The day before, the organizer gave us two options for spending this day. The long route, 19 kilometers in length, requires waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning, getting a very light breakfast, and the highlights - sunrise, some halo over a Buddha sculpture head, and the view of the valley - will not be visible due to the weather. The shorter route is only 11 kilometers, requires getting up at 7, breakfast will be available at the hotel, and you get to hang out with monkeys. Moreover, it was cheaper. It was obvious that we were being manipulated to choose the shorter route, but with my healing foot and our inherent laziness, we played along.
The first half of the day was extremely similar to the previous one: we got new badges and a new, but just as annoying, tour guide named Xiao Yang, who explained that she does not get her commission based on the crap that we buy. We saw a temple, and then we were taken to meet… the fucking Yi. You’d think that this time they would tell us something interesting, but then you would be wrong. We were led to one of some ten rooms, each one had a tour group, with a Yi woman explaining, once again, the benefits of silver. Then we were taken to a store, even bigger than the one we were in the previous day. Julia and I waited outside, and as time went by the entire group was waiting with us. Except for Miss Rainbow, who Xiao Yang actually had to pull out from the store.
Today, Xiao Yang explained, lunch will be at 3PM, but we’ll stop for some snacks around noon, and the tea and alcohol will be free. By now we knew that they’re going to try to sell us something. We started walking down a mountain. On both sides of the path, there were merchants selling mostly snacks and tea, but also sticks, to scare the monkeys away in case they jump on you, and many small restaurants where tour groups sat with their guide, and all these restaurants looked exactly the same. Around noon, we were led into one of them as well. We were served tea and got a big pitcher of some weird alcoholic drink. Then a young lady who works at that joint started her spiel. Basically, she was pushing tea leaves and herbs to us to put in your cheap booze. Everybody was reluctant to cooperate, but surprisingly, it was Xiao Yang that moved to more aggressive marketing. “You seem like a nice guy,” she said to one man in our group, as she massaged his shoulders, “help me out here!” She tried different techniques on different people. When her eyes met our dismissive expressions, she said “you’re probably more coffee folks…”. It’s really incredible, how shameless this whole operation is.
A couple of people bought some stuff, probably in an attempt to silence Xiao Yang’s tiny, piercing voice, while I and a couple of guys just took shots of the liquor. We finally left, and as we continued walking down the mountain, we noticed that the merchants are selling the same kind of tea for much lower prices, the further we were from one of these restaurants, the lower the price was. At its cheapest, it was about one eighth of what Xiao Yang tried to peddle at.
We stopped at a pavilion and were given directions: if we wanted to go see the monkeys - go 3 kilometers up the path to the monkeys, go 3 kilometers back to the pavilion, and continue 3 kilometers to meet for lunch. This gives us a full Xiao Yang-free 9 kilometers.
So we got to the monkeys, and received a fascinating lesson on the evolution of monkeys, humans, and economics. Since people come to see the monkeys, the merchants also come to sell things to the people, mostly tiny bags of nuts. The monkeys jump on the people to take food from them. When monkeys jump on people, the merchants give the people tiny bags of nuts to convince the monkeys to get off, and then the people must give the merchants money. This encourages the monkeys to jump on people, which encourages people to come to the monkeys, which encourages merchants to come to the people with tiny bags of nuts. Witnessing this whole situation is heartbreaking, especially in light of how fat the monkeys have become.
One monkey jumped on Julia’s head, and immediately a merchant was there with a tiny bag of nuts. I pushed her away, because I didn’t want her in the picture I was taking, and felt some remorse for not buying one of those sticks. She stayed out of the frame, but kept yelling at Julia, trying to make her take the nuts. Even with a monkey on her head, Julia managed to resist.
There are three things you can do in the face of violence: absorb, retaliate, or escalate. I don’t believe in retaliation - it leads nowhere. I usually prefer absorbing. Most often, it breaks the circle of violence. However, I do think escalation is appropriate in certain circumstances, like when time is a crucial factor, or when absorption doesn’t work. Sticking nuts in your hand when you have a monkey on your head and then charging you for it is a violent act, and the timing did not allow me to absorb. Using my hands to push the merchant back is not acceptable in China, and therefore it’s perceived as escalation. The merchant was very upset, but she did move away to a distance which I was happy with, so escalation did work. But this is my point of view. From the merchant’s point of view, and generally in China, her acts are not violent at all, and my actions were not escalation of the violence, but rather an initiation of it. I don’t have a conclusion here, just some thoughts to share.
We walked double time to make it back in time for our 3:30pm deadline.We were a little worried, because the only person we ran into on the trail was Miss Rainbow. When we finally made it to the rendezvous point, we realized that other than her and us, nobody went to see the monkeys. They have been sitting the whole time in a restaurant waiting for us. During these entire two days of hard peddling, there were two things worth seeing - the giant Buddha and the monkeys. These people gave up one of them. I don’t get it.
We got on the bus and started the long ride back to Chengdu. At home, we told Yeye and Erjiujiu the entire story. They were incredibly upset and blamed Fan, who was still away with Tize for his reunion. Erjiujiu showed us pictures of the things we were supposed to see on the mountain, like beautiful shrines and amazing views, none of them looked familiar. Erjiujiu was furious. We went to bed in great anticipation for the big fight that would happen when Tize and Fan come home.
