by Chris Tharp
I then took the stairs up to the second floor, which was similar in tone to that of the first, though a couple degrees hotter in content. Again, I just looked at the covers: more panties and bras, bikinis, as well as some exhibitionist and upskirt stuff, but still open to all ages.
The third floor was both a literal and figurative level up: only eighteen and over allowed. Gone were the innocent high school crush narratives. Everything here was about primal sexual urges: the clothes came off and the characters went at it. All the titles featured naked girls with big eyes fucking and getting fucked; being objectified, humiliated, and defiled. Orifices featured prominently. Close-up detailed drawings of juicy penetration. This was some straight-up nasty, porny stuff—explicitly portrayed right on the covers—but nothing scarring.
Then there was the fourth floor. Like the third, it had an attendant checking anyone who appeared to be of questionable age. It was on this floor where I discovered that almost anything goes in Japan, as long as it’s drawn in a semi-cute way. At first it wasn’t so bad, relatively—mainly gay comics featuring high school girls and boys. But things quickly took a turn for the vile. I spied various kinds of rape, erotic pissing, and a few books featuring very pretty girls shitting. But it didn’t stop there. This was Japan, and as I was finding out, they can really mine the depths. As stomach-churning as some of the comic covers were, they inadequately prepared me what I was to regard next: a whole aisle featuring pre-pubescent girls and pre-pubescent boys in obvious sexual situations: illustrated kiddie porn. My first impulse was to look away, but a sinister curiosity took hold and kept my eyeballs glued to the covers: I had stumbled into dark, bizarre territory and wanted to take it all in, if only this once. I had never seen anything so manifestly taboo, and there was loads of it. A few of these titles showed shockingly young kids, some so young that they wore diapers. And it got worse as I peered on. I could feel my pulse quicken and breath grow shallower. Was this stuff for real? As my eyes scanned this gallery of finely drawn covers, I felt like I was rubbernecking a gory car crash; I was compelled to look, even though I knew the sight may make me sick. I was witnessing the unthinkable and it just got more extreme as I burrowed deeper. I had come too far to turn back and was now committed to seeing the very worst that this store could throw at me. And I got it, in the form of what can only be described as hermaphrodite toddler covered in come comic porn. I felt like I had just been kicked in the head. I’d had enough. I’d seen my fill and no longer felt pressed on by some invisible hand. I was dizzy and wanted to puke. I ducked my head down and locked my eyes on the exit, not looking as I got the hell out of there.
As I burst from the first-floor entrance, I swallowed a lungful of air in an attempt to quell the hot wind whipping forth inside of me. I wanted to smash the windows and set fire to the store. I was wrong, I thought. I was wrong about this culture, about these people, about this nation. I was momentarily convinced that Japan, for all of her beauty, cleanliness, and seeming civility, was an evil place. I told myself that something dark and terrible boiled underneath the surface, something not even concentrated fire could scour away. For a second I pondered whether the destruction wrought upon her so many years ago had been such a bad thing, and then immediately felt like a heel. How could I even contemplate such a thing? I was an American in Hiroshima, the site of the darkest and most awful act in the whole history of human warfare. This atrocity had been executed just decades before by my government. Attempting to justify such a crime because I was bothered by some comic books was beyond sacrilegious. I was frightened that I could even think such a thing.
My blood was percolating, but my anger quickly began to subside and saner thoughts crept back in. Perhaps the abominations I had just observed weren’t so terrible after all, when put into a certain context. For all the sickening stuff one finds below the surface, Japan is a very safe, civilized place. Maybe they had something figured out. Maybe it’s better to recognize such taboo subjects and create a space to contain them, rather than suppress them to the point to where they burst out in more harmful ways. Maybe the Japanese are just more honest about our dark sexual impulses, and their seemingly lax attitudes reflect a more realistic approach to the problem—a kind of societal harm reduction—like experiments in drug decriminalization.
