Winds blow; grasses bend low; cattle and sheep loom. This is the most frequent epithet used to describe Inner Mongolia. The area has an innate tranquility and majesty that recall the golden era of Genghis Khan.
This was the landscape I was seeking when I embarked on my journey to Hohhot, about 500 km northwest of Beijing.
The name "Hohhot" is somewhat of a misnomer for the capital city of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. In early September, the city is anything but "hot, hot". It was sunny in the daytime and a little chilly in the evening. As a matter of fact, Hohhot is Mongolian for green city. It is situated in the middle of 880,000 sq km of prairie. What color do you expect except green?
The most surprising thing I encountered was a few pedestrians and bicyclists who wore surgical masks. "Why?" I asked. "The air is so clean here. We don't wear masks even in Beijing." I was puzzled. It was obvious those mask wearers were locals, not visitors from outside.
The city does have sandstorms, but this was not yet the season. It was explained to me that it was not dirty air they were guarding against, but some kinds of pollens that people are allergic to.
The city is not much different from other provincial capitals around the country, except for the newly unveiled theater and museum. The building complex resembles a mound of grass with all the facilities hidden beneath it. Had it been built on the prairie, people might think it was just a bunker. The design is rare in an age when this kind of public project usually calls attention to itself with whatever outsized architectural fashions they can.
Xar Moron Grassland is about two hours' drive outside of Hohhot. Recently I was reading Louis Cha's The Legend of the Condor Heroes, a fantasy novel partly set in Genghis Khan's Mongolia. One of the heroes, Guo Jing, grew up on the prairie and was later engaged to a daughter of the Khan. I was aware that the Khan's tomb is in fact near Erdos, a city two hours west of Hohhot. But as emperor, he must have got around, and so did his kids and minions.
As our bus sped along the country road, I imagined many Guo Jings and their Mongolian friends frolicking in the wilderness.
After we crossed a small bridge and drove around a hill, out came a dozen young men galloping on horses. They rode alongside us, sometimes overtaking us and dashing to the other side of the road. After an initial moment of shock - well, I've seen many Western movies - I realized they were just teasing us and providing us with opportunities for photography.
Out whisked my digital camera. One of the riders who wore sunglasses gave me a broad smile.
They all wore colorful Mongolian clothes, but their suntanned faces instantly told me that there's no way Guo Jing could have looked like any of the many actors who have portrayed him on screen. Only a lad who has been leading a sheltered urban life can have the pale skin that lends him an androgynous look.
Out here on the prairie, men exude rugged masculinity, which doesn't really sit well with today's pop culture aesthetics.
They rode with us for about 15 minutes until we reached a village of Mongolian huts. Each hut is round in shape, with colorful patterns on the roof and along the eaves. "Oh, these are auspicious clouds," I was told. No wonder they look so much like the uniforms of all the Olympic volunteers in Beijing. They share the same pattern!
The welcome was Tibetan-like as each guest was presented with a hada, a silk scarf, and a bowl of liquor. The only difference: In Tibet the hada was invariably white, while here the one I received was blue. I wondered if there was any meaning in the color.
Next we were ushered into several huts. Each one can seat a dozen people. You can also lie on your back and sleep inside there.
A friend of mine who had spent a night in a Mongolian hut told me he and his friends formed two straight rows while sleeping. But I suspected that sleeping centrifugally with your feet towards the center is a better option. If someone stood looking down from above, it would present a flower pattern, with each person simulating a petal.
This was not my first time inside a Mongolian hut, though. I've seen them in Xinjiang and Qinghai. But my very first experience of the hut was in - Get ready to gasp! - Guangdong, of all places. A scenic park in a Guangdong town had set up a couple of Mongolian huts along a lake. There was a big round table in the middle, functioning as a private room of a restaurant. The only thing it didn't have was the portrait of Genghis Khan on the wall.
"This is not the real Khan. He didn't leave any portraits behind. The painter used his grandson as a model," my host now clarified for me.
"Wouldn't that be Kubla Khan?" I thought out aloud. But I guess Genghis Khan had more than one grandson.
There is not much one can do on a prairie besides drinking and riding horses. I chose the latter option. A local youth rode with me on another horse. "How come my feet hurt?" I asked.
"You must have put your feet too deep into the stirrup," he said.
He taught me to slightly stand, almost like a ballet dancer on tiptoe, so that my weight did not fall completely on the seat of the saddle. This worked like magic when the horse gained speed.
We trotted to a mound of arranged stones. The locals call it aobao, and it has the function of a village church. The worship ritual is dance-like. I was instructed to walk clockwise three times, then counterclockwise three more times. I could stop and throw pebbles onto it and tie my hada to it. I could also hold a cup of liquor, dipping my fingers into it and sprinkling drops around - in a gesture to pay respect to heaven, earth and ancestors.
Would one of my ancestors be Wang Zhaojun?
Wang was one of the four "classic beauties" of ancient China. Her feat was to volunteer to marry a ruler of a Hun tribe. As a concubine who had never got a chance during her years in the royal harem to be "blessed" by the emperor, this woman, who lived 2,000 years ago, took the daring move of offering herself to a tribal lord. Was it an act of desperation, political savvy, or deep-seated understanding of racial relations? Or all of the above?
As I was standing in front of her statue in Hohhot's Wang Zhaojun Mausoleum the next day, I was pondering these possibilities. For an ethnic Han woman to venture north into the wild prairie - not just as an individual, but as a representative of the Han people and the Han royal court - must have taken a lot of courage.
I remember the look of resoluteness in her eyes as commonly portrayed in old comic strips. Maybe she saw herself as some kind of racial ambassador.
It turned out that her fate on the prairie was much better than her lonely suffering in the Han court. She gave birth to two sons and a daughter, and she could remarry after her husband died.
Was Wang Zhaojun alone in playing the game of marriage as international politics? I know of a similar, though fictional example.
In Puccini's opera Turandot, Prince Calaf, whom I surmise is Mongolian since his father's name is Timur, took great risks and married the Chinese princess, Turandot, who had a penchant for killing her suitors if they failed to answer her riddles. I don't know where they ended up living, but Calaf, in a sense, is the Mongolian equivalent of Wang Zhaojun.
My trip to Hohhot left many questions unanswered: Are Hun and Xiongnu the same tribe? What is their relation to the later Mongols? Did the teenager Guo Jing of the Louis Cha novel really shoot down the condors flying overhead? Why did Han martial arts masters trek all the way here to practice their secret moves?
Well, I know history is not the same as fantasy, but anyone who first knew of this place through popular poems, novels and postcards can be excused for expecting such a landscape - where the grasslands extend endlessly into the horizon and nomadic peoples keep wild condors as pets. This region is truly a boundless expanse of sky and prairie, dotted with a few Mongolian huts.
