Raymond Barnett

The Three Stooges in China:  Pursuing the Sacred Mountain in 1984

A True Record of an Actual Journey

 

 

By Raymond Barnett

www.raymondbarnett.com

 

For Kyle and AJ: Sacred mountain, Sacred friendships

 

The Three Stooges:

 

Ray.  The Professor

          Chinese History and Language at Yale.

          Duke PhD in Biology; has taught at CA State Univ., Chico for 8 years

 

AJ.  The Rebel

          American Studies at Yale; lives in Kyoto; travels Asia studying Qi Gong body work

 

Kyle.  The Adventurer

          Studet of Ray t Chico State; avid world traveler; handsome and sunny

 

The setting:  China, spring 1984

          Eight years after Mao's death and end of Cultural Revolution

          Kyle and Ray return to China for first yeear IIndependent Travelers permitted..

          Their goal: travelf "with the people" to Szechuan's Emei Shan: the sacred mountain

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six:  Second Temple on the Mountain: Monsoons and Dried

Snakeskins to the Bathing Elephant Temple

 

          The storm grew in intensity during the night.  Wind howling down the corridor awoke Ray once, not long after he had fallen asleep.  He lay there, listening to the whoosh of the wind, which nearly drowned out the chiming of the frogs.  The sweet smell of rain mingled with the remnant of the smell of Kyle's candle.  The sound of water cascading off the roof and being blown back onto the balustrade in the corridor was very loud also, seemingly next to him, in the room.  He drifted back to sleep.

 

Bam!  Bam!  Two loud noises woke Ray.  The sound was coming from the corridor.  He pushed the mosquito netting aside and got out of bed, the floor wet and cold on his bare feet.  He groped his way across the room.  As he neared the door, a dim light reflecting down the corridor from the temple showed their hinged window blowing in the wind.  It blew shut again, with another Bam!  He quickly reached out and secured the clasp to keep it shut.

 

Looking out the window, Ray noticed the T-shirt Kyle had washed and hung up to dry was now lying crumpled on the corridor floor.  He opened the door, retrieved the T-shirt, and draped it across the chair beside the desk.  Closing the door, he listened briefly to the roar of the water dripping outside.  Strange.  Even with the door closed, the sound of dripping was still loud.  He turned toward the sound.  Inside the room.  He groped toward it, and found himself touching the third, empty bed.  Well, not quite empty. His daypack sat on the bed.  In approximately eighteen inches of water, which was pouring down onto the daypack from the ceiling above. 

 

"Oh, hell!"  He snatched the daypack off the bed.  Too late, by far.  The daypack and all its contents—everything he had on the mountain save the T-shirt he was wearing—was completely soaked, having sat in water for several hours.  He groped on the desk top for candle and matches.  The light revealed the grim situation.  His passport, his traveler checks, his camera, clothes, sweater, long-johns—everything was soaked, cold and clammy.  He stood there for a solid minute, absorbing the situation. 

 

Kyle stirred.  "What's up, Ray?" 

Ray couldn't answer.

"Ray?" 

 

He roused himself.  "A leak above the other bed.  My daypack has been sitting in a lake all night." 

Kyle laughed.  Then caught himself. 

"How much of a lake?"

"A couple of inches more than the height of the pack." 

"Oh, no."

Ray nodded his head.  "Where's your daypack?" he enquired, looking around the floor. 

Kyle cleared his throat.  "Uh, not long after you came to bed, I heard rain blowing into the room through the window.  I hauled my daypack into bed with me." 

Ray nodded miserably. 

"Didn't dream that there was a leak over the other bed," Kyle added.

 

Ray nodded.  "Me neither."

"Everything soaked?"

"Yup."  He roused himself, and opened the daypack.  Pulled out the passport and travelers checks, shook what water he could off them, and spread them out on a dry corner of the desk.  He hung his own soaked camera in its case from the chair.  Then he got to his clothes, soggy and cold.  With a "Goddammit" he shoved them back into the daypack, put it on the desk, and stumbled back to his bed.  Ray heard the temple bells at four, five, and six.  In the faint light he noticed it was now only lightly misting outside.  He forced himself out of bed and stood shivering on the wet floor in the early morning coolness.  Kyle was still fast asleep, clutching his daypack with his warm, dry clothing and gear. 

 

Ray turned to his daypack on the desk and removed the sweater he had been carrying all over China for a month so he could wear it on chilly days like this on the mountain.  He wrung the cold water out of it and stretched it over his quilt.  No chance of it drying on a cloudy day.  He knew with certainty that there wasn't an electric clothes dryer for fifty miles.  Maybe a hundred.  He sighed deep, and shivered in the cold.  Next came his long-john tops, his polo shirt.  Same story. 

 

As he stood there in the faint light it sunk in with vengeance that the only thing he owned that was dry or likely to be dry for weeks was the T-shirt he had slept in.  That he was several thousand feet high on a mountain and would climb thousands of feet higher in the next several days, with temperature decreasing as he climbed.  And that his companions had no extra clothing to loan him from their few clothes in their daypacks. 

 

Kyle awoke.  He glanced at the wet clothes strung round the room, at the passport and travelers checks spread on the desk.     "Wow," he muttered.  "Damn tough luck." 

Ray nodded grimly.  "Let's go get some hot food," he proposed. 

 

Thirty minutes later they were sitting in the refectory with AJ and Ralph, Ray shivering in wet pants and socks and his polo shirt. 

Ray eagerly shoveled the hot rice gruel into his mouth, feeling only slightly warmed as it went down.  The rest of the breakfast consisted of pickled vegetables and hot tea plus a couple of boiled duck eggs from Ray's own stores. 

"So what are you going to do?" Ralph asked wide-eyed, as Ray tersely recounted his tale of bad luck. 

 

Ray looked at him with half a duck egg sticking out of his mouth. 

"Do?" he mumbled.

"I mean, it'll be cold higher up the mountain.  It's cold here," he informed Ray earnestly. 

Ray paused.  "Ralph," he said with a wry smile.  "I ain't on a sacred mountain every day."

"But, but," Ralph spluttered.  "You'll freeze to death." 

Ray shook his head.  "I'll keep moving, and you guys will just keep stuffing duck eggs in me." 

Laughs and cheers from the other Two Stooges.  AJ reached over and slapped Ray on the back encouragingly, then grimaced and dried his hand on his jeans.

 

Ralph shrugged, and resumed playing with his pickled vegetables.  He uttered his first complaint of the day, about the weirdness of Chinese breakfasts.  Quickly followed by another about the temple's lack of shower facilities, not to mention running water.

"But Ralph, if there was running water, there would be no Heavenly Chambermaid bringing buckets of water to our rooms," Kyle pointed out in mock earnestness 

"So what?" Ralph countered sourly, continuing to poke at his pickled vegetables.

 

Kyle and AJ looked hard at Ralph.  Not joining in the banter was one thing.  Not appreciating the Heavenly Chambermaid was another altogether, roughly equivalent to questioning the cult of the Virgin Mary at a Catholic retreat. 

 

They all finished breakfast, then hurried back to their rooms, stopping at the Marvelous Outhouse with a view.  While there, Kyle had occasion to develop a Zen koan, or question to ponder: "What is the sound of one chopstick falling twelve feet into two feet of shit?" 

They commiserated over Kyle's loss of the chopstick.  The local places where they ate did not serve separate, packaged chopsticks to the customers, of course. Rather, a gourd or bamboo section containing community chopsticks was nailed to a post, and the customers simply picked two from the container.  Presumably they were washed before being put back in the container.  But still, they had thought it prudent to carry and use their own chopsticks.  Kyle, unfortunately, was one chopstick short, now. 

 

By the time they returned to their rooms, the early morning mist had thinned out, so the sky was only cloudy.  The Heavenly Chambermaid was coming down the steps as they approached, brightening the day briefly.  As they packed in their room, Kyle shook himself out of his appreciation of the Heavenly Chambermaid and looked over to Ray.

"You gonna be all right, Ray?" he asked seriously.  Kyle knew from long experience that, being thin with a high metabolic rate, Ray became cold easily, and always wore several layers—dry layers—more than anyone else.  Until today. 

Ray shrugged.  "I think so, friend.  So long as I keep moving and shoving duck eggs and tea down."

 

Ray shook his head, then laughed, with his second wry smile of the morning.  He didn't judge his predicament to be life threatening, with the sky clearing up.  In gathering resolution to meet the challenge, he felt a rising tide of happiness creeping over himself.

Kyle looked over suspiciously as Ray soon collapsed laughing into the chair before the desk.  "Ray?"

Ray hefted his daypack.  "In addition to everything else, I now have to carry a daypack weighing about twice as much as it did yesterday."

Kyle nodded.  "Wet sand versus dry sand." 

