Suddenness Happens

Nineteen Days in China

Russell Banks
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Suddenness Happens
Nineteen Days in China

By Russell Banks

Dedicated to my wife, Tommie, who makes good things happen.

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Copyright 2010 by Russell Banks. All rights reserved.
Portland, Oregon

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“Please don’t cross any railings
lest suddenness happens!”
Warning sign at the Beijing Zoo

In November 2007 my wife, Tommie, and I went on a packaged

tour that started with a few days in Kyoto, Japan and continued for
nearly three weeks in a variety of Chinese cities, including Beijing,
Shanghai, Hong Kong and my favorite, Hangzhou.

Traveling with a guided group offered a stimulating, ever-changing

environment for making photographs, but the constant movement
oen gave me just seconds to react. It was very different from my
past years using a view camera and tripod, with a dark cloth over
my head. And although there were oen a few hours to wander off
on our own, the group’s schedule even shaped the time and place of
that wandering. Although I struggled with those boundaries, I
came to realize that by simplifying my choices they could nudge me
toward a more mindful state as I worked.

From the time we set out in the morning until we fell into bed at
night, I tried to stay open to the possibilities each moment offered,
to be ready when “suddenness” happened.

And sometimes I crossed the railings.


Journal, page 5
Photographs, page 17

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Journal

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 Arriving in Beijing on a dark and drizzly aernoon aer
three days in Kyoto, Tommie craved more familiar food,
so we walked to a Pizza Hut near our hotel. It was very
popular with the Chinese, and more nicely decorated than
those at home. e young waitress poured the canned
beer into our glasses more slowly and carefully than I had
ever seen.

We finished our lunch and had returned a half-block to-

ward our hotel when our breathless waitress caught us to
return our 10-yuan tip—about $1.30.

I was walking freely in the heart of “Red China,” among

curious people that had us hiding under our desks as
schoolchildren.

November 14, 2007, Beijing

China was starting to open up when Zhou Enlai invited

Nixon to visit in 1972, but the process was slow. In 1989,
thousands of impatient students occupied Tiananmen
Square for two months, and began a dialog with govern-
ment leaders that was broadcast nationwide by radio.
e leaders “lost face” when the students asked hard ques-
tions, so they decided to end the broadcasts and clear the
square. Our guide, then a teacher at the university, was
later blacklisted because his students were involved in the
ensuing tragedy.

We ate dinner at the seven-story Quanjude Peeking Duck

Restaurant, where Nixon dined. e ducks are force-fed
for 20 days, slaughtered and hung to roast in a process
that dates from the Ming Dynasty.

November 15, 2007, Beijing

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is was our day to visit the legendary Great Wall. e toll
gates on the way had signs advertising a local country club
with the slogan, “Flawless life beyond comparison.”
at sounded good to me.

e Chinese actually call it the “Long Wall,” and this por-

tion where its great arc swings closest to the capitol has
been heavily restored.

I thought the weather was the worst possible for making

photographs: sunny, with a yellow haze that turned the sky
a weak, washed-out blue. At least, it was bad for making
the photographs I had envisioned. I tried to see new im-
ages, but I could have been more open to the possibilities.
Who knows what I missed while looking for the photos I
was expecting to make?

November 16, 2007, Beijing

In the Xuan Wu district, near Tiananmin Square, we rode

in trishaws through a neighborhood of streets too narrow
for cars, called a hutong. I felt self-conscious being pedaled
along by a puffing, middle-aged man, but our indulgence
was his opportunity. What do these people think of us?

We stopped for a home-cooked lunch and entered a house

into small room with a refrigerator and an aquarium. Our
group split up to eat in what must have been two bedrooms.
The people on one side of the table sat on chairs; the others
sat on the side of the bed’s mattress. We ate sauteed peanuts,
stuffed won tons, five-spice meatballs, chicken with red and
green peppers, a dish of cauliflower and tomatoes, and sub-
lime stir-fried garlic sprouts with beef. We drank beer from
disposable plastic cups. Our hostess showed how she stuffed
the won tons. As we left we saw the large, blackened wok
where she had deftly cooked one dish at a time in a tiny nook
by the front door.
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November 17, 2007, Beijing
 Xi An is known for its terra cotta army and the massive
wall encircling the old city. Our hotel was just outside that
wall, and more weary than the modern Presidential, where
we had stayed in Beijing. Tommie and I walked through a
large tunnel in the wall where we found a street with clubs
and bars. It was late afternoon and quiet in the bar we
chose, so the smoke was not discouraging. The menu was
in Chinese, with English after each item in parentheses.
We ordered the Tsing Tao beer, which we could pronounce,
and “fried peanuts,” to which we carefully pointed. A few
minutes later, the waitress brought a large bowl of sugared
popcorn. We often found the translations to be approxima-
tions.

