Three days in Beichuan, China (July 25, 26, 27 - 2008)

START OF A LONG STORY - entering Beichuan from Main Yang

they travel to Beichuan over flat terrain from the city of Mian Yang. Then the tent density got thicker and thicker as they approached and if you knew Beichuan as one of the mountain scenic areas of china then expectations of high rock peaks hovered above your brain. And that is exactly what you all of a sudden see, the forested mountains come over the horizon as you drive there, big, large, and with an air of selfless proudness. They tower there and they say "come on into the valley". Maybe you were warned that here there are daily earthquakes and mud, rock and serious other things sliding down the mountainside to smother crush and kill.

The volunteer (Butthead) and his guide (3) slide into town with growing heart rates as more a more signs speak of forewarned dangers and activity is of heightening chaos as they approach Beichuan. The mountains come to meet them and open their arms as if to snatch them in for a big hug, making the Butt and 3 a bit nervous. Their Beichuan grade 12 high school student/guide/new friend (Bo) was at the final bus stop after which only local vehicles and other emergency, reconstruction and military vehicles rumble. They bantered about for a best local motorcycle taxi lift to one tent city. There three and Butthead were given a basic human touch by Bo and his family, smack dab in the middle of crushed buildings. As if nothing ever happened to Beichuan, they were introduced to family members kindly offering a hot meal, smiles, handshakes, home made rice wine that makes your eyes pop, and beer if you want, and here, very hot very red pepper food.

Some people have labeled this the dead town. Their meeting of Liu Bo's reception is actually on the outskirts of town, far uphill from downtown Beichuan. Downtown is really "down" in that it is much deeeper in the valley. Just up stream from the town is tang jia shan lake, so called "quake lake", big and deep enuf to drown Toronto if the dam of fresh loose boulders and mud from the initial and subsequent slides of the May 12 earth quake let loose. So there they were, on the upper fringes of the town of death, a ghost town, now wired off with razor wired fence by the Chinese army. Protecting respect for un-recovered deceased and protecting from potential disease.

Back to the point about the basic human-ness they saw, felt, heard. Bo, said in slow but somewhat confident English that they'd eat and then go behold his high school that dropped during the Earthquake, dropped like a shot man. He said nobody is allowed into the downtown area, over that hill, down that muddy road. But first things first, so he introduced his "family"; actually his uncle and their family. Earlier in the day Butthead and 3's cell-phone call was to inquire where to sleep and Bo said they could find space at his uncle’s new tarp home. They had brought a tent. Hand shakes were followed by toilet; hands wash, and then please sit down and eat offerings. This was actually a temporary home that his uncle had. The other is freshly buried underground. In the other home the babies stuffed toy is looking in the eyes of a worm (a worm just has one eye) that wiggles through soil with ease, at home slithering through new soil peacefully staying out of the sun. The worm is curious at this strange toy. Worms have 5 hearts. Humans have only one which explains many things about some basic human behaviors. But Lui Bo's family gave 5 full hearts.

Weather is good and the meal would be served outside between the kitchen and the living room/sleeping section of home. It has been raining and the yard is a bit muddy, but it is so scenic with surrounding mountains so dominating that nothing can obscure the sight. The mountains tower above them and look down at them like tiny butterflies way down valley bottom. Just like tall trees if you were lying on your back in the forest staring straight up at the sky. The kitchen had its typical Chinese massive steel cooking woks with billowing flames like a dragon flames, unheard of in Canada. All the things were there in a makeshift home, including the cook. These cooks are so different; they chop and chop with big cleavers that could chop a cord of firewood for Canadian woodstoves. These blades chop chop chop for long times....chop to chop stick size. The kitchen walls had a great view of surrounding scenery. The roof was of tarps, and scattered boards for walls, mostly a tiny skeleton. Soon, in the open sun-baking mud, they sat beside the main house of tarp walls and whatever other materials could be salvaged and gathered from a splintered town. The banquet was huge and proud though the surrounding atmosphere was noise of 24 hour a day reconstructing machines and dump trucks fighting and screeching back at nature. Good food is scarce and expensive here now yet this hospitality meal of all kinds of Chinese food was big and affectionate. This family had little left except its people; the touchable things were mostly gone. What remained were the basic human feel and the love. It is a family stripped of materialism and left with the raw basics, sharing food, wine and love in the open air, exposed to the on looks of passersby. They ate and ate just like they were in the emperor’s palace and Bo's family seemed truly happy refusing all attempts at cash offerings. Showing cash ruins the moment Butthead was told.

