2004 China and Tibet

CHINA and TIBET

CHINA & THE YANGTZE: RIVERS OF SURPRISE

This adventure travel experience was truly a “voyage of discovery” in many and unexpected ways Not only did we undergo an almost complete overturning of our preconceptions about China, we also learned, saw, felt, and processed many new and startling things about this enormous and important country A very heartfelt (and not a bit sarcastic) phrase became a mantra for us “What a surprise!” The expression sprang to our lips in response to so many events, sights, experiences, and educational opportunities that we began to grow self-conscious at its regular reiteration.

GEOGRAPHY / DEMOGRAPHY

However, overuse of the phrase did not dilute the freshness or the surprises of the experiences! The relative size of China to our own country was the most basic of our misconceptions. We believed China to be much bigger than the USA, but in truth, it is a little bit smaller. China = 9,596,760 sq. km vs. USA = 9,631,418 sq. km.

Of course, the population of China is much larger: 1.7 billion people vs. 300 million! Those two facts combined to produce our first “jaw-dropping” realization China considers its cities of 6 or fewer millions of inhabitants to be “small!” Its largest city, Chengdu, has 30 million residents and is so huge and sprawling that it has been removed from the “county” system and made into a separate administrative area of its own, as have a few other big cities like Beijing (only 16 million there)!

The longest river in China, the Yangtze, 3100 miles long from Tibet to the South China Sea at Shanghai, creates a cultural division in the country, much like the intangible but nonetheless very real Mason-Dixon Line has done in our own country.

China north of the Yangtze is more prosperous and more educated, speaks an entirely different language (Mandarin in the North and Cantonese in the South), has a different diet (based on wheat in the North and rice in the South) and cooking style, and considers itself superior to the more rural and backward South. Northern Chinese even speak with some contempt of their brothers in the South. A favorite saying we heard several times centered on the diet of the Southerners: “They eat anything with legs, except a table and they eat anything that flies, except an airplane!”

Although these two halves of China cannot speak directly to each other in their own languages, they can read one another’s writings because of the form of the alphabet both parts of the country use. Since the written language is very old, both Northern & Southern Chinese can also read ancient writing with much more ease than we speakers of English can read older versions of our tongue. Even the tonalities of the two languages are different: Spoken Mandarin requires 4 tones while spoken Cantonese utilizes 9 separate tones. Most Chinese-Americans are of Cantonese backgrounds because most came from Southern China to our shores; therefore, our ideas about Chinese foods, culture, and social customs are based on our relative familiarity with them rather than with Northern Chinese habits. Obviously, that fact was the basis of most of our upended preconceptions!

Another demographic distinction that the Chinese make about themselves is the division of the people into urban or rural (farmer) categories. A person’s classification into one or the other of these designations is entirely dependent on where they were born. If they are born outside a city, they are designated “farmers” even if they never raise so much as a garden. The only ways for a farmer to escape that social class are: 1) marry a city dweller, 2) obtain sufficient education to find a job in a city, or 3) get permission from the government to move into a city but even then that individual may just be labeled a “floating person” rather than acknowledged as a city person.

CULTURE / ATTITUDES / POLITIC

There are other dichotomies in Chinese culture as well. Another one we became aware of when we visited Hong Kong was the feelings of superiority which the Hong Kongers evince towards mainlanders. The Hong Kongers like to point out that Mainland China is several years behind the island in development and they consider their tourists from the continent to be undereducated, crass, nouveau riche country bumpkins. Of course, this snobbism is also now exacerbated by the resentment and anxiety they feel because the mainlanders are taking their jobs. Yes, the Hong Kongers have something in common with us USA folk. We see our jobs being outsourced to India and China and they see theirs being exported to the mainland, chiefly in southern China. Their own salaries have gone down, overall unemployment is rising, and Hong Kong’s standard of living is definitely being eroded. To top it all off, the islanders have to watch hoards of mainland tourists with their new money coming to spend it lavishly and ostentatiously in their midst.

Another division in the society arises from the disconnect between young Chinese and the Communist Party. Though many older citizens are still loyal to the Party, the young people who talked with us feel no interest in it. They prefer jobs with private companies or joint venture companies (foreign firms partnering with the government) because the chances for advancement are much greater and the pay is much better. As an example, we were told of an idealistic young lawyer who upon graduation went into government work. For two years, he was allowed to make tea for the older workers in his department and occasionally attend a meeting. At the end of the two years, he had made no advancement at all, his salary was unchanged, and he saw more of the same on into the future. Though he had been motivated to work for the government on behalf of his fellow citizens, he left the government and joined a private firm. He is now making much better money and is moving forward in his career. We were told that his case is not atypical.

Young people openly discussed a desire for increasing democracy as well; they want more choice in government and they feel they deserve more voice too. At present, according to the young people we heard, there is more democracy at the local level in villages and even smaller cities than there is nationally. But they expressed their belief that the tendency is spreading and that in a few years, the situation in China will be much different. All of these things were spoken of openly with no apparent regard for who might be listening. Most young people felt it was acceptable to criticize government policies but not to single out and name individuals for criticism.

Another example of the greater freedom young people feel today was given to us by our guide, Stephanie. She said that at the time of Tiananmen Square, the rank and file of Chinese citizens were unaware of what was really going on. No pictures were shown on TV and indeed most people had no access to a set anyway. The famous picture of the brave student standing in front the tank holding his lunch bag was unknown to them. Nor did they know the fate of the students and others who participated in the uprising. Of course, now they are familiar with the picture and also knew of stories of ordinary citizens who helped the students in interesting ways. For instance, there was a bus driver who learned what was going in the Square and deliberately used his bus to block a road into the area so that the tanks could not pass.

Stephanie and others also spoke with us about the Cultural Revolution started by Chairman Mao. She told us the story of her own parents who were sent to work on the farms for re-education and rehabilitation because they were university graduates and therefore suspected of being disloyal to the government. Many people talked to us about this terrible period in Chinese history and would often add that it was an error on Chairman Mao’s part. If they didn’t actually lay blame on him,

they would say that the whole thing got out of hand or that he lost control of the movement. As we visited more and more cities, we became ever more aware of the immensity of China’s population. Its relative youth also insinuated itself into our minds later we learned that the median is 32! However, we were surprised that we never felt crowded until we went to Hong Kong. There the sidewalks, restaurants, museums, theaters, hotel lobbies, shopping malls, and even Kowloon Gardens are just constantly thronged with people no matter the hour. Even in the huge city of Chengdu, we never felt that claustrophobic – there was plenty of space for all those people.

DAILY LIFE / ANIMALS

Walking the streets of the cities and towns revealed many surprising aspects of Chinese daily life to us. We had anticipated being horrified because the Chinese were supposed to eat dogs. Instead, we discovered dogs being pampered and adored everywhere, among poorer as well as more obviously well-to-do folks. The most popular breeds were Pekingese (not surprisingly), Pomeranians, and fluffy little poodle dogs. We saw only a few larger dogs, like German Shepherds and retrievers. However, just as we were putting that stereotype out of our minds, we were taken to a Chinese Medicine Market in Beijing where everything was turned on its head again.

This was a wholesale outdoor market where the people do not shop as a rule; rather the Chinese doctors and apothecaries do their buying here. At any rate, stacked by the hundreds were dog and deer penises (supposed to cure impotence) as well as mountains of dead & dried turtles, scorpions, & fish of various types. So where do all those dog penises come from if the dogs aren’t being killed and eaten?