At a local grocery, I bought a bag of “Lv Ye JingPin,” a tasty

mix of crackers, nuts and peas. e package encouraged in
English, “Cool fashion need cool taste. You are the man.”

November 18, 2007, Xi An

With an early start, we went to the Wild Geese Pagoda

Park, where many people were doing group exercises. We
saw people practicing tai chi, people moving gracefully
while balancing weighted balls in a cloth racquet, people
playing traditional instruments and people stepping and
swaying with swords. An old man was hitting a tennis ball
connected to a rusty hammer head by a long rubber band.
He smiled and beckoned me over to try it. I think I swung
too hard, without nuance, and felt very Western.

at evening from our hotel window, we saw these kind

and disciplined people gathering in nearby parks and
squares, dancing in serpentine lines to raucous music. We
thought it was a holiday celebration, but our guide said it
was just their evening exercises. I don’t recall seeing any
obese Chinese, regardless of age.

November 19, 2007, Xi An

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Aer 30 minutes on board the plane to Hangzhou, we
disembarked and were told the airspace there was re-
stricted due to “military maneuvers.” Box lunches were
brought out, and we waited in the departure terminal for
three hours. en we re-boarded, and sat on the plane for
another hour. Some of the Chinese passengers were get-
ting upset. ey wanted off because they’d already missed
their meeting in Hangzhou. en, when finally given a
chance to get off, they refused, asking that the airline first
give them a refund.

e captain reasoned that the airline wasn’t at fault, due to

the military action, but some people just behind our seats,
angrily demanded he apologize. One leapt up and grabbed
something from the overhead bin, and I prepared to dive
under the seats. It was just some papers.

Finally, the cabin door opened and two men in suits with
walkie-talkies came on board. Aer more discussion, a
few passengers le and the others seemed pleased.

We were intrigued by the patience of the authorities. Back

home in the U.S., we thought, these people would have
been dragged off in a few minutes. Here, I expected a fir-
ing squad on the tarmac. Our guide explained that the
Chinese try very hard to avoid violent confrontation. Call-
ing the police was a last resort.

November 20, 2007, Xi An

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 At breakfast, a 100-year egg. e white was firm and clear,
like brown glass, and the yolk was dark yellow-green. e
flavor was unremarkable. But it was the best day of all,
including a rare bus window that I could open for photos.
We rode to the lush Lingyin Buddhist Temple, where we
watched people lighting huge bundles of incense, holding
them as they bowed in each direction.

At dinner, Tommie and I were the only Westerners at the

teeming food court of the “In Time” department store.
e woman behind the counter pointed at the chilies on
the model of the item I chose, as a warning. I gestured at
my tongue and gave the okay sign. e cook laughed and
returned to his work. My reward was a bowl of rice noo-
dles and a large, steel bowl of steaming broth, cabbage,
chilies, dark tofu and chicken. With a Tsing Tao beer, I
glimpsed heaven for about $5.20 U.S.

November 21, 2007, Hangzhou

In a presentation on traditional Chinese medicine, we

learned that if you lay three fingers across the three major
arteries in a person’s wrist, you have nine points where
you can feel each pulse of their heartbeat. e intensity
and relative timing of the nine tiny throbs paints a picture
of what’s going on in the body.

Aer taking the express train from Hangzhou to Shang-

hai, we checked into the upscale Shanghai Regent. at
night, we ascended the Jin Mao Tower, the tallest building
in China at 88 stories and soon to be eclipsed by a neigh-
bor nearing completion. Striking, high-rise architecture
dappled sprawling Shanghai in tight clusters, spectacularly
lit at night. ere are Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai,
prosperous and cosmopolitan, and then the rest of China.

November 22, 2007, Shanghai

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Our walk-in shower at the Regent was a dreamlike cave,
with dark, rocky tiles and water that fell from the middle
of the ceiling in a warm, tropical rain. e aroma from the
lemon grass shampoo completed the illusion.

