China Part 1: China and Me
A few years back I did an AMA on Reddit about my time in China as a black man. I was spurred into action because I realized how unique my experience was at the time but I’ve always had trouble parsing out some of my thoughts. I figured if people could ask me direct questions about my experiences, that I would be more inclined to give thoughtful answers in a way that I’d had trouble with in the past. The AMA went well and people seemed genuinely impressed by my knowledge and point of view. A lot has changed since 2013 when I was went to Shanghai for study abroad; Trump is President now, China has become more aggressive on the world stage, I’ve graduated college, I’m no longer feigning heterosexuality, and my father died. China will always have a special place in my heart because it was the first time I’ve lived outside of the U.S. for an extended period of time, and it was the last place I was before my dad had his stroke. Many friends (particularly my Asian American friends) have been telling me that I look at China through rose colored glasses, and while I may think they aren’t 100% correct, my experience in China this around was a wee bit different than when I went in 2013. As apposed to my last time in China, this time I avoided major cities and stayed in much more tourist centered locations (Huangshan and Wulingyuan). It certainly wasn’t bad, but it was different.
Huangshan and Wulingyuan are home to two of China’s most famous mountains and have each spurred “thousands of poems and paintings.” Both are located in the center of the country, Huangshan being in the east, and Wulingyuan being more western. Both are lovely places that receive thousands of tourists per day. Both had no other black person besides myself, a very literal handful of white folks, but no one even remotely dark. It was an adventure.
I flew to Soeul to Nanjing to visit a friend of mine from college, plus Nanjing is the closest major city to Huangshan so it was an easy port of entrance. Nanjing is a nice city with a lovely history. It used to be the capital of China for a bit (it’s name literally means southern capital), and it’s more famously known in the West for being brutalized by Japan during WW2. I spent a few days here, and nothing uneventful happened barring me being unable to find gym shoes in my size (I eventually found a Sports Authority knockoff that had shoes in my size that were basically made of cardboard. Once my trip to Nanjing was over I then took a sleeper train to a city about a hour outside of Huangshan then a quick bus to a small town right outside of the Scenic Area called Tangkou. Tangkou was…interesting. At night the city was lit up with signs for various Henan restaurants, and during the day, you could see the stunning mounts in the distance. Obviously the villagers were used to the scenery, but it was absolutely amazing. Eventually I found a restaurant with an English menu that I ate at for the remainder my trip there, and I made a few Western friends as well (I think they were German).
You have to take a bus from the entrance of the Scenic Area to reach the base of the mountain. You have a couple of entrances you can take, and I chose the most popular option. At the actual base of the mountain is where my mediocre Chinese skills came into play. You have the option of buying both a ticket to enter the park and a ticket for the cable car OR just a ticket into the park and you can take the steps. I chose the steps because I’m an American idiot. There are 60,000 steps to get to the top of the cable car THEN another 20,000 steps to get to the highest peak. I made it up 10,000 of the 60,000 before I came back down and bought a cable car ticket up (with my student ID naturally, that park was NOT cheap and it made me respect America’s free natural parks all the more). Once at the top of the cable car it was amazing to just see the beauty of nature in front of me while attempting to ignore the throngs of people on this mountains and the dozens or so trying to look at me without me noticing. It was chilly at the top, but there was always somewhere to go. There were even hotels at the top of the mountain for those that didn’t wish to trek back down.
Feeling defeated after failing to walk up the “famous” 60,000 steps, I decided to go up the last 20,000 to get to the peak, and this time I made it to the top. Going up those steps was interesting to say the least. Unlike the steps to the top of the cable car that were virtually empty, these steps were full of people trying to make it to the top of this famous mountain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better microcosm of what I think Chinese society is. You have the old peasants that are taking their sweet time, you have the middle class people that are decked out every bit of hiking gear they could get shipped from America, you have the students in Chinese brand hiking gear that probably came from that same sporting goods store in Nanjing, you had the status seekers that were climbing the mountain in heels and designer bangs (maybe even real ones) for their social media pics, you had the curmudgeons that refused to smile no matter how beautiful things were, and you had the foreigners (myself included) that just wanted to get to the top.
Now one thing I will say about my trek to the top of this mountain is that even though the Chinese certainly have no problem staring at you, they were very kind in their actions. People offered me food, water, jokes. I guess everyone working towards a common goal while being sweaty and tired has a way of bringing people together. Naturally people asked to take photos with me, some got a yes, some got a no, depending on how my thighs were treating me, but it wasn’t anything too bad. Then again, by this point I knew people would stare at me so there’s that as well. I made it to the top, took my photos and then made the disastrous trek down the mountain. I decided to walk all the way down the 80,000 steps because I’m Patrick Charles Easley and there’s nothing I can’t do. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated more in my entire life.
The next day, my entire body was in pain. All of it. Perhaps because I hadn’t stretched properly, or because I wasn’t in the best shape prior, but I every muscle in my body was sore. Needless to say, I put my shoes back on and went back to the mountain. This time I took the cable car up and down and I only stayed up there for a few hours. People were just a curious as ever. I made it to one landing where people were sitting, and naturally they all stopped talking to each other to stare at me. One of the gentleman asked me where I was from and when I told him I was an American then entire crowd said something to the effect of, “Oh that makes sense! We didn’t think any Africans could afford to travel to China and climb mountains [to rambunctious laughter]” to which I replied in a rather condescending laugh of my own, “I know right! It’s so funny how quickly things can change. 25 years ago when I was born, China barely had airports and look at it now! Who knows what the future of Africa holds!” They didn’t think it was funny.