In another contradiction, we saw very few cats: a kitten being carried through the streets of Beijing by a young boy, a pet cat in the home of the lady we visited in Tibet (she also had two dogs a Peke and a Pom), the “working cats” in the Potala Palace sleep on pillows during the day tied on short leashes and are then released to run the palace at will during the night to keep the rat population under control an impossible task since the temple section of the Palace is filled with butter candles and food offerings all the time, plus an occasional street cat whose home was impossible to determine.

I never had the inclination to ask our guide about dietary habits concerning cats and dogs because I did not want to know the answer. In Xian, we were taken to a “pet market” on a Sunday afternoon and it was not a disturbing place even though we went with foreboding. The city government has designated a building and the street in front of it as the city “pet market” and sure enough there were many sellers and buyers of dogs, cats, turtles, birds, guinea pigs. The sellers were not mistreating the creatures and the buyers seemed to be checking them out as potential pets rather than as a main course at supper. So who can say?

Certainly, caged birds are a favorite among the urban Chinese and we later learned that “farmers” often have mynah birds as pets too. The most interesting aspect of the bird as pet situation was the habit the citified Chinese have of actually “walking” their pet birds most of them mynahs as well but there was a sprinkling of budgies and cockatiels too. This walking exercise consists of bringing the bird outside (in its cage) and then walking along the city streets with it so that the bird could take the air (polluted as it is). Sometimes a person had enough confidence in his pet to let it ride along on his shoulder rather than in the cage, but that was rare. Occasionally, you would see the happy bird owner trimming the bird’s feathers and checking it over for mites in the great out of doors too.

Dare we hope that the Wulong Panda Sanctuary outside Chengdu in the Sichuan province means that the Chinese are beginning to cherish wild animals as part of their cultural heritage? Or have they simply tuned into what a bonanza the pandas can be as a tourist attraction? Whatever, the Sanctuary is certainly a wonderful place to visit and the pandas seem to be well cared for. Considerable research goes on all the time trying to understand panda behavior to increase their chances of survival in the wild. Their breeding success is very low, even in the wild, so most of the births in the Sanctuary are the result of artificial insemination. Evidently, both males and females experience very low libido and female estrous is quite short anyway only about three days. So it’s pretty difficult for these solitary creatures to find each other in the wild in the appropriate time and then they may not be “in the mood” anyhow. Scientists at the Sanctuary have even resorted to “panda porno” films in an effort to help the pandas feel more amorous, but that has had limited success as well.

The Sanctuary houses both red pandas (not really akin to giant pandas at all) and Giant Pandas. The red pandas are actually related to raccoons and coatimundis whereas Giant Pandas are off on an evolutionary branch all their own. All the animals appeared healthy and their natural-looking habitats were clean and provided opportunities for the animals to hide if they preferred to do so. Air-conditioning is available in their “houses” and they could resort to the indoors when the weather becomes torrid which it often does. The panda reserves in the wild are located in Sichuan province so it is not as if the pandas are not used to very hot weather that is their natural habitat after all. We saw pandas of all ages from babies to adults and the Sanctuary tends to house them according to ages, except for mothers and babies who are kept together or pairs that are being encouraged to “go forth and multiply.”

TRAFFIC & ITS CONSEQUENCES

On arrival in Beijing after long hours of flying from Miami to Chicago and then direct to the capital of China, everything looks gray and most passengers feel gray too. Our flight had taken us over the poles and we never experienced any night so we were able to see some astonishing places as we flew over the North Pole and the Arctic Ocean as well as Siberia and Mongolia. The Arctic Ocean was a sea of glimmering ice beneath our wings and there was no sign of human habitation on any of the tiny islands we swept over. Even Siberia was the “big lonely” with considerable snow and ice and only an occasional tiny village in view. Mountains, deserts, great swaths of greenish boglands were our carpet as we entered into Mongolia from the tundra of Siberia. A fully daytime flight of 13 hours was thus quite interesting and surprising.

As we drove into Beijing from the airport, we gradually realized that all the grayness we felt and saw was not of internal origin. It was not our fatigue that kept the sky over the city gray, thick, and eye-irritating. No, it was the ever-present pollution (as we learned during our further travels) composed of smog from the internal combustion engines which have quadrupled on city streets in the last five years and, even more significant, the enormous and continuous construction projects all over the northern part of the country. No wonder our contractors cannot get cement for houses or swimming pools! The Chinese are importing over 1/3 of the world’s production of cement in addition to the output of their own factories which run night and day trying to keep up with demand. Dust from the construction sites contributes greater than 50% of the urban pollution which keeps China’s skies ever gray!

Beijing city traffic is a wonder these streets were not built to carry the automobile numbers present today. Only 5-6 years ago, these same thoroughfares, streets, lanes, avenues were choked with bicycles and rickshaws. Now the incredibly brave and foolish rickshaw men must dodge between enormous trucks, buses (called “city boats”), trolleys, and private autos (we even saw one Humvee on the roads), mostly Japanese and Korean makes, though Buick is a solid citizen here as well. Buicks are assembled in China and they are the luxury car of choice because of a long tradition in China.

The traffic moves with glacial dignity and speed and Chinese drivers demonstrate both incredible courtesy and restraint (no road rage seen here). Cars proceed like a river of ice and suddenly the “glacier” throws out a chunk of ice (a car, or truck) which veers suddenly in front of another to make a left turn across two lanes of traffic or dart into a “service road” narrowly avoiding pedestrians, street side stalls, and rickshaws. Everything stops short to prevent a hideous catastrophe, and the river settles back down and proceeds again its slow and stately way.

Despite the fact that the roadways are “littered” with cars, the streets themselves have not been trashed. This street neatness is true of all the cities we rode around in buses visiting various tourist sites. Chinese urban residents do not treat their surroundings as garbage dumps. Our guide, Stephanie, told us there is very strong peer pressure in the cities not to throw waste items about. Furthermore, there are garbage receptacles conveniently placed everywhere so there is no excuse for trashy behavior.

RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

Just as the plethora of automobiles attested to the growing wealth of the burgeoning middle class, so did the routine sightings of people young and old with cell phones attached to their ears. It seems everyone in China has important business to discuss all the time. These busy people are constantly using their cell phones no matter where you see them or what the hour. Predominantly western-style clothing is everywhere as well of course in sizes much smaller than our average ones. Chinese people are for the most part very small, though you can see that the younger children and even teens are bigger than their parents the result of better diets or worse ones is the question?

Too much McDonald’s or lots more protein than before. The smallest person in our group (who is quite slender by our measures) could not wear any of the women’s sizes she tried on. And for further proof of this fact, we have the story of our Hong Kong guide, Bertha, who is a small woman by our standards but who has spread out enough in her middle years to require her shopping in western stores to buy their smallest sizes because she can no longer fit into even the largest of the Chinese sizes!

Instead of finding crumbling, Soviet-style, brutal concrete block buildings all over China, we found plenty of modern, exciting and innovative architecture already present and going up all over. Of course, we have to admit that in smaller cities and especially ones along the Yangtze River itself, there were enough of the old style buildings to let us picture what all of China looked like just a few short years ago. It is also interesting that many of the newer buildings, particularly in Beijing and Chengdu, were the products of foreign architects rather than Chinese ones. Furthermore, the CHINA DAILY (an English language newspaper written for Chinese folks as well as foreign nationals) was constantly lamenting that Chinese homegrown architectural styles were boring, trite and ugly!

