Tough Guys 硬漢

Ping's view from Thumb Mountain

The weather was good so we decided to hike the Four Beasts(四獸山） on the East side of Taipei （台北）. We intended to make the traverse, tagging each of the “beasts” (summits) along the way: Lion, Tiger, Leopard and Elephant. As usual, we ended up doing something different. We skipped “Leopard” and went up 9-5 Mountain （九五峰） instead, bagging Thumb Mountain （拇指山） on the way down, and catching the sunset over Taipei from Elephant Mountain （象山） at the end.

At the trail head, we met a retired pharmacist with a wonderful smile! We chatted and he told us about a few different routes we might like. “I do this every day,” he said.

We climbed the steps and followed a road until we came upon a temple whose steep entryway was lined with statues on both sides. We were about halfway up to the temple, still taking pictures when we met another retiree hiking down. He suggested some places we could go from there. “I do this every day,” he said.

Another retiree in mango yellow sweatpants came along. When he found out what we were doing, he cheerfully doffed his pack and pulled out a booklet with a whole list of trails, their difficulty level, how to reach them, etc. He handed it to us and laughingly refused to take it back. “No, no! It’s free. You keep it! I can get another one!” he said. “I do this every day!” Much to our astonishment, this highly energetic guy turned out to be in his seventies.

Further up, we kept coming across all kinds of old hikers, some huffing and puffing, some quietly plodding along, some blithely chatting away as we tried to keep up. Many of them had a smile for us, a nod, or a word of advice. After recommending a route up the steep ridge beside us, one retiree (a total stranger) asked another retiree (another total stranger) to help us (two other strangers) find the way. The hand-off was flawless; the conversation went something like this:

“Hey, make sure these two get up 9-5 Mountain safely!”

“Okay!”

“Don’t got the long way. Take the direct route, bypassing that one set of ropes!”

“I will!”

“And don’t let them get into trouble on the roped ladder section!”

“No problem. I got it! Okay, follow me.”

Seriously. The second guy led us all the way up through the roped ladder section until he could point the way to 9-5 Mountain, knowing we couldn’t get lost. He quietly chatted with Ping in Taiwanese, not missing a beat. He was probably sixty years old, small, lean, and dressed in what were essentially street clothes. “I do this every day,” he said; “sometimes twice.” This was his second climb that day.

When we got to 9-5 Mountain, we came upon some taxi drivers in their fifties and sixties. “We hike every Monday and Thursday,” they said. “If you come back next Monday, you’ll find us here.” We said we were from Beitou （北投）and they all exclaimed, “Oh! You have so many good trails over there!” and then rattled off all the mountains they hiked in that area. “We do an early shift, then go hiking,” they said. “We just bring a change of clothes and then do another late shift after the hike.”

Ping had overheard them talking at a rest stop earlier. They were discussing the use of money, comparing the actions of a local Taiwanese billionaire, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Steve Jobs. The taxi drivers were commenting how Steve Jobs had made a lot of money and now he was gone. They mentioned how the children of the Taiwanese billionaire were just fighting over the fortune their late father left behind. However, they liked how Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were using their riches specifically to do something good for the world. They figured that was a better use of wealth.

It made us think: what are we doing with our wealth? Are we doing something good for the world? This works on the small scale no less than on the large scale. We’ve got some more thinking to do. How can we best use the richness we’ve been given?

Back on 9-5 Mountain, while Ping was chatting with the taxi drivers, Mark saw an even older guy no taller than 5’3” suddenly pop out from a side trail. Since it was a warm day, the fellow had rolled up his shirt, exposing wrinkled, lumpy abs. The old leprechaun’s face was beaming as he spryly hopped up on the summit rock, spread his arms wide as if acknowledging the cheering masses, grinned at Mark, and disappeared down another side trail. I’m betting he does that every day.

Get this: there are a couple of guys who get up at 3:00 AM to sweep these trails clean. They’re in their eighties. They do this every day.

Do you know why they call it “9-5 Mountain?” It’s not “nine-to-five;” it’s “nine, five” as in 95. That’s how old the general was when he climbed this ridge on his birthday. He liked to climb it all the time, and that was before they put in the trails with the stone steps and the ropes. On his ninety fifth birthday, he stood on top of the mountain and said: “I’m going to make sure everyone can get up here to see this wonderful view.” He made arrangements accordingly. Two weeks later, he died in his sleep.

We’ve heard about “aging gracefully.” We want to be as tough as these guys.