We visited the Yu Garden, but there were not many photos

to be made in the harsh sunlight. Around the bus a troupe
of beggars swarmed, thrusting plastic cups at us. As we
pulled away, they gathered to split their loot like children
on Halloween.

en the tour stopped at the obligatory “rug factory,”

much like one we visited in Egypt: a small, quiet produc-
tion area, with a large sales floor and hundreds of over-
priced silk rugs. ere was no way all these rugs, if any,
were made there, and I imagined vast factories with thou-
sands of workers in more dusty, desperate provinces.

November 23, 2007, Shanghai

Today we learned that 75 percent of silkworm cocoons are

made by one worm working alone, and are a single strand
about one kilometer long. Workers connect one end of
this thread to a spool that is turned, floating the cocoon in
a pan of water where it freely spins as it is unwound.

e other 25 percent of cocoons are made by a pair of

worms and are thus too tangled to pull out as a single
thread. eir silk is used to make batting for comforters.

At dusk I walked with Tommie through quieting neigh-

borhoods until only the storefronts, street lamps and pass-
ing headlights lit our way. Many of our fellow travelers
were too fearful to venture out alone in dark, strange cities,
but we never felt uncomfortable anywhere we wandered in
China.

November 24, 2007, Shanghai

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 Sacrifices are made so that children, outside their regular
school hours, can attend enrichment schools, or “children’s
palaces,” like the one we visited in Shanghai. Government,
donations and parents share the cost, and classes include
musical instruments, calligraphy, dance, painting and clas-
sical Chinese opera. We saw parents bringing their chil-
dren, mostly on the back of bicycles. Education is prized
in China, and exams decide who goes to a university and
who goes to vocational school.

Before heading west for the Yangtze River, we rode the

world’s only mag-lev train that is open to the public. It
went to the international airport with a top speed of 267
miles per hour, and was very quiet and smooth. It was
made in Germany, and heavily subsidized by the local
Shanghai government as an image booster.

November 25, 2007, Shanghai

At 21,000 feet, the Dangqu river is born of a Tibetan gla-

cier and becomes the first delicate thread of the Yangtze.
By Yichang, where we started our westward cruise, it has
lost 94 percent of that elevation. More than 700 tributaries
join it by the time it pours into the East China Sea.

is morning I awoke to catch the early light as we en-

tered the first gorge, and attempted a few photos in the
cold, windy dimness.

In stronger light, we passed through the main locks of the

ree Gorges Dam, where I made good images of the in-
frastructure and of the cargo ships accompanying us dur-
ing the four-hour ascent. Beyond the locks, we docked to
visit the big dam at Sandouping.

November 26, 2007, Yangtze River

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While we were docked at Fengdu, our guide offered a trip
to a local village. is was not an affluent place. Quiet,
colorless people ate their noodles in front of unlit shops in
the cool morning streets. We visited a family that had been
displaced from land submerged by the dam and relocated
into drab, concrete apartments like we’d seen all along the
Yangtze. eir business was processing wheat to make
dried noodles and running rice through a hand-powered
husking machine in the garage.

ere were only four bushels of processed rice and an-

other four waiting. How could you make a living on that
tiny volume? I thought this family’s real business might be
exhibiting village culture to tourists.

Finally, we went to the town’s market, with storefronts

edging the street, crowded with people selling produce,
cooked items, and live, dead, and half-dead poultry.

November 28, 2007, Fengdu

I enjoy traveling, except for the onslaught of selling you

often face as part of an organized tour: the stops at rug, silk
and pearl “factories,” the swarm of people hawking the
most ridiculous trinkets when we got on and off the bus,
the desperately aggressive luggage porters as we transferred
from the cruise ship to the bus this morning, and even to-
day’s visit to a little museum commemorating the Flying
Tigers of World War II. Most of the museum was actually a
painting gallery. Nice artwork, but overpriced, and staffed
with far too many salespeople always scanning you for
some sign of interest. If we paused to look for more than a
few seconds, they pounced, so it was difficult to enjoy
those paintings.

It’s sad, but in Egypt and Jordan, and oen in China, it felt
like all people saw was a bag of money when I passed by.

