As with anywhere in the world, in China, the trip you have is the one you make. Travel here can be unfathomable, shockingly rude, indifferent, overwhelming, but it can also be generous, enlightening and extraordinarily kind. I found all of these and more on a recent summer trip to Tianshui. Tianshui was the first stop in Gansu Province on the outward-bound Silk Road and it retains that age-old hospitality. I was surprised as well as pleased to find that a lot of the important signs were also printed in English. The layout of the city is also Silk-Road like: the western half, by the railway station, is separated from the eastern half—where the bus station is, as if it were two forts that in modern times are now connected by a high-speed highway. My recent infatuation with long-distance buses died a quick death as summer road construction had us sitting on the baking asphalt for an hour and a half, but once I arrived I was happily surprised that the bus dropped passengers off in the eastern part of town where the best hotels are. I found a great one and settled in for the night. Morning came as mornings do with the realization that to catch the bus to the Maiji Mountain Grottoes, I had to get back to the western part of town. There were buses I could take, the number 1 and the number 6, but it was too confusing so I hailed a cab and we flew back down the connecter highway as the summer sun gathered strength. The taxi driver let me off at a wrong bus stop, and after a few inquiries I was close but unsure. I cautiously approached a cop sitting in a police car. He immediately got out and walked me to the bus, making sure I got on the right one. I have always been been treated well by the police in China (click here for the most amazing example in Dunhuang, scroll down to the 8th paragraph). The crowded number 30 bus left from the eastern side of the railway station and cost 5 RMB (approx. $.81 USD) for the forty-minute drive. At one point, the bus took on more passengers—a grandmother and a mom with two children, and I immediately got up to offer them my seat. A Chinese man behind me was inspired to also give up his seat, and he smiled at me in a kind of pleasant solidarity. The small things you do can have such a big impact on your trip. Suddenly, I had a lot of friends. Mostly everyone was smiling at me. The granny and the mother kept trying to give me back the seat. The more I refused, the more everyone smiled. When I did a magic trick for the children, everyone gasped. It was a tough room, but I played it well. Then we were there at the Maiji Grottoes. Let me tell you here a little about this magical place, quoted from Wikipedia: “Maijishan has an especially interesting location as it is located close to the E-W route that connected Xi'an with Lanzhou and eventually Dunhuang, as well as the route that veers off to the south that connected (and still connects) Xi'an with Chengdu in Sichuan and regions as far south as India. This crossroads location is interesting as several of the sculptures in Maijishan that appear around the 6th Century, appear to have Indian—and even SE Asian—features that could have come north via these N-S routes. The earliest artistic influence came, however, from the northwest, through Central Asia along the Silk Road. Later, during the Sung and Ming Dynasties, as the caves were renovated and repaired, the influences came from central and eastern China and the sculpture is more distinctly Chinese.” Read more here: the full Maijishan Grottoes wiki entry. It was summer and crowded and the worst of Chinese public behavior manifested itself. When I went to get a ticket, I politely queued up at the back of the line, but everyone was automatically going around me, getting in front, muscling in, no consideration. I still waited, patient that I would get my turn, but even more people came, who also got in front of me. At this rate, I would be a fossil by the time I got a ticket. I contemplated my options. I was taller than 97% of the population, and not only that, I was raised on the East Coast; I knew how to muscle, and I also knew how to bellow like a wounded bull. So I bellowed, “Get out of my way. I’ve had enough. I’m getting a ticket now . . . MOVE.” Then I actually growled. People tried to hide their astonishment/amusement, but they all got out of my way. I barged my way up to the ticket counter, thrust my 100 RMB into the slot, and held up my finger, signifying one ticket. The ticket-seller was surprised in a gleeful way. She said something to me that I couldn’t catch, then just made a decision and gave me my change and two official-looking tickets. I was in no mood to argue. I just scooped them up and bulled my way back through the crowd. And I swear, everyone seemed to enjoy this whole spectacle, while I also felt as if I had smashed through some kind of lingering, yet useless here, laowai (foreigner) etiquette barrier. At the entrance gate, I presented my tickets, not knowing what either one was for. The ticket-taker said, in English, “Go, come back,” gesturing to one of the tickets, repeating it over and over until I understood, and I laughed in shock at her genuine concern and repeated happily, “Go, come back,” and she wildly nodded her head, safe in the knowledge that the thick-headed laowai had finally gotten it. You see, the ticket-seller had included a ticket for the shuttle tram that would carry me the approximately 2 kilometers to the base of the mountain otherwise I would have had to walk. I was so joyful in that, knowing that if I really was a bore the ticket-seller would not have done that, and I kept repeating, “Go, come back . . . go . . . come back,” to show I appreciated the ticket-taker’s attempt at English and how she had just saved me a whole lot of walking. Little miracles like this make the going so great. On the way up the mountain, the paved road is so crowded with souvenir sellers all selling the same things, so the magic of what they offer wears off and they turn into a kind of mild nuisance. I don’t begrudge anyone the right to make a living, but this mountain is holy, and it deserves reverence and not to be made into a carnival attraction. Yet, it sadly was. There was not a monk to be seen. Everywhere someone was trying to sell you something, and then the exact same thing, over and over again. I made my way through them and to the stairway leading up to the cliff-face grottoes. A welcome summer breeze fluttered and died. Though all around me people were talking, I felt a stillness, a stillness of arrested time. Captured time. Time carved into a mountain—time. Sphinx lion time. Buddha time. Mirror time. Time collapsing. Time resurrected. Time suspended. Time . . . Flowing like peace. Flowing like all my afterthoughts that cast me in a better light . . . flowing like you wish everything would, a joyful pleasantness, a knowing vibration, a pause that envelops, and turns into, Anticipation, excitement, mind lightening and thunder, a casting off, a welcoming sea, dolphin wisdom . . . then, a kind of hope, Assuring, summoning . . . And . . . up the stairs we will go. Part 2 of Tianshui, China: Climbing Maijishan Cliff-face Grotto will follow.
1 Comment
Mary
8/15/2014 07:44:53 am
Once again the summer trips I love to read. I just cannot believe it is here already! This trip is interesting without the chaos of previous trips as you are more experienced in travel thru China. Also the English signs help tremendously. Can't wait to read part 2 climbing Grottoes, always a learning experience for me. A quote for you = "If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." = Friedrich Nietszche's Enjoy your trip!!
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