We certainly expected Hong Kong shopping malls and upmarket stores to be luxurious and flashy, but we were bowled over by the fact the malls in Beijing, Chengdu, Xian, Wuhan, and even the relocation cities were also very fancy and filled with stores like Versace, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Hugo Boss. Prices were not cheap in any of the settings. Marble floors and walls were the rule in the malls, as well as fancy restrooms, high-end lighting, inviting displays in the huge store windows. And advertising all over the cities, billboards as well as in-window displays, was splashy, colorful and quite materialistic and western in appearance.

HOTELS / RESTAURANTS / FOOD

Yet another surprise for tourists is the number of 5-star hotels in China now. After hearing travelers discuss the very basic accommodations they usually found, we were quite pleased to see that good hotel are in all the bigger cities we visited. Most of them actually live up to 5-star expectations as well excellent service, plush architecture, and furnishings, large public and private rooms and very good restaurants. Even more important for us was the presence of the 5star “happy stops” (restrooms) at which tourists are evidently welcomed both Chinese and foreign tourists stop at these fine places. Our guide told us that the many Chinese who are traveling and sight-seeing within their own country enjoy these fancy hotels which are situated near sites foreign tourists probably don’t care that much about as well as the famous tourist draws. The only place where our hotel was less than 4-5 stars was in Tibet where, though it was called a 3-star, the little hotel was a bit dowdy. However, it was probably as nice a spot as you can find in the less prosperous provinces like Tibet. And it certainly was centrally located and was clean and comfortable (as comfortable as we would be at 12,500 ft up on the Tibetan plateau)!

Restaurants, wherever we visited, were uniformly good and some even excellent! Our problem with food (unlike what we had feared) was the volume they kept serving us. Even the men at our tables “hollered uncle” before the many courses finally stopped with the constant “end of the meal” dish fresh watermelon. The food was different from what we generally eat in Chinese restaurants here in the USA. Our guide reminded us that we were used to Cantonese cooking (the cuisine of South China) based on rice while we were visiting in Northern China where the cooking style is based on wheat. We had wonderful fresh vegetables at all meals including breakfast (but usually breakfast buffets displayed both Chinese and Western foods and some even served up three cuisines adding Japanese food to the mix).

The meats and veggies were usually served in sauces but these were lighter and less salty and oily than what we associate with restaurants here at home. Whole fish were often brought to the table, usually with a wheaten coating that was crispy and tasty. Some of the veggies we could not really name but most were quite delicious. Sweet and sour dishes are much subtler than at home not coated with a viscous, overly sweet goo. Instead, the sauce is thin, only suggestively sweet, and fruity. Also, the food served in sweet and sour dishes is not invariably thickly coated with heavy batter as it is here at home.

Closely associated with restaurant food, of course, is the question of what kind of food is available to the local folks on a daily basis. We encountered both open-air markets such as are seen in many countries and store markets, some even calling themselves “super-markets.” The open-air markets were found in cities as well as in small villages. They shared the attributes of great variety in vegetables and fruits, usually arranged colorfully and artfully. Some of the fruits and veggies were completely unknown to us, but most looked familiar: eggplants, mushrooms, citrus from California, avocados, beans of many kinds, bok choy, greens, carrots, watermelon, peaches and nectarines, plums, broccoli and cauliflower, even apples and grapes. Meats were usually displayed in “styles” Americans are not used to: whole chickens hanging upside down, unfamiliar chunks of red meats not identified, fish whole including heads, pig heads. Because there were flies everywhere, we Americans did not find most of the displays very attractive. In Tibet particularly there seemed to be less hygienic conditions than we fancy are available in our own stores.

Store markets were called “super” even when they were clearly what we would call mini-marts or “7-Elevens.” Of course, this meant that what they stocked were things like soft drinks, sundries, cookies and candies (not ones we recognized, however), drinking water, canned foods, batteries, wine and beer, and only a very little fresh produce. Milk and other dairy products including butter and cheese are not popular among the Chinese (indeed we saw no dairy cattle) and therefore diary items were not carried by mini-marts nor were they much in evidence even in the supermarkets. Eggs were to be found in the open-air markets as well as the store-type facilities. Real supermarkets were often extremely large (we actually saw one that was 3 stories high) and they carry everything from food and drink to books, clothing, household goods like linens, mops, brooms, school supplies, and even some appliances. The supermarkets were usually airconditioned whereas the mini-marts almost never were.

In none of these venues did food seem to be terribly expensive for the local people and even prices in the small stores were not appreciably higher than those in the supermarkets. We saw no evidence of hunger or malnutrition in the areas we visited and did note that children are apparently being fed more protein and calories than was perhaps true before because the children are growing taller and heavier than their parents. Perhaps China has finally solved its problem of cyclic famine and starvation.

ONE CHILD POLICY / MINORITIES / AGING & DEATH

An important topic of social import that was often discussed with us is the One-Child Policy for the Han peoples of China. Chinese of Han ancestry are the dominant ethnic group comprising about 80% of the population. The One-Child Policy applies only to this group of people. The law and the significant peer pressure it produces dispose that Han couples should have only one child regardless of its sex. What this has produced, in addition to reducing Han population growth, are significant social problems.

First, since boys are much more highly prized than girls, many girl babies are aborted or given up for adoption if they are actually born. No wonder when Americans seek Chinese babies to adopt, they almost always are offered girl babies and children only! (In Jax we learned there are 70 adopted Chinese children: 68 girls, 1 boy is severely handicapped, and one normal boy!)

Another problem discussed freely with us is the fact that this one child is very precious to the couple and he is treated like a “little prince.” Grandparents are even more likely to spoil this only family scion. Because the children are so coddled and petted, they are becoming selfish little tyrants who do not learn the ancient Chinese values of concern for other family members, responsibility for other family members, especially older ones, and sharing what one has. Because these children grow up and are unconcerned about their parents and grandparents, the welfare burden previously borne within families is being foisted off on the state which is having to meet these needs through higher taxes and new state agencies to administer funds and provide care.

Of course, money and determination can always corrupt the most stringent law and that situation is true in China as well. Grandparents and parents who are well-to-do enough to give the state approximately $20,000.00 can get permission for a couple to have another child. The money is supposedly a deposit to ensure that the 2nd child does not become a burden on the state: his schooling is pre-paid, his health care is pre-paid, and the family has demonstrated that it can monetarily support another child. However, most Han Chinese people are unable to pay that enormous sum upfront so the policy is still producing its stated aim controlling population growth among the Han peoples.

For the dominant ethnic group, another potential problem has reared up: the policy is so effective that already the population is aging and it won’t be long before too few younger people will be trying to support through public welfare systems too many older people! A familiar sounding problem to us Americans who are already there.

In addition to the dominant Han group, there are 55 minority groups in China. These people, such as the Tibetans, are not subject to the One-Child Policy. Indeed, farm families among the minorities are not restricted at all to any specific number of children. City dwellers among the minority groups are restricted to three children. This birth control policy is working to the extent that it has slowed population growth, but it is also producing problems of “unintended consequences.” Since girls are more frequently aborted or put up for foreign adoption, the social scientists fear that there will soon be an intolerable imbalance between the sexes and many males will be unable to find wives. If the minority peoples produce more children, there will be more intermarriage between the Hans and those people. Will that result in a more homogenous society or is that even a desirable goal to Chinese people? This “little prince” syndrome may also produce profound changes in societal values and practices such as greater selfishness, less concern for elders in the family, no responsibilities for sick or handicapped family members.

