. We
were the only Westerners.

In addition, I never witnessed a Chinese customer turning

down any freebie, although they usually bitched later to
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management about its low quality. Not that such carping

stopped the Chinese from gorging themselves as much as
possible on anything given away. I watched now as a Chinese
woman in pearl earrings wrap three uneaten buns into some
napkins and then stuff them into her Gucci purse.

I signaled for my students to follow Li Li and I to the

buffet but turned to see no one standing behind me. My
students had retreated to a back corner of the long
rectangular room. There they milled about, looking
uncomfortable.

Nearby stood a paralyzed Mountain Girl, whose long pale

face reddened with frustration. I suspect she didn't know
whether to be insulted or ashamed. Insulted that her guests
wouldn't even try real Chinese food; ashamed because she
had failed to provide her guests with food they would eat.

Li Li, who stood at my side, rushed to Mountain Girl's

rescue. She flushed our students out of the corner and herded
them toward the buffet table. Still, they wouldn't pick up a
plate and eyed the cold pickled vegetables as if we were
trying to poison them.

"All good, all good," assured Li Li as she picked up a bowl

and loaded it up with food.

"Is there any cereal?" asked Lulu who innately didn't like
to offend.

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 "Dang ran a!" said Li Li, and then pulled Lulu by an arm
over to the congee. Lulu stared at the thick, grainy porridge
as if it were bugger flecked mucus.

"That's not cereal," whined Lulu.

“Is!,” I reassured.

Tink came up and sniffed at the congee. "Smells like dog,"

he pronounced.

"Ai ya!" said Li Li. For a moment I thought she was going
to slap Tink on the backside of his head.

"How would you even know what cooked dog smells like?"
I chided Tink.

“Cooked dog...where?” said Poppy, scrunching up her

nose. “I wanna see.”

“There,” said, Tink pointing at the congee pot.

Enzo strolled over with the Greek Chorus in tow. He

peered into the congee. “Definitely not dog,” he assured the
students gathered around the pot. “Looks like the Bronx
River on a summer day,” he sniffed. The Greek Chorus
snickered in unison.

Once again, Julio saved us. “Yo,” he said, “over here.” He

held in one of his massive paws what looked like a white
rubber ball and took a bite out of it. “Not bad.” What Julio
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 had deemed acceptable fare was called “bao zi,” a steamed

bun of white flour. Julio scooped up about a dozen bao zis
and dumped them on his tray. The other students followed
his example.

“At least eating,” sighed Li Li.

“Yes,” I harrumphed, “but they’ll be dead of malnutrition

by the end of the week.”

CHAPTER 10
SKYSCRAPER NATIONAL PARK

At first, Mountain Girl said nothing doing. No way would

she let Li Li and I venture out into the city on our own
unescorted. If we needed supplies she would send one of our
assigned Chinese students out to get them for us. Just give
her a list.

Page 171

 We knew our request was a tall order. Remember, as I

explained earlier, it is the height of rudeness in Chinese
culture to leave a guest — especially a foreign one —
unattended. But we had good reason to want to be alone for
a moment, little of which had to do with our stated reason: to
stock up on Chinese herbal remedies. In truth, we didn’t want
any Chinese student listening in on our conversation, which I
later learned proved to be a wise decision on our part.

Eventually, Li Li pushed back that China was as much her

home as Mountain Girl’s. It was a winning argument, and
Mountain Girl agreed to entertain our students for the
morning while Li Li led me deep into the old heart of Beijing.
When I asked where we were going, she said only: “Oh, you'll
like it. Make good scene for your book.”

“What book?” I said, feigning ignorance.

“Ai ya! Both know you will write about this trip one day.”

Kurt Vonnegut once described Manhattan as Skyscraper

National Park. Today, I think that distinction belongs to
Beijing. This city, once enclosed within high brick walls,
where no building stood higher than a couple of stories, has
busted loose. Today, Beijing is a sprawling forest of smog
shrouded, standalone suburban-style skyscrapers. They stand
amid a tangle of crisscrossing eight-lane highways so clogged
with traffic that it would make Los Angeles gag in envy on its
own smog.
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 As our cab chugged through this high rise sprawl, I

marveled at many of the buildings we passed. There was a
skyscraper with a hooded pinnacle that resembled the head
of an uncircumcised penis; another looked like a double-sized
replica of Disneyland's enchanted castle. My personal favorite
was the home of the national television network, a building
the Chinese themselves had dubbed the “Underpants
“Building.” It's an apt name, given that the building looks like
a mammoth pair of long johns in full stride.

Who says the Chinese lack ingenuity?

Li Li paid no attention to the Disney- esque skyscrapers

that loomed outside the cab window. She was too busy
haranguing our driver. From what I could make out, Li Li was
trying to direct the cabbie to a place that he either didn't
know about or doubted existed.

Eventually, Li Li browbeat the driver into following her

directions. Soon, we found ourselves in a neighborhood that
was like a forgotten garden gone to seed. The neighborhood
lay obscured among the long shadows cast by the modern
Beijing that towered over it. Here, the buildings were made
of brick or wood and rose no higher than a story or two. They
sat like rows of rotting, uneven teeth along winding, narrow
streets. The Chinese used to call these areas “hutongs,” and,
before Mao, all of Beijing looked like this neighborhood.

The streets grew narrower and narrower until the cabbie

could drive no farther. He happily dumped us out onto the
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 street. Li Li barely had time to grab the carry on suitcase she

had brought with her. The cabbie sped off as if chased by
ghosts, which the Chinese are deathly afraid of. Li Li set off
on foot, her suitcase trailing behind. It rattled along the
uneven brick-laid streets.

I lagged behind, marveling at the strange world I had

suddenly entered. Li Li had been right. It was indeed a great
place to set a book.

This Hutong seemed more a maze than a neighborhood.

No street ran in a straight line but bent until its path wound
out of sight. There were alleyways off alleyways.

While cramped, the place was bustling. Busier than even

Times Square, I’d say, which seemed quaint in comparison.
Here the storefronts were crammed so tightly together that
they seemed to be trying to shoulder one another aside.
Everything was for sale: Books, pots, linen and vacuums;
every sort of dumpling, beef intestine soup and barbecued
scorpion on a skewer.

Vehicles crammed the streets, but you'd be hard-pressed to

find a car among them. Instead, there were mopeds, three-
wheeled jitneys with plastic tarpaulin cabs and, most of all,
bicycles. Many of these bicycles, like back at Tsinghua, had
three or more occupants. Someone, I guess for balance's sake,
rode on the center seat; others, usually a child or two, sat
atop the handlebars. A third rider sat on a homemade
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caboose fashioned out of a metal sheet lashed with twine

over a bicycle’s back tire. These bicycles, rumbling over the
brick streets, were a slapstick balancing act that would have
impressed Buster Keaton.

Life here was lived out in the street. There were men in
dirty tee shirts and sandals squatting around handmade
boards filled with tile pieces. Others sat outside storefronts in
rickety wooden folding chairs, smoking as they read
newspapers. And still others stirred giant boiling pots of
noodles or dumplings.

Li Li finally rattled into the queerest shop of them all. At

first, I wasn't sure what it actually sold. Its product line
included, as best as I could tell, desiccated roadkill, dead
insects and wilted flowers. Li Li's deep brown eyes twinkled
at the puzzled look on my face. “Chinese drug store,” she
said, poking a slender finger at a low shelf. On it lay what
looked like a bat that been flattened by a semi and then dried
to a crisp.

At the time, I wrinkled up my nose. But Li Li would use

her suitcase full of ancient Chinese remedies to great effect
during our trip, patching up many a student who had
suffered an insect bite, sunburn, a raspy cough or the runs.

Now Li Li held up to my nose a most foul smelling

desiccated bud. “This,” she counseled, “will keep your bowels
as solid as a bowl of congee.”

My stomach rumbled in disagreement.

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 “Do you want to know what I found out about Yoshi?”

I looked up from my steaming bowl of spicy beef intestine

soup with fogged glasses. “You know I do,” I said, thinking,
“at last!” Now we were getting to the real reason that had
brought us so far away from Tsinghua University.

In two days, we were scheduled to board a train for a

thousand-mile ride to Xi’an, where we would begin our
journey west. Yet I knew almost nothing about the man who
was to be our guide.

Li Li and I sat at a street side café that was mostly street

and little café. It consisted of a couple of wobbly card tables
set on the narrow, uneven concrete of the sidewalk. The
tables were huddled around a couple of bubbling metal
cauldrons set atop giant sternos.

Now, you may be wondering why would I chance eating at

such a makeshift place days before embarking to a place
where toilets were medieval at best? Way I figured, this street
side noodle shop couldn't be safer. What dangerous microbes
the boiling water didn't kill off the fiery broth surely would.

Not to mention Li Li's suitcase chock-full of Chinese

medicines, which I considered a mobile emergency room. It
stood at the ready beside me.

Page 176

 “Well?,” I croaked, my throat aflame with hot pepper.

“He's American, for starters.”

"No shi…” I blurted out and then caught myself. “I

mean… Really!" Instinctively, my eyes swept the surrounding
streetscape, but of course there was no one who knew us.

“A Japanese American!” Li Li added, grinning at my

surprised expression. Then she delivered the coup de gras.
“And he worked as a Western journalist covering China.”

That last fact fogged up my glasses real good. We both

knew that, in the eyes of the Chinese, Yoshi couldn't have had
more black marks against him. He was American, of Japanese
descent and a former journalist. Heck, he might as well have
stuck a pair of chopsticks upright in a bowl of white rice. In
Chinese culture, that was the equivalent of an American
spitting on someone's grave.

“What do you make of it?” I asked aloud.

Li Li slowly shook her head as if she were as bewildered

by Xi Dada's selection of Yoshi as I was. We both knew it was
neither by accident nor a mistake.

I recalled Xi Dada's speech at the banquet, where he

hailed modern China as an open, tolerant place. Maybe Yoshi
was meant to drive home that point to me and my students.
His job was to make us forget all those stories in the Western
media: Tibetan monks setting themselves on fire in protest
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against Han rule; government raids on illegal house

churches; black jails, where those who dared complain about
party bosses, were held incognito. Fictions, one and all,
designed to blacken China's reputation. I had heard such
gripes ad nauseam from government and university officials
alike since coming to China.

Was Yoshi proof that I had been too skeptical? Maybe

China was indeed opening up and becoming a modern nation
state, a place where people were free to openly hate one
another without fear of imprisonment.

My glasses cleared for a moment and a sign across the

street caught my attention. It sat in the window of a sliver of
a shop selling Mao caps, Che Guerrero tee shirts and other
faux communist knickknacks. Nothing novel about that. Like
New York or Las Vegas — or any modern city — Beijing was
infested with such tacky tourist shops. But tourist shops in
those cities didn't openly sport signs like this one, which
read: “Japanese not welcome.”

“Can we trust Yoshi?” I mused aloud.

Li Li shrugged as if to say “beats me.”

Page 178

 CHAPTER 11
CAMELBAK PRINCESS

It was noon by the time Li Li and I returned to campus.

We found our hotel empty of students. “Must be at lunch,”
mused Li Li. “But where?” I said. I feared they had decamped
for one of the American fast food restaurants that encircled
the campus. “First check campus dining,” Li Li said. So, we
set off searching for our students.

When we reached the main student cafeteria, Li Li seized

my arm and pointed. “Look!” I peered through the big glass
window. What I saw made my heart skip a beat with joy.
Julio’s tall figure towered over a low table.

We entered the cafeteria. My gaze swept the long lines of

Chinese students who stood with trays in hands as they
snaked past matrons serving up steaming plates of chicken
feet, garlic spinach and pork intestines. Here, my students,
who had to be starving by now, would have no choice but to
eat like a Chinese undergraduate.

I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

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 Mountain Girl, who sat alongside Julio, waved us over.

She introduced us to another Chinese student named Xiao
Bing. He, too, had been assigned to us as a guide. He wore a
baggy, faded green army jacket and lugged a battered Lenovo
laptop. Xiao Bing waved the laptop threateningly at any
Chinese students who tried to sit at the table. “Reserve for
your students,” Mountain Girl told me.

“Where’s Yoshi?” I asked. Mountain Girl shrugged, and

said, “bu zhi dao,” or “I don’t know.”

My students began to find their way back to the table with

trays indeed heavy with food — but not with chicken feet
and dumplings. Instead, their trays were ladened with
chicken nuggets, French fries and milk shakes.

I shot Mountain Girl a dirty look. She looked confused by

my disapproval. “Cafeteria has American station,” she said,
pointing to a bright KFC in a far corner. “See? Students eat
now.”

“Yes,” I said, with exasperation. “But that’s not what I

want them to eat.”

Mountain Girl looked even more confused. When it came

to listening, Mountain Girl was no better than my students. I
felt a sharp pinch on the back of my arm and turned to see Li
Li shaking her head, signaling me to let it go.

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 I dropped into a seat next to Xiao Bing, who now sat

staring into the open screen of his laptop. I stared, too. “You
have a Facebook page?”

“Dang ran a! Doesn't everybody?”

In the U.S., sure, but in China? Facebook and Google were

all officially banned. “Isn't it illegal?” I asked.

Xiao Bing nodded that this was indeed true.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”

Xiao Bing chuckled. “Caught all the time.” He nodded

toward two boys in identical Hello Kitty tee shirts, khaki
shorts and plastic sandals. At first, I thought they were twins,
but it turned out they were not. Still, I would come to call
them The Twin Wannabes.

The Twin Wannabes looked up smiling and waved at Xiao

Bing as he explained, “They shut down my page last week.
But look, no problem, back on Facebook!”

Xiao Bing's cheery explanation left me even more

bewildered. Granted, I was in China during one of its rare
moments of relative openness. It would quickly fade in the
near future with the rise of hardliner Xi Jin Ping. Still....

From behind me, I heard a raspy chortle. I turned around

to see the sudden appearance of our mysterious guide. “You

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wanted to see the real china, right?” he growled. “Daily life

here is an endless game of cat and mouse."

“What do you mean?”

“You see those guys?” Yoshi said, looking at The Twin

Wannabes.

“Yeah.”

“They are paid by the school to search out and shut down
any banned websites used by other students.”

“Spying on their friends?”

“That's one way to see it.” Yoshi turned to eye another

group of students at a nearby table. “See those guys over
there? They are monitoring the monitors.”

“Huh?”

“No sooner have the monitors busted and blocked one

server address than their watchers have ramped up another
hosted server to take its place — usually in the U.S.”

“What happens if a student like Xiao Bing gets busted

using Facebook?”

Yoshi shrugged. “Nothing — at least for the moment.”

“Just a friendly game of spy versus spy.”

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 “Basically.”

Still, I couldn't help but feel a little unnerved. In China, it

seemed, everybody was watching everybody else. I wondered
if someone was assigned to watch me and, if so, whom.

“Of course,” added Yoshi, musing aloud, eying the Twin

Wannabes with watery eyes. “They always keep a record of
any transgression. You know, something they could use
against you if they need to.”

And, every once in a blue moon, Yoshi continued, the

party did punish someone for using a censored Website or
posting on social media. “They call this strategy ‘Kill One
Chicken, scare a lot of monkeys,’” said Yoshi, stroking his
grizzled chin as if appreciating the precision workings of a
Swiss watch.

I shared Yoshi's appreciation. “Seems like the Chinese

Communist Party has perfected repression into an art form.”

“Ain't just the party,” said Yoshi. “This is ancient, tribal

even. It’s in their DNA. The party's merely the modern face of
the thing.”

“How do you mean?”

“The Chinese have been meddling in each other's shit

since Kubla Khan. They have an instinct for conformity —
and woe to those who don't conform.”
Page 183

 He recounted a recent example, where several small

children had contracted tuberculosis in a village in
Southwestern Gui Zhou province. The Chinese public health
officials had offered free of charge to come into the village
and treat the children, stamping out a budding epidemic. But
villagers rejected the offer. Instead, the villagers chose to
drive away the infected children, as if they themselves were
the problem, not the TB bacterium.

I took a fresh look at Yoshi. He certainly had a deep

understanding of the Chinese, which was exactly what I was
looking for in a guide. Yet this made me wonder, too. Why
would such an obvious free spirit such as Yoshi want to live in
a place where conformity was valued above all else?

I studied the eager, expectant Chinese faces huddled

around me and shook my head. Poor bastards. These four
students, whom Xi Dada had chosen to be our interpreters,
guides and companions, had no idea what they had gotten
themselves into.

In a day, we would be leaving on the train for Xi’an, and I

had asked these students to come to my campus hotel room. I
was about to give them an orientation I knew they would
find most disorientating.

I had expected Xi Dada to send me a bunch of aspiring

party members, well scrubbed and buttoned down. Instead,
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 what I surveyed was quite a motley crew. Most of them I had

already met.

There was Mountain Girl, of course, who reminded me of

a gazelle with her long, angular limbs. She towered over her
companions.

Beneath Mountain Girl stood Xiao Bing, whose name

meant “Little Soldier.” Xiao Bing was clad in the same worn
army jacket and scuffed sneakers as in the cafeteria. He
flashed me a big smile of crooked little yellow teeth.
Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing were as lean and sinewy as my
students were lumpy and flabby.

Not so the remaining two boys in the group. These were

the Twin Wannabes. They still wore their identical Hello Kitty
tee shirts, shorts and sandals. Like most of my students, these
two had pasty complexions and flabby arms, as if they too
had been raised on a nutrition-free diet of Pop Tarts and
microwave pizza.

I knew that each of these students had been carefully

vetted for their ability to speak English and accommodate
“wai guo ren,” or foreigners, such as myself. I also knew that
these students considered their selection to be a great honor,
a coveted prize, like shark's fin soup, rhino horn or tiger
penis.

Knowledge, as they say, is power. And I intended to wield

what I knew about these students to get what I wanted. Still,
it wouldn't prove easy. I would be asking them to commit
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 what they considered an unforgivable sin: displeasing a

guest.

The students huddled around me but no one looked me in

the eye. That would have been a faux pas. You were not
supposed to look a stranger in the eye, especially a respected
elder and authority figure. Still, I could feel the power of
these Chinese students’ concentrated attention. What a
difference from my students, who looked me straight in the
eye but rarely listened to a word I said.

“Let me tell you first what I don't want you to do,” I began
and then paused for effect. “No agreeing with any and every
thing my students say. No waiting on them hand and foot,
catering to their every whim. They are spoiled enough as it
is.”

“Hao de, hao de,” each of the students said, nodding with
a faint smile on their downturned faces. Had they heard me,
or were they just humoring me?

“I mean it,” I continued. “I don't want to see you dashing

off to buy my students hamburgers, cigarettes, beer — or
whatever they say they just have to have and have right now.
And no sneaking them off after bedtime to some bar.
Understand... Ming bai le?”

No one disputed or disagreed with me. At least not openly.

But their smiles were gone, and I confronted a wall of
expressionless faces. I took this as a hopeful sign. The
enormity of what I was asking was sinking in. I pressed on.
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 “Here's what I do want you to do: Engage my students.

Tell them what you really feel and think.”

“About what?” Xiao Bing ventured sheepishly.

“Everything! Taiwan, the Japanese, Chicken McNuggets.”

I watched as Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing lowered their

heads to study their shoes. I knew that there was no
circumstance in which it was okay to tell strangers —
especially if they were guests — what you really think.
Especially if it might cause them discomfort. What would Xi
Dada say, if he found out? I felt for these poor bastards. I
really did.

“Any questions?” I asked, trying to get them to voice their

discomfort, so I could work them through it.

There was a long silence, and then Mountain Girl raised a

hand.

“Yes?”

“Is it true, Professor B, that you graduated from Harvard?”

“What?” I snapped. I didn't want to be drawn off-topic.

“Who told you that?”

“Li Li.”

Page 187

 “Did she, now.”

Mountain Girl nodded “yes,” and then pressed, “dui bu

dui,” is it true?

“Yes,” I snapped. I tried to shift the conversation back to

the trip. Turning to Xiao Bing and asked, “Any questions?”

He nodded and asked, “How did you get into Harvard?”

I don’t know who I was angrier at: These students or Li Li

for telling them of my college pedigree. I had been warned —
by Li Li, of all people — that my Harvard degree would be
both a blessing and a curse in China. It was a blessing in that
it would earn me immediate respect; a curse because that’s
all anyone would want to talk about. In China, Harvard was
the Gucci bag of higher education. The Chinese, like all
aspiring nouveau riche, covet the symbols of success and
wealth. Especially wealth. Never mind that I wasn’t wealthy
despite my Harvard diploma. These Chinese students
assumed I was.

Well, not all of them. My ratty tee shirt and frayed shorts
generated some suspicion.

“What were your SAT scores?” challenged one of the Twin

Wannabes. He sounded like my son as a teenager, who never
could believe the knucklehead he knew as a dad could have
won admission to Harvard.

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 I was saved from answering by the sound of my room

door opening. We all turned to eye Li Li, who entered with a
bagful of supplies and a backpack.

The Chinese students may have turned away from Li Li at

the welcoming banquet, but now she had regained their rapt
attention. They huddled around her as she expertly packed a
CamelBak, which sat on one of my room’s two low beds.
Map, snacks, medicines, water, sweater, socks, sunscreen —
all disappeared into the CamelBak.

It was not Li Li's expert packing that fascinated the

students, who were experts themselves when it came to
squeezing a lot into tiny places. In many ways that was the
essence of modern Chinese life.

No, what fascinated them was the CamelBak itself. Sleek

and well pocketed, it was the “Twiggy” of backpacks,
especially when compared to the students' own, which were
as bulky and shapeless as Homer Simpson.

“Tai ku le,” or “way cool,” cooed Mountain Girl, who

seemed to be speaking for her fellow students.

With a sigh, I gave into the moment. “Go on,” I told

Mountain Girl, “Touch it. Li Li won't mind.”

Li Li shot me a look that said she did indeed mind, but she
stepped aside all the same.
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 Mountain Girl stepped forward and began to stroke the

CamelBak as if it were a thoroughbred. Which, when it comes
to backpacks, it certainly was. Mountain Girl's eyes widened
in wonder at the feel of the CamelBak’s nylon taffeta. I
suspect none of the Chinese students had ever seen this
lightweight yet durable and waterproof fabric, although it
was probably made somewhere in China.

“Ke yi?” said Mountain Girl, hoisting the CamelBak onto

her shoulder before Li Li could answer yes. A sad smile
crossed her lips as the loaded backpack dangled lightly off
her shoulder. “I could have really used this back in my
village,” said Mountain Girl, who I later learned had grown
up herding sheep on the rocky slopes of the high Tibetan
Plains.

“It must be really expensive,” said Xiao Bing.

Li Li's pale cheeks blushed and that brought out the

stinker in me. I sensed an opportunity to get Li Li back for
ratting me out as a Harvard grad. In her description of
herself, Li Li had left out how she now lived in a suburban
palace.

“You bet,” I said. “CamelBaks run $250 and up.”

Li Li's face grew even redder.

“Dollars?” the Twin Wannabes said in unison.

Page 190

 I nodded that it was so.

A quiet hush enveloped the room. All the students eyed Li

Li as if in a new light. I imagined what they might be
thinking. Li Li left for America as a poor girl from am
impoverished Chinese city. Three years later, she had
returned as an American who could splurge $250 on a
backpack, an extravagance none of them could afford.

Each of the Twin Wannabes whipped out what looked like

an iPhone. But, of course, that couldn't be. In 2009, Apple
had not released its smartphones in China, even though they
were made there. So, these phones must have been some
kind of knock off.

First, the twins snapped a picture of each student with Li

Li wearing her CamelBak. Then they took pictures of each of
them shouldering the CamelBak. And finally, they had me
take a group shot of them with Li Li and her CamelBak.

Li Li shot me a dirty look as she posed with the students.

“Thanks a lot,” she grumbled to me. To which I replied,
“Wow, your English has improved a lot!”

Later, Li Li told me she was bombarded with invitations to

befriend Chinese students on their contraband Facebook
pages.

This documenting of life through photographs, I learned

during our trip, was de rigor in China back in 2009. Nothing
you saw or did was real unless you could document it in
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pictures and then post them on Wei Bo, Wei Xin and
Facebook. I would see Chinese rush through a museum,
taking pictures of themselves and their friends with even the
smallest, glass-encased vase, without ever stopping to
appreciate any one exhibit.

I was witnessing, of course, the birth of the “selfie.” And it

represented the quintessential dynamic between the East and
the West. The Chinese had taken a western technology and
invented a new use for it. And one that would become
popular worldwide.

Ain’t nothing new about this dynamic. East and West have
been aping one another for centuries. Eighteenth century
Dutch, Portuguese and English traders stole the secrets of
Chinese porcelain, tea and silk. Today, the Chinese are
repaying us in kind by lifting the West’s designs on
semiconductors and A.I.

Page 192

 CHAPTER 12
GUN ZOU!

Julio stood wide-eyed, ogling the platform of the subway

station as if it were a triple decker bacon cheeseburger. His
hungry fascination was understandable. While he had grown
up riding America’s biggest, most extensive mass transit
system, that experience had left him wholly unprepared for
Beijing’s subways. Not only was this station bright and airy.
Its tracks were trash-free. Nor did the station reek of urine,
which I've come to think of as the signature scent of the First
City of the Third World.

The Panda flitted about the platform, documenting its

gleaming magnificence. We all doubted that anyone back
home would believe us that such a Shangri-la of a transit
system existed.

We had entered the subway at the Poetry Gardens station,

which would carry us three stops to the Beijing West Rail
Terminal. There, we would board a train for a 1,000-mile
journey to Xi’an in south central China. At Xi’an, a former
ancient capital of China, famous for its Terra Cotta warriors,
we would board a bus that would take us down the Silk
Road.
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 Our party were all here, save for one crucial member:
Yoshi. Explaining he had some last-minute preparations to
finish, he begged off traveling with us to the train, but
promised to meet us at the terminal. His unpredictability was
becoming a disturbing pattern. I couldn't help thinking he
was testing me in some way. Li Li told me it was all in my
head.

As we waited for the train on the gleaming marble

platform, Mountain Girl explained that this station had just
opened, part of several new lines the city was building. In
2009, the First City of the New World hadn’t opened a new
station in almost 50 years.

Turning back to Julio, I said, "Listen…hear that?"

“I don't hear anything,” replied a puzzled Julio.

“Exactly. No announcements that service has been delayed

or canceled because of signal failure, congestion or trash fires
on the track.”

Julio nodded in wonder at such a thing.

Just then our train glided almost noiselessly into the

station. We had been waiting no more than five minutes.

Julio turned almost green as all of us entered the train.

There was room enough for everyone to sit. The train's
interior was free of graffiti. No one slept lengthwise on the
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 seats and no one swung from the poles to music blasting

from a boom box. Not a soul asked us for money. Not even to
feed the homeless.

“Gets worse, you know,” I said to him.

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded. “How much do you think a ride costs?”

Julio’s brow wrinkled as he cogitated.

“Five dollars!” Tink declared definitively. He had sat down

on my other side. Julio nodded in agreement.

That was nearly double what the subway cost back home.
Such a high estimate seemed reasonable to my students.
After all, their experience was that you paid an ever higher
price for ever worse service. Imagine what a ride would cost
if service actually improved!

“Not even close,” I chortled.

“Eight?” offered Julio.

I shook my head, “No.”

“Then what?” challenged Poppy, who joined the

conversation. She had sat down directly across from Li Li and
I.

Page 195

 “Oh, about the equivalent of 29 cents.”

“No way,” said Julio. He and Poppy both looked at Li Li,

who sat next to me. She nodded that it was so. Julio looked
like he was about to be sick.

I didn't blame him. He had now suffered the misfortune of

learning that the subways back home need not be so broken
down and dysfunctional. That's what I call real learning.

“What smiling at?” Li Li asked me.

“All in all, not a bad day's work of professoring.”

“Heh! Day not over.”

I suspected Li Li was still sore at me for ratting her out as

wealthy. Still, she was right. The day’s challenges were far
from over. I looked across the aisle to see Poppy squirming in
her seat.

Like Julio, Poppy had drawn an admirer. A shriveled

Chinese woman had sat down next to her. The woman took a
springy curl of Poppy’s hair between her weathered fingers
and began to twist it. Her face, wrinkled as a prune,
marveled at the feel and color of Poppy’s hair.

Poppy sat as stiff as a board, looking unsure what to do.

Her gaze fixed on Li Li with a cry of help.
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 “Ai yi,” Li Li called out softly. “Ni shen me na?”

“Zhe me qi guai a,” the woman muttered as she twisted

the curl. “Zhe me qi guai a.”

“What’s she saying?” I asked Li Li.

“Says Poppy’s hair is so strange.” Li Li sighed. “Best not

fuss. Wouldn’t look right,” she said, nodding to the other
Chinese passengers on the train. “Get off at next stop,
anyway.”

I turned to address Poppy. “Hang in there, kiddo. We’re

almost at our destination.”

Poppy didn’t look reassured.

Trying to distract Poppy, I said, “Think of it this way. Isn’t

it interesting that the Chinese are more interested in us than
we are in them?” I nodded to the other students, all of whom
were either talking among themselves or lost in staring into
their phones. Without my prodding, none of them showed
any interest in the strange new world around them. I would
have to do something about that.

As we glided noiselessly toward the West Beijing Rail

Terminal, I stewed on Yoshi’s absence. How much was I going
to be able to count on the guy? I decided to test whether my
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Chinese students could serve as back up guides. I summoned

the four of them over and asked a question: “Do you know
what used to stand on the site of the Poetry Gardens station?”

All four students answered with the same blank

expression. Which would be like a French student not
knowing when and where Voltaire had lived.

In elementary school, every Chinese student is required to

memorize and recite flawlessly the poems of Meng Cheng
Zhun. He had been a fierce general in the service of the
Medieval Emperor Kubla Khan. After mercilessly slaughtering
all the enemies of his Emperor, Meng had been anointed a
lord. He retired to a vast garden estate and spent the rest of
his life writing some of the most beautiful and revered poetry
in the 5,000-year history of China. His garden estate now sat
buried beneath the Poetry Gardens station.

That none of our Chinese students knew this bode ill to

their abilities as guides. But it didn’t surprise me, either. In
my two previous trips to China, I had noticed a curious irony.
While the Chinese revere their past, from poetry to natural
landscape, they are quick to flatten it for new high rises,
bullet trains and eight-lane highways. Woe to any Taoist
temple, imperial lord’s manor or Hutong which tries to stand
in the way. Few of them escape death by bulldozer.

That’s what makes the West Beijing Rail Terminal unique.

It is a rare survivor of modernity and it’s not even particularly
Chinese. The terminal was built in the neoclassical style
popularized by the French at the height of colonialism in the
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 early 1900s. Yet it has outlived both Mao’s hatred of the West
and Deng Xiao Ping’s exaltation that “To become rich is
glorious.”

Not that the terminal had escaped unscathed; or that its

future was particularly secure. Its towering Dorian columns
were blackened with soot. Acid rain had eroded to a nub the
statue of Mercury atop its peaked portico. The station's
marble steps were worn low from countless footsteps.

No longer did the station dominate what had once been a

bustling commercial district of winding streets crowded with
three-story shops and businesses. Today, it was dwarfed by a
surrounding forest of high rise apartments and office
buildings.

We stood now at the edge of the grand plaza in front of

the terminal. The plan was to meet Yoshi inside the station,
where he would buy us tickets and get us on the train to
Xi’an. Would he indeed show? I had my doubts.

Towering over the street in his green and white silk shorts
and jersey, Julio was a walking totem of the NBA. At least
that’s how the Chinese seemed to see him. No sooner had we
exited the subway station than Julio was once again
besieged. And this time it wasn’t just kids. Even nai nais, or
grannies, tugged on his silk shorts, beseeching him for an
autograph, or just a wink or nod of recognition.

Page 199

 You never saw a more reluctant celebrity. Julio pulled into

himself, folding his arms across his chest and bowing his
head. Once again, Li Li came to his rescue, swooping in to
chase off his admirers like so many gnats.

“Dude,” I said, “why don’t you wear something else if the

attention makes you so uncomfortable.”

Julio grimaced as if I had suggested he saw off his right

arm.

“Suit yourself,” I said. “But Li Li isn’t going to keep saving

you.”

“I know,” Julio mumbled.

Did he?

We stood in a wide circular plaza that fronted the station,

which already teemed with people at 10 in the morning. I
instructed Mountain Girl to assemble my students into a
single line. Then I told them to always keep in sight the head
of the student in front of them. I dispatched Li Li to the rear
and took the point, donning a bright red baseball cap.

“Ready?,” I sang out. My troops responded heartily that

they were. “Company forward!” I led my students into the
plaza, snaking my way through a dense throng. The wheels

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 of our luggage clattered on the uneven cobblestones of the

plaza.

Our line entered the station intact but an even greater

challenge awaited us inside. The terminal’s cavernous main
hall teemed with one of the densest crowds I’d ever seen. The
waiting passengers generated a deafening din. On the
handful of wooden benches, people sat three generations
deep: a child seated in a mother's lap and frail grandmother
in the lap of the child. Most people, though, had to stand.

I craned my neck searching for Yoshi but saw only an ever

swelling throng of strangers. The swelling crowd began to
press in on me, and I felt as if I was being buried alive.
Suddenly, I heard Poppy cry out: “Lulu, where's Lulu?”

I turned my gaze to search for the girl I was beginning to

think of as my Hapless Wonder. She was nowhere in sight.
What I did see made me blanch. One by one, my students
were disappearing amid the surrounding throng as if being
swallowed alive by quicksand.

If I wanted to save my crew, I would have to act quickly. I

noticed a shadow cast over me and turned to see Julio
standing nearby. “Here,” I said, shoving my red cap into
Julio's broad hands. “Put this on.” He did as told and looked
down at me with an expression that said, “What now?”

I cried out: “Everyone! Follow Julio.” Then, head down, I

began to push Julio toward the terminal’s entrance doors. His

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 towering, red capped frame parted the surrounding throng of

travelers.

My only hope was that my students could see Julio and

would follow behind in the path he was cutting. I also could
only hope that Li Li would understand that I wanted her to
fall to the rear again and prod forward any stragglers.

“Now what?” asked Li Li.

We stood in the grand circular plaza that sat in front of the

station entrance. About us milled our students, all of whom
— including Lulu — we had managed to extract from the
station itself. “What?” I said, thinking we had successfully
secured ourselves while awaiting Yoshi.

Li Li nodded toward the crowd around us and I saw a new

threat had emerged. Street vendors began to swarm around
our students. In my students’ faces, they wagged cigarettes,
maps, bottled water, knock off Gucci purses and BBQ
scorpion on a stick. Some even offered up toddlers they held
by the hand. “You buy,” they said, as if a command. “Cheap.”
Some vendors began clawing at my students' backpacks and
back pockets.

“What do?” Li Li asked.

The 1960s television drama “Wagon Train” popped into

my imagination. I recalled how the show's westward bound
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 settlers would draw their wagons into a protective circle

when under attack. “Quick,” I said, “let's form a perimeter.” Li
Li raised an eyebrow. “Follow me,” I said and began to lead
the students in building an encircling barricade of suitcases
and backpacks.

Unfortunately, the street hawkers had never seen “Wagon

Train.” They couldn't have cared less about our barrier, and
they continued to implore, “You buy... Cheap.” Li Li rounded
up our Chinese students and instructed them to shout “bu
yao,” which roughly means “not interested,” at the street
hawkers. But the Chinese students recoiled and drifted to the
back of our protective circle. My students, though, rallied
around Li Li and took up the cry of “bu yao.” Alas, to little
effect. The street vendors began to breach our defenses.

Worse, my students were beginning to waver. Lulu took

out of her wallet a crisp American dollar bill, which fluttered
in the breeze like a flag of surrender. A vendor snatched it
out of her hand. Another reached into the pocket of her
shorts. As I watched Li Li try to pry Lulu loose from the
pawing vendors, I could only think of one thing: Where in the
hell was Yoshi?

To my right, I noticed a ripple moving through the crowd

toward us. Then two vendors pushing skewers of BBQ
scorpion suddenly toppled over. In their place stood Yoshi.
His grizzled face smirked at our trampled suitcase barricade.
Then he turned on the vendor closest to him and snarled,
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“Gun zou.” Miraculously, the vendor jumped aside. I learned

later that these two Chinese words meant “Fuck off.”

Yoshi stepped over the fallen luggage and inside our

perimeter and began teaching my students to shout “Gun
Zou.” Soon, my students were barking “Gun Zou” at the
street hawkers as if enfilading them with mortar fire. No one
said these two words with more gusto than Enzo. In no time,
the vendors recoiled and melted back into the crowd.

I, too, had learned an important lesson from Yoshi.

Chinese, with its emphatic pronunciation, is a wonderful
language in which to curse. I suppose, too, that the vendors
found it quite shocking to hear foreigners cursing them out in
their language.

As for my students, they had discovered a new hero. They

erupted in spontaneous communal cheer at the short,
grizzled man who had suddenly appeared among them. But I
could tell from my students’ gawking that they too were
puzzled by Yoshi. He didn't quite look like Li Li or our
Chinese students. But, then again, he didn't look American,
either. Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing looked equally confused,
if not downright suspicious. Only the Twin Wannabes beamed
as if seeing an old friend.

As for Yoshi, he made no effort to introduce himself but

rather just smirked.

Li Li appeared less than impressed. She eyed Yoshi with a

frown. I'm sure my Evangelical assistant disapproved of
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teaching our students to curse in any language. Doubly so in

her native tongue.

