Wudangshan

As each stair is taken, another pound of flesh in sweat is spilled. The stairs of these mountains are painted with human strain. On each step lies the residue of a million toiling bodies. But alongside that spattered body stain you can also see the dye of human courage and endeavour. Isn’t that nice?

I’m not the only one climbing these mountains. Many others are doing so. Chinese people climb mountains such as these as a weekend pastime. I follow sweats up these mountains and sweats follow me, like stinking tinkerbells spitting through the air, the dizzy sprinkling rainfall of human struggle.

I turn my head in extreme slow motion and watch as one of my own residues drips slowly from my chin, landing explosively on the craggy rock stair, melting into motionless stone, and still history.

I’m dreaming of Hong Kong, my girlfriend wails. I should be shopping right now.  You’re a bastard!

I wipe a particularly stinking tinkerbell from my forehead and begin to rethink my judgment on all manner of things.

As we crawl upwards towards the first gate, my girlfriend suddenly happy having discovered fellow-climbers she can share her troubles with in plain Chinese, I find I’m the lone foreigner ascending the Wudang Mountains, in this long neck of the high woods anyway, so I stop for a moment, and allow the others to sweat on ahead of me. Below me I can see the Purple Cloud Temple swathed in mist, its ancient roof seated above the cloud, looking like something I’ve only seen in King Hu movies. To my right is a tree covered in red Taoist bands. These bands provide blessings in Taoism, and this tree looks considerably blessed. I reach over the cliff, looking down to see if I can make out where it is the tree begins. Of course, I cannot. We are too high up, and the main body of this tree is already hidden amongst a crowd of other trees branching out of sockets in the mountain. Then I start thinking.

Which mountain are we on, by the way?

Shut up, she says. Show me Hong Kong, you bastard!