The Great Wall

Now Sam and Kate were best friends, roommates actually, and they were in town for a wedding. Sam's brother and a Chinese girl that nobody knew were getting hitched and the whole story surrounded itself in mystery. By the end of the conversation I'm not certain whether he met the girl in China or if he has been writing her for awhile and moved to marry her and take her back to Australia. The wedding did seem somewhat unnerving though and conversation quickly changed to a half built Disneyland that we were passing and how creepy a half built Disneyland could be in a desert of nothingness. I begged our tour guide to stop and let me take pictures but she said that we had to keep moving. The white and fairy tale blue walls surrounding the park looked dirty; faded. They contained a barely visible magical castle, the Disney model, partially built, skeletal and menacing. For awhile I wanted to be there more than the Great Wall.

I feel obliged to tell you about the extra segments to the tour of the Great Wall, these completely boring, time-consuming hardships one must endure to finally make it to the only thing man can see from space. First, each tour stops at the largest Jade factory in China where a guide explains the difference between good jade and bad jade, an interesting tidbit of information that won't last the day, and you are escorted into an incredibly large gift shop in which, judging by the enthusiasm that borders on complete desperation, the employees must be paid on commission. A frequent purchase is a jade necklace in the shape of whatever Chinese New Year symbol attaches to your birthday. When you arrive back at the bus all members gather to see who got suckered.

After this tour of the Jade factory, the now tired tourist with the low center of gravity gets kicked off the bus at an ancient temple. I would tell you more about this temple but the problem is that I know nothing about it. I did then, I knew that certain parts of the building were beautiful. But the overwhelming thing I learnt from this stop was that we were eating time, making it seem like we got our moneys worth while, at the time, most of us would have paid double just to go to the damn wall.

When we left and embarked on our final stop, we were asked whether we'd like to walk up the stairs to get to the Great Wall or take a toboggan. Most of us, me included, have never ridden a toboggan nor could be accurately describe what a toboggan is (most of us assumed it had something to do with snow). Supposedly, as our tour guide contended, the toboggan was built by Germans many years ago and that it is perfectly safe and the best method of getting on the Wall. Also, the toboggan cost an extra five dollars. We all agreed finally to shell out the extra cash since, after the jade factory and temple that no one really understood, we were tired and just wanted to get on the freaking thing and take a billion pictures of ourselves. 

I should note since I have already commented on the bad memory I have of some of the places we visited that I have an exceptional memory of my time on the Great Wall. I even took notes of some of the interactions I had, although later I realized that I didn't need them, and that holes in the story, such as how long ago the Germans, whoever they were, made a toboggan to take people on the Great Wall. The truth of the matter is that I did ask (somebody was going to) and the answer was simply many years ago. If you'd like the actually exchange between me and the tour guide it went as follows:

"How long ago did they build it?"

"Did Germans build it?"

"Yes."

"A long time ago."

"Like Genghis Khan, long time ago?"

"No."

"How long then?"

"A long time ago."

"Huh. Ok then."

After awhile you just give up.

Arriving at the Great Wall there are small shops to the left, followed, strangely enough, by brown bears in a cave-like pen. They sell what appears to be apples to throw to the bears. While this sounds funny, that they would need brown bears to be in an environment that certainly they don't enjoy, for some kind of tourist attraction at what happens to be perhaps one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world, this is only the beginning of a strange absurdity. First in line for the toboggan, the tour guide vehemently fights against line cutters that, she believes, tries to get on the toboggan and thus the wall for free. All these line cutters are small, very old asian men and they are very pushy. The tour guide is about twenty two and doesn't know how to handle these incongruous rule breakers. She's also afraid that somehow she will have to pay for their ticket but no one is certain about how this is possible.

On the ride up everyone gets in little carts which, like a roller coaster, have braces that go over the shoulder. Then the toboggan acts very much like an actual roller coaster, tinking upwards as you are carried by a chain. At the end of the line, a man helps you out of the ride and finally you, the hard fought tourist who should be freezing his ass off because of how windy it is, can cross something off your life's list.