TO SEE THE SCHOOL

Stomachs rammed full of rice wine, beer and foods, the meal ended with many thanks and content smiles from all. The next move of action aroused the butterflies in their stomachs to take flight up throats and across the mountainside. Liu Bo wanted to walk over his high school rubble and try to take inventory of his new feelings and try to create some kind of organization for his life instantly changed by 12 seconds of rock locked fury. So through the School gates they went, past its label of skull and crossbones.

Onsite bulk graves prepared in the state of emergency and instant action now had new shade trees that protected this strolling party of 4; Butthead, Bo, Bo's classmate (Qiao2 Peng2) and 3. Into the rubble they paced. Liu said their May 12th basketball game abruptly ended when the earth began to bounce like a dribbling basketball, slamming and convulsing. Down came his school, down came his teachers building (cut perfectly from a three to a 1 story building still standing on all below), and down came the mountainsides. And in the billowing dust of convoluting crushing concrete and mountain rocks they stood, on the basketball court, all alone naked with Mother Nature. Here the mountainsides threw house sized boulders at them, the occasional one stomping it’s footprint onto their space. The track/football field was heavily covered on one side with what seemed like giant nature pouring a mountainous bowl of Chunky Chinese food rolling down the escarpment. Liu stopped and began proud words of his math teacher dai4 wei3 zhong1, about the things he liked, that this was his mentor teacher he treasured. He suspected the math teacher should be directly under us now, his guess, and his thoughts can't avoid thinking that he might be alive; but it is 2 months after the first blast. Zhong traded his life for that of another lady he saved. Qiao Peng went in and in, and looked and looked, but t'was his brother he was without.

Pulling concrete chunks of rubble of off buried but alive people is a futile endeavor. Just ask the early rescue teams of heroes. Don’t ask Butthead, he’s a loser standing in fear. It’s lucky if a few can be saved. There they wandered until the police said to leave for fear of disease from bodies still in the process of returning to the earth. Bodies take time to return to earth. This is their grave, in the picturesque valley of Beichuan. The rubble remains, out of respect for those down there. Bo reached down into some blue covered class papers he recognized, using his fingers to push sheets looking for reminders of lost friends, as butthead was staring at some twisted and splayed classroom desk legs held by fingers of grasping rebar. Bo took Butt’s camera and headed, alone, to one of his classrooms under the rubble.....he has been there before, all his grade 12 classmates survived, but other grades were completely lost. The graduation class was in a tiny box of luck. And downtown Bo's sister school is buried under mountain side slide....most are resting in peace from that school, in that school.

Heroism is prevalent here. Of these survivors many are saviors of other lives. Liu's friend's story tells of what kind of fear you must endure to be a hero. After their school buildings crashed down as they stared from the basketball court, through up thrusting thunderclouds of debris across Si Chuan province, and with no more help from the sunlight above...one of Lui's friends bolted for an opening he saw to find friends. The first shivering unforgettable nightmarish vision encountered by this high school student was that of half a head crushed in concrete, exuding studied brain tissue from ears mouth and nose. Fantasies of "I could have been a hero" quickly disappear from Butthead's skull as he feels to vomit just at the words. The heroes walked past these material visions of terror and into the still falling crumbling buildings. Some came back out, running past fresh chopped body-less limbs. Stories of heroism of Beichuan people are now full and real.


TO SEE DOWNTOWN BEICHUAN

Later that day they hiked to the hill, the hill overlooking Beichuan down-town. Butthead can't explain its beauty, in a valley of forested mountains with two coalescing light blue crystal streams. But the town was then surrounded by military guard and razor coils.



It WILL NOT be ploughed over and planted and rebuilt. It will remain as is except for the infrastructure needed for the planned EQ museum. It will be an earthquake museum and research center to study future prevention and cater to over whelming desires of people to go there and mourn, truly a decent idea.
From a ledge, Liu Bo points at the sister "downtown" branch of his school near the mountainside, and now one in part with the mountainside. The mountain and the school have now joined hands and inside still and forever will remain the studious ones. The hill view location is incense strewn with many worship and remembrance items that not all westerners understand. Butt doesn't understand the Buddhist ideas very deeply. Butt doesn't understand much of anything. And the mountain Qing's people ethnic





ladies from the mountaintop come down to give theirs too, and to cheaply peddle a few of their local truly awesome pears.

