Bright lights make me sneeze. Some doubt the reality of my condition, but it is a reasonably common phenomenon. A doctor, a person with an actual medical degree, once tried to tell me that the scientific name of this syndrome is “photosneezus.”
For a time in my life, I fantasized that I would one day meet a person who shared my condition, a soulmate with whom I could spend the rest of my days huddled in shadow. Then I discovered that my friend Kevin also suffers from photosneezus. Kevin and I get along fine, but he has a wife and child, and isn’t really my type anyway. I have since returned to more traditional courtship techniques, such as internet chat rooms.
Anyway. While coming up a subway escalator into bright sunlight in Xian, I sneezed. The women behind me clutched each other and covered their mouths with their hands.
The Terra Cotta Army is one of China’s premier tourist attractions, right up there with the Forbidding City and the Fantastic Wall. My guidebook describes the complex surrounding the archaeological site as “a tourist circus, with a souvenir city of industrial proportions.”
My friends and I were the only ones there. We walked straight up to the ticket booth. Of the six windows, only one had an attendant behind it, a bored woman wearing a surgical mask. The turnstile clunked loudly as we passed through, and then fell silent, having done its work for the day. We were virtually alone in the blimp-sized hangar that houses the clay warriors. At the far end, a guard slumped in a chair, asleep. The museum shop was shuttered.
Exiting the train station in Xian, I was stopped by a woman in a surgical mask who pointed a gun at my head. The gun was an optical thermometer, a Fevered Brow Detector. How does the machine account for the sultry disposition brought on by intemperate love, I wondered? Fortunately, I suffer from neither pneumonia nor overwrought passion. No klaxons sounded when the machine took its reading. No springloaded net swept me to the ceiling. The woman let me pass.
Sales of disinfectant are up, up, up! Men who have been dubbed the Ghostbuster Guys wander around hotel corridors in white jumpsuits, large spray cans affixed to their backs. I was forced to stop at the entrance to a posh department store and dip my hands in a solution that smelled oddly like vodka.
The main backpacker hostel in Xian is empty. No one is there to RELAX & ENJOY. Stacks of WORLD FAMOUS PANCAKES lie dusty and and uneaten. Books go unexchanged, DVDs unwatched, local sights unappreciated. Happy hour is at best a somber, reflective affair.
I have been trying to put the best face on SARS, using it as an effective rationalization to avoid places I didn’t want to visit anyway. To take a trivial example, the other day I was tempted to enter a sushi restaurant, even though I knew the food would be overpriced and terrible. I pictured a runny-nosed chef sneezing on a slab of raw salmon and continued on my way. Look for “Adam Stein’s SARS Diet Revolution” on bookshelves this fall.
The disappearance of the tourists provides small opportunities. I visited the Beilin art museum, which houses the Forest of Stone Steles, a collection of massive tablets engraved with everything from Confucian classics to palace maps to Tang poetry to cures for the common stomach ache. I’ll bet my last penny that I’m the only person ever to wander amongst the tablets belting out “Just a Gigolo” at stadium volume. “Iiiiiiiiiieeee ain’t got nobody! Nobody! Nobody!” The acoustics in the hall were quite good, so I followed up with “Happiness is a Warm Gun” (man, I nailed that last high note) and “The Star Spangled Banner”. Then I got bored and left.
Tourists are becoming increasingly worried. Not about getting sick, but about getting stuck. Borders keep slamming shut. I am no longer welcome in Pakistan, Kyrgystan, or Mongolia. Visas have been revoked. Ugly rumors swirl about forced quarantine in Bangkok. Who pays for the room? everyone wonders.
Surgical masks haven’t yet caught on among the backpackers, presumably because the truly fearful long ago fled China. “I’d rather be dead than look stupid,” said one Englishwoman, speaking for many.
Some tourists allege that Westerners are being singled out for suspicion. A friend tells me of a mother who shrieked at her child to get away from the white person. Certainly the women behind me on the escalator were being silly. Allow me to set modesty ever so briefly aside for the sake of journalistic accuracy, and state that I am the picture of vigorous health, photosneezus notwithstanding. I can’t help wondering what life is like for the millions of Chinese who have non-SARS related fevers right now.
Internet cafes throughout China are closed. At first we were told the closures were due to SARS. Then the explanation was the national labor holiday, which was never a plausible story, given that every other business remained open. The holiday ended and SARS became the culprit again. Whatever the reason, I have been forced away from the keyboard and out into the light.
Achoo.
