Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid

by J. Maarten Troost

  I found this an interesting approach to wildlife, and to learn more I headed toward the Siberian Tiger Park a short distance outside Harbin. There are only about 500 Siberian Tigers remaining in the wild, roaming across a vast terrain in Russia and northern China. To boost these numbers, China has a breeding program where tigers born on the grounds of the Siberian Tiger Park would eventually be released into the wild, free to live out their lives as nature intended. I’d bought a ticket at the park’s entrance and joined a handful of convivial Chinese tourists inside a minibus and spent the next ten minutes having my picture taken next to them. Soon, we set forth. We made our way through a fenced enclosure, meandered past a frozen pond and acres of high brown grass and scrubby trees, and I took note of mysterious piles of chicken feathers and—good Lord, those tigers are big. I did not know this, but the Siberian Tiger is immense. There were six of them, the largest nearly ten feet long. I had not seen ten-foot cats before. I’d always assumed lions, king of the jungle and all, to be the largest feline. But in comparison to a Siberian Tiger, a lion is a mere house cat. There was one, no two, three now, up on their hind legs, huge paws on our windows, their striped faces and teeth just inches away—

  This was a minivan we were in. No cages. No bumpers. No reinforced glass. Nothing.

  And I remembered that two people had already been killed by these tigers inside the Siberian Tiger Park, and when I’d read this, I’d wondered how this could happen, what circumstances had prevailed when these two people were killed, and suddenly a white, caged SUV shot past us.

  The tigers went nuts. They leapt toward this SUV, which had skidded to a stop, sending dust billowing into the wind. And suddenly, quickly, so quickly, a door was opened, a hand was exposed, and it was clutching chickens, live chickens, and very quickly, desperately, these chickens were tossed into the air and the tigers, these enormous creatures, pounced. They surged upon the SUV. They leapt upon its roof and the chickens—the chickens were no more. Four times this happened. The SUV driver lurched here and there, sending forth plumes of dust, and the hand of a crazy man would emerge with live chickens, and the tigers, nearly as big as the SUV, growled and snarled and pounced and gobbled.

  So today was chicken day. But it’s a varied diet that the tigers here at the Siberian Tiger Park receive. Sometimes live ox are deposited inside the park. At other times, it’s live cows. Sometimes pigs. They take care of the tigers here. Okay, true, they had developed a taste for farm animals, had come to associate human beings and SUVs with feeding time, and were thus forever doomed in the wild. They would gravitate toward people and they would kill people and they would be shot and their paws would end up in the market in Guangzhou. But the important thing here is that we were having fun. My fellow passengers oohed and aahed and snapped pictures. It was party time on the minibus. Never more so than when we retreated through the automatic gate and a tiger cleverly followed us out. A Siberian Tiger was loose here on the outskirts of Harbin. What would be the solution here, I wondered, to the problem of Siberian Tigers wandering outside the confines of the Siberian Tiger Park?

  A demolition derby.

  That is what we did. Our minibus charged at this Siberian Tiger. The horn blared. A moment later, the SUV returned, and together we charged at this tiger, backward, forward, we lurched at this tiger. We played chicken with him. The gate was reopened. The other tigers stood by impassively watching. They weren’t leaving; they knew where their meals were coming from. And soon we’d succeeded in haranguing this enormous animal back into its enclosure. The passengers on this minibus were thrilled. Such excitement.