BACK TO FOOTBALL FIELD TO SET UP TENT

As evening approached they decided to set up tents in the football field for the night, so down they walked in the sweltering Si Chuan heat. This football field is a relatively safe ground for tents. The initial quake made the local mountainside roll and throw its bounders onto the field, but aftershocks haven't thrown many more. Trying to sleep here in its relative peacefulness made them imagine spaciously.


And to add to the mounting peaceful stress was tomorrow’s mountain climb which is told to be dangerous because apparently earthquakes still happen here every day. Butthead didn't believe these things he was told in south china. Even with his hotel room last week at a 3 pm afternoon snooze having jumped and rattled as his brain was rudely ignited and he ran wild for fear of having being on the street with his underwear only in his hands and his pp in the other like a cowering whiner (as if he would have even made it out). Standing there in fear on the hotel 3rd floor he then believed every word about daily earthquakes even 2 months later. But now here in the epicenter of it all one week later he still lay in disbelief that it could happen to him, strange how time makes that dumbass forget.

This night was peaceful and all the homeless tenters tend to bed down early. This evening some Chinese student volunteers put a movie on for the people and for Butthead the refugee, on the rocky edge of that football field projected onto sheets attached to the field fence. It was a war movie, of a battle of China beating USA. After the movie and as all curled up in tents, the dogs talked sporadically in the night silence....talking to their friends across the valley. There are a few on the tent area, and a few up the hill in the other communities of tents. These dog’s occasional barks echo in long curves and reverbs up the mountainside like loin’s shrieks. Laying in the tent looking at the stars it sounds very cool, man! Eventually sleep overcomes them. But! A shooting crack suddenly in the middle of the night and the tent jumps! They wake up immediately, and Butt's tent mate Bo and 3 alone in the next tent are all mumbling the trembling word earthquake and gripping their pillows. They hope new rocks aren't tumbling down to squish their tents like dumpling dough. The sleeping dogs scream to real fear now and bark for 20 minutes straight until their throats are raw. What are the dogs saying, other than "stay away" evil force! Lying in a tent gives one a special appreciation for the underground earthen grinding rocks. If your tent head is ear to the ground, you hear it all. For Canadian hockey players who have played on the open ice, open wild lakes and rivers, they are familiar with the sound. Sounds like cracking ice radiating across a lake, but a more muffled sound coming from underground. And the solid earth rolls like waves circling outward from a boulder dropped in a pond, first big then a few smaller and smaller ones; like a jumped on waterbed. The action put their attention directly on the task to occur in about 4 hours, and on warnings about hiking the mountain. Letting their minds wander about stories of mountain mudslides still frequent because of common nearly daily earthquakes and heavy unpredictable rains. And once the dogs settle down, they again manage to fade back to sleep for those last few hours.



And in the morning Butthead awoke thinking he was back in his home town in Canada listening on the ocean to waves wash ashore. The cornfields were full of waking insects (maybe cicadas) causing the washing wave sound. They all talk....millions and billions, they are gossip freaks, one to the next and to the next and on and on, single long winded words. And the word spreads across the fields in a perfect imitation of an ocean wave, and in the same time over and over again, of ocean waves. Peeking out the tent door, all stones and rocks "seem" still seems the same. Lui Bo and Butt stretch at 6am beside the tents and begin to think about today’s tough task; the mountain. Early arising local elders curiously come to these 2 small tents with one foreigner, and a long Chinese chat ensues during which Butt brain makes out that they are trading many comments on the relative danger of 2 mountain trail options; discussing their fate so to speak. They convince Liu Bo that the Tangjia lake mountain trail is freshly filling in and impassible, and they will become fertilizer if they go that way today. So they change plans and head for Beichuan mountain instead of Tang Jia Shan. They go for the other option, similarly dangerous and full of bitter leg pains.

TIME TO CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN

Liu Bo lives upstream from Biechuan in a town called Xiao3 Ba4 (small dam). The reason for the mountain hike was that the highway up the valley towards Xiao Ba is resting in peace far underground of multiple mountain slides, and as well may never be rescued. Liu Bo has stories of his home and clean water swimming, fishing and other secrets of China and even some young obscured groves of bamboo that make pandas drool green. This, Butthead truly wanted to enjoy with him. He aint no psychologist and cant really help the broken hearts there in Biechuan too much.