I wasn't sure what to think. On the one hand, I was

thankful we had been rescued. Better yet, my students had
received the real life, streetwise experience I wanted them to
have. On the other hand, though, there was something
disturbing about the relish Yoshi took in rallying my students
to bark “Fuck you.”

And, if I was being honest with myself, there was

something else that nagged at me: The ease at which Yoshi
had won the adoration of my students.

CHAPTER 13
NIGHT TRAIN

We had been on the train to Xi’an less than an hour and

already I had managed to lose all of my students — and Li Li,
too. Now, with a roster of students and their cabin
assignments in hand, I wandered through the narrow,
windowed aisles of the train's sleeper cars.

This was not one of today’s bullet trains you’ve probably

heard about. A sleek cylinder whisking passengers at 260
miles per hour in quiet cars with hostesses serving hot meals
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and beverages. Such trains would not be running until years

after our visit in 2009.

No, our train was vintage 1950s, and it reminded me of a

Hutong on wheels. As in the station, generations huddled
along its narrow corridors. Most people stood, but a lucky
handful sat on the row of low wooden stools bolted to the
floor alongside the windows. Some of those seated slurped
up steaming noodles out of metal thermoses. Others read
newspapers or played Go. The whole train smelled like dirty
laundry soaked in spicy beef broth.

Strangely, none of the sleeper cabins were occupied,

except one. And it was used as a mahjong parlor, crowded
with players. This is not to say no one slept. Rather,
passengers slumbered while standing or crumpled atop the
small stools. Some parents held children — or wrinkled faced
grandparents — enfolded within their arms as they slept.

I smiled to myself, remembering something Li Li had once

told me. The Chinese were loath to pay for anything that they
could otherwise get for free — and these sleeper cars cost
extra. Using your cabin to host mahjong was another story.
I'm sure the cabin’s occupant took a cut of any winnings.
Never mind that such use was illegal.

I, however, had paid good money for my students to sleep

in cabins and, damn it, I expected them to do so. Yet every
cabin I had reserved for my students turned up empty. None
of them even held a single backpack or suitcase.

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 Ahead I saw a clot of passengers blocking the aisle. They

appeared to be spilling out of one cabin. “Must be one hell of
a mahjong game,” I thought.

Then, amid the car's ambient singsong burble of Chinese, I

heard a distinct: “Oh my god. That's, like, actually, so cool.”

I took a closer look at the cluster of people ahead and

discovered that, at last, I had stumbled upon my lost
students, and my Chinese guides as well. They must be
standing outside Li Li’s cabin, I reasoned, and were watching
in awe as she unpacked her suitcase apothecary. Then I
espied Li Li herself. She, too, stood outside the cabin. On her
tiptoes, she tried to peer inside.

“What gives?” I asked Li Li.

She nodded at the open door of the cabin and I, too, stood
up on my tiptoes, trying to peer around Julio. What I saw
didn't please me. Enzo and the Twin Wannabes huddled
around Yoshi as he fiddled with the contents of a large army
surplus duffle bag, which he had set atop a bottom bunk bed.
Yoshi withdrew a tourniquet and a Bowie knife the size of a
small machete. Enzo’s sallow face lit up. “Wow, what’s that
for?”

Frowning, Yoshi ignored Enzo’s question and then

grumbled something to himself.

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 “Oh my god,” Lulu suddenly erupted, pointing at the blue

passport Yoshi had retrieved from his duffle bag. “You're an
American — like me!”

Her outburst stopped Yoshi cold. He turned to coolly eye

Lulu and then growled, “An American, yes; like you, not a
chance.”

I felt a chill at Yoshi's words, but Lulu sighed as if she’d

been patted on the head rather than verbally slapped.

“All right,” I said, clapping my hands as I pushed my way

into the cabin. “Let's give Yoshi some peace.” Although
grumbling at me, my students shuffled away from the cabin.
All save Enzo, who stood as if he were exempt from my
command. “That includes you,” I said to Enzo, hustling him
toward the door. I turned back to wink at Yoshi, but he
ignored me, muttering to himself while sorting through his
duffle bag.

“You're welcome,” I muttered to myself, as I left Yoshi's

cabin to rejoin Li Li in the aisle way. She shook her head.

“What?”

“Rather kids push him around?” Li Li said, nodding back

at Yoshi.

“No,” I grumped, then added: “But he does need to loosen

up and learn how to work with our students.”

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 “So teach.”

I winced at the idea.

“What choice?”

True enough. Of course, we should try to make good use

of Yoshi. We were paying for him, after all.

As Li Li and I herded the students to their respective

cabins, I heard them continue to sing Yoshi’s praise. “Did you
see that knife?” said Julio. “Yeah,” seconded Enzo, “how sick
was that!”

Li Li turned to study my frown. “What bothering you?”

“I’m not looking forward to a long hot night in these

cramped cabins,” I grumped.

Li Li shot me a skeptical look. “No...what really bothering

you?”

Even The Panda looked hot and bothered. He laid

prostrate on a top bunk, frowning at the fan dangling lifeless
from the ceiling. The Panda’s Nikon sat atop his bulbous
stomach like a tombstone.

There were five of us crammed into this cabin: The Panda,

myself, Lulu, Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing. In another cabin, I
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had put Poppy, Julio and Tink with one of the Twin
Wannabes; I paired the remaining twin with the Greek
Chorus and Li Li.

The Twin Wannabes had mewled in protest at being

separated, but I ignored them. I put Enzo in Yoshi’s cabin.
Enzo smiled for the first time, but Yoshi gave me a look that
made me think he might bite me on the ankle. Still, I couldn’t
resist; pairing Yoshi with Enzo gave me some sort of perverse
pleasure.

My plan had been simple: To recreate a dorm-like atmo

that would prompt my students to get to know their Chinese
counterparts. I hoped that this might be the most rewarding
and educational experience of the trip. My students would
learn that, although their Chinese counterparts watched
“Friends” and “Kung Fu Panda,” they saw the world very
differently.

But, if my cabin were any example, the sweltering train

was stifling my plan. The heat tormented both my students
and our Chinese guides, although for very different reasons.

Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing appeared indifferent to the

heat. Indeed, Xiao Bing still wore his worn, oversized army
coat. What did bother him and Mountain Girl was my
students’ distress. It deeply violated their sense of Chinese
hospitality.

Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing sprang off their bunks and
together struggled to open the cabin's sole window, which
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 grime must have sealed shut long ago. Finally, they gave up
and Xiao Bing turned his attention to the ceiling fan. He
grabbed a string dangling down from the fan and tugged. It
came off in his hand.

Mountain Girl turned to Lulu and asked, “Ni xiang re shui

ma?”

“‘Re’ what?” said a puzzled Lulu.

“Hot water,” I said, tickled with myself for having

understood Mountain Girl.

“Are you kidding?” Lulu whined. “I’m like actually melting

to death now.”

Mountain Girl looked like she had been slapped in the

face. I felt sorry for her. How could she have known that New
Yorkers drank cold water to cool themselves down? The
opposite was true in China, where people believed that warm
water cooled an overheating body. In fact, the Chinese
shunned beverages that were either ice-cold or burning hot.
Such extremes, they believed, upset your natural internal
balance, or “Qi,” which weakened your defense against
illness.

An uncomfortable silence stilled the cabin as Lulu pouted

and Mountain Girl struggled to figure out how to please her.

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 We still had a good eight hours until we arrived in Xi'an

and it would be an awfully long journey if my students and
their Chinese counterparts kept talking past each other.

In theory, I knew what needed to be done: Prompt a

conversation that would both free the Chinese from the
terrible burden of being the perfect hosts and lure my
students into getting to know their Chinese peers. But what
to say?

In the end, it wasn't me who saved us from a stifling

journey.

Lulu sheepishly studied Mountain Girl's pained smile and

her scowl softened. At heart, she was a very sweet girl who
didn't like to offend. Better yet, she was gregarious. “So, like,
what do you drive?” Lulu asked Mountain Girl.

I knew Lulu was trying to restart the conversation but on

more familiar turf. Alas, she managed to only further perplex
poor Mountain Girl, whose brow wrinkled something terrible.

But I understood. In the South, when people wanted to

size up a stranger, they would ask: “Who's your mama”; in
New York City, it was: “Where do you work?” But in the
Mississippi of the North, it was your car that revealed your
tribal identity, whether you were a dweeb, a nerd or a tree
hugger.

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 I stepped in to interpret. “Do you own a car?” I said to

Mountain Girl.

“Do you?” Mountain Girl retorted, incredulous.

“Of course,” said Lulu, adding proudly, “a 1995 Corolla.

Old as shit but still runs like a dream.”

Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing stared in wonder at Lulu. I

doubted either of them had ever befriended someone their
age who owned a car. And I understood why. From what I
had seen, the only college students with cars were the “fu er
dai,” or the children of the ruling Communist elite. Tsinghua,
of course was rich in “fu er dai,” but they wouldn't deign to
rub shoulders with the likes of Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing.
Communist China was more class-conscious than Victorian
England.

Lulu turned to address Xiao Bing. “You don't own a car,

either?"

Xiao Bing shook his head “No,” but he added proudly that
his father had built a motorized bicycle from spare parts.
Which, Xiao Bing explained, served his family better than a
car. The closest paved road to his village was five miles away.
His village would have been rough living for a car.

“That’s, like, so annoying! “Lulu said. “Where are you

from?"

“Chengzuo.”
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 I smiled, having read a bit about the place. I explained to

Lulu that Chengzuo bordered Laos in Southwest China. Its
only legit industry, outside gun running and opium, was
sugar. But its plantations were so antiquated that farmers still
used yaks to plough their fields and machetes to harvest the
sugarcane. No wonder Chengzuo's sugar was so
uncompetitive on the international market that the
government ended up buying most of it at inflated prices. In
part, government officials did so to keep Chengzuo farmers
from flocking to the already packed cities; in part, it did to
keep them from joining guerrilla armies in Laos and
Myanmar.

A mystified look crossed Lulu’s face. Was it her first inkling

that Xiao Bing and Mountain Girl, even though they used
Facebook and enjoyed “Sex in the City,” might not be much
like her at all? I smiled to myself at the prospect.

Xiao Bing looked like he wanted to ask my students a

question but feared it might be rude. So, I decided to help
him out. “Lulu,” I said, “I think our Chinese friends are
wondering whether all American homes have indoor toilets
and hot running water.”

“Hao de, hao de,” Xiao Bing said. He and Mountain Girl
both hung attentively on Lulu’s answer.

“What, like, you don't?" Lulu said, screwing up her nose.

Did she begin to sense the sanitary challenges that lay ahead
in our journey?
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 “No one did in my village,” said Mountain Girl.

She explained that she was the daughter of a shepherd in

Qinghai, high on the Tibetan Plateau in central Southwest
China. No wonder she was as lean and as muscular as a goat.
She had spent her youth bounding up mountainsides.

In her province, Mountain Girl continued, the only place

with indoor plumbing was the town at the foot of the
mountains. It was where provincial officials lived, but even
they didn’t have hot running water. In villages such as
Mountain Girl’s, each neighborhood had one communal
outhouse. This, in a place where it was winter much of the
year.

With a laugh, Mountain Girl recalled how villagers would

cough to signal that the neighborhood outhouse was
occupied. A cough was your calling call, your signature. By
the time she was three, Mountain Girl could tell one person's
cough from another. A phlegmatic, wheezing cough was Mrs.
Wu; a nasal, whistling was Mr. Zhang.

“And yours?” asked Lulu.

Mountain Girl thought for a moment and then bleated like

a goat.

Of course! I chuckled to myself.

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 I heard a rapid series of clicks and turned to see The

Panda had risen from his stupor. He danced around Lulu,
Xiao Bing and Mountain Girl, capturing them as they
compared their lives.

“Is it true,” Xiao Bing asked, “that you eat bacon

cheeseburgers every day?”

“Not if I feel like pizza,” said Lulu.

That Lulu even had such a choice must have sounded

luxurious to Xiao Bing, whose usual luncheon fare probably
consisted of chicken broth and noodles, eaten out of a metal
thermos.

“You really must be rich,” said Mountain Girl.

“Oh my god, I'm like, so poor,” said Lulu. “Do you think I'd
be driving a 10-year-old car — especially one handed down
from my big sister?”

“I thought you liked your car.”

“Sure...but I'd rather have a new mustang.”

“Hao de, hao de,” said Mountain Girl. “I, too, wished I had
had a horse back home.”

“A horse!? No, the car.”

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 Lulu and Mountain Girl stared quizzically at each other

while The Panda circled them, capturing their bewilderment
on film.

Their mutual misunderstanding filled my heart with joy.

Now we were getting somewhere.

I heard a soft rapping on our door and then a head full of

springy black curls poked into the room. “Can I come in?”
asked Poppy. I studied Poppy's sweaty brow and exasperated
expression. Tink must have been tormenting her with his
unsolicited pontifications about the virtues of Spider-Man
and Grand Funk Railroad. There's only so much anyone can
endure.

“Sure,” I said. “Come on in. We're having a grand old

time.”

Smiling in relief, Poppy sprang into the room. She leaned

against the door and listened intently to our ongoing
discussion.

“There's something I don't get,” said Lulu.

“Yes?” said Mountain Girl, eager to clear up any

misunderstanding.

“If your family is so poor that they can't even afford a car,
how do you pay for college?”
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 Good question, I thought, signaling my approval with a

nod. It became even better when Poppy joined in.

“Yeah,” Poppy seconded. “Isn’t Tsinghua like the MIT of

China?”

As usual, I proudly noted, Poppy had done her homework.

Xiao Bing and Mountain Girl both beamed with pride.

“Yes,” said Mountain Girl, “Tsinghua best school. But we don't
pay.”

Poppy and Lulu stared at their Chinese counterparts

speechless. Even The Panda lowered his camera for a
moment. They, like many American public university
students, were forced to borrow tens of thousands of dollars
— and work up to two jobs at a time — just to afford a
mediocre university such as Driftwood.

“You mean college in China is free?” said Lulu.

“No,” said Mountain Girl.

“I don't understand.”

“The Party pays.”

“Party?” said Lulu. For her, I'm sure the word conjured up
images of beer pong and slam dancing.

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 Poppy looked less confused and asked, “You mean the

Communist Party?”

“Da rang a!,” said Mountain Girl, as if the word could

mean but one thing. “We are both members,” said Mountain
Girl, nodding at Xiao Bing.

Poppy and Lulu both looked dumbfounded. Sure, they had

lots of friends who belonged to things such as the Zombie
Free Kill Society. But a political party of any stripe, let alone a
communist one? No way. Remember, this was a decade
before Trump politicized college students for a generation.

After a long silence, Poppy finally spoke. “But how can

you?”

“What do you mean?” said Mountain Girl. Lulu looked

equally confused, her sweaty brow knitted trying to
understand what was wrong with free tuition.

“You know, like, Tiananmen Square,” Poppy explained.

“What about it?” Mountain Girl rejoined.

Lulu still looked clueless.

“Well…,” Poppy hesitated, considering whether to say

what was on her mind. She glanced at me, and I nodded for
her to go on. “Aren't you bothered by all those students who
were killed?”

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 “What, like, here?” stammered Lulu.

While Lulu was clueless, the Chinese students were not.

They knew exactly what Poppy meant. But Poppy need not
have been worried about offending her Chinese counterparts.
They both shook their heads, as if they were parents who
expected such ignorance or naïveté from a child. With a
smile, Xiao Bing said, “Don't believe everything you read in
your books and newspapers.”

Poppy, of course, was not so easily put off. She countered,

“Well, then, how about that picture?”

"You mean the one with that guy standing in front of a

column of tanks?" said Xiao Bing.

Recognition finally dawned on Lulu. “Yeah, how about

that picture?”

“Really,” said Xiao Bing, sounding a bit disappointed in

Poppy. “One guy holding up a column of tanks?”

“How do you explain that picture then?” said Poppy.

“Never heard of photoshop?”

When it came to obfuscation and beguiling

misinformation, Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani were
amateurs compared to the Chinese Communist Party.

Page 220

 Our cabin fell silent. We all watched Poppy and Xiao Bing,
neither of whom said a word. But then again, they didn't
have to. Their expressions spoke for them. Poppy screwed up
her face as if to say, “Oh come off it,” while Xiao Bing smiled
as if he believed every word he said.

Did he? I wondered. For sure, Xi Dada would have never

let him serve as one of our guides if he felt The People’s
Liberation Army had massacred students at Tiananmen
Square in 1989. Then again, I had heard many Chinese
students dismiss the Party’s denial, but only in private
conversations with Westerners. And even then they usually
spoke in code. They referred to the massacre as “Liu Sze,”
which means the date June 4th, the day on which it occurred.
Say “Liu Sze” to any Chinese student, whether pro or anti
party, and they knew exactly what you meant. To understand
modern China often required the skills of a code breaker.

Finally, Mountain Girl broke the tense silence between

Poppy and Xiao Bing. “I don't know what happened in the
past, but I do know this: If it weren't for the party I'd be
standing on a wind swept hillock herding sheep right now
rather than studying to be an electrical engineer.”

“And you'll graduate not owing anyone a cent,” Lulu

mused aloud.

I wasn’t so sure about that. Looked to me like Mountain

Girl and Xiao Bing would be plenty indebted, just not to a
bank.

Page 221

 CHAPTER 14
THE GOLDEN DRAGON

Li Li and I had given Xi Dada a tall order. He needed to

rent a bus that could carry us 1,500 miles across Western
China, from Xi’an to Kumul — and that was the easy part.
This bus would need to serve as much more than just
transportation. It had to serve, too, as a rolling classroom,
where we would teach everything from Chinese geography to
Taoism.

We would also use the bus as a working newsroom. As we

traversed Western China, students would write stories, record
interviews, shoot pictures and capture video. They would
then combine it all together into a multimedia report to be
posted on the internet in real time.

And, when work was done, the bus would serve as a

rolling bed and breakfast, where my students would eat,
sleep and kibitz. In short, I needed nothing less than a
European class tour bus. Such a bus, especially at a
reasonable rate, was a tough thing to find anywhere in
China. Especially so where we were going.

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 You can imagine, then, my apprehension when I

disembarked from the train at Xi'an. At the entrance to the
station’s vast parking lot, I beheld a vast, crowded maze of
cars, mini vans and homemade jitneys. Where was our tour
bus? Yoshi beckoned us to follow him, and we took off,
wending our way through this warren of vehicles, some no
higher than my knee. What I didn’t see was anything
resembling a tour bus.

We exited the parking lot onto a side street. There,

shimmering in heat that could fry an egg, stood a rectangular
tower of steel on wheels. It rested, like some kneeling beast,
half on the narrow sidewalk and half in the street. Alongside
the bus’s massive side were emblazoned three striking
Chinese characters, which I read aloud: “Jin Huang Long.”

“Means Golden Dragon,” said Li Li.

Now, back in the U.S., few tour operators or drivers would

bother to name an individual bus. But this was China, where
Confucius had once said, “Nothing is more important than a
name.” And he said this in a place where people are
constantly trying to game their fate.

A trek by definition, of course, was a serious tempting of

fate. Best to make any journey in a mode of transportation
with an auspicious name. And there was nothing more
auspicious in China than a sack of gold or a dragon. Surely
putting two together in one name would double your chances
for good fortune. Or so thought the operator of this bus, I
figured.
Page 223

 “Oh my god. This is, like, totally awesome.”

I turned around to see Lulu gawking at the Golden

Dragon.

“I suppose you wanna look inside,” Yoshi growled, giving

me a look that suggested, if it were his call, we would travel
across western China on camels and sleep in yurts.

“If you don't mind,” I replied. I turned to Li Li and told her

to keep the students off until I had checked out the bus.

Yoshi banged on the Golden Dragon's metal door. His tiny

fist made a big noise. In moments, the door folded open. A
cloud of white smoke befogged the entrance of the bus.
Eventually, I made out what looked like the Chinese version
of a hillbilly sitting in the bus's driver seat. A reed thin man
with a protruding belly, the man sat slouched back, his ratty
white sneakers resting on the steering wheel. He wore an
olive green shirt with golden cuffs and lapels. A cigarette
dangled from his lip, and he cradled a metal thermos in his
lap.

As I stepped up into the Golden Dragon, I tensed,

expecting to find an interior suiting a hillbilly driver. What I
found instead was more like a yacht than a shack.

The seats were not only wide and well-cushioned; they

had foot rests and folded backward like those on an airline.

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 Even an insomniac such as me might be able to sleep in these

seats.

The bus had been stocked with crates of bottled water,

fresh fruit, granola bars and peanuts. There was a built-in
microphone system with speakers embedded throughout the
bus. The coup de resistance was a small latrine, which had
been installed inside a plastic hut adjacent the bus's middle
door.

Xi Dada and Yoshi had delivered as promised. That wasn’t

the only surprise I encountered on the Golden Dragon.

The Golden Dragon already had two passengers. A third,

really, if you counted the bulging rucksack that sagged in the
seat between a balding, lanky Asian man in baggy shorts and
a squat, grey-haired woman who knitted. All three occupied
seats in the back row of the bus.

As I approached, the lanky man rose and extended a hand.

“Thank you,” he said, seizing my hand and pumping it
vigorously. Where had I heard his midwestern twang before?

“For what?” I stammered, glancing down at the woman.

She continued to knit oblivious to me, humming to herself in
what sounded vaguely like some religious hymn.

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 The man softly chuckled as if I'd just made some kind of

inside joke. “My wife and I are honored, of course, by your
generous invitation.”

I had, of course, extended no such invitation. Still, this

man struck me as vaguely familiar. Where had I seen him
before?

“Dr. Kim!”

I turned to see Yoshi walking toward us with an extended

hand. Was that an actual smile on his face? He took Dr. Kim's
hand and growled, “You old son of a bitch.” Yoshi turned to
face me and grinned at my bewildered expression. “The
banquet?”

Of course. This was the Dr. Kim whom Xi Dada had

introduced to me.

Dr. Kim turned to face me and said in his perfect

Midwestern twang, “I’ve always wanted to see the old Silk
Road.”

I had found Dr. Kim endearing at the banquet, but he was

unwelcome now. The last thing I needed was another mouth
to feed on our tight budget. I was very much inclined to seize
both Dr. Kim and his wife by the hem of their tee shirts and
toss them off the bus.

“Let me assure you that Mrs. Kim and I will be no

trouble,” he said, reading my concerned expression. “We eat
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very little and brought our own food,” Dr. Kim added,
nodding down at the knapsack in the seat. “And of course we
would be happy to sleep on the bus.”

Very generous but all unnecessary. Truth was, Li Li and I

were trapped, and I’m sure the Kims knew it. Turning them
away would constitute an unforgivable breach of Chinese
etiquette. You didn't deny a guest, no matter how uninvited,
food and lodging if he showed up unexpectedly at your door.

Xi Dada, of course, knew this as well. Still, it seemed a

curious move. Why would Xi Dada take it upon himself to
invite Dr. Kim on our trip? After all, Dr. Kim's specialty was
neither the Silk Road, Chinese culture nor its history. His
speciality was the geopolitics of the Korean conflict.

Equally puzzling, why would Dr. Kim want to come? Few

people I knew, and that went double for professors, would
choose to spend a month traveling with a group of college
students. Especially if it meant going a month without a
Frappuccino, not to mention a western style toilet. Even Xi
Dada had begged off traveling with us.

Yet, here was Dr. Kim, beaming as if he'd just won a seat
on the board of The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
rather than on a tour bus with a bunch of whiny college
students and a plastic toilet.

Li Li poked her head inside the bus. “We come?”

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 I waved for her to bring the students aboard. Li Li's eyes

narrowed as she saw Dr. Kim. “You invite?”

“Apparently.”

As she and I watched Yoshi and Dr. Kim catch up, it

seemed that Li Li and I were the only strangers on this bus.

Li Li decided to use our bus driver as a lesson in the social

topography of modern China. She nodded toward the driver's
baggy faded green shirt and asked, “What tell us?”

“That he served in the People's Liberation Army?”

“And?”

“He's chilly?”

Li Li's little fist gave me a playful punch in the shoulder.

“Hundred degrees out!”

“Then you tell me.”

“Village people. Keep all uniforms.”

“Ah,” I said, remembering Xiao Bing’s description of his

village last night on the train. “Probably the best clothes he
owns.”

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 “True,” Li Li said, but added: “Also proud of his military

service.”

We sat together, me at the window, Li Li on the aisle, in a

pair of seats near the front on the right side of the bus. Our
seating wasn't random, as our students would say. Rather,
strategic considerations had guided our choice. We wanted to
be far enough away from the students, who clustered at the
rear of the bus, to have some peace, yet close enough to hear
any rising trouble. We also wanted a clear view of the driver,
who was on probation until he had proven himself
competent. I'd seen too many accidents — many involving
tour buses — in my short time in China.

“How about thermos?” Li Li continued.

I looked at the dented, squat metal thermos rolling about

the floor at the driver's ratty white sneakers.

“What do you think is in it?” Li Li pressed.

“Jasmine tea?” I ventured. Li Li had scolded me once for

trying to buy such tea, which she told me only was drunk by
“Village People,” her derisive term for anyone who couldn't
afford a high rise apartment in Beijing such as herself.

“No! Soup.”

“Soup? Which means…”

“Southerner.”
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 Ah, yes. Those south of the Yangtze believed that hot

spicy, soup cooled you off better than ice tea on a steamy
summer day.

“Now, tell me what cigarette driver smoke.”

Few things in China were more telling about where you

stood in the social pecking order than what you smoked. A
successful businessman flaunts State Express 555. Someone
who has just earned — or, more likely stolen — enough to
buy one of the rising number of MacMansions circling Beijing
— favors Chun Gua. And “made,” or political connected
people such as Xi Dada, smoked Pandas.

I craned my neck to try and peer into the open pack inside
the driver's shirt pocket. But all I could see was the crumpled
tinfoil. My gaze drifted to the driver's hands, which gripped
the steering wheel. I smiled in triumph at his red tipped
fingers. “Red Pagodas!” I proclaimed.

“Hao de, hao de,” said Li Li, sounding impressed, but she
pressed me: “What mean?”

“Well, Red Pagodas are the cigarette of the rising middle

class...so the driver must own this bus.”

Which meant, I hoped, that he would drive in a way that

would protect his investment.

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 CHAPTER 15
URBAN DIORAMA

My window seat afforded me a great panoramic view of

urban China. The first thing I noticed was that the Golden
Dragon was about two sizes too big for the narrow, crowded
streets of downtown Xi'an. Its wheels rolled over sidewalks
and flowerbeds; its girth clipped soup stands and the side
windows of parked cars. Not that other drivers found the
Golden Dragon's size intimidating. Indeed, the smaller the
vehicle, the more its pluck. Like a swarm of angry gnats, all
belching black smoke, motorized bikes, scooters and three
wheeled jitneys, some no more than waist high, buzzed
around the Golden Dragon.

Next to catch my eye were all the cops. There were cops in
blue, cops in black and cops in green. Some wore military
style white helmets and waistbands; some carried batons and
others pistols.

There was a cop posted atop a raised pedestal at every

major intersection, staring straight ahead, seemingly
oblivious to the traffic roaring around him; others stood at
attention within gatehouses in front of buildings with the
communist party emblem. Then there were the cops who
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marched around in smart formations but never seemed to

reach any destination.

With all these cops, you'd think Chinese cities were the
most orderly, well-behaved places on earth. In fact, if Xi'an
and Beijing were representative, the streets of urban China
appeared to be a free-for-all, with every man for himself. Cars
were parked willy-nilly across sidewalks. Many of them were
the black Audis with tinted black windows favored by party
and government officials. Not that this obstacle course of
party vehicles impeded foot traffic. A thick, steady stream of
pedestrians wended its way through the parked cars.

Fender benders abounded, with driver's stopped in the

middle of the street, screaming and jabbing fingers at one
another.

Where were the police in all this? Not handing out tickets,
that's for sure. Nor were they trying to move aside cars
involved in these accidents. Instead, cops stood atop their
traffic pedestals staring ahead into the smoggy horizon,
seemingly oblivious to the chaos swirling around their feet.

The sky darkened and it began to rain. Yet not a vehicle —

including the Golden Dragon — turned on either its
headlights or windshield wipers.

The traffic free-for-all, while fascinating, was not the best

part of my panorama. No, what I enjoyed most were the
English translations on street signs, stores and restaurants.
Preparing for the 2010 Olympics, the central government had
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 ordered municipalities nationwide to add English translations

to all official signage. Stores and restaurants had also joined
in for the fun.

Now, in fairness, you didn't find many Chinese fluent in

English outside of Beijing or Shanghai. Which left cities such
as Xi'an scrambling to find qualified people to translate
hundreds of signs. I heard the job largely fell to middle and
high school students. Some of these results were funny; some
disturbing. Here are a few representative examples:

A handicapped parking sign read: “Deformed Person.”

A restaurant special offered “Eat Free Kids on Tuesday.”

A chain of clothing stores called itself, “The ecstasy family

make you crazy.”

Restaurants advertised such local specialities as “Sauce on

Grandma, Fried Swarm” and “Urine Dry Noodles.”

You can see why I was having such a good time.

Yet I knew that, soon enough, I would have to leave my

comfortable ringside seat and lead my students into a place
where government officials felt free to park on the sidewalk
and restaurants offered the chance to “eat free kids on
Tuesday.”

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 “Know Dr. Kim?” Li Li turned to nod toward the back of

the bus.

“Not really,” I said. “Xi Dada invited him to the banquet

back in December.”

“Hmm.”

“What, you think he’ll be a problem?”

Li Li shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Not sure yet. Best

keep eye on Mrs. Kim.”

“Really?” I chuckled, turning to glance at Mrs. Kim. She

sat hunched over her rapidly knitting fingers humming to
herself. For some reason, I recalled the famous closing line of
Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” which went something like this: I’ll
show them. I’ll just sit here so still I won’t even swat a fly.

“Yeah, why is she here?” I said, turning back to Li Li. “This

trip is no vacation.”

“Not here on vacation.”

“Then what?”

“Here to keep Dr. Kim out of trouble.”

I turned again, this time to study Dr. Kim. In his baggy

khaki shorts, Princeton tee shirt and Birkenstock sandals, he
looked as threatening as a dandelion. “He doesn’t look like
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 trouble,” I said, turning back to Li Li. “Unless he has the

appetite of a hippo.”

“Still, keep eye on Mrs. Kim. She like canary in coal mine.”

“Impressive. Your English is getting much better.”

“Ai ya! No joke.”

A bemused smile crossed my face.

“What funny?” Li Li asked, pinching my arm.

I didn’t respond, but I was thinking plenty. Even though

we had already been through so much together, Li Li
remained as mysterious to me as a cat that insists on sleeping
only in a blue room. How could Mrs. Kim present any
problem?

“Did get lucky with Yoshi,” said Li Li, nodding toward the
back of the bus where Yoshi sat. “Look.”

I turned to eye Yoshi. He sat in a seat about two-thirds of

the way toward the rear. A gaggle of my students huddled
around him. He looked none too happy about it, staring
ahead and grumbling to himself. Enzo had managed to
secure the seat directly across the aisle from Yoshi, and his
raccoon eyes bathed him in puppy love. Enzo, in turn, was
similarly bathed in a loving gaze of Lulu, who sat next to
him.

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 I frowned.

“What?” Li Li said.

“Why didn't Yoshi sit with us?” I grumbled. “Don’t you

think he’d want to get to know us and what we expect from
him?”

Li Li raised an eyebrow as if to suggest this wasn't my real

concern. She might have been right, although I was loath to
admit it at the time.

Anyway, I suddenly stood up and walked to the front of

the bus, where I unhooked a handheld microphone from the
control panel of the bus's public address system. It screeched
for a moment as I turned the system on. All eyes turned to
look at me. I smiled and spoke into the microphone. “Good
morning and welcome to Professor B's Classroom Without
Walls.”

A collective groan echoed within the bus. I ignored the

groaning and told myself that, at least now, I had everyone's
attention. “Notice,” I said, turning to jab an extended index
finger at urban Xi’an’s slate grey skies. “There's no sun on
what is supposed to be a sunny day!” My gaze swept the bus,
trying to make eye contact with each of my students. But I
found no takers. My students' attention had again drifted
away. Some continued to buzz around Yoshi; others napped
or looked out the window. In short, I might as well have been
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speaking to our bus driver, who didn't understand a word of

English.

Undaunted, I pressed on. “The skies of Xi’an remind me of

pictures I have seen of Los Angeles, circa 1950. Who can tell
me why that’s so?”

I got an answer, all right, but not the one I expected. The
PA system gave me the audio equivalent of a giant raspberry,
emitting an ear-splitting screech. I turned to fiddle with the
PA system's control panel. But no matter what dial I turned
— or how far — I couldn't get the screeching to stop. It was
as if the PA system itself was determined to shut me up.

Finally, Yoshi stood, red eyes boiling, and marched toward

me. “Give me that,” he growled, extending a hand toward the
mic. I glanced at Li Li, who nodded that I should surrender it
to Yoshi. No sooner did Yoshi take the mic than the horrible
screeching stopped. The bus rocked with applause.

I frowned, but still returned to my seat.

We came to a stop at a red light, and I turned again to

look out my window. I saw that the bus had entered some
kind of shantytown, with tin roofed shacks, muddy, potholed
dirt streets and overflowing trash bins. There was a mangy
brown three-legged dog rummaging through the garbage
spilling out of the cans.

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 “See that dog?” Yoshi growled into the mic, his voice
reverberating down the metal cylinder of the bus as he
pointed out the window.

“Yeah,” said Lulu, who pressed her face against the

window.

“Well, you won't see it for long.”

“Why not?”

“It's most likely destined for somebody's dinner table.”

A chorus of “Oohs” filled the bus. Even Li Li, who knew

what Yoshi said was true, winced.

As for Yoshi, he seemed to bask in the disapproval that

filled the bus. With a twisted smile, he calmly explained that
pets such as dogs were a luxury in a place where most people
could only afford to eat meat once a year. Yoshi shot me a
challenging glance that said, “How's that for a first lesson?”

“Hao de, hao de,” Li Li murmured in my ear. But I was less

sure about Yoshi's performance. True, his realism about the
fate of that mangy dog was just the kind of lesson I wanted
my rolling classroom to teach. But I wanted to be the one
eliciting “Oohs” of disgust from my students.

What, I wondered, did Dr. Kim make of Yoshi’s

performance. I turned to glance back at him. With arms
crossed and a bemused smile on his face, Dr. Kim watched
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Yoshi and I as if we were a pair of adolescent boys vying for

the attention of the same girl on the playground.

Page 239

 CHAPTER 16
MAO SALUTES YOU

The Golden Dragon pulled off the congested local road

and onto a long driveway flanked on both sides with leafy
trees. Down the middle of the road ran an island garden lush
with red and yellow flowers. I ventured aloud that this place
was either a private estate or the campus of an elite college.

“Er... Wrong!” the bus’ speakers crackled. I turn to see

Yoshi’s grizzled face smirking at me. “This,” he continued, “is
the world headquarters of the Lucky Panda Trading Group,
one of the first — and now one of the largest — publicly
traded private companies in China.”

No sooner had Yoshi spoken then ahead loomed the

largest single statue of Mao I had ever seen. It must have
towered 30 feet above its high pedestal, which sat in the
center of a roundabout. Mao stood in his trademark peasant
jacket and cap. One of his long arms extended outward,
welcoming visitors with an open hand. Now, what would the
largest, publicly traded company in China be doing with a
giant statue of Mao?

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 Such mysteries only grew as we entered the campus of

Lucky Panda. Flanking Mao’s towering figure were several
gleaming new glass and steel dormitories, where its workers
lived. Through the buildings’ glass windows, I saw the neon
marquees of several restaurants, including the likes of KFC
and Pizza Hut. There was also a separate, standalone modern
recreation center. In short, Lucky Panda did indeed look more
like a U.S. college campus than a corporate headquarters.

“Do all Chinese companies look like this?” I asked Yoshi.

“If they are big and successful.”

“Really!” I said, remembering the narrow, grimy

streetscape we had driven through. “Seems like those lucky
enough to work at Lucky Panda are lucky indeed.”

“Damn straight,” Yoshi said.

“Look at that!” said Poppy, pointing out her window.

I turned to look out the window, too. In front of the Pizza

Hut stood a smart phalanx of young workers in matching
white polo shirts, blue pants and red visors. They stood erect
in front of an older man who barked brief exclamations. The
phalanx responded in unison after each exhortation.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Li Li.

“He’s telling them to do their best — and they are saying

‘yes we will.’”
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 “Jeez, what a bunch of normies,” said Enzo, prompting a

round of giggles across the bus.

The Golden Dragon stopped in front of a glass pavilion

that stood between the dorms and directly behind Mao. The
doors of the bus opened, and Sissy bounded up out of her
seat and out the door. Yoshi followed her and the rest of us
followed behind him.

Enzo came last and slipped away from the group and
toward the front of the statue. Lulu nipped at his heels,
wobbling badly on her high-heel sandals trying to keep up.
“Take a picture of me and Mao,” he commanded her. She
nodded and pulled a small camera out of her shirt pocket.
She snapped away as Enzo pushed out his chest, brandishing,
“Fuck Whitey.”

Clucking like a hen irritated at some wayward chicks, Li Li

chased after Enzo and Lulu and shooed them back to our
group.

