Little Emperors (6 page)

“My father came into my room at six and woke me up. He said the wind shut his door and locked the keys inside his room! Problem is, he was going to breakfast at a big hotel with his friends!” She laughs and lowers her voice to imitate her dad. “ ‘My daughter, my daughter! Give me money! I can't get things in room!' ” She returns to her normal voice. “I also give him a shirt, the biggest I have, but it red! Also a belt, but very thin and see through it!” She laughs and sinks back into the taxi seat, shaking her head. “Thank goodness he was already wearing trousers!”

We howl at the thought of her father trying to sit nonchalantly in a hotel lobby with his business friends while wearing a woman's blouse and belt. Tea splashes out of my mug and spills down my leg. Miranda dabs water from the corners of her eyes. “Probably all people in hotel say, ‘Look at that crazy man!' My father. Poor old dad!”

We get to the foot of the mountain, still very much in Guangzhou and surrounded by traffic and noise. We start up the paved road to the top, but soon veer off to take a footpath through the trees. As we climb, we pass young women making their way up the hill in short skirts and high-heeled shoes, their boyfriends having to stop and wait for them every few metres. The women aren't very well dressed for hiking up a hill, but very well dressed for their photograph at the top. We also encounter many old men and women coming down the hill, helped on their way by gnarled wooden canes.

“Many old people come to climb this mountain,” Miranda explains, panting slightly. “They climb it maybe once every two days. They climb because they believe it will make the life longer.” She exhales a laugh. “Chinese people do many things to make the life longer. An old emperor tried many things like plant and grass. Then people say, ‘Oh! Maybe this help me live long time!' and take home to boil.” The trail narrows and small twigs tug at our legs as we brush past. “Some people even drink . . . mm-hmm.” Miranda points down at her sweatpants.

“Pee? Urine?” I guess, pausing for a rest.

“Yes! Drink own urine. Wash with it body and face. Can you imagine? But they think it make a long life.”

I tell her I recall reading a magazine article about a club for such people back in Canada. “Incredible,” she says, shaking her head.

We continue walking. The morning light dances on leaves above us. The noise of trucks and taxis fades with each step up and away from the city. “Chinese people believe body must be kept whole when die, so put in ground,” Miranda says. She sweeps her arms toward the forest floor. “Many people put in ground here. It is good fortune to be put in mountain.”

“So . . . you mean . . . we're walking over people's graves?”

“Yes. Bai Yun Mountain was very popular place to do this. Have graves.”

I start to eye each passing bump with suspicion, especially any bumps covered with particularly lush grass.

“But now government doesn't accept,” Miranda continues. “Can't put
body in mountain. Government say, ‘You must be burnt!' Chinese people don't like this because they fear the man in sky will get angry if body is not complete when they arrive at heaven. But government says too many people in China. Little space to bury.”

Miranda stops to dab tiny pearls of sweat off the tip of her nose. I borrow a tissue and mop the streams pouring down the sides of my face. “What about Canada dead people?” she asks.

“Well . . .” I squeeze the damp tissue into a fist-shaped ball. “We can choose which we want. Some people choose to be buried because of their religion and a similar feeling that the body must be kept whole.” I shove the sweat ball into my pocket. “But others choose to be burnt because they don't want to take up space, or don't like the idea of rotting away, or simply because it's cheaper.”

“Cheaper?”

“Yes. No need to buy a fancy box or land to put it in.”

“Oh. And pay this money to the government?”

“No. To the funeral company.”

“Oh. I see.”

We walk a bit farther, out along a narrow ledge. There are trees straight above us and trees straight below us. We begin to ascend ever so slightly steeper. We look into the deepening valley and see the peaked roof and curved eaves of a temple through the trees. “Chinese people also believe it bad to be buried whole but missing something,” Miranda says. “So don't give eyes or heart or insides to hospital. Keep everything.”

“That's another option in Canada. You can put a sticker on your driver's licence that says if you die in an accident the doctor can save your eyes or heart and give them to someone who needs them.”

“They do with prisoners in China,” Miranda says. She forms a gun with her thumb and forefinger. “After shoot —” her thumb goes down “— doctors rush to body and take what they need.”

The mountain becomes a sheer wall of rock. We are silent as we concentrate on crawling, almost vertically, up some stone steps. Sweating, we pull ourselves over the top and onto the halfway point of the mountain — a parking lot. It is here where the crowds who drive up gather to look at the view. Tinny music crackles from loudspeakers hanging in trees. We watch as people take one another's picture, tour groups in yellow caps file out of crammed buses, and middle-aged men on a company picnic play tug-of-war in the parking lot.

Miranda and I sit on a bench with our backs to the crowd. Guangzhou sprawls out below us and fades into a brown haze on the horizon. Miranda points out the tallest building in the city. The wind billows our shirts and cools our burning cheeks. We buy water at a souvenir stand and continue up the mountain. When we leave the parking lot and turn a bend in the road, suddenly, startlingly, there is silence: no beeping taxis, no crackling loudspeakers, no un-oiled bus brakes. We hear only the hot humming of cicadas, like the hot humming of the sun itself.

Passing through an archway, we continue the last few metres to the top of the mountain where we sit at a table in front of a snack stand. A young man has set up an easel in front of our table and is making a sketch. His featherlight pencil strokes conjure up trees and hills and temples before our eyes, as if the scene has always existed inside the paper and the man is simply beckoning it out with a wave of his hand.