He can play ping pong, talk English and Chinese babble (and an old pretty lady collecting bottles as her house is gone undermud......she smiles and laughs at compliments), and give some kind of different thing for survivors to scratch their head about…..as he is truly a one of a kind messed up guy. Ping pang tables are concrete and they stood there in the chaos sticking out their chests to resist all earth shattering quivers. But dumb as he is, he wants to hike the mountain even though Liu Bo says this hike is toooo dangerous! Bo said to go Xiao Ba he must hike 8 hours, climbing over two mountain peaks; the newly developed trails of survival. The people of Beichuan town, the survivors, all have to find a new location to live, and reciprocally, those survivors upstream need to come down-valley for basic reasons, but have to trek the mountain peak as well. The 2 new mountain trails had become a trail of strong souls. Although Liu Bo warned butthead that it is too arduous with mountainside slides still common, he couldn’t possibly listen. Liu tried twice to say no no no but the idiot couldn’t imagine a trip he couldn’t do. He is self proclaimed hero (hero of shit). So they went. Three lucky motorcycle drivers got to whisk them to the trail of hope, making an easy 10 RMB. “Easy climbing” he first thought! He was looking at the gentle sloped forests and the base. The motorcycles headed deep into the gorge, deep into the crotch of Beichuan Mt. There they were dumped to the embrace of a few local smiling people observing the each newcomer hiking to a new life. Inside, they knew about buttheads impending task, little did they know what little he knew. Just first stepping off the motorcycle and laying down his heavy backpack for taxi money, he jabbed his fist into what seemed a hornets nest....pain shot up his finger to awaken his numbed skull...he realized that this local plant was a very able plant, able to ward off the most diligent human. The local smiling farmer....he knew from the red face that the first mistake was made on only the second step toward the mountain....he was laughing. And in Chinese Butt knew he was saying the name of the plant...and was saying Bi zi, Bi zi and showing the action of rubbing his nose on a spot on his arm....making the laughing point that nose slime is the cure to the pain (better know in bad English as snot). But he still had high spirits. You can do it!



In the lower river gulley appears flat as they begin to ascend. The first impression is that all boulders are newcomers to this valley and the full range deal, monolithic to mud. Butt thinks mother nature has been good him, newly cutting clean all river walls. The rocks and the river water seem to have been flowing as one fluid. Climbing further it becomes clear that every corner has steep banks that go up up and up. And each corner reveals new upward stretching sections of bare ground where the mountain sides have been shaken to the bottom to mix with the torrent. Stones are important in Chinese lives, and my mothers too, but these house sized boulders are not welcome in the watery stream, the stream does its best to vomit these rocks, boulders and stones out and out....but out is as far as

Shanghai...too far for all but the mud sized pieces of earth to stay suspended. Not long into the trek there are houses, half houses, houses with no roofs and people in yards with expressions of missing family agony. An hour into the hike they are just beginning to see steepness spring up. Family after family has passed, both ways. Ladies with big things on shoulder (making Butthead look small) like sacs of rice, homemade tarp backpacks, sweat, babies, all sorts of things. Today so far the rain is off, so the river flow is low, but in a sunny sky the rains are lurking, invisible. The skies aren’t spiteful; they just go on and on and on.

Liu keeps hinting fast walking will get them over the 2 mountains and to the other side in 6 hours, slow in 8 hours. They make it to the peak of only the first in 6 hours, dead tired. Three's bag has been taken by a would-be star; but in it are her medicals, food and money. Buttheads big long backpack is now on Lui Bo's back. Delirium in heat has taken its toll. Legs shake with screaming rejections of further floundering. They don’t understand. Then it happens, the clouds and rain spread over the sky almost as fast as a frog’s tongue catches a fly. And the local heroes begin to run not walk, and yell at butthead and 3 that they must seek shelter now, now the danger is here, it has returned to take more lives. Mudslides will begin soon. And lightening says they can’t cower under mountaintop trees, they must descend into the bamboo forest on the other side. They find an abandoned house with no walls but still a roof. And vomits, and defecations, and other signs of survival lurk within. They wait, thinking about the man that died drinking the stream water. This was just a rest they were told, the must descend further into the forest below. Nobody is smiling or speaking here...just looking and listening.

