Mt. Emei, Sichuan province - part 2 of 5 by BASIL

CHAPTER 2: “THE WORST CREATURES ON EARTH”

So, we’ve seen the beautiful sound pavilion.
And, my ears are STILL ringing.
We continue (along with a crowd of two hundred tourists) to see the monkeys. Most people do the whole hike, but this is what the people here do: They take the bus to the bus station right next to the monkeys, see the monkeys, yell at the monkeys and throw food at them, and then take the bus back down.
So I’m sort of getting the “These people are unbelievably lame” feeling.
Pretty soon, we see a sign that says a bunch of stuff about how the wild monkeys often appear here and do not tease them blah blah blah.
Shockingly, we run into Jesse and Chris. This is really surprising because we totally didn’t plan it. It was cool, but then Jesse pulled up his sleeve and showed us a vicious puncture wound. He said a monkey had bitten him because he was too close to the baby. What had happened was the baby jumped on his shoulder and then the mama monkey lunged lighting fast and clamped down on his arm. He had to get a rabies shot, but was lucky that the bus station was so close. A guy had found him and helped him get the shot. This scares me and Kayl because it throws in a whole new possibility: The monkeys could be savage.
We continue on, not seeing any monkeys. We’re basically on a path right next to a cliff face and Kayl is terrified that a monkey is up on the face of the cliff, preparing to leap onto his head. About fifteen minutes later, we see another sign, once again saying that the monkeys often appear here. No monkeys appear. Twenty minutes later, we cross a stream, and then continue. Still no monkeys. We cross a bridge that honestly looks like it’s ready to just collapse. I cautiously cross first, springing back when a rung breaks under my weight.
We ALL cross very cautiously.
After surviving the bridge, we come across a sign. Can you guess what it says?
Yeah, another sign predicting the appearance of the monkeys.
Twenty-five minutes later, we see commotion on a bridge up ahead. As we approach, we see why. People are lined up with cameras, taking photographs of themselves with a

monkey on their shoulder. 

The bridge is littered with corn, the favorite food of all monkeys. We walk by quietly. There’s a huge male monkey just sitting on the stairs. We walk by him and he follows us. It’s a little creepy, but he doesn’t seem malicious until he bares his teeth. We start to walk faster. Kayl is sort of whimpering now, and I’m freaking out. 

We see a mama and a baby clinging onto the cliff face, fighting over a corn cob. I think this is pretty cool, so me and Dad get closer to check it out. Just then, the huge male we had seen on the steps lunges at Dad, who’s taking pictures. It misjudges its leap and whacks into my leg. Then the monkey turns around and bares its teeth again at me and snarls as if to saw, “Why are you in my way?” Then the baby jumps towards Dad, Mom screams, and it dissolves into pandemonium.

Mom starts yelling for everyone to stay calm, which is sort of hypocritical since she’s totally freaking out. She starts whacking her stick on the ground, and we walk by. Then, the whole monkey family climbs onto the handrail and starts following us. Dad starts taking pictures, but me and Kayl and Mom start running. The monkeys start moving faster, and Mom is screaming at Dad for him to come and stop taking pictures. Dad eventually comes, and the monkeys give up the chase. 

Kayl starts crying, and saying how the monkeys are the worst creatures on earth. We continue shakily on. But the monkeys are not over yet. We come up to these two girls. One is comforting the other, who has two giant puncture wounds in her neck and is barely supporting herself from loss of blood. Dad runs over, and asks her what’s wrong. She chokes out, “my heart,” which is a little vague. Dad wants to help her back, but Kayl starts crying again at the memory of the monkeys and refuses to let Dad go. The people get through that there are very bad monkeys ahead, throwing Kayl into hysterics. I’m sort of getting the feeling like, “we should just camp on the trail.” Just then, two porters come along. Porters are people who carry chairs on their shoulders and carry people up and down the mountain. I’m terrified at the thought of trusting my life to somebody else, but some people probably allow themselves to be carried, otherwise the porters couldn’t stay in business. But the two porters, hollering at the monkeys, help the two girls through. With one less thing on our minds, we continue on to face another round of “the worst creatures on earth.” On our way, we pass a woman and her husband, the woman crying, clutching her bruised head, and has her stocking ripped apart and covered in blood. She points the way we’re going and says that the monkeys are very bad. Then her and her husband leave.
So, we’re all just incredibly reassured.