It is probably appropriate now to discuss “end of life” issues since birth and death rates are usually discussed together. Because of China’s enormous population, in the cities, new cemeteries are not permitted nor are older ones expanded. Instead, people are cremated despite the cult of ancestor worship. Most homes usually maintain a shrine with pictures of loved ones and continue their traditions of honoring their ancestors. In the country, where there is more land available, burials still do take place and the graves are decorated with flowers and wreaths. In Tibet, bodies are often committed to the Yangtze and other rivers because burial is not in the Buddhist tradition where the human body should become a part of nature again, feeding wild animals and birds.

Along the Yangtze, we saw the ancient wall burials where the coffins were placed in cracks and fissures on the rock faces. It is very difficult to imagine how the people transported these heavy wooden coffins up the mountain side and even down from the tops of the slopes. No archeologists or anthropologists have yet given the definitive answer to that mystery. So the Chinese have their mystery like the pyramids and oddly enough theirs involves burial ground too.

That, of course, brings up the wonderful terra cotta soldiers outside the old national capital, Xian. This “burial” is also a great mystery. Rank on rank of soldier statues stand in good formation with very individualistic features on their faces. There are generals and horses in the huge burial grounds as well as gun carts and supply wagons indeed a whole buried army created of terra cotta pottery hundreds of years in the past. Yet no one knows why the Great Emperor caused them to be created and buried in that fashion. The Emperor’s own burial mound lies about a mile to the east of the interred army, but it cannot be excavated because of mercury contamination within it. Burials are most interesting in China.

HOUSING

BEIJING

Housing for the living is a logical next discussion. We visited several types actually from a new farmer village to restored hutongs in Beijing to subsidized housing in Hong Kong. And we saw lots of housing that we did not enter. However, what we did visit was quite fascinating and, again, indicative of the booming economy of modern China as well as some reverence for the old there. So we’ll begin as the trip did in the Bamboo Garden Hotel in Beijing. This wonderful compound had been the home of one of the ministers (a eunuch) in the Ming dynasty, making it about 300 years old. The grounds were lovely and large and the house was elaborate and comfortable with many rooms. Of course, it has been remodeled to add electricity, airconditioning, running water and television. But there were sufficient reminders of the old and traditional in the building to help us feel we were being entertained by a member of the Royal Court.

Beijing’s hutongs were very near our hotel an easy walk really. This section was originally built by the Mongols when they began to conquer and settle China. The houses are quite ancient really. In many ways, they are like one-story row houses. The ones closest to us were the most dilapidated but all the area is under renovation. These older ones are now the houses of very poor people and you can walk among them in the narrow streets and see people living in one tiny room of a hutong rather than the whole house. The narrow streets are clean but the people use them for their front porches since the part of the house an individual or family may inhabit is very small. Therefore, as you stroll in the early morning, you feel like you are standing in people’s yards or in their bathrooms because you see them brushing their teeth, washing themselves, cooking the morning meal.

A little further away is an already rehabbed section of the hutongs. We had lunch in the home of a university professor whose wife likes to meet Westerners and therefore works with OAT in providing a home visit to its travelers. This section was quite nice really and obviously middle to upper middle class now. Therefore, it is clear that when the gentrification of the older section is complete, there will be no more housing for the poor there.

The professor’s home was comfortable, large, well-equipped with modern technology, like a plasma TV, stereo system, modern kitchen with all the expected appliances, indoor plumbing for both kitchen and bathroom, a separate dining and living room. The appointments were good quality and furniture comfortable. The professor’s wife was a charming hostess and she taught us how to make the dumplings which we were going to be eating at her table. Suzanne was an apt pupil, as expected. Since the Chinese revere their ancient past, it is a given that these old homes are much treasured and enjoyed. The professor and his wife and two teenage children reside in this fine home.

FARMER VILLAGE

Outside Xian we visited a new farmer village what a misnomer that is, by the way. These farmers don’t farm though some of them do have beautiful flower gardens and some even have some vegetables growing for their own use. These men work in a huge local cement factory to which they ride on their bicycles. Most of these farmers’ wives are housewives and mothers. What is unusual about this village is that has been built across the highway from the old village where only 46 people still live. The other 278 residents of this new town, Huxian, elected to move to the new place. Their homes are mostly 2 and 3 storey dwellings for single extended families. They are concrete block but some have been faced with stone or other decorative materials and even glass blocks. The people paid some percentage of the cost of building their homes so they have a true interest in this town,

HUXIAN

Huxian is built around a town center where much of the village community life takes place. This center has a meeting building, outdoor ping-pong tables, outdoor exercise equipment, playground equipment for the children and a paved dance floor cum sports surface. The town owns a portable music system to facilitate community dances. All the streets radiate from this center. The evening we spent there proved that the villagers use this town center constantly. Mostly the wives and children were about because the tired men are at home watching their TV sets on weekday evenings. The ladies told us the men join them on weekends. Stephanie let us in on something even more curious city folks often rent rooms from these farmer folk so they can get out of the

heat of urban living and go where it is cooler and where there is outdoor entertainment. Her own family had already rented rooms from one of the host families and would be coming back here after our tour finished. Another of the central amenities for this population was a museum building where the local artists and artisans displayed their work. There are also work rooms and stations where they can actually apply their skills if they want to produce their wares in company with their neighbors. The pictures were amazingly good and not very costly. The most charming were rather simple pictures of village life, not as it is lived by these people today, but an idealized version of earlier times. We saw goose girls with their flocks, shepherd boys with their herds of goats, stacks of produce of many kinds including squashes, wheat, and apples.

Our home visit in Huxian also included spending the night with a family (4 of us per host and hostess) and eating two meals prepared by the lady of the family. The couple who hosted us were cordial and gracious but spoke no English whatever and of course, we spoke no Mandarin; therefore communication was confined to smiles and nods and charades. We did learn through Stephanie that only the couple and her elderly mother live in this house now. Both their teenaged children are away at university. Our evening meal was served like a sandwich. The bread looked like a large and floppy flour tortilla. There were four plates of ingredients for the sandwiches which the lady created by filling the bread with spinach, mystery meat, onions, and an unidentifiable veggie. Then she folded the bread up to make an easily handled sandwich. Actually, the concoction was edible though I can’t say any of us enjoyed it since we could not miss her dirty fingernails and had seen how primitive her tiny kitchen appeared.

After eating, we repaired to the town center and watched the activities and actually joined in with some, like singing with the children, laughing and talking as much as possible with folks, and using some of the exercise equipment. When we returned to our house, we went to bed because it was impossible to talk with the folks and we were also very hot and anxious to try out the AC we

had seen mounted on the wall of our bedroom. We had earlier seen the layout of the house and were impressed by the size of the rooms. The living room had a good-sized TV, two sofas and a chair of sturdy quality. On the wall were a picture of Chairman Mao and a map of China plus one purely decorative picture of flowers. Downstairs we also saw the bathroom (primitive but equipped with commode, lavatory, and shower), three bedrooms (two of which we were assigned) and the outdoor kitchen which appeared to be in a sort of alley between our house and the one which backed up to it. There was a minimal roof on the kitchen area. Our bedrooms had two double beds with clean linens.

An interesting feature of the beds were the bamboo “spreads” with flexible pieces of bamboo sewn together into a coverlet which you actually sleep atop to stay cooler since you are raised up from the bed linens. I tried it and found it quite comfortable strangely enough. The AC worked magnificently but even its roar did not drown out the sound of buzzing insects in one corner of the room. We just tried to ignore whatever huge and ugly critter that might be. The AC does not sit in a window but is mounted on the wall and has only about a three-inch hose leading from it to the outside world. Odd, but it worked!