The Wall bends belief and staring out into the hills as the wall stretches up and down, winding like a long scaly snake, the westerner frequently states how "unreal" the whole experience seems and how looking into the hills look like a mirage or, perhaps more accurately, a fake image like from television. The walk upwards shakes this belief quickly out as the stone ground is uneven and hard to navigate without seriously tiring the fittest person. We continued to climb, to tower after tower, and the pictures kept flashing. Candid pictures, pictures with our new Australian friends or pictures of us alone; mountaineers; strong men; doers. I have tons of them.

One of the most unsuspected things about walking the wall is the numerous people trying to sell things to you. Mongolians, our tourist said, distastefully, much like she was pointing out a rat infestation. They had an incredible amount of items for sale. They had certificates and custom made keychains saying that you _____ climbed the Great Wall of China. They had book bags and little terra cotta soldiers. And they also had an incredible amount of things with Mao's face on it. Mao bags, pins, shirts, and, what I fell for, a Mao watch.

But not just any Mao watch. He stood looking towards what would be his people with his arm raised and moving up and down to each second. The watch was incredible and, most likely, the perfect gift.

This is how the exchange went:

"How much for the watch?"

"Which watch?"

"That watch."

"Mao watch?"

"Yes, Mao watch."

He stares at me, sizing me up. "1000 yuan." Roughly 150 dollars.

I immediately walk away.

"Wait!" He cries out, happy and joyous. He's smiling. He likes me. "How much you think?"

I look at him for a couple seconds. "10 yuan."

He jumps back, his face in pain, he stares at me. "I lose money!" He yells.

I walk away again.

"Wait!" He's trying to cope. "500." He smiles.

"No...10."

"ARGH....but I lose money!!!"

Needless to say this process goes on for quite awhile. I bought the watch for 20 yuan, around three dollars, and he left surprisingly happy for a man who lost so much money. Yet at every price decrease he would scream, I lose money!!! I asked him if he had another and that I would buy two and he said that he didn't and that he was sorry. I didn't mind and walked more of the wall and took more pictures.

On the way out another guy came up to me with a briefcase and in the briefcase was another Mao watch. I asked him how much for the Mao watch and he asked me how much did I think? I said 10 yuan and he closed the briefcase and screamed "I lose money!!!" I let out a big sigh and said fuck me, here we go again.

The Dead Guy in New York (Central Park)

I had not seen Alicia in so many years, she had become a stranger to me. She lived in Washington D.C. and I still resided in San Francisco and after a botched book exchange our friendship quickly dwindled. Yet, driving across the country presented a good opportunity to add some life into our relationship, to learn about the strangers we've become while sharing moments of the friendship we had. Also Shakespeare in the Park had Chekhov's  The Seagull playing with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Christpher Walken (Christopher Walken!!!) and John Goodman. The production was directed by Mike Nichols and it became my must in New York.

I met up with her in the park. Upon asking a couple people we found that we would have to spend the night in Central Park to get tickets. Since tickets were given out the next morning for free (two per customer) then most of our night and part of the next day would be sitting on a hill in a line watching squirrels. I talked to Alicia a lot that day. I found out that she fell for someone that did cocaine and liked Fugazi and that it didn't turn out well but she's all the smarter now because of it. I found out that she worked for some place that she thought would be temporary but turned out to be more permanent and years later she's still surprised she works there (a frequent trend with many of my friends). I also found that while I thought we'd no nothing about each other, a lot of things stayed remarkably the same. I missed hearing her laugh at things and I missed how we teased each other. We sat most of the day, tore up grass from the ground and talked until we couldn't think of what more to talk about. Then we sat for awhile in silence and that was pretty good too.

I also met many strangers that day: Jaime, a beautiful girl who said that you could tell everyone and who they are by the shoes they wore, James, her boyfriend who spent most of the time barefoot, Freddy who talked incessantly about a piece of cheesecake he had in Little Italy that tasted like a slice of heaven (whatever that means), and Jody who loved tic tac toe, could play it for hours, but never saw the movie WarGames. There were many scalpers in line and they wore their purpose as blatant as the tattoos on their arms. There were tourists, punk kids and locals complaining about the tourists and punk kids. Most of all, in a line of people that had to wait all night, there were whiners.

And the whining only continued as a police officer showed up around 11 o'clock to tell everyone that we had to leave the park, staying in a single file line, and sleep outside, on the rough and uneven cobblestone sidewalk. Sleeping in the park was not permitted and we slouched our shoulders and trudged one by one to our hard bed of stone outside the park.

