4 posts tagged “inner mongolia”
“So why would people come here?”
We’re at Chifeng’s main natural attraction, a flat red mountain that looks like something straight out of Arizona. Not a little red. Not kinda red. Deep, rich, earthen red, fresh out of the planet’s Crayola box. Shrubbery dots the mountainside like little fuzzy pompoms. For the first time since I’ve been in China, the air tastes fresh and crisp.
The park warden strokes his curly mustachio, pondering Dr. Rose’s challenge.
“People will come to see where China’s first dragon was found.”
“And where is the first dragon?”
“Beijing. It’s on tour, at the request of the national government.”
Dr. Rose glares at him.
“Along with the other finds from the excavation.”
More glaring.
“But we can get it back whenever we want.”
Dr. Rose shakes her head in disappointment. The warden strokes his mustachio some more. I imagine him in a black top hat, tying some helpless maiden to the train tracks.
“OK, tell me why you come out to this mountain every day. Give me three reasons.”
“我需要红山。I need the red mountain.”
“That’s one.”
“他也需要我,” he says facetiously, laughing at his own joke. “It needs me too.”
“That’s two.”
He pauses.
“I can’t think of a third reason.”
“You get back to me tomorrow.”
We amble off the site. I think the real challenge in being a professional is drilling into operational details without losing sight of the bigger picture. China has manpower galore. Does she have the vision, leadership, and creativity necessary to take off into modern times the way we hope she will? And if they import their visionaries, like they’ve imported Dr. Rose, will it still be China?
I’ve never had such a red carpet reception. Dr. Rose is royalty here, and my blood is blue by association. Tonight we are dining with the mayor of Chifeng. He’s a magician with people. He’s the man with the vision of Chifeng as a center for Chinese tourism. He wants the Chinese to come see their roots, he wants to put Chifeng on the map.
He also wants the world to know the real Inner Mongolia. Sure, the yaks and yurts are out there somewhere, but places like Chifeng are fully modern. If you ever go there, there’s a government building with a miniature model of the entire city. You can stand atop its plexiglass casing and survey its golf courses, highways, and research centers in one one-thousandth scale.
Some people at the table express regret that Mongolian is slowly giving way to Mandarin. A few months back my dad had said something similar about raising Chinese kids in America. The first generation makes an effort to pass culture down to the second, but by the third it’s completely gone. He felt so helpless. I tried to console him.
“Pour chocolate syrup into a glass of milk, and yeah, the syrup’s gone, but the milk’s changed too! Now you’ve got chocolate milk! It’s new! It’s delicious!” I offered.
“Yeah, but it’s boring and homogenous,” he sobbed inconsolably. “The syrup used to be so intense and sweet. The milk was such a pure shade of white. Diversity goes kaput. The unique and wonderful progenitors of this tasty treat are now both extinct.”
“Oh, that's entropy. It's a LAW OF PHYSICS Dad. Get over it.”
The mayor addressed the issue a little more eloquently. When worlds collide, yes, material is lost. But the best of both are passed down and the fat is trimmed away. The new will eventually mutate, and variety is born anew.
It’s true, that miniature model of Mongolia had five-star hotels, not yurts. Golf courses, not traditional polo fields. I looked at the tiny plastic pedestrians, the city’s cultural seeds. Will they sprout within the next few decades and contribute their unique flavors to a globalizing world? Or will they lie fallow, giving way to grandchildren who know only Starbucks and Disney and the Big Mac?
A dignified man in a black tang zhuang and a Fu Manchu greets us in Inner Mongolia. His placid smile rests gently atop a rotund and generous tummy, reminding me vaguely of Buddha. Dr. Rose shakes his hand vigorously and introduces me.
“This is Mr. Lin, my assistant.”
To me, an “assistant” has always been the little hunchbacked fellow who fetches the mummified brain for the mad scientist. This role, the role of useless appendage, is new to me. No one attends a meeting or an event at MoogleTech unless they are going to be of mild utility.
I utter salutary terms of total inconsequence and he nods at me benevolently. The urge to rub his holiness’ bountiful belly is quite compelling. I muster my extensive reserves of discipline and perish the thought.
His right hand clamps down on my shoulder.
“Son, are you ready to see China’s first dragon?” he huffs in a heavy Northern accent.
Hmm. That could be a good pick-up line.
He hands me a pamphlet. China’s first dragon is the prize discovery of the archeological dig in Chifeng. It’s a polished jade crescent with an unmistakable head and tail. When they found it, the sands of time had already shattered it into hundreds of tiny pieces. Thank God I wasn’t the dig director; I can picture it now:
“What’s that Beverly? There’s chipped ROCK, you say? In the dirt?! My stars, call the mayor, there is ROCK buried in the DIRT! No, it doesn’t look like a dragon to me. You’re fired.”
The reassembled dragon peers back at me from the pamphlet. It hails from the oldest village in all of China. I imagine the journey it made through time, a simple token connecting me with a villager from the ancient past. How grand!
At the same time, it’s not exactly an artistic miracle. Maybe it was made by the villages idiot. I wonder if I bury the clay figures I made in Kindergarten, whether they too will be on the cover of a pamphlet several thousand years from now. Maybe the pamphlet will be in an alien language. The Martians might think the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were our revered ancestors.
“Good morning Max! How did you sleep?”
“Not bad Professor. Hey, I wanted to ask you…”
”Good, good. Mr. Lin, I want you to pack one bag with three pairs of underwear, three shirts, three everything. I’ll be at your place in ten minutes. We are going to Inner Mongolia.”
!!!
The Professor’s been in the sugar again. She is notorious for her energy levels. She is almost sixty, but behind the wrinkled façade lies a dynamo fueled by lord knows what.
In the privacy of the car, she briefs me on our imminent escapade in a hushed voice. There’s a city called Chifeng where they discovered the ruins of a village. The village is 8000 years old, and could well be the cradle of Chinese civilization. She’s been invited to provide counsel on how best to turn the city into a tourist attraction.
We arrive at the airport ten minutes before boarding time. The professor is hungry, and by the time lunch arrives there is only four minutes to spare. We inhale our noodles whole. The professor laughs like a delirious sea captain.
“Oh no!” I cry. “I promised my uncle we could get dinner this weekend! I completely forgot.”
I can be such a klutz when it comes to keeping appointments. The professor lends me her cell and I drop the news on my uncle. She grabs the phone before I finish, and I’ll be darned if she isn’t baby-talking my fifty year-old uncle.
“Hel-LO, how ARE you?” she coos, like a mother pigeon with a ripe worm. “Yeah look, Max can’t see you this weekend. Maybe next time, OK? Buh-byeeeee!”
I can’t believe it. But there’s only just enough time for shock and awe. The boarding call beckons us towards our next adventure, and we’ll miss it if we don’t drop our chopsticks and sprint.