  But there would be more. We drove by cages of lions, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, and baby tigers, all gathered around another cage with a bird inside, a stork, a very nervous stork, and then we were taken to a concrete walkway, where we could walk just above an enclosure of tigers. We ambled past a baby tiger, lethargic and sleepy as it dozed upon a tiger skin. For an extra 30 kuai we could pet it. On the walkway sat a woman in a uniform with a crate of live chickens before her. One of my fellow tourists approached her with some money. The woman dipped her hand inside this crate of chickens and took one out, tying it by its feet and attaching it to a four-foot stick, before handing it to him. The man took the fishing pole with the dangling chicken, squawking and ill-disposed, and lowered it out over the tigers, taunting them. He dipped it a little lower. A tiger leapt up and shredded a wing. The chicken wailed. Oh, the fun we have in China. He lowered the chicken again. A tiger shredded a leg. The chicken screamed. Everyone laughed. Because this is funny in China. Slowly, painfully, piece by piece, the chicken was shredded into oblivion. Finally, I approached this woman in the uniform and bought a chicken myself. She attached it to the fishing pole and I was ready now to fish for tigers. I took this shrieking chicken, flung it over the side, and reached down and watched a tiger quickly shred it to pieces.

  And why, one may reasonably ask, did I do that?

  I did it for the chicken.

  24

  The lunatic paced up and own the aisle, screaming. There was a crazy man on board this train to Dandong, walking up and down the aisles of the hard-seat car, yelling at all the devils around him. There were only a handful of people on this train to the last stop in China before North Korea. And there were devils. What would he make of the foreigner, the laowai?

  I had boarded this train in Shenyang, a grim industrial city south of Harbin in Liaoning Province, a city notable for having one of the finest statues of Mao I’d yet seen, a monument that reflected the very apogee of Socialist Realism. But I had not lingered in Shenyang. Nothing about Shenyang encouraged lingering, and I’d boarded the slow train to Dandong. It had been a full train in Shenyang, and I sat in hard-seat class next to two workers who kindly shared an orange with me. It was moments like that, gestures of unexpected graciousness, that offered the yin to the yang of traveling in China, which is often difficult and exasperating, the yang of Chinese travel that was now manifesting itself as a deranged maniac stomping about the train. I sat and peeled my orange, marveling that there were, in fact, oranges way up here in northern China in December, and tried to ignore the man’s ranting. The train rumbled through the brown hills, stopping at every hamlet on the way, discharging passengers until only a handful remained. I had spent so very much of my time in China traveling—finding tickets, queuing among people who did not queue, flying on planes piloted by teenagers, rumbling on crowded buses, my guard ever up as I passed through train and bus stations where one moment of absentmindedness would lead to robbery or worse. It was nearly over, this trip of mine. I would go to Dandong, and then a night train to Beijing, and I would fly home and see my family, my wife, my boys, these boys who were probably men now. It had been a long trip. There is so very much to see in China. There is so very much that must be seen. I had traveled thousands and thousands of miles across this vast country. And I’d still seen little, all things considered. What is here cannot all be seen by one man. Not in a lifetime. And what you saw yesterday is always different today, and it will be different again tomorrow. Everything is changing so fast. Yes it is, in China.

  Meanwhile, there was a lunatic on board this slow, far too slow, train to Dandong. The landscape here in the vicinity of North Korea reminded me of the opening credits to the show M*A*S*H, and this pleased me because, of course, M*A*S*H is the very best show ever made. As the lunatic rambled and screamed beside me, I thought of Hawkeye, and what Hawkeye would do in this situation with the dangerous-looking madman. He’d probably tell him to shut up, I thought. So scratch that. Hawkeye could not help me here. I wanted to be invisible to this lunatic, the invisible laowai.

  It was nighttime when we finally arrived in Dandong, and I bounced happily off the train, pleased to put some distance between myself and the crazy man. I’d splurged and found a room in a hotel overlooking the Yalu River and, across the way, North Korea. I stepped into the hotel, handed over my passport, checked in, dropped off my backpack, and st
epped back out again and walked through an underpass beneath the Friendship Bridge, which spanned the distance between China and North Korea. It’s a strange, lively bridge with a laser show of green lights and strobe lights, a bridge that dances, that gets down, but only halfway—and then it dies at the halfway mark. And then there is darkness, nothing but a black void. That would be North Korea, lit only by the headlights of trucks streaming across the bridge.