We entered a glass pavilion in front of us that served as a

visitors center. Inside were several replicated features of the
Forbidden City, including the long marble stairway
supplicants climbed to gain an audience with the emperor.
There was also a golden replica of the famed Nine Dragon
mural. Good thing the statue out front was facing forward.
Such a display would have made the founder of Communist
China red with anger. He had spent a lifetime tearing down
such symbols of imperial China.
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 Centered in the middle of the pavilion’s lobby was a

towering flat screen that ran an endless loop of video
promoting Lucky Panda’s products. They included everything
from beer to scooters.

“China is so cool,” swooned Pajama Girl, as she stood

craning her neck up at the giant screen in front of her.
Angelica and Sissy, who stood behind her, nodded in unison.

“Ai ya!”

The Greek Chorus turned around to see Li Li come up

behind them, pointing at their feet.

“What?” said Pajama Girl.

“Where sneakers?” Li Li chided.

Pajama Girl glanced down at the fuzzy pink slippers on

her bare feet. “I dunno,” she mumbled, and then added, more
sharply, “okay, seriously, like what’s the big deal, anyway?”

“You know what Professor B said,” Li Li scolded. She

turned and pointed to the door. “Back to bus. Get sneakers.”
Li Li nodded at Angelica, who stood barefoot with candy
colored toenails in flip-flops. “You too.”

Both girls crossed their arms in defiance and didn’t

budge.

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 “What’s the problem here?” I said, coming up behind Li Li.

She nodded at Angelica and Pajama Girl. “No sneakers.”

“Do what Li Li says,” I said. “Her word is mine.”

“But I don’t know where I even put my sneakers,” Angelica

complained.

“Well, then, you’ll have to wait on the bus if you can’t find
them.”

“I have an extra pair you can borrow,” said Sissy. “They are
on the top of my bag.”

“Thank you, Sissy,” I said. “There will be a little something

extra in your paycheck this week.”

“What?” said Sissy, who was apparently immune to the

humor of a 50-year-old man.

“Never mind. Okay, you two — off with you.”

“That’s, like, so annoying,” grumped Pajama Girl. But she

did stomp off, with Angelica trailing behind.

I turned back to Li Li. “Don’t take any crap off them.”

“No worry, I won’t.”

Except when it came to Enzo, I thought. But I didn’t say

anything. For now, at least.
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 Behind us emerged several young men in pressed khaki

slacks and Izod Lacoste polo shirts. They herded us into a
conference room with a lectern flanked by two long tables.
Angelica and Pajama Girl rushed in just as the double door of
the conference was closing. Both now wore sneakers, if
untied.

In front of every seat sat a paper cup filled with a light

green liquid. The students sniffed suspiciously at the fluid in
the paper cups as they sat down. “What is this, some kind of
lemonade?” Pajama Girl asked aloud.

“Looks more like pee,” snorted Enzo.

Julio seized a cup and slugged it down in one gulp. His

grimace prompted the others to put their cups back down.
“It’s like the stuff on the plane,” he coughed out.

Li Li and I had our work cut out for us in getting the

students to open up and at least sample Chinese culture.

On the wall of the conference room hung another big

screen, which once again played the promotional video that
we had seen in the lobby. One of our hosts, who introduced
himself as Li Na, added a little narration. Lucky Panda, he
proudly announced, was one of the first companies to raise

Page 245

 capital through selling shares on the Shanghai and Hong

Kong stock exchanges.

When the video ended, Li Na motioned for us to exit the

conference room, but I stopped him. “Wait, aren’t we going to
have a chance to ask questions?”

Li Na stood, mouth open. You would have thought that

nobody had ever asked him such a thing. For a long moment,
he conferred with his two colleagues and then with Yoshi.
Finally, he nodded, “Hao de, ke yi,” which meant sure, fire
away.

I turned to my students who stared ahead, glassy-eyed.

So, I decided to get things started. “Tell me about that
impressive statue out front.”

“What do you mean?” said Li Na.

“I mean, why would one of the most successful private

companies in China showcase a giant statue of Mao?”

My question really wrinkled poor Li Na’s forehead. Again,

he conferred with his colleagues. At last, he turned back
toward me and replied: “Chairman Mao is the great founder
of modern China.”

Of course this was no answer at all. I tried to pursue my

question further but was interrupted by Pajama Girl. She
asked, “Are we going to get any free samples?”

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 Li Na’s brow relaxed, and he announced, “Dang ran a!”

The students erupted in applause.

“This way, please,” said Li Na, ushering us out of the

conference room. His brow wrinkled again as Enzo walked
past him. Staring at his tee shirt, he said to me, “What
mean?”

What indeed.

Page 247

 CHAPTER 17
THE BAD BOY OF DUMPLINGS

We parked the Golden Dragon at the hotel in Xi’an where

we were staying for the night and then set out on foot. Yoshi
led the way. He strode forward on his short but powerful legs.
At first, Enzo tried to keep pace with him but soon fell
behind. Not so Sissy, who raced past Enzo to catch up with
Yoshi. “Hey, like, where are we going?” she asked him.

Yoshi glanced at the blonde, pink-faced girl keeping stride

with him and said, “I know a great little dumpling house not
far from here.”

“Awesome. What’s a dumpling?”

Yoshi grimaced and, for a moment, he looked like he

might punch Sissy, but instead he sped up, trying to lose her.
Nice try. Sissy kept pace with Yoshi as he powered ahead.

Even Li Li and I struggled to keep up with Yoshi, lagging a

lick or two behind him. Still, I had no complaint, happy to be
off the bus and hoofing it. It felt damn good not to be sitting.
I sensed most of my students didn’t share my enthusiasm.
Mountain Girl, the Kims, Xiao Bing and Li Li all managed to
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keep up with me. But everyone else, including the Twin

Wannabes, straggled far behind.

I can’t speak for the Twin Wannabes, but I suspected I

understood why my students struggled to keep up.

For one, they were unused to the climate of Xi’an, which

was a thousand miles southwest of Beijing. We were in
Southeast Asia now and, as a Filipino friend once put it, there
are only two seasons here: hot and hotter. Sure, the
Mississippi of the North could get pretty humid in the
summer. But nothing like this. Walking through the streets of
Xi’an tonight felt like wading through a wet sauna. Even my
crotch felt sticky.

Luckily, we would soon leave the sticky southeast for the

hot and dry west. Which presented a weather challenge of its
own. The high desert sun of the Silk Road could fry your
brain before you knew it.

The weather wasn’t the only thing bedeviling my students.

They appeared to be unfamiliar with the concept of walking.
Their legs moved as if dragging a ball and chain. Li Li and I
looked at each other. How were we ever going to get them up
the western gate of the Great Wall?

Ahead, Yoshi abruptly stopped in front of the steamy

window of a little shop. “Here she is,” he announced, waiting
for the rest of us to catch up.

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 Pajama Girl peered through the steamed up window or at

least tried to. “What kind of food is this?” she asked, her
voice dripping with skepticism.

“Dumplings,” said Yoshi. “Best in town.”

“Dumplings?”

It was my turn to be skeptical. How could you grow up in

or near the First City of the Third World, with its sizable
Asian population, knowing nothing about dumplings? Then
again, if my classes at Driftwood were any example, such
ignorance made perfect sense. I had a rich diversity of
students, Indian and Pakistani, Chinese and Filipino, many of
whom lived in abutting neighborhoods, yet they knew
nothing about each other’s food or culture.

Li Li was about to explain dumplings when she was cut

off. “Dumplings are a Chinese knockoff of ravioli,” Tink
chimed in with authority. “Except, instead of cheese or
hamburger, they have dog meat inside.”

“Zen me le!” Li Li protested but it was too late. The

damage had been done. My students stepped back in horror.

“Suit yourselves,” Yoshi said with a shrug. “Eat — or don’t.

No skin off my ass. But this is dinner for tonight.” With that
Yoshi went inside the steamy little restaurant. The Chinese
students and the Kims followed him.

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 “Well, I’m hungry,” announced Julio.” Besides, I want to

see what a dumpling is.” He, too, followed Yoshi inside.

The rest of my students wavered outside the restaurant,

looking paralyzed with confusion. Of course, Julio’s
endorsement meant little to them. He had, after all, eaten
that fish eye. What wouldn’t he eat?

I opened my mouth to command the students to enter the

restaurant but Li Li punched my shoulder. “Watch...listen,”
she counseled.

I turned to eye Lulu, whose gaze lovingly fondled Enzo.

He, I figured, was the key to whether the other students
would try this dumpling house. Enzo looked none too sure
about what to do. His sallow brow looked deeply wrinkled.

I tried to imagine his torment. On the one hand, Enzo

didn’t want Tink to dominate the conversation. Nor did Enzo
appear to believe a word Tink said. But he could see the
other students did believe Tink. And what if Tink was at least
half right, which he often was? Then Enzo would lose face
with the other students.

On the other hand, Enzo worshipped Yoshi and

desperately courted his favor. Would Yoshi forgive him if he
didn’t at least try the dumplings here? Doubtful.

Suddenly, Enzo’s wrinkled brow relaxed. Had he found a

solution? “Man, how bad could they be?” he scoffed. Then
he, too, entered the restaurant. The others followed him.
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 Inside, Li Li and I found a dank, steamy ramshackle hole

in the wall with wobbly round wooden tables and rickety
benches. The place rang with the clang of metal ladles
against the sides of dented woks.

Now, I can well imagine, this place wouldn’t sound

appetizing to most Americans. But it was packed. And for
good reason. The smell alone, a heavenly aroma of steamed
pork and vinegar, was enough to make you drool.

Li Li and I joined Yoshi, the Kims and Julio, who was the
only student at our table. Enzo tried to join us, dragging over
a bench to the crowded table, but Yoshi waved him off. Enzo
shuffled off to join our students at another table.

As Enzo left I leaned over to whisper in Li Li’s ear, “How

about that tee shirt?”

Li Li shook her head. “Poor lost boy.”

“What?” I said, surprised. “Why aren’t you outraged.”

“Why outraged? Sadden, yes.”

“I can’t believe this...you are taking his side.”

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 “Not taking any side,” Li Li corrected me. Then, casting me

a skeptical look, Li Li added: “I bet you do same when Enzo’s
age — worse even!”

She had me there, so I backed off. Still, I had to get rid of

that tee shirt before Enzo created an incident. I started to
rise, but Li Li put a hand on mine. “Don’t make scene,” she
scolded me.

The first of many plates of steaming dumplings arrived at

our table. Pointing at them, Li Li added, “Not to worry. Enjoy
dumplings. I will take care of tee shirt.” She leaned over to
whisper in Yoshi’s ear. A shit-eating grin crossed his face, and
he nodded.

These steaming dumplings were unlike any I had eaten

back home. Those consisted of a hard dry ball of
unidentifiable meat wrapped in a mushy dumpling skin.

In contrast, these dumplings were not only juicy; the meat

seemed to be used largely for flavoring a rich mix of
scallions, celery and shrimp. The skins were as chewy as a
fresh baguette. Li Li showed me how to dip my dumpling into
a spicy sauce of rice vinegar and hot pepper. It really gave the
dumplings a kick.

“How can the students resist these?” I said, winking at Li

Li. She wasn’t convinced. “Ai ya,” she groaned, nodding at the
table where Enzo sat with Lulu and the Greek Chorus. All of
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them were picking up dumplings with their fingers and then

tearing them open with their teeth. They spit out the filling
onto the table, eating only the chewy skin.

Li Li explained that there were few things considered

more crass in Chinese culture than eating food with your
fingers — especially in public. It marked you as a “wai di
ren,” Chinese for country bumpkin.

“Kuai zi, kuai zi,” Li Li barked are the students, holding up

her chopsticks and clicking them together.

“Why?” sniffed Tink. “These aren’t real dumplings,

anyway. There’s too many vegetables.”

In disgust, I turned my focus away from my students and

back to the large serving plate of delicious dumplings in front
of me. My eye caught sight of a particularly juicy looking
dumpling, which was bigger and flatter, like a medallion,
than the others. I swooped in to pluck it up with my
chopsticks. But this was the bad boy of dumplings. It’s
surprising size and weight stymied me. The dumpling kept
sliding off my chopsticks. In angry frustration, I skewed the
dumpling with a chopstick and raised it toward my mouth.

“Ai ya!”

I turned to see Li Li glaring at me.

“What?”

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 “You are courting bad luck, my friend,” said Dr. Kim,

slowly shaking his head at the dumpling dangling from my
chopstick.

I turned to address Li Li. “I thought you weren’t

superstitious?”

“Not superstition...fate!”

The distinction eluded me.

Yoshi smirked. “What you don’t know about Chinese

culture is a lot.”

As we talked, that bad boy of a dumpling slid off my

chopstick and back onto the platter to rejoin his fellow
dumplings. Nobody dared touch it. Not even Julio, who
gobbled up everything else in sight.

That dumpling hadn’t forgotten my cultural faux pas. Its

puncture wound stared up at me like an evil eye.

Stomachs full, we took our time strolling back to the

hotel, taking in the streetscape.

“What’s that?” asked Poppy, pointing at a flat black panel

atop a streetlamp. Every lamp had one.

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 “Looks like some kind of solar panel,” I said. “Can that

be?”

“Damn straight,” said Yoshi.

“That’s a story,” I said, turning back to face the students

lagging behind me.

“A what?” said Lulu, who came up to us and stopped.

Soon the other students were gathered around me, looking
up at the streetlamp’s solar panel.

“A story,” I repeated, this time with emphasis. I was eager

to get my students doing what we had come here for: To
document and explain the vast richness of modern China to
our university back home.

“Now, how’s that?” answered Yoshi.

“No city I know of back home uses solar panels like this to
power streetlights.”

Yoshi chuckled.

“What?”

“It ain’t what it seems,” said Yoshi.

“Those aren’t solar panels?” asked Poppy.

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 “Oh they’re solar panels, all right,” said Yoshi. “Damn good
ones, too. That little sliver of silicon can power a lamp
through the night.”

Poppy studied the panel. “What’s the problem, then?”

“Ain’t hooked up,” Yoshi said.

“But the light is on.”

“It’s powered from the same old electric grid underneath

the street.”

“You mean that solar panel is just for looks?” I said.

“Bingo,” Yoshi said. “They can’t seem to figure out how to

make it work yet.”

“That’s even a better story!,” I exclaimed. Suddenly, I was

interrupted.

Bang! Bang!

Poppy and I about jump out of our skins.

Bang...bang, bang, bang.

I looked about me to see my students scatter. Tink jumped

behind a trash bin; Enzo crouched under the streetlamp. Lulu
clamped her hands over both ears and whimpered, “Make it
stop.”
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 “There, there,” said Dr. Kim, as he patted Lulu on the

back. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” His wife, who pointed a knitting
needle at some invisible foe, looked less convinced.

As Poppy and I cowered, I glanced back at Yoshi. He

grinned at us as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I
relaxed a bit, figuring that, whatever was going on, it
couldn’t be too serious. “What’s that?” I asked him.

“Sounds like the natives setting off firecrackers.”

“It’s a Chinese holiday?” I asked, struggling to recall one

on this date. Given their long history, and love of partying,
the Chinese had more holidays than any people I knew of.

“Don’t think so,” Yoshi said.

Li Li nodded that she couldn’t think of one either.

“Then what?”

Ahead I saw a man approaching with a long strand of

firecrackers slung over his shoulder. I dispatched Li Li to go
interview him. She returned with a scornful grin.

“What?” I said. I waved for everyone to gather round Li Li

and I. Everyone did so, as if huddling for protection. Except,
that is, Yoshi, who stood just outside our circle, arms folded,
smirking.

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 As the popping of firecrackers intensified again, Li Li told

quite a tale. A rumor had spread through the surrounding
neighborhood that the provincial officials had knocked down
an ancient Buddhist temple to make way for a soaring new
apartment building. The locals feared that this demolition, if
true, would release a flock of angry ghosts who would avenge
the destruction of their temple by snatching nearby babies.
Locals were setting off the firecrackers to scare away the
avenging spirits.

Dr. Kim confirmed that this was indeed ancient Chinese

folklore.

“All superstition,” said Li Li, waving her hand dismissively.

I wanted to say, “No more than believing a woman could

get pregnant without insemination,” but I bit my tongue.

By the furrowed brows of our Chinese guides, I could see

that this tale was as real to them as that of Jesus rising from
the dead. I knew already that there is nothing Chinese fear
more than ghosts. Indeed, The Twin Wannabes wandered off
to find firecrackers of their own. Li Li moved to chase after
them, but I grabbed one of her scrawny arms. “Let’em go,” I
counseled.

“All nonsense,” she said, incredulously.

“Maybe so,” I said, “but I sense that we should let this play
out.”

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 I, of course, saw a wonderful lesson in this fable. Think

about it. Mao had spent a good 50 years trying to rip Chinese
culture out by its roots. Yet, no sooner had he died, then it
had blossomed once again, stronger than ever. And there
appeared nothing the party could do but learn to live with it.

Now, the revival of ancient fears about avenging ghosts

seemed a wonderful way to capture the contradictions of
modern China. “To arms,” I cried. “Panda shoot the people
setting off fireworks; Poppy, Lulu...take Mountain Girl and
interview people. Tink, record everything they say.”

Only Panda, who needed little encouragement, followed

my orders. The others stared at me as if I was crazy.
Especially the Chinese students, who shivered in fear amid
the rising din of explosions.

Li Li clucked in disapproval, her slender arms crossed.

“What?” I said.

“I don’t think she fancies you showing off this

superstitious side of the Chinese,” said Yoshi. He nodded at Li
Li and said, “am I right?”

Li Li just harrumphed.

Too exhausted to fight, I surrendered to the group. But

next time I would not give in. I was determined to get my
students to produce real work about China. We had seen and
heard too much good stuff already.
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 Take tonight’s spooks. What a tale they would have made.

Now, I don’t know if they succeeded in stealing any babies.
But I do suspect they exacted their revenge on me. While
Lulu slept they whispered in her ear: “Why don’t you plug
that handheld hair dryer of yours into the room socket
tomorrow morning.” Which, of course, Lulu promptly did
when she awoke.

Luckily, those ghosts seriously underestimated the

resilience of American college students. Teenagers today are
tough. They have to be. How else can they survive, let alone
thrive, on their typical diet of Pop Tarts, Gummy Bears and
whipped cream-topped Frappuccinos?

And I suspect Lulu was even tougher than most. That

electric shock did no more than roll Lulu’s eyeballs and frizz
her thick hair. True, Yoshi did have to sling Lulu over his
shoulder to load her back onto the bus. But by noon that
same day she was her old self, The Hapless Wonder,
competing against Poppy, chasing Enzo and well on the way
to losing her next piece of apparel.

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 CHAPTER 18
BUG EAT BUG WORLD

The next morning we were up early and back on the bus.

Enzo was the last to arrive. He came aboard with his head
hung low like a person who has lost part of his identity.
Which, I supposed, had indeed occurred to Enzo.

Gone was his “Fuck Whitey” tee shirt. In its place he now
wore another, which was at least one size too big and
featured the waving character of Hello Kitty. A gift, I bet,
from the Twin Wannabes. I sure as hell would never want to
be indebted to those two.

Enzo looked so miserable as he shuffled past me that I

didn’t even fuss at him about being late. I felt a pinch on my
elbow and turned to see a smiling Li Li, who sat next to me.
“See?” she said. “Told you I would take care of tee shirt.” Li Li
zipped opened her fanny pack. I glimpsed inside and espied
what looked like a black tee shirt.

“But how?” I said, impressed.

“Better you not know.”

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 The Golden Dragon spent the morning clawing its way out
of the maze of streets within Xi’an and onto a highway
headed west. Alas, traffic here moved no quicker. The
highway’s eight lanes — four in each direction — chugged
along as quickly as one of China’s many fetid, weed-choked
streams.

Along the highway rose seemingly endless phalanxes of

concrete block residential towers. They stood darkly against a
slate grey horizon. Like a carpet of fresh toadstools, single
family subdivisions sprouted beneath the dark towers. They
sported names such as “California Dreaming” and
“DisneyLand Manor.” It was a vista sure to make any
dystopian’s heart beat faster.

Watching the gridlock traffic inch along this corridor, I

realized we Americans had made a terrible mistake. Why oh
why had we encouraged the Chinese to embrace the
American Dream, egging them on to buy automobiles, live in
detached single family homes, and work 20 miles or more
from home?

Now China was adding 15,000 new drivers a week. This

rising tide of new suburbanites not only drove up the price of
gasoline and home building materials worldwide. It also
generated a swelling smog that respected no borders, drifting
across the Pacific Ocean to poison sunny skies in Los Angeles
and San Diego. In short, the rising Chinese middle class was
turning the American Dream into a nightmare for many
Americans.

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 Eventually, Xi'an's suburban ring of block skyscrapers —

and the skeletons of skyscrapers to be — grew distant behind
me. Ahead, the highway began to narrow. Four lanes became
two, and finally became one.

Alas, traffic didn't lessen with the narrowing roadway. The

reason, I suspect, was that this road was the only major
artery connecting the heart of booming Eastern China with its
impoverished Western hinterland.

As I looked down from my high window, it looked as if all

of Chinese society was on the move. There were black Audis
with tinted windows and motorized rickshaws; gleaming
Liberation semis and rickety lorries loaded high with melon
or cabbage; Chery QQs, the popular Chinese-made
subcompact, and Ford Explorers packed with three
generations. All riding bumper to bumper, cheek to jowl.

It struck me that this highway was China's great equalizer.

Only here did rich and poor, party member and salaryman,
peasant and city dweller bump up against one another,
enduring a misery not even the wealthiest best connected
people could escape.

The misery was this: The Chinese had seriously outgrown

their antiquated road system, which fit the booming country
like a pair of jeans two sizes too small. That was especially
true outside the big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Now, the Chinese were rapidly building a new, eight-lane

highway, the construction of which ran parallel to the
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congested road we traveled on. It sat like a ripe melon just

out of reach.

I had no doubt the Chinese would finish this new

superhighway in record time, but I doubted it would provide
much, if any relief. Just look at the four-lane highways that
carved up Xi’an. Better highways just attracted more traffic.
That was certainly America’s experience.

I will say this for China’s gridlocked road system. It

highlighted the Chinese people’s resourceful forbearance.
Many drivers had given up on the traffic, or at least taken a
break from it. The road’s narrow shoulder was crowded with
drivers and passengers who squatted, butt over heels, Asian
style. Some used chopsticks to fish noodles out of metal
thermoses. Others refueled using large plastic jugs with
snake-like nozzles.

Carrying your own gas made sense to me. I had seen few
exits, let alone gas stations, since we had left Xi’an. And,
given how slow traffic moved, who knew when and where
your tank might run dry.

Still, I had to admit, watching these drivers refuel

themselves left me a bit unnerved. Especially given the
bumper to bumper traffic. Rear-ending a trunk laden with a
plastic jug of diesel fuel seemed a real possibility.

I heard the grinding of gears as the Golden Dragon began

descending a steep incline. I glanced ahead to see our
bumper kiss that of a lorry bearing a teetering mountain of
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 plastic jugs. Did they carry gasoline? Visions of a flaming

inferno singed my imagination.

As the Golden Dragon chugged westward, the traffic

began to thin. So did development. Xi’an’s exurbs became
small, agricultural villages nestled within a rolling
countryside of millet fields.

Yoshi planted himself at the front of the bus, mic pressed

against his lips. He growled annotations on the ever-changing
landscape and the people who we passed outside our
window.

Did we know there were more Muslims in Western China,

where we were headed, than in Saudi Arabia? The Muslims
of Gansu and Xinjiang provinces produce the world’s most
flavorful grilled meats, seasoned with cumin. And they didn't
eat just lamb. Here donkey meat was a delicacy — and, no, it
didn't taste like chicken.

This running monologue eased my concerns about Yoshi.

His talk was informed and interesting. So, what, I told
myself, if he were a crusty bastard, distant and inscrutable? I
could live with that if he could make my students interested
in the real China.

Yoshi stopped a moment and eyed Poppy, who looked out

the window at a field of dun colored millet hugging the

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 banks of a sluggish stream. Tall stalks, bent with golden

heads of grain, rippled in the breeze.

“Beautiful, ain't it?” said Yoshi.

Poppy nodded vigorously. “I’ve never seen anything like

it.” Which rang true, given that Poppy had grown up in the
brick high rises of LeFrak City in the congested heart of
central Queens.
“And peaceful?” Yoshi offered.

Pajama Girl sighed as if this were true, turning in her seat

as she dozed.

“Don’t be fooled,” Yoshi snapped so sharply that Pajama

Girl awoke with a start. Outside a gust rustled the tranquility
of the millet field. I didn’t care for Yoshi’s sudden change in
tone, but I decided to hang back and see where he was going
with this.

Poppy narrowed her eyes and challenged Yoshi, “Huh?”

“Mother Nature is one bad mama,” replied Yoshi with

relish.

I heard Enzo snickering.

“What do you mean?” Poppy pressed, twisting a springy

coil of her hair.

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 Yoshi shrugged and then said, “Birds eat the praying

mantis, right?”

“Yeah.”

“The Mantis eats the beetles.”

“Beetles eat the millet?” Lulu offered hopefully.

“And if man doesn't kill the beetles he starves,” Yoshi

chortled.

“Your point?” said Poppy.

“You just said it yourselves,” Yoshi said. “Nature is a

violent place, a real bug eat bug world.”

Li Li frowned. I’m not sure what bothered her: Yoshi’s dark

view of the world or that his world included no all powerful
god who decided what bug got to eat what bug.

Her frown drew Yoshi’s attention. He smiled at her like a

Cheshire Cat. Which made me wonder. Did he really see the
world so darkly, or was he just trying to get a rise out of us?
Only time would tell.

“Any questions?” Yoshi growled, taking a break from his

running monologue.

Page 268

 I knew I had many questions. Yoshi's informed monologue

had given me a lot to chew on. But I kept my questions to
myself. I didn't want to crowd out the students, whom I
expected to be equally stimulated by Yoshi's talk. I turned to
look hopefully at them. My hopeful smile soon faded.

Poppy’s face was buried in a book titled “The People and

Country of the Silk Road.” Normally, I would applaud Poppy’s
reading. But at this moment I wanted to seize that book from
Poppy and hit her over the head with it and shout, “Look out
the damn window, for Christ’s sake.” Pajama Girl curled up in
her seat, hands over her eyes. Sissy and Angelica stared down
at their phones, their thumbs flying across the keyboards,
although I couldn't imagine there'd be any service out here.
Turned out, Enzo was the most engaged. At least he glared
out the window. His expressions reminded me of an escaped
convict heading back to prison.

The Chinese students were apparently no more interested

in their country than their American counterparts. Mountain
Girl picked at her cuticles while humming to herself. The
Twin Wannabes slept with their heads resting on each other's
shoulders. They drooled down one another’s Hello Kitty tee
shirts.

I turned back to looking out the window, unsure what to

do next. The villages scattered among the tiered millet fields
inspired me. “Yoshi,” I asked, hoping to awaken my students
curiosity, “Why are there no working age adults in the
villages here?”

Page 269

 “They've all left for the cities.”

“Who raises their children?”

“As you see,” said Yoshi, nodding toward the window,

“older siblings and grandparents.”

“Isn't that worrisome?”

“Of course. The government is trying to persuade people

to return to their villages.”

“How so?”

Yoshi pointed to a long red banner with white characters

strung between two sagging wooden telephone posts.
“Peasants are the backbone of the Chinese people,” he read
aloud.

I wondered if there were anyone left in these villages who

could appreciate such an exhortation.

My skepticism must have shown on my face. Yoshi added,

“Those banners are not the only thing the government is
doing.”

“Really…what else?”

“You'll see,” said Yoshi.

Before I could press Yoshi further, we were interrupted.

Page 270

 “Yoshi... Yoshi.”

I turned around to see Angelica waving a long arm

overhead. She even looked up from her phone, her eyes
flashing. Had my plan worked, my question awaking the
students’ curiosity?

Yoshi acknowledged Angelica with a grizzled smile.

“I, like, totally love your shirt!” gushed Angelica. “Where

did you get it, Banana Republic?”

Yoshi looked down at his wrinkled denim shirt and then

his brow knitted as if he hadn't heard the question right.

“Banana Republic,” Angelica asked again, “am I like totally

right?

I'll say this for Angelica. Her question had broken the ice.
Other students now joined the conversation.

“Banana Republic — as if,” Enzo sneered. “Like Yoshi

would ever buy his clothes from there.”

This heated debate roused Pajama Girl, who began

bleating at Yoshi, “When are we gonna get a chance to buy
souvenirs?”

“Souvenirs?” whined Julio. “How about lunch? When are

we gonna stop for lunch, I'd like to know.”
Page 271

 Yoshi silently watched the students quarrel among

themselves with bloodshot eyes that boiled. He didn't say a
word, but I sensed he had an answer to all these questions,
all right, if not one any of us expected.

Page 272

 CHAPTER 19
STRANDED

The undulating fields of millet, with their sagging brown

heads of ripening grain, gave way to more rugged terrain. On
either side of the Golden Dragon rose jagged green peaks.
Atop some of the highest peaks, against the orange glow of a
setting sun, I espied the silhouettes of what looked like tiny
pagodas. My wonderment must have shown.

“Those are Taoist temples,” Yoshi explained. “Most of them

are at least 2,000 years old.”

“Taoist, like, Kong Fu?” said Lulu. She craned her neck to
look out the window. Pajama Girl and Sissy, too, joined her in
trying to see the mysterious pagodas.

“Yeah,” Yoshi grunted. “Like Kong Fu.”

“Totally awesome,” said Sissy. “Can we climb up there?”

“Like, as if,” snorted Enzo.

Page 273

 Yoshi trained his watery red eyes on Enzo and said,

“Sure...why not?”

“Great!” said Sissy, who jumped up out of her seat as if she

was ready to go now. I didn’t blame her. I, too, was getting
pretty darn antsy from sitting on the bus.

“Sit down, will ya?” grumped Pajama Girl. “So annoying,”

she grumbled while struggling to push Sissy back down. But
Sissy kept popping back up like a Jack-in-The-Box.

Lulu continued to wonder at the distant pagodas. “How

did they build those temples up there, anyway?” she asked.

I squeezed Li Li’s arm in excitement. Had those distant

pagodas finally ignited curiosity among my students?

“I know how,” Tink said authoritatively.

“Oh yeah,” sneered Enzo, “How?”

“The monks first built the pagodas on flat ground and

then carried them up the mountain.”

“No way!” scoffed Poppy. She had a point. The steep rocky
facade of the mountain suggested Tink’s explanation made no
sense. Still, I was thankful to him. He had started a real
debate.

“Well, then, how did they get up there?” pressed Lulu.

Page 274

 “Nobody knows for sure,” Yoshi said.

“Okay,” said Lulu, “why, then, did they build them atop a
mountain?”

“Yeah, why bother,” said Pajama Girl. “It must be a bitch to

get up there.”

“That's, like, the point,” Enzo chimed in.

“What do you mean?” said Lulu.

Enzo explained. The Taoist monks wanted petitioners to

struggle in trying to reach them. The difficult journey gave
them time to ponder their problems. It wasn’t uncommon for
the climbers to find solutions before they reach the monks on
top of the mountain.

“That's not what I read,” harrumphed Poppy.

“Oh yeah?” said Enzo.

“I read that the monks built them so high to be far away

from man and closer to nature.”

“Whatever,” said Enzo, declining to argue with Poppy, who

glared back at him.

“Who’s right?” I whispered in Li Li’s ear. She nodded at

Enzo. “Really,” I mused. My curiosity about him deepened.

Page 275

 Clearly, Enzo was well-educated. Why, then, did he work so

hard to hide it?

The highway widened from two to four lanes but, as it did

so, the traffic thickened and began to slow again. We crossed
onto a causeway that spanned a deep gorge. Ahead, I saw the
mouth of a tunnel that had been bored through the rocky
face of a tall mountain. As we approached the tunnel
entrance the traffic slowed to a crawl and then stopped.

It soon became clear this was no temporary lull. Drivers

began to exit their cars and trucks. Some drivers leaned
against their vehicles, smoking; others practice tai qi or
stretched. The driver of a melon truck began selling his wares
to those milling about on the causeway.

"Well,” Yoshi said, putting down the mic. “We might as

well get out and stretch our legs.”

Hallelujah! I thought.

Yoshi ordered the bus driver to open the door. Sissy

bounced out of her seat and was the first to exit the bus. I
wasn’t far behind her. The other students trickled off the bus.
I stood by the door waiting for Li Li. “Where’s Dr. Kim and his
wife?” I asked her as she exited. “Stay on bus.”

“Really?”
Page 276

 Li Li shrugged. “Let it be.”

I nodded and then reconnoitered our situation. What I

found made me smile. It appeared that those monks of high
pagodas had blessed my trip. They had led us to one of the
quintessential experiences of modern China: The seemingly
endless traffic jam. Better yet, we were experiencing it
stranded atop a rugged mountain pass thousands of miles
from the nearest KFC. This was the kind of moment for which
I had come to China for. It was a journalist's dream come
true.

Did my students recognize the same wonderful

opportunity? It was hard to say. They were nowhere to be
seen. Li Li and I set out to find them.

We were soon drawn to a curious aberration. Not far from

the rear of the Golden Dragon hung a freestanding shroud of
what appeared to be fog. Or was it? As we approached, my
nose flinched from the smell of burning tobacco. Then I
heard a familiar voice: “Oh my god. This is, like, so
awesome.”

It was Pajama Girl.

Li Li and I stepped into the shroud and immediately our

eyes began to water. We found The Greek Chorus, Lulu, the
Twin Wannabes and Enzo furiously puffing away on
unfiltered cigarettes. Wobbling on her high-heeled sandals,
Lulu thrust a hand in my face. It held a half empty pack of
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cigarettes. “Look,” she said in a breathless wheeze. “Only 29

cents a pack!”

“Is China awesome or what,” Pajama Girl chimed in.

“Where did you get those?” I stammered.

Pajama Girl pointed to a nearby three-wheeled truck piled

high with cartons of cigarettes. Its driver did a brisk business
with his fellow stranded motorists.

“But how did you manage to buy them?” I pressed,

knowing my students had yet to master Chinese money. It
was a stupid question. The Twin Wannabes had guilt written
all over their yellow stained fingertips.

I turned my gaze on Sissy. “I’m surprised at you.”

“Everyone is doing it,” said Sissy, sucking on her cigarette

as if it were a guilty pleasure. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you are my mountain goat.”

“Like…your what?”

“Never mind,” I grumbled and turned my attention to

Enzo. The Twin Wannabes might have been the facilitators,
but they weren’t the instigators. Enzo could take credit for
that, I knew.

“Who said you could smoke?” I barked at him.

Page 278

 “It’s the law, man,” rasped Enzo. “In China, anyone can
smoke anytime anywhere.”

He was right, of course. Modern China was a paradise for

smokers. The government, in fact, was the world’s largest
cigarette producer. But this was one discovery I didn't want
my students to make. How had they found out?

Enzo grinned at me. He was proving to be a well-educated

and wily opponent. I looked about for some support. Through
the smoke I could just make out Yoshi. Arms crossed, he
leaned against a guardrail. His grizzled face smirked at me
through the smoke. Why did I always feel like he was testing
me; shouldn't it have been the other way around?

“Why did you let them smoke?” I grumped at him.

Yoshi shrugged. “What am I, a nursemaid?”

Of course, I didn't need Yoshi to prevent my students from

smoking. My trip was considered an extension of the
university and school regulations banned smoking in
classrooms, if not on campus. But was this a classroom?
Enzo’s raccoon eyes challenged me to prove that it was so.

I hesitated to do so now. I sensed that Enzo was itching to

make a grand scene in resisting me. And that would squander
the bigger opportunity this moment presented. So, I decided
— at least for now — to ignore this smoking cabal.

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 “Ai ya!” Li Li protested as she sensed my shift in priorities.

I didn’t blame her for being upset. It was she who would have
to patch up these students as their smoking came to
increasingly debilitate them.

“Where’s everyone else?” I said.

The cigarette perched on Enzo’s lip sagged in

disappointment as he realized no fight was forthcoming.

As we set out to find the other students, Li Li kept

glancing back at our Smoking Cabal and clucking to herself.

It wasn’t hard to find our other students. Li Li and I just

looked for Julio’s red capped, towering figure. He had worn
the cap ever since I had given it to him at the train station.
Now we saw it poking up out a swarm of people. Poor, shy
Julio was, once again, besieged.

Many of those surrounding Julio called out, waving

phones at him. “What are they saying?” I asked Li Li.

“Want take picture with him.”

Speaking of pictures, the Panda circled Julio and his

swarm. His camera clicked away.

“They still think he’s some kind of basketball star?”

Page 280

 “En,” grunted Li Li. Swinging her pencil thin arms like

swords, Li Li waded into the crowd, dispersing it. Julio gave
Li Li a hug that lifted her off the ground.

Click, click click. The Panda captured Julio’s rescue on

film.

“Where’s Poppy...Tink?” I asked.

Julio pointed to another, smaller scrum of people. In the

center stood Poppy, Tink and a hunched, grey-haired Chinese
woman with a face as wrinkled as a prune. With a leathery
hand, the woman stroked Poppy’s springy black curls. Not
again, I thought. Poppy winced and her eyes begged Tink for
help. Tink’s idea of help was to rattle on about the intricacies
of Afro-American hair. I doubt the woman understood a word
he said — I know I didn’t — but she nodded as if she did.

