Riding the Iron Rooster

The news items gave me the creeps though. I read a report about a man whose penis had been sewn back on. Fifty other men had had the same operation in China, "and 98 percent of them found their penis functioned again," the China Daily stated. Some of the men had what was called "one-stage reconstruction of the penis," which was not a reattachment but a whole new dick cobbled together from spare parts—a piece of rib, a skin graft, some loose tubes. A survey showed that most of the men were able to father children. "A father who went through the one-stage reconstruction of the penis even mailed his daughter's photo to us," Professor Chang, the mastermind of this technique, said.

The strangest case of human mending occurred not long ago in Shenyang. This was also reported in the China Daily, under the confusing headline TRANSPLANTED LEG SAVES GIRL'S ARM.

Eleven-year-old Meng Xin's left arm and leg were severed in a train accident.

To save her, the six surgeons used part of her severed leg to make a forearm, to which they attached her hand.

Following the 18-hour operation, Meng's skin on her transplanted forearm returned to normal, and her transplanted fingers have recovered their sense of touch.

She can clench her fist and move her left arm.

And yet these mending operations are not surprising to anyone who has looked under the hood of an old Chinese bus, or closely scrutinized the welds in a Chinese steam locomotive, or watched a Chinese street tailor or cobbler at work. And you only had to see the amazing contraption of hosepipes that filled the trains with water at the larger railway stations to realize that it was inevitable that such people would in time be able to rig up a new penis for an unfortunate Chinese castrato.

Ashley was still watching me reading the paper. Handing it back to him, I said, Yes, wasn't it remarkable?

"Lom mistair," he said, and winked at me. "It's the CIA, isn't it? You're an agent, you tell people you're a journalist because that's good cover. You go sniff-sniff-sniff and get people blabbing, and then you lock yourself in your room and write a report." He laughed. "That's all right. I don't care! I won't tell anyone." And he looked out of the window. "Jesus, I am so sick of this country—I can't wait to get back home. Chinese food—every day—Chinese food. And these people!"

"The Chinese?"

"Naw, they're all right. They're bloody small though," he said. "I was thinking of the tour here."

They were in the corridor, watching China go by. It was not very pretty here. The industrial suburbs of Shanghai continued for almost a hundred miles, until the train pulled into Hangzhou. Marco Polo had mentioned Hangzhou—it was one of the boasts of this tourist paradise with its lake, temples, hotels, restaurants, noodle stalls, take-your-picture booths. It was a help to have Marco Polo's praise as a blurb on your brochure ("the greatest city which may be found in the world"), but even that did not make the place sparkle for me. And I had always wondered why Marco Polo, who talked about everything and supposedly went everywhere, never mentioned either the Great Wall or the fact that the Chinese drank tea, in his Travels.

Ashley said the tourists were driving him mental, and he brought me up to date. The most obnoxious man (Kicker) and Wilma, the bald woman, had become lovers. There had been a fight in the French compartment, and one of them, who was bringing a legal action against another, had joined the American group, the Wittricks and Westbetters. Blind Bob was terribly bruised as a result of his Mister McGoo stumbling. Rick Westbetter was planning to write another letter to President Reagan—this one about Chinese duplicity. The Australians were feeling cranky, but of course they were relieved to be heading for Guangdong, since South China was closer to Australia. Bella Scoons was telling herself that the distance was no more than four trips to Kalgoorlie. The Cathcarts had made themselves unpopular by refusing to pay for a beer one hot day because "we've paid for this trip already, and that beer ought to be free." They made an issue of the one yuan (26 cents) and just sat and broke out into a virtuous sweat. Morthole had added to his rock collection: he could hardly heave the sack of them.

Kicker said ironically, "How about a tomb? We haven't seen a tomb today!"

"I'd like to show that fucker a tomb," Ashley said.

They were all tired and crabby. You need a good night's sleep, I wanted to say. It was like school, like an outing; it had gone on too long. Day Thirty-seven, Miss Wilkie was writing in her journal.

"It's ten thousand miles we've done," she said. 'Ten thousand miles. And believe me, it hasn't been a picnic."

This was Zhejiang Province, the old eternal China—no fashion shows here, no spivs, no "Shansh marnie?" no talk of microchips and reforms.