Invasion of the Chinese Tourist Mamas

So there I was, standing atop a precipice overlooking dramatic Huangguoshu Falls, the tallest liquid free-fall in all of Asia, located in China’s rural Guizhou Province. 

It was truly breathtaking; the roar of tumbling water, its frothing white foam roiling the unsuspecting river below, like an unending main event. 

While no Ansel Adams, I raised my iPhone camera, ready to snap what I hoped would be a keepsake shot. And then it happened, as it would so many times while traveling as an unsuspecting western tourist in the crazily populous People’s Republic of China.

Someone’s fat head popped into my viewfinder, obliterating my view.

Often it's not just one hairy belfry, but two, possibly three, all at once. 

It's the Invasion of the Selfie-Taking Chinese Tourist Mamas, an assault of humanity from which no site of natural beauty is safe.

But first, let me say this: I simply adore all of these women, every last one of them. I marvel at their pluck and sprit, but taken together they are an overwhelming invasion force, if for nothing more than their sheer numbers.

Let me try to explain the scope of the bodies that descend on any scenic spot in this ancient land -- their hips thrusting, elbows out, like hockey players, all in a madcap scramble for just the right real estate on which to capture the perfect group selfie.

Think legions of insatiable locusts savaging a poor farmer’s crop, a monolithic murder of crows, yacking and squabbling, hopping to and fro, set upon getting the best possible snapshot, or a mammoth flock of seagulls hovering over a boat laden with flopping fish.

Better yet, maybe a scene of the mass assault that might go on during your mother’s two-for-one bra sale at JC Penny.

And all of this pushing and shoving was taking place in tourism's winter off-season. 

You can imagine the sheer lunacy during the teeth of summer.

My wife and I were sightseeing in central Guizhou Province. Located near the border with Vietnam, far from the high-culture and elitism of Beijing, Guizhou is the nation’s poorest state, yet what it lacks in economic might, it makes up in natural gifts.

Of China’s 14 designated natural World Heritage sites, six are located in Guizhou Province. And so tourists flock here like mosquitos to skin.

My wife, of course, takes this all in stride.

“China is a very populated nation,” she says.

She's right, of course.

China has some 1.5 billion residents, the most of any country on the planet, The number of Chinese citizens aged 60 or over is a whopping 241 million. If they were their own country, they would be the world's fifth largest.

Just he number of women over the age of 60 is more than each of the populations of England, France and Italy.

That is one heck of a lot of Chinese Mamas.

Me, I’m not really used to all this teeming humanity. I'm inured to the crush of bodies in the big city, but I like my national parks to be more solitary walks than sweaty disco dance floors.

Sightseeing in China is like going to Disneyland where visitors are amped up with enough crystal meth to keep both them and their kids high as satellites. 

Oh, and then increase the ass-per-square-foot by a factor of ten or more. 

In Guizhou Province, there didn’t seem to be one scenic spot where you could pause for a moment of reflection, breathe in the clean air, celebrate all this pristine beauty, before another gaggle of laughing camera-toting Mamas would converge upon the scene.

It’s as though Chinese President Xi Jinping had suddenly unleashed countless armies of these retirement-age heroines and their long-suffering husbands. The men stayed mostly in the background, smoking and laughing, wearing bright red tour group hats that resembled a Chinese version of America’s MAGA caps, while the women, these traveling gaggles of friends, pushed and angled to the front of any photo-taking spot.

By the end of the week, my sides ached from jutting elbows, my head and body pummeled by their newest weapon: the selfie stick.

Seriously, I don’t think these women ever looked at a natural scene with their own two eyes, but always through the viewfinder of their smartphones, and always with a selfie in mind.

I have never seen so many selfies taken in my entire life. After awhile, I forgot all about the natural views and concentrated on the Mamas and all their entertaining photo-modeling theatrics.

There were several poses repeated ad nauseam, as though these women had all taken the same Chinese Mama strutting-for-nature primer.

One popular pose is what I call the Vanna White Mama, a stage model displaying a new microwave or what's behind Door Number Two on the Price is Right. She holds her ams out wide, as though holding up the entire waterfall or mountain face, bestowing it for our viewing pleasure.

The Zen Mama holds her hands in prayer or sits in the Lotus position, cameras clicking. The Jumping Mamas do synchronized leaps so they appear suspended in thin air. Hippie Mamas flash the peace signs made ubiquitous by Japanese teenagers.

And my favorite: the Baking Mama pose, which consists of some woman holding her hands up, beholding a wonderful gift, as though she had just whipped up this natural wonder looming behind her, like a cake she’d baked in her kitchen for tonight’s dinner party.

When one Mama was done, another would elbow into place for her turn.

Anyone unlucky enough to linger beside them, take up space in the far corners of their camera’s viewfinder, would be shooed away like some annoying pigeon.

It was tourism from hell.

When they weren’t taking pictures of each other, these Mamas were snapping shots of anything that moved, or didn't — a black swan craning its neck, a monkey scratching its butt, a rock face frozen in all its grandeur.

At one stop, our tour bus disgorged us at an exclusive gate, at the opposite end of the park, so we saw the sights backwards, walking against the grain of the marching Chinese-Mama masses.

I felt like some fat salmon trying to jump a set of unscalable falls.

In the end, I gave in to these indefatigable women and their lust for the perfect picture. I became my wife’s mule, lingering in the background, holding enough bags to be mistaken for some overworked hotel porter.

Still, many Mamas took me for part of the scenery. I’d be standing alone, far from the action, when a group would converge, each wanting to have their photo taken with this big-nosed Western galoot who towered over them.

At one point, people stood in line to be photographed with me. It's the closest I’ve ever been to being Brad Pitt.

Because like any zoo creature, I was considered exotic. In a week traveling in Guizhou Province, I saw maybe a half-dozen other Westerners. The Chinese love to interact with foreigners and speaking even a smidgen of their language makes you a cinema star.

At other times, as I stood alone taking notes, Mamas would come up from behind to glance over my shoulder, pointing and giggling, amazed at these strange cursive figures emanating from my pen.

When one inquired, I said I was an American journalist.

“Journalist!” she said.

And then she and her friends scampered away like bugs.

But two can play that game.

Sometimes, I would spring into the middle of a Chinese-Mama group shot, like some lumbering American photo bomber. Each time, they all laughed. I was never shunned, not once.

This Chinese Mama assault on nature was at times almost comical. 

At Huangguoshu Falls, a narrow path through the Shuiliandong, or “Water Curtain Cave,” snaked behind the falls. The cave is believed to be the ancient habitat of Sun Wukong, a protagonist of Buddhist fantasy literature.

It also offered countless tourists an exclusive if yet crowded view, like all of us were nestled up beneath the skirt of this Great Dame of a waterfall. 

At one point, a Mama opened her umbrella to shield she and her friends from the downpour while taking pictures, blocking the view of scores of people behind her. 

But the Chinese are patient; nobody said a word, while I fumed, silently.

Alas, looking back, I now realize that my Chinese photo album will contain little more than snapshots of the backs of people’s heads.

Yet in the end I prevailed — by sheer accident.

At one stupendous cavern setting, we begged our way past the gate guard moments after the official closing hour. As dusk set on a late autumn afternoon, we actually had this Garden of Eden to ourselves.

This was how Mother Nature is meant to be seen, with the fading light hitting the stream just so, a scene so tranquil you could actually hear the wind rustling the remaining leaves in the trees. 

All without a selfie-stick swinging, bullying Chinese Tourist Mama in sight.