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.