People in this part of China were, by in large, extremely friendly and willing to help out. They were absolutely curious about me. One lady asked me if I was truly an American, not because of my skin, but because of my hair – she thought I had a perm. Another asked me if China was safer than America? Naturally I replied that the streets are safer in China, but the American government doesn’t really care about what I do or say while the Chinese government cares a great deal about the thoughts and movements of its people. He wasn’t amused and walked away rather quickly. There was even this man that shared my sleeper train with me who proceeded to talk my head off about his life in his village. He was a good deal darker than the average Chinese person that you see in the city, and I couldn’t tell if he was darker naturally, or if there were more urban Chinese his complexion who simply bleached their skin. I had my phone out the entire conversation trying to quickly type in the pinyin of all these words he was using. He offered me this food that I can only describe as a fruit roll up made out of some foreign vegetable and grain. It was absolutely disgusting yet filling. He ate it and so did, and this has to be one of my best memories in China.
After leaving Huangshan, I bought a long $80 flight to Zhangjiajie, I arrived at the middle of the night at a very small local airport. I made the mistake of going upstairs to the upper concourse to get money from an open ATM. It seems like immediately after I made it to the top of the escalator, all the lights went off around me and I was alone in the airport. I still went to the ATM and when I finally went outside, I saw the driver that the hostel arranged getting ready to leave without me. One of his friends waved him down and he took me to my hostel. I use the word hostel lightly, because by all accounts it was a fully functioning hotel. My first day there I walked to the cable car that goes to near the top of Tianmen Mountain or Heaven’s Gate mountain. The amount of people waiting for the cable car was astronomical and I prayed that there was some special foreigner entrance, but alas I had to stand in that line with about 2000 people in front of me. The top of the mountain was nice and the views were lovely. The cable car was the best part about it to be honest. However, the next day I want to Wulingyuan or the “Avatar Mountains” after the film and it made my visit absolutely worth it.
China loves its random mini-buses, and the bus to Wulingyuan was no exception. I was told to go around the corner to the bus station and take the bus to Wulingyuan. “Easy,” I thought because surely there’d be an easy bus to take and surely it would be well labeled in Chinese at least and surely there’d be a direct route, but this wasn’t the case at all. It was very literally a random grey bus in the back of the station. I decided that I had time for an adventure if things went poorly and got on the bus. Eventually after making a few stops I got to the base of this new Scenic Area and it was absolutely amazing to behold. This mountain was a bit more organized and while there were many more tourists from all around Asia, it didn’t feel nearly as crowded as the others. There were mostly Chinese locals, some rude Koreans, and some friendly Thais. The fun thing about this day is that I met Americans and got to hang out with them for a few days afterward!
You have to understand that up until now I hadn’t seen any other American, or spoken to anyone with an Anglophone accent since I was in Japan about a month prior. I saw this young white guy and he looked me directly in the eye and I returned his gaze and something about it felt very familiar. Somehow we both knew each other was an American. I’m guessing he thought that a random black guy at this random mountain in China must’ve been an American, but I also assumed he was American by his goofy American smile that only we seem to possess, or maybe he recognized me by my goofy American smile? I don’t know but I said hello and I eventually ended up spending the next fews days with him and his family and friends in the park. It was great to be around other Americans and see this wonderful park.
The park itself was absolutely worth the trip. To the point that I was wondering how well China would receive black [American] people in 30 years or so when I planned to bring my children. It was picturesque in almost everyway, from the getting pillars, to the stoic trees, to the asshole monkeys, this park had everything that I would want in a trip. No trip to a Chinese park would be complete without someone asking to touch my hair (the answer was a necessarily rude “lady, I don’t know you,” or group of teenage girls ogling me from up-close (it literally felt like one of those anime harem tropes where I turned around and they all gasped, sighed, and smiled), but even these incidents were worth it in the long run.
After I left this area, I took a long 4 hour train ride to Chiangsha to take the high speed rail to Hong Kong. Sitting next to me was a 20-year-old college student that I’ll call, “Queen.” Queen had been studying English for a bit and was the first person to guess that I was an American right off the bat. Apparently, she’d had an African American English teacher so she wasn’t too shocked to see me. She was a lovely woman that told me about her hopes and dreams, her dislike of Trump, and how much she loved American’s eyes. She was very kind and happy to see me, but her thoughts of America were sophomorically ignorant – then again, so are most peoples’ thoughts of foreign countries. She seemed to feel trapped in her life as a young Chinese woman, but was inspired by Western women than seemingly act of their own accord. I thought this was nice and speaking to her was a good way for me to end my time in Mainland China.
By the time I got to Hong Kong, I had been in China for two weeks, but it felt like an eternity. This had been my fourth time in China, my second in 2018, and baring any major life changes, my last for a very long time. I like China, but there’s so much more to explore and I need to do that as well.
