"Vacation--had to get away..." Part II: Taian

We left Qufu bright and early Wednesday morning. There are buses that go to Taian nearly every hour, as it is a short trip, so we were lucky in that it wasn't as crowded as it could have been. We somehow managed to get all of our stuff on the bus--we had acquired quite a bit in Qufu--and we crammed ourselves into two seats in the back. Though the trip was short, I was pretty hungover, and the entire bus ride made me question whether or not I would need the little (double) baggies I had brought with me in case I was going to ralph. Turns out I didn't. Good. I preserved my dignity (?) a little bit, if only for an hour in front of complete strangers. And Rory.

As we got closer to town, we saw a bunch of different mountain peaks, and we took turns debating which of these peaks was Mount Taishan, the most holy of five holy mountains in China. As we pulled into the center of town, past all the industry and development we had already heard so much about, we saw it. Mt. Taishan is a force to be reckoned with; I suppose it's the "holiest" for a reason. We were still pumped about the prospect of climbing up the 7200 steps, but first we had to wade through every other Chinese tourist (who hadn't decided to go to Beijing) and find a hotel. We weren't necessarily in the mood for a hotel search, so we just went to the first one we found. At the front desk they showed us pictures of their luxurious rooms--the showers that have vertical streams built into the walls (that hit you from both sides!) and a jetted, jacuzzi tub--and the thought of taking a real bath sounded awesome. We were sold! We paid more money that we wanted to spend, but they weren't cheating us, and we waited for them to finish cleaning the room (it was still a little early).

During this wait, Rory decided to go to the bus station--conveniently located across the street--to check out the bus tickets to Qingdao, where we would go the following morning. I sat down on the couch, and immediately three different people brought out dixie cups of hot water for me to drink. I used the little Chinese I know to try to communicate with the front desk lady, but finally we both gave up. We had spent a good 10 minutes being equally enthusiastic about communicating, but it all ended up being a lot of laughing, smiling, nodding, overall befuddlement. It turns out, though, that "I have no idea what you're saying" is a universal look. I took out my ipod and started listening to music, when a man came over to me and just laughed and pointed. He thought the little ear buds on my ipod were really funny. I thought the fact that he was so tickled was really funny.

Turns out he was the head security guard at the hotel, and he knew some English. The first thing he said was: "this way, please," with a sweeping hand gesture, pointing to the stairs. Our room wasn't ready yet, and I don't think he actually wanted me to go anywhere; I think that was just the first thing he could think of to say. He sat down next to me on the couch, and we took turns speaking, me in Chinese and him in English. He insisted. It was cute. I had my electronic translator, and he had a REALLY old paper dictionary, maybe from the 70s, that had the most random English phrases in it. We took turns talking about family--okay, mostly just my family--and it was somehow really successful. He disappeared for a few minutes, and I gave some pop rocks to the little boy who had been spying on me from behind the front desk. He ran off, but when he came back out, he was being nudged by the security guard, who made him say "thank you very much" in English. My new friend had a little tape player and headphones in his hand. He pressed play and put the headphones on my head. It was an English tape: "...this is my friend, John." "Hello, John." It was so funny (British English), and at the same time, I was really impressed. Here was this 48-year-old man who worked in a hotel, and in his spare time he listened to these English tapes, waiting for the day some foreigners would walk in. I mean, in Taian, there are probably foreigners there all the time--it's a tourist city--but you could tell that he was really satisfied to see me smiling like a little kid as I listened to this tape, wondering how many times he listens to it on a daily basis. Rory came back, and the man helped us take all of our stuff up to our room, really happy the whole time. When we got to our room he told us to "remember safety" and demonstrated how to lock the door.

We threw our stuff down, and off we went. No sense in wasting time. We went to McKonkey, a Chinese fast food joint that's a rip off of McDonald's. They were having their grand opening, so while we were inside eating our McChickens, we watched this teenage employee get into a blow up chicken suit while little kids tried to knock him over. He was in there for maybe 5 minutes before he came back out, all sweaty and gross. Next we hopped into the first cab we could find and just pointed to the giant, freaking mountain. "Uh, Taishan?" Rory said, pointing. The driver pulled out a little laminated park map and told us to pick our entrance. Rory picked, and away we went. The cab ride was actually pretty cheap, and we were dropped off at the base of the mountain, where there was a sea of Asian folks, all clad in "hiking gear." Hiking gear really just means walking sticks that all the vendors were selling.