  I walked along a riverside park, Yalujiang Park, where groups of middle-aged people were playing hacky-sack with a feathered ball. Even though it was dark, they were able to play because there is so much light coming from the Friendship Bridge. It is a bridge in the style of Las Vegas, and the light that cascades from it illuminates everything—including people of middle years playing hacky-sack in Yalujiang Park. I stared at the enigmatic emptiness across the river. What is over there? I wondered. Where are those trucks on the bridge going? What are they bringing into North Korea? Are there not sanctions against North Korea? The little monster, Kim Jong-il, had been playing with his bombs recently. It should be quiet on this bridge, no?

  I stepped into a restaurant for some Korean barbecue. There were Koreans in this restaurant. They were legal, I presumed; Chinese-Koreans, or perhaps South Koreans who had come to look at North Korea from the other side. They were most certainly not North Koreans. North Koreans who manage to cross the border hide. They stay in the darkness. And they stay hidden. Or they try to find a way to South Korea. But they do not eat in restaurants near the neon glare of the Friendship Bridge. This is because China sends them back, these escapees from North Korea, and then bad things happen to them. Bad things happen to their families. And this is because Kim Jong-il is a monster.

  I returned to my hotel, this hotel overlooking the Yalu River and the Friendship Bridge and beyond that the darkness of North Korea. A Britney Spears tune was playing in the lobby. Inside the elevator, a dapperly dressed Chinese man turned to address me.

  “Good evening,” he said in English.

  “Good evening.”

  “And you are from California, yes?”

  “Uh…yeah.”

  Nothing about my being suggests California, with the possible exception of a fondness for flip-flops. But this was the North Korean border in December. I was not wearing flip-flops. So this was eerie. The dapperly dressed man got off the elevator before I could inquire how he might know that I lived in California, and I was left alone to ponder this spookiness.

  In my room, I sat at the window and watched the trucks rumbling over the Friendship Bridge toward North Korea. One certainly wouldn’t know there were sanctions against the regime. Not here, I thought as I viewed the proceedings from my perch above the border crossing. This was the perfect spy room. I could count trucks. I could take pictures. There was all sorts of information that I could discern from my place at the window of this hotel. Yes, I thought, there is not a finer spy room than this one. Then it occurred to me.

  It’s probably bugged.

  It has to be bugged. Things were afoot in North Korea. Spies would stay in this room. And this is China. There are no legal hassles here to prevent the government from bugging hotel rooms. So this room was most certainly bugged.

  I resisted the temptation to speak to the lamps.

  Should I speak to the lamps? What would happen if I spoke to them? No, I shouldn’t speak to the lamps. And then I spoke to them anyway.

  I turned to the lamp shade. “Alpha, Charlie, Delta. This is Renegade One. Repeat. Renegade One. The package has left the building. Repeat. The package has left the building.”

  And I spent the rest of the night waiting for my door to be kicked in.

  I had come to Dandong because it seemed like an interesting place to ponder choices. Here was a vivid display of roads taken and not taken, of destinies forged by choices and the consequences of those choices. Once China and North Korea had been brothers. I saw vivid examples of this brotherhood in Dandong inside the Museum to Commemorate U.S. Aggression. They are not subtle, the Chinese, when it comes to naming museums. We call it the Korean War, while the Chinese call it The War To Resist America and Assist Korea, which is interesting, to see this war where the United States is portrayed as the bad guy, the imperialist thug, because one gets used to seeing America as the one wearing the white hat. In 1950, there was a civil war on the Korean peninsula. The Americans took one side and the Chinese the other, and when China saw General MacArthur marching up toward the Yalu River and the Chinese border, Mao sent his People’s Liberation Army into the fray. And then they did that war thing, and after three years of doing it, they called it a tie and everyone went home. China and North Korea pledged to be Best Friends Forever, and for several decades they were, happily being evil Communists together behind their walls.

