Buddha’s Advice – China

Buddha’s Advice
Hanzhong, China

I work for a US company which sells metal-forming machines to aircraft companies around the world. My job takes me to China about once a year and this time it was to Hanzhong, the smallest town I’ve been to yet. It’s surrounded by mountains on three sides and there’s only one flight in per day, a Chinese puddle jumper. The plant I would be at this time was Shaanxi Aircraft Company (pronounced ‘shawnshee’). They make military aircraft, among other things, and are located about an hour’s drive outside of town, in the countryside. My workmate and interpreter, Tang, and I were picked up every morning by a driver from the factory. The two weeks we were there, the driver never took the same way twice. I assume for traffic reasons, but I wondered if it had to do with being driven to a military facility.

Tang was born and raised near Beijing. He earned a degree in engineering and moved to Canada when he was 30. He worked in Canada for five years and then recently joined the company that I work for.

After working for six days, we had a day off. There were no organized activities like tours or shows so I suggested to Tang that we buy some bikes and go on a bike trip. He laughed like it was a crazy idea and didn’t even bother to answer. So I acted like he said yes and suggested we go to the store and buy some stuff like a camera, water and a backpack. He’s really a trooper and he went along with it.

For the locals, $150 a month is a good salary and they look at buying an expensive bike, which can only be kept for another week, as a sign that you might have a screw loose. Bikes there cost about 20 to 40 dollars, so I figured the price for an adventure in a remote area of China was a deal. But when I tested the bikes they were terrible. They weren’t going to last unless they were ridden very gently. It was looking like the trip was canceled when we found a little shop that had three bikes made by the US company “Giant.” There were two mountain bikes and one single speed hybrid. They were more expensive but they were good bikes. I paid $100 for mine and $50 for Tang’s and we were back in business. But first we had to get lunch because the prospect of my first normal bowel movement in a week had compelled me to skip my last two meals. A saying I heard recently by an English adventurer was in my head, which goes “We are all seven meals from the savage”. This means that if any of us missed our next seven meals, the veneer of civilization would be stripped away and we would be chasing cats and cornering rats. I felt that if I skipped one more and went on a long bike ride, I’d see the half way point.

After lunch, we left on the only other road out of town, away from the one that goes to the factory. The road was paved but riding on it was nerve racking. The other vehicles had such a mix of speeds. There were horse drawn wagons, mopeds, absurdly overloaded bicycles, pedestrians walking farm animals and large trucks that would honk as they flew by. The honking was so loud that it was disturbing even though you were ready for it. Eventually we got far enough that the traffic died down. We found ourselves in the countryside and things were getting very enjoyable. About an hour later we hit a small village. It’s not uncommon that people in these villages have never seen a westerner. A few times people have told Tang this and wanted to have their picture taken with me. Heads were turning everywhere. When I stopped at a street market, old ladies would put their face about one foot from mine and stare. Not like they expected a response or wanted to interact but just like they were working something out in their head. Occasionally a little kid would shout “How do you do!” which apparently is the title of China’s most common English language text book.

Shortly after we passed through the village we hit the beginning of the mountains and the road kept going into a wide and very scenic canyon. We were really feeling good, having found this great, unpopulated place to ride. We followed the road up for about a half hour and eventually started approaching a big tunnel which headed into the mountain. It was a large, modern looking tunnel made of cement and about 15 feet high and 25 feet across but it was pitch black inside. We couldn’t tell how long the tunnel was but I was hoping we could go through and the ride wouldn’t have to end. Tang said we would have to turn around because the tunnel was so dark that it was too dangerous. I suggested we ride to the edge and see how dark it really was. We went in about 20 feet or so and our eyes adjusted and it didn’t seem so dark at all. Tang agreed we should keep going.

The tunnel was slowly curving so we couldn’t see the other end but it looked like there was some light ahead. It was definitely getting dark but we could still see floor and walls OK. We could also see light from the beginning and light up ahead we figured everything was good. When we got about 40 yards from the light ahead, I could see it was a beam of sunlight coming down from a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel. The beam was shining down on a pile of dirt and a hole in the ground and there was a man sitting there by himself not doing anything. Things were definitely getting surreal. I didn’t have the nerve to approach him and was thinking it was time to turn around, but Tang figured he was a construction worker taking a rest and went to talk to him. The atmosphere was such that if the man had told me he was Buddha and knew the secrets of the world, I would have had to think about it.

Tang was right, of course, and the man said that we could make it to the end. He said we were almost half way. Then a motorcycle started coming from behind, traveling the same direction as us. It wasn’t going very fast and it’s headlight lit up the tunnel so we hopped on our bikes and figured we could follow it through. We peddled as fast as we could for a minute or so but the motorcycle left us in the dust. When it was gone it was pitch black in both directions. There was no advantage to having your eyes open! Tang and I were off our bikes and we had to keep talking to keep from bumping into each other. I couldn’t believe Tang suggested we continue walking forward. There was no way I was going forward. Tang was thinking that forward was the quickest way out. I knew going back was no problem, but who knew how long forward would be. If the tunnel was as short as the man had said, we would’ve been able to see light by now. So we started heading back. We had only gotten about 20 feet or so when the headlights from a car started coming from behind us. This of course was good so we stood to the side and waited for it to pass so we could follow it for a bit. When it got alongside of us it came to a quick stop and we could see that it was clearly a police vehicle. It was an SUV and people immediately started piling out of it. My heart stopped when Tang said, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

I’ve spent a lot of time with Tang and that was the first time I had ever heard him cuss. Also, I had not forgotten that Tang was raised in China, is very conservative, and knows that running from the police is one of the most daring things you can do. In a previous trip, in another small town, I saw the cops fire their guns in the air just to flush someone out of a small apartment building. If you run from the police and they shoot you, I don’t think there’s a lot of explaining to do. People arrested for murder can be tried and executed in less than a month. A conversation I had with a man the day before was fresh in my mind. Like many of the Chinese people, he was fond of American people and things. But he told me that one of the few things wrong with the US was the justice system. He surprised me by citing some the circumstances of the ongoing Scott Peterson case and said he thought that Peterson would drag the trial out for over a year and maybe get off. I said, “Yeah, it could be the same way with the DC snipers that were recently captured.” He said, “Those guys are still alive?”

I decided my chances are better in a Chinese jail than in a chase and I stayed put. Tang hopped on his bike and started to pedal when the driver shouted something that stopped him in his tracks. As Tang got off his bike he told me, “They want to talk to you to practice their English.” A lot of the people piling out were women and children. They were beaming and obviously delighted to see me!

Things were as surreal as ever as we stood in the dim light of the SUV’s parking lights, in the middle of a dark tunnel, in a remote area on the other side of the planet. I fielded questions like “Who’s prettier, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera?” This went on for 20 minutes or so and they eventually explained to us that the tunnel didn’t go much further but the tunnel was not completed, it’s just a dead end. Some people are fascinated by the tunnel’s construction so they drive out and have a look at it. The construction worker hadn’t told us this and must have assumed that we already knew it.

They offer to drive slow so we can follow them out. We followed them out and had to squint for a minute while our eyes adjusted to the sunlight. They snap a picture of me with each of their kids and some additional photos with different combinations of kids. They invited us to dinner at their house but Tang wisely declined because the sanitary conditions in the small towns are sometimes unbelievable. They told us that if we went back a short distance and take the other road at the fork, it would take us out to a very large and scenic lake. We made it to the lake and it was very cool like they said. We hung out there for a while and eventually headed back to the hotel. We were still buzzing from the trip two days later.

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