FARMER'S HOSPITALITY ON MOUNTAINTOP (Butthead is a weakling)

So out they came into the rain and now slick muddy trail and continued at the urgings of local champions who slid and ran with ease. A lady trots easily past them yelling hot Zhou! She has a farm about 5 minutes below (20 for them). And there they arrive, in the pouring rain, in a farmer’s house; a house perfectly intact and of wooden beams. These well built wooden beam houses creaked and rocked to the music of the earthquakes just daring the earth to shake them down on this epicentric mountain. This is the offer; a place to rest and eat warm food, and these farmers are accustomed to those needing rest so have large stoves and floor space to sleep.



People come in with designer clothes, rags, chickens in baskets, all nature of things. And the lady has zhou, or rice porridge. And the man of the house sees wet shirts and says they will get sick. He offers them dry shirts and starts a wood fire; primal and wonderful;

drying clothes by the wood fire and nothing could have been more comforting at that moment as the smiling lady began to cook.

And the rain comes down...hard, and the locals are hiking for survival. They do it. They just do it, and do it well. They are surviving, saving themselves and their babies and precious items. They don’t think much about it as it comes natural. They all just watched their town drop to the ground in a mushroom cloud of smoke. They know how to climb these mountains. As the afternoon grew older, Liu Bo was ready to head out but could see the pain on his new friends. He was adamant, he would not go look for his father and leave his new friends on top of the mountain....they asked him to go...admitting that they were in way over their heads. Go Bo go! We’ll turn back, we can make it! No go, no he says. I won’t leave you alone. So...impending stomach pains hampered already darkening plans.

It was decided. The lady farmer offered a floorbed in the room that hovers on stilts 10 meters above a dropping mountain slope, surrounded by pear trees, bananas, and bamboo. They say they don’t "see" pandas in these hills...just the occasional pile of recycled bamboo shoots; they are unseen happy-ghosts. Three became anxious yet happy that they'd travel no further that day, but camp out for the night and decide in early morning. They’d sleep in their floor mats...but Three hard-bargained for separate rooms, so the farmers would sleep on the floor, and we in their beds. It was a business deal and would be paid as a hotel….on top of Beichuan mountain, in the wild, in the beauty. She was twitching with disgust at the thought of her X-star hotel bed, And Butthead was lovin every minute of it. She was right to worry, with a track of bed bug bites across her back the next day. But, they still were.

This was later afternoon and Butthead decided that since they were there, he go for a hike try to reach that distant waterfall that could be seen, long like a lightening bolt down across lush forest, nestled in a perfect mountain valley full of freshly steaming mudslides. He desperately needs a bath he thought, and decided that he was no help to these survivors, except he’d provide them with a laugh; they could laugh at his weaknesses. The farmer said no, there is no place to bath. So, Liu and 3 sat, hand crafting a deck of cards to use for the evening. And off he went down the other side of the valley alone.

Down over mud, heading for the outflow of that crystal fantasy waterfall hoping to find sub-falls. And there he came upon another residence...actually half residence, 50 meters from the gorge edge. The front had fallen off the house and all rooms sat there with their mouths wide open
on the hillside taking in the view of emperors and empresses. The house's soul lay open, and the occupant, an older farmer sat there looking over the hills smoking a homemade pipe-like thing. He jumped up to invite butthead into his wide open house. There they sat the 2 of them, neither able to talk the others language, both smiling contently and enjoying the view.
From outside you could see all rooms...it was as if a big axe slashed the house in half. It is a brick house and those didn’t fare well in the shake they don’t bend and flex like the log houses. The remaining half is quite livable, even to all animals. Butthead sat for 5 and asked for a few pictures. In the bedroom, half the floor dangled its boards over a cliff. The bed was half way through the floor, swinging it's legs down in thin air, and its upper legs gripped a few remaining floorboards like a monkey grips branches far above the forest floor. It was later that he noticed that this hermit style kind farmer had some green hair. Not believing that he is one of fashion, it is decided that the hair and the forest have become one, half moss and half hair...actually a true fashion innovation that the whole world misses, at wonderful secret. A comb and shower would ruin it all. And this man offered all he had.