The monkeys just sort of watch us as we pass by, hitting our sticks, averting our eyes, and shaking with terror. We make a pathetic sight. The monkeys seem to come to the conclusion that they should let us go through, because one of them hisses at us and they retreat. Then we look up, and a monkey is just sitting right in front of us, blocking the path. We start freaking out, and just then the monkeys change their mind again, and sort of come up behind us, trapping us. Just then, a porter comes down the trail and yells something. The monkeys seem to think that we are declaring war on them, because the lead monkey, the one sitting on the path, opens his mouth and makes this freakish sound.
Then, he starts kind of shuffling towards us. He stands in front of us, terrifying us, and then walks by. He halfheartedly attempts to grab my staff, but it’s a weak try. We start kind of speed walking, then it turns into a run. Soon we reach a bridge. I kind of have

this weird sense of security, like “once we cross this bridge, they can’t follow us.”

We cross the bridge, and then we break down and start shaking with relief. “We have to go down on the bus,” Kayl gets out. “We are,” Mom assures him. We shakily continue on, still sort of freaked out. After a couple stairs (meaning a hundred thousand, literally), we arrive at a place called the Hard Wok Cafe. The menu looks really good, but we really just want to reach our goal. After a short climb of two hundred steps, we reach the Venerable Trees Terrace Monastery. 

We get a room for only two hundred yuan ($35) and go put our stuff away in the room. 






Then we decide to walk the short distance back to the Hard Wok Cafe and eat.

After, we walk back up to the monastery to get some sleep. It’s freezing, and Dad has to go ask an Ayi for extra blankets. When she comes in with the blankets, she starts tugging Kayl’s socks off and yelling something in Chinese. Mom starts saying how she’s right, Kayl would be warmer without socks. When the Ayi starts heading in my direction (no doubt after my socks), I spring out of bed and race out the door, mumbling some lame excuse about “having to use the bathroom.” It starts raining really hard when I’m in the bathroom, and the distance from the bathroom to the inside of the monastery is outside. And, I’m wearing socks, not shoes. I basically edge my way along this ledge with a tiny overhang that keeps me dry-ish. When I reach the room, I fall right asleep. I’m just so tired. In the middle of the night, there’s this HUGE clap of thunder that wakes everybody up. Mom checks her watch and says that it’s 3:00 in the morning and we don’t need to wake up until 7:00, so we can get a good night’s sleep. Oh, how wrong she is.
We all drift back to sleep.

our room at Venerable Trees Terrace Monastery (hong chin ping)...

Mt. Emei, Sichuan province - part 1 of 5 by BASIL

about a month ago, at the beginning of october, we flew to chengdu in sichuan province (middle of china) to check out a city with so much history it doesn't even know itself all that well.  the highlight of chengdu for us was meeting a friendly, spirit guide who used to live in emeishan (2 hours from chengdu by bus).  this is nicholas who is a healer, numerologist, story teller, tai chi student, and taoist.  it's difficult to summarize our conversations with / impressions of nicholas other than to say that my family was immediately comforted by his presence and smitten by his charm.  i couldn't imagine our trip to chengdu reaching the same depth had we not crossed paths.

so our story starts as nicholas travels with us by taxi to the bus station to make sure we get on the right bus to emeishan where we are planning to climb 3000 meter high mount emei.  we fly in and out of chengdu, but the adventures in this post occur on mount emei.

lastly, before we begin, rather than retell this story from my point of view, my son basil has already recorded an account so i've decided to share his rendition.  it's a bit lengthy so i'm dividing it into 5 posts.

ENJOY!

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PREFACE
I’m writing about my vacation to Chengdu. I climbed up Mount Emei (pronounced like oo-may), and saw some things too amazing to describe.
But I’m going to try.

