Revised beginning of long essay

James Bond in China

           From Russia With Love: Bond dials room service in Istanbul: “Breakfast for one at nine please: Green figs, yoghurt, coffee, very black.” After my short flight from La Guardia, as I walk through Detroit Airport, preparing for my departure to China, I am James Bond—comfortable in any culture.

            Unfortunately, mirrors interrupt.

            I return to the image in my mind, rejuvenated by the prospect of China, which has been, for some time, on my reverse bucket list—things I know I will never do before I die.  The first: play fullback for the United States Olympic Soccer Team—a dream that died around 1971. Sleep with a Playboy Bunny—also 1971; become President of the United States—1980; Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States—1991. In fairness to me, I have completed the New York City Marathon, and eaten croissants for breakfast in Paris, although I did not think that at age sixteen it would be for the last time.

            I am approaching the age at which Ernest Hemingway died. I am nearly two Charlie Parkers and more than two James Deans. Sean Connery is still going strong, and I am receiving a second chance.

            Steppenwolf: “Looking for adventure, and whatever comes my way.” 

            Ice Station Zebra: The North Pole! I watch the flight tracker on the monitor in front of my seat on the Boeing 777: Due north from Detroit, across Hudson Bay and Greenland; the latitude rising to 85 to 87 to 89; the heading still due north. There it is: 90 degrees north latitude, heading north and suddenly, heading south—an unexpected, incidental reverse bucket list item. I move to the window. The midnight sun is blinding. Nothing is below but clouds and pure white. What was I expecting—a thousand-foot flag pole? In 1909, Peary only knew he had reached the North Pole by consulting his magnetic compass and his sextant. He stops, squints into his instruments, then turns to his companions, "Well boys, I guess this is it."

            Frankly, going to either Pole was never on my list—too difficult. Being here at 38,000 feet, sipping a Dewar’s White Label, is fine with me—the flight attendants did not have Johnny Walker Black. James Bond or not, screw a martini.

            Stirred, not shaken, I anticipate Siberia and then Mongolia. Who am I kidding? This comfortable seat might as well be the couch in my living room, except that the scene on the TV is better than the real thing from 38,000 feet.

            Moonraker: He brushes the black comma of hair from his forehead. Three in the afternoon in New York is three in the morning in Beijing—I will not reset my watch, although someone will have to remind me what day it is. I look at the printout of the download: space age-looking taxis can take me to Peking University—Peking? Beijing? Don’t ask—the Chinese themselves are not sure. Suavely, I collect my bag, cruise through immigration and walk toward ground transportation. OK OK, there has not been a comma in twenty years—just a big old forehead—nor a black hair in ten, but there is no mirror in the security sector of Beijing Airport to remind me. I buy a pack of Zhongnanhai for 30 rmb—$4.50. 

            For Your Eyes Only: I have my first blessed cigarette of the day. Wow, the Chinese smoke indoors, in public places—how refreshingly enlightened.

            The web site says the cab ride should be 120 rmb—about eighteen bucks American. I am accosted by two seedy men with cigarettes dangling from their lips.

            “Taxi, mister?”

            Casino Royale: The scent and smoke and sweat are nauseating at three in the morning.
            I point to the printout with the address of my hotel on the campus of Peking University.

            “How much?”

            “Five hundred.”

            Live and Let Die: “F*ck off.”

            What? Do they think I just rolled into town on a turnip truck? I am Bond, James Bond.

            The men follow me. “For you, special. Two eighty.”

            “Get lost.” I continue walking to the doors marked in English, “Ground Transportation—Taxis-Buses.”

            “Two fifty. You never do better.”

            The men have decided to stand with me in the line for taxis. The Chinese cops do not seem to mind. The men closely examine my face, wordlessly saying, “What are you, an idiot?” I am impressed that the faces say the same as they would in New York.    

            The taxi dispatcher is perplexed. He has a two-page list of Beijing hotels, but “Global Village at Peking University” is not on it. He is trying to usher me to a van with no light on top—a limo.  I say, “No. A metered taxi.” He is not coming close to speaking English. I point to what I want. The dispatcher turns his face slightly to the side, scrutinizing me. That New York look again. These people have never before met a poor, penny-pinching American. I cannot begin to explain to them that I am only a part-time professor, that my flight and hotel are being paid for by the people who have engaged me to deliver a paper on truancy among Cambodian street children, and that I have no real money.            

            The taxi driver who is next in line and the dispatcher are yakking at each other in Mandarin. The exchange is getting heated. Occasionally, one or both will point at me. Reluctantly, the driver places my bag in the trunk.

            “Do you know how to get to Peking University,” I ask. The driver wordlessly gives me a phony, New York taxi-driver smile.

            As we exit the airport environs, I am craning my neck to decipher the meter.  There are lots of numbers, but none of them are changing.  After a kilometer—Bond knows that he is thousands of miles away from miles—the “11.00” becomes “11.80” and I relax, and first notice that my feet are on bare metal—no floor mats in taxis? Apparently, that is why limos command the big bucks.

            I look at China through the open window of the cab. It is 3:30 in the morning. Stone abutments are on either side of the highway. I might as well be on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, except that the driver is going around 130—maybe 80 mph. Good. He seems confident. The meter is clicking along—mid-nineties now and we have been speeding along for fifteen minutes—no matter where the University is, we should be getting there soon.

            The cab exits the highway. All of the signs are in both Chinese and English, but none says, “Peking University.” He knows what he is doing—he is a cab driver. A few twists and turns and we enter through a gate of a style that is my concept of authentic Chinese architecture. It is Harvard Yard, if you could drive through it and the buildings looked like pagodas.

            And that is how we spend the next fifteen minutes—going this way and that, and then doubling back through a lovely, deserted, middle-of-the-night Chinese college.  For the next five minutes I begin to check out the benches that dot the park-like campus, scouting a comfortable place to sleep al fresco until dawn, should that become necessary.

            My driver, an industrious, chain-smoking, balding man—he is me had I been born on the other side of the world—stops in front of a well-lit building. He speaks with the guard inside the door, who summons another man, who comes around a corner on the run. He senses my desperation and urgency. A few words in Mandarin with my driver, and we are off again.

            My driver exits the campus on to a broad boulevard, drives a kilometer, does a neat U-turn, backtracks down the opposite side of the boulevard, enters another, more modern campus, drives for a minute or two, and then makes a left turn on to a narrow, poorly paved, improbable alley. A brick wall is on my right and dense vegetation is on my left—vines brush the windshield of the taxi. Apparently, the cabbie has had enough and is looking for a secluded place to dump my body. So this is where I am going to die. 

            The driver comes to a dead end and stops. It is here that I learn that “oy” means the same in Chinese as it does in Yiddish. Hugh Grant’s best friend in Notting Hill: James Bond never had to deal with this sh*t!

            We back up—perhaps twenty meters in reverse—and make another unlikely turn, this time to the right, down a brick-paved ramp to a flat place, where my driver again stops. I look out the window to my left. There is a well-lit lobby behind a revolving door, where a young man, looking for all the world like a hotel clerk, is behind a counter, checking paperwork. The meter reads “123.50.” My watch reads 4:10. Thank you, lord.

            On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: Good evening, Mr. Bond. I’ve been expecting you.

            “Good evening, Professor Seagull.  We have been expecting you. May I have your passport please?”

            Although I have been advised not to tip taxi drivers in China, I give the little man 130 rmb. He fumbles for change, and I say, ineffectually, “Keep it.”  He does understand when I hold up both hands and push the air. It will not be long, I guess, before more Americans coming to Beijing will teach the taxi drivers to expect gratuities.

            You Only Live Twice: I bow to the driver.  He seems perplexed. They bow in Japan—not in China.