Butt head departed the man’s half-house to descend to the gorge, towel and toothbrush hidden in pocket. Nobody here he thought, he could shower like at home, naked to the world. It like all the other streams here was a deep and new earthly gash, ripped open as if 20 tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs slid down through the valley with their jaws wide open, purging the streambed of all greenery and life. The river walls now straight up towered 50 to 100 feet high, these walls are plastered with table sized boulders winding up and down just waiting for a puff of wind to blow them loose. The water was like a hypnotizing rose bubble bath to butthead. He pictured people having been mixed with the earth like a down in the earth quake. He had a devil on one shoulder saying...”Shower! You stink!”...and Confucius on the other shoulder shaking his head no no no don’t go down in there. He saw just what he had hoped, a shower waterfall and he imagined rose petals. 10 minutes later and he had descended to the stream bottom, and it was banked with fresh mud, maybe from last night’s 3am earthquake. He touched the water, and at that moment looked up at the walls he had ignored. Massive boulders overhead...his heart began to pound...he thought, when will the next daily aftershock rumble through China. The devil screamed SHOWER!!! Confucius just stared in disbelief.

Butthead thought at that moment he could die so easily and so stupidly. He already realized he was in top running for the Darwin awards just by being there. He struggled for over a minute and became so afraid that his pounding heart was about to loosen the boulders and smash his body for the eagles to feed on. And there he'd go, to Buddha heaven. Every second he thought was like forever as he stared at the blue shower. He imagined being brave, it would take about 2 minutes to go up to that thundering shower and be free as a fish, bathing in nakedness. Using all senses in preparation to flee flying rocks, he knew he was watching every stone on the wall, smelling feeling and hearing. Knowing that for a few minutes of bliss in crystal stream drops the ability to hear would be gone; one less sense to detect his impending crushing death. At that moment he snapped a quick picture and fled like a scared deer, and seeing fresh pebbles tumble, he span up that bank like a hot missile, unshowered. Slinking away wondering how he could be so stupid as to go down there into that bare exposed slice of mother earth without her permission.

The night was peaceful and the morning rooster woke them to an uncoordinated barrage of sounds; birds, tree toads (maybe), and other noisy insects and animals; a truly peaceful, deafening noise including the stream babble under-camp. 3 had quietly wondered about the tending farm boy who seemed to be interested in her....what about late at night, her alone in that bedroom. Well, all turned out good, they are kind as 5 hearted worms.



THE RETREAT

Morning. Decision time. Liu Bo was wanting his parents; badly. 3 had developed a bleeding injury and was stomach sick. To continue, or go back, that was the question. Butthead knew the answer and did not want to break Bo. He tired to make the analogy of the Beijing Olympics to start in 12 days. He said most world Olympic athletes will come to Beijing in 8 days, and most will go home with no metal. He said they would all be stars even if going home empty handed. Mission incomplete but still stars. That’s how he said to Bo that they can not continue. After a minute Bo understood. Meanwhile Butt went to enjoy a last dump in the toilet. As he crouched in the open air toilet he said hi to the pig in the pen beside him, the pig and butthead shared the same toilet bowl and looked in each others eyes; seeing eye to eye. In China his animal sign is Pig, and now he felt he had a friend that understood. And his shit smelled worse than the pig's. Back inside, Butthead said you must go Bo; you must go find your father. Bo was so sad they had decided not to continue, and maybe the chance will never re-occur. Bo said no no again, no, I will go back with you, I will not leave you alone to descend back down the mountain, it is my duty to protect you from danger. The camp became silent for a few minutes. Butthead said we must go now, its not raining. Bo said lets go, 2 hours and we can be down. So away they went, the farmers hailing "you are going the wrong way!!!"

EARLY MORNING MOUNTAINTOP "SCENE"

They had to hike 10 minutes to the peak then back to the base on the other side of the mountain. Bo said ten minutes, it took an hour. They reached the peak, and there was a site to behold.







Against the sky drop were about 20 people who had made the peak in the early morning. They were hiking for survival. There were young boys and girls, old men with beards, young mothers with babies on backs, and an old lady with a cane and grey sweat wet hair. They were taking a break. They were amazed to see these obvious non-survival hikers too. Butthead had his camera around his neck and took a picture of the old man resting on the mountain top with a sac much lager than his, his that Bo was carrying. They think he is a reporter. A child approaches in curiosity and smiles touching his face. His sweaty unshowered face. He wanted to cry but held it back. He knows the little girl doesn’t know what the others know, even though she watched buildings smash her toys and her friends. For her this is normal life.

