horses and jaguars

I ran 18 miles today. It was supposed to be over the last weekend, but I have the third cold of my stay here. Yes, I’d guess that some of you are thinking “how can she run a marathon when she can’t even avoid the Specter of the Common Cold?” Well, that is difficult here. I’d guess that one reason I’ve been getting colds is related to the newly-announced “four pests” that the government is going to try to eradicate before China makes its big global debut in next summer’s Olympics. The four pests are queue-jumping (ha!—good luck with that one), cursing (ditto), smoking (ditto again), and spitting (more dittos). Apparently there have been official “stand in line rather than push in front of others” days, as well as a “smile” campaign and courses to teach shop clerks and taxi drivers how to be more polite. Anyway, the constant spitting makes for a vicious circle, people spit because they have colds, then this just gives other people colds, etc., etc., ad nauseum (or perhaps that should be ad sputum?).

Chinese friends have been plying me with traditional Chinese medicine and I’ve desperately tried it. The short verdict: tastes not so good but it seems to help. Feeling somewhat better today, I decided to seek more adventure, as well as to give myself less of an escape route, by running out toward the suburbs and back along a canal that starts about 1 ½ miles from where I’m staying. On the map it looked promisingly continuous, and I had fond fantasies of getting to some pristine areas as I moved out of the city. Why do I never learn that what looks blank on a map is of course never actually blank in reality, especially in China? Jim and I once departed Beijing and traveled 48 hours by train (it was supposed to be 36, but met delays along the way), 12 hours by long-distance bus, and then a few hours on horseback till we found anything resembling a pristine landscape in China.

Nonetheless, the run was an adventure. The canal was somewhat fetid, to put it politely, when it had water in it, and actually much of it was dry and being worked on for some purpose. I did actually get out of the city, but not before passing an area populated mostly by garbage dumps and military facilities. When I did get to a more pristine area, I was suddenly worried about the isolation, although there were always a few people around, mostly on bicycles. I had brought some money in my pocket in case I desperately needed to bail and get a taxi home. I’m sure this sounds completely contradictory—searching for pristine landscapes and still expecting to find taxis once there, but I actually did see a few taxis along the way.

There were lots of interesting sights. My favorite was actually two, but within 30 seconds of each other, so it counts as one. First was the rather straggly horse and cart that passed me on the other side of the canal. I briefly tried to keep up with the horse, challenging myself to run faster. The horse won, but not by much.

Second was a new-looking Jaguar with Sichuan license plates. This right after the horse and cart pretty much sums up how bizarre things are here these days. Coming from Sichuan by car (which is actually where Jim and I went on the train, bus, and horse in search of pristineness) would just a few years previously have been unimaginable. It would have taken forever and a day, but now they are building new highways at an amazing pace, and road trips are becoming more common here. You haven’t lived till you’ve experienced a Chinese rest stop, believe me.

I also saw a married couple riding matching three-wheeled bicycles with carts on the back with packages of Styrofoam piled 15 feet high. I said hello and they smiled and said hello back, and the man said “this isn’t a very good place to run.” To which I replied, “there isn’t anywhere good to run!” A couple guys drove by in a car and stopped ahead of me. I ran by them and then they caught up to me again with an open window, and one of them asked “Can I help you?” (in English, no less). It was kind of cute, but also worrying since at that point I’d only run 7 miles and thought I looked strong. Perhaps they just thought I’d taken a wrong turn, which was a look I received a lot. Kind of like I was out running along the Central Park Reservoir or someplace where lots of runners actually go and somehow was magically transported to Beijing, where I not only saw no other runners, but not even any other foreigners.

I passed a few small parks with the usual complement of people ballroom dancing and singing in groups, probably Cultural Revolution songs. That seems to be the vogue these days among a certain set of middle-aged folks—going hiking or to the park and singing Cultural Revolution songs along the way. I’m not sure if it is done ironically (I doubt it) or nostalgically (I can’t imagine being nostalgic for the Cultural Revolution—it would be like being nostalgic for the Great Depression, or the Civil War). Perhaps it is just because these are the songs that reside in the collective memory of this generation?