When morning finally came, we only thought we had gotten through this experience. There was more to come breakfast. In this situation, Hetty, Suzanne, and Lois were almost envious of Kay, who could plead sickness since she really was. We really think that her upper respiratory illness had mutated into “walking pneumonia” and she felt truly awful. When we sat down at the little table in the living room for breakfast, we saw her lose all color and almost all stomach contents she was that green. She had valiantly tried the night before, so we all endeavored to help her communicate to our sweet hostess that she was really ill! Evidently, we got the message across despite all the barriers and Kay was excused from the table. Lucky sick person.

Breakfast was truly an ordeal and I am not sure whether the three of us were able to carry it off graciously or not blessedly, we will never know since there was no way to read our hostess’ face or reactions. The menu for the morning consisted of hard-boiled eggs, more veggies, and dampish wheat tortillas, and a truly inedible soup to follow. With gorges rising, we all tried to get down the egg and then the breakfast “pita pocket.” We had varying degrees of success, but then out came that soup dark, like the lichor from black beans cooking, thick, like 3 days cooked lima bean soup, vile tasting like nothing else I have ever experienced. The bowls were huge and deep and our hostess kept gesturing that we “eat up.” It was awful and we none of us got much of it down.

We kept trying to convey that we were so full already, but she was pretty insistent (maybe she just wanted us to hurry up so she could clear everything away). Finally, we were rescued by the clock since we were supposed to meet Stephanie for a walk through the old village at 8 a.m.

They don’t call Xian, Wuhan and Jichang “the furnace cities” for no reason. Temps in excess of 120F are not unusual. However, we were probably only enduring 100 to 105, but it was really steamy as well. Anyway, relieved and overjoyed to leave the breakfast table, Suzanne, Hetty and Lois merrily joined the walk across the highway to the old village of Huxian. And what a different sort of place it was! No wonder the majority of the folks had decided to invest some money and move to New Huxian. Firstly, there was little or no drainage in this low-lying area, so there was a lot of standing, filthy water everywhere so that we were “hop, skip, and jumping” all the way.

The houses were very old and very simple with thatched roofs and only sand for the lawn Though we were not invited into any of these dwellings, we could see through the open doors that there was nothing in the way of comfort or convenience there, such as we had enjoyed at our host

home in Huxian Nuevo.

There were only outhouses for bathroom facilities and definitely no running water inside the houses. Making paver tiles seemed to be the occupation of the folks left there and so there were boxes of crated tiles, sand for creating the tiles, and forms for their shaping all over the area.

Some folks even had haystacks in their yards and we were not sure of their purpose because we saw no livestock around. People in this village were not very friendly, indeed almost suspicious. The children playing in the area looked like 3rd world children everywhere, tattered clothing and runny noses. The only garden we saw was dry, withered, and pitiful.

When we walked back to New Huxian and began to walk about this “planned” city, the advantages were even clearer. Folks had flowers growing in their small front yards; some even had vegetables growing as well. Everyone we met was friendly and open to our attempts to communicate. The children were clean and bright and their noses were not running. This farmer village was an amazing improvement over the old town that most of the folks had left. The place looked like a Shangri-La to us after our visit across the street. Each home was indeed a modern castle in comparison.

LHASA, TIBET

When we got to the real “Shangri-La,” we saw yet another type of housing. The Tibetan lady who was our hostess had a very comfortable house which was rather larger than the hutongs, but not so large as the New Huxian mansions. Our home visit here did not include an overnight for which we were grateful. Instead, our hostess served us a variety of Tibetan snacks candies, crackers, fruits, and even popcorn. Though the names sound familiar, the foods thus described were quite exotic cooked in unusual ways with curious and unknown spices. Most were very delicious, however. However, back to the description of the house itself. The house fronted on a nice street with an unadorned wall and a gate opening into the property. As soon as we entered the compound, we could see the house pets, a Peke and a Pom, plus a cat. There was a little open seating area with the house in a horseshoe around this tiny outdoor space. The lady had three bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a Buddhist shrine room, a separate kitchen, bathroom and some storage areas.

The sitting room in which she served us was lined with comfortable couches and there were many decorative objects around, on tables and on the walls. The intricate and colorful Tibetan art predominated, with its impenetrable religious symbols. All the sofas were covered with brightly hued throws and the long table between the couches was full of the interesting little savories she had prepared.

We toured her kitchen which was small but equipped with refrigerator, stove, and sink as well as food preparation areas. She invited us to visit her shrine room as well and we saw the ancestor pictures as well as Buddhist figures. Chamba, our local guide for our visit to Tibet, told us that most Tibetans would love to display pictures of the Dalai Lama but do not really feel free to do so. The smell of incense was strong in the little room though none was burning at the time of our visit.

This lovely lady lives in her home with one daughter, a teenaged grandson, and an adult nephew. So she is not really crowded at all. Her other children live in Lhasa and are involved with her daily life too. This visit went much better than some since the ladies knew a tiny bit of English and, even better, we had Chamba with us for instant translations. His English skills were awesome: his speech was not heavily accented and he could even make jokes in English,

On the road from the Lhasa Airport into the capital city, we saw many farmer homes from the outside. These rural people live in what appear to be individual compounds since every one has a fence or crumbling wall around it. Perhaps extended families occupy these places. They looked antique, rundown, and very poor. There were many children running around the dirt yards, dogs, and goats among them. We were never brought to one of these places to visit.

ALONG THE YANGTZE RIVER

Still another form of housing that we toured was the relocation apartment. The family who was kind enough to invite us into their home lived in Wenzhou, a relocation city. Though the Yangtze has only risen about 45 meters so far (more about the Three Gorges Dam anon), this city was low enough along the riverside that it had to be moved upslope early. It is a bustling city of about 500,000 people and it has been pretty much built completely anew. There is a modern shopping center, a very busy business section, public meeting areas and residential complexes. The apartment we visited was about two blocks off the shopping center and it was about three years old. The building was seven stories high and apartments on lower floors cost more money. Though not particularly handsome outside, the building was not actually ugly. One modern convenience this building did not possess was an elevator, thus the difference in prices for apartments near the ground level and those higher up.

Our host family lived on the 2nd floor and they paid extra for some added decorative touches in the apartment as well as some extra space. There were three bedrooms, a comfortably large living area, a separate dining area, kitchen, bathroom, and adequate storage closets. The family consisted of a husband and wife, a son and daughter-in-law, three small children, and a grandmother. Though crowded by our standards, this was quite a commodious living space by Chinese lights. The family was very happy in this space and professed themselves to be pleased that they had spent the extra money for the little architectural details and the lower floor.

HONG KONG

The last house-type we visited was in Hong Kong. It was in a large complex of subsidized housing which was quite utilitarian in appearance from the outside. There must have been about twenty identical buildings in the complex and they were about 12 stories tall.

The lady we visited lived on the ground floor with her husband, two sons, a daughter-in-law and an enormous Pug dog. Until just a few months ago, her mother had lived with them as well. The lady is the “captain” of one of the sampans that float around in Hong Kong harbor for tourists

now. Her husband works in a factory of some sort. Their total living space for 5 adults and a dog is 300 square feet. Needless to say, this is the smallest apartment we visited. In this tiny space, there was a living room/dining room combo with a large TV, computer, and stereo, a bedroom area with bunk beds, a midget-sized kitchen, and a bathroom with shower.