I stood there, scanning the crowd for Steve. As I gazed out at the clusters of people shuffling past the shops and restaurants under the market’s arched arcade, I thought of our sushi feast from two nights before. How sweet it had been. Japan had been good to me. I’d immediately encountered kindness, generosity, and mastery. I repaid it by getting drunk and starting a fight at the punk club. Japan responded by denying me oteng. Japan seemed like such a bright, twinkling place, full of beauty and magic, quality and wonder. The country at times seemed to approach perfection. But putting up such an immaculate façade must be taxing. Is it any wonder things get ugly behind the mask? Should I have been so surprised that Japan had such a dark vein flowing so shallow beneath the skin?
Whatever my judgments, Japan didn’t need my approval. As I watched the citizens of Hiroshima shuffle by, they seemed relaxed and content and totally unconcerned with my petty judgments. They were pleased to be living in this exquisite house they had built, and weren’t seeking my input in the matter. Japan was kind, Japan was brutal; Japan was lovely, Japan was disturbing. Japan was anything I wanted to call it, but it wasn’t mine. So when I finally caught sight of Steve’s spectacled face, I held up my hand and waved. He walked my way and soon we were off, rocketing back toward Fukuoka and then sailing on to Busan, our home on the other side of the sea.
THE HILLS OF JINHONG
China, 2009
Gregoire was French, and like a lot of foreigners who have settled down in Asia, larger-than-life. Every word was accompanied by a grand gesture, each sentence punctuated with an exclamation point. He wore his shirts half-buttoned and sported an unruly fountain of greying, dirty-blond hair. He chain-smoked harsh Chinese cigs and was never seen past seven at night without a full glass of booze clutched in hand. As the proprietor of the Mekong Café, he was the go-to guy for any Western visitor in town. After all, he’d lived in Asia for over thirty years, mostly in China. He’d married a local woman and settled in Jinhong, in southern Yunnan province, near the border with Laos and Burma. So it was safe to say that he knew the lay of the land, which was good, because the four of us had arrived in town with the intention of doing some real exploration, and who better to steer us in the right direction than a salty European expat with real local knowledge? Sure, the man had his own financial interests at heart, but he always delivered, especially in the kitchen. You see, Gregoire was also a trained chef, and the café’s menu reflected this, consisting of local favorites (chicken cooked in coconut, fried river fish with lemongrass), as well as French-inspired dishes. But best were the exotic daily specials, which he’d hard-sell us on every night.
“Hello my American friends! Things are good today, no? You must try the donkey stew. It is amazing! I get the meat from local farmers. I guarantee you like it, or I give you your money back! And tomorrow, I have wild boar. I kill the pig myself!”
Gregoire provided more than just sustenance to the trickle of non-Chinese travelers coming through Jinhong. He also served as a local tour operator, offering hill-tribe treks guided by his friend’s wife, a woman who had grown up nearby. In fact, her home hamlet was on the itinerary. So on our second night in town, Gregoire sat us down and laid it all out.
“This has only been going one month. You will be the third group to ever trek through here” he promised, emphatically tapping on the topographical map through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “This is not some bullshit tourist thing!”
“Yes, you should come with us. We need a few more guys,” chimed in another Frenchman—dark-haired and quite young—from the table next to ours. His blond companion nodded in approval, and within minutes we handed Gregoire a fistful of red hundred-yuan notes, sealing the deal and gua
ranteeing our place on the next day’s trek.
My three Busan companions—Sam, Steve, and Scraggs—and I were up at the crack of dawn the next morning, gathering at the Mekong Café where we drank potent coffee and rendezvoused with Gregoire, the two French boys (Tomas and Ben), as well as the trek’s guide—a glowing pixie of woman named Xing La. She was short and dark-skinned, with satiny hair and playful eyes. Her English was barely functional and delivered in a sing-song soprano voice, but it was enough to get us from point to point and provide us with basic needs, though this wasn’t enough for Scraggs.
“I was really hoping for someone who could explain the local flora and fauna, who does a bit more than say ‘THIS WAY’.”
“This is China,” weighed in Sam. “I’m sure all of the fauna were killed and eaten long ago.”
“And most of the flora has been harvested and pressed into an herbal elixir to make your dick hard,” added Steve.
