Simian Farmer: The Great Wall

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Wednesday, 21 December 2005

The Great Wall

Runners speak of hitting the wall. That unique feeling of total physical exhaustion where continued exertion is simply NOT possible. It's happened to me, I know the sensation.

Hitting The Wall in China, however, helped me break through certain elements of my introversion.

Receiving my first ever open-handed roundhouse on the left cheek from an enraged blonde chick was a bit of a catalyst also.

I was surprised my parents were able to scare up the money to send me on the subsidized school trip. Being divorced, it was the first time I could recall them collaborating. There were only nine students from my grade nine class that elected to go (or for whom it was viable) on the two week trip, and I was more excited than I could possibly put into words. I had $450 in my pocket to spend!

Plus we got to miss school. YAY!!

A trip around to the other side of the world with only two chaperones and eight other 14 year old adolescents. I have never actually looked up a recipe for disaster, but this one seemed chalk full of potential. We were to spend five days in Hong Kong (it was still under British rule in 1989) and then meander via plane, train and automobile through Xian, Canton, Shanghai and Beijing.

I had Beijing Duck in Beijing. I never realised how very greasy duck is. The Colonel ain't got nuthin' on Daffy.

I love the pictures I brought back with me. The memories of the places are nice too. The best part though was finally getting to know some of my classmates and those from other schools that travelled with us. I think I surprised many of my friends there. My modus operandi to that point was to ensconce myself with a book absolutely anywhere at school, when not in class. My mother sternly admonished me, before leaving the airport, "No reading!" A little counter-intuitive, given a parent's predisposition concerning their kid's education, but I've always been a bit of a unique case.

Most every evening was spent, after dinner, gathering in one of the hotel rooms and fumbling towards intimate conversation with all the awkwardness that can be expected of barely teenage adolescents. We eventually braved the waters of sexual discourse, though none of us had ever ventured that far in the realms of our own physical experimentation.

Breasts became a topic of conversation. The young women in our group outnumbered the young men by a factor of two. Good odds. These nubile Cleopatras, still coming into the full bloom of womanhood, had now spent a year or two becoming painfully aware of the hardwired masculine obsession with breasts. their own having been a visual target of ogles, stares, leers and other less savoury insinuating glances. The question was posed to those of us with penises, undoubtedly guilty of some-if-not-all of the aforementioned sins: WHY?! Why so enthralled? They're not much more than lumps of fat! (I remember that last phrase being used almost precisely.)

I answered first with one of my own: "So then you won't mind if I feel yours?"

I felt sort of smug at the disconcerted responses I received. The girls were aware that their breasts were just mammary glands. They were also aware of the innate sexual power they were ascribed. Me? Like the rest of the guys there, I just wanted to touch them. (Alas, it was to be several years yet.)

It was most likely that same evening I was floored by Sandra.

More than anything else, I recall seeing stars. And thinking how strange it was that you really DO see stars when your head gets rocked that way.

I followed Sandra out of our communal hotel room that evening to the elevators where she was going back to her room. I wish with all of my being that I could recall what it was I said to her as she stood waiting for her elevator. Whatever it was, I said it, and it probably had something to do with a recent conversation about breasts. I do recall she was rather well gifted there.

She spoke not a word but went straight to her work,
Raised her hand to my head, which snapped, with a jerk.

As I slowly brought my head back around and my sight to bear on Sandra, all I could see was her two hands raised in horror to her mouth, her eyes wide as saucers above her splayed fingertips.

"OhmyGodImsosorry!!" And she fled to her waiting lift. The red hand print, thankfully, also fled by morning.

*****

Xian is a walled city. Big wall, not as big as The Wall, around the whole city.

You'd think at a time like this I'd have some introspective regarding how building a wall around a city places restrictions on growth, increases class disparity (inside versus outside) and is somewhat anathema to trust. Or some such thing. No. All I could think of at the time was that when one is traversing the top of an ancient wall which hems in an entire populace: there is no convenient place to poo.