Then crying really starts. Another lady she’s crying in Chinese, Butthead doesn’t know what’s up. Then the translation comes in from 3. She was crying that she lost it all. Her house was buried. Her son and her daughter both went to heaven. She is now alone with no home. She was a government worker for 20 years and that building is broken and buried. So, no job, no nothing, there she rested on top of the mountain. She pleaded us to tell the story and ask the government to kick in (lets hope that happens!). This haphazard meeting had to come to a quick end with lots of pictures taken and hugs for the lady. The others all have their stories too, they didn’t tell, but it showed in their eyes and in the reflections from their shining sweat.

A man headed off...he was carrying a boy in his arms, no sling, just arms, like walk in a safe living room carpeted floor, away he ran, down the mountain...the boy in his arms was asleep. In one minute he hopped down ten minutes of their uphill trek.

Away Bo, 3, and Butthead went, backtracking to the base. Liu said an hour. After an hour they had still not entered the forest just below the peak. 3 was bleeding and they were tired and shaky but careful. Finally they entered the forest and needing a place to rest, but the trail is narrow as a bamboo pole, and one side is a tumble to injury or death, and the other side is a wall. A lucky spot finally as the forest widens and they sit, eating an apple given by a lady back at the peak. Their hiking skills had already been put to shame by all, including all children who just did what they had to do.


Butthead's camera was in his bag as a most amazing thing or wizard brushed by their minds. Were they delirious again and imagining things??? Is that a man??? Not on the trail but in the forest whisking down through the mushrooms and the dead leaves. Is he in a kayak?? He has a bamboo paddle!! This is real, they looked at each other. This old man put in the final shame of skills upon them. It seems he has not been invited to the Olympics, but used that bamboo like ski poles, one side then the other with the speed and grace of a brisk wind or Swiss skier in powder snow. The leaves and cones and forest floor lifted in his wake and he ignored the trail. And he probably descended in half an hour. Bo thinks he was a kayaking forest wizard. He was to survive with grace. No picture Bo thought, just a thought.

Nearly four hours had passed and it seemed like they might make it today. The valley had widened where 3 gorges bow down to the largest and hand over their water to the main solid stream. A rain here is always bad news for hikers. They came upon an uninhabited lean-to made with tarps draped over bamboo poles, and a sign "free to rest and drink the medicinal tea". The man who died drinking too much of the stream water with its natural unfriendlies would have been saved by this. Down they sat. Lui had to be thinking, "4 hours for a one hour trip and I'm backtracking". But he wasn’t, he was just playing his part with heart. Butthead used his brain fat; his wheels were turning as he got up to pace a bit and take a picture. He deduced through his analytic mind that since there was corn growing, they must be on a farm. So, they must have descended to safe ground and be near the base! He saw on the ledge over yonder, a picturesque large wooden farmhouse and a man on the deck...it seemed the man was aware a distant picture was being taken of him. And so it was. The farmhouse mansion poked into the sky and had a backdrop of distant dank mountain hills.

IN RAIN DANGER AGAIN (the mid-slope estate)

And then, as they sat mustering the final energy for the final walk, the rains came. They came hard, very hard! Each drop splashed rings of mud outwards. The tarp lean-to bowed, and in rushed the first four people including a mother’s baby in a bamboo back basket, and the basket tumbled onto Buttheads lap and the baby’s head hit his hard bony knee. And rain was running in from all directions on the ground, and the baby began to cry as Butthead tried stupid baby smiles. There were 2 babies in this group and they were all heading uphill! And buttheads mind was spinning, he thought that he'd now have to set up tent for another night, and he, Bo, and three would have to pile in and shiver the night away hoping the mountain didn't rumble down upon them burying them with the others. He can’t believe it all is too surreal. In a dream, out of the rain and into the tarp rushes a pretty girl with a kind smile and a steaming bucket of medicinal tea. It is the farmer's daughter. She calmly assess the situation and has donated her time all summer here, helping victims of loss muster enough energy and courage to clear the mountainous obstacle before them and give them tiny bottles of medicine in case they mistakenly drink the stream water. It will save them from a painful stomach or death.