Miranda pulls out crackers and cheese and sweet buns and meat buns, and instantly large ants with wings and pointy bottoms besiege us. The young man finishes his sketch, takes out his paints, and begins brushing in the sky. A runaway paint drop bleeds blue down the page. The young man calmly arrests it and dabs it clean with the tip of his brush.

As we watch the young artist, people watch us. They stare when Miranda and I speak English. They stare as I cut a piece of Gouda cheese, place it on a cracker, and eat it. Children come right up to us, rest their chins on our table, and
look
. Their parents gawk from a distance and quickly look away if I catch their eyes. Off to one side, a man points a camera at me.
Click
. I pretend not to notice.

A young artist finds inspiration on White Cloud Mountain in Guangzhou
.

A grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, and only child come bounding through the gate. They sit at the table next to us and boisterously order tea. “Ah! That is very Chinese.” Miranda says. “It is very Chinese thing to do. Whole family get together, drive up mountain, then drink tea at top of mountain. People believe tea is better on mountain, so tea here is more expensive than in city.”

We finish our lunch. The young man finishes his painting. The family orders another pot of tea. We decide to go.

As we start back down the road, a motor scooter carrying an entire family zooms up the mountain past us. The mother sits on the back, her arms wrapped around the father whose arms encircle a preschooler standing at the steering handles. None of them are wearing helmets. The child wears yellow plastic sunglasses and the smile of someone in control. I watch the motor scooter disappear around the corner behind us. “Miranda, do you want to have kids?”

“Yes. Six of them!”

“Six? You're crazy! Why so many?”

“I don't know. I think it would be fun. I'll be very busy for many years. I won't be lonely and they won't be lonely. And you?”

“I used to think I didn't want kids, but now I think I'd like to have one. But just one.”

“I want the first to be a boy,” Miranda continues. “And the second to be a girl. I think it is very nice for a girl to have an older brother. He take care of her. I always wanted an older brother.”

The road descends in steep curves, forcing us to walk with pointed toes and wobbly knees like track-suited ballerinas goose-stepping down a hill. Miranda tells me more about her future family. “I think my kids will be very nice because my American boyfriend is very tall. So my kids will be tall. Not short like me.”

“What if your first kid is tall and the next one is short?”

“Oh. Doesn't matter!” She laughs. “The most important is they love me. If they don't love me —” she makes a hitting motion with an imaginary stick “— I get very angry.”

We cross the road to where a gravel sidewalk begins. Miranda is lost in her thoughts for a moment, then giggles. “It is very funny. My boyfriend is very taller than me, like 183 centimetres! When we walk together, people stare. We look very funny.” She glances at me seriously
then whispers, “I'm woman, you're woman, so I tell you this: I feel shame. I know my boyfriend four years, but I never make the love with him.”

“That's nothing to feel ashamed about.”

“Chinese believe the best present you can give your husband is your virgin. I have many friends who are married, and many who made the love with boyfriends. They tell me many things. So I
know
the sex,” she says, “but I don't know it in
fact
.”

We walk a little farther down the road. “Is it true in North America middle schools, the teacher give the students sexful things?” she asks.

I'm not quite sure what she means. She draws a small square in the air to help explain. “Oh! Condoms!” I say, finally understanding. “They didn't give them out when I was in high school, but maybe they do now. In university they were everywhere. I couldn't turn around in the student union building without someone handing me one!” I laugh. “What about schools in China?”

“No.”

“But with the one-child rule, doesn't the Chinese government give out free birth control? Like free birth control pills to women?”

“Oh, it is like nothing. It is nothing to go to hospital and take care of this matter. Get rid of baby,” she replies, misunderstanding my question. “No one has to know. Family doesn't have to know. Many young girls pregnant. Easy way to solve this matter.”

“That's such a difficult issue in Canada,” I tell her, intrigued that our conversation has stumbled in this direction. “A lot of people in Canada are opposed to abortion. They protest outside of clinics. In Vancouver, an abortion doctor was even shot at in his house by people who think what he does is wrong.”

“Why?” she asks, surprised. “It is so common.” She shrugs. “It is everyday.”

We walk toward the entrance to the temple we saw earlier from above. The gravel of the temple parking lot crunches under our feet as Miranda continues. “In the countryside, people can have more than one kid to help with work. They disappoint if they have a girl because girl is weak and can't work.” She lowers her voice. “Many parents put girl baby in river. They do so at night, so no one knows. Next morning, no one in village asks question.” We step up to the temple's admission booth and buy our tickets and two sticks of incense, then walk toward the first building. “You know,” Miranda
whispers, “many times they try to sell girl baby. One day I was walking home from my past work when a countryside man and woman approach me. Man holding baby say, ‘Miss, do you want a baby? Only three thousand yuan?' I was shocked! Do I look like I want baby? Then he say, ‘If too expensive, how about one thousand yuan?' Unbelievable!” Miranda exclaims, exploding out of her whisper. “Bargain for baby! Like selling
bicycle
!”

We stand at the foot of the first temple in the complex. Something is odd about the building. It seems brand-new. We climb up three perfectly rectangular concrete steps, their sharp edges showing no sign of wear from centuries of devout footsteps. We walk between two pillars; their bright orange paint looks as if it dried just yesterday. Miranda soon confirms my suspicions. “This temple very new,” she says. “Made for tourists.”

I glance up. The roof tiles appear genuinely old and properly weathered. Thinking that “new” in China could be anything from the past hundred years or so, I ask her when the temple was built.

“Nineteen ninety-five.”

“Last year?”

“Yes.”

“But the roof looks so old. Did they take the tiles from an older temple somewhere else?”