Again, Li Li came to the rescue. “Ai yi,” she gently

addressed the prune-faced woman and enveloped her in a
warm embrace. Then she gently steered her away from
Poppy.

“Thanks a lot,” Poppy spat at Tink.

“You’re most welcome,” he replied, oblivious to Poppy’s

scorn.

“People, people,” I said, drawing Poppy, Tink, Panda and

Julio around me. As I studied them, I shook my head in
disappointment.
Page 281

 “What?” said Poppy.

“Where are your notebooks, your cameras, your tape

recorders?”

“I dunno,” mumbled a chastened Poppy.

“Well, let’s go get them,” I said, pointing toward the bus. I

turned about face to run smack into our Smoking Cabal, who
must have come up behind us.

“When are we going to leave?” Enzo snapped at me.

Obviously, he was still itching for a fight.

“No time soon, with any luck,” I fired back.

Lulu wobbled on her high-heel sandals. “Really?!”

“Come on,” I said, sweeping my arm toward the people

milling in the road. “Isn't this great, isn't this why we're
here?”

“To be stranded in the middle of nowhere?” said Pajama

Girl, puffing intently on her third cigarette.

“First off, we're not nowhere,” I said encouragingly. “We're

on one of the most important highways in China, the only
one that connects China's economic muscle to its ancient
heart. And we're not stranded; we're right where we want to
be: in the middle of a big wonderful story!”
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 The students looked anything but impressed. They stared

at me blankly. I couldn't tell if they were just playing dumb or
truly didn't get it. I pretended that it was the former.

“Come,” I exhorted them, “to the bus!”

“We're leaving?” said Lulu, who looked confused as she

eyed the parked cars and milling drivers.

“Of course not,” I said. “We’re going to have an

adventure!”

I didn’t need the sudden stricken look that crossed my

students’ faces, nor Li Li squeezing my elbow, to know I had
just committed a terrible faux pas.

Neither pollsters nor sociologists need to tell me what I

had already seen with my own eyes. This was a generation
that valued safety above all else. I recalled the time I tried to
inspire a class with a story about how I had hitchhiked across
country when I was 17. “But...but...but why?” asked one girl?

“For the adventure, of course!” I replied, looking out on an

audience who eyed me as if I were nuttier than a fruit cake.

And then, of course, there was that boy — Trevor? — who

had challenged me during my presentation about the trip:

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Why would anyone want to venture 10 miles beyond the

Mississippi of The North?

I didn’t fault Trevor nor his peers. They had been trained
to be timid and fearful of the larger world. Trained by parents
who cooked their every meal, washed their clothes, told them
when to get up and when to go to bed. Parents who begged
them to live at home rather than at a college dormitory, even
if it were around the corner.

Yet, despite all this, I had still managed to coax these

handful of students to defy all they held true and venture
9,000 miles from home. Now, the trick was, how could I get
them to take the next step in their embrace of adventure?

As usual, Li Li must have read my mind. She leaned in to

whisper in my ear. I smiled. Her plan was as good as any.
Together, we herded the students back onto the Golden
Dragon. There, we outfitted them with notepads, cameras
and video recorders.

“What’s this for?” Enzo asked suspiciously, holding a long,

thin notebook limply in his hand. Remember, he was not
what one of our journalism students.

Now, I could have said, “We are going to report the hell
out of this traffic jam!” But, following Li Li’s advice, I took a
different tack.

I knew that my students defined journalism very

differently from me. For me, it was about explaining a
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complex and confusing world to strangers. To my students,

journalism was about explaining themselves to a world
perplexed about them. If something didn't happen to them,
their friends or family, then it might as well not have
happened at all. That’s why Li Li had suggested we turn this
reportorial outing into a giant selfie.

“Imagine this,” I said, sweeping my arm toward the frozen

traffic. “The world seeing your face as it hovers over a
bottomless gorge. Or you standing amid a frozen stream of
traffic in a high mountain pass 9,000 miles from Queens
Boulevard. Hell, a picture like that. It has to be worth, what,
at least 10,000 likes? More maybe. How sick is that?”

Pretty sick, I guess. My students clutched their cameras

and notepads with a new vigor. But there still remained one
problem. “How can we talk to them?” Poppy asked, nodding
toward the idling drivers. “We don't speak Chinese.”

True enough, but our Chinese hosts did. Where the hell
were they? Not a one had joined us on the bus. Li Li and I set
out to track them down, with our students in tow. It didn't
take long to find our Chinese hosts. They were all huddled
together behind the rear of the bus. “Happy” is not the word I
would use to describe how they received us. Not that I could
blame them.

While journalism majors, they had little, if any practical

experience in reporting. Nor were they expected to have any.
To them journalism was all theory, memorized from
textbooks and then recited back in class. And much of what
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they read was a denunciation of both impartial reporting and

the Western media's portrayal of China. Not the kind of stuff
that would inspire one to go into the real world of reporting.

So, why, then, you might ask, would they sign up for my
trip? I discovered over time that they had three excellent
reasons of their own: One, it was an all expense paid trip to
see Western China, although the students showed little
interest in the place so far; two, it was an opportunity to
practice and improve their English, which was in high
demand among university and corporate employers. And
third, my trip offered the chance to meet and get to know
American students, whom they were very curious about. It
didn't hurt that such a contact might prove valuable in
applying to an American graduate school, which most of
China’s top students wanted to do.

In return for these advantages, the Chinese students were

expected to act as gracious hosts. That meant helping my
students understand and appreciate Chinese culture — from
its art to its food. Even helping them navigate everything
from buying snacks to locating western style toilets. But their
duties definitely didn't include mingling with strangers,
especially ones the Tsinghua students referred to, like Li Li, as
“villagers.” That went double for talking to them.

You can imagine, then, how they received my request now

to serve as interpreters for my students. They stood eying me
like a herd of cattle refusing to leave a pasture of fresh grass.
Even Mountain Girl, long arms folded against her chest,
glared at me as if I had asked her to kiss the bus driver.
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 Next Li Li tried to persuade them. I couldn't understand

what she said, but there was no mistaking the reception to
her entreaties. The Chinese students looked puzzled about
why a girl with a CamelBak would want to rub shoulders
with the drivers of melon and cigarette trucks.

“Zuo ba!” These two Chinese words echoed behind me like

the retort of a double-barreled shotgun. I turned around to
see Yoshi. His boiling red water eyes bored into the Chinese
students. “What's he saying?” I asked Li Li. She replied, “Do
it.”

And do it they did.

Now, don't get me wrong. I was grateful that Yoshi had

finally decided to join with Li Li and I as a team. But at the
same time, I have to admit that his assistance made me feel
uneasy. Or at least the way he had done it. By just jumping in
unexpectedly, without consulting Li Li or me, Yoshi had made
me look powerless in front of all the students.

My unease only worsened when I saw the way Enzo now

smirked at me.

I beamed like a proud father at the teams of students who

fanned out among the milling drivers. In my head, I already
began to plan and lay out the stories, supplemented with
video, sound and pictures, we would post on our website.
Page 287

 I decided to get a taste of the action myself and wandered

over to a group led by Li Li. She stood questioning the driver
of a rickety truck piled high with green cabbages. Beside Li Li
stood Poppy, who held a pen poised above a long narrow
reporter's notebook.

At their feet squatted Panda with his massive Nikon, but

its long lens was pointed at neither Li Li nor the driver.
Rather, he had it trained at the top of the towering heap of
cabbages, where a man laid curled up in a ratty sleeping bag.
You would have thought he was planning to spend the night
on this highway mountain pass.

I watched Li Li, who had been thrilled to take part in our

reporting effort. But now she frowned as the driver answered
her questions.

“What's he saying?” asked Poppy, who fidgeted

impatiently, eager to record what the driver had said.

Li Li looked past her to me.

“What?” I said, sidling up to Li Li. She whispered into my

ear. Now I frowned, too. I glanced at the man snuggled atop
the truck and whispered, “Are you sure?” Li Li nodded yes.

I turned to Poppy and said, “Excuse us a sec.” Then Li Li

and I scurried back to the bus. We took a quick inventory of
the bus's supply of food and water, including what we
scavenged from the students' backpacks: 15 pint bottles of
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water, three soggy sandwiches, a half empty carton of Oreos,

six packets of spicy wasabi soy nuts, two packs of gummy
bears and a half-eaten lollipop.

“That won't even last a night,” someone snorted from

behind us. Li Li and I looked up from the food we had piled
in a seat. In the front of the bus stood Yoshi.

He was right, of course.

“You've heard?” I said.

Yoshi grunted.

What Li Li and Yoshi had heard was this: It was common

for an overturned truck, car fire or escaped livestock, such as
pigs or chickens, to shut down the highway. Some truckers
told tales of being stranded for up to three days. Hence,
vehicles packed with jugs of home brew diesel, thermoses of
noodles and sleeping bags.

By now, I figured, the Chinese students had heard this,

too. I glanced out the window at Mountain Girl. She looked
stricken. Was she passing on our predicament to my
students? I hoped that Mountain Girl’s obligation as a good
host would prevent her from scaring them.

“Any suggestions?” I asked Yoshi.

“Get them to sleep.”

Page 289

 Li Li and I looked at each other. It was brilliant. Sleeping

students neither ate nor drank. And sleeping was one of the
things my students needed little encouragement to do.
Pajama Girl had already spent most of her time on the bus
sleeping.

“First,” I said, “We'll let them exhaust themselves.”

Yoshi grunted in assent.

I looked out my window at my students, who now eagerly

pestered the weary drivers with questions. Luckily, the
stranded drivers appeared happy to unload their frustrations.

When it became dark, the students began to trickle back

onto the bus. They set upon the remaining food and water
like a colony of hungry termites. In 15 minutes, they had
gnawed through all the cookies and wasabi soy nuts,
downing them with the last bottles of water. So much for
enough food and water to get us through the night, let alone
the next 12 hours.

Although their bellies were full, the students didn't fall

asleep. Instead, they fidgeted with their cameras, phones and
backpacks, as if looking for something they couldn't find. An
unanswered question seemed to hang in the air.

“Yoshi,” Poppy finally spoke up, an index finger twisting a

springy curl. “Is it true we could be stuck here for days?”

Page 290

 Li Li glanced at me. We both know that this was a

question that a student should have put to me. But I waved
for Li Li to relax. I wanted to see how Yoshi handled a bus
full of anxious students.

“Nah,” Yoshi said.

“Why, then,” Poppy cut in, “did those drivers say so?”

“They're just screwing with you.”

“Why would they do that?”

Yoshi shrugged. “You're gui zi. They don't need any other
reason.”

Li Li and I looked at each other. What bull. But it didn't

matter what we thought. The real question was whether the
students would buy it.

Poppy raised an eyebrow in skepticism. She turned to eye

Mountain Girl, seeking confirmation. But Mountain Girl was
no help. She returned Poppy’s anxious look with a faint smile.

Then Enzo slapped his knee and winked at Yoshi. “Those

Chinese… What fuckers!” he said. The Greek Chorus joined
him and I could feel the tension leave the room like a
deflating balloon. Pajama Girl curled up on the seat and was
soon a sleep. The others joined her. Even Yoshi leaned back in
his seat and closed his eyes.

Page 291

 How could he sleep, I wondered, given the uncertainty we

faced.

I turned to Li Li. “You sleepy?”

“How can sleep?” Li Li grumped.

“Come on,” I said, standing. Let’s see what Panda has for
us.”

“Hao de, hao de.”

We found The Panda sitting alone in the back of the bus.

Through his thick round glasses, he studied the screen on the
back of his camera. “May we?,” I said, sitting down in the
empty seat next to him. I extended a hand toward his Nikon.
At first Panda pulled away, hugging the camera as if it were
his child. Which, I guess, in a way it was.

“Want to admire your good work,” Li Li cooed.

The Panda eyed us for a long moment and then relaxed,

handing the camera to Li Li. I stood so that Li Li could sit
down. Together, we studied the videos and photographs
captured on The Panda’s camera. What we saw left us
speechless.

There again was the truck driver sleeping atop his melons.
The giant statue of Mao saluted Chinese capitalists. Those
Page 292

 Taoist pagodas clung to mountaintops. Julio swallowed the

fish eye and Mountain Girl and Lulu bonded on the train. It
was all there. Every important and memorable moment of the
trip so far.

The Panda might have been a young man of few words,

but his photography and video spoke volumes. His work
showcased a keen and restless eye that not only took in
everything; it also displayed a warm knowing, intelligence.

Back in our seats, Li Li and I still couldn’t sleep. We

watched the evening light up with the glow of a hundred
burning cigarettes. The glowing tips moved about the night
like a swarm of angry, restless fireflies.

It was easy to forget, given how erect she stood, the heavy
load that Li Li's slender shoulders carried in her overstuffed
CamelBak. But it showed now as she collapsed into the aisle
seat beside me on the Golden Dragon. Her face, pale in the
best of light, now looked as white as a Chinese death shroud.
There were bags under Li Li's eyes that rivaled those of Enzo.

“Try to sleep,” I coaxed Li Li, patting her arm. It felt

chilled to the touch. “Here,” I said, taking off my unbuttoned
Oxford shirt, which I usually wore over a tee or polo shirt to
protect me from the sun. I slipped it over Li Li's shoulders.

I expected Li Li to nestle into her seat. Instead, she laid

her head, with its long hair tied in a knot, on my shoulder.
Page 293

She squirmed until her head found a comfortable groove to

settle into. I felt the taut flexor muscles of her neck relax, and
she melted into me as if there was no one she trusted more.
Goose pimples prickled up my spine as loose strands of Li Li's
long hair draped across my arm.

I let my body relax into Li Li's. We nestled together like

two doves who have mated for life. Indeed, there was no one
I loved more — nor would ever love again as much — as I
did Li Li at this moment. I told myself that I had no desire to
do anything other than to let the heat of my body warm Li Li,
whose own body had been chilled to exhaustion.

I shifted for a moment and my left eye popped open.

Across the aisle I glimpsed Dr. Kim, who had moved up from
his usual seat at the back of the bus. He appeared to be the
only one not trying to sleep. His wife slumped over her
knitting, gently snoring. Even Yoshi was out cold. Head
cocked back, Dr. Kim studied Li Li and I with a faint smile
that left me chilled. I remembered what Li Li had said when I
had asked her whether we could trust Dr. Kim. Her reply: “As
much as a fox.”

Page 294



 CHAPTER 20
RUNNING ON FUMES

At some point, I must have dozed off. What awoke me was

a persistent tugging on my slumped shoulder. My eyes
popped open to find Li Li pointing ahead. Sitting up, I looked
out the front window of the Golden Dragon. I saw glowing
cigarettes swarming into the tunnel. A moment later I heard
the cough of a cold engine struggling back to life. And, within
the hour, the Golden Dragon, too, was again on the move.

As we started to inch our way through the tunnel, and the

rest of the bus slumbered on in peace, new worries seized
me. “When was the last time we gassed up?” I asked Li Li.

“One, maybe two days-es.”

“That's what I was afraid of.” I pressed my face against the

window. There was no civilization in sight as the Golden
Dragon followed a road that once again narrowed to two-
lanes. It wended through rugged, mountainous terrain. The
prospect of finding either food, water or gasoline in the near
future looked dim.

Page 295

 Next I turned to study our driver. I hadn't seen him close

his eyes in a day. He hadn't napped during the long traffic
jam. Instead, he had chosen to stand outside the bus smoking
the Golden City cigarettes Enzo had given him.

Now, the driver looked exhausted, his pudgy face as

wrinkled as a dirty shirt, his eyes red and swollen. I worried
he had become unfit to drive, especially now that it was dark
and the two-lane highway had become ever more hilly and
winding. How could Li Li and I sleep with such a concern on
our minds?

“Tell the driver it's okay if he wants to pull over and take a
break,” I told Li Li. She nodded in agreement and rose to
speak to the driver. If the driver pulled over and took a nap
then so could we.

I watched now as the driver frowned at Li Li's suggestion.

He waved for her to sit back down. Then he reached down
under his seat and retrieved a metal thermos. Cocking back
his head, he took a long slug of whatever was inside. I hoped
it was Jasmine tea, the drink many working-class Chinese
carried with them everywhere. Then again, Chinese drink this
tea because it has no caffeine.

The driver set the thermos between his thighs and then
hunched over the steering wheel. His bloodshot eyes peered
into the night. I felt the Golden Dragon accelerate.

Li Li, who had not returned to her seat, again tried to

persuade the driver to pull over. This time he shook his head
Page 296

as if trying to shake off an annoying fly. Li Li tried to insist,

but the driver grumbled in protest.

“What's he saying?” I asked Li Li.

She came back to me and explained. “He says no choice.

Must press on. Gas, almost gone.”

I applauded the driver's sense of urgency. Still, I didn't see

how racing ahead was a winning strategy. Even I, who knew
little if anything about cars, recognized that the faster we
drove, the more gas the Golden Dragon would consume.
Especially given the hilly terrain.

The Golden Dragon's wheels squealed in confirmation as

they struggled to hug the sharply curving road.

“Jian su!” or slow down, Li Li scolded, leaning half out of

her seat, with one arm raised as if she might swat the driver
on the back of the head like a naughty child.

The driver cast a reddened, watery eye at Li Li and then

took another slug from his thermos. After returning the
thermos to his lap, he pulled out a Golden City cigarette, took
both hands off the wheel and lit up.

“Bu chou yan,” Li Li protested, “bu chou yan,” which

meant “Don’t smoke!”

Page 297

 The driver blew smoke toward Li Li, and I felt the Golden
Dragon surge ahead. Li Li and I were thrown back against
our seats. I felt the victim of a coup.

“Go wake Yoshi,” Li Li said, rising again from her seat. But
I pulled her back down. I didn't relish calling on him to once
again bail me out. How would the bus driver — or anyone
else, for that matter — take what I said seriously? “Better we
handle this ourselves,” I told Li Li.

“How?”

I shrugged. “We'll keep a close eye on the driver.”

Li Li eyed me as if it were I who needed to be closely

watched.

“He's doing all right so far, isn't he? Maybe he does know
what he is doing.” I nodded toward the snoring Yoshi. “Don't
you think he'd be down here in a heartbeat if he were
worried about the driver? Have a little faith.” I threw in that
last word especially for Li Li. Truth was, I was going on faith,
too.

But the bus driver seemed determined to test what little

faith I had in him. Li Li was thrown against me as the Golden
Dragon screeched through a sharp downward curve. Li Li dug
her nails into my chest.

“Look, if we can't handle it, I promise I'll personally wake

Yoshi.”
Page 298

 Begrudgingly, Li Li agreed to go along. We spent the rest

of the night gripping the bottom of our seats with white
knuckles, eyes glued to the bus driver.

A shard of sunlight stabbed the corner of my eye. I turned

to look out the window. A rising sun began to pierce the dark
curtain of night. Around me emerged the contours of an
awakening landscape. I saw that the highway wound along a
high ridge. There was no guardrail or even a road shoulder. I
peered down into a deep ravine.

From behind us, I heard a powerful roar. Suddenly, a

Liberty Truck, which sells itself as “Ju Neng Wang,” or “All
Powerful King,” appeared on the left side of the Golden
Dragon. The Liberty gave three loud blasts of its horn and
zoomed around and then past us.

Our driver trained his watery gaze on the passing truck and
took a long puff on his Golden City. Then he hunched over
the wheel and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The Golden
Dragon's engine whinnied like a worn horse protesting the
crack of a riding crop against across hide.

The race was on, and I knew there was no stopping it. Not
even Li Li tried. She leaned back in her seat and squeezed my
hand. What else could we do?

Page 299



 Whether driving a Liberty truck or a Volkswagen Santana,

no Chinese driver would suffer being passed on the highway.
Drivers played an endless game of chicken, trying to overtake
each other, no matter how treacherous the speed, sharp the
curve or steep the descent.

As we chased the Liberty around a sharp bend, I saw a

sign. In Chinese, it read: “Speed kills. Thirty drivers died here
in the past year.”

Such signs populated Chinese roadways, although you'd

be hard-pressed to find a policeman. In 2009, before today’s
all present surveillance, the highway was the one place in
China you could be free, go unwatched. Maybe that's why the
Chinese flocked to buy cars back then.

The Golden Dragon entered a sharp bend on the highway,

and I felt it swerve sharply, as if the driver was struggling to
maintain control. My fear heightened at the loud squeal of
the bus’s tires. I looked out the window to see the deep
ravine perilously close.

I'll say this for Chinese drivers. They could teach their
counterparts in The Mississippi of the North a thing or two
about reckless driving — and the drivers back home were no
slouches when it came to running stop signs and hurdling 60
miles per hour through a school zone.

As the highway dropped toward a valley below, the

Golden Dragon gained speed and passed the Liberty truck.
We took the lead and kept it as our bus plunged headlong
Page 300

 down a series of sharp switchbacks. I'm ashamed to admit

that I felt a tinge of pride.

I also felt relief. Now, I thought, our driver would slow

down. But he didn't. Indeed, the Golden Dragon sped ever
faster down the mountainside. I craned my head to get a
better look at the driver. What caught my eye was a flashing
orange light on the dashboard. It signaled that the Golden
Dragon had guzzled its last drop of gasoline.

Sweat beaded on the driver's forehead. He took one last

swig from his thermos, and then flung it to the floor. He
hunched over the steering wheel, his pudgy hands struggling
to keep control of the plunging bus.

At least I could be thankful for one thing. If we crashed,

our students would die peacefully in their sleep. Even Yoshi
and Dr. Kim snored on as the Golden Dragon plunged
headlong down the mountainside.

Li Li and I squeezed each other's hands until it hurt.

Our driver proved either extremely lucky, highly skilled or

both. Perhaps he had coasted down many a mountainside on
an empty tank. Not only did he manage to keep the bus on
the narrow switchbacks; he steered it into a gas station that
sat just outside a town at the foot of the mountain. The
empty Golden Dragon came to rest right in front of a gas
pump.
Page 301

 The driver hopped out of his seat and stooped to pick up

his tossed thermos. “Ai ya,” he muttered, examining a dented
corner. Then the driver looked up. He studied me with a
raised eyebrow that seemed to ask, “Well?”

I was torn between whether to curse the bus driver for

almost killing us or thanking him for saving our lives.

Li Li suffered no such confusion. She stomped over to the

driver and started barking at him. I couldn't understand what
she was saying, but given the driver's reddening face, I
suspect Li Li wasn't offering congratulations.

Her outburst awakened the rest of the bus. Julio’s slumped

body straightened up. Raising his tall arms high over his
head, he announced, “I’m hungry.”

What else was new?

Yoshi, who had been sleeping in the seat next to Julio,

awoke and stood up. He patted Julio on the shoulder and
said, “Let's forage.” Yoshi began to move down the aisle. As
he did so our students woke up one by one, each standing to
follow him. When he came to me Yoshi stopped. “Dude, you
look terrible,” he said, grinning.

I glared at Yoshi's yellowed, snuggled tooth smile and

suddenly felt the full brunt of having stayed up for 24 hours
straight. My body sagged as if a 50 pound sandbag had
dropped on me.
Page 302

 “Didn't you sleep?” Yoshi asked me.

“How could I?,” I said, nodding toward the steep

mountain we had just hurtled down.

Yoshi shrugged as if barreling down a mountain on an

empty tank were no big deal. “Gotta learn to chill, man.”

“Yeah,” seconded Enzo, who stood right behind Yoshi. The

other students nodded in agreement.

“Come on,” said Yoshi. “Let’s see if this dump has any food
and water.” He led the students off the bus.

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 CHAPTER 21
HEAVENLY WATERS

As luck would have it, the Golden Dragon had rolled into
the next stop on our itinerary: Li Li’s childhood home of Tian
Shui. It sat about 2,000 miles northeast of Beijing on the
edge of the Gobi Desert. So, our days of sticky underwear
were behind us.

In Chinese, Tian Shui means “heavenly waters.” Did that

sanctimonious name refer to the otherworldly neon green
color of the river that flowed through the center of town?
The trickle of green water smelled like a chemistry set
experiment gone bad. Still, Li Li smiled. The stench
apparently triggered fond childhood memories.

To me, Tian Shui represented everything I wanted my

students to see: The vast diversity of modern China. The
place couldn’t be more different from the Han dominated
cities of Beijing and Xi’an. Tian Shui’s people were mostly
Turkic Muslims called the Hui. Few of them spoke the
mandarin of Beijing. Nor did they fancy white rice, pork
intestines or jelly fish salad. The Hui were famous for two
things: Their cumin seasoned grilled lamb and their
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handcrafted swords and cutlery. Ghengis Khan reputedly

craved Hui swords for his ravaging hordes.

Indeed, Tian Shui was rich in history. Sitting on the

southern edge of the Gobi, it had been a thriving oasis and
trading depot during the heydays days of the Silk Road. But,
as the Silk Road faded as a trade route, so did Tian Shui.

Tian Shui boomed again under Mao, who sought to hold

on to China's Muslim West, a place alien to most in the Han
heartland. Not that he bothered asking the residents of this
central Asian province whether they wanted to remain part of
the new communist China.

In all fairness, Mao didn't ask his Han compatriots, either.

What he did instead was to round up discredited and
persecuted merchants, scholars, engineers and government
officials and ship them off to the arid plains of Central Asia.
Li Li’s father, remember, was one of those involuntarily
exported to Tian Shui. He joined tens of thousands of
comrades who were put to work building textile and
munition factories. Their legacy could still be seen in the
neon green water that ran through the town.

Now, granted, not many conservationists today would

applaud Mao's decision to build a water-hungry industry such
as textiles in a region drier than a camel's tongue. Still, in
some ways, Mao was a recycler ahead of his time, although
he recycled people rather than bottles.

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 Mao's grand plan for Western China fell apart in the 1980s
when his successor, Deng Xiao Ping, declared that “To get rich
was glorious.” Donald Trump couldn't have said it better. The
children of all those discredited scholars and engineers heard
the message and decamped for booming new factory cities
such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou on China's
southeastern coast.

Once again, the central government in Beijing had grand

plans for Tian Shui. It would make the neon waters of Tian
Shui a glowing example of a plan to push development
inland. That plan would sound familiar to a resident of Gary,
Indiana or Lawrence, Massachusetts — or any other busted
manufacturing town in New England or the Midwest.

The central government decided to replace Tian Shui's

abandoned munition and textile factories with tourism and
gambling. To that end, entrepreneurs were offered grants to
open boutiques selling local crafts such as handwoven rugs
and, of course, swords and cutlery.

How had the government redevelopment worked? I was

eager to find out and, I figured, I had the perfect guide in Li
Li. From the potholed parking lot of this small gas station, I
could see that it was an easy walk into Tian Shui. “Let’s
round up the troops,” I turned to Li Li. We rose from our
seats and stepped off the bus.

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 Li Li and I stood on the potholed tarmac of a gas station

that consisted of two rusting pumps. A ramshackle shed with
a cracked glass door served as a convenience store. The first
of our group that we spotted were Mountain Girl and Xiao
Bing, who each sipped a sugary yogurt drink in front of the
convenience store.

“Where’s the students?” I asked them. Mountain Girl

turned to point to the side of the building. We looked around
to see Poppy grimacing at Tink and Julio, who threw what
looked like handfuls of bird seed into their open mouths.

Li Li grabbed a little paper bag out of Julio’s massive paw.

The bag read “nan gua zi li,” or “pumpkin seeds.”

“Ai ya!” said Li Li. “What are you doing!”

“Having breakfast,” said Julio.

Chuckling, I said, “you are not supposed to eat them shells

and all.”

“Really?” replied a doubtful Julio. “This is how Tink said

you eat’em.”

Li Li cast a withering glance at Tink, who tossed a handful

of shelled seeds into his mouth. “They’re drier and harder to
swallow than I remember,” he said, his eyes watering.

She turned and gently scolded Mountain Girl and Xiao

Bing. “Why didn’t you show them how to eat properly?”
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 “He said that’s how Americans eat them,” said Mountain

Girl, nodding at Tink.

Li Li grumbled something under her breath and then

turned her attention back to Tink and Julio. She showed
them how to crack the seeds with their teeth, spit out the
shell and just eat the meat inside.

“Jeez, you’d have to eat a million of these to get full,”

grumped Julio.

“Not for meal,” said Li Li. “Just for snack.”

I heard a hacking cough and looked up to see a cloud of

smoke hovering nearby. Inside that cloud I found Enzo, Lulu,
the Greek Chorus and the Twin Wannabes. They were dining
on cigarettes for breakfast.

My first inclination was to scold my Smoking Cabal. But I

checked myself. Yoshi stood behind the group, smirking at me
while he sipped on a plastic bottle of lukewarm water. Dr.
Kim, who stood next to him, watched me, too. How could I
wipe that smirk off Yoshi’s face? An evil grin crossed my lips.

“What?” said Li Li.

I didn’t answer her but instead called out, “Gather round

everybody.” As the students joined me, I continued, “We are
going to spend the day exploring this town, which is called
Tian Shui.”
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 “Who cares about this stinky old town?” snarked Enzo,

wrinkling his nose.

I had to admit. His nose had a point. The river through

town did stink something awful, a cross between melted
plastic and burnt tires. Still, I pressed on. “That’s one of the
things we are going to do — investigate why this place smells
like a good day in Jersey.”

“Follow me,” I said, leading the students back to the

Golden Dragon to gather their notebooks and cameras. Enzo,
a cigarette butt dangling from his lip, was the first to try and
board the bus, but I stopped him. “You are not getting on this
bus with that cigarette.”

“You can’t stop me,” Enzo said, jutting out his cigarette in
my face. “It’s the law.”

“Off the bus, true. On the bus you re-enter the campus —
where there’s no smoking allowed.”

“Who says I don’t smoke in my dorm?” said Enzo, turning

to wink at The Greek Chorus.

“Maybe so, but not in my classroom, which happens to be

this bus at the moment.”

“Fine,” grumbled Enzo, tossing his cigarette to the ground.

Lulu and The Greek Chorus did likewise. The Twin Wannabes
ignored me and continued to puff away, but they didn’t get
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 back on the bus. They waited outside with Yoshi and the
Kims.

I stood aside and let Enzo and the rest of the students
enter the bus. They retook their seats as I looked on in
dismay. “What are you doing?” I said.

“Aren’t we going to explore ‘tian’ whatever?” said Lulu.

“Indeed — but on foot.”

“You mean, like, walking?” said Pajama Girl.

“Exactly.”

“But we walked yesterday!” protested Angelica.

“True. And we’ll walk probably most of today and

tomorrow too.”

A collective groan filled the bus.

I’ve already explained how popular walking was in the

Mississippi of the North. Which is to say not very popular at
all. But I sensed that there was something else at play here,
too. One of the first things I noticed as a professor was that
my students considered “work” a four-letter word. In class, I
teased that I would ask of them the one thing they were least
willing to give: effort.
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 Nobody laughed.

Still, I did discover a way to get good work out of my

students. It involved an irony I had discovered about this
generation. While caring little for anything labeled as “work,”
my students did love to play. Turn any lesson or activity into a
game, and they would give you their best. I never met a
group of people who worked harder at playing than this
generation.

I fear me and my fellow parents have to take the rap on

our children thinking life is a game. Remember, we bought
them all those computer games that promised to make
learning to read, write and cipher fun, fun, fun. Of course
this was hogwash. The best lessons in life are often delivered
via a swift kick in the pants.

How, then, could I turn today’s outing into a game?

I glanced at Li Li and had an inspiration.

“Do you know who grew up here in Tian Shui?” I teased.

Li Li immediately shot me a dirty look, but my teasing

question worked. Lulu immediately piped up, “No, who?”

“Li Li.”

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 “Wait...what...no way?” Lulu turned her gaze, still watery

from cigarette smoke, to Li Li, who in turn punched me in the
arm. “Why tell her that?” Li Li griped.

“Because it’s true,” I answered.

“Not important,” Li Li huffed.

“Oh yes,” I said, turning back to Lulu. “Li Li had quite the
childhood here. Do you know what she kept as pets?”

“Dogs?”

“A cat?”

“A pony!” Sissy offered excitedly.

I shook my head “no” at each of these suggestions.

“Then, like, what?” challenged Poppy.

I had them now. Every eye was on me as I hissed,

“Scorpions!”

“Like, no friggin’ way!” said Pajama Girl.

Even Enzo struggled not to look impressed.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “The first one to find Li Li’s
childhood home today will win…a double bacon
cheeseburger!”
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 “Yes!” the Greek Chorus said in unison.

By now Li Li’s pale face had turned red, and she was
scowling. Still, I pressed on. “What do you say? Shall we go
find Li Li’s crib?”

“And get something to eat,” Julio chimed in.

“And get something to eat,” I added.

Li Li looked like she was ready to bite me.

I led the students off the bus, where Dr. Kim, his wife and
Yoshi were waiting for us. No sooner did Enzo step onto the
tarmac than he lit up again. Lulu and the Greek chorus
followed suit. The Twin Wannabes had never stopped
smoking.

Fortunately, this was just as I had hoped. “We’ll break up

in two groups,” I instructed. “Li Li and I will take Poppy, Tink,
The Panda and Julio.” I also asked Mountain Girl and Xiao
Bing to join us. “The rest of you go with Yoshi,” I continued.
The rest, of course, included all the smokers, including the
Twin Wannabes.

“Bitchin’!” said Enzo, but Yoshi gave me a searing look.

That’s okay. If he wasn’t going to discipline the smokers then
let him suffer the consequence. Besides, I knew Yoshi would
drive my smokers hard. How long could they continue

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 smoking if they had to keep up with Yoshi? Not long, I

reckoned.

“What group should we join?” Dr. Kim asked.

I shrugged. “Up to you.” The Kims decided to tag along

with us.

“Well?” I said, turning to face Li Li.

“Well, What?”

“Lead us to the scorpion playpen of your youth.”

“You mean apartment?”

I nodded.

“Who know if even standing?”

“Let’s go find out.”

For a moment, Li Li studied the warren of small winding

streets ahead of us and then headed out. “Women zou ba,” to
let’s go.

I turned to look back at Yoshi and his group and saw them
heading in the opposite direction. Enzo turned for a moment
and stuck out his tongue at me.

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 “Is Li Li upset?” Poppy asked me, her face wrinkled with

concern.

I looked at Li Li, who marched out ahead of us, scowling

down at her sneakers. “What would make you say that?” I
scoffed.

“She’s probably just hungry,” offered Julio.

“Yeah, hungry for us not to see how poor she was,” Tink
weighed in.

I wondered if Tink might, for once, have been right on the

money. Why else would Li Li be so obviously upset? Then,
again, that didn’t make sense, either. After all, back in
Beijing, hadn’t Li Li tried to impress the Chinese students
with her humble upbringing?

I sped up, looking to sidle alongside Li Li, but someone

beat me to it. Dr. Kim raced up from the back of our group.
He came even with Li Li and tried to wrap a long arm around
her. But Li Li slipped free of his grasp and sped ahead. Then I
heard Mrs. Kim speak for the first time. She coughed loudly,
catching her husband’s attention. He turned back to look at
his wife and then slowed down.

I raced to catch up with Li Li. “I’m sorry if I offended you,”

I whispered in her ear.

“Not offended,” she grunted.

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 “I thought you would be proud to show off your humble

upbringing.”

This struck a nerve. Li Li turned to me sharply. “Sin to

show off.”

I guffawed, not believing what I was hearing. After all,

back in The Mississippi of the North, Li Li drove around town
in a Land Rover the size of the Titanic. That was like
broadcasting in floodlights how filthy rich you were.

Next I tried humor to calm Li Li down. “What do you have

to show off, anyway, a bunch of scorpions?”

Li Li was not placated. Her scowl deepened, as did her

pace. Even I struggled to keep up with Li Li. “You don’t show
off your private life — especially to strangers, she huffed.

“Strangers?” We had been living cheek to jowl with our

students for a good week now. My befuddlement must have
shown on my face.

“What?”

I’ll tell you what: You’re an evangelical Christian who

flouts her wealth; an impoverished victim of the Cultural
Revolution who wants to hide her family’s suffering. Don’t
you see your hypocrisy; does such hypocrisy make any sense
to you?

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 Of course, I said none of the above. For the first time in

our relationship I kept my thoughts private from Li Li. Right
now, what I needed was to get her back on the program.

“Relax,” I said, forcing a smile. “You can take the students

to the house of a complete stranger. It can be the mansion of
the local party leader, for all I care.”

“Really?” Li Li said, glancing up sharply to study my face

to see if I were kidding. You never knew with me.

“Scout’s honor,” I said, although I failed to mention that

the Boy Scouts had expelled me for forging merit badge
certificates.

Truth was, if Li Li did indeed take us to a stranger’s house,

I, for one, would be disappointed. I was most curious to see
Li Li’s childhood home. But I really wouldn’t complain if she
didn’t go there. I had only been using her childhood home as
bait.

“I suppose you have your reasons,” Li Li said, softening.

“You know I do,” I said, winding my arm around hers for a

moment.

“Yes, you are very cunning.” Li Li’s playful expression left

me in doubt whether she considered this a good or a bad
trait.

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 By now, Li Li had led us into a neighborhood of narrow,

cobblestone streets and small shops that lined the banks of
Tian Shui’s neon river.

“Is this your old neighborhood?” asked Poppy.

“Dui,” said Li Li, although her expression suggested

something else. She stared at shops selling everything from
handwoven rugs to cutlery to nunchucks as if they were
strangers. Apparently, they had replaced the noodle and
bicycle repair shops of her childhood.