 

"Not only heavier, but the clothing more bulky.  I can't fit everything into the daypack now," he observed with a bitter little laugh.

Kyle tossed over a white plastic bag from his daypack.  Ray stuffed the extra-bulky clothing articles into it, passed the end of his dragon walking cane through the bag's handles, and hoisted it over his shoulder. 

"The game's foot," he quipped, attempting a grin but failing. 

 

Kyle raised his eyebrows, and hefted his daypack with a grunt.  They waited fifteen minutes for AJ and Ralph to finish packing, then set up the trail toward the Xi Xiang "Elephant Bathing" temple several thousand feet up the mountain.  They were all in in spirits, Ralph excepted, as they began.  Ray's white polo shirt almost seemed to be drying a bit—if not sunny, at least it wasn't raining.  The Three Stooges put Ralph to good use taking photos of them beginning their serious ascent of the sacred mountain.

    

The trail was thronged with Chinese of all ages.  Young children scampered by them laughing and shoving.  Middle-aged folks climbed with a brisk pace, joking constantly.  Hardly any of them wore packs of any sort.  Presumably they were on just a one- or two-day outing and needed nothing more than a roof and some food.  The Three Stooges were the object of many startled stares as they were passed, but mostly the stares were replaced by smiles and friendly jokes.  These folks may be pilgrims, but they were none of them grim.  One old lady passed them at a rapid clip, as she was being carried up the mountain in a heavy wood chair by four hefty young men.  During the day some half dozen such were seen.

 

As they ascended, more varied shops appeared along the trail.  Instead of just tea, soda, and duck eggs, they now offered various types each of dried fungi, bark, roots, stones, dried snakes, leaves, shriveled monkey paws and skulls.  Ray chatted with the vendors, and learned that different mixtures of these items were boiled to provide tonic drinks to fortify the pilgrims on their journey.  He purchased a monkey skull for his museum back home. 

 

Halfway through the morning showers returned, and then serious rain.  Soon they were hiking through the first monsoon downpour of the season.  Ray had seen it rain harder only once in his life, also a monsoon, in Vietnam his second day in country, in 1969.  His polo shirt, which had nearly dried in the early morning, had become wet with sweat as the climb progressed, so that now everything he wore and owned was sopping wet in the heavy rain.  The rain jackets and ponchos of Kyle and AJ and Ralph soon revealed themselves as not remotely adequate for a monsoon.  Within a minute of the monsoon's onslaught all of them were soaked, rain running down their daypacks in torrents, shoes filled with water.  The others were hoping that unlike Ray, the clothes in their daypacks might stay dry. 

 

Reactions to all this varied.  Ralph, of course, increased the vehemence of his complaints.  He was thoroughly miserable, and doing his level best to spread his feelings.  Kyle could not tolerate Ralph's attitude, and his annoyance soon veered toward anger.  In addition, a rash in Kyle's groin worsened as the day progressed, making every stride painful, although only later did they learn of this.  Meanwhile, Aj's aching knees worsened, so Ray stayed behind with him while Kyle and Ralph went on ahead, sparks flying between them. 

 

Shortly after noon, AJ and Ray caught up with Kyle and Ralph, who were glaring at each other on the side of the trail.  As they came up to them, Ralph held out his hand.  "I'll take my bus tickets back now," he snarled.  "I can't find any butterflies in all this rain.  I'm going somewhere sunny, wherever it may be."  He stretched his hand out further and shook it.

 

"You're leaving?" Ray asked.  "Just like that?"

"Give me my bus tickets," Ralph repeated grimly. 

"Why, sure," Ray replied.  He dug them out of his daypack, and handed them over.  "Good luck," he said, though without much enthusiasm. 

Ralph turned and was off—going down the mountain. 

 

The Three Stooges shrugged their shoulders, and resumed the march up the trail.  For some reason, as AJ and Kyle joined Ray in becoming increasingly and then completely wet in the pelting rain, their spirits rose.  Go figure.  Perhaps they had lost their last craving, that for warmth and dryness, and so achieved liberation from all worldly concerns.  Perhaps they had developed a fever and accompanying dementia.  Whatever, by noon they were in unaccountably high spirits, limping (AJ) and ambling (Kyle and Ray) along the trail singing songs and greeting all they encountered with smiles and courteous bows.  Never had the world seemed more glorious, colors brighter, air sweeter than today. 

 

With Ralph departed, The Three Stooges were once again—well, three stooges.  Simple.  Oblivious perhaps.  Foolish, perhaps.  Stumbling in and out of trouble.  The Three Stooges.

 

Surprisingly, virtually all they passed coming up or down the mountain seemed to agree that the day was glorious.  Their Chinese fellow-pilgrims were not the least bit miserable that they could tell.  Perhaps the monsoon had not surprised them at all, and their flimsy clear plastic raingear was effective.  Evidently the three foreign devils were the only pilgrims on the entire mountain unprepared and soaked. 

 

So the afternoon passed.  The rain poured heavily the rest of the day.  AJ and Ray stopped often, to rest his knees and purchase more eggs and hot tea for Ray.  Kyle was soon ahead of the others on the trail again.  They met him at a spot that passed through a troupe of monkeys—finally the Emei Shan monkeys they'd been warmed about!  There were some dozen of them, Rhesus macaques, and most stayed in the tree branches and chattered at them as they walked by.  A few dropped down and rushed toward various pilgrims, making swiping grabs at pockets and bags.  Some of their Chinese colleagues laughingly tossed peanuts at them, quickly pounced upon by the mischievous beggars.  It struck The Three Stooges that at four feet tall and nearly a hundred pounds of pure muscle, the beggars could readily become more than mischievous.

 

By late afternoon The Three Stooges had dragged their way up a particularly long, steep, grueling incline and could dimly make out the Bathing Elephant temple, about halfway up the mountain, looming before them in the heavy rain.  They passed into a large room serving as the administrative center.  A long, a very long line, of Chinese turned their dark eyes on them as they limped in. 

 

The line began at the little window where one obtained lodging, and snaked around the room and out the open back of the entrance.  It seemed to The Three Stooges that every eye was full of the same question.  Do the foreign devils claim special privilege and barge to the front of the line?  Aren't we just as tired and wet as they are?  At the same time, The Three Stooges reflected that everyone else in line had indeed climbed just as far in the same weather as they had.  Ray wearily handed his daypack and plastic bag to Kyle, and trudged to the back of the line.  Kyle took his daypack off his back and shoved it and Ray's in the corner where he and AJ slumped to the floor, admitting they were exhausted. 

 

As the storm raged outside, a fierce wind ripped through the temple, howling in the open front and screaming out the open back of the room.  It cut right through the line of people, cold and insistent.  Ray of course was completely soaked, wearing only his ineffective rain jacket.  The long line moved at a snail's pace.  After a minute he was shivering.  Five minutes stretched to ten, ten to twenty, and he was not halfway there.  Soon his body was twitching as the shivers escalated.  His former high spirits were shattered thirty minutes into the wait, as he got within sight of the window. 

 

Another ten minutes later he finally arrived.  He croaked, in wretched Chinese, "Four people.  Two rooms."  The clerk at the window shoved a receipt through the window, which was caught by the wind and fluttered wildly off the counter.  Ray grabbed at it stiffly, missing it by a mile. The person behind him in line snagged it and gave it to him.  Turning, he heard the clerk barking something at him.  "Wu kuai chyan!" he demanded.  Of course.  Ray dug into his pockets and shoved five yuan of coins into the window.  The clerk nodded gruffly and looked past him to the next in line. 

 

"Where is the room?" Ray asked in stuttering Chinese.  The clerk impatiently reeled off directions in rapid tones.  Not a single word penetrated Ray's numbed mind.  "Please repeat," he asked.  The clerk repeated, even more rapidly.  Ray shook his head.  "I don't understand."  The clerk exhaled in anger as the people behind them began to murmur angrily.  He glared at Ray for a moment, then turned and angrily barked something at a person behind him in the small room.  Brusquely he gestured for Ray to get out of the way.  Ray glared suspiciously at him.  Again he gestured for him to clear out.  A side door opened, and a fellow emerged from it and jerked his head for them to follow. 

 

Ray yelled to Kyle and AJ, and they all stumbled after the fellow, who quickly disappeared out a side door.  He led them through a courtyard, up stone steps, across a second courtyard, down a long, low-ceilinged corridor, turned right across a third courtyard, up more steps, along the edge of yet another courtyard, through a moon gate into a very weathered, indeed dilapidated building evidently pressed into service only because of the crush of pilgrims, down a dark interior corridor, around a corner, to—one room.  One small room, with two beds.

