We had driven far out of Quanzhou, about two hours north into the farmlands of Fujian. I slept for almost the entire trip up, and when I awoke, we were moving through lush green pastures surrounded by tree covered mountains. Summer has begrudgingly, but surely, come to a truce with the impending fall. Like a waterlogged towel, left out in the sun to dry for days, the weight of the humidity has lifted, and the gray heat has turned into gray, cooling clouds. Our destination was Dongguan qiao, a covered wooden bridge from the 11th century. The wood work was all redone of course, but the stone foundations were original. I was with my driver Mr. Zhen, and another Ph.D. student from a Chinese University, Ai Bin, who is writing on the Fujianese tradition of stone architecture in the Song and Yuan dynasty. Naturally, his understanding of the area is deeper than mine, so I stood attentively by his side as he chatted away with Mr. Zhen, trying to pick out whatever bits of wisdom I could. As usual, I could catch about a quarter, which roughly translated to "Bridge. . . yuan. . . building. . . they." I stood underneath the bridge, diligently snapping pictures, trying not to be distracted by the beauty of the smooth green water rolling past me.
The original plan had been to drive to this bridge and then drive all the way back to Quanzhou, seeing as this was the only major monument in the area. But I felt so at peace, so much longing to remain in the fairy tale China that is, in reality, nearly impossible to find between the motorcars and the concrete highrises of the most polluted cities on earth, that I pulled Ai Bin aside. I said, "I love it here, I don't want to leave. . . do you know anywhere else we can go?" Ai Bin of course, was prepared with a page long list of all the smaller, virtually unknown, old structures in the area. These can be anything from a small incense burner (about five feet tall), to a larger Buddhist stupa (9 feet tall), but every single one is located in a separate village, at the end of long dirt roads not well traveled by hired cars carrying Americans. But Ai Bin had the names, and I was in charge that day: I said, "let's go to the nearest one, whatever it is." All I knew was that whatever we were going to see was old.
I told Mr. Zhen the plan, and he said okay. We drove for about an hour on the highway, then through smaller towns, then along a narrower dirt road. The houses we passed were made of stone painted red, curved eaves and slanty windows that looked surprisingly out of place; too much decoration with too little function. We pulled over to the side of the road to ask for directions--Mr. Zhen pulled up alongside a table covered with bloody, raw meat, the vendor fanning away the flies with a rolled up newspaper. When he rolled down the window, I had to turn away to avoid the odor, which was not sour as I anticipated, but more rich and loamy, almost like peanuts. It smelled more like the actual animal, which shocked me. It turns out we were near. We parked the car and got out to walk down the small dirt road we had been pointed towards. Soon, an older man came riding by on a bicycle, a plump baby attached to the front basket with swaths of cloth. He asked us where we were going, and he and Mr. Zhen spoke a bit in an unintelligible Fujianese dialect. Meanwhile, I tickled the baby's feet. He escorted us to the house of an even older man, who was out of the house in a second when he heard where we wanted to go. He took us to another bridge, this one much smaller than the last, and had us descend into the brush from there. We walked alongside a quick moving stream and then entered a small bamboo forest. I was being bitten by mosquitoes, but I think I would have felt more tough had I and Ai Bin not started posing for pictures amidst the thick shoots, parodying any attempt at real adventuring. We had fallen behind Mr. Zhen and our guide by a lot, mainly because the old man was moving at a rapid, no spritely, pace, leaving us in the dust.
When we finally caught up to them, we saw the object our destination--a mound of squared boulders, about 5 feet high, neatly arranged in a circle, and covered with leaves. Still, the old man was excited--he told us to climb up the stones, that we had reached the tower! We saw there was a flight of stairs that wound around the pile, and so we all clambered up, wanting to believe there might be something at the summit (already nearly visible) that we couldn't see yet. The old man stood at the top, his face shining like a small boy's. With a radiant smile, he told Mr. Zhen that the tower had been knocked down 50 years ago during the Cultural Revolution, and that he remembered playing in this very spot as a child. As I stood there, watching his glowing expression as he narrated his youth, I imagined that I was witness to a certain kind of melding of past and present. That those stones could make this man young again, and they would also preserve him forever. Through this man, I could imagine the tower in its more complete form, 50 years earlier. How could anyone who had ever known this man look at this pile and not see him standing there with his wide grin? And how could I ever thank this man for showing me his tower?
The original plan had been to drive to this bridge and then drive all the way back to Quanzhou, seeing as this was the only major monument in the area. But I felt so at peace, so much longing to remain in the fairy tale China that is, in reality, nearly impossible to find between the motorcars and the concrete highrises of the most polluted cities on earth, that I pulled Ai Bin aside. I said, "I love it here, I don't want to leave. . . do you know anywhere else we can go?" Ai Bin of course, was prepared with a page long list of all the smaller, virtually unknown, old structures in the area. These can be anything from a small incense burner (about five feet tall), to a larger Buddhist stupa (9 feet tall), but every single one is located in a separate village, at the end of long dirt roads not well traveled by hired cars carrying Americans. But Ai Bin had the names, and I was in charge that day: I said, "let's go to the nearest one, whatever it is." All I knew was that whatever we were going to see was old.
I told Mr. Zhen the plan, and he said okay. We drove for about an hour on the highway, then through smaller towns, then along a narrower dirt road. The houses we passed were made of stone painted red, curved eaves and slanty windows that looked surprisingly out of place; too much decoration with too little function. We pulled over to the side of the road to ask for directions--Mr. Zhen pulled up alongside a table covered with bloody, raw meat, the vendor fanning away the flies with a rolled up newspaper. When he rolled down the window, I had to turn away to avoid the odor, which was not sour as I anticipated, but more rich and loamy, almost like peanuts. It smelled more like the actual animal, which shocked me. It turns out we were near. We parked the car and got out to walk down the small dirt road we had been pointed towards. Soon, an older man came riding by on a bicycle, a plump baby attached to the front basket with swaths of cloth. He asked us where we were going, and he and Mr. Zhen spoke a bit in an unintelligible Fujianese dialect. Meanwhile, I tickled the baby's feet. He escorted us to the house of an even older man, who was out of the house in a second when he heard where we wanted to go. He took us to another bridge, this one much smaller than the last, and had us descend into the brush from there. We walked alongside a quick moving stream and then entered a small bamboo forest. I was being bitten by mosquitoes, but I think I would have felt more tough had I and Ai Bin not started posing for pictures amidst the thick shoots, parodying any attempt at real adventuring. We had fallen behind Mr. Zhen and our guide by a lot, mainly because the old man was moving at a rapid, no spritely, pace, leaving us in the dust.
When we finally caught up to them, we saw the object our destination--a mound of squared boulders, about 5 feet high, neatly arranged in a circle, and covered with leaves. Still, the old man was excited--he told us to climb up the stones, that we had reached the tower! We saw there was a flight of stairs that wound around the pile, and so we all clambered up, wanting to believe there might be something at the summit (already nearly visible) that we couldn't see yet. The old man stood at the top, his face shining like a small boy's. With a radiant smile, he told Mr. Zhen that the tower had been knocked down 50 years ago during the Cultural Revolution, and that he remembered playing in this very spot as a child. As I stood there, watching his glowing expression as he narrated his youth, I imagined that I was witness to a certain kind of melding of past and present. That those stones could make this man young again, and they would also preserve him forever. Through this man, I could imagine the tower in its more complete form, 50 years earlier. How could anyone who had ever known this man look at this pile and not see him standing there with his wide grin? And how could I ever thank this man for showing me his tower?
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