On Sunday the climbers started arriving by dribs and drabs. By midnight, the crowds had grown and police started cordoning off the street, directing traffic, and arranging ambulances. Enterprising street vendors had established stalls selling bottled water, flashlights, munchies, and, for those in the mood for a late dinner, a full dinner take-away buffet complete with da bao (“doggie bags”). The climax comes tonight when thousands of climbers will be tromping up the mountain path a few meters from my apartment.

This is the Double Nine Festival, an event occurring annually on the ninth day of the ninth month in the lunar calendar. The number nine is typically associated with power and the emperor and when pronounced, sounds like the Chinese word for ‘long lasting.’Ask your Chinese colleagues about the festival’s origin and you’re apt to get different answers, but the first explanation I received years ago involved climbing the nearest mountain, remembering the ancestors and distant family members, watching the sun rise, and going on to have a prosperous year.

The Double Nine is a meaningful festival for me both because it provided one of my first ‘ah-ha!’ moments as a new resident here and because of an interesting tie to mobility and expatriation.

One of my Chinese work colleagues invited me to climb the mountain years ago with a few of his friends. They managed to get me to the right spot at the right time and we set off shortly after sunset. The path wasn’t lighted but there were concrete steps for the initial section. The climb started off well and there was a lot of bonhomie with the multitude of other climbers. But it got darker. And the path narrowed. And the crowd surged from behind in haste to get to the mountaintop. And there were no hand rails anywhere along the path. At times, there was hardly a need to touch the ground; a climber could almost just stand still and yet be carried along by the river of humanity. By this time I’d become separated from my guides and so was essentially alone in the river.

And then the inevitable. Climbers who’d started up the mountain on the other side were starting to come down our side. Two large rivers colliding on a steep path. The good news was that there were local authorities nearby. The bad news was that they had to get the attention of several thousand people before folks started getting pushed off mountain and the authorities elected to get that attention by firing off several rounds from some sort of gun. In the dark. In a crowd of thousands perched on the edge of a narrow path.

Well, the gunshots focused the colliding streams wonderfully but there was the issue of which side would prevail. Much negotiation ensued and eventually those of us in the going-up-the-mountain stream were instructed to turn around and go back down the mountain. Easier said than done.

Turn around I did, though, and then I felt just the lightest touch on my love handles. Like a typical expat, I grabbed for my wallet to make sure it was still there. I would have turned around but there wasn’t enough room. No matter; my wallet was still there and the hands didn’t move. My new guide got me down the mountain by applying slight pressure, steadying me along the path.

As we reached the start of the trail and could spread out a bit, the hands disappeared. I turned around to thank whoever had obviously figured out that I’d lost my guides in the middle of the crowd, but there must have been easily several dozen people within a meter of me and so I never identified the good samaritan.

My friend and his colleagues had meanwhile organized a search party to rescue me, climbing up the mountain without using the path, avoiding the authorities, trying to short-circuit the line and find me at the top. We managed to eventually find each other and went to a local restaurant for an incredible dinner to celebrate our survival.

But I’ve always been a little embarrassed about assuming my pocket was about to be picked. And I’ve always since been a little more sensitive to the guidance my Chinese friends have given me about how to get things done here successfully.

A few years ago, a friend brought a Tang Dynasty poem to my attention. Written about the Double Nine festival, it’s a beautiful testament to mobility issues faced in the 8th century as well as today. It does sound better in Chinese, but here’s the English translation:

"Double Ninth, Missing My Shandong Brothers"
By Wang Wei

As a lonely stranger in the strange land,
Every holiday the homesickness amplifies.
Knowing that my brothers have reached the peak,
All but one is present at the planting of zhuyu.