Huangshan

The next morning.....

At 0530, for reasons which are still way beyond me, a knock came at my hotel door. As I had passed out rather early the night before, from all the outrageous stair climbing, 0530 was bad, but it wasn't "go out and kill" bad. I assumed, that since I was at the top of one of the more important Chinese mountains, that the hotel was awakening people for the typical "get up and watch the sunrise" bit. So, I got up.

As I looked out the window, I really couldn't see anything. The fog was so thick, that I could barely make out shadows outside in front of the hotel, draped in some funny looking cheap poncho things. There must have been well over fifty people outside waiting to watch the sunrise from Huangshan mountain. Despite the fact that I was in the usual Flexeril fog at the time, I, with whatever limited mental might I had at the time, could not fathom any reason why these people were standing in the rain to await a sunrise which no one was going to be able to see. I went back to bed. I wasn't going to start the hike back down until noon, and this was to be my "sleep in" morning.

Rude loud Chinese voices went up and down the hallway, again, for reasons that I still can't fathom. Didn't these people realize that some of us had wanted to sleep? I guess not, because at 0600, there came yet another barrage at my door. I decided to ignore it. Besides, I already missed the sunrise that no one could see.

And then, every half hour thereafter, someone, who I was never to identify, banged on my door with what I thought was a bat. I started to wonder what I was going to do with this individual and his bat if I ever found him. But I decided to again play the role of the understanding nice foreigner, so I ignored the assault on my sleep time, and just stayed in bed. Besides, there were a lot more of them on this mountain then there were of me.

But at 0730, I had had enough of it. As soon as the now routine barrage hit my door at 0730, I was up and out. I yanked open the door and stepped out into the hallway, looking for my aggressor. I had already decided that it was going to be bloody.

There was no one there, other than about eight of the cleaning girls who had been assigned to the third floor where my room was. And they were rather shocked. Aghast was more like it. I decided to add to the impression that I had already made. "What miserable bastard is knocking on my f-----g door at this god forsaken time in the f-----g morning!, knowing damn well that none of them spoke English, and that none of them had the slightest idea of what I had said. But it sounded good. They just stood there. Aghast. Completely aghast.

It had then occurred to me that there was no miserable bastard aggressor who I was going to smear across the hallway floor. The knocks had come from the cleaning girls, in an effort to get the room occupants out as early as possible. You see, the sooner they got their work done, the more time off they had had in the afternoon. I had experienced this before, but usually, at 0900. Getting the hotel clients up at 0530 so they could clean rooms was a little ridiculous, even in a country such as this. But from the shock on their faces, I had also immediately realized that I had made my point. I realized that they weren't going to bother me again.

I also realized that I was standing in the hall amidst all of these people wearing only my underwear. With holes in it. Drooped halfway down my ass.

Yes, I had made an impression. What a sight that must have been. I went back to bed to try to get some sleep. It was a rather unsuccessful attempt; the morning had been completely wasted.

But they never knocked on my door again.

At around 1000 I had decided that it was time to head off. It was still raining a little, but worse, was the dense fog which had settled in on the mountain top. I changed into my other tee shirt (the dry one), packed, and left. I really didn't make it far outside the front door of the hotel.

You see, I was wearing a tee shirt that, in Chinese characters, had said "Tsong Wen Shao Lin Tse", which means, China's Shaolin Temple. I really hadn't thought much of it when I threw it into my back pack the day before. I had proved to be one hell of a mistake.

As I walked outside the hotel, I had noticed that the fifty people from the 0530 sunrise watch had swelled into about three hundred. And, as opposed to yesterday, when people had just looked at me in a curious fashion, this morning, I was just assaulted. They started yelling tsong wen shao lin tse, and pointing. At me. People started crowding around me, touching me, patting me on the back, stopping me, preventing me from, well, basically getting the hell out of there. People stopped me to have their pictures taken with me; pictures with them, then with their children, with them and their children, with their wives, with their wives, children, and anyone that was in close vicinity, hell, I should have just opened a booth and charged them. It was absolutely ridiculous. Nothing but thumbs up everywhere (which in China means "number one", or hen hao, "very good"). All they could think about was getting their picture taken with the guy that trained at the Shaolin Temple. All I could think about was "which one of these bastards knocked on my door this morning"....

It literally must have taken an hour to take pictures with all of those people. I wasn't just a foreigner now, an American, which a good deal of these people may not have ever seen before. It occurred to me that I was now, inadvertently, a representative. And as I've noticed before, in my travels through China, regardless of the region, or the distance from Shaolin, that the Shaolin Temple holds one hell of a special place in all of these people's hearts. And I think that it's more than the fact that Chan Buddhism basically started at the Temple. I think that it is the Shaolin gong fu that really makes these people revere the place.

It took a couple of hours to walk down. I had found the trip actually kind of difficult, as my balance was pretty bad, and walking down narrow steps just seemed to be more of a challenge to me balance-wise than walking up. Especially with the human mules running down to get their next load. I tried to hide part of the front of my tee shirt with one arm, as the routine comments were just starting to get to me. If I were to say that more than one out of every five people I ran into on the way down had said "tsong wen shao lin tse", or "gong fu", I would be exaggerating. If I said that less than one out of every ten made a comment to me, or gave me a thumbs up, I'd be lying.

It was quite the experience. I never wore that tee shirt in China again.