Military Trouble

A 5-minute walk from the door of the Shooting Hotel, where I've lived and taught these past four months, takes one to the foot of a mountain, part of a mountain range that extends to the nearby Eight Sites Park (or "Badachu"), which is one of the half dozen larger parks that stand out on a Beijing map. The mountains, parks, fresh air and star-studded night skies compensate for being in the middle of nowhere in a place that taxi drivers typically have trouble finding when I try to get home from an evening in the city.

The only little problem about the adjoining mountain is that there is some kind of military presence there, and sometimes they don't think foreigners should be in certain areas. I frankly know no more than this. This being China, no one can provide any clear information.

In retrospect I guess it was pretty inevitable that I'd eventually have a run-in with the military folks.

About six weeks ago, a brick wall rapidly materialized, cutting the foot of the mountain off from the higher areas. Some opined that the wall was intended to stop marauders from attacking our neighboring shooting range and making off with a bunch of firearms.

When I commented on this deplorable obstacle one day to Jim Wu, he revealed that the wall had a door not far off which was generally left unlocked. So shortly afterwards, I went for a nice climb up the mountain with one of my students.

We went up, surveyed the school from the mountaintop, glanced at the quite uninteresting military installation on the other side (we took no pictures), then followed paths in the general direction of Badachu. After an hour or two we descended a neighboring mountain and emerged by the side of a road. Across the road was a gate, attended by some young kid in uniform, and another road leading inside from the gate. The pedestrian doorway by the gate was open and we wandered in along the road, looking for anything of interest. Some beefy, muscular men in track suits jogged past us -- evidently military types. After about 50 yards somebody in the distance ahead of us waved us back, indicating we had to go back out the gate and leave the area. OK -- if we weren't welcome, we'd leave.

As we walked back, we were passed by a car coming in the gate. When we reached the gate, the attendant wanted to know why we'd gone inside. My companion told him we were just looking around. This seemed acceptable, and we proceeded.

Rather than going back up the mountain we'd come from, we followed the road we'd crossed, walking for about 30 minutes. We saw kids playing; workmen digging; a nondescript field with nothing in it but some garbage. The usual. We were looking to connect to the main road we could see in the distance in order to grab a taxi to take us back. We reached a cul-de-sac, retraced our steps, asked the kids for directions, got to the main road adjoining another big empty field, and waited several minutes for a passing taxi. Just as one approached, a couple of frail-looking kids in uniform, aged about 17, came half-running across the field.

The soldiers approached us and said something to my companion, whom I'll call Susan to save her from future espionage charges.

"Someone wants to talk to us about what we were doing back there," she told me.

"That's ridiculous," I answered, flagging down the taxi. It stopped next to us, but the soldiers waved it on and it drove off.

"We have to go with them," said Susan.

It was pointless to even begin discussing the matter with this pair of uniformed kids. They evidently had their orders. My feet were starting to feel a bit cold -- it was all somewhat nettlesome -- but we began the long walk back the way we'd come.

I told Susan that in America, they couldn't detain us like this unless they had grounds to lay charges. But I wasn't actually too confident about the practical distinction.

"I am afraid this could take several hours," Susan told me, adding that she'd have to change her plans for that day.

"Look, please make it ultra-clear to whoever we talk to," I told her. I was already anticipating a deluge of ludicrous misconceptions. "We did not climb over any wall; we did not walk past any 'No Entry' sign; we did not disobey anyone's orders or go anywhere we weren't allowed to go. Plus I'm an English teacher. OK?"

But I expected that our fate, unlike in the movies, would be unaffected by anything we did or said.

We eventually reached a man of about 30 in a rumpled track suit, not looking very pleased. He was more solidly built than our escorts to this point. He yammered to Susan at some length, apparently cross about something. She responded mildly now and then.

Susan is among the innocents here, a stranger to animosity. I once asked if she'd ever had a fight with anyone in her life, and was unsurprised to hear her answer No.

I've complained that her generation here, the kids I've seen, get too much love. Students sometimes seem to expect me to pursue them for the privilege of spending time with them individually, even if it's to give them special help with schoolwork. But I have to admit, too much love is probably better than too little. Things are apparently different in Taiwan where, instead of getting a free ride, kids are physically beaten for failure to achieve. (Of course I'm speaking in gross generalities.)

Our new escort, after consulting on a cellphone, led us onwards towards the compound we'd entered. A couple of other men joined our party. We drew curious looks from a few passersby. Susan told me the man had been rebuking her for leading a foreigner into such areas. Why didn't she realize foreigners weren't allowed in these places?

Ever the incorrigible Westerner, I wanted to know where the heck was the sign saying we weren't supposed to go there.

She put the question to the man. After another spate of Chinese, she eventually said he was claiming that there was indeed a sign. (I quite doubt this.)

It seemed the occupant of the car that had happened to pass us when we were leaving the area inside the gate had observed our presence with disapproval -- and had made a phone call.

How, I wondered, were we supposed to know we shouldn't go in there when even the guard at the gate hadn't known it -- he'd watched us freely walk in. But I was being far, far too logical. Susan explained with a discreet smile why our escort was peeved: "He is a little upset because we made him get out of bed."

After a while I had Susan express to the man my regrets that we had disturbed his morning. He nodded courteously and replied, essentially, "No big deal."

What struck me was that Susan and the soldier, divided as they were by occupation and other demographic factors, still operated within the same frame of reference. He'd remonstrated with her; she'd defended herself. But there was no serious unkindness here -- no grave concern, no fear. She was in "trouble" in the same trifling way children get into trouble with loving parents trying to set them right.

This absence of any notion of violence, the assumption of civilized norms, is something I've seen consistently here. (Angry right-wingers, please remember these letters are not a political report on the Chinese government but an account of my limited observations of Chinese people.) In the West, when we see someone with a funny haircut, we automatically imagine he's liable to pull out a rifle and start massacring people. Women don't enter a man's home or room alone -- conventional wisdom tells them that means rape (and in the West it may well be true). And children nowadays go nowhere unescorted. Our conceptual landscape is crowded with countless violent acts. We have an exaggerated sense of the extent of violence in our environment. But this is nothing more than psychologists have long said is the result of our media diet.

Here, by contrast, insouciance seems to be the rule. A trivial detail from the Beijing streets comes to mind. I'm waiting to cross at a traffic light. The light changes, and a stream of bicycles comes to a stop. I watch a policeman admonishing a man of about 45 whose front bicycle tire is sticking out a couple of feet past the white line where he should have stopped. I see the bicyclist voicing his reply with a cheerful laugh, probably telling the cop to get a life.

We eventually got back to the gate we'd entered. I was asked to wait by the gate as Susan went with the others into a little booth. She emerged a few minutes later. She'd been asked to write her name and our school name and address on a piece of paper, and they'd given her directions for returning to the road where we'd been "picked up." We were free to go.

Susan's main concern was what Mr. Li would say when he learned of our escapade. I told her to relax. Even if they tried to phone the school, they'd most likely get incorrectly transferred a few times and then give up.

So, I wanted Susan to tell me, now that this was over, did she have a clear idea of what the rules were? Where I could and where I could not go for a walk?

"No," she replied.

So, rather than tempt fate, I haven't been climbing our mountain much lately. Things might be more awkward if I were detained without a Chinese-speaking companion.