 

Ray asked the guide where the other room was.  He pointed brusquely to the two beds.  Ah.  They were to share the beds between the three of them.  Ray told him they wished another room.  Not possible, he was told.  Too many other people.  Ray pointed to AJ.  Too large.  Ray pointed to the three packs.  Much too large to fit into the one room.  As the guide shrugged and made to leave, Ray detained him.  Wasn't there another room they could use?  Anything.  The man shook his head in disgust, but gestured them to follow him.  Three rooms down he unlocked a door and opened it.  This room was even smaller than the first, some four feet wide.  It had one bed crammed between the walls.  He defied them to accept it.  Ray stuffed another five yuan of coins into his hand, and he left, shaking his head in disgust. 

 

AJ got the small room with the marginally better mattress, such as it was, due to the throbbing pain in his knees.  Ray and Kyle would share the other room.  As they inspected their new quarters, all agreed that they were the first filthy accommodations they had seen in nearly two months in China.

 

They decided to meet in the larger room in an hour for dinner.  All but Ray discovered some mainly dry clothing in their daypacks, settled in under the quilts, and in five minutes were finally warm and dry, for the first time in ten hours.  Sleep came quickly.  Two hours later they gathered in the larger room.  Ray slapped his wet, clammy clothes back on.  They located an outhouse not far from the rooms, utilized it, and agreed that it held not a candle to The Marvelous Outhouse with a View.  Uncertainly they retraced their circuitous path to the main building. 

 

Ray got directions to the refectory.  On the way they passed a little shop.  Kyle spotted a bottle which appeared to be liquor, which gave forth strong fumes when opened.  Happily he purchased it and took a swig to warm his insides.  The clerk's eyes bulged wide as he saw Kyle swigging the stuff straight.  Kyle gasped and choked, wheezed and coughed, and in a squeaky voice pronounced it just what the doctor ordered.  He offered it to the others.  AJ and Ray took small, cautious sips, and returned the bottled with stinging eyes to Kyle, who happily took another large swig. 

 

They dashed to the refectory through the still-heavy rain.  The huge room was packed and noisy.  They ordered the set dinner, and were served plates of fiery chilis fried in oil, with bamboo shoots.  They ate until they were genuinely afraid of vomiting, which didn't take much.  The food, like their rooms, was the first truly bad stuff they'd encountered in China.  Mouths afire, they dashed back to the temple complex, bought several bottles of beer at the little shop, got lost trying to find their rooms, but finally stumbled onto them.  They sat in the larger room swilling the beer as they devoured the remaining eggs and peanuts from their packs. 

 

Kyle discovered another use for the strong liquor he had bought.  Having confiscated one of the community chopsticks from the refectory, he dipped the new one into the liquor bottle, balanced it on the back of a chair, and put a match to it.  The chopstick burst into intense flames briefly, then sputtered out.  Kyle repeated the operation several more times, then declared the chopstick disinfected and put it into his pack with his old one—now part of a happy pair.

         

During one last trip to their new outhouse through the rain, they discovered a quaint feature.  Due to its location jutting over a side of the mountain given to updrafts, it was impossible to drop your toilet paper through the hole in the floor when you finished with it.  The wind whipped it straight back up and it slapped against your bottom and stubbornly refused to budge.  Several attempts at disposing of the paper proved unsuccessful. 

 

After a considerable amount of laughter verging dangerously on hysteria, the Three Stooges sat there in a row, considering what to do.  They finally resorted to carrying the used toilet paper outside and letting the updraft take it where it would.  At last they hurried back to their rooms through the storm, and snuggled under the quilts, all but Ray reveling in dry clothing. 

 

Outside, in the hallway, their fellow pilgrims played cards and joked noisily late into the night.  Many of them slept there.  And beyond the hallway, the monsoon raged into the night, as The Three Stooges dreamed of the other temple below them on the mountain, and more congenial days there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven:  Down the Mountain: Monkeys and Flying Chopsticks

 

          They were awakened early in the morning by the noise of pilgrims in the hallway gathering their things and leaving.  Kyle staggered to his feet, grabbed his rain coat, and headed for the door outside.  Emerging from it, he saw three large and wet monkeys scamper across the courtyard.  Interesting.  Reaching the outhouse, he peered inside, and to his relief found only humans there.  Well, sort of.  The other Two Stooges peered up at him.

 

"No more fried chilis for me, Bro," groaned AJ.  

Ray, beside him, weakly agreed.

 

Some minutes later they all emerged, disposed of their toilet paper, and returned to the residential quarters.  They surprise two monkeys pulling on the door latch into the building, looking very miserable and hungry.  They frightened the monkeys off with yells, although one of them grabbed Ray's jacket as he opened the door behind Kyle and AJ.  Ray jerked the jacket out of its hands and slammed the door shut behind him.

 

They quickly packed in their separate rooms.  The sound of breaking glass came from the corridor, and then the patter of naked feet scampering down the hallway.  Screams from the few Chinese still lingering there.  Kyle and Ray burst into AJ's room and slammed the door. 

 

"Jesus!  Those little bastards are ransacking the rooms!" yelled Kyle.

"We're going to have to fight our way out, Bro," AJ declared to Ray, a light gleaming in his eyes.  He hefted his bamboo walking stick. 

Ray grabbed his dragon cane and held it toward AJ.  "I christen this stick 'Monkey Killer!"

AJ grinned, and held his cane to Ray.  "Anthropoid Agony!"

Kyle looked about for a weapon, and settled on his heavy flash attachment.  "I'll sacrifice this to the cause," he pledged.  "We'll taste monkey blood this morning," he promised the other Stooges, with a manic grin.  "Come on!" 

 

They glanced at each other, shouldered their daypacks, clutched their weapons, and opened the door.  The hallway was clear.  They walked over the broken glass and to the outside door.  Another glance among The Three Stooges, then Kyle threw open the door and they charged with a shout into the courtyard, monkey weapons held high. 

 

There they encountered a dozen Chinese soldiers lining the pathway to the main temple complex, busily engaged in scaring away an aggressive troupe of perhaps two dozen monkeys.  They (the soldiers, that is) looked around at The Three Stooges, staring at their raised sticks and camera gear.  Stupidly The Three Stooges stared back, lowered their monkey weapons, and sheepishly walked through the courtyard between the two lines of soldiers.  A few other pilgrims scurried out of the building behind them, and one of the soldiers shut the door and slammed a lock on it.  The soldiers closed around them and kept the monkeys at bay. 

 

As the Three Stooges emerged from the front of the temple minutes later, it was raining hard still.  They could see perhaps thirty yards, then everything shaded into gray.

 

"Which direction, Bro?" AJ asked, with a look at Kyle, then Ray. 

Kyle shifted under the weight of his daypack.  "Won't be much to see at the top of the mountain," he judged.  "Probably considerably less than we can see here." 

 

A pause. 

"How far to the top, Ray?" asked AJ.

Ray pulled his map out, shading it from the rain with his body. "About as far as we came yesterday." 

 

Another pause.  The Three Stooges looked at each other in silence.  Clearly they were not having fun. 

 

After yet another pause, Ray looked to AJ.  "AJ, is all of a sacred mountain sacred, or just the top?"

AJ considered it, then smiled.  "All of it, Bro." 

Ray nodded.  "So…so we've already done it?  Reached the sacred mountain?"

 

Kyle and AJ looked at each other, then slowly broke into broad grins.  "Hey!  You've mean we've done it?" asked Kyle.

"I guess!" answered AJ.  "We've done it!"

 

The Three Stooges laughed, and exchanged high fives, beaming, standing in the middle of the heavy rain.

"Well, hell," Kyle burst out.  "The Inn of the Heavenly Chambermaid is still on the bloody mountain," he said with a grin.  "And besides, I miss the Marvelous Outhouse With a View." 

The other Two Stooges nodded in mock seriousness. 

"And the weather ain't going to get any better here," Kyle concluded.  He turned and took off down the path back.  Aj and Ray brought up the rear. 

 

AJ's knees were worse today, going down, than going up.  And the stone steps seemed more slippery.  AJ and Ray walked through the heavy rain in silence, watching their steps carefully, the high spirits of yesterday returning a bit.  Their thoughts centered on the relatively luxurious rooms awaiting them at the Heavenly Chambermaid Inn, on sitting in the corridor and conversing pleasantly.  On buckets of hot water.  On the Heavenly Chambermaid…   

 

Soon they passed the same troupe of monkeys as yesterday.  Their behavior was not much different than yesterday, but today they seemed less like mischievous imps and more like coarse gangsters.  As they passed them without incident, all were keenly disappointed not have been able to brain a monkey that day.

 

AJ's knees were worse than ever by now.  He had already twisted an ankle in a near fall, and so it was slow going.  Kyle could not brook the pace, and soon was out of sight ahead of them.  As they descended the mountain the rain grew less heavy, and in another hour they were under blessedly clear skies—clear!  Sunshine was bursting upon them!  The Inn of the Heavenly Chambermaid could not be far ahead.  Soon they recognized the stream that rushed to the temple below their old rooms. 