I rather enjoyed the cuisine we experienced in China. Far different than what we call Chinese food here in the west. Plus, given that one of my mother's eccentricities was to insist on using chopsticks when we ordered in, I was one of the few students adept at their use from day one. I still possess a large collection of them: one pair stolen from every restaurant on the trip.

Atop the wall of Xian though, I was thinking of nothing but clenching my cheeks as firmly as possible until I was able to stumble down the stairs and find the nearest lavatory. Which ended up being a shit-stained concrete trench, a hip-high barrier to either side providing the illusion of privacy, and other bathroom-goers walking by in front of me as I unabashedly emptied my descending colon on foreign soil. Thank god I always had my travel pack of Kleenex with me. I'm anal that way.

*****

Somewhere further along the way I had my first ever experience with being completely flummoxed. It was a very junior high moment and I'll treasure it always.

We travelled with two other, larger, school groups and got to know those kids quite well. At a very random time during the two weeks, but closer to the end than to the beginning, I was handed a neatly folded note with my name written neatly on the front by a girl who was obviously not the author of same. "Trish wants you to have this." And she fled. (What was it with chicks fleeing my presence in China?)

Written inside were the earnest words of one of the girls I had befriended from another school. Apparently, she had come to have a 'thing' for me beyond our platonic relationship. She spelled out how she enjoyed our friendship, valued it and, further, hoped that it would develop into something more when we got back to Edmonton.

This sort of thing had never happened to me. EVER. I had no idea how to handle this sort of situation. I just read a lot of books and thought about someday getting to touch boobies. Some of the underdog heroes in some of my books, when faced with a similar situation (read: passive male, aggressive female) would be able to stutter out some sort of endearingly quirky response, further ensnaring the siren in his web of unintentional charm that would eventually lead to boobie-touching, other touching, and then a happily ever after of some sort. (Unless there was a sequel.) Probably a dragon slain in there somewhere, which I always thought was the coolest part since it seemed, at the time, rather more plausible than ever getting my hands on actual boobies.

Thus, in my flummox-induced stupor, I did nothing. For the remainder of the trip I maintained our cordial friendship but never made any mention of the note or wrote her one back, though I think I composed a new one in my head daily. I also kept hers with the memorabilia from the trip for about a decade after.

(Small world: she is now the pharmacist at the grocery store I frequent as well as being married to one of my engineering classmates.)

*****

Walking the Great Wall in China and spending two weeks discovering a lot about myself was one of the best experiences of my life. I was humbled finally to realise the staggering magnitude of that wall. The edifice now is crumbled to ruins over most of its length; time and the elements having run unchecked upon the exposed surfaces. It is not nearly so imposing a barrier as what it was built to be. But even now the tumbled remains can be difficult to clamber over top, and at times block the view of the far side.

Wednesday, 21 December 2005 | Permalink

Comments

Very nice introspection/travelogue/humourous-regalement. And an excellent analogy.

Lucky for us all, the eroding of certain walls.

Posted by: elizabeth | Wednesday, 21 December 2005 at 06:35 AM

As a good ol' southern boy once said, "Nicely did."

That was a great read. Walls. I sit and read during my lunch hour, while a lady two tables over snidely remarks that I don't want to sit with them. She's right. Plus, there's not chance in heck any boobies would be involved. Not that I would partake if there were, you understand.

Posted by: Mark | Wednesday, 21 December 2005 at 01:34 PM

Simon, your post only affirms my faith in 14 year old girls. I will always encourage my daughter to protect her honour with assertiveness and directness, to express herself to the opposite sex with honesty, and lack of game-playing, even if the interest is not reciprocated. After all, the same boy who ignores her gentle interest will still be moved by the effort years later.

Now I need only fear the blundering boobie-obsessed lunkhead that is the 14 year old boy ;)

Posted by: Paula | Wednesday, 21 December 2005 at 04:04 PM

Excellent read, full of introspection, extra-spection (?!), humor and bittersweet growing-up, one of my favorite subjects. I think everyone should have teenage-memiors to share. They are very personal,telling and in many cases, premonitory. But always, always, entertaining.

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