Running from the Chinese Police

from Alone on the Great Wall, by William Lindesay, who spent 1986 & 1987 jogging its entire length.

Late last night there were murmurings about the Gong An Ju, so I was up and away at dawn. Getting off the bed, my shins ached so much I almost wished the worst would happen, but once on the road approaching a high ridge of mountains and spotting the Wall, I felt my spirits lift.

Following a stream flowing through a valley exposing outcrops of basalt columns, I reached a mountain hamlet that immediately earned itself the title of “The Hamlet of Thick Walls.” Small clay-baked bricks formed the interior walls and large stone blocks the outer – the latter looked very much like Great Wall material. The proximity of ramparts on the crags above provided a convenient source of ready-hewn building materials. Peasants have no interest in the conservation of their historical monuments, and more than that, they were positively encouraged to destroy the “four olds” – including relics – during the Cultural Revolution. According to one villager the main-line Great Wall, da bian (literally the big frontier), was further south, some three miles ahead. Was this the second frontier, “er bian?” I enquired. “Shi de,” (Certainly) he replied.

And so it proved to be, for on the lower rolling hills beyond, the main element of the Ming’s triple-layer defense of the Datong region came into view, the most serene view of the Wall I had yet seen. Smooth rounded hills were set to pasture. Stacks of baled grain dotted the landscape, drying in the bright autumn sun. Unless the locals had succeeded in a complete stripping of the Wall’s stone, with the efficiency of vultures scavenging on the flesh of a carcass, then it had never been cased in this region. It was entirely of rammed earth construction – almost a dyke formed by the excavation of two parallel trenches. I could only run uphill. Walking downhill was excruciating and so slow that an old woman laden with maize plants, looking like a bush on the move, kept ahead of me on the descent to the Cang tou He. On the valley slopes beyond the river, the Wall’s condition was better preserved, angular in shape, slithering up the hill like a giant serpent of mud. At its sides, fields were plowed and crops harvested, and down in the valley bottom lay the small village of Shahukou.

Shahukou, “the pass where the tiger is slain,” became known as the “pass where barbarians are slain!” – hu is a phoneme for barbarians, although the characters of the two words are entirely different. The sinister name of the pass seemed to cast a spell of despair upon me. Here I was, a barbarian from beyond the Middle Kingdom after my run through Inner Mongolia. This was Shanxi Province, the fifth region of my route, for even today the Great Wall serves as a provincial boundary.

The wounded invader limped on, shins splitting with pain, walking on the outside of his feet, the injury eating away his morale. The ominous name of the pass, though a few miles behind, still had its revenge to vent on the helpless foreigner. Forced into a luguan to eat, but seduced by its comfortable convenience, I remained there to sleep. And paid the price for the lapse in self-discipline. Was it a nightmare when my eyes strained against the glare from the torch thrust close to my face? No, it wasn’t. Regaining my senses, I slowly recognized the familiar angularity of the peaked cap of the Gong An Ju.

A bedside interrogation of over an hour followed, using a school-teacher as an interpreter. “Don’t think I’m a policeman like them – I’m a schoolteacher like yourself.” (That was the safest profession to confess, I had always believed.) “They called for me and I must do what they say.” It was nearly midnight but still the questions about the numerous visas persisted. Soon they grew tired themselves and decided to adjourn proceedings until morning. But they did not actually order me to stay put, nor confiscate my passport. I lay there, tired, lame, smelly and unwashed. The rules of continuing were the same as they had always been – go for the gap! Already I had been planning the escape for over an hour. Now it was time to do it!

Seemingly amplified by the dead silence of night, the door creaked hideously like a hinge on the lid of Dracula’s coffin. Outside, guided by a full moon, I walked with a moon shadow. Frozen, I grappled blindly in my rucksack to get my gloves. My shins ached even more, for I could not see the undulations on the road. I plodded on. Datong was just forty miles away. “Da-tong-Da-tong-Da-tong,” I murmured, like a pilgrim chanting a meditation.

What were my chances? Perhaps two to one at best. If I were fit, the “dog-legs” would not have had a chance, but being injured, with shins feeling as though they were going to fracture, I was forced to stay on the road to Datong. A posse would surely be dispatched when they found only pillows under my quilt.

I managed to reach Youyu county town before they caught me. It was an unequal contest. Tracking a lame foreigner on a Chinese road must have been an easier predatory strike than a shark sniffing out a bloody corpse in a swimming pool. The ensuing procedure was so familiar to me that I could have conducted it myself. An austere and robotic officer, extremely smart with shining black leather shoes, metal-clipped on their soles to give his authoritative gait added audible menace, conducted the interrogation swiftly. Within two hours they were putting me on the bus and warning me not to come to an unopen place again. As the bus started up, the teacher slapped me on the back and said, “You have a great spirit, Mr. William. Keep on this bus to Datong.” “Shi de,” I replied, after telling them I could speak no Chinese.

Related posts:

1. Excessive Force or Racism by Beijing Police?

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.