 

Another turn in the trail revealed Kyle sitting on a flat rock, writing in his journal, a crowed of Chinese children gathered around him.  Kyle never failed to interest children.  He stood and joined the other Stooges as they hobbled up to him.  AJ announced that now the temple was in sight, he could go no further without a rest while Kyle and Ray went on ahead.  As they left, AJ eased himself onto the rock with an immense groan.  The children happily again gathered around the auburn-haired giant foreign devil, but several feet further away than for Kyle. 

 

Their hearts were high in the sunshine as Kyle and Ray entered the familiar compound of the Inn of the Heavenly Chambermaid.  At the refectory, Ray attempted to explain to the (new) female clerk that they wanted a room and were three of them, but one of them was not here because he had hurt his knees and would join them soon.  Since Ray never learned the Chinese for "knee," he talked about "one-half leg" instead.  The clerk listened to him for perhaps thirty seconds then cut him off with a raised hand. 

 

"It would be better if you speak English," she suggested in very passable English.  Behind Ray, Kyle burst into laughter and collapsed into a fortunately-nearby chair, still laughing. 

 

"Yes.  We need a room for three.  By the way, is it possible to have lunch now?"

"Lunch is served from twelve to one.  Too late," she replied.          

"Yes.  We apologize for being late.  But we had no breakfast.  Monkeys up the mountain.  We are very hungry."

 

She stared at Ray for a moment, then left her little cubicle and walked to the kitchen.  After a short, animated exchange she walked out, ignoring Ray until she was back in her own cubicle and "official." 

 

"In half an hour?"  she asked. 

Ray nodded eagerly.  "Yes.  Yes, thanks so much.  Very kind of you." 

She nodded back, and suppressed a small smile.

 

AJ limped in fifteen minutes later.  Their room turned out to be AJ and Ralph's former room—whose beds did not leak.  Soon they were back in the empty refectory, arranged around a table close to the kitchen, chopsticks in hand, very hungry.  The door opened, and a fellow emerged with a large pot of tea, three cups, and two steaming dishes.  Shredded pork with onions, and green beans with diced beef.  He set them on the table, and before he made it to the kitchen three pairs of chopsticks plunged into the dishes.  It was like the feeding frenzy of a school of sharks, pausing only to guzzle cup after cup of the hot tea.

 

Only minutes later the cook approached with another dish, fried duck eggs topped with granular sugar.  More flying chopsticks.  The Three Stooges were all smiles as he left, and complimented him extravagantly on the food, which was indeed very tasty.  AJ requested bottles of beer.  The large bottles.  Soon he returned with the beer and two more dishes, thousand-year eggs in soy sauce with pickled loquats, and stir-fried celery with beef slices. 

 

The feeding frenzy resumed, chopsticks darting into the dishes with lightning speed.  The Three Stooges were in high spirits.  A majority of them were warm and dry, they were stuffing their bellies with incredibly delicious food, they had large bottles of beer to wash down the food, and soon the Heavenly Chambermaid would bring buckets of hot water to their rooms as they sat happily in their old corridor. 

 

This surely was a sacred mountain.

 

But then!  As they were imagining all this happiness to come, the cook emerged yet again, with a dish of sliced pork and cucumber topped by scrambled egg, and a white cabbage soup with pork slices floating in it.  He gave each of them small bowls and left a ladle in the soup.  They all looked at him in grateful wonder, and thanked him profusely.  He nodded curtly, with a hint of pride, and returned to the kitchen. 

 

They were already full to bursting, but courtesy to their host demanded that they do their level best to finish the latest dishes.  They grimly set to, and by dint of heroic effort were able to dispose of nearly all the pork, cucumber, and egg, and over half the soup.  Somebody had to do it. 

 

Groggy and full to bursting, they sat there in a stupor.  Ray ordered another pot of tea, on a tray, with cups.  Kyle discovered the bill that the cook had slipped onto the table.  Ten yuan for the six dishes, soup, and beer.  Four and a half dollars for three of them.  A buck and a half for each of them.  They left twelve yuan on the table. 

 

Tea tray in hand, The Three Stooges walked slowly back toward their rooms, but followed a side trail to a ridiculously beautiful red-tiled pavilion, perched with a narrow bridge over the now-rushing stream, surging water surrounding the pavilion.  Sunshine filtered through the trees overhead and shone on The Three Stooges in the pavilion, and the water glittered as it rushed by. 

 

They sat in silence, sipping their tea, listening to the sound of the rushing water.  They were thinking of what would happen day after tomorrow, at the Chengdu airport.  AJ would leave to seek Qi Gong masters in Nepal, Kyle to resume being a contractor in Hawaii, and Ray to being a professor in California.  Never again, most likely, would The Three Stooges be together. 

 

True.  But what a journey it had been!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Short-term Views of the Journey

 

From AJ, mailed a week later to Ray, from Nepal:

 

Empire saved from toppling

by notorious Inn of Flying Chopsticks

sacred mountain lullabies

monkey armies of the storm

lost found 3 Stooges run around

 

 

From Ye Duzhuang, mailed two months later to Ray:

 

"It has been my great pleasure to have met you in Peking both personally and professionally.  I also enjoyed your lecture on Recent Challenges to Darwin's View of Evolution, which is very informative and well-organized, although some of the viewpoints involved might seem to invite further and continuing discussion and research.  Your lecture was well received by the audience and Dr. Zhou Minchen would like to have some copies of your other lecture outlines in the related field of evolutionary studies if you have some such things handy…With all best wishes to you and your family and hope all's well with your research, Sincerely yours, Ye Du-Zhuang."

 

 

 

From Ray, For Kyle and AJ:  "The Inn of the Flying Chopsticks"

 

We clambered down Emei Shan mountain,

The Adventurer, the Rebel, the Professor,

giddy at escaping monkeys at the temple above

after chilly, rain-soaked April days and nights.

 

The innkeeper had just closed out the mid-day meal,

but our shining faces and the jangle of our yuan coins

persuaded him to return to his battered wok.

Soon heaps of steaming food appeared as if by magic.

 

How the chopsticks flew around the laden table!

Our hearty laughs ricocheted about the refectory

as mounds of pork, white cabbage, and diced beef disappeared

aided by the guzzling of green tea, crisp and hot.

 

We drank yet more fragrant tea on the red-tiled gazebo

surrounded on all sides by a rushing stream, silvery-blue in sunlight.

Would we ever again be as happy as here

In the warm sun of the Inn of the Flying Chopsticks?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Three Stooges after the Sacred Mountain

 

 

The Rebel:  AJ

 

AJ resumed his life teaching English in Kyoto, with many trips to Nepal and India as part of the celebrity crowd around the Dalai Lama.  Ray and his oldest daughter visited him several years later.  They walked The Philosopher's Walk near AJ's rooms, taking an outside table near a picturesque tea house.  A large number of the passers-by seemed to know AJ, stopping to banter with him.  It was a bit like watching people encounter the Pope.  Everyone wanted a piece of AJ.  AJ became a regular contributor to the Kyoto literary publication, with many unique, Taoist-flavored poems, ranging from haiku-like to more complex, including the following. 

 

          Bright crisp mornings in Kyoto                              Freedom warmth solitude embrace    

          Wake up early in the fresh air                               this deep quietude

          Feel the cherry blossoms opening                         of the heart the touch

          Unfolding singing shining light                              of the night the day

          Smile, put the kettle on for tea, sit                       Seeds growing sprouting green

                                                                                   waters currents flowing caressing

                                                                                   this fertile mulch this dust this crust

                                                                                   on our small hot rock world in vast space

                                                                                   so briefly in skin

                                                                                   we know

                                                                                   we do know

                                                                                   this

                                                                                           this

                                                                                                   this

 

 

The Wanderer:  Kyle

 

Returning to Hawaii, Kyle regularly took time off from his contractor activities to receive a large share of the permits to escort groups of kayaks into the remote Na Pali Coast on Kaui's inaccessible north coast.  The coveted spots in Kyle's trips filled up quickly, always.  They rode the surf onto the beach, unloaded a week's worth of supplies, and luxuriated in paradise with hikes and moonlit dinners around the fire.  Ray foolishly never seemed to find the time to accept Kyle's standing invitation to join one of these trips. 

 

Kyle also volunteered steadfastly in crawling up and down Kaui's cliffs, often on hands and knees, to eradicate alien plants that were competing with Hawaii's native flora.

 

And of course Kyle was already famous in Hawaii for his sailing adventures in the Pacific, in which he rescued an expensive yacht off the shore of a remote island in the Marquesas, abandoned by an uncle who discovered there he had cancer and abruptly returned to America.  The uncle, of course, asked his intrepid nephew Kyle to sail the sloop (teak, of course, equipped with Comstat satellite linkups and holds full of lobster and champagne) to Tahiti and gave him two teenage nieces as a crew. 