This lady actually had a washer/dryer as well. Her kitchen had everything you need for meal preparation, but it was all quite compressed in size. All of the apartments from the second story on up had a flagpole arrangement extending out from one window for hanging the clothes out to dry. The ground floor units had dryers! This lady also had an AC since Hong Kong gets quite hot as well.

This “project” style complex was amazingly clean and well tended outside. There was no trash in the green areas between buildings and there was no graffiti. Inside the very institutional hallways, there was no trash, no urine smell, no squalor. Our guide, Stephanie, reminded us that there is persuasive peer pressure in China on people to keep public areas clean. The people who live in this complex have to meet certain income levels in order to qualify for this housing and this lady inherited her apartment from her mother who had recently passed away. However, our hostess had lived here too with her mother for almost twenty years. So these buildings were not new like the relocation city apartment complexes.

DAILY LIFE

In the big Chinese cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Xian, and Hong Kong, we had the opportunity of observing daily life in China because the people do a lot of their living outside. Their homes are often so small that the outdoor areas near them become their living rooms, their fitness centers, the barber shop, the music room, a men’s club, and the game room.

EXERCISE

Everywhere we went in these cities, we watched people doing their daily exercises. Everything from Tai Chi to fan dancing, ballroom dancing, drill team maneuvers, fencing, ribbon gymnastics, drum beating, and calisthenics could be observed.

The older people were more into Tai Chi while younger folks performed some of the other routines mentioned above. As we walked around a city lake, we might see an old man slowing moving his body into Tai Chi positions. In Kowloon Gardens in Hong Kong, we spied a younger man sword fighting with himself. In a wide pedestrian street in Xian next to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, we were impressed to find middle-aged people two-stepping very seriously to western style music. In the big tiered fountain at the foot of this street, we saw every size and age of ladies performing dances with their ribbons or fans or drums. And in front of all types of commercial establishments, we saw the employees performing calisthenics while they were exhorted to perform their jobs well and with concern for the customers that day.

The lovely lady in her early 50s who gave us a demonstration of Tai Chi performed at a really high standard must not be forgotten. She came to our hotel in Xian in lovely red silk flowing pants with a matching shirt tied around her waist. She wore black shoes very similar to ballet slippers. She was not very tall but very slender and fit looking. Once she started moving, she was truly phenomenal. Fluid yet strong, graceful yet powerful; she was more like a ballet dancer than a person performing exercises. Of course, the most hilarious part of the demonstration occurred when she invited all of us to try to follow a few basic routines along with her. Good fun.

HAIRCUTS/MUSIC/GAMES

In addition to the many exercisers who were in the streets every day, we also saw many men getting their hair cut there as well. The outdoor barbershops really do a good business but surely at lower prices than the upper scale salons scattered around city centers. Several young people practiced on their musical instruments outside and many of them even attracted appreciative audiences. There was much tea-drinking at little card-sized tables and lots of ladies and gentlemen sitting around chatting. Mahjong is definitely a Chinese passion there were hot games going on everywhere. Most of the tables were surrounded by interested onlookers as well. Betting was also a part of these fiercely fought contests. Our biggest surprise is that all this outdoor activity is ongoing despite the terrible pollution and smog in Chinese cities. It is amazing that the folks can breathe while they do their exercises, play their instruments, and drink their tea. Of course, they smoke a lot too, so maybe the external airborne fumes don’t seem that different to them.

PUBLIC TOILETS

Of these, Hetty usually stated clearly and emphatically, “I’d rather die!” The euphemistically titled “happy spots” (restrooms) were often shocking and disgusting. OAT had valiantly tried to ensure that we were taken to decent places wherever available. Many however were just beyond description and beyond bearing. Even the public facilities we passed walking in various neighborhoods emitted such fetid odors that none of us would ever have thought to use one. When we returned home, we learned that China is participating in the 2004 World Toilet Summit (this is not a joke!) from November 17 to November 19 which is World Toilet Day. The Chinese are seeking ideas on toilet technology, management strategies, and sanitation. The government officials promise to have Beijing’s public facilities transformed from foul to fragrant, from crude to cultured, from filthy holes in concrete slabs to self-cleaning commodes. They have their work cut out for them!

PUBLIC SPACES-BUILDINGS / MONUMENTS

China is an interesting and surprising mixture of reverence for the old and a mad rush towards everything new and modern. This ancient culture has many reminders of its past always present to it. Of course, traditions of family responsibilities, ancestor worship, cuisines, language, and the appropriate order of society (such as that embodied in the concept of the “Mandate of Heaven”) continue from time immemorial. But there are also physical reminders of the ancient past buildings such as those in the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, The Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, and the Summer Palace in Beijing, the old city Wall and Gates in Xian as well as the Terra Cotta Soldiers, and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and the Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet.

In Beijing, we were disappointed and not a little surprised to find that the magnificent buildings from the times of the Chinese Empire are a bit shabby and not very well maintained. Yet they are visited regularly by Chinese citizens themselves. Of course, the government will have them renovated and spruced up by the time of the 2008 Olympics, but at present pollution has really done its damage on the huge complex that is the Forbidden City, as well as on the Temple of Heaven several miles away. The Drum and Bell Towers which were very close to our Bamboo Garden Hotel had also been allowed to fall into scruffiness even though their grounds were constantly full of Chinese folks pursuing their many already described outdoor activities. The towers were originally part of the old city wall of which there is very little remaining. Their purpose was communication with other sections of the wall fortifications and both the huge bell and the drum are still functional, though the hours of visitation are quite restricted. There have been attempts to clean and to refurbish the Temple of Heaven decorations but the results are a bit tawdry and disappointing. The long loggia of artwork at the Summer Palace has been cleaned and repaired much more satisfactorily.

The more modern monuments of Chinese history, such as museums, Mao’s Tomb, & government buildings and monuments are much better cared for. But the Chinese are well aware that foreign tourists like to see the vast and opulent facilities of the emperors whose stories are so colorful and remote. Therefore, the Beijing government intends that all these “crowd pleasers” will be completely refurbished by 2008.

HISTORIC PERIODS

Mirroring this strange inconsistency, when our local guides, such as Music in Beijing, talked to us about Chinese history, they consistently divided it into 3 periods: Ancient times (beginning of China as a nation until the end of the Empire in 1904), Middle time from the end of Empire to the Communist Revolution in 1947, and then Modern era from Communism’s triumph in l949 to the present. Though they had obviously studied the Ancient & Middle periods, the lack of real interest in them was apparent. It is as though the Modern Era is the only one of significance nowadays.

PERFORMANCE CENTERS

PEKING OPERA

One really vibrant cultural heritage site we visited was the School for the Peking Opera. Though the opera itself is definitely an acquired taste, it was interesting indeed to explore the school for these performers. Children start in first grade here and their parents pay large tuitions for their instruction. They have classes in their academic subjects as well as the skills they must learn to perform in the opera. We saw a class in acrobatics for boys from age 6 to 11 and they were all sizes and shapes. Some clearly had more aptitude for tumbling than others, but all were very focused on trying to follow their instructor’s directions. Since boys are boys in any culture, they were also having a good time expending all that energy.

We also visited a girl’s class where the young ladies were practicing the high-pitched singing and the dance movements they will use as performers. Much of what appears to be dance is actually a sort of gliding about gracefully there is nothing to match our western ballet in the Peking Opera. Two young ladies gave us a brief concert and demonstrated their promise as future stars of the opera.