  But then China started to take down those walls, and today there is light and laser shows and dancing and money and films and energy, so much energy, in China. There is everything in China. Not everyone can have everything in China, not yet, but every day there are more who do. If you ignore the environment—and you can’t because the damage is utterly overwhelming—the future looks sunny for China—okay, smoggy—and I suspected that China would find a way to manage all its fissures and problems and perhaps Chinese society would indeed become harmonious—barring a complete societal collapse as the environmental degradation undergoes devastating feedback loops. It’s a complex country, not easily summed up. It could still go in so many directions.

  But once, not so long ago, China had been like that place across the river. When the sun came up, to my great surprise, I found myself facing the city of Sinuiju, a Potemkin village complete with a Ferris wheel. Of course, the Ferris wheel wasn’t turning; there is no electricity in Sinuiju. That is why I couldn’t see this city at night. There are only the rusting carcasses of old boats on the shores. And there were people.

  There are, in fact, two bridges across the Yalu River. Or rather, one and a half. The Americans shot one up during the war, and today it extends only as far as midriver, since the North Koreans have dismantled the remainder. I wanted to get a little closer to North Korea, and so after breakfast I walked along this blasted bridge past a few lonely vendors selling North Korean trinkets, which I strongly suspected were made in China.

  It’s a dreary-looking city, Sinuiji, and if this is the best the North Koreans could do in terms of its face to the outside world, it must be bleak indeed. I came back to the Chinese side and walked along the river path, where soon a man offered to take me in his little speedboat for a closer look at North Korea. Cool, I thought. I didn’t hesitate a minute and soon I was speeding across the murky waters of the Yalu River. We careened around the remains of the old bridge and suddenly we were in North Korean waters. Well, okay, I thought. I’m in North Korea. I am technically in North Korea. Holy shit. And we sped closer to the North Korean shore. Behind us a rusty and decrepit trawler bearing the North Korean flag chugged along. Okay, Jesus, we’re deep in North Korean waters now. Ha! And we went farther. We went to the very shoreline. He slowed the boat and we cruised six feet from the actual land. I could hear a megaphone, a rally. I’m in North Korea. I am in fucking North Korea! There were people behind these wrecked ships. Soldiers. I was giddy. I waved. They did not wave back. They looked upon me with stony faces. I waved some more, but they did not wave. I was the imperialist dog. Yoo-hoo. Hello. Give up your bombs and we’ll send your leader a hairstylist. Some new platform shoes too. But they did not laugh, these North Koreans. The soldiers eyed me. I’m in North Korea. I’m in fucking North Korea. Ha!

  And the engine died.

  What is this? Are you shitting me? Here, six feet from the North Korean shore, the fucking engine dies. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Whatever happens, I thought, do not get out of the boat. That is what I told myself. Jesus. All I had was a California driver’s license. That’ll go over real well with the North Korean authorities. The soldiers were alert. They were watching me. They
were watching us drift, drifting closer to shore, ever closer. Jesus. Could you get that fucking engine started? It coughed. It hacked. The engine did not start. Fuck. Come on, start. Goddamn it, start. But the engine would not start, and we drifted closer and I looked across the river to China, to soaring China, to those brand-new buildings and glittering lights, and I yearned for China. I wanted to embrace China. I love you, China. Please, China, take me back.

  Acknowledgments

  The author would like to acknowledge that he is a bad man. As evidence, he offers this e-mail from his editor’s husband: This is Ann’s husband. She is in labor at the hospital now. I have printed out the Chengdu chapter for her at her request.

  The author doesn’t know what to say. He is mortified by this. He had, of course, known that his editor, Ann Campbell, was with child. It was not a surprise. Indeed, his book deadline had been some months before her due date. The author, however, is very bad with deadlines—we needn’t go into this; deadlines are not interesting—but here, at least, was a very firm date. He could not tweak and tinker and revise beyond the due date. The book had to be done. The author is a parent himself. He knows newborns and they are unforgiving. He has stood in the delivery room himself. He knows, if only as an observer, what childbirth is like. And yet, because he is a very bad man, his editor, in between contractions, with pencil in hand, was compelled to focus on a gay bar in Chengdu.