 

The yacht was beset by vicious storms the entire voyage, the nieces were useless, and Kyle went without sleep for ten straight days navigating his storm-pushed perils and reporting his location every night on the Comstat satellite fix.  Of course, every person in the southern Pacific was glued to this soap opera on their own radio linkups, and Kyle's perils were the top talk of the whole region, eagerly anticipated by thousands every night. 

 

The climax of the danger occurred one evening when Kyle mapped his position and discovered they were hurtling at breakneck speed in a zero-vision night straight for Marlon Brando's atoll in the South Pacific.  They in fact appeared to be right on top of the little island.  Kyle prepared to meet his doom, but—no collision.  They apparently were blown by the island some 20 feet or so from its reefs.

 

 And he did finally get to Tahiti, and from there back to his home in Hawaii, to resume his intrepid life.

 

 

 

The Professor:  Ray

 

At the University in Chico, California, Ray worked with community leaders to found a science and natural history museum; he was named "The father of the museum."  He and his wife Tammy worked with 6 other couples to found Chico's 28-household CoHousing intentional community.  Ray and Tammy have retired to the warmth of southern Arizona, and keep busy keeping up with their family.

His 8 published books are described and his biography and many blogs can be found on his website, www.raymondbarnett.com. 

 

           

         

 

 

 

The Three Stooges: 

 

Ray.  The Professor   

Chinese History and Language at Yale.

Duke PhD in Biology; has taught at CA State Univ., Chico for 8 years

 

AJ.  The Rebel

American Studies at Yale; lives in Kyoto; travels Asia studying Qi Gong body work

 

Kyle.  The Adventurer

Student of Ray at Chico State; avid world traveler; handsome and sunny

 

The setting:  China, spring 1984. 

Eight years after Mao's death and end of Cultural Revolution.        

Kyle and Ray return to China for first year Independent Travelers permitted. 

Their goal: travel "with the people" to Szechuan's Emei Shan: the sacred mountain

 

 

Chapter Three:  Dinner with a Survivor of the Cultural Revolution

 

          One of Ray's prearranged activities in Beijing was giving a talk on "Current Challenges to Darwin's View of Evolution" to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  He'd received the invitation from Ye Duzhuang, with whom he'd corresponded the year before after reading in The New Yorker that Ye was the foremost translator of Darwin's works into Chinese.  Ye had also invited Ray to a dinner at his house several days before the talk.

 

Of course, the dinner was at the extreme opposite end of Beijing from the hotel where independent travelers were required to stay, necessitating riding a succession of three buses to get there.  Finally Ray arrived at the residential compound of scientists associated with the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, located the three-story block-and-cement Soviet-era building where Ye was housed, and climbed the narrow concrete stairway to the third floor.  He knocked on the door.

Ye answered the door himself.  Before Ray stood a tall man, over six feet, lean, with jet black hair above a calm face with a strong nose.  He was 70 years old, but still alert, and moved with little trace of his age.

 

"Dr. Ye?"

"Come in, Dr. Barnett, come in!" he said affably.  Ray walked through a short hallway.  A small room opened to the right, Ye's study.  Ahead was an even smaller room crowded with a round table and surrounding chairs.  From a room beyond this, evidently the kitchen, a handsome woman in her forties or so emerged, an older helper peering out behind her. 

"May I introduce my wife, please?" Ye said.  Ray shook hands with her.

"You are a scientist also?" he asked, noting her quick look of intelligence.

"A physician," Ye answered for her.  "Western-style physician." 

She smiled, although she looked somewhat harried.  "My English…it is not so good," she pronounced slowly. 

Ray switched to Chinese, saying that her English was much better than his Chinese. 

"She is very busy with preparing dinner, Dr. Barnett.  Would you join me in my study?"

 

They walked back to the small study, which was perhaps seven feet by ten.  Ye excused himself for a moment, and Ray noted the simple couch against one wall, a desk and several chairs at the other end of the room.  Bookshelves lined the wall opposite the couch, with the other walls crowded with calligraphy hangings and landscape paintings.  The books included a large section devoted to Charles Darwin, his life and his work, as well as numerous volumes of science, especially botany.  There were as many books in English as Chinese.  Most of the Chinese volumes on Darwin had the characters of Ye's name on the cover. 

 

Ray was trying to decipher the titles in a large section of what appeared to be books of Chinese poetry when Ye returned, moving slowly yet gracefully.  He carried a tray with a glass of amber liquid, ice tinkling in it. 

"Johnny Walker Red," he announced with a hint of pride as he handed the glass to Ray.

Ray accepted the drink, surprised and bemused, but failed to completely dissemble his glance at the ice cubes.

"The water, and ice, in our compound are quite trustworthy," he informed Ray solemnly.

 

A knock on the door drew Ye away, as Ray wondered what a bottle of Johnny Walker Red scotch must cost in China.  Excited voices came from the doorway, and soon three folks swept into the study and were introduced.  Leading the way was a vigorous, ebullient fellow with a handsome face and black hair just barely streaked with gray.  Ray judged he was in his mid-fifties or so.  This was Zhou Minzhen, the Director of the Beijing Natural History Museum and the former, long-time Director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the IVPP.  The IVPP and the Beijing Natural History Museum were the official sponsors of Ray's talk several days hence.

 

"So glad to have you here!" Zhou boomed as he shook hands with Ray.  "May I introduce Dr. Miman Zhang, our current Director of the IVPP?"  His English was fluid.

Dr. Zhang was a lady in her forties with a serene but somewhat sad face.  "Pleased to meet you" she said somewhat haltingly. 

"And your interpreter for your talk, Xiaobo Yu," Zhou continued.  Ray shook hands with a young, beaming fellow in his late twenties, black hair pleasantly disheveled, large glasses in front of his twinkling eyes. 

They all sat, quite filling up the study. There followed a fascinating and unforgettable hour of conversation in English, to Ray's relief, covering many topics. When Ray expressed an interest in seeing the site outside of Beijing where Teilhard de Chardin and other anthropologists had discovered the skulls of "Peking Man" in the 1920's, Zhou quickly volunteered to take Ye and Ray there the day before his lecture.

 

Ray and his hosts talked of Zhou's research into Mesozoic mammalian evolution, and the controversy whether mammals' evolution from Therapsid reptiles was polyphyletic or monophyletic.  Zhou thought the Triconodont molar pattern and the existence of Monotremes quite settled the question.  And they talked also of Ye's translations of Darwin's wide-ranging research into finches, earthworms, flowers, pollination, and barnacles.

 

"Better you should have translated Huxley than Darwin," Zhou commented, examining his glass.  Dr. Zhang joined Zhou and Ye in soft, rueful laughs.

"Huxley?" Ray asked, puzzled at the apparent non sequitur.

Ye remained silent, so with a quick look at him, and receiving no disapproval, Zhou explained.  "The Cultural Revolution.  His Darwin helped get my friend Ye into trouble with the Red Guards.  Too Western.  He was 'struggled,' and his precious books of Darwin burned by them—English as well as Chinese translations.  Then he was imprisoned, beaten, imprisoned again, and exiled to the countryside for manual labor.  Very bad."

Silence in the room.  Ye's face was impassive.

 

"And Huxley?" Ray enquired again. 

"Oh yes, Huxley," Zhou boomed.  "Chairman Mao asked me to translate Huxley's Evolution and Ethics for him early in 1970, along with Lecomte Du Nuoy's Human Destiny.  I of course did so, very promptly, managing to involve the entire staff of the IVPP in the project.  Since we had performed a service for the Great Helmsman himself, we were beyond the reach of the Red Guards.  Thanks to Huxley."

Ye's wife appeared briefly and silently at the doorway of the study, her helper beside her, who was Dr. Zhou's wife. "Dinner is served, my friends," Ye announced, rising effortlessly and leading them into the tiny dining room.  The six of them filled the room to brimming.

 

"In honor of the occasion, a dry white wine, from Xinjiang," Ye announced, uncorking a bottle.  Ray sipped the first pouring; it was quite decent.  Because Ye's wife and Dr. Zhang understood only basic English, they slipped into Chinese for the meal.  Most of the conversation revolved around activities at the IVPP, and news of mutual friends, of which Ray understood but a smattering.

Ye was an active host, taking dishes from his wife and serving everyone, popping up constantly to pour more wine, or serve more from a dish if he saw an empty corner in a plate.  Ye's wife kept bringing dishes until nearly a dozen filled the center of the table, most of them involving steamed or lightly fried vegetables, with tofu, chicken, or shrimp, and delicious sauces. 

