Mission: Disposal

by Scott Urban

Introduction: Scott Urban went to China in 1994 to work at the China Daily newspaper in Beijing, where he stayed until 1997. While in China, Scott contracted a severe form of bicycling mania, which manifested itself in his 6,000-kilometer bicycle journey to Xinjiang in 1995 with friend Brice Minnigh.

In the Fall of 1996, Scott Urban and another friend William Lindesay spent every weekend possible cycling to the Great Wall of China to find lost sections of the Wall, with nothing more than curiosity, bicycles, and a map of the greater Beijing area.

This Jiuhua story was written in April 1995 about Scott's brother Pat's visit to China, their unusal encounters with Chinese people. The story begins in the middle of that visit. Jiuhua is one of China's four sacred Buddhist mountains (the other 3 being Pu Tuo in Zhejiang, Emei in SIchuan and Wutai in Shanxi). Jiuhua is located in Anhui Province, East China. In its heyday there were more than 300 monastaries around Jiuhua Mountain.

Scott currently resides in Denver, Colorado, USA, and is involved in a number of China-related projects. He can be reached at scott.urban@dacg.com .

[Continued from last week]

The bus arrived at Qing Yang. After relieving ourselves, the three of us climbed into a motorcycle-cart and sped down the road out of town, heading for Chang’s village.

We’d given the first ones away in Qing Yang the night before, on the evening my brother, Chang and I hopped out of the motorcycle cart under a setting East China sun.

It had been a full day’s journey from Shanghai to the inner regions of Anhui Province.

Chang paid the driver and we headed down the lane leading to his village about 30 metres ahead. There stood a man watching our approach.

Chang raised a hand. "That’s my elder brother. And he’s getting older!"

We waved and kept walking. Soon Chang ducked into an open door in a small home: this was the place. Gathered inside were several people no doubt anxious to greet the returning Chang. Present were his wife, son, parents, younger sister, younger brothers and spouses and children of said siblings.

Soon the gang brought out a table and chairs. And then the food; there was plenty. We’d heard that Anhui people like things salty, and the food confirmed this. But it was delicious.

The youngest brother, perhaps 25, sat next to his parents and paid close attention to everyone’s liquor. If someone’s glass started emptying, he’d reach under the table and bring out the bottle.

"Tell your brother to eat more!" Chang often said, taking charge of making us at home, though the whole family was hospitable. I was praying younger brother would relent in the rounds of "ganbei!" ("cheers!") of the baijiu (grain alcohol). I find the stuff onerous and knew my limit was fast approaching.

They invited us to stay for a few days, to see the local sights near Qing Yang. Chang’s father spoke up. "Tomorrow we’ll go to town and buy a big fish. Tomorrow night we’ll have a feast."

The old man announced he was leaving -- going to work as night watchman at an insurance company office.

After dinner, children from the village filled the room. More and more came in to have a look at the foreigners. My brother demonstrated his severed-finger trick to their delight and handed out some children’s books. We took photos of the group.

Chang was in charge. "Faces East," he said. "Your brother is tired. He can brush his teeth. I will show him the latrine." Pat disappeared behind the house with Chang to wash up and go to sleep. I stayed in the room with the growing assortment of neighbors and friends, with whom I played cards and sang a bit. We then called it a night.

Chang took me back to the latrine. We poured out some water to wash up and brush our teeth under the starry Anhui sky.

We said goodnight and I got in bed next to my brother. "I don’t think that meal’s going over well," he said ominously. "My stomach is bloating."

Though I didn’t want to tell him, the scene and circumstance recalled an experience I had in the mountains of El Salvador in 1991, and the outcome -- intestine-wise -- had been grim.

I had reached the home of my friend Balmore in the mountains of Chalatenengo in El Salvador. My friend Isabel and I were paying an unexpected call on Balmore and his family, but they were happy to see us and brought out an assortment of corn-based food items and sweet corn gruel drinks made from immature corn.

It was one of those situations where you know not to put something in your mouth but etiquette forces you to. Those corn items sat in my stomach, where I could feel them brewing and expanding for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.

Isabel, Balmore and I retired for the night in a room off the home’s front porch. Balmore turned out the light and began talking about the "muchachos" -- the FMLN guerrillas. Chalatenengo was a contested zone, where the muchachos had the US-backed Salvadoran army on the defensive.

The corn products came calling in the middle of the night. I threw off my covers and started rooting around in the dark for my shoes.

"What’s wrong?" an awakened Balmore called out.

"Nothing. Don’t worry," I replied, trying to shake him so I could be left alone to settle nature’s score. But this was an area of sometimes intense fighting, and Balmore was not about to let me wander around outside alone. I had to content myself with discharging the unaccepted corn products under the nighttime Salvadoran sky under Balmore’s watchful eye.

Now, four years later, I feared my brother would undergo the same circumstance here under the bright stars of Anhui Province.

I called over to him. "Maybe we should switch places so you can make a run for it if necessary." He was too tired to move an inch.

I remained awake, eyes open, savoring the fresh memories of Chang’s warm family.

Unable to sleep, I rose and went outside to soak in the countryside silence and star-filled sky, things I’d gone without over the last eight months living in two of the world’s largest cities -- Beijing and Shanghai.

I returned to the room to find my brother upright in bed. His time had come, as mine had in El Salvador, and he put his shoes on.

"My flashlight is on the table," I told him.

I was gripped with fear at the thought of him balancing on the two wobbly planks suspended over the latrine, writhing in larvae shining bright white under a prying flashlight. I’d been in China for eight months at that point, and still wasn’t a skilled squatter, especially on teetering wooden planks and holding a flashlight in one hand. Foreigners are not good at this; I knew Pat was a beginner.

"At a minimum," I thought, "the flashlight will go in. At worst...."

"Be careful!" I said with a sense of crisis.

He came back unharmed. "How’d it go?" I asked.

"I didn’t go," he replied. "You scared the Jesus out of me. I decided it wasn’t worth it."

[To be continued]

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