Riding the Iron Rooster

The motley groups in the park in Kunming liked this one best of all. It was performed among the bamboos, and accompanied by old violinists in faded blue jackets and caps. But even the skinniest old men and the most elderly women wore animated expressions—and they were all playful. Of all the people I saw in China, they were the happiest.

The trouble with China was that it was overrun with people and—except for the occasional earthquake or sandstorm—I rarely saw examples of man's insignificance beside the greater forces of nature. The Chinese had moved mountains, diverted rivers, wiped out the animals, eliminated the wilderness; they had subdued nature and had it screaming for mercy. If there were enough of you it was really very easy to dig up a whole continent and plant cabbages. They had built a wall that was the only man-made object on earth that could be seen from the moon. Whole provinces had been turned into vegetable gardens, and a hill wasn't a hill—it was a way of growing rice vertically. Some of the ruination was not deliberate; after all, in Chinese terms prosperity always spelled pollution.

That was how I felt until I reached Yunnan. Then I saw the more familiar situation—and one I found more subtle and energizing—people dwarfed by nature, crowded by jungle, hemmed in by the elements, rained on and battered by the unpredictable tantrums of heaven and earth.

I saw such landscapes on my way to Vietnam. Kunming is only two hundred miles from the Vietnam border. Looking at a map one day, I saw a railway line leading south, and I looked for Mr. Fang to arrange for me to travel on it. Wasn't he shadowing me in order to offer Chinese hospitality? Hadn't he urged me to give him something to do? How thrilled he was when I asked him to translate for me, or commiserated with him about the spivs and the louts and said, "I blame their parents!"

But when I asked him to get me permission to take the narrow-gauge railway to the border, he turned ashen.

"It is forbidden," he said.

"The line is open as far as Bao Xiu," I said. I had checked in the railway timetable—there were two trains a day.

"But you are a foreigner."

"You said that you would help me. If you don't help me, what is the point of your being with me, Mr. Fang?"

"I will try." I knew he meant it, because he seemed very rattled: he was steeling himself to see a higher official.

That same night Mr. Fang came to me and said that permission had been granted for me to take the train south. But the line into Vietnam had been severed in 1979, so I would have to content myself with a journey about a third of the way—to Yiliang—and then come straight back. I said that was fine with me.

"Mr. Wei will go with you."

"Who is Mr. Wei?"

"You will see tomorrow."

The train left at seven in the morning: Mr. Wei was at the station. He had already bought the tickets, and before I could say anything, he was apologizing for the train—just a little one, he said, tiny coaches, steam engine, uncomfortable seats, no dining car. Mr. Wei was a small malnourished-looking man in his thirties. But he was not as sulky as he seemed—he was merely nervous. He said he hated these little trains and these jungly places.

I wanted to tell him that I liked seeing examples of man's insignificance beside the greater forces of nature. But I decided not to. I had brought a pound of peanuts (35 cents in Kunming market) and spent the early part of the trip eating those until Mr. Wei relaxed.

The French had built this line. At about the turn of the century, after they had consolidated their hold on Indochina, they decided to open up the interior. There was money to be made by selling French products in these Chinese provinces. And there was a great deal the French wanted to buy—silks, minerals, furs, leather goods, precious stones. And they had a vague idea of extending their influence into China. The railway was finished in 1910, and until fairly recently it was easier to ship goods to Kunming from Shanghai via Hanoi than it was cross-country.

Mr. Wei didn't think much of this train, but to me it was practically ideal—like the best kind of sleepy branch-line train that creaked through the countryside. Europe and America had gotten rid of them, but they still sauntered through China. People played checkers and smoked the pipes that were big lengths of bamboo that looked like drainpipes. They were all farmers—no sunglasses or platform shoes here, no Guangzhou brassieres or cassette recorders.

After a while, Mr. Wei began talking. He said, "I missed out on my education," and I knew he was referring to the Cultural Revolution, so we talked about that. "I hated it," he said. "It was bad in Kunming."

"Because they smashed the temples?"

"Not only that. They fought. One factory fought another factory. They fought in the streets—people screaming. They had sticks, they had guns. They set fires. People died."

"Hundreds or thousands?"

"I don't know. Hundreds maybe."