Blunt Wit

So many years ago I was doing my best not learn Chinese while studying in Beijing. This was before China had opened up and become the economic juggernaut that it is today: pre Olympics. pre-Tiananmen, hell, it felt Pre-Cambian.

Anyway, as a student we had to wash our clothes on a washboard, there was no hot water in the shower, and we were watched closely by our communist handlers. We compared our living conditions to that of being on an extended camping trip in prison.

There were no 7-11’s, no slurpees, no Coca Cola, nothing to quench your thirst on a hot day. We bought fake antique Chinese vases and created a miniature water factory filling them with scalding water and letting them cool before pouring them into our canteens.

We took these water vessels with us on our various excursions. One was to the Great Wall of China, a couple of hours drive north of Beijing. Maybe you’ve heard the canard that “the Great Wall is the only man-made structure that is viewable on earth from the moon.”

Anyway, we got up there on a crisp summer morning. It had been boiling hot in Beijing with the hot sands whipping across the city from the Gobi desert and into our eyes. Thus we were woefully unprepared for the surprisingly cold, freezing wind up on the wall, dressed in our shorts and t-shirts. So we bought Russian fur caps and extra layers of clothes for spare change from the hawkers milling around.

Being stupid kids we hiked away from the crowds further and further along the wall. I half expected to come across Mongol hordes filing in through the various cracks we surveyed. At one point my roommate and good friend Andy gave me his camera and said wait until I say go. He climbed to the highest point on the wall, lowered his pants and flashed his plaster white butt in my general direction and yelled “Go.”

Later he developed the picture and added this caption … “The only man-made moon to be seen from the Great Wall of China.”