Vendors are the name of the game in China, and Mt. Taishan was no different. As soon as we stepped out of the taxi and onto "holy" ground, we were surrounded by Chinese folks hawking walking sticks, drinks, fruit, incense, hats, anything you can imagine. You would never see this at the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. Sure, there's a gift shop or a series of gift shops at the top of the Canyon, or in one specific area of the park, but throughout? We both assumed that there would be a point where the selling of goods would stop--we were climbing a massive freaking mountain, after all--but little tents and kiosks quickly became as much a part of the picturesque landscape as the trees, peaks and...tourists. The only thing we could see before us were stairs. Lots of stairs. And people. It was like a big city sidewalk had been transported to the side of this mountain, yet we saw (maybe) only 8 other foreigners the entire time we were hiking.

And hike we did. For three hours. The stairs became steadily steeper, yet we were consistently being passed by 80-year-old Chinese women and fathers with toddlers on their backs. I don't know how they do it, but they stay in shape for a really long time over here. Seriously. We stopped off to drink a couple of beers on the side of the mountain, sitting at a little stone table that overlooked a hillside farm; and we wondered about the people working on the mountain: do they live on the mountain? Do they make the trek up it every day just to sell stuff? What do they do during the off season? What if there's inclement weather? Where do they get all this stuff? Is this their farm that we were looking at? A little further up the mountain there was a man with a monkey that did tricks and a couple of men doing caricatures. We found (okay, Rory found) some prayer beads that we had been searching for in Qufu, and we bought them for much cheaper than any price we'd previously been quoted. Those beads were the only tangible things we bought in Taian, other than food and drink. We passed through several different "levels" of the mountain, each represented by a different temple, as well as a handful of men dressed in traditional Buddhist and/or Taoist garb. There were large chimenea-type things set up in the courtyard area of these temples, and the people who were on some sort of tourist-y, religious pilgrimmage would light incense and say prayers. It was really cool. Even though we were surrounded by people, the beauty of being an American in Asia is that we can be as much or as little a part of it all as we want to. Even though it was somewhat distracting to be surrounded by people, to be unable to take photos without other people in them, it was all still part of our distinctly (unique) Asian experience.

After those three hours of hiking, we got to a really bustling resting/"decide what you're going to do from here" point. There were bathrooms, more vendors, temple areas, restaurants, a bus area where you could take buses back down the mountain and a cable way that was 10 times more intense and frightening than the one at Liugong Island. While we were walking around looking at everything, I noticed that a Chinese dad had dropped some money out of his pocket. I reached down to grab it, and as I was grabbing it to give back to him, some Chinese woman was looking at it like it was gold-she wanted it for herself! When I picked it up, she gave me a look like: "damn, now she's that much richer than me!" I think she was even more flipped when I walked up to the dad, tapped him on the back, pointed back to where he had dropped it and handed it over. He looked at me confused, and at the same time like I was the nicest person in the world. I thought it was funny that the Chinese lady didn't want to help out this other, fellow Chinese person, but the foreign girl did the right thing and gave him back his money. I can do nice things for strangers.

I decided to use the restroom while we sort of figured out whether to hike on foot or to take the cable cars (that everyone else was opting for). While in line for the bathroom, I got to experience the frustration that is waiting with a bunch of Chinese women who think they have to pee worse than any foreigner. An old woman pushed her way up in line, in front of me and two women in front of me. No one said anything. I mean, she was really old. But then some mom came barging through the line, using her daughter as a way to force her way to the front. She had her hands on her daughter's shoulders and was pushing her through people, alongside the rest of us who were waiting and directly into the oncoming traffic of people who had finished their business and were struggling to exit the wc. It created a log jam of sorts, and the women trying to get out of the bathroom seemed pretty annoyed. I don't think the little girl really knew what was going on, but her mom sure did. The old woman--who had already committed the same crime--put her arm up, barring anyone from passing her, like she had that right after already cutting. I was standing there, taking it all in, wondering where the hell the sisterhood/bathroom camaraderie among females was, when a third woman forced her way past me. Using the very little classroom Chinese that I know, I said something like: "I am waiting." The woman behind me, obviously fed up, decided it was time for some vigilante bathroom justice, and used the fact that I (the foreigner) said something as an opportunity to start screaming at the three cutters. I looked down at my feet and pretended that I didn't quite realize she was fighting on my behalf; but whatever she said, it made these other three ladies completely silent and embarrassed. I just know there was lots of pointing at me and saying "mei guo ren" (American) on her part; and when the next stall opened up, no one moved. My new bathroom friend sort of nudged me and pointed to the open stall. As I shut the door, I made eye contact with her and just said thank you in Chinese. It was a nice moment.

