The Worth of a Picture

By Marc Velasquez

July 20, 2008

I haven’t cut my hair in a little over two years, haven’t shaved in a year and three quarters.  I eat more than I can exercise off, and have been steadily adding pounds my entire life.  Needless to say, I stick out in the United States.  I cause passersby to double take; sometimes I bring small children to terrified tears.

So imagine how I stand out in China—a country where my shirt size is 6XL.  Almost every place we have been, people have asked to take pictures with me.  I have caught a few trying to take them without me noticing.  The landscapers outside the Gate of Heavenly Peace stopped working when they heard me laugh and stared until I had passed.  At Wangfujing Snack Street, after we ate scorpions but before we tried silk worms, a family of five each took a turn standing next to me and having their picture shot.  I can’t imagine what they must say when they go home and show their friends.

Then, while climbing the Great Wall,  the roles were reversed.  Allegedly, there is a Chinese saying that refutes your manhood if you have not been to the top (the “top” of a long wall that snakes through the mountains is a question for debate.)  So we made the pilgrimage with the masses, moving up the inclines shoulder to shoulder with thousands of Chinese people there to do the same.  

Thirty minutes in, I could have wrung the sweat out of my shirt, I could feel my heartbeat in my neck.  I thought my calves were organizing a coup against me.  It seemed appropriate to encourage myself like Lucky Day in the Mexican prison cell—“gonna make it, gonna make it”.  To my right, a Chinese woman smiled.  She tapped the man in front of her on the back and repeated, in English, “gonna make it, gonna make it.”  When she translated it into Chinese for him, he laughed and gave me a thumbs-up. 

When we got to the top, or to what I’m calling the top for the sake of my manhood, we were both out of breath.  I pulled out my camera and asked if he would take a picture with me, and he was more than willing.  It’s hard not to be thankful for a moment like that, a moment of connectedness that transcends barriers of age and language and culture, a moment that proves we are always capable of understanding, and being understood.