OUT OF EDEN WALK

We climbed up from the Yellow River to the city of Lüliang, and a storm was blowing in from Inner Mongolia. The big, windy, lonely, new roads that exited the city were almost empty of pedestrians. This was not uncommon in China, where booming infrastructure often leapfrogs the presence of people. There was nobody around to talk to. But someone had left a plastic cup containing incense at the intersection, doubtless to honor some ancestor or family member for the Qingming Festival—Grave Sweeping Day. The festival is said to date back more than 2,500 years, when a servant proved his extreme devotion by feeding a slice of his own thigh to a hungry lord during a period of exile. When the lord regained power, he neglected to reward the servant. Eventually, the lord felt pretty guilty about this. So years later, he located the aged servant living like a hermit in the forest, and when the servant refused to meet and be thanked, the lord burned the servant out. The servant died. Now the lord felt extra guilty. He declared a national holiday.

I know. I don’t get this story, either.

The next day, while we hiked across the Lüliang Mountains, it snowed.