 

After profuse praise of Mrs. Ye for the meal, they all retired back to the study with a large pot of Chinese green tea, and sat sipping it quietly for some moments.  Ye picked up two jade balls from a side table and absently-mindedly began to roll them around clockwise in his large left hand, by coordinated movements of that hand's palm and fingers. 

Ray broke the silence.  "The calligraphy on your wall is lovely, Dr. Ye."  He nodded, accepting the compliment. "That one is a poem, by an old friend of mine," he explained.

 

With a sweep of Ray's hand he indicated the section of poetry books on the far shelf, adjacent to the many books on Darwin.  "Darwin and poetry, together.  Very unusual."

Zhou roused himself.  "Oh, not at all.  Science and poetry are often together.  What is it that Shakespeare says?  'We shall talk away the time, until we all grow old and the stones turn to barnacles'."

Ray turned in astonishment to Zhou. 

"No, no," Ye murmured.  "Isn't it more like 'Time rushes on, and at the end of time we shall all become barnacles'?"

They turned to Ray to adjudicate.  He raised his palms in helpless ignorance.  "Your Shakespeare is superior to mine, gentlemen," he admitted, genuinely embarrassed that his two semesters of Shakespeare at Yale did not raise him to the level of these two scientists quoting the bard in a language not their own.

 

Ye was now turning the jade balls counter-clockwise in his hand, as Ray sat silent, marveling at the intellectual and emotional range of these survivors of Red Guard "struggle" sessions, equally at home discussing Triconodont molar patterns and poetry, Monotremes and Shakespeare—in two languages, yet. 

As a warm golden glow descended upon the room, Ye switched his two jade balls to his right hand, and began the clockwise circuits.  It was Zhou who roused himself from the common reverie.  "Ah!" he exclaimed, nodding his head decisively.  "It is getting late.  We must be going, old friend." 

Ye raised his eyebrows, and nodded sadly.

Xiaobo insisted on some photographs before they broke up, for which Ray was very glad. Turning to Ye, Ray began to thank him for the evening and take his leave as well. 

"Stay a bit longer, Dr. Barnett.  There's no rush."

Puzzled, Ray acquiesced, and joined him in saying goodbye to Zhou, Zhang, and Xiaobo.  They returned to the study, where they sat in silence for some moments.

 

"The Cultural Revolution was a difficult time for all of us," Ye finally said.  "A very difficult time."

Ray vaguely realized, from what Zhou had said earlier, that this must be a huge understatement.  Quietly he asked, "Do you worry that something like it might happen again?"

Ye smiled sadly, and stared at the poetry on the wall.  Finally he answered, softly.  "No.  I do not worry.  If it is to happen again, then we must enjoy these moments of clarity while we have them.  If it is not to happen again, there is no use to be anxious about it."

Another silence, the jade balls in his right hand now traveling counter-clockwise.  Ray saw that Ye was beginning to tire, so he took his leave, realizing with some embarrassment that Ye's earlier insistence that he stay was most likely a courteous convention only, and that he ought to have left with the others. 

 

Ye insisted on escorting him not only to the door but clear across the Institute grounds to the bus stop.  Despite Ray's protestations, Ye stood with him in the darkness until a bus came, some ten minutes.  Ray thanked him profusely for an unforgettable evening and his many kindnesses.  Ye nodded serenely, shook Ray's hand warmly, and helped him onto the bus.

The bus pulled away. Ye stood beside the road until the bus was out of sight, his tall, lean figure straight and sure in the lamplight against the night. 

 

On the day of his talk to scientists of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ray awoke with a bad case of the infamous Beijing Crud—aching body, headache, sore throat.  Great.  AJ had left the day before to visit Xi'an, and meet them in Sichuan in two days—though with AJ such plans were provisional at best.  So it was just Kyle and Ray that rode the several busses beyond the Beijing Zoo to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology for the talk.  Ray presented two bottles of Johnny Walker Red to Ye and Zhou, as Kyle left for the lecture hall to set up Ray's slides. 

Although the topic of Ray's talk might seem challenging to non-scientists ("Current Challenges to Darwin's View of Evolution"), this was Ray's specialty and he was well-versed on the various aspects of the subject.  As he proceeded to the podium in the lecture hall with Zhou and Xiabo, he noticed over a hundred or so scientists there.  After Zhou's welcome, Ray spoke for several minutes in Chinese of his happiness to be there, and began the talk.  Ray would talk for several minutes, then Xiaobo at the podium would translate, and so forth.  The audience was attentive and the talk went well, in Ye's estimation.  With the translations the lecture lasted nearly two hours.  According to Kyle, later, when Xiaobo inadvertently mistranslated a date, and Ray caught it and corrected it, in Chinese, "it brought the house down." 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four:  Comic Interlude of the Misplaced Train

           

Their train to Sichuan left soon after Ray's talk to the scientists and the attendant thanks and goodbyes.  Kyle and Ray checked out of their hotel, bought roasted beans and lychee fruit for the trip, and arrived at the mammoth train station thronged with thousands of travelers.  Ray was limp with exhaustion, aching all over.  Kyle was definitely in charge.  They found their car and boarded the train, this time in the hard berth reservations—plain doorless compartments open to a side aisle, with three hard bunks on each side. 

Kyle had reserved the lower bunk, Ray the middle bunk.  Walks down the aisle confirmed that the six travelers in each room sat on the lower bunk during the day.  Their roommates were a lady and her grown daughter, and four soldiers.  The soldiers of course smoked non-stop, so Kyle resumed his usual location at the open window, nose pressed against the fresh air entering there.  Ray immediately climbed to his middle berth, eased his aching body onto the thick blanket there, and fell asleep.  By nightfall all the six bunks were occupied and quiet as the train hurtled through north China south and east toward Sichuan.

 

The lights came on at four the next morning, and everyone was up and moving about.  The Peking Crud had moved its misery from Ray to Kyle, who began taking the antibiotics he had brought for such a circumstance.  By now in their trip Kyle and Ray were sufficiently sinicized that they too had wash cloths folded neatly on the dowel below the window.  They joined the exodus to the wash basin at the end of the car to scrub themselves soon after awakening. 

When the lady with the padded tea kettle came by, they nonchalantly extended their cups toward the aisle for her to pour the steaming liquid into them, then filled their cups with tea leaves purchased at the Beijing station.  When the lady passed through selling tickets for the bowl of noodles for breakfast, they too paid the 50 fen for the hot bowl of savory noodles, and slurped them just as loudly as any occupant of the compartment.  And yes, they tossed the emptied cardboard bowls and the wooden chopsticks out the window just as casually as everyone else when finished. 

The final test of their sinicization came when a very blond, light-skinned western lady passed their compartment in the side aisle.  Kyle and Ray jumped just as startled as the others as she passed.  Kyle leaned over to Ray.  "You know, it's true," he croaked.  "Those foreign devils do look odd!"

 

The day was warming up when their train pulled into Luoyang.  Since most stops were ten minutes or so long, Kyle and Ray stepped down past the vendors onto the platform to stretch their legs, Kyle carrying his camera, of course.  On the platform opposite theirs a huge steam locomotive was revving up to pull out, vast billowing clouds of smoke belching from its smokestack.  Kyle snapped a series of photos, until a sound behind them caught their attention.  A locomotive and its cars were pulling out from the track where they had left their train!  With a horrified yell they sprinted over to their track and raced alongside the locomotive, already moving fairly fast.  Only vaguely did they hear the yells behind them. 

 

A grizzled fellow inside the door of the departing locomotive waved them away, forbidding them to jump into the moving locomotive.  Like hell they weren't going to rejoin their train!  Kyle leaped first, disappearing into the locomotive.  Ray puffed alongside for another several yards, the train by mow moving along at a rapid clip.  He watched the door ease away from him, despite his best efforts to keep up.  Glancing back, he gauged the speed of the door in the first car behind the locomotive, and with a desperate lunge flung himself onto it, grabbing the iron handles to either side of the door.  Frantically he hung on, not able to pull himself all the way in.  Finally a pair of hands appeared—Kyle's—and he was dragged unceremoniously through the door.

 

They stared wide-eyed at each other for a moment, then returned to the locomotive where the old fellow there was laughing wildly and jabbering away at them.  Ray couldn't make out a word he was saying.  The fellow pointed out the window, nearly convulsing from laughter.  They looked out the window, and for the first time noticed that only half a dozen of their train's cars were attached to this locomotive.  The rest of their train, including their own car containing passports, backpacks—everything—was still sitting at the station as they sped the opposite direction on this maverick locomotive! 

 

Ray's blood rain cold.  He tried to imagine how difficult it would be to recover their belongings after the train left without them.  It proved impossible to imagine.  Kyle had briefly joined the engineer in laughter at what they'd done, but when he saw Ray's ashen face it occurred to him, too, that they were indeed in big trouble.  They both turned to the engineer, who was still laughing.  Ray's Chinese deserted him as he attempted to explain that they had to get back to that train.  The fellow just laughed harder, nodded his head over and over, and generally ignored them as the locomotive steadily traveled away from their train. 

