“And nobody wears a breather, even during the summer!” Jinjin places himself between me and Fong and tugs on our arms as we walk. Did you know they live inside domes and make their own air?” The city is about as far as you can get from a tourist attraction, and Dhampa’s street is by far one of the dirtiest neighborhoods in town. The few who do stay at the city center, or are driven up by mule-cart into one of the bureaucrat lodges where they do business. Foreigners do not come to Xiao Hui Cheng. “Did you hear? There are foreigners at the shop!”įong hustles him out of the way. “Foreigners!” Jinjin flies squealing out of the night. The pitter-patter of little feet greets us as we come to the edge of the migrants’ quarters. We squirrel through skeletal alleyways, spines creaking against the weight of the canisters on our backs. Aside from old man Li, none of us can remember a time when petrol-cars drove on these wide, empty streets. The city splays on the plateau like a dried-out husk, its boom years long forgotten, shanties and dead street lamps creeping half-heartedly up the mountainside. A faded road sign overhead proclaims the city’s name-Xin Xi’an, to the schoolbooks-Xiao Hui Cheng, the Little Gray City, to those of us who live here. The highway we walk is silent except for our footsteps and the occasional passing bicycle. The valley-smog lies dark and still below us. We started our trek before dawn, and it will be nightfall by the time we get back.
I take the chance to stretch out my back, while Fong and Xiaoling take turns lifting up their breathers and spitting off the edge of the cliff. The machine booms its defiance against the clouds. When he gives the go-ahead, we switch on the L-boxes. Old man Li watches the swirling mists and sniffs the air. If we start imploding at the wrong turn of the wind, it could mean wasting an entire expedition’s worth of sky. The sky-smog is always the trickiest to manage-especially on wet days, when the moisture brings it lower towards the peaks. We look for smog sign-up, down-valley and sky. Flecks of sour rain fall from the sky, and we waste no time putting on our breathers to ward off the stinging droplets.
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