INTRO: LEAVING CHENGDU
So basically what I’ve done is skipped the boring part where we stayed in hotels in Chengdu. Later I may return to my experiences in Chengdu, but for now I’m skipping straight to out arrival.
On the bus, we meet these two nice college kids named Jesse and Chris. They’re American and are traveling China for a year because they study Chinese and want some real experience. Dad and Mom start chattering, and I lose interest.

When we arrive in Emei, this is what I see: basically a dump. There’s trash thrown on the sidewalk, people begging on the street, doors destroyed and stores closed down. Crates are upturned everywhere, and I’m instantly getting the vibe, “this is gonna suck.” I kind of try to stay upbeat, but I’m already sort of wishing we had stayed in Chengdu. We’re pretty much starving from the long bus ride, so we go to get dinner with Jesse and Chris. This part of our experience is so awful I don’t want to describe it in detail, instead I’ll use a few words: Emei is definitely not known for its food. We go to our hostel, all feeling like Emei is lame. We just crash, and the next day Dad is shaking me out of bed. “Come on, we already missed our goal!” Dad had planned to wake us up at 7:10, and it was 8:30. I kind of roll over and almost fall out of bed. I had slept in a top bunk with no railing. My eyes flash open and I sit up quick.
And whack my head on the low ceiling. Yeah, our big hiking day is off to a great start.

CHAPTER 1: THE BEAUTIFUL DETOUR PAVILION
Jesse and Chris left way earlier to get an early start on the mountain, so we walk alone to the base of the mountain. Chinese people start laughing at us like, “Haha, the Americans are trying to climb the holy mountain. Haha. Suckers.” I’m just going to tell you now that we passed all of them by day 2 and were some the only people at that base that reached the top.
Haha. Suckers.
So, feeling kind of annoyed, exhausted, and bored, we walk to the trail head. Mom and Dad start taking tons of pictures of a big stone wall.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. You guys couldn’t look more like tourists if you tried.
Wait, yes you could.
I turn around to see my Dad talking to a bunch of Chinese people. Well, not talking exactly. He’s trying to say something in Chinese and utterly failing. I think he’s just putting Chinese words he knows together in a random order. The Chinese people look confused. What a surprise. I guess I should be thankful that he’s not saying “Chugga chugga chugga chugga choo choo si nar?” He did that once. I’m serious. In a taxi. Trying to ask where the train station was. Now he’s pointing at me and saying “Wo ta erzu.” In Chinese, that means ‘my son’. Oh, no no no no no. That creep is not my father. I shake my head vigorously. Kayl’s yelling at Dad now, telling him that we have to go. I just kind of walk over into an open space and started breakdancing. A crowd of twenty people has gathered in two minutes. God, are these people desperate for entertainment. They’re cheering now. I feel kind of awkward. Even the people Dad was humiliating himself in front of are coming over. Now the crowd is yelling something random in Chinese over and over. O...k. Right. This is so weird. I sort of awkwardly get up and walk over to the trail head. We start hiking. About three minutes in, a crowd of twenty-year-old girls gathers and starts asking to take their picture with Dad. Sure, of course! Dad is always happy to oblige a group of random strangers.