 

They stood helpless.  Kyle gauged their speed and wondered if they could now leap off the locomotive they had leaped onto earlier.  Ray caught his eye and shook his head resolutely.  It would be suicidal now, such was their speed.  Besides, they had switched onto a track away from the platform, so it was now a leap down to the tracks.  Suddenly they lurched forward as the speed lessened.  They both looked to the engineer.  He began to laugh again.  They both were by now extremely tired of the man's sense of humor.  The locomotive halted, and crews uncoupled the cars that had been attached to it.  Kyle and Ray made to leave the locomotive, but the engineer put his arm across the door and informed them that the locomotive would now return with them to the station. As he said it, the locomotive in fact lurched into motion again, switched tracks, and soon headed back to the station.  Kyle and Ray peered anxiously out the window.  Impossible to hope that their train would actually be there, yet…

 

They entered the station area gain, and there it was!  But already beginning to move slowly away from them.  The maverick locomotive they were on slowed and they vaulted off it, hit the platform running, and sprinted like madmen to the receding last car of their train.  Vaguely they noticed cheers coming from the side as bystanders noticed them gaining on the train.  People from their train were waving to them, urging them on.  Kyle got there first and easily leaped onto the rear platform of the last car.  Ray's legs were beginning to wobble.  He lurched forward a few more feet, stumbled, and felt himself grabbed by Kyle, who dragged him—unceremoniously again—over the iron rail into the car.

 

Thus they exited Luoyang.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five:  The Sacred Mountain's First Temple:

     Heavenly Chambermaid, Singing Frogs, Rain

 

          The next morning they awoke to a new world.  The train had left dry northern China far behind overnight, and they found themselves in an utterly different green and lush land—Sichuan, the interior-most province of China.  From their berths Kyle and Ray saw figures standing on three lengths of lashed bamboo poling their craft along a river.  Chickens and water buffalo grazed on the green hillsides beyond.  Everywhere peasants walked along mountain paths, balancing loads on each end of springy bamboo poles over their shoulders.  In vegetable gardens farmers ladled the contents of manure buckets onto the rows. 

Near noon they collected their wash cloths from the dowels in the compartment, hefted their backpacks, and stepped onto the station platform of Sichuan's capital, Chengdu.  Curiously, the platform was small and almost deserted, most unusual.  Also unusual:  they had noticed surprisingly plentiful trucks and machinery on the streets as they approached the station.  But then, this was a farming region, not at all an urban concentration.

 

Immediately upon leaving the station they were surrounded by a clamoring throng of young street urchins, offering them rides in their pedicabs to the only hotel for foreign devils.  All wore T-shirts, ragged pants, and dilapidated thongs.  "How much to the hotel?" Ray asked the crowd.  Shrieks of "Five yuan" came back, clearly a fixed price.  And a very exorbitant price for any city in China, much less this remote provincial capital.  Ray caught the eye of a little fellow shyly occupying the edge of the throng.  "Two yuan?" he asked him.  He eyed Ray shrewdly, and shook his head.  "Four yuan" he asserted.  Ray shrugged his shoulders, and pressed ahead.  "Three yuan" he quickly proposed, and Ray accepted.

An older and larger lad, seeing Ray strike this deal, grabbed Kyle's wrist in a rough grip and shouted his own "Three yuan" offer into Kyle's face.  This turned out to be a mistake.  Kyle briskly executed a jujitsu wrist escape on the unfortunate fellow, who backed off with a yowl of pain. 

 

Ray's little fellow recruited a friend for Kyle, and soon they were each sitting uneasily in a pedicab consisting of a very old bicycle hooked up to a seat on two large wheels, barely large enough for one passenger and a backpack.  They settled in to enjoy the ride.  Unfortunately, it proved impossible.  As the pedicabs labored slowly away from the station, they merged recklessly into the stream of trucks and equipment clogging the narrow street.  No such thing as separate lanes for bicycles here.  At about the same time Kyle and Ray noticed that their pedicabs had no brakes.  Approaching an intersection requiring a stop, the boy jammed his thong against the front wheel of his bicycle, and the friction between the two slowed them down enough for him to jump off the bicycle and jolt to a stop, usually well into the intersection.  Ray was decidedly nervous about all this, though Kyle ahead of him sat with arms crossed, gazing serenely about.

 

When they arrived at the foreign devils' hotel, they were more than a bit surprised to find AJ already there.  The small dormitory rooms were not separated by sexes, here.  Not surprisingly, Kyle's room was strewn with bras and underwear and French novels.  On the other hand, also cigarette packs.  Decidedly a mixed bag.  AJ, Kyle, and Ray spent several days bicycling around Chengdu—it was Buddha's birthday, AJ informed them.  They were favored with full-on exhibitions of AJ's ability to attract females—and disappoint them when he returned with his friends to the hotel.  As Kyle commented to Ray, with a dry laugh: "Our friend AJ can't decide whether he's a holy man or a ladies' man." 

"I don't know.  Maybe you can be both," Ray replied with a shrug, realizing he was certainly neither. 

 

As was the custom, they all checked their large packs into the storage room at the Chengdu hotel, and took only daypacks with them for the 3 or 4 days on the mountain.  Several days later found The Three Stooges arriving by bus at the village of Emei, the jumping-off-point of the sacred mountain that was the…object? goal? excuse? of their trip.  Two helpful ladies at the bus station's ticket window explained to Ray that they had to first take a bus to the Ba Guo Temple at the base of the mountain, and there obtain a permit to climb it.  Since they had an hour before the next bus left, they sauntered into the surrounding neighborhood in search of a late lunch. 

A small, narrow noodle shop appeared, where Ray order several plates of Baotze dumplings plus a regular pork dish for them.  The dumplings arrived promptly, but after ten minutes no pork dish had.  So Ray ordered more dumplings.  They again promptly arrived, and soon all three of them were pleasantly full.  At which point a huge plate of savory shredded pork in mushrooms and peppers was proudly deposited before them by a beaming waiter.  AJ pointed out that to neglect it would cause the waiter to "lose face," so the three rolled up their sleeves and manfully ploughed into the dish, which tasted ten times better than it looked, and it looked plenty good.  The eating wasn't pretty, but as Kyle pointed out, somebody had to do it.

 

As the three waddled back to the bus station, a bizarre sight jolted them.  A young fellow with pasty skin and a long nose, wearing bright purple shorts, was perched on a bench with a long-handled net jutting into the air from his hand. 

"Hey, there's one of them foreign devils," Kyle observed.  "Look at that skin, that nose.  Ugh!" 

They all laughed as they approached him.  Conversation revealed that he was a lepidopterist from southern California (of course), a high school teacher who collected butterflies over the world on his summer break.  He was pathetically happy to see other Americans here, of all places.  It was startling for the Three Stooges to realize that they indeed were related to his person, and that the Chinese no doubt saw them much as they had seen him.  "Makes the Chinese even more forgiving and courteous than I had thought they were," Kyle observed in an aside. 

 

The net-wielder eagerly introduced himself as Ralph, and petitioned to join them.  They were somewhat taken aback, so long had they thought of themselves as the three stooges.  But he seemed so lost, and so in need of what he termed "decent" companions, that they reluctantly agreed to his company on the mountain, at least, with as much grace as they could muster. 

Arriving at the Ba Guo Temple—which translated to "Loyalty to One's Country," a peculiar name for a temple, they thought, Ray purchased their permits for all four to climb the mountain and later return to the village.  They piled into the small bus taking them to the trailhead for the climb.  The bus was packed with sweating people and a dozen more chickens than it could possibly hold.  After a sweltering, suffocating ride of thirty minutes they staggered off and into a muddy clearing.  Emei Shan, the sacred mountain, loomed above them, forested and cool. 

 

The Three Stooges grinned in anticipation.  Ralph complained about the conditions on the bus.  He was also hungry.  Soon they entered a dark, ramshackle hut beside the trail, finding it stocked with soda, tea, and large jars of  "thousand-year eggs."  Ralph spurned the weird-looking eggs, but Ray purchased half a dozen, and promptly devoured one.  The eggs were large—duck eggs, evidently—and strongly flavored.  The "white" was streaked with a dark color, indicating that either they had been prepared in some preservative, or that they were infected.  Ray hoped for the former, and ate another one.

 

In high spirits, The Three Stooges set out on the mountain.  Peasant homes sat amidst terraced rice fields, with beans, peppers, and potatoes growing in profusion in the adjacent gardens.  The forested groves were composed of maples and beaches and oaks similar to North America, though different species of course.  Huts dispensing tea, soda, and thousand-year eggs appeared every several hundred yards, attesting to the crowd of hungry pilgrims, all Chinese other than them, winding up the trail around them.