At 6 o'clock, another police officer arrived and told everyone that the park could now be entered and we made our way back to our previous spots, our eyes squinting against the sun but cautiously spying anyone who might think to jump the line. Towards the end of the line people rustled and the commotion spread quickly that a man, a big black man, was found dead in the bushes. Many people in line, overcome by boredom, decided to go check out the dead man. I was overcome with morality at the time and, wanting to look someone morally superior at the time in front of Alicia, I refused to see the dead man. She stayed put as well and we watched the coroner and the police arrive. We joked about how this is the perfect New York experience and dazed away in the sun until they finally gave out tickets.

Since the show played at 8 o'clock that night, Alicia was exhausted and ended up falling asleep for most of the second act. Overall the show was incredible, exactly what we thought (Meryl Streep did a cartwheel!) and, though Alicia fell asleep through a lot of it, she said that she was happy to experience the event of it all. On our way out, men in grey suits we shouting near the exit. They asked if anyone had been waiting in line the night before. I approached one man and said that I was there and he pulled a photograph up to me and asked if I had seen that man. The photograph was the picture of the dead man, blood still covering him, his dark shirt soaked. I shot my head back and said no and walked away. Alicia asked what he looked like and I said that I don't know he looked like a dead guy you'd see on Law and Order or something. And then she said that it's weird how we relate those things to tv shows when the dead guy is real and Law and Order is fake and I agreed with her and he walked out of the park and then home.

Thor from Reykjavik, Iceland

I don't know this man's name but let's call him Thor. We're calling him Thor because of his medium length blond hair, his shot put build and the fact that he could kill me. This attribute is very important to the story.

I was introduced to this God of Thunder by yet another man whose name I do not remember. Let's call him Ben Vereen. We are not calling him Ben Vereen because he is black, we are not so obtuse and, understandably, there are no black people to my knowledge native to Iceland. Instead we are calling him by that name because he has a smile very much like the famed actor and dancer. Anyways, Ben Vereen and I were drinking a Viking beer at Kaffibarinn Pub and discussing how Kaffibarinn is part owned by Damon Albarn from Blur. Soon into the conversation Thor arrived. Laughingly, he hugged Ben Vereen and shook my hand. Ben Vereen told him that I was American and from San Francisco. The Norse God stared at me for awhile and said something to me which I had to suppose was Icelandic. I told him that I didn't speak Icelandic. He kept talking. Ben Vereen looked at me and said that he doesn't believe I'm from America. That he thinks that my blond hair and blue eyes give me away and that I'm Icelandic posing as a tourist, trying to gain sympathy with people. There are many problems with this assertion but let's focus on three.

1. The idea that I'm trying, or that anyone for that matter, is trying to act like tourist amazes me. I thought tourists, with their confused looks, their moronic photograph taking and overall high maintenance were hated. Moreover I thought American (American!!!) tourists were universally hated, hated more than lice and bad drivers and convenience fees to concerts.

2. I plainly do not speak Icelandic and will never so this man, who is probably saying something mean about one of my family members, will get nowhere with me.

3. I'm easily not that good of a liar.

Yet Thor is mighty and demands attention for his eyes narrow and his backpack may have a giant hammer from which he will kill me. I don't want to die in a bar that is partly owned by a member of Blur. I ask him what I could do to prove that I'm American. He says something in Icelandic and again I smile. Ben Vereen looks confused and nervous. Thor sizes me up and says that he visited Maryland a more than a few years ago. I said that I knew Maryland and that I have in fact been to Maryland which is a plain lie. He then abruptly asks what is the capital of Maryland. I reply Baltimore and he shoots back Annapolis. I have been bested in the state capital quiz by an Icelander. I tell him that nobody knows the state capital in Maryland, which is another lie, of course people know the state capital of Maryland. To assure him I say that I'm a big baseball fan and I could tell him the roster of the Baltimore Orioles from a couple years back. I mention Brady Anderson, Roborto Alomar, Cal Ripken Jr. Thor jumps up, "Cal Ripken Jr. you are American!" He smiles walks around the table and bear hugs me. He buys me a beer and the rest of the night whenever I see him, he puts his arm around me and says "this is Matt, he's an American" and kisses my cheek hard and screams "Cal Ripken!"