After we pass the giggling girls, we basically get into a routine of just walking and walking. We take occasional breaks, and Dad talks to Chinese people. At one point we stop to get lunch and almost go the completely wrong way. a bunch of Chinese people luckily spot us and point us in the right direction. Of course, Dad has to practice his Chinese.
A little later, we notice something kind of strange. We’ve been walking up the whole way, but now we start walking down. See, the way that this mountain works is you go up one peak, down the other side, and the so on and so forth. But as we’re walking down, it strikes me how slippery it is and I turn to see how far we’ve come already, and my foot sweeps out from under me. I go crashing to the ground and fall off the path. Mom screams, and I see how bad it is. There’s a ledge, but thorn bushes below me. My foot slips into a thorn bush and I spin to see my situation. I’m falling.
I’m falling and if I don’t do something quick I’m going to keep falling. These are the only thoughts going through my head, but they’re enough. I shoot my hand up and reflexively catch onto the ledge, my foot buried in the thorn bush. Two Chinese guys reach down and pull me up, but I’m too shocked to even thank them. Dad says something, and I snap back to reality. Dad looks half mad and half scared. I don’t even notice my physical condition, but Mom does. She starts getting out the first aid kit, and I look over my body. I’m so shocked I can’t even feel any pain. but then I see. There’s a gash in my ankle and my hand is sliced open. Mom’s as white-faced as me. We have almost nothing to fix it with. Then the pain hits me. I wince and roll over as my hand starts aching. I bury it in my shirt, but all that’s doing is making my white shirt stained red. Blood is gushing out of my hand and I’m starting to get scared. Mom gets out a wipe, and I bite my lip to keep from screaming. It stings, but then Mom takes out tweezers and says that she has to get the dirt out. I’m terrified at the thought, and I protest. “No, Mom, please, no...” Kayl is screaming for her to stop, but I realize it has to be cleaned. I wipe my eyes and clench my other hand into a fist to hold in my pain. The tweezers penetrate the wound and the pain is almost too much. I see stars, but then it’s over. Kayl is so scared he’s almost crying, and I just hold out my hand so Mom can wrap it. Once it’s wrapped, I get up. I kind of wince as I grasp my walking stick, and I realize how close to death or a bad injury I came. I go from feeling like my luck is nonexistent to the luckiest person on earth. After we walk in silence for a while, we approach a monastery. A monk is in a field farming. He hails us and calls me over. I think this is kind of weird, but go over. He grabs my staff and slams it into the ground, and I think he’s going to break it. But instead he knocks it on the ground a few times and says “Ho zu.” Dad takes out his phone and learns that it means ‘monkey’. I guess he’s saying whacking our stick on the ground will scare off the monkeys. We thank the monk and continue. Somewhere along the way, Dad has this idea that we should totally detour off the trail to see the Beautiful Sound Pavilion. Me and Kayl argue with Dad for a while until he agrees that it’s silly to totally detour. I think we only win because Mom’s on our side.

We keep walking, and then I hear a loud roaring noise and suddenly can’t hear my own thoughts. I’m like, “where the heck are we?” It sounds like a construction site. Dad speaks up. Or yells up. Because of the noise. Whatever. “What a surprise!” Is his beginning line. “It’s the Beautiful Sound Pavilion! We totally just stumbled off course!” Of course we did, Dad. You have no clue how to lose an argument.
After Dad’s incredibly convincing excuses, we continue on. No point in wasting an hour without seeing the pavilion. As we approach, we can hear, among the roaring (which I now see is a waterfall, a crowd of about a hundred and fifty people yelling and taking pictures and running around.
Yeah, real beautiful.

just like van gogh in arles!

...not exactly - in fact i'm pretty sure van gogh didn't have a wife and kids living with him when he did some of his most amazing work.  i picture van gogh as a poor, struggling, bi-polar, misunderstood artist who lived a wild night life with single guy friends and repaired to the morning, outdoor air for his daily dose of painting therapy.  i think i've just inspired myself to read more about his life - realizing i know so little about him - how easily i've distilled these snippets of one man's life into an iconic character through which i might assume a vicarious existence.  lord knows i'm not living that life at present.

i have transportation - my bicycle.  i have my paints, canvases, brushes, easels, and i've even located an art supplies store that has all i need to replenish my inventory (at very reasonable prices too i might add).