Attending a performance of the Peking Opera in its own theater was more enjoyable after having seen the school. The theater building has both promenade-type seating where people can drink tea and dine while watching the performance and normal theatrical row seating.

There are two huge signboards with red lettering where the Chinese is translated into English, a la Superscript at the Met. Some of the translations are hilarious because they really do not approximate spoken or any other kind of English. However, it is good to have some idea what is happening on stage because often the scenes are completely opaque to us westerners who do not know the Monkey King story.

CHENGDU TEAHOUSE PERFORMANCE

It was interesting when we arrived in Chengdu to find that the Sichuan province also has its own distinctive opera tradition. While we did not visit a school for performers, we did see a couple of scenes from two of their operas when we attended a wonderful outdoor teahouse in that lovely city where a variety show was given. The opera seemed very similar to Peking’s to us, but we were assured by our local guide, Joe, that it is actually quite different. Wonderful face painting and brilliant costumes characterize both opera forms as does the falsetto type singing. The variety show included some really wonderful performances of other types: a virtuoso on the erdu (a kind of violin-sitar affair) who was simply splendid, a man who made the most amazing shadow play figures with only his hands (including horses running, a dog catching a rabbit, a cat grooming itself), and the wonderful art of “face-changing” which is special to Chengdu.

These amazing performers change masks on their faces with lightning speed in front of your very eyes and yet you cannot see them do it no matter how closely you watch. And as if that were not enough, later they performed the same show using puppets whose mask-faces changed just as astonishingly.

BEIJING ACROBATS:

In Beijing, we also saw a wonderful acrobatic show that included other types of singing and dancing as well. The shows seemed designed to appeal to western audiences but we certainly were among a crowd of mostly Chinese folks, so they must enjoy the performances as well. In Xian, we were treated to a dumpling dinner and then a show put on by various indigenous artists, musicians, dancers, singers and acrobats again. The Chinese have no dearth of entertainment options wherever they may live.

THE WALLS OF CHINA

The Great Wall of China

We were pleased that our itinerary called for our visiting a section of the Great Wall further away from the city center of Beijing that the usual tour company chooses. The Badaling Section near the city is apparently quite commercialized and filled always with tourists both foreign and domestic. The section we visited, Jinshanling, was about 120 km. from downtown and it was deserted except for our group and the Inner Mongolian youngsters who climbed every step of the way with us. Though they were helpful and concerned about our safety, they were also very interested in selling us their souvenir T-shirts, Great Wall Brochures, etc. There was only one shop on this section of the Great Wall and it was tucked away inside one of the towers so it did not mar the view at all. As a matter of fact, its bottles of frozen water were a welcome treat!

The Great Wall was the most impressive of the monuments we saw because of its size and its location. Even though we could only picture the wall in its total length, arising in the West in the Gobi Desert and reaching the China Sea, the section we visited was suggestive enough to help us appreciate it. The Jinshanling section is in excellent repair and sits in a beautiful geographical area, with many mountains and valleys. The wall runs up and down hill sinuously yet quite sturdily. We were surprised at how wide the wall is and at the fact that sections have many steps between them there.

We thought the top of the wall would be constructed of smooth ramps but instead, it is punctuated constantly by flights of steps to get from one level to the next or between the watchtowers. Walking the wall is thus often an arduous task.

The view from the watchtowers is thrilling since you can see the wall stretching out over the countryside from east to west all around you. It is fairly easy to imagine yourself a lonely sentinel standing guard for the whole Empire at your tower. What a wonderful bastion this tower would have been in the days before cannon could pound it to rubble. How secure you must have felt against the barbarian hordes surging over the mountaintops and yet how urgently you would have sent the message across to all the towers in your vicinity to defend the Empire.

Only when we had descended from our “wall walk” did we realize that there was a cable car system available. After having climbed the wall in blazing and steamy heat, we appreciated the opportunity to “fly” to another set of towers so easily. But the best part of that ride was the magnificent views from the dangling car. That ride gave us the most stirring view of several miles of the Wall in this mountain fastness. The Great Wall is a wonder, not only because it is one of two man-made structures that can be seen from outer space, but because of its fine workmanship, its effectiveness in defending the Empire, and the almost unbelievable engineering it must have taken to build it right here on the solid earth.

The City Wall of Xian

The old city wall In Xian is also much more complete than Beijing’s of which only small bits still standing and it is in much better condition. Furthermore, it appears that the old wall is much more integral to the city life of Xian today. For instance, the South Gate which we explored is a meeting place for city dwellers and tourists. There are benches along the wide “avenue” atop the gate and gardens have been established here. The watchtower has been turned into an art gallery with the work of local artists on display and for sale. The view from atop the 150 ft. wall is excellent so it is no wonder that people like to wander along up there looking out over the city.

Kay and Lois had a curious cross culture experience there. A Chinese tourist family, grandparents, man and wife, and children was busily taking pictures. They asked if we would photograph all of them together and of course, we did so.

Then they offered to take ours to which kindness we naturally acquiesced. Then they strenuously conveyed to us that they wanted to snap us in the midst of their family members! We figured they would take these photos home to their extended family so they could marvel over the odd strangers they had encountered in Xian.

In Xian, the restoration efforts are much more successful than in Beijing. Since Xian is one of the old capitals of the empire, perhaps the city fathers there value their connection with the imperial past more than the modern Beijingers do theirs. For instance, a huge surprise was the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Here it is with Lois on the left with the statue of Buddha and Suzanne on the right at the entryway. The pagoda is the product of a discredited religion, and yet much care has been lavished upon it. It is about 1000 years old and yet it stands in a glorious condition. Its many complicated paintings have been refurbished to vivid life and color. The grounds around the Pagoda are immaculately kept and there is a serenity maintained there. Inside, the manuscripts and sacred objects are carefully displayed and kept free of dust and mildew. It is said that Chou en Lai saved this marvelous building during the Cultural Revolution by giving it his personal protection. What a great service he performed there. This Pagoda has special significance to the Chinese people because it is here that a famous monk wrote his translations of Buddhist scriptures and history. One of China’s literary treasures, the novel “Journey to the West”, details his perilous visit to India, the birthplace of Buddhism, to learn about the Buddha’s teachings and to bring them home to China written in Sanskrit. The journey itself was long and fraught with many adventures, both mundane and supernatural, but the translating task was even longer. This accomplishment is also reproduced in one of the Peking Opera’s most beloved works, “The Monkey King.”

LHASA, TIBET

In Lhasa, Tibet, the reverence for the ancient is apparent and ingrained in the culture. However, the Tibetans are relatively poor and do not have the resources to maintain their treasures well. Furthermore, because these edifices are religious, the central government has no interest in helping the folks care for them. Until very recently, the Beijing government was actively involved in repressing Tibetan Buddhism. For these reasons, we were not surprised to see that the paintings, icons, statuary, books, yak butter sculptures and jewelry were all dingy and faded and covered with a thick unhelpful finish of the dust of centuries.

The two most sacred places in Tibetan Buddhism are the Potala Palace, summer home of the Dalai Lama until l959 when he was forced to flee by the Chinese central government and the Jokhang Temple which sits at one end of the city center square. Both of these buildings are ancient indeed and have been the “mecca” for the religious faithful since time immemorial.

THE JOKHANG TEMPLE

This is the older of the two and it is a squat building with winding aisles and side chapels, all crammed with religious articles, tombs, paintings, and vats of yak butter candles. Smoke curls around everything and leaves an oily residue on every surface, especially thick on the intricately carved statuary and the texts of ancient scriptures. The smoke is irritating to the eyes and nose, but the pilgrims seem not to notice as they coil own their way through the temple labyrinth, swinging their prayer wheels and reciting prayers. They are absorbed in their devotions as evidenced by the fact that they are neither apologetic nor resentful at the constant body-touching that is inevitable in the cramped spaces.