How were these new shops faring? The answer was writ
large on the faces of the shopkeepers, most of whom were
elderly women. They sat, legs spread, atop overturned plastic
buckets on the street outside their shallow shops. Their faces
were as rutted and leathery as an abandoned, farmed out
field. With stubby wrinkled hands, the women beckoned for
Li Li and I to come inside their shops. I looked around. We
were the only out-of-towners I could see on the largely empty
street.

Man, this was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. Or

so I thought. “Okay guys,” I said, clapping my hands together.
“Let’s interview and photograph the heck out of these
people.”

Before these words had even left my lips Julio, The Panda
and Tink had disappeared into a shop. I followed them
inside. How to describe the look on the faces of Tink and
Julio? It was as if they had achieved nirvana. Even The Panda
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 lowered his camera for the first time. As for me, two words
slipped from my tongue: “Oiy Vey.” That’s Yiddish for, “Man,
did I mess up.”

Although not much bigger than a walk-in closet, this shop

had enough deadly weaponry to outfit a roman legion. There
were broadswords and scimitars; poleaxes and spears;
nunchucks and throwing stars. None of them were toys or
cheap imitations. All were made from hard cold steel.

Dr. Kim wandered into the store, too, and picked up a

weighty scimitar off a teetering card table. He sliced the air
with medical precision. Then he turned to Julio and said,
“Care to try?”

Julio looked like he might pee in his pants in

uncontrollable joy.

“Bu yao, bu yao!” Li Li commanded, stepping between Dr.

Kim and Julio. Even though he didn’t speak a word of
Chinese, Julio got the gist of Li Li’s command. In a flash his
expression changed from love struck to heart sick.

Li Li could stop Julio or anyone in our group from buying

a weapon. But what about those students who’d gone with
Yoshi; had they, too, stumbled into a like arsenal? I imagined
Enzo wielding a scimitar. It was not a pretty sight. “Time to
go find Yoshi,” I announced.

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 “Wait,” said Poppy, who had followed us into the shop.

“Aren’t we gonna see Li Li’s home?”

“Another time,” Li Li said. She ushered the students out of

the small shop.

“Which way, do you think?” I asked Li Li.

She cocked an ear to the wind. “En, hear that?”

I, too, listened intently and heard a faint chorus of raspy

coughing. Li Li pointed a slender arm in the direction of the
faint coughing and said, “Women zou.”

CHAPTER 22
THE HAPPY DONKEY

We followed the muffled sound of coughing to a narrow

alleyway that ran behind a row of restaurants. Enzo and the
Greek Chorus stood at the entrance of the alley. They
huddled together, taking deep drags on their cigarettes and
then erupting in a raspy chorus of coughing. “Where’s Yoshi
and Lulu?” I asked.

“Ai ya,” said Li Li, pointing into the alley. I turned to see
Yoshi and Lulu about halfway down, standing together over a
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toppled garbage can, its fetid contents of rotting food spilled

onto the cobblestones.

“Did you see that?” Yoshi said excitedly, pointing down

the shadowy alley.

“No…where?” said Lulu, who had thrown down her

cigarette and peered down the alley with a hand cupped over
her eyes.

“There!” said Yoshi, pointing at a shadowy figure rustling

among a cluster of cans, which were crumpled atop one
another like a bunch of hobos sleeping together for warmth
and protection.

Lulu wobbled a few paces down the cobblestones on her

high-heeled sandals.

“Oh, man, you missed it!” said Yoshi, throwing up both his
arms in exasperation.

His outburst caught the attention of the smokers. “Missed

what?” asked Sissy, now, too, peering down the dark alley.

“An Albino Pygmy Giraffe.”

“A what giraffe?”

“Albino Pygmy.”

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 I started to laugh out loud but caught myself. Yoshi looked

so damn serious. I glanced at Dr. Kim, and asked, “Is he for
real?” Dr. Kim didn’t answer. Instead, he rocked on his heels,
hugging himself with both arms and smiled. Was he, too,
struggling not to laugh out loud? I decided to play along and
just watch and listen to Yoshi as he described his most
particular giraffe.

All my students now gathered around Yoshi to hear his

description. “It stands about yeah high,” said Yoshi, holding a
hand palm down parallel with his waist. “And it's as white as
fresh snow.”

Tink nodded as if he had seen many an Albino Pygmy

Giraffe in his short life.

“Can you eat it?” asked Julio.

Angelica punched him in the shoulder. “How could you eat

something so cute?!”

To my ears, what Yoshi described sounded like something

out of Greek mythology. A nymph or a satyr. But not to my
students. I guess if you'd grown up spending three quarters of
your life in the virtual world of Zelda, Warcraft or Pirates of
the Caribbean — and had never even seen a live chicken —
then I guess a hip-high albino giraffe was believable.

I’m happy to say, though, not all my students were buying

Yoshi’s story. “Wait… I thought giraffes lived in the Bronx
zoo?” said Pajama Girl.
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 Poppy harrumphed. “They live on the African Savannah.”

Yoshi trained his bloodstained eyes on Poppy, who he

rightly viewed as his true adversary. "Yeah, so?"

“So how did giraffes get to China?” Poppy persisted.

“Easy. You heard of Kubla Khan?”

“Sure,” said Enzo, stamping out his cigarette. He turned to

sneer at Poppy and added, “The great Mongol emperor.”

Yoshi nodded. “He was also an amateur zoologist and

genetic engineer.”

“How's that?” asked Poppy, twisting a springy curl tight

around an index finger.

“Not only did the Great Khan collect animals from around
the world; he crossbred them as well.”

“Like the monks in Europe,” echoed Enzo.

“The Khan's greatest achievement? He crossbred an albino

pony with a giraffe.”

Still unconvinced, Poppy snorted, “Yeah, right.”

Poor Lulu wobbled on her high-heeled sandals as her gaze

swung back and forth between Enzo and Poppy, as if
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uncertain whom to believe. I had to admit. Yoshi knew how

to spin a convincing yarn. And he understood that my
students wanted to be entertained, not taught.

Yoshi paused for a minute, as if considering his next move.

Finally, he sniffed, “Fine, I won't tell you anything more about
the Albino Pygmy Giraffe.”

Which upset Pajama Girl, who pleaded to Yoshi: “Please

don't listen to Poppy.” The rest of the Greek Chorus nodded in
support. Sissy added, “Yeah, we want to hear all about the
baby….”

“Pygmy," Yoshi corrected, “big difference.”

“Whatever,” said Angelica, “it still sounds so cute.”

“I don't know about that,” growled Yoshi. “But Kubla Khan

bred a herd of them and handed them out as gifts to select
lords. The pygmy giraffe became a sign of royal favor.”

“And they are still around today?” Lulu asked.

“Oh yes,” said Yoshi. “After the Mongols fell, the pygmy
giraffe began to breed on its own.” He turned to eye Poppy
and continued. “As you can see, the terrain of Western China
is a lot like the Savannah. Today, they survive in most cities of
the arid West, grazing on garbage and living in alleyways.”

“I wanna catch one!” said Sissy, thrusting a fist high above

her head. Angelica and Pajama Girl nodded in agreement.
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 The Panda cocked the shutter of his Nikon, as if he, too,

wanted in on the hunt.

Yoshi chuckled wickedly. “Good luck with that. They are

shy — and fast. It takes a keen eye just to see one.”

I had to hand it to Yoshi. He had made a pygmy giraffe

appear just plausible enough to sow doubt in the minds of his
skeptics. Silently, Poppy studied him, pulling hard on a
springy curl.

I, too, wondered what this Albino Pygmy Giraffe was

really all about. Was it payback for my sticking Yoshi with the
Smoking Cabal? Or was I just being too cynical? I’ll tell you
this. As the trip progressed, Yoshi would come to use his
Pygmy Giraffe to great effect.

Julio stood beneath a curious sign that dangled over a

windowless storefront. The sign featured a hand-painted
caricature of a donkey with big ears and a goofy buck
toothed grin. “The Happy Donkey,” Li Li read aloud,
translating the sign's Chinese characters.

“Somehow I doubt it,” I mused aloud.

“Man, I'm so hungry I could eat a donkey,” Julio grumbled.

“That can be arranged.”

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 I turned around to see Yoshi, who had in tow everyone but

our Smoking Cabal. They straggled a block behind, hacking
their brains out.

Li Li shook her head, grumbling. I didn’t blame her. It was

she who would have to patch them back up when they finally
broke down.

Yoshi nodded up toward the dangling sign and said, “This

is one of the most popular restaurants in Tian Shui. Wanna
give it a try?”

“I’m game,” said Julio.

Game, I feared, was indeed the word for it.

Now, as the group's leader, I considered it part of my duty

to be a model of tolerance, adventure and fortitude, although
not necessarily in that order. That's why, on this trip, I had
sampled everything from raw pig ear to barbecued scorpion.
When faced with something that struck me as particularly
unappealing, I told myself this: One man's dinner is another
man's pet; one man's religious icon is another's taboo. Think
of cows to Hindus or pigs to Muslims. Besides, if you were
poor, such as most people along the Silk Road, any creature,
whether dog or scorpion, was a potential meal. Why should
donkeys be an exception?

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 Still, I hesitated, my chopsticks hovering over a bowl

steeped high in chucks of marinated red meat. Maybe I was
tormented by all my fond childhood memories of Baba Louie
and Eeyore.

Li Li had no such compunction. She dug hungrily into her

bowl.

I envied the Kims, who had early on proclaimed their

vegetarianism. They now happily munched on dandelion
salad, another speciality of Tian Shui.

“Chi fan, chi fan,” or “eat eat,” Li Li urged me through a

mouthful of donkey. “Otherwise lose face.”

She had a point. How could I ask my students to try new

things if I didn’t myself? And, except for Julio, none of them
were now eating. Which reminded me. I hadn’t seen them eat
anything but pumpkin seeds and beef jerky back at the gas
station.

The students weren’t my only concern. Yoshi eyed me

from across the round table, muttering something about how
donkey meat was the quintessential food of the people; how
anyone who wouldn't try it was the ultimate “Bobo.”

Well, I might be a bozo, but I was no bobo.

Swallowing hard, I dipped my chopsticks into the bowl

and raised the smallest hunk of donkey meat to my lips.

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 “See?” said Li Li. “Not so bad.”

Not if you found barbecued rawhide appetizing. All the

same, I turned to flash Yoshi a greasy smile that said
“Yummy!”

He didn't look convinced. Neither did most of my

students, who hadn’t touch their bowls. This troubled me. In
college, I could never get enough to eat, no matter how much
I ate. How could my students now survive on so little? I
would soon learn that I was asking myself the wrong
question.

In sampling donkey meat, I had modeled adventure for

my students; now I would show them fortitude, although I
didn’t know it at the time. “Who needs to use the restroom?”
I called out, standing.

I stood alone for a long moment. “Really?” I blurted. “No

one has to use the restroom before we get back on the bus.”
My gaze swept our table but the only one who would return
my look was Yoshi — and his eyes practically twinkled. He
knew what I had yet to learn. I faced heading out alone into
the dark side of the Third World.

“Fine,” I snapped and turned on my heel. I would show

Yoshi I was every inch the hardened traveler that he was.

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 I found the bathrooms in a separate wooden building that

sat in the alleyway behind the “Happy Donkey.” Damned if I
didn’t catch myself scanning the alley’s trash cans for a
glimpse of an Albino Pygmy Giraffe.

The bathrooms consisted of two stalls, one for women and

another for men, separated by a thin wooden wall. I grabbed
the handle of the door labeled men's and a chorus of buzzing
flies welcomed me inside. My head swooned. Imagine the
smell of a manured corn field in mid-August.

“Steady now,” I told myself. Inside, I found a concrete

floor littered with cigarette butts. In the center was a grimy,
chipped porcelain bowl, beside which sat a roll of paper
towels and a plastic bucket overflowing with crumbled paper.
It could have been worse, I told myself, although I struggled
to imagine how.

Unbuckling my pants, I tried to focus on what Li Li had

told me. Squat toilets were good for you. It was health food
crapping. To squat, Li Li explained, was to give your feces a
straighter, truer path.

With a sigh, I straddled the porcelain bowl. Squatting with

my pants around my ankles, I thought fondly of the shabby
little plastic toilet inside the Golden Dragon. It was luxurious
compared to this. Still, the students had taken it for granted.
They had put off and put off cleaning the toilet, as if waiting
for Li Li, me or the Chinese students to clean it for them. Like
hell, we would. In the standoff the toilet had grown ever
more foul. Now the smell could knock you over.
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 Which made me wonder. Sooner, rather than later, our

students would need a bathroom while we were on the road.
If they wouldn’t use the Golden Dragon’s, what would they
be forced to use; would it be something like this — or worse?
I have to admit the thought brought a sly smile to my face.

CHAPTER 23
THE LATRINE OF DEATH
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 As the Golden Dragon left Tian Shui and rolled westward

once again, I soon learned why our students, save the
adventuresome Julio, whose constant hunger drove him to
try anything, didn't feel the need to eat at the Happy Donkey.
Li Li and I watched as they emptied their pockets and
backpacks of Chinese candies, cookies and crackers. Such
junk food was easy enough to find on the streets of Tian Shui
or any Chinese city, but how had my students managed to
buy it? They neither spoke Chinese nor understood the
money.

This mystery was soon solved. Li Li tapped me on the

shoulder and then nodded back at the Twin Wannabes, who
sat among our students. We watched as they inspected their
smorgasbord of junk food, which was heaped atop their laps.

“First smoking...now this,” Li Li sighed. “Good thing stock

up on medicine.”

I feared she was right. My students, their bodies starved of

nutritious food and pumped full of noxious cigarette smoke,
would begin to rapidly weaken. Hell, they weren't all that
strong to start with. Most of them couldn't climb three flights
of stairs without gasping for air. From the back of the bus a
student began to wheeze.

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 Lulu sat across from Li Li and I in an aisle seat. We

watched as she downed a bottle of syrupy mango juice as if
she were shooting a can of beer. Lulu burped loudly and then
frowned. “Can we stop the bus?” she asked aloud.

“What for?” I replied.

“I have to pee — bad!”

“Why didn't you go back at the Happy Donkey?”

“Oh my god, are you for real?”

Next, I nodded at the Golden Dragon’s rank toilet,

although I knew what Lulu’s reply would be. She wrinkled
her nose. “I guess you guys should have cleaned it as you
were supposed to,” I mused aloud. Lulu ignored me.

“I have to go too,” chimed in Poppy. Soon all the students

were begging me to stop the bus.

Had the moment I had fantasized about in the latrine

arrived; did Yoshi see it too? I looked at him. His grizzled
face smiled as he listened to the rising din of students
pleading to be let off the bus. “Pull into that gas station
ahead,” Yoshi growled at the bus driver. Then he turned to
wink at me, and added, “The kids can relieve themselves
while we gas up.”

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 Li Li looked at me and then Yoshi. “What you two cooking

up?” she asked. I shrugged. “No matter,” Li Li added. “Just
glad you are working as team. See? Yoshi not so bad.”

“Who said he was bad?”

Li Li pinched my arm.

I turned back to Yoshi, forcing a frown and said, without

conviction: “I'd rather see the students learn to clean the john
on the bus.”

“Oh, they will...they will,” he assured me. Together we

shared a knowing smile.

The students streamed out of the Golden Dragon and

greeted the sight of the gleaming red and yellow glass facade
of the Sinopec gas station with a collective sigh of relief.
They began to hurry toward the station's modern
convenience store. Yoshi stepped out in front of them, and
blocked their way forward. “Oh the toilet isn't in there,” he
said.

“Don't mess around, Yoshi,” whined Lulu, her high-heeled

sandals crossed. “I really gotta pee.”

“Who's messing around?”

“Where then?”
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 Yoshi cocked his head toward the millet field behind the
station, which swept toward the horizon.

“The fields?!”

“Nah,” Yoshi snorted and then said, “Toilet's around back.”

Lulu didn't look reassured. No matter. Yoshi was done

talking about it. He wandered off to supervise gassing up the
Golden Dragon.

The other students huddled around Lulu. Together, they

crept around the station as if edging toward a precipice. In
the back, they found a chipped, unpainted concrete bunker
the size of a boxcar. It had two, doorless entrances.

Li Li and I followed behind the students. “See? Yoshi good

teacher. He let students experience real latrines.”

“Ah,” I said,” but will they actually use them?” I viewed

this as the most pivotal moment of our trip so far.

The students eyed the bunker with an attitude somewhere

between hope and dread. Was this indeed a bathroom and, if
so, could it be worse than the one on the bus? No one
seemed willing to find out, although a good number of my
students now stood with legs crossed in front of the bunker.

Lulu turned to gaze up at Julio, who towered above the

group in his high top Converse sneakers, silken basketball
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 shorts and the red cap I had given him. Such a young man,
nearly seven feet and tall and broad as an oak, must be as
strong and as fearless as Thor. Clearly, Lulu and her fellow
students thought so. They began to pester him to try out the
bunker.

But Julio was a reluctant hero. He sweated and fidgeted

under the pleading gaze of his classmates. Remember, he had
only come to China because I had nagged him into going and
financed his trip. Now, I figured, it was time for him to repay
this debt. To himself — and me.

I sidled up to Julio and whispered in his ear, “How bad

could it be?”

Turned out even I had no idea.

Julio stepped toward the mouth of the bunker. At its door

he hesitated. His nose scrunched up as if he had caught a
whiff of the Bronx River on an August afternoon. He glanced
back to look at his classmates. Go on, their expressions
coaxed. You can do it.

Julio held his breath and plunged into the bunker. He

wasn't there long.

Moments later Julio charged out as if chased by the

hounds of hell themselves. His arms swung wildly, trying to
disperse a swarm of black flies that had engulfed his head. At
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 my feet Julio fell to his knees, gasping for air. His face was
green and his eyes red.

The rest of the students stared wide-eyed at Julio. “Is

there no hope?” wailed Lulu, her legs crossed.

At that moment a curious hero emerged. Dr. Kim, who had

blended into the scenery, stepped forward. He patted Julio on
the shoulder, and then strolled toward the bunker as if
heading for his bathroom back home.

We all watched with bated breath. Ten seconds...thirty

passed. After five minutes, I think we all presumed he was
dead.

Then Dr. Kim emerged, stopping in the foul, fly-filled

entrance of the bunker. He stretched his arms high overhead,
hands locked palms face up. A smile of immense satisfaction
creased his oval face. His back cracked once and then he
exited the bunker. He strode through the huddle of students
to rejoin his always knitting wife. The two of them tried once
again to fade into the background. No doing this time. The
students gawked at Dr. Kim as if he were Captain America or
some other Marvel super hero who spat in the face of death.
His nonchalance in the face of what must have been
unspeakable filth inspired my desperate students. They now
bum rushed the concrete bunker.

“No…wait,” Julio cried, trying to grab Lulu's hand as she

rushed past him. Lulu shook off his grip and disappeared
with the others into the bunker. With a heavy sigh, Julio
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struggled to his feet. He pinched his nose shut and then ran
back into the bunker.

In a moment all the students came rushing back out. But

they weren’t licked yet. “I have an idea,” said Poppy.

“Oh yeah, what?” snarked Enzo.

“Let’s have a contest,” Poppy explained, excitedly twisting

a curl. “The person who can last the longest wins!” She
nodded at the Twin Wannabes, “and they can time us.”

“Hao de, hao de,” they said in unison, whipping out their
faux iPhones, which had digital stopwatches.

“Wait...,” said Lulu. “What’s the prize?”

“A carton of Golden Dragon cigarettes?” offered Angelica.

“Gross,” objected Poppy.

“I know!,” said Pajama Girl, jumping up and down in her

fuzzy pink slippers. “The winner gets to spend a whole day
sleeping on the bus.” Her proposal was greeted with a round
of applause.

“And the loser?” said Enzo.

“Has to clean the bus toilet,” offered Dr. Kim.

“Capital idea,” I seconded.

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 A chorus of boos rippled through the students.

“Come now,” teased Dr. Kim. “What could be a better

motivational incentive than the prospect of cleaning the bus
toilet?”

Surprisingly, this persuaded the students to accept bus KP

duty as a fitting booby prize.

Having reached a consensus on the rules of the game, the

students began, one by one, to test their courage and stamina
against the gas station latrine. None matched Dr. Kim’s
prowess of endurance. But Julio came respectfully close. I
attributed his victory to both his superior lung capacity and
his growing appetite for adventure.

Not surprisingly, Enzo lost. His already slight lung capacity

was diminished even further by the cigarettes. He, of course,
balked at cleaning the bus toilet. But Lulu volunteered to do
it for him.

I don't know what lay inside that bunker. Nor would any
of the students talk about it later. But for the rest of the trip,
they kept the Golden Dragon's plastic latrine spotlessly clean.
I guess, compared to the alternatives in Western China, it was
the Ritz-Carlton of bathrooms.

I would have to say, too, that the gas station’s latrine was
an example of how the most important lessons in life are

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 indeed hard-earned. Who had taught them this tough lesson?

To my way of thinking it was Dr. Kim.

Dr. Kim wasn’t done yet today saving our bacon.

Li Li and I watched with concern as the Smoking Cabal

reconvened on the gas station tarmac. Huddled around Enzo,
they lit up with a vengeance. Soon they were coughing
harder than ever.

“Why does he do it?” I wondered aloud. “Such an

intelligent young man. Surely, he knows better.”

Li Li turned to study me.

“Maybe,” I continued, “this smoking isn’t about Enzo at

all.”

“What mean?”

“Maybe Enzo is doing it to punish you and me for helping

out his dad.”

“En... Think too much,” Li Li scolded me.

“That’s why they pay me the Thunder Bucks,” I teased.

“Reason doesn’t matter. Soon too sick to continue. I’ll go

get medicines.”
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 As Li Li turned to head back to the Golden Dragon, Dr.

Kim stepped into her path. “Will you let me try something?”
he said, nodding toward the Smoking Cabal. Li Li didn’t
answer and instead eyed him darkly.

“Let him try,” I said. “What’s the harm?”

“You’re too kind,” Dr. Kim said, tipping his safari hat at
me.

Li Li shook her head and muttered something, but she

didn’t stop Dr. Kim from approaching the Smoking Cabal. We
watched as he strolled through the cluster of students and
then stopped just outside of them.

He removed his safari hat and then kneeled as if in

prayer. Next he placed the top of his bald head onto the
gravelly lot and kicked up his legs. In a moment, Dr. Kim was
standing on his head as if it was the easiest thing in the world
to do.

His stunt didn’t go unnoticed.

“Doesn't that hurt?” wheezed Lulu between puffs.

Dr. Kim gave her an upside down smile. Then he folded

his arms, balancing only on his bald pate.

The students clapped as if Dr. Kim were a performing seal.

Even I, whose mother had taught yoga for years out of our
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house, was impressed. The only one who didn’t seem

impressed was Mrs. Kim, who shook her head and clucked as
she knitted.

Dr. Kim slowly lowered his legs and stood up. There was
gravel embedded in the skin of his pate. For his next trick, Dr.
Kim raised one leg high overhead while pointing one arm
straight as an arrow out in front of him. Next he bent that
outstretched leg behind his head.

Sissy peeled away from Enzo and walked over to Dr. Kim.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Dr. Kim. “But you won’t be able to do

yoga if you smoke.”

“Fine by me.” Sissy snuffed out her cigarette on the soul of

her worn Nikes.

Dr. Kim guided Sissy into standing on her tiptoes while

stretching her arms high overhead. She wobbled terribly for a
moment but soon found her balance. “Good, good,” Dr. Kim
chortled encouragingly. Sissy’s success drew other students to
give yoga a try.

The circles under Enzo's eyes darkened as he watched his

smoking followers peel away from him one by one. I drifted
over to Enzo and coaxed, “Why don’t you give it a try?”

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” he coughed out.

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 “Suit yourself,” I said, and moved to join the fledgling

yoga class. I felt the steely grip of long slender fingers on my
arm. “What?” Li Li shook her head “No.”

“But this is good, surely,” I said, admiring the seven

students trying to touch their toes.

“Yoga good; Dr. Kim, not so sure. Don’t encourage him.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, truly puzzled by Li Li’s

suspicions.

“Ai ya, what really know about him?” Li Li said, nodding

toward Dr. Kim, who now stood, arms folded across his chest,
smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

Li Li apparently wasn’t the only one who disapproved of

Dr. Kim. I glanced over at Yoshi, who stood alongside the gas
attendant, making sure he didn’t cheat us. He shook his head
at the impromptu yoga class and muttered, “Bobos.”

Li Li and Yoshi’s skepticism didn’t daunt Dr. Kim. From

that day onward, he led a yoga stretching session every time
we stopped to refuel or take on supplies. These sessions
helped not only to create a sense of camaraderie among the
students. They also began to toughen them up into a
hardened phalanx that could handle anything I threw at
them.

Only Enzo and the Twin Wannabes sat out the yoga
sessions, and they struggled to keep up with the rest of the
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group. That didn’t go unnoticed. Ever more often these three

sat alone in the back of the bus. Enzo’s waning popularity
deepened his scowl as we barreled ever westward.

CHAPTER 24
HIJACKED

We were on our way this morning to Dun Huang, where

we planned to tour the Western most gate of the series of
defenses collectively known in the West as the Great Wall. It
isn't, in reality, one long wall. Rather, it represents a
collection of different walls that were built at various times
over a thousand years or so.

These walls were mostly a publicity stunt, a way for

emperors to publicly show their subjects that they were
working hard to keep out nomadic invaders from the North.
In practice, however, the walls never worked. Horse riding
invaders twice rode around them and conquered the Han
Chinese. Today, the Great Wall should stand as a reminder of
how ineffective any wall is in blocking the flow of a
determined group of people.

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 The Dun Huang section of the Great Wall played an

important role in Imperial China. It stood as the Western
entrance to various empires. All traders and visitors were
required to enter here and register before entering China.
Those with legitimate business with the empire did so;
others, not so much.

As we rumbled along the dusty, two-lane highway toward

Dun Huang, my head bobbed. It wasn't just the desert heat
that made me woozy at 9 in the morning. I'd been up in the
middle of the night every day this week. Take last night, for
example. The Hapless Wonder, aka Lulu, had tried to use
napkins as earplugs. Li Li and I had ended up having to fish
paper out of her ears with chopsticks.

Now I tried to sleep. But I knew the odds were against me,
given the jarring potholes and the roar of the Dragon's poor
little air conditioning system, which struggled to keep the
temperature within the bus down to a stifling 90. The best I
could manage was a fitful, restless dozing. Is it any wonder,
then, that I began to slip into delirium? I thought I heard
Bugs Bunny call out. "Ah...What's up Doc?”

I cast a rheumy eye toward the back of the bus, searching

for evidence that I wasn't losing it, hoping to see some of the
kids horsing around. What I saw instead were my students
melted into their seats, slack-jawed and red-faced. They were
even less used to the desert heat than I was. At least I'd done
some time in Southern California.
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 Again, Bugs' infamous greeting rang out. Then again and

again. Finally, it dawned on me. This was the ringtone of a
cellphone, which struck me as odder still.

Li Li, who kept a cellphone that she and I shared, hadn't

been able to receive a signal since we departed Tian Shui.
Nor had any of the students with cellphones. Now here was
the distinct digital jingle, asking over and over "What's up
Doc?"

Good question.

Then, as unexpectedly as it had begun, the jingle stopped.

Now I heard a pair of flip-flops slapping down the bus aisle. I
looked up to see one of the Twin Wannabes run past. He
stopped four rows ahead, handing his faux iPhone to Yoshi.
Yoshi took the phone and listened intently, nodding several
times. Then he handed the phone back to the Twin Wannabe,
rose and walked up to the driver. Yoshi bent over to whisper
in the driver's ear.

I watched the two of them, frowning. “Why is Yoshi

having a private conversation with our driver?” I grumbled to
Li Li. She pushed me out of my seat, and commanded: “Go
find out.” I approached Yoshi and the driver, and asked
“What’s up?”

Before I could question Yoshi, my attention was fixed on

the passing exit sign to the Dun Huang terminus of the Great

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 Wall. “Hey!?” I said. Li Li came up beside me, asking “Why no

exit?”

“Change of plans,” Yoshi said.

“I don't recall approving any change of plans.”

“Well,” Yoshi grunted, “they are changed now.”

“How can that be?”

Yoshi looked at his watch. “Xi Dada is landing in about an

hour, and we're to pick him up.”

I stared incredulously at Yoshi. Back in Beijing, Xi Dada

had begged off joining the trip, saying he was too busy. Now
here he was flying in out of the blue, like an unwanted guest
crashing a party. “Why this sudden interest?”

Yoshi shrugged as if the reason why didn't matter.

Which puzzled me even more. Why would such a

supposedly independent guy such as Yoshi jump to Xi Dada's
command? Maybe Xi Dada had something terrible on Yoshi.
For a fleeting moment, I felt sorry for the poor bastard. I
know I wouldn't want to be beholden to Xi Dada. Still, this
was my trip, and I wasn't going to surrender control, at least
not without a fight.

But before I could open my mouth to object, Dr. Kim

interrupted us. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he mildly
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 exclaimed, walking toward us. “Please, there’s no call to

quarrel. You can both get what you want.”

Li Li eyed Dr. Kim with arms crossed.

Dr. Kim explained. “Why, the Dun Huang airport

represents something that is new and interesting about
China.”

“How’s that?” I asked, my interest piqued.

“It sits within a new high-rise city built from scratch by the
government — and in the middle of nowhere — no less.”

Li Li and I looked at each other for a moment.

“Isn't this what you came to China for?” Dr. Kim

continued. “To show your students the real China, both new
and old?”

He had me there.

Dr. Kim proved true to his word. The Golden Dragon

entered a gleaming high-rise city that towered over the
crumbling ancient yellow brick fortress town. It was a place
where neatly ordered modern glass and steel high rises stood
shoulder to shoulder along wide, tree lined boulevards.
Hydrogen-fueled buses ran frequently up and down the
streets. There wasn't a discarded cigarette butt nor pumpkin
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 seed shell to be seen. Yes, this new city had everything you’d
want, except for one thing: People. The only cars I could see
were a smattering of idling limos and taxis. Most of the city’s
inhabitants appeared to be dusty construction workers, many
of whom now squatted on low stools around knee-high tables
covered in mahjong tiles.

The place looked like a set for the future tv series, “The
Walking Dead.” A modern glass and steel ghost town,
although there was a big difference from the American
version. Dr. Kim, who sat behind Li Li and I, explained it to
us.

In America, people rushed into a pristine landscape and

threw up a city helter-skelter — only to later abandon it for
greener pastures to despoil. In China, the opposite was true.
Officialdom first planned and then built a perfect city. Only
then did it try to lure — or force — people to live in it. China
had thrown up so many of these Potemkin Villages, many in
desolate places such as Dun Huang, that the country was
running out of people to live in them.

Ahead, I saw what looked like a giant replica of a yurt.

“That’s Dun Huang International Airport,” said Dr. Kim. As
we approached the airport, I saw that it was surrounded by a
vast desert of asphalt parking. The lot held only a smattering
of cars. Three long runways ran behind the terminal, but
there was only a single plane parked.

Our bus driver did what was near impossible at any of the
three international airports in the First City of the Third
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World. He pulled right up to the front entrance and parked.

Back home, such a move could get you shot by the police —
that is, if you ever managed to hack your way through the
throng of traffic that blocked the crowded entrance.

At Dun Huang’s airport, the traffic consisted of a handful

of idling cabs and limos. There were plenty of cops —
certainly more than travelers — milling about, but none of
them paid any attention to our bus. Nor to us — and we were
quite a sight. Yoshi insisted we all go to greet Xi Dada. I went
along, figuring everyone could benefit from stretching their
legs. Plus, the terminal was air-conditioned.

As we exited the bus, our driver put his feet up on the

dashboard and closed his eyes.

Inside, the terminal looked more like the Sistine Chapel

than an airport. It had a cavernous lobby with a high domed
ceiling. The lobby's walls and ceiling were covered with
brightly painted murals depicting either nomads herding
sheep or scenes from Journey to the West, the classic Chinese
fable about Buddhist monk Xuan Zang's epic journey to what
is now India. Ancient Dun Huang was reputedly Xuan Zang's
jumping off point.

While its walls depicted ancient history, the airport itself

was among the most modern I'd yet seen. Banks of digital
charging stations lined the walls. Li Li's phone lit up with free
Wi-Fi service. There were scores of ritzy retailers, from Coach
to Gucci.

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 Yet, like the surrounding city, people were in short supply.

There were just a handful of men decked out in the uniform
of Chinese officialdom: black, pin-stripped suits, white
Oxford shirts and red ties (why is it that Chinese communists
always dress like IBM executives?).

There was, however, one arriving passenger not dressed

like a corporate warrior. Clad in khaki slacks, a Brooks
Brother Polo shirt and sneakers, his pudgy figure strode
toward us. Behind him trailed two young assistants, each of
whom lugged a giant brown box.

“Who's that?” Lulu asked me. She apparently had

forgotten her brief encounter with Xi Dada at the beginning
of the trip.

“Our Lord Protector,” I said, half in jest.

“What?”

“Never mind,” I grumped.

As Xi Dada strode past us, without breaking stride, we all

fell in step behind him. Including Yoshi and Dr. Kim.

Xi Dada directed the bus driver to a five-story restaurant.

Inside, we found only a handful of dark-suited diners. Xi
Dada led us to a private banquet room, which he had
apparently booked in advance. He took a seat in the back of
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 the room, sitting with his fist knuckles down on the table.
Then he began barking orders.

The two assistants Xi Dada had brought with him set their
big brown boxes atop two serving tables. Mountain Girl, Xiao
Bing and the Twin Wannabes stood behind the boxes as if
awaiting further instructions. Then Xi Dada directed my
students to arrange themselves at tables boy girl, boy girl. Li
Li and I were instructed to sit next to him, as if we were also
two of his students.

When everyone had taken their designated spots, Xi Dada

announced grandly, “I have a great gift for each of you.”

My students liked the sound of that and their weary faces

lit up.

Xi Dada barked something and his assistants opened the

brown boxes. The Twin Wannabes reached inside and pulled
out a massive coffee table book, which they began to hand
out to my students, Li Li and I.

Titled “My Journey to the West,” the book’s cover featured

a black and white photo of Xi Dada. He stood amid a group
of students, who sat atop a Gobi dune. Why was this photo
shot in black and white? I supposed because it accentuated
the stark, barren landscape of the Gobi.

The book itself chronicled the journey Xi Dada had made

across the old Silk Road about ten years ago. I immediately
recognized this as a pioneering effort — and not just because
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Xi Dada was the first Han to revisit this route in decades. The
book was one giant selfie, with Xi Dada standing front and
center in every one of the book's many photos. And this
before anyone had coined the word “selfie.”

Still, I noticed many of my students frowning down at the

heavy book in their laps. Their reaction didn't surprise me. In
the past year, many students had told me they wouldn't
watch a black and white movie. Black and white photos must
have struck them as even more unappealing.

Xi Dada didn't, or pretended not to, notice the frowns in

the room. Instead, he began to pontificate on his trip down
the Silk Road. He droned on about Western China's history,
culture and food. If I didn't know better I would have thought
it was Xi Dada — not the Monkey King — who had first
traveled west to India.

The Tsinghua students' heads nodded in unison every time

Xi Dada made an emphatic point, stabbing the air with a
pudgy finger. Mountain Girl and her peers acted as if they
were hearing the story about Xi Dada’s journey for the first
time, although I doubted it.

As for my students, their eyes began to droop. Soon some

heads were nodding, including my own. I heard a book slip
out of a student's lap and hit the floor with a loud thud. I
couldn't have said it better myself.

Mercifully, the room's door opened with a bang and in

walked servers. Some bore trays laden with bottles of some
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local beer; others carried speared hunks of meat and

vegetables. A heavenly aroma of peppery meat, seasoned
with cumin, filled my nostrils. I about swooned.

I grabbed a spear from the tray placed in the middle of the

table. It held hunks of lean meat that looked like neither
lamb nor chicken. “Please tell me it’s not donkey again,” I
said to Li Li.

“No, silly, it's goat.”

My teeth tore into the meat. My god. This grilled goat was
the most savory meat I had ever tasted. Then again that
wasn't saying much. A Burger King Whopper had been a
delicacy to me as a kid.

Li Li handed me an opened bottle of beer, and I took a big

swig. It felt like a snow-fed Rocky Mountain stream as it
slushed down my parched throat. Cold beer and grilled goat.
What more could one ask for out of life?

My satisfaction must have shown on my greasy face. Xi

Dada smiled at me and ordered another couple trays of meat
and beer. I was taken aback by Xi Dada's generosity. Dare I
think of him as a comrade? This wasn't my quest but ours. It
would take the two of us working together to make this
journey a success.

My sense of camaraderie with Xi Dada ended when the

bill came.

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 The head waiter approached Xi Dada holding out a slip of

paper. Xi Dada nodded toward me, and I in turn nodded to Li
Li. She took it and studied the list of scribbled Chinese
characters. Her face reddened as she read.

“What?” I said, concerned.

Li Li whispered a number that about made me barf up my

grilled lunch. This goat must have had Golden Fleece. We
could feed our whole group for a week on what this one meal
cost. I turned sharply to eye Xi Dada, but he had vanished. So
had Dr. Kim and Yoshi.

On the bus, I found Xi Dada seated in a front seat. He

huddled with Dr. Kim and Yoshi, who stood beside him with
heads bowed and nodding. “What’s this all about?” I asked.
Rather than answer, Yoshi and Dr. Kim retreated to the back
of the bus. Xi Dada tapped an index finger on the face of his
gold Rolex, and asked me, “Come, come…where are your
students?”