The farmer’s daughter looks at Butthead, 3 and Bo. She takes pity and next thing they know they are invited to the farmhouse just photographed by butthead moments ago as a fantasy farm house. Butthead is a serendipitous pig! He and 3 had been taken so well care of. They came to help Beichuan victims, and had been helped at every corner. 3 was pained and bleeding and they hiked up to the farm house on the ledge, and in they went. And again they were treated like emperors. The farmer and his wife were so excited and rushed about looking for warm clothes, bandages for 3, and all manner of things.





Eventually all were sitting on the front porch's 80 year old wooden log seats, so worn and warm. The grandmother and original builder was sitting there. She is 80. The farmer’s daughter is called Wang Xing or star king in English. And she rushed about preparing this and that for their new guests. She is a 3rd year university student of a hardworking farm family. Her wide pretty smile helps Butt and 3 greatly, but Bo is sad. This is to be the turning point where he will head back up the peak and over another and finally traversing a lake to find his father. Butthead becomes a bit scared now, such a coward, that they must descend the rest of the mountain on their own, carrying their own bags. Sorrys and fear set in but he kept that to himself. The farmer dad was busy too; he'd already made heartful demands that a feast will now take place! Star king translates this, and dad disappears over the lower hill like a real mountain man. So they sit with a pet pussy cat listening to grandma stories, perched on the porch watching clouds and haze dance tango up and down wide open walls of forests and mountains of Beichuan.

Grandma was happy to relate stories of the feeling of an 8 Richter scale earthquake and why her house didn’t even have a crack. She said 80 years ago she was lucky to find a very good woodcraftsman, who hand crafted each locking log and patiently put the house together. She said she was napping at 2:28 on May 12 when she felt her bed jump and she was thrown up and up and up again, she was being flipped like a pancake on a skilled chef’s spatula. She half slept through it, dreaming that her grandchildren were playing tricks on her as they so often do...lifting her bed to give her a hard time. That was it for her. Just an exciting flip in the bed as her town tumbled to the ground in grinding mountain rock smoke, and the cliffs crashed down around her crafted home. And on she slept, deservedly so, only to be told of the horror later. Butthead loves green tea. He asked about some local tea and grandma began to speak Chinese as her legs creaked and she uplifted to a full stance and grabbed her bamboo walking stick, and she headed in the house to soon return with a sac. Shivers of joy hit butthead; he was going home with tea that survived the quake. And it was nameless. He asked the name and grandma said....its no name. Grown right here by me. Butthead wants to save the Beichuan tea forever.

They began to sip some of this tea, and watch scenery and listen to the chop chop chop behind wooden walls. For an hour the food was being chopped up. Chop chop and birds and mountain breeze and rain. As they all chatted and awaited the meal, farmer dad's head popped up over the hill and quick he came with a big box of beer on his shoulders. The crew felt desperation and dad felt it was time to celebrate. He dropped the box of beer there as to say we'd drink all we could, and soon the feast was being brought to the open view deck.
Lots and lots of food. The highlight was, well, pig ears, liver, mountain vegetables, and one year free range lean red mountain pig as dark as red can be. And there they sat, Mr. And Mrs. Wang and their daughter and grandmother, 3, Bo and Butthead. Butthead couldn’t understand the hospitality and decided it wasn’t for trying to understand, it just was. And they ate and they drank beer and mountain tea, and laughed and filled their souls. Bo departed immediately as the rain stopped. And it was said, the farmer would guide butthead and 3 safely to the bottom. In the end it was star king to be the trusted guide. A seemingly not so big pretty mountain girl not only guided them out but she demanded to take Buttheads back pack.





FINAL GUIDE, STAR KING

And so they went taking memories, and leaving memories and a tent behind and feeling guilt at being treated so well as suffering stripped people streamed uphill. Butthead gave them his tent to donate to someone in need, wishing he had left it with the lady on the mountain peak early this morning.


Three was happy and feeling better and patched up and stomach smoothed out, star king was proud, and she toted buttheads bag with ease, and they dance down the mountain, the final hour. Butthead crawled on his hands and knees far behind.
Safe it was as Star king had trekked this trail thousands of times.






And within an hour on a city bus, Bo called and cheered he was wit his dad. He ran both mountains in less than 3 hours. 3 and Butt fell asleep on the bus to Main Yang, passing the red river

of mountain slide mud, army camps, tents, and rubble.

THE END