MARATHON MAN

Le Francais is not only married to my Brazilian Angel but he’s also a marathon runner. He’s one of those dudes who flies around the world for the weekend to run in a marathon. In other words, he’s just crazy enough to have my serious respect. Yesterday (11/4) was the Xi’An International Marathon. As Xi’An’s center is the ancient, walled city, the marathon ran around the wall. Frankly, it’s a pretty cool idea… if you’re into that sort of thing.

My Brazilian Angel and I talked it over and her original plan was to go to the city with le Francais, see him off to the marathon and then go clothes shopping (we’ve found some stores that may carry clothing large enough for me and so we were planning to return to see if the shop owner located clothes large enough for me). She’s seen him run in marathons all over the world, so she was less than excited at the thought of hanging around for him to finish another one.

We got to the South Gate (entrance for the marathon) and it was quite a spectacle. The fevered pounding of the traditional drums inside echoed its way out of the thick walls. The main entrance at the South Gate of the wall was decked out with banners, potted plants (they don’t really have landscaping here, just potted plants moved about appropriately) and dudes dressed up as terra cotta warrior era guards, complete with real spears.

As we arrived, we were all about to enter the wall to see le Francais off when it was discovered that his entrance only allowed one guest. Another guest would have to pay the standard 40 RMB fee to enter the wall. Granted, 40 RMB is only 5 bucks but in Xi’An, it’s like paying 40 bucks to stand on a wall for people who aren’t tourists; not very appealing in the first place, to say nothing of the fact that the sum total of our visit was to be, “Okay, good luck! Bye!”

My Brazilian Angel and I were polite as we sorted it out in Mandarin with the one of the ticket guys and he was very nice about it all (read: he spoke very slowly in Mandarin and did not get short with us for not understanding everything immediately). We decided I would just hang out in the front and wait for her to return.

While I waited, I watched bus loads of American tourists arrive loudly and become belligerent when the ticket-taking guys lacked fluent English. I wish I could say that I swell with national pride when I’m abroad (as most Americans I know do) but I don’t. You only see the entitled assholes who live for making scenes (and they are far and away Americans; second runners up are the Germans who look and speak English like Americans thus enhancing our already well deserved title of “Biggest Asses on the Planet”) while the fellow quiet Americans (by virtue of design) escape your notice. Americans who like to mortify me aside, I was pretty proud of the way the Chinese handled themselves as they managed to stand their ground without losing their temper; abroad in other countries, I’ve only ever seen one of the two.

After a solid half hour of cringe worthy American antics and watching them repeatedly get chased off the (clearly) restricted lawn areas, my Brazilian Angel showed up again. I was very ready to be anywhere but right there. She asked if I would mind joining her up on the wall as le Francaise really wanted her to be there for the run. She insisted upon paying for my ticket and so I went and bought one.
As I had a 100 RMB note with which to pay for the ticket, when I bought the ticket, the ticket agent asked if I had “small change.”

I answered her in Chinese, “I don’t know.” She smiled broadly and became very accommodating upon hearing my (pathetic) Chinese. I returned her smile and then I rifled through my wallet to find smaller change. “Nope, I don’t have any,” I finally answered again in Chinese.

She smiled at me, shook her head and said that it was not a problem. As I stepped away to count my change and allow the Americans behind me to purchase their tickets, her dour expression returned. And for good reason. The Americans behind me were not of the “non-belligerent” genre, much less the “quiet” genre.

I returned to the gate, ticket in hand and locked eyes with the ticket-collecting dude we had been talking with earlier. There were about six men collecting tickets at the front gate and by this point, loud Americans had started lining up and flooding the front entrance. I glanced at the crush of people and thought, “This is going to take forever.” Then the ticket-taking dude cocked his head ever so slightly in a gesture of, “Yes?” I waved my ticket, smiled my sweetest smile in the hopes that he’d help me out and mouthed, “Here it is” in Chinese.