My students trailed in behind me. Each of them thanked

Xi Dada for the marvelous lunch. “Yes…yes,” he answered
curtly, waving for them to quickly take a seat. They happily
obliged. Why? I suspected they were relieved to be rid of “My
Journey to the West,” every copy of which had been left
behind in the restaurant. Or so my students thought.

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 The last to board the bus were Xi Dada’s two assistants.

Each carried an armload of Xi Dada's book, which were
handed back out to every one of my students. A collective
groan filled the bus.

Once again, the Golden Dragon was rolling along the two-
lane highway, which now sliced through a sandy barren
flatland of low scrub brush. The heat soon reduced us to a
nodding stupor. We were all suddenly jolted by a cry. “Ba che
ting yi xia!.”

I looked up to see Xi Dada standing. “What’s he saying?” I

asked Li Li. She answered, “He wants bus driver to stop.”

“Here?” I said, turning to look out the window. There

wasn't a building in sight within the surrounding landscape
of flat, sandy scrubland.

Nonetheless, the bus pulled over to the shoulder and its

door opened. Xi Dada rushed out into the swirling sand. He
hadn't waddled more than 1,000 feet when he stopped. His
trousers dropped to his knees and then he squatted. Everyone
on the Golden Dragon had a scenic view of Xi Dada's fleshy
white ass. And looked they did. Many through the lens of a
camera or a cellphone.

While it wasn't in his coffee table book, this was the image
of Xi Dada my students would long cherish. Indeed, when we
returned home, I found Xi Dada’s flabby white ass posted
from Facebook to Instagram. Who says social media can’t be
a force for good?
Page 355

 CHAPTER 25
CAVE OF A THOUSAND DEMONS

I happily bid Xi Dada farewell at the Dun Huang airport,

glad to be rid of him. His surprise visit had prevented us from
exploring the western terminus of the Great Wall. But I
consoled myself with the next stop on our itinerary. It was a
World Heritage site called “Cave of a Thousand Demons.”
How could you not love a place with a name like that? I
thought my students would love it, too.

The Golden Dragon pulled into the national park that now
held this 2,000-year-old Buddhist shrine. It sat somewhere
within this lush green oasis, which was surrounded by arid
scrubland and desert. A jagged line of pastel red, green and
blue cliffs towered a thousand feet or so over the forest
canopy. “Spectacular,” I murmured, craning my neck to see
the cliffs. I nudged Li Li to do the same, but something else
grabbed her attention. She shook her head, and pointed. “No
good.”

“What?” I griped, peeved to be distracted from the

magnificent cliffs. But I now understood Li Li’s concern. The
Golden Dragon had pulled up and parked in front of a big

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white tent. Atop the tent beamed a neon sign that said, in
English and Chinese: “Souvenirs.”

Li Li’s concern proved real when the doors of the Golden

Dragon opened. All the students, Chinese and American
alike, rushed off the bus and into the tent. Li Li and I chased
after them. Inside the tent, we found a cavernous souvenir
shop, filled with replicas of various aspects of the shrine.

Li Li marched up to Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing and

commanded that they herd the students out of the tent. “Hao
de, hao de,” they replied in unison but didn’t move. They
were too busy taking pictures of one another in front of the
vast display cases and shelves displaying incense holders,
prayer beads, figures and other plastic replicas of Buddhist
paraphernalia.

Next Li Li and I tried ourselves to shoo the students out of

the tent. We fared no better than our Chinese guides. It was
like trying to flush Brer Rabbit out of his beloved briar patch.
The students were more interested in replicas of the shrine
than the shrine itself.

“You want me to get them out of there?”

I turned to see Yoshi grinning at me.

“Please,” I said.

As Yoshi walked toward the tent, Li Li pinched my

shoulder. “See? Good partner.”
Page 357

 “I guess,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. But, truth

was, Yoshi had grown on me in the past week. He had won
my reluctant respect with his informative and colorful
lectures on the bus. Then there was his way with the
students, although I didn't like to admit it. And how about his
Pygmy Giraffe? That he laughed at Xi Dada's flabby white
ass, well, only endeared him to me more.

Again, Yoshi proved ever resourceful. He now parked

himself just outside the door of the tent and called inside.
“Lulu, come quick. The Albino Pygmy Giraffe.”

Lulu’s head suddenly poked out of the open flap.

"What...where?"

Yoshi pointed toward a path that entered a thick forest.

“Follow me,” he said, and then dashed off down the path.
Lulu chased after him. “What’s going on?” asked Sissy and
then took off after Lulu. The rest of the Greek Chorus
followed her, as did the other students.

Li Li and I meandered behind them.

I looked about for a pagoda but saw nothing but thick

forest. “I wonder where the shrine is?” I mused aloud.

“I wonder where Dr. Kim is,” Li Li replied.

Good question, I thought. We hadn’t seen the Kims since

we left the bus. Nor, I noticed, was there any other visitors on
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 this path. For a World Heritage site, the Cave of a Thousand

Demons was curiously deserted. I soon learned why.

We found Lulu and the other students stopped cold in

front of a sheer, multicolored pastel rock face that jutted
eight hundred feet up off the forest floor. “Up there?” Lulu
asked.

Yoshi's grizzled face smiled.

“But how?” asked Poppy.

Yoshi pointed to a staircase, made of rope and wooden

planks, that hugged the face of the sheer cliff. None of the
students moved toward the staircase.

“Come on!” exhorted Yoshi. “You want to catch the Albino

Pygmy Giraffe, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lulu conceded reluctantly.

“Then up you go,” he said, shooing Lulu toward the rope

staircase. She stopped cold at the first step.

“Come on, there’s nothing to it,” urged Yoshi, who then

turned to address me. “Show them Professor B.”

The students turned to eye me. Yoshi had presented me

with another challenge I couldn't afford to lose. I took Li Li’s
hand — there was no way I was facing this alone — and
together we stepped onto the first rung of the staircase. It
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 swayed under our feet. I turned to Yoshi and whispered,

“What’s really up there?”

Yoshi smiled and then growled, “A thousand demons.”

I studied the three demons who towered over me. Each

stood a good ten feet tall and scowled down with fiery red
sharp teeth. Good thing that they were only stone, carved
from the face of the pastel cliff. All three stood at the
entrance to what looked like a deep cave. One demon in
particular drew my attention. His fiery red visage scowled in
a way that struck me as familiar. “Look like anyone we
know?” I teased Li Li.

“En,” Li Li. “That’s Wei Tor. He and his friends guarding

Buddha.”

No wonder the Buddha could live a life free of worry.

Li Li and I had climbed up the rope staircase a good 500

feet. It had led us to this narrow ledge, which offered a
spectacular view. We were surrounded by other red, blue and
green pinnacles that jutted out of the deep green canopy as if
they were angry gods trying to punch their way out of the
underworld.

Still, our view had been hard-earned. It was a white

knuckled climb. The rope staircase had swayed so much that
it made even me, a former rock climber, weak in the knees.
No wonder most visitors to this site were content to stay in
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the souvenir tent. Indeed, as far as I could tell, we were the

only ones on the staircase and on this ledge.

Well, not quite.

“Ah, there you are!”

I turned around to see the smiling face of Dr. Kim as he

emerged from the cave behind us. His wife, head down and
furiously knitting, trailed behind him. Now how in the heck
had Dr. Kim and his wife gotten up here before us? His
enigmatic smile gave no clue.

“Kids here yet?” Dr. Kim asked.

“Ai ya, look,” said Li Li, pointing down the cliff. Dr. Kim
and I joined Li Li in peering down. What we saw wasn’t
encouraging. Lulu stood frozen about halfway up the cliff.
She stared down through the wooden slats of the stairway,
clutching the rope bannister with both hands.

"Don't look down," I called to her. I pointed to the lush

canopy of treetops that fanned out beneath us toward
another soaring cliff. “Look ahead.”

Lulu glanced up, giving me a dirty look.

The staircase began to quiver. “Oh my god, oh my god,”

Lulu began to mutter, gripping the rope bannister until her
knuckles turned white.

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 As the staircase quivered, I heard a curious sound. It

reminded me of a low braying, like a pack of disgruntled
mules. In a moment, a Mao cap with a big red cheap metal
star came into view. It sat atop Enzo’s sallow face. He must
have purchased the cap in the souvenir store.

Behind Enzo trailed a single line of my students. Yoshi

came last, and he herded the students ahead of him like a
stern shepherd with a reluctant flock. “Who’s holding up the
line?” he grumbled, peering ahead. Seeing the frozen Lulu,
Yoshi turned sideways and squeezed ahead of the other
students. When he reached Lulu, he pulled her hand off the
rope. “Oh my god, oh my god,” she began whimpering again.
Still, she let Yoshi lead her up the staircase toward us. I
waved in encouragement.

The rest of the students stopped without Yoshi herding

them up the staircase. Collectively, they looked ahead and
then behind, as if considering whether it was safer to descend
or continue upward. “Come on!” Yoshi barked, adding in an
audible mummer, “What a bunch of Bobos.” His grumbling
worked as a verbal whip cracked over the students’ head.
Once again, they began to inch up the rope staircase, this
time following Yoshi’s lead.

When Yoshi reached our ledge, he handed Lulu off to Li Li

and I. Then he turned to coax the rest of the students up onto
the narrow ledge. One by one, the students came, each
shivering like kittens emerging from a cold bath.

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 I welcomed each of them like a proud father. To me, their

ascent of this cliff marked a turning point. How far they had
come in the 10 days since we had left Beijing. They had gone
from a reluctance to leave the bus to ascending the face of a
steep cliff. Back at Driftwood, I reminded myself, these same
students would rather take an elevator than walk up one
flight of stairs.

The last three to reach our ledge were the Twin Wannabes
and Enzo. All three were gasping for air. Sweat drenched
Enzo's new Mao cap. His raccoon eyes pierced me like a
dagger — as if it was my idea, not Yoshi's, to scale the cliff.

“See?” Li Li scolded. “This why smoking bad.” She then

chastised the Twin Wannabes in Chinese. They didn’t take it
well, scowling at Li Li rather than looking down in contrition
at their flip-flops.

I turned away from our laggards, my attention drawn to

something in Pajama Girl’s hand. She held a palm-sized
figurine with a long thick, pointy beard. He wore a golden
silk robe and a matching winged pillbox hat. In one hand, he
held a long calligraphy brush and in the other an open scroll.
His sparkling eyes beckoned as if he could tell you the secrets
of the universe. This was Wen Chang, the Taoist God of
literature. I assumed Pajama Girl had bought this figurine in
the gift shop. Which made me wonder twofold: Why would a

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Buddhist shrine be selling Taoist symbols and why, of all

figurines, Pajama Girl would be drawn to this one?

Now, I wouldn't have been surprised if Pajama Girl had

been drawn to Tian Guan or Tai Yue Da Di, respectively the
gods of leisure and Karma. But Wen Chang? He seemed much
more appropriate for Poppy or Angelica, my closet reader.

“Do you know who that is?” I asked Pajama Girl.

“No,” she answered, stroking the figurine's beard and then

adding, “but I think he's cute,” as if this were the most
important criteria in selecting a god to worship.

“He looks like a hillbilly,” said Angelica, who had come up

behind me.

“A hillbilly?” I said, impressed, eying Angelica with a

renewed curiosity. I hadn’t heard the term “hillbilly” since my
early childhood, when Snuffy Smith was a popular
newspaper comic strip.

“How do you know about hillbillies?” I asked Angelica.

She shrugged and said, “I dunno.”

I didn’t believe her. The more I thought about it, the more
“hillbilly” seemed an apt term for Wen Chang. Taoist gods,
who, like their Greek counterparts, loved to wander among
mortals — especially the poor — and partake in earthly
pleasures such as strong drink and rich food. Nothing would
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 please a Taoist God more than to be mistaken for Snuffy

Smith. But how would Angelica know this? Then I
remembered catching an embarrassed Angelica exiting the
bathroom with a book in hand. “You’ve been reading, haven’t
you?”

“No,” Angelica snapped, eying Pajama Girl. “Like, gross.”

Now I really didn’t believe Angelica. I’d heard Pajama Girl

mumble “loser” when Poppy buried her nose in a book. No
wonder Angelica would want to hide her interest in reading. I
leaned in close and whispered in Angelica’s ear, “closet
reader.”

“Like, shut up, will ya!” she cried. “You are so annoying.”

Li Li jumped to her defense, putting an arm around

Angelica. “What are you saying to her?”

I grinned like Yoshi and extended an open hand toward

the mouth of the cave. “Angelica, will you lead us inside?”

“I guess,” she grumped and stepped toward the mouth of

the cave. Then she stopped, abruptly, wrinkling up her nose.

“What?” I asked.

She pointed to a sign prominently affixed above the cave

entrance. It was written in both Chinese and English. Julio
read it aloud. “Photographers will be violated.”

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 “What do you suppose that means?” Poppy wondered

aloud.

“Ugh,” grunted Pajama Girl. “Sounds nasty.”

I recalled all the poor English translations I had seen on

the road.

“It means no picture taking inside the shrine,” said Yoshi.

The students groaned and some of them began to turn

around. They stopped at the lip of the cliff, looking down at
the rope staircase that swayed beneath them. Then they
turned to look back at the cave. Frozen in place, they looked
paralyzed with indecision.

“Look,” Yoshi suddenly cried out, pointing into the cave.

“There it goes.”

“What, like, the Pygmy giraffe?” said Lulu.

Before Yoshi could answer, Lulu rushed into the cave. The
other students quickly followed her inside. Li Li did, too. I,
however, lingered outside, eying Yoshi. I had to hand it to
him. He’d made damn fine use of his pygmy giraffe.

As for Yoshi, he stood admiring the red demon towering

over the two of us. He smiled as if discovering an old friend.
It was then that I realized why the demon's scowl looked so
familiar. “A distant cousin?" I asked Yoshi, half in jest.

Page 366

 “You might say,” he growled. Yoshi twisted up his face to

match that of the demon. His impression was too close for
comfort.

Inside the dimly lit cave, we found a rainbow of scowling

demons. They lined the wall of the cave, encircling a lifelike
stone carving of the Buddha, who laid stretched out
lengthwise some 30 feet or so. Eyes closed, his head laid on
an upturned hand. You would have thought all was right with
the world. I might have felt the same way, too, if I had a
dozen or so demons watching over me. Then again, I
wondered if these demons were more jailers than protectors.

My students, however, were less at peace. They milled

about the statue, apparently confused about what to do
without their cameras. Panda looked particularly vexed. Lulu,
too, looked put out. She kept exploring the dark corners of
the cave as if looking for something, muttering to herself.
Was she still after that Pygmy Giraffe?

Only Poppy stood studying the Buddha’s serene face in

hushed awe. As well she should. To this day, no one knew
how the monks had managed to scale this cliff, carve the
statues, and build a shrine within the rock face. I wanted all
my students to understand this and write about it.

I moved next to Poppy, standing in the center of the

statue. “Listen up!” I said, clapping my hands. The sharp clap
echoed like a sonic boom in the cave and my students
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winced, turning to glare at me. “Let me just say how proud I

am of you guys.”

“Oh yeah?” said Enzo, his head cocked to gauge the

reaction of the other students.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Li Li, who stood at my side. She

nodded her approval. “I bet none of you thought you could
climb up here.”

“None of us wanted to,” grumped Enzo.

“Yet here we are!”

A murmuring rippled through the students, which I took

as a good sign.

“Now, as long as we're here, we might as well learn

something about this ancient relic. I think you’ll agree it’s
pretty remarkable.”

Yoshi stepped forward as if this were his cue, but I put up

a palm to stop him. It was time, I felt, for our Chinese guides
to earn their keep. I wanted to draw them in more, make
them more of our team. Normally, I would have turned to
Mountain Girl or Xiao Bing. But my gaze swept past them to
the Twin Wannabes, each of whom were busy fiddling with
their faux iPhones. It was time for them to do some work, I
decided. “Wei Zhu,” I called out. “Tell us about this statue.”
One of the Twin Wannabes looked up, befuddled, as if not

Page 368

quite recognizing his own name. Then he scowled. “Let the

‘You Dao’ do it,” he snarled, nodding toward Li Li.

At first, I thought the Twin Wannabes were joking. “You

Dao” means “Tour guide,” which sounded innocuous enough.
Like a joke, even. But Li Li had flinched as if she had been
slapped in the face. She now stared down at her sneakers. I
sensed she had suffered some kind of loss of face, as if “You
Dao” was the Chinese equivalent of calling her my servant.
“Hey,” I barked. “Li Li is not our tour guide.”

“Sure she is.”

Wei Zhu's brazenness stunned me, as if I, too, now had

been slapped in the face. How dare these two marshmallows
challenge my authority — and in front of the students. I
exploded. “You will respect Li Li's word as if it were my own.
If she asks to stand on your head, you'll do it.”

The Twin Wannabes crossed their arms and jutted out

their chins at me.

Behind them, Enzo's yellow face positively glowed, as if

feeding off the negative energy of the standoff.

Where was Yoshi? My gaze searched for him, seeking his

support. I found that he had drifted to the back of the
students, where he stood quietly, as if trying to hide. Nor
could I find Dr. Kim, who once again vanished. What in the
heck was going on here?

Page 369

 Then I recalled the Twin Wannabes huddling with Xi Dada

back at the restaurant in Dun Huang. The memory triggered
a thought that gave me a piercing headache. Was I, like this
poor Buddha, more prisoner than leader?

Page 370


 CHAPTER 26
THE DALAI LAMA IS NOT A NAZI

Not again! I heard an insistent knocking on the door of my

hotel room at 7 in the morning. “Professor B,” Poppy called
out. What now? I imagined Lulu accidentally flushing herself
down the toilet. After all, her own person was the only thing
she had left to lose. Turned out Lulu wasn’t the problem this
time.

I opened the door of my hotel room to find Poppy twisting

a springy black curl into a question mark. “Is it true we can’t
play mahjong?” she asked me.

“Of course not,” I said, standing in my doorway, clad in

gym shorts and tee shirt. “Who told you that?”

“Li Li.”

“Now, why would she say that?” That’s what I said, but of
course I suspected why she might.

“I don’t know but she did.”

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 “Tell me what happened.”

Poppy explained. Last night, Xiao Bing had invited Poppy,

Lulu and Tink to his room to teach them how to play ma
jiang, or as most Westerners know it, mahjong. Think of this
game as the Chinese version of gin rummy, except played
with tiles instead of cards.

Through both strategic calculation and luck, players strive

to match up like sets of tiles. It is hugely popular across all of
Asia. In the U.S., the game is favored by blue haired Jewish
ladies who play it at afternoon tea parties. So, why would Li
Li object to our students learning the game? Indeed, I
applauded Xiao Bing for showing our students this important
part of Chinese culture.

Apparently, that’s not how Li Li saw it. She barged in on

Xiao Bing’s game like Eliot Ness, scolding him for corrupting
the morals of our students and then chased them away.

Li Li’s unauthorized bust put me in an awkward position. I

had, after all, publicly told American and Chinese students
alike to treat Li Li’s word as my own. And I was loath to
reprimand Li Li. Especially now, after she had been
tormented by the Twin Wannabes. I feared any disapproval
from me would further undermine her authority. Yet, I had to
admit, I was troubled by her behavior.

Page 372

 I reassured Poppy that she had done nothing wrong but

asked her not to mention the game to anyone else. “Let me
talk to Li Li first,” I said.

Poppy agreed.

We had spent the night in a quaint hostel on the high

rocky plains of Qinghai Provence, a finger of which poked
into the southern belly of Gansu. This hostel sat atop that
finger. Our stay here represented a compromise.

I had wanted to take my students into Tibet proper, which

lay just down the road. It was part of my plan to introduce
my students to all the different people who made up China's
complex demographic tapestry. We had met Han and
Manchus, Muslims and Buddhists. I wanted them to meet
Tibetans, too, who represented a big part of this tapestry.

Tibetans had a long and troubled history with the Han.

You wouldn't know it from listening to the Dalai Lama or
Richard Gere, but Tibetans were once fierce nomadic
warriors. They conquered more of the territory that now
constitutes modern China than did the Han Chinese
themselves. That's why Chinese rulers, communist or
otherwise, have long sought to hold on to and control Tibet.
Ancient memories die hard.

Page 373

 Maybe that’s why Xi Dada refused my request to spend a

night in Tibet. But he conceded to a stay in Qinghai, which
was the next best thing. The province was full of Tibetans.

Still, Xi Dada wasn’t taking any chances. That's why, I

suspect, he had chosen Mountain Girl as one of our guides.
Her presence would ensure that we only talked to Han who
knew Tibetans, not any actual Tibetans themselves. I felt
sorry for Mountain Girl, really. She had no idea what a tough
assignment this would turn out to be.

I now headed to the hostel’s breakfast room, where I was

pleased to see that most of my students, Chinese and
American, were already up and ready. The only ones missing
were Enzo and the Twin Wannabes, which I expected. None
of these three ever came down for breakfast, preferring to
sleep as late as possible. Yoshi was absent, too, but for good
reason. He was off fussing over something on the bus.

As usual, Li Li sat among the students. This time, though, I

noticed that Tink and Lulu were giving her the cold shoulder.
Usually, Li Li and the students were thick as thieves. “Chat for
a sec?” I said, beckoning Li Li away from the round table.

“Zen me le?” Li Li said, as she joined me in a corner of the

room. I didn’t care for how all the students were staring at
us. So, I put on a big smile. “Did you break up a mahjong
game in Xiao bing’s last night?”

Page 374

 Li Li beamed proudly.

“Why did you do that?”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. Then she said, “Ai ya!

Gambling.”

“Gambling?” I struggled not to laugh. “How so?”

Li Li explained that, in China, mahjong was played for

money, like American poker.

“Did you see any of our students betting?”

“No, but still wrong!”

Understanding now dawned in my befuddled mind.

Apprehension, too. Since Li Li had chastised the Greek
Chorus for their scanty attire at the orientation, I had feared
Li Li’s puritanical side might emerge on our trip. I had hoped
that Li Li would lighten up once set free from her husband
and under my liberal influence. Now it was clear that Billy
Graham still lurked in her heart.

“Look,” I said, trying to calm my voice. “You can’t stop the

kids from playing mahjong.”

Li Li crossed her spindly arms in defiance.

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 “Come on,” I said, trying to sidestep a battle of wills. “Blue

haired ladies in the suburbs play mahjong back home. How
bad can it be?”

“Bad.”

Li Li was driving me to a place I didn’t want to go. Still, I

had to put my foot down. “Is mahjong legal in China?”

“Yes, but....”

“And it’s legal in the U.S. More importantly, the game

doesn’t violate any university rules.”

“Some rules more important,” Li Li hissed.

“Not on this trip,” I shot back. “If it’s okay with the
university it’s okay with me.”

For a moment, Li Li looked like she might kick me in the

shin. Then, apparently thinking better of it, she turned and
stormed off. Not the outcome I was hoping for.

Worse, when I turned back to the students, I found every

one of them eying me. Dr. Kim seemed particularly amused,
grinning broadly. He seemed almost happy that Li Li and I
weren't getting along.

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 Forcing a smile, I sat down among the students. “What’s

for breakfast?” I said, slapping my hands together in happy
expectation. Then I noticed that nobody — including
Mountain Girl and Xiao Bing — was eating. Or drinking,
should I say. Breakfast apparently consisted of a large
wooden bowl of a thick steaming liquid that smelled like
brine.

Not even Julio tried it. Instead, he sniffed at the wooden

bowl, his nose wrinkling in disapproval. “What the heck is
it?” Pajama Girl wondered aloud.

“Smells like spoiled milk,” said Tink.

“Close,” said the hostel's young proprietor, with a chuckle.

He stood at our round table holding a cast iron kettle. “It's
Gur Gur.”

“You speak English?” I said, stunned. He was the first

English speaker we had encountered since leaving Beijing. I
studied the young innkeeper who, in his long black ponytail
and scraggly beard, looked like he might have a herd of yaks
idling in his rocky backyard.

“NYU, class of 2000,” he said proudly. Then he began to

explain that Gur Gur represented his hostel's complimentary
breakfast. Panda swooped in with his Nikon, clicking away
furiously. He captured my students frowning over bowls of
frothy off-white liquid.

“What's in it?” asked Poppy.

Page 377

 “Mainly yak butter but there's also some tea leaves and
salt.”

“Ah,” I said. “Tibetan tea.”

Lulu looked up at the innkeeper as if she had at last

stumbled upon the elusive Albino Pygmy Giraffe. “Are you
Tibetan?”

He smiled.

“Cool,” Lu Lu purred. She thought she knew all about

Tibet, thanks to Richard Gere and Madonna, who had
championed its struggle for independence. But she had never
met a Tibetan in the flesh. Nor, given her full bowl of Gur
Gur, did she demonstrate any interest in Tibet’s national
drink.

With a mischievous smile, the innkeeper again offered to

top off Mountain Girl’s bowl. She wrinkled up her nose in
refusal. The innkeeper didn't act surprised.

“Have you ever tried it?” I asked Mountain Girl, who

answered by wrinkling her nose even more. “But you grew up
here, right?”

“So?” she sniffed.

“Aren't you even curious?”

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 Mountain Girl looked at me as if she didn't understand the

question. I wondered if my students were getting a taste of
why many Tibetans chafed at Chinese rule.

Mountain Girl may have had no interest in Tibetan

culture, but Poppy sure did. She asked the innkeeper, “That
picture in the bathroom, it’s the Dalai Lama. Right?”

Eying Mountain Girl, the innkeeper said, “I couldn't say.”

Such a cryptic answer was bound to frustrate the ever

curious Poppy. She grabbed a springy curl and twisted it
hard. “You know,” Poppy said, turning to point at the
restroom in the back of the breakfast room. “There.”

The innkeeper ignored Poppy. He knew that the Chinese

authorities had banned all pictures of the Dalai Lama. That
went double for places like Qinghai, with its big Tibetan
population. In Qinghai, you couldn't be too careful. There
were Chinese security informants everywhere. For the first
time I was glad the Twin Wannabes were sleeping late.

Mountain Girl stood up and went to check out the

bathroom. She returned and glared at the innkeeper. Then
she looked at Poppy, who she now considered a friend, and
one she wanted to keep. I could well imagine her
conundrum: How could she keep Poppy's friendship if she
ratted out the innkeeper to Xi Dada? As if to confirm my
suspicion, Mountain Girl's brow wrinkled. It gave me a
headache to look at her.

Page 379

 Dr. Kim stood up to greet Mountain Girl as she returned to

the table. Raising his wooden bowl high in hand he said, “a
toast to our remarkable young innkeeper.” Then he downed it
in one gulp. “Wonderful!” Dr. Kim nodded for the innkeeper
to refill his bowl. Then he draped an arm around Mountain
Girl's slender shoulders and offered her the bowl. “Go on, try
it,” he said. As Mountain Girl took a sip, he said, “See? It's
not so bad.”

Mountain Girl’s eyes watered as if to suggest otherwise.

“Yoshi, what do you make of this?” said Poppy, who

plopped down in the aisle seat across from him.

“Huh?” said Yoshi, who didn't look up from the wall-sized

map of China spread out across his lap. The microphone
dangled over one knee.

“That innkeeper?” continued Poppy, nodding back toward

the hostel as the bus drove away. “He's got a picture of the
Dalai Lama hanging in his bathroom — and he won't admit
it.”

“Yeah,” seconded Lulu, who sat next to Poppy. “And he's

Tibetan, too.”

Yoshi grunted as if to say, “So what?”

Page 380

 Yoshi may have been uninterested in the Dalai Lama, but

not so the Twin Wannabes. They had apparently been
napping on the bus, waiting for the rest of us to finish
breakfast. But at the mention of the Tibetan monk's name,
both of their groggy, nodding heads bounced up. In unison,
each of them leaned out of their seats and thrust their faux
iPhones into the aisle.

My ears perked up, too. The complexity surrounding

Tibetan sovereignty was just the sort of stuff I wanted our
trip to be about. I doubted Lulu nor the rest of the students
understood that Tibetans weren't asking to be free — just the
freedom to be ruled by a theocracy of Buddhist monks.
Hardly a model of representative democracy. Indeed, these
monks didn't have a history of tolerance toward other ideas
and religions. I failed to see how this system would be any
different from the theocracies of Saudi Arabia or Iran. But I
kept my mouth shut. I figured that this was the kind of thing
Yoshi could explain so well.

I felt a sudden sharp pinch on my arm. “Hey,” I whined,

turning to see Li Li glaring at me. She shook her head sharply,
“No.” Li Li was right, of course. Tibet was the third rail of
Chinese politics. It was easy to get burned by talking about it.
Just look at the sudden alertness of the Twin Wannabes and
their outstretched phone recorders. Still, I couldn't resist.

Ignoring Li Li's warning, I rose from my seat and walked

down to Yoshi and grabbed the mike dangling down from his
knee.

Page 381

 “Imagine,” my voice crackled through the speakers, “if the

Navajo of New Mexico one day declared, 'Screw it, we've had
enough. We're quitting the U.S. and we're taking New Mexico
with us. Isn't this the same challenge China faces in Tibet?”

“Let'em have it,” snarked Enzo. “Who cares about the

friggin' Navajo — or New Mexico.” The Greek Chorus, who
sat across from him, sniggered in agreement.

"Wait,” Lulu said, “New Mexico is part of America?”

“Of course not,” assured Tink. “It's in Mexico — near

Santa Fe.”

So much for my effort to provoke a debate that led to

understanding, let alone enlightenment.

My gaze swept the bus searching for an ally. Li Li glared at

me. Mountain Girl looked pained, her eyes begging me to
change the subject. As for Dr. Kim, he rocked in his seat, a
bemused smile on his face. His wife knitted, head down and
focused on her work.

At last, my gaze came full circle back to Yoshi, which

found him grinding his teeth. No doubt he was pissed off at
my student's ignorance about their own country. Never mind
about Tibet.

“May I?” he said, extending a hand toward the mic.

Page 382

 “Gladly,” I said, surrendering it to him. I sat down and

leaned back, expecting Yoshi to excoriate my students for
their ignorance and hypocrisy about Tibet. Wasn't that what
Yoshi did best? But — surprise, surprise — Yoshi did the
unexpected.

Glowering at the attentive faces looking up at him, he

growled, “Tibetans don't like the Dalai Lama.”

Tink nodded as if, indeed, this were true. But the girls
were having none of it. “Really!?” said Lulu. “I think he's
kinda cute. I mean, all those adorable orange and red robes.”
The Greek choir nodded in agreement.

At last a debate! Admittedly, though, one with the tenor of

a couple of teenagers squabbling over who was the better
pop singer, Beyoncé or Miley Cyrus.

“Isn't he, like, some kind of an outlaw...a hero even?”

Poppy added.

Her question really got the Twin Wannabes' attention.

They about fell out of their seats extending their phones.

As for Yoshi, his red eyes boiled. He glanced at the phones

poking out into the aisle and growled, “The Dalai Lama ain't
no hero.”

“I don't know,” Lulu mused aloud. “Seems like he is to

some people.”

Page 383

 I liked the sound of this. My students pushing back.

“Who would that be?” scoffed Yoshi.

“Well, for starters, there's Richard Gere.”

“That fairy?”

You could hear a pin drop. Not even Enzo snickered. This
was a generation that hated haters. And “fairy” was a term
they detested. Yoshi was in danger of losing his audience. Did
he realize this?

Poppy led the pushback. I watched as she bared her canine

teeth and asked Yoshi, “How about that innkeeper?”

“How about him?”

“He keeps a picture of the Dalai Lama in his bathroom.”

“Bully for him.”

This time Poppy would not be put off by Yoshi's attitude.

Nor did Enzo come to his defense. Poppy drilled in like a
prosecutor going in for the kill. “But why is the picture the
bathroom; why not the front hall?”

“How should I know?” For the first time, I saw sweat

beginning to bead on Yoshi's usually cool, dry forehead.

“It's like he's afraid to show his respect,” Poppy continued.

Page 384

 “Hardly,” snorted Yoshi. “China's a free country. People can

say and go where they want. Hell, there are more Tibetans
living outside Tibet than in it. Qinghai is a perfect example.”

“Really?” said Poppy. “Then, like, how come we weren't

allowed to enter Tibet?”

That cut Yoshi to the quick. He shot me a dirty look. I

noticed that one of his hands began to tremble. Yoshi scowled
and then barked, “The Dalai Lama is a Nazi.”

“What?” said Poppy. The word “Nazi” hit her and the other
students like a slap in the face. Even Enzo's glassy gaze
sharpened.

At first, I thought Yoshi was just being provocative, trying

to knock my students out of their comfort zone. But I was less
sure about that when he added with even greater venom:
“He's a goddamned Nazi, all right; He wants to enslave his
people to a corrupt priesthood.”

Now, as I said earlier, I’m no fan of the Dalai Lama’s vision

of a Buddhist theocracy. Still, the Dalai Lama a Nazi? I don't
think so. And I certainly didn't want my gullible students to
think that.

“Look,” I said, breaking into the conversation. “The Dalai

Lama may be many things but a Nazi is not one of them.”

“He god damn sure is one,” insisted Yoshi.

Page 385

 “How so?”

“The police arrested monks in Lhasa last week for spray

painting swastikas on Chinese homes.”

“No way...who told you that?”

Yoshi glared back at me in silence.

I glanced around me. I didn't care at all for the anxious,

confused expressions that surrounded me. I sensed that the
students wanted to like Yoshi, yet how could they? Not after
his cracks about “spray can wielding Nazis monks” and
“fairies?”

My gaze sought out Dr. Kim, but this time he didn't rise to
make peace. Instead, he only looked on with a bemused
smile.

I was on my own in trying to defuse this mounting

confrontation between Yoshi and myself. How could I do it
without humiliating him, or me for that matter? After all, we
still had a week left on our trip and I needed Yoshi more than
ever. Surely, I told myself, Yoshi must be kidding. How could I
hurry him along to his punch line? “Aren't swastikas an
ancient of symbol of Hinduism?” I ventured.

Yoshi ignored my peace offering. Instead, he trained his

scowl on my confused students. “Why did monks mark these
homes with swastikas?” He asked, letting his gaze slowly
Page 386

sweep the bus. “Because the Chinese occupants were marked

for slaughter!”

I heard a collective gasp.

“That's ridiculous!” I sputtered. “Who told you such

nonsense?”

“Oh yes,” Yoshi said, ignoring me. “The monks planned to

provoke a civil war.”

“What, armed with bronze incense pots?” I cracked, still

thinking Yoshi must be joking. But the distressed look of my
students said they took him very seriously.

“All right,” I barked, finally losing my temper. “That's

enough!”

“What? Can't you handle the truth?” Yoshi taunted me.

“What truth? I've never heard such a load of bull.”

“Of course not,” Yoshi said. “The western media wouldn't

want to discredit their 'hero,’ the Dalai Lama.”

I'll say this for Yoshi. He knew his audience. My journalism

students were deeply skeptical of the likes of the New York
Times and CNN. Mainly because they never paid any
attention to them. That such news sources would hide or
suppress the real story affirmed what they wanted to believe:
that following current events was wasteful, squandering
Page 387

 precious time better spent playing Guitar Hero, Zombie

Ambush or Beer Pong. Life was short. Why waste it learning?

In short, Yoshi was trying to win back the audience he was

losing.

“Give me the mic,” I commanded, barely hiding my

irritation.

At first, Yoshi yanked it out of my reach. He eyed me for a

long moment and then shrugged. He surrendered the mic
with a smile that said, “Can't you take a joke?”

I wasn’t laughing.

CHAPTER 27
RAISING DREAD

Page 388

 Tonight, we should reach our final destination of Kumul. It

sat 3,500 miles from Beijing, just within the border of
Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province. Like Tibet, Xinjiang
was a reluctant and restive member of the People’s Republic.
Its largely Muslim, central Asian population chafed against
both Chinese rule, and the Chinese themselves, who were
settling in Xinjiang in increasing numbers.

Would this unsettled place unsettle Yoshi even more; and

if so, should I remove him? Or do I gamble that Yoshi could
behave himself in our final days? He did, after all, know
Kumul well. Not only could he give us an informed tour of
the city; he could get us to the train that would carry us back
to Beijing, where we would board our flight back home.

What I witnessed now was not encouraging.

Yoshi sat with his grizzled face pressed against the

window. The mic dangled from his leg. Not once did he snap
at Enzo, who tried to comfort him.

I turned to whisper to Li Li. “Is it me or is Yoshi getting

squirrellier by the mile?”

“Squirrellier…what mean?”

“The farther we get from Beijing, the more erratic — even

nutty — Yoshi has become.”

“Not you,” said Li Li.

Page 389

 “I mean,” I continued, “can you believe that bit about a

pygmy giraffe?”

“He did lead students up to cave,” countered Li Li.

“True, but then he terrified them about killer Nazi

Buddhist monks.”

“One minute our best ally,” said Li Li.

“And the next he’s our worst nightmare.”

“En,” said Li Li, nodding. “Never know who he is next.”

“Exactly.”

Li Li and I pondered in silence the dilemma that Yoshi

presented to us as the Golden Dragon pulled up to our hostel
in downtown Kumul. Our quiet musing was shattered by an
explosion.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” shouted Lulu, jumping to her

feet. “There!” she said, pointing out the window to an
alleyway beside the hostel.

“What?” griped an annoyed Enzo, who had been sitting

next to Lulu.