The gorgeous scenery was wasted on Ralph, who was busily bagging butterflies, especially in the forested areas with updrafts, and stuffing them into his "kill jar" of cyanide.  The Chinese pilgrims passing by seemed to be amused by the spectacle, merely another incomprehensible practice of the foreign devils. 

 

As dusk approached they reached the Temple of Myriad Years.  Extensive formal gardens surrounded the temple, in which they saw the first of the monkeys they had been warned about on Emei Shan.  This one was on a leash of a fellow who would allow you to hold it for a small fee.  Noting the numerous bandages over the fellow's neck and ears, they passed by.  Beyond the gardens was a building entirely filled by a statue of the Buddha on an enormous white elephant.  And then two buildings, one of guest rooms and the actual temple, the other the refectory.  Ray obtained rooms at the temple office from the wide-eyed attendant, who had seemingly never seen foreign devils, at the rate of three yuan per double room, about $1.35.  Kyle and Ray shared one room, and AJ and Ralph the other, AJ having lost The Three Stooge's "rocks, scissors, paper" contest. 

 

The attendant led them up a broad row of stone steps to a huge two-story compound. Large, lavishly decorated temples comprised the fronts of both stories.  Stairways to the side of the temple complex led into the outside-facing second floor, where the more expensive guest rooms were located.  Both of their rooms were high-ceilinged with three four-poster beds surrounded by mosquito netting and bright orange silk comforters on the beds.  Kyle, being the official photographer of the group due to his equipment and savvy, took a photo of Ray and AJ in the colorful beds, even though it was he who would share the room with Ray.

 

After depositing daypacks on chosen beds, they drifted out onto the spacious corridor and sat on the balustrade.  Water splashed noisily along a stream below them, with a densely forested mountain rising beyond the stream.  Kyle, AJ, and Ray grinned like idiots.  Ralph excused himself to catalogue his dead butterflies and store each in a glassine envelope.  A movement on the stairway caught their attention.  A remarkably handsome young lady emerged with two buckets in her shapely arms.  She flashed a shy, devastating smile at them, and glided by to deposit a bucket of hot water for washing in front of each room.  She then glided back down the stairs before their enraptured eyes. 

Kyle broke the stunned silence.  "This," he declared, "is the Inn of the Heavenly Chambermaid." 

The chambermaid soon returned, this time carrying two thermos bottles full of steaming water for making tea in your room, a standard provision wherever they stayed in China.  Again they sat in dumbfounded admiration, and collectively exhaled as she descended the stairs.

 

"That lady has achieved enlightenment," whispered AJ. "Clearly she has passed beyond mere earthly concerns and linked up with the Infinite Void."

Kyle and Ray laughed.  "Her fluid movements more likely indicate an advanced level in the martial arts," Ray thought aloud.  "She'd probably make hash out of all of us in a fight." 

They considered it.  "But what a way to go," Kyle mused. He pulled himself out of his reverie with reluctance.  "But speaking of 'going,' did anyone notice a bathroom around here?"

 

AJ and Ray shook their heads.  "Then I'll go exploring for one," Kyle announced, rising and bounding down the stairs. 

AJ and Ray admired the view, and talked of the condition of AJ's aching knees for several minutes.  Kyle reappeared at the head of the stairs, eyes gleaming. 

"Come with me!" he commanded.

AJ and Ray raised their eyebrows. 

"The pisser," Kyle continued.  "It's the most beautiful outhouse I've ever used in my life.  And I've used plenty." 

Laughing, AJ and Ray followed him down the stairs, AJ taking each one gingerly.  Kyle led them across the large courtyard, through an opening, and onto a path leading away from the compound.  Fifty feet further the ground abruptly sloped steeply down and there, perched on the edge of the mountain, was a concrete outhouse some twenty feet long, with its outside edge jutting away from and over the side of the mountain.  The near entrance was marked with the character for males, the far entrance for females.  The near exterior side wall of the building constituted the urinal; you simply relieved yourself against the wall. 

But the view!  The view was everything Kyle had claimed, a long vista of lush green valleys stretching forever, the calls of birds and insects drifting up to them as they stood there relieving themselves.  Inside were simply three holes in the floor on the far outside por

 

They had some time before dinner, so they wandered on up the main trail a bit.  A few bends along Ray found a collection of canes laid out beside the trail.  He purchased two.  One was of sturdy bamboo, whose end had been steamed and bent into a handle.  That was to help AJ on the trail.  The other was some softwood, its handle carved into a gorgeous, colorful dragon head.  Just as Ray finished bargaining good-naturedly for the two and paid, they heard a ruckus on the trail ahead.  Kyle came dashing around the bend at breakneck speed. 

 

"Ray.  Hurry!" 

"What's up" Ray asked, grabbing the two canes. 

"It's Ralph.  He's in a hell of an argument with an old geezer beside the trail.  I'm afraid the old guy might have a heart attack!"

They rushed up the trail.  In a few minutes they got to a crowd of people, most of them angrily yelling at Ralph, who was shouting obscenities at an ancient Chinese fellow with a wrinkled face and body so frail they expected him to collapse any second.  Between them was a cheap spiral notebook, which each clutched one end of in a death grip. 

"Ralph, Ralph!  What's going on?" Ray yelled into Ralphs ear.  He turned frenzied eyes upon Ray.

"This guy's trying to cheat me!" he shrieked.  "He told me the notebook was one yuan, and now he wants two before he'll let me have it!"  Saying this, Ralph gave the notebook a vicious tug, and the old codger on the other end shut his eyes tightly and held on for dear life, his lips turning purple.

 

More angry shouts from the crowd.  Ray attempted to ask the old fellow whether the notebook was one yuan or two.  He seemed not to hear.  He was trembling badly now, and merely shut his eyes tighter and renewed his tight grip on his end of the notebook.  Ralph gave another vicious tug, and a hysterical note crept into his voice as he began shouting "Cheater!  Cheater!"

Abruptly Ray reached into his pocket and pulled out a yuan coin.  The difference between one and two yuan was about forty cents American.  He pressed the coin into the old fellow's hand.  "Here's your extra yuan," he said in the fellow's ear.  His eyes opened quite quickly.  He cast a quick glance at the coin, then suddenly released the notebook.

As the old fellow released his hold, Ralph suddenly fell backward onto the trail with the notebook in his hand.  He scrambled to his feet immediately and seemed about to lunge at the old codger again.  AJ placed himself between the old man and Ralph, and Kyle pulled the sputtering Ralph out of the crowd and down the trail. 

 

Ray expressed apologies to the crowd.  Based on his own experiences elsewhere, he thought it not unlikely that the old fellow might well have upped his price on Ralph midway through the purchase.  No matter.  Ralph's response was clearly out of line. Dinner later was restrained, since Ralph realized they thought his reaction to the episode excessive.  He went from angry denunciations at the thievery of the "natives" to a stony silence.  The Three Stooges couldn't rise above the atmosphere, especially since the meal was a very mediocre offering of potatoes and hot chilis. 

 

After dinner Ralph barricaded himself in his room with his dead butterflies, while The Three Stooges lounged outside in the corridor.  As dusk fell they heard bells and chanting.  They followed the sound to the far end of their courtyard.  Priests knelt chanting before the altars while others stood ringing bells or hitting bronze gongs.  Incense curled up everywhere, producing a gray haze and pungent smell.  Kyle backed away from the smoke just as AJ propelled himself into the temple and took a place before an altar, groaning as he went down upon his sore knees.

Kyle and Ray returned to the corridor outside their room and sat on the balustrade there, enjoying the night.  Inside AJ's room was blackness.  Evidently Ralph was already asleep, worn out by his adventures. 

 

"Look!" Ray whispered to Kyle, pointing toward the mountain slope in front of them.  "Fireflies!"  The mountain seemed alive with them, which indeed it was.  Just as they thought it could not get any better, the first tentative notes of musical calls rang out from the stream below them.  It was the "musical frogs" of Emei Shan which they had read about, two species issuing different but equally charming calls. 

 

"I don't know about sacred, but this mountain sure seems enchanted," said Ray.  

Kyle nodded with a small smile, and went into their room to work on his journal by candlelight.  A breeze whipped up outside, and the sweet smell of fresh rain reached Ray a few minutes before soft showers began.  The fireflies persisted through the showers, but then it began to rain harder, and they flickered out, the darkness overwhelming the mountainside.  After a few minutes savoring the night, Ray also went into their darkened room, tripped over Kyle's daypack on the floor, took off his clothes, and pulled a T-shirt from his daypack on the third, empty bed where he'd tossed it.  He felt his way to his own bed, lifted the mosquito netting, and slipped under the quilt, falling quickly to sleep.