The Engleson Files

cont’d…

After trading away his precious leopard gall bladders for skate sharpening equipment in Singapore, Manuel hastened to Rangoon by ship, north through the straits of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. His merchant friends had given him a number of contacts in the bustling Burmese capital. Burma, while under British colonial rule had accepted as immigrants many Indians, whether Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh. The Muslims had a penchant for trading in jewels and Burma held a wealth of rubies, emeralds, and jade, which are all prized in China - Burma’s main supporter and trading partner. Nevertheless, jewel trading was a highly regulated industry that required one to work “beyond the law” if one was to make any money.

These Muslim jewel merchants/smugglers concocted a plan for Manuel to carry some rubies (hidden in his skate sharpener) along the old Burma Road in Southern China. He sailed his boat up the Salween river as far as he could go and then forged his way north by foot through Shan state and finally into China’s wild Yunnan province, the northern section of the famed and lawless Golden Triangle.

His Muslim travel companion found accommodations for them in Jinghong, Xishuangbanna in an apartment, sparsely decorated but home to a rag-tag group of Uighurs. Manuel soon learned that these Muslims from the far western reaches of China’s vast empire had established a network of operations in virtually every city in China, including his final destination, Dalian. It soon became quite clear that these fellows that had taken in Manuel with such hospitality were part of the Uighur Underworld. They fronted him the false papers allowing him to remain in China, arranged transport to Kunming, where other Uighurs met him at the bus station, and put Manuel on train T375 bound for Beijing in hard seat. Manuel found similar treatment in Beijing and before he knew it he arrived in Dalian, the pearl of the Bohai.

Through the steam that lingers throughout the Dalian streets in the dead of winter you can find Manuel in his modest street side stall sharpening any pair of skates that come his way. While his connection with the Uighurs came to an abrupt and harrowing conclusion, Manuel still forges on. His destiny, it seems, was indeed with the water, the frozen water on which his sharpened skates effortlessly glide. “It is my dream to one day climb up the rigid Chinese social hierarchy and leave the Unobtainable status behind,” declared Manuel as he grabbed a new pair of skates and began sharpening them to his highest standard.

The End