“It’s…it’s… the pygmy giraffe!”

Page 390

 Yoshi continued to stare out the window, but Poppy said,

“No way.”

“No…really!” cried Lulu. She charged off the bus,

disappearing into an alley. The other students followed her
off the bus.

Li Li sighed and then said, “I’ll go get them.”

“Please,” I said, my gaze still fixed on the pouting Yoshi. I

didn't know what I was going to say, but I wanted to talk to
Yoshi alone. I waited as the students filed off the bus. When
Dr. Kim reached me, he placed a hand on my shoulder and,
nodding toward Yoshi, said, “Let him be for now.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Trust me,” Dr. Kim comforted. “He’ll snap out of it. Just
give him a little space.”

So, that's what I did. I neither spoke to Yoshi on the bus

nor followed him to his room; nor did I call after him when
he didn't show up for dinner. His absence, though, clearly
unnerved the students, who kept asking after him.

Dr. Kim stepped into the breech. I guess he was trying to

calm the students. Instead, he succeeded in unnerving Li Li
and I.

Page 391

 At first, I didn't pay much attention as Dr. Kim engaged

the students around the table after dinner. My mind was still
on Yoshi. All I heard were the words, “China… Korea…
soldiers.” Which brought a smile to my lips. I figured Dr. Kim
had successfully drawn my students into a discussion about
the geopolitics of the Far East. Every time I even used the
word “geopolitics,” Pajama Girl and the rest of the Greek
Chorus sidled away from me as if I had covid 19.

Then Li Li pinched my elbow. “Why smile?” She chided

me. “Listen harder.”

“My pleasure!” I said and leaned forward in my seat, now

fully engaged.

Dr. Kim gave me a welcoming wink.

"Imagine,” intoned Dr. Kim, “if Mexico stationed 20,000

heavy armed, combat ready troops along its border with the
U.S.”

My students stared wide-eyed at Dr. Kim as if children

hearing a fairy tale. Which, of course, they were. Mexico
would never station combat ready troops along its U.S.
border.

“Wouldn't the U.S. have the right to be concerned;

shouldn't it feel threatened?”

I struggled to grasp Dr. Kim's point. Part of the problem

was that his tone was as soft and sweet as a breeze carrying
Page 392

nothing more threatening than a spring shower. You would

have thought him the most reasonable man this side of the
Yalu River, which separated North Korea from China.

Some of my students obviously thought so too. “I guess,”

said Lulu, whose face wrinkled up in concern concentration,
as if she were trying to picture exactly where Mexico
bordered the U.S.

Dr. Kim smiled sweetly and then continued. “Why, then,

shouldn't China feel concerned, even threatened, by the tens
of thousands of U.S. troops stationed along the border of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea? After all, Korea is as
close to China as Mexico is to the U.S.”

As a first class bullshitter myself, I had to tip my sweat-

stained baseball cap to Dr. Kim. I doubt he gave two figs
about Mexico. But he had masterly used it as a foil to create a
false analogy to challenge American support of South Korea,
which China did indeed find deeply threatening.

I was beginning to suspect that Dr. Kim hadn't tagged

along with us just to teach my students yoga. There might be
something to Li Li’s suspicions. My rising disapproval must
have shown on my face. Enzo smiled at my troubled
expression. He sidled up to Dr. Kim and then chimed in,
“Damn straight.”

Not all my students, thank goodness, were beguiled by Dr.

Kim. “Yeah, but why would Mexico arm its border with the

Page 393

U.S.?,” Poppy asked, twisting a springy curl hard. “Isn't

Mexico our friend?”

Lulu nodded her head as this seemed to make sense, too.

“Maybe so,” Dr. Kim replied without skipping a beat, his

smile never wavering, “but isn't America and Mexico's
friendship a deeply troubled one?”

“Deeply troubled,” Enzo seconded.

“How so?” Poppy pressed.

“Well, then, let me ask you this,” Dr. Kim said sweetly.
“Who supplies Mexican drug lords with their lethal arsenal of
handguns and semi-automatic rifles?”

“American gun dealers?”

Dr. Kim grinned ear to ear at Poppy's answer.

My students were clearly outgunned by Dr. Kim's skillful

use of facts to sow doubt. It was time for me to step in here
and set the record straight. “The Mexican and American
governments work together to stop these guns sales — and
Mexico has never moved to seal off its borders.”

“Well,” said Enzo, as if speaking for Dr. Kim, “maybe they

should.”

Page 394

 “Given the level of trade between the two countries?” I

said, “It’ll never happen.”

“Oh?”said Dr. Kim, raising an eyebrow. “Well, imagine this:

What if Mexico were to send a team of commandos across the
U.S. border to capture or kill these gun sellers?”

I snorted in derision.

“Wouldn't it be justified?” countered Dr. Kim.

“Why?” said, Lulu, her brow wrinkled in concentration as

she struggled to follow the debate.

Dr. Kim welcomed Lulu's question. “Haven't hundreds of

innocent Mexicans been killed by American-armed drug
lords?”

Even Poppy now was nodding in agreement. Dr. Kim

continued, “Don't Americans feel justified in striking Al
Queda in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan — all without
ever asking those countries' permission?” He smiled at all the
heads nodding in agreement with him.

“That's different,” I fumed. But I could feel that none of

my students were listening to me. Dr. Kim cast me a sweet
smile. This time I wasn't fooled. He was about as sweet as a
bitter melon. And twice as cunning. I could see clearly now
that Dr. Kim had worked first to win the students trust; he
now used that trust to poison their minds.

Page 395

 Clever indeed. But Dr. Kim’s masterful distortion of the

facts should have been the least of my worries about him.

I found myself once again behind the wheel of Old

Faithful, my trusty but dilapidated Toyota Camry. The poor
thing had survived countless mishaps, including my teenage
son rolling it over. Neither he nor the Camry suffered more
than a few scratches.

But now Old Faithful faced its greatest test. It teetered

atop the steep driveway that ran alongside the large stucco
suburban house I had owned while married years ago in the
hilly suburbs of Atlanta. The Camry's wheels spun helplessly
as I tried to crest the top of the steep driveway. In the rear-
view mirror, I could see my ex-wife, who stood at the bottom
of the driveway with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. She
was the most cunning — and cruel — opponent I have ever
faced.

I floored the accelerator, but the car would not crest the
top of the driveway. Worse, the Camry began to slowly slip
back down. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I eyed my ex-
wife in the rear-view mirror. A devilish grin creased her thin
lips.

I awoke with a start. My jogging shorts and ratty tee shirt

were drenched in sweat. The first rays of sunrise pierced the
thin curtains of my room. I jumped up and took a shower. My
skin shivered under the weak trickle of cold water. We had
Page 396

had no hot running water since Xi’an. I had come to count on

cold water to slap me into consciousness every morning.

This morning a cold shower was especially welcomed. I

didn't want a bad dream to poison the penultimate day of our
trip. But, even after the shower, I still felt a twinge of
lingering dread. Who would Yoshi be this morning; what
would Dr. Kim next tell my students: that frog tastes like
chicken?

At this early hour, I didn't expect to find anyone yet in the

hotel's communal dining hall, where the staff were just
beginning to bring out trays of cold, rubbery fried eggs, urns
of soy milk and bowls of spicy cold pickled vegetables. But
there sat Yoshi, hunched over his map and grumbling to
himself.

Suddenly, Yoshi looked up. His watery red eyes studied

me. Was that a smile on his grizzled face? You would have
never thought we had almost come to blows the day before.
Looked like Dr. Kim’s advice had been golden. Still, I shook
my head. Yoshi was about as predictable as the weather in
April — and almost as stormy.

When I approached him, Yoshi grumped, but no more

than usual, and jabbed at his map with an index finger,
explaining the day's excursion in Kumul. It sounded
smashing.

Indeed, Yoshi gave us a bang up tour of Kumul. And it was

a stark change from his attack the day before against the
Page 397

 Dalai Lama. Today, his presentation was politically incorrect.

You could tell by the frowns not just on the faces of the Twin
Wannabes but on Dr. Kim, too. He looked like he had been
forced to swallow some of his own factual distortions.

“Why the change?” I asked Li Li. She shrugged, as if

equally baffled.

In short, here’s what Yoshi explained. Kumul’s Uighur

population increasingly resented the growing number of Han
encouraged by the government to settle in Xinjiang. Today,
Han immigrants held most of the province’s best jobs and
government posts. Rising Uighur resentment was starting to
be expressed in street protests.

Soon, we would learn just how true Yoshi's observations

were.

Page 398

 CHAPTER 28
ORGAN BANDITS

Three expressionless policemen in stiff blue uniforms

marched in lockstep through the front door of the restaurant,
where we were finishing up a meal of grilled goat and
dandelion salad. They came to a stop, forming a line just
inside the threshold. Such a performance would have
grabbed everyone's attention in any U.S. restaurant, but not
in China. Here, such a display of rigid, disciplined security
was common. It didn't silence the clicking of a single pair of
chopsticks.

Still, there was something different about these cops.

Maybe it was the grim look on their faces. Or that the middle
one held a small megaphone. I'd never seen that before. He
raised the megaphone to his mouth and squawked
something.

At first, the Chinese diners ignored him. Then he

squawked again, this time more high-pitched. Now the
restaurant grew quiet. People began to look at each other, as
if asking what to do.

Page 399

 A short, pudgy guy in a blood-stained apron came out the

kitchen and started shouting at the cop with the megaphone.
The cop stared ahead stony-faced and again raised the
megaphone to his mouth.

This time people began to get up and leave.

“What's going on?” I asked Li Li. She and Yoshi were the
only two in our group who understood the Western dialect of
Kumul. Still, she looked equally perplexed and said, “He says
everyone must leave restaurant.”

I watched as Yoshi approached the cop with the

megaphone. He tried to argue with the cop, but he just stared
straight ahead as if Yoshi were less than a gnat. Li Li rose to
join Yoshi and the cop did turn to eye her, but still, he
remained silent. It was only when Dr. Kim joined the three of
them that the cop begin to speak. As he spoke, Li Li's face
turned grey.

Now, when the cops first barged in, I assumed that it was
for one of two reasons: The restaurant had suffered one of
China's ubiquitous attacks of food poisoning; or the
proprietor had failed to pay off the appropriate local
potentate. But Li Li's greying complexion suggested
something more serious.

Li Li confirmed my suspicions when she returned to the

table. Not only was the restaurant being closed, she reported,
but our group was to leave Kumul. Immediately.

Page 400

 “But why?” I sputtered. Li Li just shrugged. Of course, she

didn't know. The cop hadn't explained why. That was typical.
Chinese officials rarely explained themselves. One thing was
clear, though. We were decidedly unwelcomed. The cop with
the megaphone glared at us as Li Li and I rounded up our
students to leave. Most of them didn't appear particularly put
out. They were relieved, I suspect, to have been spared the
adventure of trying dandelion salad.

Enzo, however, hunkered down over his untouched salad.

“They can't tell us to leave if we don't want to,” he sniffed.
This from the guy who had said the night before he couldn’t
wait to get back home.

I'm sure the cop with the megaphone didn't understand a

word of English. Nonetheless, he sensed the gist of Enzo's
muttering. He marched over to him and began hollering.
Chinese officials were not used to being resisted, let alone
sassed.

The cop's shouting, of course, only emboldened Enzo. He

turned toward the room and proclaimed, “We're Americans!
And no one — no one — can tell us what to do!” All eyes —
Chinese and American alike — turned to him and a wan
smile crossed Enzo's thin lips. “I’ll leave when I'm good and
ready,” he said.

Turned out Enzo was more ready than he thought. Yoshi

strode up behind him, seized the threadbare collar of his tee
shirt and then yanked Enzo to his feet. Yoshi dragged the
sputtering Enzo out of the restaurant and back onto the bus.
Page 401

 I found Enzo sitting quietly but fuming, his raccoon eyes

darkening like the sky of a coming storm.

As the Golden Dragon wend through Kumul's narrow,

twisting streets, I marveled at a remarkable sight. Normally,
even in the smallest Chinese city, the streets were bustling
any time of the day. But dusty Kumul was deserted, save for
cops, stray dogs and chickens.

We soon encountered one police manned road block after

another. It didn’t take me long to realize we were being
routed out of town. Before long, we found ourselves back on
the same two-lane highway that had led us into Kumul.
Except now, we were heading back toward Tian Shui. This
was a problem. We were scheduled to catch a train in Kumul
back to Beijing tomorrow evening.

“Now what?” I whispered to Li Li, who sat beside me.

“Let’s ask Yoshi.”

I nodded in agreement and stood up. I found Yoshi, who

sat head down, studying the map spread across his lap.
Without looking up at me, he spoke as if anticipating my
concern. “I wouldn’t get your panties all in wad.”

“How do you mean?”

Page 402

 “These kinds of periodic crackdowns happen all the time,

especially in a place like Kumul. Think of it as a passing
thunderstorm. A lot of noise but not much damage.”

“So you think we can get back in?”

“Sure. We’ll just find a place to hang out somewhere and

creep back in at dusk.”

I sighed in relief and turned to give Li Li a reassuring nod.

But instead of looking at Li Li my gaze was drawn to
something I saw out the window. Ahead in the distance, on
the opposite side of the road, I saw a rolling cloud of dust,
which rumbled like distant thunder. Then an armed
personnel carrier, topped with a helmeted soldier, poked
through the dusty cloud. Behind it came a line of tanks, troop
trucks and other armed vehicles.

As this convoy began to pass the Golden Dragon, every

student, Chinese and American, rose on their knees to peer
out the window. We all silently watched this thick green body
of an ever lengthening snake. There was no tail in sight.
Given the stony expressions on the soldiers face, I wagered
they weren't heading to some kind of holiday celebration or
parade.

For my students, I suspect, the convoy was especially

chilling. Sure, they had grown up slaughtering one another in
online games such as “Warcraft and “Call to Duty.” But they
were a generation who had never seen real soldiers armed
for combat. Sure, Driftwood had its ROTC unit, but its
Page 403

student members played at soldiering. And those older

students who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan never
openly talked about their combat experiences. That’s because
those who had not volunteered for the all-volunteer army
didn't want to hear about it. But even the Chinese students
looked stunned. Only Panda had the presence of mind to
raise his camera and start documenting the convoy.

A familiar but welcomed sound echoed within the bus.

“Ah...What’s up Doc?” Yoshi and Dr. Kim both heard it, too,
and they jumped up and walked toward the Twin Wannabes.
“Hao de…hao de,” a Twin said into his faux iPhone. Yoshi
and Dr. Kim stood over him, listening. The Twin ended the
call, and he huddled now with Dr. Kim and Yoshi. All four
muttered among themselves. As they conferred, Yoshi
grimaced as if someone had asked him to swallow Castor Oil.

“Come on,” I said to Li Li. Together, we walked back to

Yoshi and his fellow huddlers. “What’s going on?” I asked,
but I might as well have been talking to myself. They all just
silently ignored me.

I could feel my face beginning to redden with anger. But I

was distracted by a more immediate and pressing concern. I
felt the Golden Dragon begin to slow down — and not
because the driver was applying the brakes. “Oh great!” I
groaned, realizing that, once again, the Golden Dragon had
run out of gas. The bus’s luck, though, was truly golden. For a
second time, a Sinopec station suddenly appeared on our side
of the road, and we rolled into it.

Page 404

 Now, at first, I thought the students would want to stay on

the bus, given the convoy rolling past us. But they had
another concern that apparently trumped fear. “Gotta pee,”
said Lulu, jumping to her feet. All the others jumped to their
feet, too.

“Use the bus toilet,” Yoshi advised. He stood up and

walked to the head of the bus, blocking the exit.

“One toilet — for all of us — at once?” Lulu asked,

incredulously, and nodded back to all the other standing
students.

Yoshi stood legs spread and arms crossed. Shaking his

head, he said, “Too dangerous.”

I looked out the window. The only person I saw was a

scrawny gas attendant in a Sinopec uniform two sizes too big
for him. He stared at the bus as if it were an aberration. As
for the convoy, it rolled on indifferent to us.

“Please, Yoshi,” moaned Lulu. “I have to pee — bad.”

Yoshi shook his head, “No.”

The Greek Chorus moved toward the door in the middle of

the bus but Dr. Kim, for once, showing great alacrity, beat
them to it. He, too, now stood arms crossed blocking the back
door. He nodded smiling toward the bus’s toilet.
Page 405

 “Really, Yoshi,” I said, standing. “I don't see any reason

why not. Go ahead Lulu.”

But Yoshi ignored me and continued to block the door.

“Too dangerous,” he repeated.

Recalling that phone call, I was beginning to suspect that

Yoshi knew something he wasn't telling us. “What’s going
on?” I challenged.

“You don’t wanna know,” Yoshi smirked.

“Try me.”

Yoshi's face twisted into a cruel smile. Looking past me, he

spoke directly to the students. “We're in bandit territory now,”
he growled. “If you go out there, nobody can save your sorry
asses.”

“You mean the soldiers?” said Julio?

“Oh no,” said Yoshi, shaking his head. “Something worse.

Far worse.”

Pajama Girl looked out across the barren, scrubby

landscape. “What’s...what’s out there?” she asked, her voice
trembling.

Page 406

 “Yeah, what?” I scoffed, standing in the aisle now between

Yoshi and the students. “Don’t,” Li Li cautioned, urging me to
tread carefully.

As for Yoshi, he ignored me, instead training his rheumy

gaze on Pajama Girl and growled, “Organ... Bandits.”

The bus went deathly silent but only for a moment, for I
exploded. “Oh, Christ, not this crap again.” Li Li laid a
calming hand on my shoulder. It didn’t work. “Surely,” I
continued, turning to face the students, “you don’t believe
this nonsense.”

For the first time, Yoshi turned his watery gaze on me,
which challenged: “Who are you kidding? We both know I
own these kids.” Then he set out to prove it. Shifting his gaze
to the horizon, Yoshi spoke in a low, gravelly voice. “They're
out there now...watching. All they need is for one of you to
wander off.”

Tink nodded as if he, too, knew this to be true. Even

Poppy looked unsure about what to believe.

Curiously, Enzo remained silent. His mouth hung open, as

if he wanted to say something but couldn't bring himself —
for once — to support Yoshi. He was, I suspect, too smart and
well-informed to believe in “Organ Bandits.”

What to do? I looked out the window for inspiration,

staring at the empty, desolate gas station, which sat amid a
barren landscape of threadbare shrubbery, the highest of
Page 407

which might reach my waist. Some bandits, I thought. My

grandmother could have picked a better hideout. “Look,” I
said, pointing out the window. “There goes an organ bandit
now — and he's riding a pygmy giraffe.”

My attempt to defuse the situation through sarcasm fell

flatter than a bottle of day-old seltzer. No one laughed. No
one even turned to look out the window. All eyes remained
glued on Yoshi, who glowered at the students with his
bloodshot eyes. “Do you know what happened last week,” he
asked the students?

“No, what?” said Lulu, eyes wide. She had apparently

forgotten all about having to pee so bad.

“A band of organ thieves grabbed an American college girl

— from Vassar, I believe — and gutted her like a fish.”

“Ai ya!” Mountain Girl cried. Even the Twin Wannabes

looked shaken.

But I knew Yoshi's comment wasn’t directed at the Chinese

students but at my own. If a Vassar girl, whom my students
would consider richly privileged and protected from all
danger, wasn't safe, what chance did they have? Clever
bastard.

I turned to glance at Dr. Kim. Would this so-called friend

of my students now speak up? Apparently not. He just looked
on with a curious smile, as if enjoying a showdown between
two colorful roosters. I was on my own.
Page 408

 Yoshi continued. “Do you know where the police found

what was left of that girl?”

Lulu shook her head, “No.”

“In a trash can outside a restaurant,” Yoshi continued.

“The police had a hard time telling her carcass from the fish
bones and chicken feet.”

Yoshi paused, listening to the deathly silence. Then he

began again. “I wouldn't be surprised if that's why the army is
here — to find the bandits who gutted that poor girl.”

I heard a faint sob from the back of the bus.

“All right,” I exploded once again. “That's enough.”

Smirking, Yoshi turned his gaze toward me. He opened his

mouth to speak — some demeaning wisecrack, I'm sure —
but I cut him off. “Shut up!” My outburst silenced even the
whimpering Greek Chorus. All eyes turned to me as Yoshi's
face reddened.

“You shut up,” I repeated, shaking with rage, “and sit

down.” I pointed at a seat. “Now.”

Yoshi didn't move, but his smirk turned into a scowl.

Page 409

 “I said sit down — or….”

“Or what?” scoffed Yoshi.

Jesus, I felt like I was reprimanding my son when he was a

teenager.

“Or,” I stammered… “I swear to god... I'll throw you off

this bus. Here and now. Leave you to your beloved organ
bandits.”

I heard a student snort. Was it in derision or in support of

me?

Yoshi's hand moved toward the knife on his belt and

hovered above it.

I glanced at Li Li, who for the first time looked truly

frightened. I didn't blame her. I could well imagine Yoshi
gutting me like a fish. Yet, at this moment, I didn't care.
Better to die now than suffer another moment of Yoshi
humiliating me and terrorizing my students. Anger had
overcome any sense of fear.

For a long moment, Yoshi and I glared at each other,

neither of us budging. My heart pounded so hard its beating
rang in my ears. Finally, Yoshi's scowl melted away. He threw
up his hands and said, “Whatever.” Then he sat down in an
empty window seat. He gazed out as if he were alone.

Page 410

 But Yoshi wasn't alone. My confrontation with him had

apparently resolved Enzo's indecision. His gaping mouth
suddenly closed, and he tried to shuffle down the aisle
toward Yoshi, but I intercepted him. “I think not,” I growled.
Enzo brushed against me for a moment but then backed off.
He settled for scowling at me with his raccoon eyes.

I turned to address the others on the bus. “No one is to

talk to Yoshi,” I instructed. Then I turned to Yoshi and added,
“And you are not to talk to any of my students.” He didn't
look up from the window.

“Kai men,” I ordered the bus driver, who immediately

obeyed, opening the bus doors. Li Li sidled up beside me and
quietly took my hand. At least she was behind me. “Now,” I
said, “who needs to use the bathroom?” Li Li and I walked off
the bus. Would anyone follow us?

Page 411

 CHAPTER 29
BIGGEST STORY

Usually, gas attendants rushed out to greet us as if we

were a visiting party of dignitaries with a thick wad of kuai
qian, or chinese money, to spread around. Which, in a way, I
guess we were. I bet that filling up the Golden Dragon
represented a small station's profits for a week.

At this Sinopec station, the attendant did indeed rush out

to greet us, all right, but he wasn’t very welcoming. Rather,
he waved his hands as if to shoo Li Li and I away. He
jabbered away in the local dialect that none of our Chinese
student interpreters understood. Luckily, Li Li did, given that
she had grown up in nearby Gansu.

I glanced back at the Golden Dragon and was relieved to

see all but one of my students had streamed off the bus. I
suppose they were voting with their bladders, given their
pinched expressions, but I took it as a sign of support,
anyway. Only Yoshi, Dr. Kim, the Twin Wannabes and Enzo
remained on the bus. Dr. Kim sat alongside Yoshi, whispering
in his ear. Was Dr. Kim talking some sense into him or filling
his head with poison? I could only hope for the former.

Page 412

 Luckily, the agitated attendant didn't prevent much of an

obstacle to my students. In the past three weeks, they had
developed a sixth sense about where to find a passable toilet,
a skill necessary for any true adventurer. That my students
had developed such a sense made me proud.

“What’s he saying?” I said to Li Li, who stood beside men.

I gestured toward the jabbering gas station attendant.

“He wants us to leave — immediately.”

“Him too?” What was with the people in Xinjiang? You'd a

thought our little group had developed a case of Chinese
cooties.

“He's refusing to fill up bus.”

“Oh yeah? Tell him we can't leave unless he gasses us up.”

The attendant crossed his scrawny arms in defiance.

“Offer him twice the money,” I told Li Li.

She retrieved a wad of kuai qian from her CamelBak and

peeled off some bills, offering them to the attendant. He
snatched at the bills, but Li Li lifted them just out of reach.
She shook at a finger at him and said to him in Chinese, “Not
until the tank is full.”

The attendant glared at her, muttering something that

could have been “all right, you win,” or “go to hell.”
Page 413

Nonetheless, he began to refuel the thirsty Golden Dragon. As

the attendant pumped gas, Li Li pumped him for information.
She kept handing him more money as he talked. Her eyes
widened as she listened.

“What?” I asked.

Li Li whispered in my ear. My eyes grew wide, too. “Holy

crap,” I said, watching the military convoy rolling past us.
Now I understood why Yoshi had been so keen on keeping us
on the bus, although I still didn't approve of his method.

“We are in the middle of one hell of a story!” I said aloud.

Li Li nodded, adding, “and good opportunity for students.”

Indeed. But how to get at it? We faced some serious

obstacles. Dr. Kim and the Twin Wannabes — and probably Xi
Dada back in Beijing — would be aligned against us; would
Yoshi be, too? I glanced up at the bus and watched Yoshi and
Dr. Kim talking.

No matter. “Let’s do it — at least give it our college best.”

Li Li put a finger to my lips, pointing ahead. The Twin

Wannabes exited the bus and approached us with faux
iPhones outstretched.

Luckily, I espied Lulu emerging from the scrubby field

behind the left side of the gas station. She gave me an idea,
and I waved her over. “Will you ask the twins to help you find
a bathroom?”
Page 414

 “But I just went.” Lulu studied my face, which must have

quivered with excitement. “Wait, what's going on?”

“I haven't got time to tell you now,” I said, then confiding,

“but it's big. Really big — and I need your help.”

“Really!” Lulu gushed. She eagerly went off to intercept

the Twin Wannabes. They reluctantly agreed to help. Soon
the Twin Wannabes were chasing after Lulu and shouting as
she wandered off in the wrong direction. One of The Twin
Wannabes glanced back at me, frowning.

Next I waved over Poppy and The Panda. “I know why

Yoshi wanted to keep us on the bus.”

Poppy twisted a curl tight around her finger.

“We're sitting atop what is probably one of the biggest

stories in the world right now,” I continued. “And we are
probably the only Westerners who know about it.”

“What's going on?” asked Poppy excitedly.

“Can’t explain now. Time is of the essence. Just do what I

say.”

Poppy and The Panda nodded.

“Poppy, go with Li Li,” I said pointing at the attendant.

“She'll grill him. Record every word he says.” Next I turned to
Page 415

 The Panda. “Capture everything: the attendant, the gas

station, the convoy. Then we will sort it all out back on the
bus.”

"Hao de, hao de," Poppy said. I grinned at her growing

ability to speak Chinese.

Next I called over Mountain Girl, who was always happy

to oblige me. “Can you herd the rest of the students back
onto the bus?” She cast a suspicious eye at Poppy and Li Li
but said, “Ke yi.” I suspect that she was eager to move away
from the military convoy. So were the Greek Chorus, Tink
and Julio, who eagerly followed Mountain Girl back onto the
bus.

For a moment, I crossed my arms and watched as Lulu led

the Twin Wannabes on a wild goose chase and Poppy
recorded the gas attendant. A smile grew on my face. How
had I missed it? My students had come together as a team
over the past three weeks.

Then I turned my attention to watching the road, my gaze

sweeping the landscape. I didn't know how — or from where
— trouble might come, but I knew it would.

I didn’t have to wait long. I spotted a Jeep peeling off from

the passing convoy. It rumbled into the gas station. A goggled
commander stood up and eyed us and the pump. I suspect it
wasn't the gas prices he was checking out.

Page 416

 “Go...go,” I urged Poppy, The Panda and Li Li, shooing

them off toward the bus. Then I turned to call out to the
meandering Lulu. She came scurrying back to the bus, the
Twin Wannabes not far behind her.

Li Li pulled the hose out of the Golden Dragon's tank, and

gas spilled onto the ground. The attendant began cursing, but
I didn't feel bad for him. He had been well compensated for
any loss of gas.

Back on the bus, I urged the driver to go. Of course, he

needed little encouragement. He gunned the engine, and we
tore out of the gas station.

I didn't dare look at the gas gauge. Instead, I trusted to

fate that we had enough gas to leave the convoy in our
rearview mirror.

I did look out the window at the commander in the Jeep,

who squinted to see through the bus's wake of flying rocks
and dust.

Would he give pursuit?

“Whadda you got?” I eagerly asked Li Li, The Panda and

Poppy as the four of us huddled in a far corner at the back of
the bus.

“It’s, like, so awesome,” chortled Poppy.

Page 417

 “Do tell,” I said, glancing down the aisle in front of me. I

feared that our clandestine meeting might be too
conspicuous. Luckily, the Twin Wannabes were dozing. Yoshi
continued his glazed stare out the window, ignoring that
Enzo was seated next to him. Even Dr. Kim appeared lost in a
daydream. But I knew our little conference wouldn't stay a
secret for long. “Tell me quickly,” I added. “We may have to
act fast.”

Li Li interceded and explained. A Han security officer had

reportedly shot dead an Uighur teenager in the provincial
capital of Urumqi. That triggered spontaneous uprisings
across the province, with rioters going so far as to turn over
police cars.

“Sounds like a summer day in Detroit,” I said.

“What?” said Poppy.

“Never mind,” I said, adding, “so the government has sent

the army to seal off the province and squash this uprising.”

“Dui,” confirmed Li Li.

Which meant my instincts had been right. “We are in the

middle of a world-class uprising,” Poppy chirped. She raised
her handheld tape recorder and then nodded at The Panda’s
camera. “And we’ve got it all documented.”

Page 418

 “What uprising?” It was Lulu, who had wandered over

from her seat across from Enzo.

“Shh,” I hushed her. But it was too late. Julio, Tink and the
Greek Chorus stood up and gathered behind Lulu.

“I could edit the video,” offered Tink.

“And I could narrate it,” added Julio.

Before I could applaud such team spirit, Li Li dashed my

high hopes. “Why bother?” she said, “if we can’t get story to
outside world?”

Her point was well taken. I peered out the window and
watched the deserted scrubland roll by. There wasn't a cell
tower in sight. Nor did I see anything high enough on which
to perch a tower. Not that it would have made any difference.
None of us had a phone with Internet access.

“What if I sweet talk one of them into lending me a

phone,” said Pajama Girl, nodding toward the sleeping,
bobbing heads of the Twin Wannabes.

“That wouldn't work, I'm afraid.”

“Why not?” asked Poppy.

Li Li explained that the Twin Wannabes only had Internet

access because they were using a government network. “And

Page 419

the government would block or seize any video documenting

an uprising,” I added.

“So what can we do?” Julio mused aloud. We all fell silent
pondering the answer to that question. Then Poppy muttered,
“Uh oh.”

I looked up to see a grinning Dr. Kim standing behind the

students. “What's so hush hush?”

“There’s a riot, and we’re trying to tell the world about it!”
Tink blurted.

“You guys,” Dr. Kim chuckled, shaking his head. “Who’s

rioting?”

“The Muslims,” Julio chimed in.

“Now, why would muslims riot?” Dr. Kim said.

“Well, somebody's rioting,” said Lulu, nodding toward the

window. “Just look at all the tanks and stuff.”

“What, you’ve never seen a military exercise?”

The students fell silent again, glancing at one another. I

could guess what they were thinking. Why would Dr. Kim lie
to them? After all, this was the same guy who had taught
them yoga and how to brave horrendous toilets. Still, anyone
could see that these soldiers were not out for a joyride.

Page 420

 “We’ve got proof,” said Poppy, holding up her handheld

recorder.

“What kind of proof?”

“Sound and pictures!” said Lulu.

Dr. Kim harrumphed as if unimpressed. “Let me see some

of this proof.”

Poppy looked at me. I nodded that it was okay to play

what she had recorded. Dr. Kim pushed through the students
to stand before Poppy and, head bowed, he listened to the
gas attendant. Then he looked up with a grin and said, “He’s
pulling your leg.”

“Why would he do that?” challenged Poppy.

“Why wouldn't he?”

Dr. Kim extend a hand toward The Panda. “You have

video?”

Panda curled around his camera as if he were a bear

protecting her cub.

I stood up now, placing myself between Dr. Kim and The

Panda. “We’re confident in what we have,” I said.

“Wouldn’t a second confirmation be wise?” Dr. Kim

challenged. He did not withdraw his hand. I was beginning to
Page 421

feel that this was no request but a demand. He called out to

the Twin Wannabes, who suddenly bounced up alert and
shuffled over. “Would you take a look at this video, please?”
he asked them.

“Let me see.” A hand reached through the huddle and

wrenched the camera free from The Panda’s protective grasp.
Li Li and I watched aghast as Yoshi pushed himself clear of
the crowd with the camera held high overhead and out of
reach. Once clear of all of us, including Dr. Kim and the Twin
Wannabes, he began to watch what The Panda had recorded.
His grizzled face smirked as he watched. “I think I know what
we can do with this,” he growled.

Page 422



 CHAPTER 30
DESERT TROUT

In a single swift strike, Yoshi had managed, once again, to

shift the balance of power on the bus. He now carried The
Panda’s camera tightly under an arm and moved toward the
front of the bus. When he reached the driver, Yoshi ordered
him to change direction. Soon the Golden Dragon was
bouncing along a dusty maze of rutted single lane roads.

I marched up to the front of the bus and confronted Yoshi:

“Where are you taking us?”

Yoshi replied with a crooked smile.

I wasn’t the only one concerned. “Yes,” said Dr. Kim, who
had come up to join us. “Where are you taking us?”
Apparently, this detour was not at Xi Dada’s behest.

When Yoshi didn't answer, Dr. Kim relaxed and wrapped

his arms around his chest. “Are you hijacking us?” he asked
with a bemused smile on his face.

This time Yoshi answered. “That's one way to look at it.”

Page 423

 I looked out the window as the bus entered a landscape

that became ever more parched and barren. Ahead loomed a
waist high stone wall. In the middle of the wall stood an
arched entrance, which featured a placard decorated with a
handful of beautifully drawn Chinese characters. “Welcome
to Heavenly Waters Farm,” Li Li read aloud. She had come up
to stand behind me.

I sure as hell didn't see any water in sight, heavenly or

otherwise. “What’s farmed here, gravel?” I asked Yoshi, who
chuckled. He directed the bus driver to pull over against the
inside of the stone wall and park. “Come,” Yoshi said,
beckoning us to follow him off the bus.

I hesitated, surveying the barren landscape. I saw neither

soldiers nor organ bandits. In fact, there wasn’t another living
soul lurking about.

In comparison, the bus had become a smelly sauna — and

unbearably tense. If I were to be a prisoner, I’d rather be one
out there than in here. “What the hell,” I mumbled to Li Li
and exited the bus. Li Li and most of my students followed
me. The barren landscape welcomed me with a hot sandy
gust that scratched my cheek. Still, I was happy to be off the
Golden Dragon.

I looked back up at the bus and surveyed those who had

remained aboard. The Twin Wannabes sat glued to their seats
with a stricken look. Dr. Kim and his wife, too, stood pat.

Page 424

 “Suit yourselves,” Yoshi growled at them and began to

walk away. Li Li and I, with students in tow, followed him. He
led us up a rocky hill. At its crest we stopped and looked
down onto a shallow plain. What I saw took my breath away.

Below us sat row after row of concrete troughs brimming

with crystal clear, flowing water. Rainbow striped fish jumped
out of the water as if in a wild stream.

“My god, is that trout?” I stammered. “But how…?” My

voice trailed off in wonderment.

“What’s trout?” asked Julio. “Can you eat it?”

For the first time, Yoshi flashed a smile free of guile. “Oh
yes,” he replied. “Come….”

But before Yoshi could finish his sentence, Julio charged

down the rocky hill toward the trout-filled troughs. “We have
to cook them first,” Yoshi called after the racing Julio.

We sat on large flat rocks around a bonfire, which Enzo

and the Greek Chorus had built under Yoshi's guidance. Now
they gleefully continued to stoke the roaring flames. On
sharpened sticks, the rest of the students used the flames to
grill trout and vegetables, which had been picked from a
nearby desert garden.

Page 425

 Lulu sat down next to Li Li and I with a large trout

skewered upon her sharpened stick. I happily watched her
gnaw on the head of the trout. “So,” I said to her, “did you
ever see that Albino Pygmy Giraffe?”

Lulu stopped gnawing for a moment and got a watery,

faraway look in her eyes. Which I took as a “yes.”

“Seriously, man,” said Tink, who sat down next to Lulu. “I

saw it for sure. Although I wouldn’t call it a pygmy. It was
taller than Yoshi said.”

I heard a loud snort, which sounded like a bull preparing

to charge, and turned to see Yoshi glaring at Tink. For a
moment, I thought he might run Tink through with his
sharpened stick. Was Yoshi peeved because Tink said he saw
his make believe creature or because Tink said the thing
wasn’t a pygmy? Only the devil knows.

The aroma of the grilled trout must have been so strong

that it wafted above the surrounding hillock. The Twin
Wannabes appeared on a crest, sniffing the air. Then they
stumbled down the hill. Dr. Kim followed behind them, but
carefully chose his steps, never once losing his balance. His
wife, still knitting head down, followed behind him.

When the Twin Wannabes reached us, they attacked the

grilled trout with their bare hands. While feasting, they
looked around with eyes wide. The Twin Wannabes looked as
surprised as I had been.

Page 426

 There was still one person missing from our cookout.

“Have you seen Angelica?” I turned to ask Pajama Girl. “No,”
she garbled through a mouth full of food. Sissy added, “Last
time I saw her she was looking for a bathroom.”

