Riding the Iron Rooster

Shaoshan said everything about Mao, his rise and fall; his position today. I loved the empty train arriving at the empty station. Was there a better image of obscurity? As for the house and village—they were like many temples in China where no one prayed any longer; just a heap of symmetrical stones representing waste, confusion and ruin. China was full of such places, dedicated to the memory of someone or other and, lately, just an excuse for setting up picnic tables and selling souvenirs.

Mr. Fang was sitting in the hotel lobby with his head in his hands. He did not look up when a man near him hoicked loudly, spat a clam onto the floor and scuffed it with his foot.

"I'm leaving, Mr. Fang."

He raised his head and looked at me with his swollen eyes.

"Where are you going?"

"Canton for a while. Then Peking."

He groaned. "By train?" he asked. His lips were dry.

"The People's Railway is for the people," I said, recalling the slogan I had seen in the Yunnan town of Yiliang.

This made him wince. He said, "I am fifty-six years old. I have traveled a great deal. I was a Russian interpreter. I have been to Leningrad and other places. But I have never taken so many trains all at once. I have never slept on so many trains—I don't sleep at all. Trains, trains."

"A train isn't a vehicle," I said. "A train is part of the country. It's a place."

"No more," he said, not listening.

"I'm going to Canton."

"I must go with you," he said. "But we can take a plane."

"Sorry, no planes. Chinese planes frighten me."

"But the train—"

"You take the plane," I said. "I'll go by train."

"No. I go with you. It is the Chinese way."

He looked miserable, but I had very little sympathy for him. He had been sent to nanny me and breathe down my neck. He had been discreet—he had not gotten in my way; but who had asked him to come? Not me.

"Go back to Peking," I said. "I can go to Canton by myself."

"After Canton," he said, "are you taking more trains?"

"I don't know."

"Planes are quicker."

"I'm not in a hurry, Mr. Fang."

He said nothing more. I was glad: without even trying, I had outlasted him. He was at his wit's end, he hated trains now, he had suffered the torture of sleep deprivation. He was dying to go home.

And yet he followed me onto the express to Canton the following night, and he sat behind me in the dining car. He looked physically ill, and to make matters worse the dining car quickly filled up with some high-spirited tourists whose plane had been canceled.

They were the sort of good-hearted Americans who, at an earlier time in the history of American tourism, used to go to Pike's Peak. Now it was China. They went shopping. They were bussed to temples, where they also shopped. They talked a great deal, but not about Chinese culture. They said, "Joe senior died and she remarried twice more. She was an awful alcoholic." They said, "Bananas are good for you. They feed on carbohydrates." When someone among them mentioned Canton they said, "You can go bowling in Canton!"

But they were not more talkative than the Cantonese in the dining car, nor were they any louder. In a circumspect way they were appreciative.

The waiter put down a dish of green vegetables.

"Who's going to eat this?" a hearty woman said.

"What is it?" another woman asked.

"My son would eat that," said a third woman, peering at it.

"Is it spinach?"

"It's a type of spinach," a man said.

"Never mind!" a man from Texas cried. "The streets are safe! My poor wife's from west Texas and she didn't see a city until she was twenty-three years old. But I could put ten thousand dollars worth of gold on her and send her into the street and she'd be perfectly all right. Because this is China, not Texas." ^*

"But don't touch the water," the hearty woman said.

"It tastes like L.A. water," someone said. "I'm not used to it."

"It tastes like Saginaw water," a young woman said. "It's the chlorine. I had a cup of coffee there once and it was awful. I says, 'What's wrong with this coffee?' But it wasn't the coffee. It was the water."

Her friend—or perhaps husband—said, "Outside Saginaw, in hick towns like Hemlock, the water's real nice."

"Boy am I glad I didn't bring nylons!" the hearty woman said. "Did you think China was going to be this hot?"

"It's hot here, sure," said the man from Texas. "But up north it's freezing. It's all snow and ice. That's a fact."

"He's bringing more food," someone said.

"Jesus, do you think that has a name?"

A woman said in an announcing voice, "I'm going to tell all my friends who are going on a diet to go to China—I mean, the ones that are real picky about their food. They'd slim down good!"

"But the real picky ones wouldn't go to China," the young woman said.

As I left the dining car I heard someone say in an anxious voice, "My question is, what do they do with all these leftovers?"