February 8Early the next morning, Brad was out for his morning run and came back with great excitement, having seen a hospital that resembled the hospital designed by Dr. Distad. We had to laugh though, knowing that in a city the size of Xinyang (even small cities in China usually have over a million residents), there could be many hospitals fitting that description built in the last 90 years. Unfortunately, Brad’s excitement quickly turned to frustration as he realized that he had misplaced all of his family’s photocopied information and photographs of Xinyang, which he had been carrying the previous night. We retraced our steps all over downtown Xinyang, but never did recover the lost manila envelope.
We finally gave up our search for the lost envelope, and walked over to the bus and train station. There a man walked right up to us and said, “Ji Gong Shan?” We followed him to a van and climbed in for the ride to Ji Gong Shan. We have come to expect crazy driving in China, but our driver was the worst we have seen! He practically flew through winding roads, passing cars on the left into opposing traffic, and veering dangerously close to the guardrails. I was beginning to feel sick when we pulled into a small village to let a girl out. Instead, a police car pulled up behind us. The policeman pulled our driver from the car, took his license, yelled at him, and then put him in the police car with another policeman. Then, the policeman climbed into the driver’s seat and drove us back to the main road. There, despite the pleas of the other passengers, he ordered us all out of the vehicle (with our baggage) and onto the side of the road, where he left us. Brad and I looked at each other, and then put our thumbs out. Within a few minutes I hailed a bus heading to Ji Gong Shan, and Brad showed him our paper with the address on it. On the bus we thanked our Father for his assistance in helping us to hitchhike to Ji Gong Shan.
The bus ride to Ji Gong Shan was beautiful. The breathtaking blue mountains on every side reminded us of home. The road ran through the valley alongside a river, and eventually we arrived in the little town of Ji Gong Shan, about 30 minutes from Xinyang. We explored the town, but it appeared that there was no way to go up to Mt. Ji Gong Shan due to the snow, and no hotels were open. We tried to communicate with some people at a closed hotel, who flagged a van going up the mountain for us and gestured that we needed a place to sleep. Our driver drove only a few yards before stopping to load another man going up the mountain.
The climb was unsettling to say the least. The roads were not clear of ice and snow, and the van jarred with every movement. The “guardrails” were widely-spaced concrete blocks, with shear cliffs immediately beyond them. When we arrived at the top, we were in a quaint little town with many old and unique styles of Western housing. The snow was much deeper than it had been in Xinyang, and few of the paths were clear. We paid our driver, who gestured that we could stay with the other passenger in his home for the night. Our host then showed us around the house, which appeared to be a hostel. There was no heat (you could see your breath indoors and he liked to leave the back door wide open), no hot water, and no bathroom. To use the bathroom, we had to go to an ancient outhouse down the steep icy stairs outside. He wanted 150 yuan for the night (which is pretty pricey considering we’d paid 168 yuan for a real hotel the night before). We didn’t see any other choices though, so we paid the man, left our baggage, and went exploring. Before we left he pulled out a bag full of chickens and pulled one out to show us. We nodded and smiled, and went on our way.
It was wonderful wandering the streets of the little town. We could just imagine Dr. Distad and his family spending their vacations up on this mountain, enjoying the cool weather and breathtaking views during the hot Chinese summers. Everything appeared to be closed wherever we went, due to the weather and the New Year’s Holiday. The buildings were styled after the homelands of their builders, so every building was different from the next. Finally, at one building we saw a woman entering through a back door. I followed her in, to see if there might be cheaper accommodations with her. Brad came looking for me, and explained “American,” “Great-Grandfather,” and “Grave” to the best of his ability. The woman and her friends pulled out a map and began pointing to things, then started walking. With no other ideas about where to look or what to do, we followed them.
The four girls walked for what seemed like an eternity, hiking through snow that was a foot deep, past the “American-Style Building” (labeled on the map) along a road that followed the back side of the mountain overlooking more gorgeous views. Eventually they stopped at a large upright memorial, shaped like a square with a giant circle cut from the center. A stone to the right described (in English and Chinese) the “Moongate” as a symbol of friendship between the people of America, Xinyang, and Mt. Ji Gong Shan. The girls then walked through the Moongate and down the hill on the other side, following a path to the right. There the leader pointed to a bush. Brad gave her a funny look, and so she took a snowball and threw it just past the bush. Brad looked closely and realized that he was looking at a gravestone.
Brad and the girl climbed up beside the bush, and there Brad could read the words, “[The Son] will lift me up,” carved into the gravestone. The girl directed him to other stones, covering the entire mountainside. Without a Chinese translator, the best we could figure was that between Dr. Distad’s death almost 90 years ago, and the present, there was trauma in China and on Ji Gong Shan. All of the English graves were then taken from the cemetery and people’s homes, and thrown down the hill on the outskirts of town. The Moongate is how they now remember those people who left all that was familiar to serve here in China. On the way back to town we explored the “Villas” (also labeled on the map) and found many houses resembling the one that Dr. Distad lived in with his family (as seen in photographs).
When we returned to the hostel, our host had dinner waiting for us. He had a big pot of chicken vegetable soup with rice in a rice cooker, and cabbage on the side. We sat down to eat, and he offered us a clear alcoholic drink in tiny little cups from an open bottle. A few minutes later he reappeared with a new bottle, pouring it in our little cups. It tasted terrible, but not wanting to appear rude, we both managed to choke down a few teaspoonfuls. After we had eaten our fill, we watched television with our host for a few minutes. Then he turned to us and asked for 100 yuan! We were quite appalled. We rarely pay more than 50 yuan for the two of us! Brad was unable to reason with the man, so he called our friend Tony. Tony spoke to the man, who claimed that we had agreed to the chicken dinner (which we didn’t realize we had), and that his bottle of alcohol cost him 200 yuan, so he was charging us for that little bit of awful liquor. He also decided that he was charging us a “ticket price” for walking around Ji Gong Shan National Park. Essentially, he had decided we were rich foreigners, and he was going to squeeze every penny out of us. Tony eventually talked him down to 90 yuan, but our relationship had already soured. Tony told the man that we did not want breakfast, and did not wish to pay for any more of his services. We decided that we would go back to Xinyang the next day.