“A bathroom...you say?” I got up to search for Angelica.

Roaming a grove of shrubbery planted behind the trout
sluices, I espied a long head with auburn hair. I found
Angelica sitting on a big rock reading. “Angelica, really,” I
gently scolded. “You don’t have to hide if you want to read.”

“I’m not hiding,” she protested.

“Okay, then come back with me to the cookout.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“It’s time to come out of the closet,” I insisted.

Angelica tried to wave me off.

“Look, if you don’t come and have dinner, you know what
I’m gonna do?”

“What?,” said Angelica, with a note of fear in her voice for

the first time.

“I’m gonna get my own book and sit down right next to
you and read.”

Page 427

 Angelica jumped to her feet. “All right, already. You’re,

like, so annoying,” she grumped, as I led her back to the
others.

At the sight of Angelica, Pajama Girl frowned and pointed

an accusatory finger. “What’s that?”

Angelica’s long pale face blushed.

“A book,” I interceded, “is that so terrible?”

“No,” said Pajama Girl. “I’ve just never seen Angelica with
one before.”

The Panda jumped up, camera in hand, circling Angelica.

She tried to hide the book behind her back and hissed at The
Panda, “You stay away from me.”

While Angelica spun in circles in front of The Panda’s

snapping camera, Enzo snuck up behind her. He seized the
book in his greasy fingers. “The Golden Compass,” he said,
holding up the book for all to see. “Bitchin’.”

Sissy nodded in approval. “The movie was awesome.”

“The book is even better,” I said.

Sissy looked skeptical.

“Yeah, right,” said Tink. “How could a book be better than

a movie?”
Page 428

 There was real method to Yoshi’s seeming madness. As we

sat around the bonfire, picking at whole trout with our bare
hands, he explained that this was his farm. Not only had he
managed to raise fish in the desert. He had done so with Xi
Dada’s approval and assistance.

Yoshi's desert trout farm was a model of eco-ingenuity. It

tapped an ancient spring, which locals mistakenly thought
had run dry. Yoshi revived the well through the use of new,
Chinese engineered solar-powered pumps. They sucked up
the deep chilled water that trout need to thrive. Those pumps
also kept that water circulating. It flowed through filters that
gathered the trout's waste, which was then used to fertilize
the vegetable gardens. That enabled the farm to use the same
water over and over, extending the life of the well by
generations.

"Why trout?" Poppy asked. "Why not carp or some other

traditional Chinese fresh water fish?"

Enzo snorted, as if this were the stupidest question he’d

ever heard. But I thought it was a darn good one. Well-
informed and pointed.

Yoshi wearily eyed Poppy, as if he had answered this

question a hundred times. Still, this time he didn't patronize
nor growl. “Trout,” he explained, “give the biggest bang for

Page 429

the buck. They eat little, pack the most protein and crap the
least. Have you ever seen how much a carp craps?”

Actually, I had. In my youth, I had caught many a carp in a

fetid urban pond near my house. It was a wonder the Chinese
honored such a funky species as the “Golden Fish.”

Yoshi had situated his farm amid Muslim villages in Gansu

along the border of Xinjiang. It had pumped new life into this
historically impoverished area, which had been losing people
to the big coastal cities for a generation. Now villagers, under
Yoshi's supervision, worked the farm. A few of them were
even starting trout farms of their own, mimicking Yoshi’s
techniques. They first fed themselves on trout and veggies,
but there was plenty left over to sell to restaurants in Dun
Huang, Tian Shui and beyond. Fewer and fewer villagers
were leaving every year for the grimy, overcrowded cities of
Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

Which, of course, pleased the Party. As Yoshi well knew,

and I had explained earlier, his eco-farming collective neatly
dovetailed with its plan to keep peasants in the countryside
and drive development inland.

Still, you couldn't get anything done in China without a

benefactor or “gui ren.” This, of course, is where Xi Dada
came in. He made sure Yoshi’s experiment was well known
among the right circles and received proper funding. And,
more importantly, Xi Dada made sure no party officials seized
the farm or its land for their own enrichment.

Page 430

 Yoshi would really need Xi Dada's political cover for what

he was planning next. He was organizing the villagers to join
together in an eco-farm cooperative. Nothing spooked the
party more than its people doing anything independently of
the government. That was, after all, downright communist,
and nobody feared communism more than the Chinese
Communist Party. Nobody knew better, after all, what a real
communist revolution could do.

Not surprisingly, Xi Dada demanded a high price for his

critical service. Yoshi had to let him receive all the credit and
glory for Heavenly Waters’ success. And, of course, Yoshi had
to kowtow to Xi Dada's other initiatives, such as our trip. For
an independent soul such as Yoshi, I suspect that this was
indeed a high price to pay. I knew kowtowing to Xi Dada
would have driven me batshit crazy. I eyed Yoshi with a
newfound appreciation.

I saw Dr. Kim eying him, too, as he chewed on a fish head

dangling from the end of a sharpened stick. “I never knew
western fish could taste so good,” he enthused.

At Dr. Kim’s compliment, Yoshi nodded. Did this mean all

was peaches and cream again between them?

From my rock seat, I studied these two curious men, both

of whom now gnawed on a fish head. I knew Yoshi worked
for and was beholden to Xi Dada. But was that true also for
Dr. Kim? Or had Dr. Kim been assigned by a higher authority
to watch Xi Dada? The standing and stature of these guys
remained opaque and mysterious. I glanced at Li Li, and she
Page 431

looked equally confused. Still, I decided to enjoy this rare

moment of peace; who knew how long it would last.

CHAPTER 31
CAN’T YOU TAKE A JOKE

Yoshi eyed the Twin Wannabes, who sat across from him.
With greasy lips, they finished their second trout. “Here,” he
said to them, handing each a third fish, “have another.” The
Twin Wannabes nodded with enthusiasm and seized Yoshi’s
offering. Soon, they were engrossed in devouring their third
helping.

“Come on, time to make our move,” he growled in my ear

and then stood.

Page 432

 “What move?” I asked suspiciously.

Yoshi put an index finger to his lips and nodded at the

preoccupied Twin Wannabes. Then he crept off.

Li Li, The Panda, Poppy and I followed Yoshi as he led us

to a grove of short trees behind the concrete troughs. Inside
stood a wooden shack that looked like the many latrines we
had endured during the past three weeks. Instinctively, we all
held our noses as Yoshi opened the shack’s door. He chuckled
and then entered. We followed him inside to find a state-of-
the-art multimedia studio, complete with a broadcast quality
microphone and a big screen iMac work station, which had
been equipped with the latest version of FinalCut Pro. Yoshi
smirked at our stunned expressions and then said, “It pays to
have friends in high places.”

“Indeed,” I acknowledged.

“Shall we get to work?” Yoshi asked, turning to the

students.

Poppy and The Panda stood dumbfounded. “We don't

know how to use this stuff,” Poppy said.

“Can I be of help?” Tink poked his head inside the shack.

At first, I balked, but Poppy and Panda welcomed Tink.

“He’s a wiz at this stuff,” explained Poppy.

Page 433

 “Really?” I said, truly skeptical. I couldn’t imagine Tink

being good at anything but empty talk.

But Poppy set me straight. “You’re always rolling your eyes

at Tink, wondering why we put up with him.”

“True...why do you?”

Poppy pointed at Tink, now hunkered over the computer

keyboard. Head down, his long bangs covering his eyes, Tink
furiously typed away. “Because when it comes to this digital
stuff, he is a maestro,” Poppy said.

Sure enough, he digitally spliced The Panda’s various

feeds of pictures and video. “Go get Fermi,” commanded
Tink, still hunkered over the keyboard and tying away.

Poppy saluted and said, “aye, aye mon capitain,” and then
dashed out. She returned moments later with Pajama Girl.

“Poppy, can you bang out a quick script for Fermi?” Tink
asked. Poppy looked around for something to write on. She
espied some brown paper napkins on the computer desk and
snatched them up. I gave her a pen, and she began to
furiously scribble across them. In a few minutes she’d covered
about a dozen towels with writing. “Here,” she said, handing
the towels to Pajama Girl. “This oughta do.”

Pajama Girl read the script through once quickly and then
nodded that she was ready to begin. “Today,” Pajama Girl
said, “tanks of the People’s Liberation Army rolled into far
Page 434

western Xinjiang Province. They came to suppress a rising

revolt among Muslim Uighurs against the heavy hand of the
Chinese government.”

I stared agog at the girl reading the script. Gone was the
whiny, high-pitched voice of a girl who couldn’t be bothered
to change out of her pajamas. In her place now stood a
female impersonation of Walter Cronkite. This impersonator
kept one eye on Tink, who guided her through the script like
a conductor leading an orchestra. Pajama Girl’s voice synched
perfectly with the unfolding video.

When the narration was done, Tink uploaded our package

to YouTube and Vimeo via a high-speed Wi-Fi connection to
the internet.

“Was that, like, so awesome or what?” The Cronkite

impersonator had turned back into Pajama Girl.

“Awesome,” I agreed. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

My students had indeed forged themselves into an effective
team of budding journalists. Still, one thing worried me.
“Won’t Chinese censors intercept this video and block it?”

Yoshi shot me a look that made me feel dumber than a

barrel of hair. Finally, as if speaking to a small child, he said,
“Not to worry. It’s uploading to a server at Stanford.”

“As in university?” said Poppy.

Page 435

 I remembered my first conversation with Yoshi back at

Tsinghua’s student cafeteria, where he had explained the cat
and mouse game among Chinese students.

“Hmm,” said Yoshi, who seemed to have lost interest in us.

His gaze fixated on the big screen monitor of the Mac
workstation. “Let’s see if your work gets any attention.”

All of us now, too, turned to eye the Like and Comment

icon buttons under our video. Sure enough, both buttons
began to register a rising number views, most of them
favorable. Later, I learned that CNN had picked up our
footage. The Einstein was mighty impressed.

With arms crossed, I stood beaming like a proud father at

my students huddled around the computer screen.

“What, now like students?”

I turned to see Li Li casting a skeptical eye at me. “What

do you mean?” I tried to defend myself, although I knew she
was right. Oh, how I had misjudged most of them.

Li Li shook her head and muttered, “So quick to see only

the worst.”

“Not always,” I said meekly.

“Mostly.”

Page 436

 True enough, I had to admit and said, “Well, can’t I be

proud now?”

Li Li harrumphed and then opened her mouth to speak,

but she was cut off by a loud bang. We both turned to see
The Twin Wannabes barge through the now open door of the
shack. Behind them sauntered Dr. Kim. “There you are!” He
exclaimed. “I feared you had fallen into the troughs and had
been eaten alive by the trout!”

Dr. Kim’s brow wrinkled, though, as his gaze swept the

shack. It could not help but be drawn to the big monitor that
dominated the cramped cabin. His eyes grew wide as he
watched a convoy of armed vehicles move across the screen.
“An endless line of Chinese tanks and other armored vehicles
moved toward the rioting Uighur in Xinjiang Province in
Northwest China,” Pajama Girl’s voice spoke from the
speakers.

The Twin Wannabes raced to the computer and tried to

shut it down. Which of course was pointless. Our work had
already gone global.

Dr. Kim’s wrinkled brow relaxed, and he rolled back on his

heels. Hugging himself, he nodded toward me as if to say
“well played.” Then he turned to face Yoshi and said, “Not
everyone will be as pleased as your friends here.”

“No shit,” Yoshi grunted.

“I fear for your trout,” added Dr. Kim.

Page 437

 “Me too.”

Dr. Kim shrugged. “Oh well,” he sighed. “No use crying

over spilt milk.” His gaze now shifted to Li Li. He extended a
hooked elbow towards her and said, “Care to join me in some
more of that delicious trout?”

Li Li glanced at me. I nodded that it was okay, but she

seemed strangely reluctant. Usually, Li Li believed in trying to
get along with everyone, no matter what she thought of
them. But her pale almond face darkened now as Dr. Kim led
her out of the shack.

I chalked up her disquiet to exhaustion.

“Not crying,” Li Li insisted, as she wiped the back of a thin

hand against a watery eye.

“Uh huh,” I said, struggling not to tear up myself.

We were both struggling to say goodbye to Yoshi, who had

decided to stay behind at his trout farm rather than
accompany us back to Beijing. How do you say goodbye to a
guy who both filled you with awe and then made you want to
kill him; who could shade in the rich complexity of Kumul
and then terrify my students with stories of organ bandits?

Page 438

 I tried one last time to make some sense of the guy. “What
was all that nonsense about organ bandits?”

“Can't you take a joke?” he growled.

“A joke?” But I let it drop, sensing the hopelessness of

getting a straight answer out of Yoshi.

It was six in the morning, and Li Li and I now stood alone

with Yoshi outside the baggage compartment of the Golden
Dragon. Everyone else was still sleeping. The three of us
watched the fog roll off the rows of troughs as Yoshi said he
would stay behind. He expressed confidence that Li Li and I
could handle our motley crew, including the Twin Wannabes
and Dr. Kim. “Still,” he grumbled, nodding at Dr. Kim’s bunk,
“Keep a close eye on that bastard.”

“Oh, believe me, I am.” I still smarted from Dr. Kim’s

heavy-handed polemic on Tibet.

“Are you?” Yoshi asked, with one eyebrow raised.

An evil smile crept across Yoshi’s grizzly face, and I sensed

he wasn't done yet surprising us. He swung forward an arm
that had been hidden behind his back, brandishing a huge
scimitar. Li Li and I both jumped back. “I found this in Enzo’s
luggage,” Yoshi said, grinning at its glistening blade.
“Impressive, no?”

Page 439

 My words caught in my throat as I imagined our entire

crew held at the airport once customs discovered Enzo's little
souvenir in his luggage.

As if reading my mind, Yoshi said, “Whadda you say I lose

this little beauty for him?

I smiled picturing the look on Enzo’s face when he opened

his luggage back home. “Fine by me.”

Losing Enzo's sword wasn't Yoshi’s only farewell gift. He

told us that he had booked us in the finest hotel in Tian Shui,
where we would stay overnight today before catching a train
the next morning to Beijing. Li Li began to cluck that this was
an unnecessary expense, but I agreed to accept this farewell
offering once he explained the history of the hotel. It was the
former palace in which the final Qing lord governing Gansu
had housed his harem of concubines. Which, of course, made
Li Li object even more.

I should have listened to her.

Page 440

 CHAPTER 32
LI LI GOES AWOL

I plopped down on the hard mattress of my hotel bed with

a groan. It had been a long day of Enzo taunting me and The
Hapless Wonder, aka Lulu, misplacing her room key. All I
wanted now was to just kick off my shoes and stare at an
inscrutable Chinese soap opera on the television. But no
sooner had I sat down than I heard a knock on my door.

At first, I didn't answer, fearing that what stood behind

that knock was another kid who had stuck her blow-dryer
directly into the room outlet. You would have thought Lulu’s
near death experience would have made everyone more
cautious. After hesitating for a long moment, a sense of duty
got the better of me. “Coming,” I said, rising from my bed. I
was relieved when I found Li Li at the door.

“Yes?” I said, not hiding the exhaustion in my voice.

“Dr. Kim call,” Li Li said, waving her cellphone at me.

“What does he want?”

Page 441

 “Want meet me in hotel restaurant.”

“Now?” I glanced at the digital clock beside my bed, which

flashed 9 p.m.

Li Li and I were both silent for a long moment as we

pondered Dr. Kim's odd request.

Now, for most Asian men, there were only two kinds of
women. First were the ones you married to keep your house,
raise your children and fight with your mother. They were
usually kept at home and out of sight, especially during the
workweek, when you went out drinking and smoking with
your male buddies until the wee hours.

The second kind of woman was like the BMW Roadster

you bought with a bonus or were given as a bribe. Like the
roadster, you housed this kind of woman in a separate world
from your wife and kids. She was trotted out at important
receptions or parties to impress colleagues, clients and
superiors. How little things have changed since China’s
imperial days, when a man's wealth and influence were
measured by the number of concubines he could afford to
house and feed.

Dr. Kim, whose ever knitting wife accompanied him

everywhere, did not strike me as your typical Asian male. I
pictured him now in his baggy khaki shorts and oversize
safari hat. Hardly the model Asian Casanova.

“See what he wants,” I finally said.

Page 442

 “Zhen de ma!,” Li Li, saying the Chinese for “really.”

“Absolutely. I bet this is another attempt by Xi Dada to pull

something funny behind my back. Play along and find out
what it is.”

Li Li’s narrow almond shaped face quivered for a moment.

“What's wrong?”

“Doesn't feel right.”

“Exactly. That’s why I need you to feel him out.”

Li Li still looked reluctant.

“Look,” I said, “won’t Mrs. Kim be there?”

“En,” Li Li grunted.

“Then he’ll be as harmless as a pussycat,” I reassured,

adding with finality, “You can handle Dr. Kim.”

"Have you seen Li Li?" I asked Lulu.

Chopsticks poised for the attack, Lulu sat before a plate

piled high with cold spicy pickled vegetables and Bing Bing, a
thin pancake made with scallions. Three weeks ago, I
Page 443

couldn't get Lulu to eat any breakfast, let alone spicy cold
vegetables. And she couldn’t pick up a mouthful of sticky rice
with a pair of chopsticks. Now here she was wielding
chopsticks to successfully shovel spicy pickled vegetables into
her mouth at 8 in the morning. Lulu, I realized with a smile,
had gone native on me.

At my question, Lulu lowered her chopsticks and let her

gaze sweep the crowded hotel cafeteria. “No,” she finally said
with a frown. Lulu knew as well as I did that Li Li was always
the first one down in the morning, greeting everyone as they
arrived. “Why, is something wrong?”

I sure as hell hoped not. In a couple of hours, we were

scheduled to board a train back to Beijing. Yet I had not seen
Li Li since she left for dinner with Dr. Kim last night.

I voiced none of my growing concern to Lulu. “She must

be rousting Pajama Girl out of bed,” I said with a chuckle.
Lulu laughed, too. I gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder
and then headed out to track down Li Li.

I searched first the floor where the boys roomed. Next I

went through the lobby and around the outside of the hotel.
Then I circled back to the cafeteria to see if Li Li had come in.
She was still not there. Finally, I went up to her room.

“Li Li,” I said, rapping on her door. No one answered but

the door swung open. Had it been opened all night? Most
unlike Li Li to have forgotten to lock it.

Page 444

 “Li Li,” I called again as I stepped into the room. Still, she
didn't answer but I heard a soft groan coming from the
bathroom. I poked my head inside and found Li Li slumped
on the floor. Her head rested on the toilet bowl and her face
was hidden behind a veil of long black hair. I had never seen
it unbraided. A sour smell filled the bathroom.

I sighed in relief. Montezuma's Revenge, which had

stalked us all during the trip, lying low anyone who let their
immune system flag, had finally claimed Li Li. But I soon
learned what ailed her was worse. Far worse.

“What's wrong with me?” Li Li moaned, holding up a

slender, bony hand that quivered uncontrollably.

The sight of that trembling hand unnerved me, but I was

still in denial. I tried to laugh it off. “It's gonna take more
than a bad dumpling or two to keep you down. You'll be fine
once we get you on the train. Then you can sleep it off.”

At the word “train,” Li Li's feverish face paled. She

grabbed one of my ankles with a trembling hand. “Please
don't make me get on that train,” Li Li begged. “I can't; I just
can’t.”

The tremor of her hand traveled up my leg like an urgent

SOS. It reached my stomach, which began to churn in
empathy.

I looked down at Li Li and recognized something more

than food poisoning. The wan complexion, quivering hands
Page 445

 and nausea. I knew these symptoms all too well. Li Li was

suffering some kind of anxiety or panic attack, something I'd
witnessed many times in my life. Had indeed suffered once
myself as a senior in college.

From the moment we had touched the searing pavement

of Beijing International Airport, a dark question had lurked in
the back of my mind. How long could this reed of a girl
navigate the treacherous cross currents of the competing
wishes of me, Xi Dada and my students. Here now I had my
answer. Li Li had bent until she could bend no more.

What had been the straw that broke her back? I thought of
Dr. Kim. “What did he tell you?”

Li Li began to shake from head to toe. “Please, don't make

me get on train with him.”

Li Li knew well the place where Dr. Kim had asked her to
meet him, although she had never been inside. In fact, when
she was a child, nobody in her family would have been
allowed in. All branded enemies of the party were barred.

The Dragon Head Club occupied a pavilion attached but

separate from our hotel. It had been turned into an officers
club during the brief rein of The Nationalists. Mao had
ordered the club leveled but somehow it survived. Now it
catered to high-ranking government officials and party
members.
Page 446

 As she approached the low slung, vine covered building

with the big red door, Li Li hoped she would indeed be
turned away. Her initial reception was encouraging. The two
stone lions that flanked either side of the tall red door
growled at Li Li in her simple, sun dress, white adidas and
fanny pack. But as she hesitated outside the door a maitre'd
stepped outside to welcome Li Li as if he had been expecting
her.

Li Li entered the club to find a small dining room

crammed with sturdy dark teak tables and chairs, the backs
of which were adorned with carvings of dragon heads. On the
walls hung wooden panels with ivory carvings of tea settings
and jagged mountains.

Lurking in the club's gloom were aging men in dark suits

and unnaturally jet black hair. Their Rolexes occasionally
flashed in the dim light. These men were immediately
recognizable. They were wearing the uniform of party
officials and their hanger-ons.

Few of these men sat alone. Most sat with young women
in bright dresses and big hair. They tittered with a hand
covering perfect white teeth as their male companions
murmured.

Li Li espied Dr. Kim at a table in a secluded back corner,

although at first she didn't recognize him. Gone were his
trademark khaki shorts, sensible walking shoes and safari
hat. Instead, he wore cotton slacks, loafers and an Izod polo
Page 447

 shirt. Even more disturbing: There was no Mrs. Kim at his

side.

She turned to go but not soon enough. Dr. Kim spotted Li

Li and waved her over. He rose to greet her as she
approached. “What do you think?” Dr. Kim said, as Li Li sat
down, assuming she had never been inside the Dragon Head.

Li Li ignored the question. “Where’s Mrs. Kim?”

“Oh she went on ahead to Beijing,” Dr. Kim purred.

“Thanks for asking after her. Please, sit.”

Li Li sat down rigidly in the chair and continued to grill

Dr. Kim. “What Xi Dada want?”

“Please,” protested Dr. Kim. “No business. Let's enjoy

ourselves.”

Li Li stared at Dr. Kim with a tightened jaw.

“Hungry?” said Dr. Kim, who summoned a waitress before

Li Li could reply. A woman dressed as a Qing Dynasty
courtesan, wrapped in layers of red, white and gold silk,
shuffled over in tight slippers. Her long hair was wrapped
tightly around an elaborate comb high atop her head. She
carried two steaming bowls of soup and set them in front of
Li Li and Dr. Kim.

You wouldn't know it from the soup's brackish color, but

this dish was an expensive delicacy that signified wealth and
Page 448

influence in Communist China. Government officials,

business leaders and party members were continually
ordering shark fin soup to impress one another. Indeed, every
table had ordered at least one bowl.

Never mind that the country's current red emperor had, in

a crackdown on corruption, banned shark fin soup as a
symbol of bourgeois decadence. Or that international groups
had denounced it as a wasteful barbarity. Fisherman typically
cut off a shark's fin and then threw it back into the water to
drown. It was a practice that made even me, who believed
one man's pet was another man's food, want to join PETA.

But PETA's denunciation and the Emperor's ban had only

made shark fin soup more desirable. The ability to order it
had become a symbol of someone's untouchability, the most
prized of all attributes in modern China.

Li Li wrinkled her nose at the soup. I doubt that her

disapproval, given Li Li's love of chicken feet, represented a
show of solidarity with either PETA or the party leader.

“I refuse to believe you don't like shark fin soup,” teased

Dr. Kim.

Li Li pushed the bowl away to make sure she wasn't

misunderstood. “Now, what want?”

“Remember, no business.” Dr. Kim bit his lip for a moment

and then his steel grey eyes flashed. He waved over the
courtesan waitress again, and leaned over to whisper in her
Page 449

 ear. “Hao, hao, hao,” said the waitress and then left. She soon
returned with a platter of what looked like some kind of pate,
encircled with pita wedges. “Perhaps you will like this better,”
said Dr. Kim, as the waitress set the platter down in front of
Li Li.

This dish represented a far graver challenge to Li Li, if she

intended to resist the charms of Dr. Kim. Rare is the
northwestern Chinese girl who can resist duck liver pate. Li Li
picked up a pita triangle and dipped into the pate. As she bit
into the pate, her eyes closed. It was that good.

When Li Li closed her eyes, Dr. Kim reached into a pocket

of his slacks and retrieved a little gift wrapped box. He
pushed it now toward Li Li.

Li Li's eyes popped open. “What this?”

“Why don't you open it and find out, ?” said Dr. Kim.

Li Li eyed the box warily as she chewed a sliver of pate

slathered pita.

“Here, then, let me help you.” Dr. Kim opened the box to
reveal an apartment key. He presented it to Li Li as if it were
the key to the city.

She did not take it. Instead, Li Li eyed the key as warily as
if it were one of the pet scorpions she had raised as a kid.

Page 450

 Dr. Kim's bald head reddened. “This,” he announced, “is a

key to an apartment in the Shangri-La Towers.”

“So?”

Maybe Li Li wasn't impressed, but I was. The Shangri-La

was the swankiest of residential towers in Beijing, a city that
had more swanky high rise towers than Midtown Manhattan.

“It's for you,” said Dr. Kim, again offering the key to Li Li.

“Why I need? Have room on campus.”

“That's a room; this is an apartment — in the Shangri-La!”

This was the first time I had ever heard of Dr. Kim losing
his cool, although I wasn't surprised that he would in this
situation. Li Li dared to decline an expensive, much sought
after gift from someone who was not only a respected elder,
but no doubt a party member, to boot. I wondered what the
Chinese word was for “chutzpah.”

Nor could I help wonder if Li Li already had an apartment

in the Shangri-La. Her husband certainly could afford to buy
one there. It would be a perfect addition to his already
extensive collection of expensive toys. I imagined him using
the apartment to run a clandestine house church for party
members.

Dr. Kim, of course, knew nothing of either Li Li's

religiousness or wealth. In her one-piece sun dress and fanny
Page 451

 pack, I'm sure she looked to him like any other girl from the
countryside angling for a step up the social ladder. Would
Mountain Girl or Xiao Pei turn down such a gift? The
residential towers of Beijing were filled with young women
who had said “yes” to such offers.

Dr. Kim regained his cool and tried again. “Surely the
Shangri-La is better than that ratty old campus hotel.”

“Campus fine.”

“Why don't you at least go take a look?” Dr. Kim pushed.

“I’ll go with you.”

Li Li remained unmoved. Indeed, she pushed back. “What

would wife say?"

Wow, I was speechless. Challenging an elderly authority

figure like this was no small thing for Li Li. It must have
taken every ounce of strength she had.

Indeed, at first, Dr. Kim acted like the wind had been
knocked out of him. But he soon recovered and switched
tactics, aiming this time to wound Li Li.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Kim mused aloud, “you are concerned that

Professor B won't approve.”

“He wasn’t.”

“I’m afraid you are mistaken there,” said Dr. Kim.

Page 452

 Li Li looked skeptical.

“Why, then, don't you ask him yourself?”

Li Li looked up at me now, tears in her eyes.

“Of course, not,” I blurted. “How could you think I would

ever sanction such a thing!” But I think, in all fairness, guilt
drove the forcefulness of my denial. I thought back to the
time I espied Dr. Kim eying Li Li’s head on my shoulder. And
then there was my approval of letting him escort her to
dinner at The Dragon Head. Had I inadvertently given Dr.
Kim my approval to come on to Li Li?

Page 453

 CHAPTER 33
WHEN PUNCH DR. KIM?

I considered Li Li for a moment and then let out a long

sigh. “All right, you can stay — but only with somebody.
Come as soon as you can. I'll wait for you in Beijing. Where's
your cellphone?”

Li Li pointed a limp arm at her CamelBak, which sat atop

the bed. I fished out the phone and called Mountain Girl.
“Can you meet me in Li Li's room?”

“Zen me le?” said Mountain Girl, as I greeted her at the

door.

“Li Li is not coming with us right now,” I said. “Stay with

Li Li and bring her back in a day or so.”

Mountain Girl peered around me at the figure slumped

over the toilet. “No need to stay,” she said and then reached
into the backpack slung on her shoulder. Mountain Girl
retrieved a packet of pills. I recognized them as Imodium.
“Give her these. She'll be fine.”

“It's not her stomach.”

Page 454

 “Flu?” said Mountain Girl.

“No.”

“I don't understand.”

Clearly, I thought. I remembered now that China was a

place where anxiety, depression, any psychological distress,
really, was dismissed as either a character flaw or an excuse
to get out of hard work. Nor did I want to violate Li Li's
privacy. How, then, to show Mountain Girl that Li Li needed a
little extra TLC right now. “Li Li,” I asked gently, “can you
hold up a hand?”

Li Li raised a hand that quivered like a leaf.

“Why nervous? Going home,” said Mountain Girl.

“She is more than nervous.”

Mountain Girl considered this for a moment, and then said

with authority. “Drink hot water. Then Li Li fine.”

“I don't think so. Can you please just stay with her for a
night?”

Mountain Girl shook her head as I talked. “I’m not

supposed to leave my fellow students.”

“I’ll call Xi Dada and get his permission.”

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 Mountain Girl crossed her arms and stared past me.

“Fine,” I said, dismissing Mountain Girl with a petulant

wave of my hand. “I’ll deal with this myself.”

Mountain Girl's departure left me with a seemingly

unsolvable dilemma. I didn't dare leave Li Li behind here
alone. But neither did I dare let the students return without
me. Who knew what Xi Dada had up his sleeve? Then there
were the Twin Wannabes. And, of course, Dr. Kim. How could
I leave him alone with the other girls?

In the end, I decided to do what I do best. Talk. Ad

nauseam. Words poured out of my mouth like water out of a
busted spigot. “Think of our students...how will they get
along without their Mama Li Li... I can't handle Enzo
alone….” I felt as if I were stumbling around in a dark closet,
groping for the light switch. Anything to re-animate Li Li.

What, if any effect, my words were having on Li Li I

couldn't tell. Her head continued to lie silently on the lip of
the toilet, her face hidden behind a veil of black hair. At least
she wasn't retching anymore. I took that as a promising sign.

Finally, I blurted: “You don't want to miss seeing me punch

Dr. Kim in the kisser — and right in front of Mrs. Kim and the
other students — do you?”

Li Li stirred. Her head slowly rose from the toilet bowl. I

still couldn't see her face, which remained hidden behind that
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 veil of long black hair. But from behind that veil I heard a
faint, “No.”

To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure how I persuaded
Li Li to board the Golden Dragon. Maybe she did it to stop
me from blathering on. Maybe it wasn't my words, per se,
that stirred her but what they represented. I had shown Li Li
that, if need be, I was willing to make a complete fool out of
myself to prove my devotion to her.

Who knows? Maybe Li Li really did want to see me punch

Dr. Kim in the nose in front of everyone on the bus. I was a
bit rusty on that score. I hadn't punched anybody in the nose
since that one time in high school, when I attacked Rocco
Cavello in the cafeteria. It had stopped this hooked nose
tormentor from bullying me, but not before he had the
chance to kick the living crap out of me in front of a crowded
cafeteria one last time. That was an experience I wasn’t eager
to relive.

I told myself I should be happy. Wasn't Li Li sitting now

beside me as the Golden Dragon approached the train
station. Yet, truth be told, I felt trapped.

I felt a bony knuckle dig into my right arm. “When punch

Dr. Kim in nose?” This had to be the tenth time Li Li had
asked me this question since we set out early this morning. I
smiled wanly and glanced behind me. Dr. Kim sat in his usual
seat toward the back of the bus. He stared ahead smiling at
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 something on the horizon while his wife sat beside him

quietly knitting. To look at them, you would think they were
the Confucian ideal of harmony.

Of course, I knew better.

I imagined myself rising out of my seat and walking over

to Dr. Kim. “Get up, you bastard,” I would loudly demand.
When he stood, I would knock him flat on his keister. Trouble
was, I could also imagine another scenario: My students
jumping to Dr. Kim’s defense. And I could imagine the Twin
Wannabes filming it all on their faux iPhones and sending the
footage onto Xi Dada.

Li Li again knuckled me in the arm.

Is it any wonder why I felt trapped?

“Uh oh,” I said, tapping Li Li on the shoulder and pointing

ahead. Hearts in our throats, we watched as airport security
guards escorted Enzo away from the metal detector. They
carried off his suitcase as if it were arrested.

“Yoshi take out sword?” Li Li asked aloud.

“We’ll find out in a moment.”

As we shuffled forward in the security line, Li Li and I

watched the security guards turn Enzo’s suitcase upside down
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and dump out its contents onto a low table. Enzo’s face
turned sallow and sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked
like he was going to throw up. And I didn’t blame him. If the
guards found a sword we’d all be spending the night — if not
longer — at the airport.

The students sensed the threat, too. Every eye was on

Enzo as they snaked forward in the security line.

Enzo’s sweaty brow did him no good. It egged on the

guards to search even harder. Again and again, they rifled
through his clothes. Would they find his sword? Who knew,
given Yoshi’s history of erratic behavior. In the end, to my
ever dying relief, all they found were a couple of packs of
Golden Temple cigarettes, which the guards confiscated. As
payment, I guess, for the trouble of ransacking Enzo’s
luggage.

“What the...?” said Lulu, who scurried over to comfort

Enzo after she cleared security. She draped an arm over his
slender frame as he stared down at his scattered possessions.
He looked dumbfounded. Muttering to himself, Enzo now,
too, began ransacking his possessions.

Li Li and I cleared security, and we, too, came up from

behind Enzo as he kept rifling through the spilled contents of
his suitcase. “Lose something?” I asked innocently, struggling
to suppress a grin. Li Li pinched my elbow.

Enzo turned sharply toward my voice, his mouth opened

in a snarl but no words came out. He apparently struggled to
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 find the words to tell me he had lost something that I

forbidden him to bring to the airport.

I was about to torment Enzo again, but was cut off by the
other students, who swarmed around their crestfallen
comrade. Even Poppy gave Enzo a big hug. “Here, dude,” said
Pajama Girl, offering Enzo a pack of Chinese cigarettes. “I
have plenty.”

“See?” said Li Li. “Stand up for each other. Now students

more un-American than you.”

“Well, now, I wouldn’t go that far,” I quipped, but I

couldn’t hide the grin on my face. The trip had been more
successful than I had hoped. We would soon see if The
Einstein would agree.

Pressing the soles of his Italian leather wing-tipped shoes

against the lip of the desk, The Einstein studied the giant
black brush strokes that danced across the long white
parchment, which Li Li and I had unfurled. She stood at one
end of the banner and I at the other. It stretched halfway
across his long office.

“What does it say?” The Einstein asked.

“Seek Truth through Facts,” I said.

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 “Really,” said the Einstein, intrigued. “All that in these

four...what do you call them?”

“Characters...and yes!”

“Is it some ancient proverb?”

“Not at all. It’s from Mao.”

The Einstein glanced at me as if I were pulling his leg.

“True,” Li Li assured.

“He started out as a crusading journalist,” I added.

“I didn’t know that,” said The Einstein.

Neither had I until Xi Dada told me. He claimed that Mao

was a school teacher who had become a crusading journalist,
exposing the corruption of landlords in his impoverished
central province of Hunan. Son of a Gun, if that didn’t hold
up when I double-checked it.

Xi Dada had carefully chosen this quote, which is among

Mao’s most famous in China. He then hired a famous
calligrapher to hand paint it onto a linen banner. Xi Dada
presented the banner to me at our farewell banquet, where
he grandly pronounced it a token of both our trip and our
continuing partnership.

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 His approval came as a relief to me. I feared that our

video of the military crackdown in Kumul would tank — no
pun intended — my relationship with Xi Dada. But to my
surprise, I got off with a mild scolding. Xi Dada said he
forgave me for my ignorance and naïveté. Such blunders
were expected of Westerners. Someday I would learn better.
Indeed, all the more reason for me and my students to
return, Xi Dada proclaimed in his farewell toast to us.

I had to admit, given all I had seen, Xi Dada had a point.

The real China had shattered most of my preconceived
notions about the place. Nothing represented that better than
this banner. Its slogan was like a Zen Koan, the sum of its
contradictions. Mao and his successors were no more
interested in facts than Li Li’s husband was in the evidence
supporting evolution. That didn’t stop them from
championing “Seeking truth through facts.”

Pondering this contradiction now, I wondered what had

indeed been the big lesson of my trip. This much was clear:
Finding what was true about modern China was as elusive as
Yoshi’s Albino Pygmy Giraffe. Is that what Yoshi had been
trying to tell us all along? I remembered his grizzled puss
smirking at me and smiled.

I missed the bastard already.

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In addition to “Chasing the Albino Pygmy Giraffe,"

Charles Haddad has written six other books. His published
work includes two adult novels and three children’s novels.
He has also written a “pirate’s manifesto” on writing titled
“Pity the Poor Reader,” which is used in classrooms
worldwide.
At present, Haddad is an associate professor at Stony
Brook University, where he teaches nonfiction writing. He
also had a distinguished journalism career, which included
writing one of the first successful online columns and many
awards. His work appeared in such major publications as
Business Week magazine, The New York Times, The Chicago
Tribune, among others.
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