again, with the inevitable destination of a souvenir store in the reachable distance. As she trudged wearily along,
very much in melancholy, her mind slipped away from the thought of the scenes which had embraced her
previously as a lover would, and the stimulus which they had brought her slid away as romance fails to weave
its magic on an absent mind. The new subject of interest had become the perpetual anticipation of what goods
there really were in souvenir shops, amidst all the previous instalments of disillusion and cold hard realisation of
the truth – as the company containing our absentee naively entered a certain souvenir shop with the general
understanding of finding anything of memorable value, the distressing truth was the interior of this nook had in
it a plethora of perfect nonsense: plastic models of the Wall painted gaily in blotches of red and beige; lopsided
magnets featuring a section of the Laolongtou before a computer generated sky of negligible artistic value,
under which the unfortunate inscription of , ‘Huanying guanglin Laolongtou! Welcome to Old Dragon Head!’
further deterred visitors from ever purchasing one; and finally the glassware flooded with scarlet letters of,
‘
Woai Laolongtou’; all of these available for the simple-minded consumers who would probably regret
purchasing them afterwards. Anyway, our absentee, being a cunning, calculating woman, declined the urge to
drive the economy of Laolongtou, and stepped outside for a good dose of fresh air. No sooner had her feet
touched the beautifully laid stones when she heard an enthusiastic clapping in the distance, and a crowd of
people with smiles etched on their faces. Our absentee enquired the cause of this commotion, and her tour guide
answered her good-humouredly, ‘Oh, that is the opening of the restored section of the Wall, you know. Must be
some official! No one but they can afford such applause …’ The tour guide allowed the explanation to trail
away as our absentee craned her neck to catch a glimpse of this important official amongst the crowd of
onlookers. Her attempt was interrupted in the shocking fashion of what seemed to be a thunderous crash and a
harrowing cry. Snapping her head towards the source of this upheaval, she tried to peer past the rapidly growing
audience around the far side of the Wall, but she distinguished nothing more than confused feet flitting round
and clouds of disturbed dust.
What was this? The truth was not for our absentee to find out, as her tour guide obediently shuffled her
along through the open space and trampled down the precisely engineered slope eastward to another place of
interest. Just as all the other absentees before and after her, ours excelled in being ignorant to what took place at
the feet of the Wall, but instead looked beyond what was real and at what was fabricated.
* * *
The Pragmatist
Out from number 88, Fada Road, Bohaixiang east of the Wall, pounced a golden Lamborghini which then
gave such a terrifying lurch forward that anyone who happened to be nearby could only see a streak of gold
stream by. In this frenzied vehicle sat our pragmatist – in all his glory. He, like many of the inhabitants of this
affluent neighbourhood, had a high affinity for material life, and was shameless enough to display it. Such a
specially bred golden Lamborghini, shipped directly from Italy, delivered to our pragmatist’s doorsteps;
extravagance could hardly be more rampant than this. Our pragmatist, however, seemed to relish in all this as he
craved for attention from the faces on the organised kerbs of downtown Shanhaiguan. This chariot of an
automobile prowled majestically down the fresh bitumen, glistening radiantly in the overflowing sunlight; our
pragmatist, housed in the crocodile-skin interior of this sports car, grinned eternally. Propped on the reptile-
covered seat beside him was a bottle of 1978 Enchante port wine – not for his own consumption though. It was
to be delivered particularly so as to exhibit the good will of a benefactor, and enjoy certain privileges of a
beneficiary – ‘with compliments from Heixin Caterings’, as denoted on a handy tag attached to the cork. The
bottle deserved so much attention that it even got to be belted up securely, just for the sake of it not having any
chance of receiving even the slightest mistreatment. With all this care, the bottle resided quietly on the seat, and
our pragmatist continued to direct his chariot across the scenic roads of the city centre.
His first station was, of course, the local government buildings at Tanwu Street. He let his pet car glide into
rest in front of the architecturally odd establishment and emerged importantly, holding the bottle of precious
liquid in his left hand. Passage into the building was of ease, as he was a rather frequent visitor of these parts,
and when he discovered from a diligent report from the emotionless receptionist that his beneficiary was busy,
he handed the bottle to the lady and bade her to take it to him as soon as he was ready. Thanking her for all her
trouble and slipping a 100-Yuan note under the bottle for her, he swept out of the place without haste and once
again boarded the glamorous car, screeching away without a glance back.
During the lonesome drive on the state highway, he thought of how admirable it had been for him to rise up
and become one of China’s phenomenally rich people. It certainly did not begin very sensationally: only two
decades ago, this area of Hebei was just a collection of villages with backward infrastructure and nothing much
to exploit. He was one of the few entrepreneurs who had been eccentric enough to invest in such a dreary