“The mountains are so dominant
that some days the people refuse
to look at them as children
turn away from the fathers who beat them.”
– Jim Harrison
We paid the villagers a dollar each to carry our tents and food and water mile after mile along the Dragon’s Back.
The humidity and heat like a backhand across the face as we climbed to a remote mountain fortress on the Great Wall of China.
A dollar. Think about that. They were happy for it – old women and children were less expensive than donkeys. I’ve never felt monstrous before, a Great White Father.
I know the Mandarin for “Foreign Devil”, said with a smile when we paid them. Yáng guǐzi. 洋鬼子
We spent our night in the Dragon’s Teeth.
qbit 
Dominant poem with extreme force. The irony spread throughout is not lost here, neither is the careful selection of punctuation placement.
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Thanks!
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Take this concept and explore it a bit further and you are round two – likely three. It fits the style, tone, and subject.
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Interesting, you are probably right.
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This could compete with the last one that took it all. That one was a chest-butt; this one is a rib-spreader.
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Did someone say tooth or teeth? At your service!
An evocative write. Feeling monstrous here shows you’re still in touch with your humanity. Life just isn’t fair.
Like Jilly said, I hope you add to this…. makes me feel as if I’m on a pilgrimage. Where next after Dragon’s Tooth? Are we going to give our helpers more money?
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Thanks! I was actually going to give them more money, but the Chinese guides were like “No! No! Don’t do that, it would cause big problems!” I’ve never been able to work out exactly what problems it would have caused. Something to mull over when sitting in a Dragon’s mouth.
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Oh…I know! It would ‘open their eyes‘ and upset market forces.
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Yep. Something like that. Also maybe if they’d come home with $20 (which would still be ripping them off) and their husbands and fathers had spent the day in the field working for $5, they get beat up?
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Oh–that could be, too. How awful!
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Oh my! Probably!!
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It would be very much akin to what was happening behind the scenes in Cuba when it was about to be opened up for the Gringo/tourist invasion. Cubans were not even supposed to have American money. If they were given any, they were to IMMEDIATELY hand it over to a political honcho. (This, too, is why Socialism/Communism are listed among curse words in my dictionary.) “Big Brother is Watching” was not coined as a commentary on our democratic republic. Big Brother would have ended up with your money.
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Yeah, there was definitely some sort of graft/grift involved in the whole thing. People paid off so we could pass through the villages and farms OK.
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Write it! Write it! Write it!
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LOL!
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More likely how my first words in Mandarin were “whisky” and “kung pao chicken” and “toilet”. Gotta get baseline survival in place before expanding your horizons.
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I have to agree with Jill. Write it all! Then edit.
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I agree with Vivian that feeling monstrous shows your humanity.
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“like a backhand across the face” – the stinging feeling is carried throughout, like the baggage – literal & metaphorical Western baggage too. Nice bite at the end
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Thanks!
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Ha…Monster is everywhere. Unsightly monstrosity will never end as long as there’s a single human (a curse word for this planet) left. Love that quote of Jim Harrison.
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