The dour face that he had on for the loud Americans melted and he smiled at me. He waved me forward and took me in before the large masses of loud foreigners. He took my ticket, I smiled and said “Thank you” in Chinese and he winked at me.

I truly have no idea what it is between the Chinese men and me but there must be something. No matter who I walk with, stunning foreigner or stunning Chinese, I am the one who gets stared at. Everyone who speaks with me calls me “beautiful” but the other Westerners are always told they are “pretty.” It strange because in the West, I am comfortably “pretty”; the kind of plain pretty that becomes “beautiful” if you love her. Not so much here. Regardless, this phenomenon was made most clear to me on the wall with the warriors.

I must say, the army guys dressed up to look like they were part of the terra cotta warrior army were intimidating. They were not only real army guys but they were also holding real, notably ferocious-looking, serrated spears. They were to take turns standing at attention and doing photo ops. While the photo op shift was supposed to be approachable, the guys at attention were not allowed to budge, in sort of the same way the guards at Buckingham Palace are. However, when I passed with my Brazilian Angel, each one turned his head a little and looked at me. My Brazilian Angel teased me about how I was going to get them dishonorably discharged.

However, a most unsettling piece came a moment later. First, I should preface this by saying every morning, I watch everyone here practicing martial arts of some sort. I watch them methodically perfect the art of bringing down the foreign threat. It is beautiful to watch such mastery but it is also vaguely unsettling as there is nothing more foreign to them than the things I represent. (Granted, at home they have identified me beyond the dismissive, generic and [what they consider to be] racist “Foreigner” and now know me as the specific “American” but in the current climate, that still grants me little comfort.) And I just see the laymen practicing, not the trained warriors. Hell, the precision on Alpha Hottie’s control rivals most soldiers I’ve known (and I’ve known a few) and he’s a gym teacher. I am clear on the fact that the Chinese kindness and generosity isn’t one of a subservient people trying to place themselves on your good side but of a strong and virile people polite enough to make friends. Consequently, when I came around the blind corner of the first tower of the wall and I was greeted with the business end of eight notably nasty looking spears held by eight terra cotta warriors truly come to life, I nearly fainted.

The guards were changing shifts and they march in and out of the areas in formation with their spears level with the right side of their waist, business end pointed straight in front of them. I managed to come around the corner and land in the middle of the two marching rows of four. I gasped and my knees went weak.
There I stood, trembling and feeling more vulnerable than I ever have as the spears glinted in the sun and the tassels dangled rhythmically with the silent, terrifyingly disciplined march filing past me. I have had the business end of a gun pointed at me and I have (now) had the business end of a spear pointed at me. There is just something more visceral about a spear than a gun. With the gun, all you can sense is that if it goes off, you will cease to exist in some ugly way but there is no sensual point of reference (at least for me as I’ve never been shot). With the spear, there are far more organic images of being gutted that flood your mind. I’ve been cut with a knife and so I can extrapolate out. My midsection has never felt so soft and vulnerable.

As I gasped for air and trembled, trying to stay upright, I found myself in a flood of the kind of marching warriors only found in story tales. There I stood, entering an ancient and fortified city, the sounds of anything not medieval muted out by the labyrinth of towering walls drowning me. All I could hear was the faint, rhythmic rustling of their sleeves rubbing against their leather chest plates. The place I stood was the same place my ancestors stood as they entered Xi’An for silk so many centuries ago. The warriors around me are the same warriors my ancestors dealt with. This isn’t some plasticized, Disney recreation. This is the real thing in the real place complete with the real weapons on real soldiers. And I was real unprepared for that.

The helmets of the warriors all turned to look at me revealing real the faces of flesh and blood men and, as all men in armed forces are prone to do, they smiled at the damsel rendered light-headed by their presence. Upon seeing the truly happy smile of the warriors, my knees came back under my control. If Chinese men like you enough to smile their genuine smile at you, there is nothing they won’t do to help you.

Embarrassed by my panic, I started to giggle to release my nerves while the last of the warriors passed me by. At the sound of my laugh, most of the warriors turned around to look at me and a few even winked.