November 29, 2007, Chongqing

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 Again, we woke early to enter the Wu Gorge, second of the
ree Gorges and site of the famous Goddess Peak. In
Wushan, we docked to get onto a smaller boat for a trip up
the Lesser Gorges, then moved to the smallest boat for the
Lesser-Lesser Gorges—a narrow portion just wide enough
for the boatman to turn around. He wore a traditional
costume and sang with conviction, but his bright orange
life vest limited the effect.

Even in these remote stretches, there were farms and vil-

lages, and occasional people walking along steep, narrow
pathways. It seemed every arable slope and ravine had
been planted, perhaps for a thousand years. e solitude
we can still find in the western U.S. is truly a foreign con-
cept here. ere are so many people.

November 27, 2007, Yangtze River

We went to the Li River to view the beautiful scenes ro-

manticized in Chinese paintings, with pointed mountains
brooding in the clouds and mist. A sunny day in dry sea-
son is somewhat different.

There was barely enough water to navigate, but that didn’t

stop the operators from launching the full complement of
double- and triple-decked tour boats, often queued up bow
to stern, in a concentrated haze of pungent exhaust. At two
points, most of the passengers had to go ashore and walk
through several hundred yards of dry, stony river bottom
so the boats could pass a little further up river.

e best travel experiences are usually not part of the

“greatest hits” itinerary. ey’re the quieter moments in
more common places, unexpected and real.

November 30, 2007, Guilin

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On our way to the Guilin airport, we stopped at the Reed
Flute Cave, a 240-meter pathway of stalactites and colored
fluorescent lights. You could hire men at the mouth to carry
you through the cool darkness on a decorated sedan chair.

A little aer 9 p.m., we arrived at our hotel in Kowloon,

across from the island of Hong Kong. Although the flight
from Guilin was only an hour in the air, the total time
riding in buses and waiting in airports was seven hours.

Tired and hungry, we found a quiet ai restaurant with

outdoor seating near our hotel. It was a welcome counter-
point to the Chinese cooking we’d enjoyed for two weeks.

We shared green curry ox brisket and a plate of lemon

chicken, with pints of cold San Miguel and a fabulous view
of the dazzling Hong Kong skyline in the night.

December 1, 2007, Hong Kong

We rode the funicular to the gleaming observation deck

on Victoria Peak. Hong Kong sprawled its density below
us, and was as supercharged on this clear morning as it
had been the night before.

At Repulse Bay, Tommie squealed in the frigid water as

she put her feet for the first time into this side of the Pa-
cific. en we took a brief, obligatory ride in a motorized
junk through lines of tied-up, empty boats in Aberdeen
Harbor.

And with time on our own in this last full day in China,
we wandered through Kowloon Park, lush and busy with
families on a warm Sunday aernoon, and ate cool, sweet
ice cream from the McDonald’s stand.

December 2, 2007, Hong Kong

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Photographs

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 Forbidden City, Beijing

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Forbidden City, Beijing

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On top of the city wall, Xi An

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Water calligraphy, Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou

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 Salesman, Hangzhou

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Hangzhou

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 Selling yams, Beijing

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Hangzhou

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 Carrying produce to the market in Fengdou, early morning

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Selling oranges near the docks, Li River

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 Fengdou market

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Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai

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Hangzhou

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Gateway Tower, Kowloon

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 Walkway, Repulse Bay Beach, Hong Kong

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Beijing Zoo

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 Locks, ree Gorges Dam

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Cargo ship in the locks

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Morning exercises at the Wild Geese Pagoda Park, Xi An

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View from our room, Shanghai Regent Hotel

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Drying towels, Zhou Zhuang water village

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Zhou Zhuang water village

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Hangzhou

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Rug factory, Shanghai

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 Early morning, Shanghai

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Bus passenger, Shanghai

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 Xuan Wu district, Beijing

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Hangzhou

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Inside the city walls, Xi An

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Summer Palace, Beijing

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 Xi An

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City wall, Xi An

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 Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou

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Incense, Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou

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 Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou

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e Yangtze

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 Garden, Shanghai

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Ginkgo tree, Ming Tombs

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Lesser Gorges, near Wushan

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First light on the Yangtze

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Tea plantation, near Hangzhou

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Tea and forest, near Hangzhou

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 Lesser Gorges, near Wushan

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Yangtze cliffs

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Yangtze cargo boat

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Railroad crossing, Yangtze

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 Souvenir salesman, Li River

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Passengers disembark so tour boats can pass through low water, Li River

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