Scraggs attempted to mask his disappointment through laughter, but it was no use. As a Brit who grew up on a steady stream of David Attenborough programs, he was keenly interested in the natural surroundings and noticeably deflated when Xing La’s lack of English proficiency became apparent.
“I mean, come on mate. We’re paying good money for this trek and our guide barely speaks the language.”
“Ah shut up,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”
Our little group packed into Gregoire’s minivan and rode out of town, winding and climbing through the jungle hills that make up the Xishuangbanna region of Yunnan province. Like most of the roads we’d traveled on in southern China, it was surprisingly smooth and well maintained. Gregoire was especially proud of his minivan, which was brand-new.
“It is excellent, no? I just buy it last week! Air-con, all the extras!”
After about an hour of cruising through forest and tea plantation clearings, we pulled into the town of Menghai, famous for its market, which draws buyers and sellers from the whole of Xishuangbanna. Most of the folks at the market were members of the surrounding hill tribes, evidenced by their distinct, colorful clothing. These vibrant outfits act as uniforms, the main way to tell the groups apart. This is especially true for the women, who all don their best threads when coming to town. The hill tribe fashions helped to transform this market into a kaleidoscope of goods and colors. The Menghai market was beautiful, bracing, and exotic. I knew at once that I was at a remarkable gathering of commerce, that such stunning variety doesn’t come together too often.
The market was a thriving showpiece of vegetables, tropical fruits, and (as it was the wet season) wild mushrooms, which are common to the area. Mushrooms were sold everywhere, in piles and baskets, and in an array of colors and sizes, just a preview of what we’d see once up in the hills. And as this was China, it didn’t take long to come across the more bizarre products, represented mainly in the form of meat and insects. The first of these was the hairless carcass of a dog—gutted and splayed open—complete with snaggletoothed head. Further along were several huge sections of a beehive—each containing hundreds of white, still-squirming larvae in various stages of metamorphosis. The young French duo were immediately fascinated by the bees, and soon, with the help of Xing La’s translation skills, they were handing over a few Mao notes in exchange for some nice hunks of hive.
The meat section was as grim as you would expect. Like any traditional market in that part of the world, there was no refrigeration. Locals worked the meat tables in a matter-of–fact manner, enduring the pungent smell of innards and waving away flies. And like the American Indians of yore, the hill people of Xishaungbanna waste no part of the animal. There were the conventional meat cuts, of course, along with legs, hooves, tongues, intestines, livers, clotted blood chunks, skins and hides, pigs’ faces, stomachs, and one whole pig’s ass, complete with attached sphincter and shit tube. You could still make out the brown stain around the puckered hole.
After the dizzying market scene, we re-boarded Gregoire’s new van and rode to the neighboring town of Menghun, the trek’s starting point. Gregoire stopped the van.
“It is here we part ways my friends! You follow Xing La. She grew up here and knows where to go! I must go back to the café. Au revoir. See you in a couple of days!”
With that he gave a wave and drove off.
We wandered the sleepy streets of Menghun for a while, checking out its small, unglamorous market. It was our last chance to buy any real goods before heading up into the hills. I seized the opportunity and paid about a dollar for a straw sunhat. We ate a noodle lunch, and spent a few minutes checking out the local wat on the town’s edge before setting off down the road and into the hills.
By the time we got to really hiking, it was late afternoon. We followed a dirt track up through rough cultivated land— rice, tobacco, sugarcane, corn, and tea—the latter being by far the most common crop grown in that area. Sometimes we’d pass a farmer or a house—always with an aggressive, barking dog—but otherwise we were alone, and each of us took the wide path at our own pace, stopping often to regroup and drink water. The afternoon sun was punishing, and we were steadily gaining elevation. It was so hot you could nearly hear the air hiss. I was gushing sweat and gripped with thirst. I was also running out of water: the three small bottles I’d picked up at the market in Menghun would not last to our destination. Not only was I going through it quickly, but my trekking mates were tapping it as well.
“Hey mate, can I have a sip?” asked Scraggs.
I finished my tug and handed him the little plastic bottle.
“Me too,” panted Steve.