But 10 minutes later, Rory and I both got to experience the same thing again, as we waited in line to board a cable car. Even though they were super intimidating, we were determined to get to the top of this mountain. Turns out we had been a little naive in thinking we could hike up and down the whole thing in one day/afternoon, so in order to get to the top, our only real option was a cable car. The line was akin to something you would see on a busy day at Six Flags, weaving in and out of poles and railings in an effort to convince everyone that they wouldn't have to wait that long. As soon as there is an inch in a line in China, someone (or someone and 4 of their friends or family members) tries to squeeze and push past you. There is no such thing as personal space. In the U.S., if you mistakenly run into someone or jam your elbow into someone's back while waiting in line for a movie on Thanksgiving, you feel bad--maybe you say sorry or make a face like "oops, I totally just whacked that person in front of me"--not so in China. It's really annoying. Finally we decided to just link arms and create a wall of American that was impassible.

We got to the cable car loading area, and it was similar to Liugong (or a ski lift) in that the cars don't stop. You and 7 other people stand on a platform and sort of hop in and hope your shoelace doesn't get caught on something. Once inside, I hadn't quite prepared myself for how fast the thing was going to go. We took off, and immediately I shouted "Oh my god." Rory told me that probably made everyone's day in the cable car, like if we went to Mexico and someone said "Hasta la vista, baby." If you hear any English over here, it's often "oh my god." Pretty funny stuff. After a few tense minutes of me clinching Rory's pants and looking straight ahead, I was able to look down and around. It was incredible. In the car our ears popped, and as we looked out the left side window and down, we could see the steps we would have had to walk on, had we decided to actually hike up the mountain. Whereas our hike to the cable cars had been chock full of people, we saw very few people continuing to hike on foot. Very few as in, like, 10.

We reached the top and it was crazy. The scenery was crazy, the amount of people was crazy--all the different trails converged at the top--and just the China-ness of it all was crazy. There were still more temples to walk to, though the hardest part was certainly over. We took pictures and lots of video footage, but somehow it doesn't do that mountain justice; like if you visit the Grand Canyon and then look at the pictures of it on postcards; the pictures never really capture how "grand" it is at all. Similarly, I guess you can't really capture how holy a holy mountain in China is. We spent a good amount of time at the top, even eating at an overpriced restaurant. But it was overpriced on top of a mountain, dammit!

We opted to take a different cable car down; the line for this system was considerably shorter, so we figured what the hell? It dropped us off in another area of the park, way out in the middle of nowhere. We hopped on a bus that we hoped would take us back to civilization, but again, no luck. We were really far away from town, and though it was beautiful, we sort of just wanted to be in the jacuzzi tub at our hotel. We walked a little way and finally found a taxi to take us back. We cleaned up a little bit and went back to McKonkey, where the same employees were still working. This time, though, there was a huge grand opening going on, and the chicken man was running around in his costume. It's weird that in the same span of time we went up and down a holy mountain, these high school and college-aged kids at McKonkey fried chicken and danced around for a bunch of little kids. I guess I've been on the other end before--I mean, I did work 8 years at a pizza place, but there ain't no Mt. Taishan in Columbia.

We got back to our room, and I started up our jacuzzi tub. It wasn't working. I figured it was one of those things where the tub can sense that a female is messing with it so it refuses to work. I made Rory fiddle with all the knobs and buttons. No dice. Even the sweet shower was broken, so all we got was some lame regular shower with no water pressure. Bummer. We fell asleep and set the alarm for 4 in the morning. The women at the bus station had told Rory that the bus to Qingdao left at 6, so we wanted to get their bright and early to buy tickets. As we fell asleep, we were glad we were only spending that one day in Taian, full of pollution and people. Holy mountain or no, the town was a tourist trap--everything was expensive--and we were eager to get to Qingdao, where our only real plan was to buy a guitar.