My Brazilian Angel, who had been far enough to the side to not get swept up into the middle of the march, shot me a look and said, “Chris, they really like you here.”
I was unable to respond as the adrenaline was still wreaking havoc on my nerves. My Brazilian Angel checked to make sure I was okay, I nodded and we headed off towards the top of the wall.

The wall was a sea of “international.” It was a veritable United Nations of hundreds of people to cheer and people to race. Asians and Westerners mingled while Middle Easterners and Africans strolled about. Young Muslim women chatted with young Jewish men. Towering Australians worked with diminutive Asian interpreters to get the appropriate stickers for their number card. White students talked with African students in their only common language; Mandarin. English women of a certain age made friends with American college boys. Everywhere there were people photographing and Asian biker dudes on Harleys and BMW motorcycles. Personally, I was flooded with young Chinese girls who wanted to take their picture with me. Even the women paid to promote Coke asked to have their picture taken with me.

Le Francais, not being one for lots of people found a quiet corner where we could all be together and prepare him for the (half) Marathon. As we prepared him for the marathon, we were flooded with professional photographers taking pictures of us preparing him as well as pictures of the professional photographers taking pictures of us preparing him. It got quite surreal with the various layers of photographers photographing photographers photographing photographers photographing us.

Soon, our entourage of paparazzi attracted more young Asian girls, politely requesting a photo with me. I complied with all of them and as they got their photos with me, my newfound paparazzi swarmed photographing me being photographed with the young girls and women. Eventually, everyone had enough photos of le Francais preparing and of/with me and they dissipated.

We met back up with the paparazzi later when they were photographing one of the coaches from the States wearing a red Addidas sweatshirt that said “China” across the back and who was photographing his runners. Frankly, I can’t get over the idea of people photographing people photographing. It’s too meta to not make my head spin.

Paparazzi aside, it got close to race time and le Francais was not fully registered yet. Consequently, we had to rush around in a blur of French and Mandarin to get him all the proper stickers and ribbons to run. At last, we had it all sorted and we saw le Francais off.

Once le Francais was off, my Brazilian Angel and I returned to English (anytime le Francais is around or my Brazilian Angel is tired, we simply speak in French; English is as equally present in my Western life here as French; in fact, I’m considering joining the Alliance Francaise de Xi’An) and we strolled the length of the south side of the wall. It was super cool to get the aerial view of the South of Xi’An and to see all the Chinese people who paid the 40 RBM just to cheer on the runners. (“GO!” or “COME ON!” sounds like “ts-I-YO”) As the runners came down the final stretch, they’d cheer the runners on and tell them how close the runners were to the end. It rocked.

While we walked around the wall, checking out the cheering squad apparently the biker dudes were checking out me. I didn’t really notice, as I am so accustomed to biker dudes checking me out that it no longer pings on my radar. They are the one demographic I can rely on to have no problem eyeballing me without creeping me out. It may strike many as counterintuitive but I have never felt so safe or protected as when a biker dude is trying to hook up with me; I know he’ll protect me from everything and I know he’ll respect me if I tell him to fuck off. I have never had the sort of trouble a girl has with frat boys with biker dudes. However, my Brazilian Angel seemed quite surprised by this and felt the need to point it out. Constantly. As my Brazilian Angel is a petite, beautiful woman, I think she’s never been confronted with the fact that big, burly men tend to like big women who can push them around. I look like the kind of woman who can slap a man around and won’t take any shit. Biker dudes love that. Yes, even the Chinese biker dudes. Not surprisingly, sex is more universal than racism.

Biker dudes and paparazzi notwithstanding, the stroll on the wall was quite peaceful and beautiful. We made it back to the Start/Finish line in time to find a good spot to take pictures of le Francais’s triumphant return and what a return it was! He came in 5th. It was fantastic!

He was glowing and again there were more paparazzi flooding us, snapping away. Though he wrecked his back and legs, he did brilliantly and was very proud of himself. We hobbled our way back to the car uneventfully and drove home just in time for the afternoon siesta.