Scraggs passed the bottle along and Steve dusted it.
“Did either of you bring any water?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Uh, nope… I seem to ‘ave overlooked that little detail.”
“Nah. Forgot.” joined in Steve. “But that’s all right. I picked up a Red Bull.” He took the can from his pack and opened it with click.
“No water? It must be ninety five degrees out, plus insane humidity.”
Steve shrugged and said, “Oops,” before finishing off his caffeine-laden drink.
“You shouldn’t drink that shit out here, Steve. It’ll do more to dehydrate you than anything else.”
“What’s up?” A flushed-looking Sam hiked up. “I got some cool pictures down below.”
“These two didn’t bring any water.”
“Bozos,” he said. “Well they’re not having any of mine.” He took out a bottle and gulped some down. “I didn’t bring extra, and it serves ‘em right for not being prepared.”
We pressed on through the heavy heat, losing far more water than was coming in. Eventually we came upon a spring. A large bamboo tube ran down from the hillside. Clear water cascaded over the lip and into a ditch on the side of the dirt track. At this point—with the exception of the well-stocked French pair—we had all exhausted our reserves and were parched.
Xing La gestured to the spring. “Water good. Drink okay.”
It looked clean and cool, but my impulse to drink away was shunted by caution. I knew that drinking untreated water in the mountains could have catastrophic consequences. I looked to Sam, who, along with me, had the most experience with hiking and backcountry situations.
“I don’t know, dude.”
“It looks good... but that’s no guarantee.”
“Nope.”
“And waterborne parasites will fuck you up. It’d be a total game-ender for this trip.”
Xing La tried to assuage our fears by drinking first. This convinced Scraggs, who went in and drank deeply and greedily. Steve had a few cautious sips, but Sam and I held off.
“You are both braver men than I,” I said.
“Oh, come on. We’ll be fine. If she can drink it, we surely can.” said a very satisfied-looking Scraggs.
“She’s a local,” I offered. She’s used to it. Different tolerance and all.”
After the spring we passed through a villag
e perched on the hillside, which, according to Xing La, was home to the Lahu people, though the only residents we saw were ducks, chickens, and one very fat pot-bellied black pig. Most of the locals were shut indoors or out working the fields. The houses were made of wood and most were built on stilts, to combat against flooding and unwanted visitors, such as vermin and poisonous snakes.
After almost four hours, we arrived at our destination: Xing La’s village, home to the Belan tribe, and where she had grown up. She had since made the great leap to the big burg of Jinhong, but visited regularly, these days with small groups of curious foreigners in tow.
In contrast to the Lahu village, most of the homes here were made of brick, a style common to southern Yunnan. The few streets that ran through the settlement were mud bogs, as the rainy season softened every bit of exposed earth. Water buffaloes and cattle wandered freely, along with chickens, ducks, geese, and several apathetic-looking pigs.
We climbed the wooden stairs into her family’s home, and were welcomed by her beaming mother and aunt, who handed us hot glasses of tea. We sat and looked over the village rooftops as we sipped. Children played outside of their homes, and smoke from the many cooking fires hung like a kind of bluish mist. The sky then darkened, turning purple-black, and opened up in an early-evening deluge, accompanied by some earth-rattling thunder. This was a natural ritual that we had come to expect like clockwork. We had made it just in time and crouched on the elevated deck in satisfied silence, watching the hills purify themselves through twenty minutes of intense, unrelenting rain.
Xing La’s family home was unlike many others in the village, in that it was made of wood, with one common room where the cooking, eating, and sleeping were done. Another attached room served guests. Five bed mats with blankets were spread out, along with two sofas. A TV and DVD player sat in the corner, a testament to the electricity that we were surprised to see in this remote village. We weren’t counting on having electricity on a hill-tribe trek, but it turned out to be a blessing because, after the thunderstorm, David and I stopped in at what passed for the local store to see what was available. Not only were we happily surprised to find bottled beer, but, to our astonishment, it was ice cold. In fact, it was the coldest beer we drank in all of China—where the locals all too often serve it up warm—purchased in a muddy little village that lacked even bathrooms.