finding the art supplies store was no small feat however.  i set out on the metro (subway) and thirty minutes later popped up in the middle of old town suzhou.  using the google translate app on my phone i was able to plead sweetly enough with a jewelry shop owner's daughter to take pity on me.  she listened patiently until something i said in mandarin made sense.  after that, she knew what to do and how to look up where the store was located.  she even wrote down the address in chinese characters so i could hand it to a taxi driver.  in my case, it was easier to hail a scooter and hop on behind the driver.   this had multiple unforeseen benefits: 1) scooters can fit in narrow alleyways which makes for a "video game" type of fun, 2) by scooting through the alleyways, i realized how safe these travel corridors were, and 3) carly told me that i'm not single and as carefree anymore (i'm paraphrasing for sure) as in the old days when i could jump on the back of a scooter in thailand to get from one town to the next.  it felt good to realize that i can have a family and enjoy the domestic pleasures that go with it AND also honor my independence and spirit of adventure.  along these lines, while i'm not putting on a flying squirrel suit any time soon and souring through the french alps, i'm not completely divided from the concept of risk.  being comfortable with an existence that is not 100% guaranteed is to accept the frailty of life - a practice i thoroughly endorse.

several days later i introduce carly and the kids to the narrow alleys...

as i headed out the door one beautiful august morning, little did i know that in addition to painting my first canvas on the street, i would also have the opportunity to try chicken feet.  i know what you're thinking: who doesn't love gnawing on a marinated chicken foot in the company of friends?  apparently not me, though not without trying them i assure you.

i order three feet and notice my appetite for the remaining two waning as i nibble the last toe on the first.

the following scene for my first painting was chosen since it included the chicken feet restaurant (they also had tofu and beer) and was across the canal from the heavy foot traffic of tourist lane / district pingjiang lu.  this helped keep the amount of onlookers to a minimum, though still failed to deter dozens of the more curious who would cross the bridge, pass the tables and steaming pots of chicken feet, and settle behind me to watch each and every brush stroke.  at times this was a distraction, if only inside my head.  other times, tourists (all chinese by the way) would seek interaction and tell me they liked my painting or wanted to take my picture with my painting or with them.  i learned however that my job as a street painter was to be mildly irritated with these tourists and not smile.  my image to them was enhanced if i took my job seriously and in this case it's all about the painting.  that said, i didn't do my job very well and very much enjoyed stopping to talk with people of all ages.

i liked the red lanterns on the building to the left immensely and was rather looking forward to putting them in the painting but didn't know when that moment would come.  and then what do ya know, a little boy comes up to look at the painting and he just stands there patient and eager to glimpse the entire scene - a mini celebration of beauty, reflection, a work in progress, and an excuse to gather and point.  he was cute and his energy youthful and vibrant - four strokes of the brush with unmixed cadmium red et voila!

there were two other memorable encounters that day.  at one point, it rained for about fifteen minutes.  i bought a large technicolor umbrella for this possibility and while waiting for the storm to pass, was approached by two college girls who offered to hold the umbrella while i paint.  i accepted and felt quite honored.  and then on separate occasion, after i finished my painting which i celebrated with a cold beer on a rather warm day, a man contemplated the painting while smoking his cigarette.  he told me he liked it and asked how much it would cost him to buy.  i was unprepared and said i didn't know. he said nothing more, nodded, and then wandered into the bustle.

i've had a few other experiences with street painting and it is always interesting.  when i look at any of those paintings, i am reminded of the many faces and expressions that neighbored the easel.  i recall the cormorant fisherman leaving the mahjong gathering, paddling his boat and birds east.  he passes the garbage boat (residents throw trash out their windows into the canals.  the trash that floats is picked up by these two men - one steers / propels the boat by pushing and pulling a long wooden oar back and forth while the other reaches into the water with a skimmer pole) and as he does, offers a friendly gesture of casual conversation.  his voice is deep and grounded like an oak tree, the tenor of his girth reflecting his ability to acquire more than rice for his evening meal.

or the women periodically washing their mops in the canal.  and then there's megan, who recently moved from japan to old suzhou with her husband, still unpacking boxes and settling in.  to share a few sentences every half hour with a new friend, to receive offers of refreshment and snacks, and lastly to simply putter about (for me, painting / for her, hanging the laundry and attempting broken mandarin with her ayi) in adjacent spaces - peaceful, purposeful enough, and social in a silent way.

here's a couple photographs of some of the places i've painted along with the paintings they inspired.  i hope you enjoy them.

the cormorant fisherman greets the garbagemen:

megan settles into old suzhou: