Mr Wong Goes West Read Online Free PDF Page A

kept it up at that level for several minutes.
    Now he was calm. His spirit was still. His heart was subdued. His worries had been temporarily discarded.
    The toilet roll throne was surprisingly comfortable. He was relaxed, and his eyes were shut, but he was dimly aware of being in a soft, rather comfortable, all-white atmosphere. It reminded him of something. What was it?
    He thought of the time he had made a snow chair for himself as a child. When was that? Could he return to that moment? He emptied his mind and allowed the memory to fill it. But the first thing that came into his mind was a picture of a grey planked cabin on a snowy mountain.
    He recognised it immediately. It was the home of his great Uncle Rinchang, who lived in the west of China for many years, until his death in 1993. Rinchang had lived in the mountains south of the Takla Makan desert, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Wong had been sent there in 1963, when he was twelve years old, during a period of political upheaval in the main cities of China. He had not wanted to go to a place that was so cold and remote and lonely, but the year he had spent in the mountains had been a life-transforming experience for him. He had learned from his uncle and the other mountain people that life could be lived to a different rhythm, a much slower, deeper beat than the shallow, stuttering music of life in the cities.
    Uncle Rinchang was not much of a talker, rarely needing to say anything. The quiet seriousness with which he did his regular tasks—working with yaks, gathering food-stuffs, trading in the markets, spending time with friends, worshipping the mountain gods—had impressed itself on Wong, who had grown hardy and thoughtful in those twelve months.
    He connected his visit to the mountains with the first time he had heard the legends of The Immortals, who were sagesand mystics said to have lived in the high hills for centuries. The oldest were reputed to be eight hundred years of age. They lived on diets of rare herbs and secret elixirs, which gave them magical powers.
    There were several experiences he had had with Uncle Rinchang that he would never forget. One was a walk the two of them had taken to a sheer cliff, some two hours’ trek from the cabin. It was one of the most dramatic scenes Wong had ever seen. You walked along a misty, icy plain towards what looked like the far horizon. But as you moved forwards, you became uncomfortably aware that the horizon was actually oddly close, that it was only a short distance in front of you, and you were indeed getting very close to it. The human mind is used to the horizon being a long distance away; the effect of seeing it just a few steps away was highly disturbing. It was as if one had become a giant and had walked to the very edge of the world.
    Despite the bravado of being male and twelve, he had wanted to turn back. But Rinchang had taken his hand and made him walk onwards. They had slowed their steps and come to a halt within a few metres of the edge. To Wong, it really seemed as if they had come to the edge of the planet. Everything seemed to just stop. Existence itself seemed to finish at that point. There was only a great misty nothingness ahead of the packed snow at their feet.
    As they stood there, a wind sprang up. The clouds began to drift to one side and it became clear that it was not the end of the world after all. Across a huge valley there was a distant mountain range, a massive, craggy, fist-shaped outcrop in white, grey and blue.
    Things he had never quite understood became clear to him. The people here worshipped the mountains as if they weregods. They talked about the biggest mountain as the Holy Mother. Wong, who had hardly ever known any sort of mother, now realised why. The mountains did have a divine presence about them: something magical and parental. They seemed to be watching. They seemed to be listening. They seemed to be guiding.
    Also from the mountain people he had heard stories