Sometimes the lines halt as one or more pilgrims stop before a shrine of particular interest to recite their prayers. No one complains, no one seems impatient, everyone just waits for the line to continue moving.

To earn something that sounds very like Catholic “indulgences,” the faithful perform Khora (complete circuits around the outside of the Temple) as long as they can. Alternatively, they bring mats to place outside the shrine, preferably at the front, where they perform prostrations and prayers until exhaustion. Either of these activities brings them these “indulgences.” These “Khora” are also performed around the base of the much larger Potala Palace for the same reason.

The reason for the special sanctity of the Jokhang Temple (shrine) stands inside the central core of the building a 6th-century statue of Buddha said to have been blessed by him before a princess brought it with her from India as part of her dowry for her marriage to the then Tibetan king. It is considered the holiest relic in Tibet. The building itself is interesting in that part of it is open to the sky, probably necessary to prevent the smoky cloud from becoming impenetrable and unbreathable. As you process through the serpentine aisles, occasionally you are surprised to find yourself under the bright blue sky of heaven rather than a sooty ceiling bearing down on you. It is a welcome relief. Perhaps “thoughts fly up” to the heavens under this beneficence of fresh air.

CITY SQUARE

In the square in front of the Jokhang, pilgrims jostle with monks, tourists, townspeople shopping at the permanent bazaar on two sides of the square. The remaining side contains enclosed stores and shops with items of interest primarily to tourists and also a couple of small restaurants and teahouses. The square is never empty and the scene is bright with the colors of vegetables, prayer flags, pilgrims in their best traditional clothing, tourists in their garish “travel smith” gear, children in jarringly western clothes, t-shirts with American cartoon figures, baseball caps, and light-up tennis shoes. Smells of yak butter (nowadays, cow butter is also used since yak butter is hard to get and expensive), pungent and sweet spices, burnt offerings of foodstuffs, malodorous hanging meats in the market stalls, peppers and curry, rank urine and fragrant teas tussle and meld in the air over the square. It is an altogether foreign and yet fascinating place to be.

In Xian, our young local guide, Gerard, had been openly contemptuous of Buddhism, its adherents and the monks who have dedicated their lives to it. He was sneering and dismissive, appearing to be a model Chinese atheist produced by “godless communism.”

We were taken off guard to find that Tibetans, despite the years of repression, are very devout in their devotion to Buddhism. Even the young people were among those genuflecting before the Jokhang and performing their “Khora” around it. Our guide, Chamba (young himself and obviously a devout Buddhist), told us that the effort to root out Buddhism among the Tibetans has failed utterly. Though for a long time, worship went underground, it never died away. Instead, like the Poles who refused to abandon their Roman Catholicism despite Russian communist repression, the Tibetans mixed their religious beliefs with their nationalistic yearnings so that Tibetan Buddhism is also an expression of their desire for a free Tibet.

The Chinese communists have allowed some religious freedom to return to the region, but it cannot be expressed as nationalism. Neither can the Tibetans hope for the return of the Dalai Lama. Instead, the Beijing government is attempting to force another lama on the people, a Panchen lama of the government’s selection. The Tibetans thus far are playing “the artful dodgers” and are neither accepting or rejecting him. Chamba says the people are awaiting their own beloved Dalai Lama.

The best meal we had in Tibet, oddly enough, was Indian cuisine at the Snow Lion Restaurant, right off the main square. The food was really delicious and nicely presented in not enormous portions. India, Tibet, and Nepal are obviously very close culturally and religiously and now we find they share cuisines as well.

YANGTZE RIVER CRUISE / THREE GORGES DAM

A wonderful highlight of our trip to China was the cruise on the Yangtze River where we got to see not only the lovely scenery which is about to be lost but also the reason for that imminent disappearance the Three Gorges Dam. All of us enjoyed the cruise so much because it gave us a time to relax and absorb some of the amazing things about China that been bombarding us. We got to talk with several young people on board as well as get to know Stephanie a little better because of having the leisure to converse with her and them.

The gorges were not as spectacular as I had expected them to be but that might be partially explained by the fact that the water level in the dam has already risen 45 meters. Of course, it is anticipated that when the dam is complete, the water will rise another 170 meters. All along our route were large white signs with black lettering showing where the water line will be at that time. It is pretty dramatic to see both how much of the relocation work has already been completed and yet how much more there is to go before the water can be permitted to rise.

There are some lovely villages and towns along the Yangtze which is a muddy turbulent river. It is so thick with silt that it is hard to imagine how fish can adapt to it. The peaks and rugged hilly ridges along the river are covered in tropical-type vegetation as well as the citrus and other farmed plants. The “corridors” along the river will certainly be less impressive once they are not so high above the water surface. But they are not as scenic now as other similar places we have visited even in our own country.

Nights along the river are the real surprise this is an environment which never sleeps. There is so much construction going on all along the Yangtze (new bridges, new buildings, demolition of existing structures, sealing of mine entrances, and the dam itself) that the night sky is always obscured by the amount of light playing on the shores. The fires of the factories leap skyward and the bodies of the small humans tending all this enormous activity appear small and tortured. All the factories work night and day trying to keep up with demand and the pollution fills the sky further obscuring the stars. This is truly a vision of Vulcan’s forge multiplied a thousand times.

GENERAL JOE STILWELL

At Chongqing, we took a tour off the boat and visited the site of General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell’s headquarters. The house and gardens are preserved as a museum and shrine to this American general who helped the Chinese during World War II to fend off the Japanese invaders.

Because he was evenhanded in giving food, war materiels, medicines and medical care, military advice to both the Chinese Communists under Mao’s leadership and the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek, he is still revered in China. Once again, Chou en Lai protected a piece of Chinese history during the Cultural Revolution when he extended his personal protection to the Stilwell complex. It was never touched during the rampages. Attached to the Stilwell complex is an art museum where local artists display their works dedicated to USA Major General Claire L. Chennault who is also revered in China because he pioneered and directed the relief flights “over the hump” by the Flying Tigers to resupply the Chinese war effort from India.

Three Gorges Dam

When we finally reached the dam project itself, we found its effect is jaw dropping. This is truly a gigantic undertaking. Words do not convey its complexity and enormity! At present, the dam is about 2/3 complete and the relocations and dislocations involved are just about ¾ finished. The 6 locks sets (3 upriver and 3 downriver) are open and in use. The ship elevator for vessels weighing 3000 tons and less is still in progress. Though many dams throughout the world have been studied, this dam is a Chinese project through and through financed by China, designed by Chinese civil engineers, built by Chinese companies almost exclusively. It is already making river trade more efficient and has already helped reduce the death toll from yearly flooding on the Yangtze. It is believed that once the dam is complete, over 30,000 lives will be saved every year! The dam will ultimately supply about 10% of Chinese electricity needs.

In the USA, we are used to complaints about cost overruns, late schedules, work slowdowns. The Chinese are proud to say that this dam project is “under budget and ahead of schedule.” Originally it was supposed to be a “done deal” in 2009, but now the government avers it will be complete in time for the Olympics. Work goes on 24/7 from now until completion. Over 2/3s of the budget for the dam involves the relocation portion. As mentioned above, citizens of the areas to be flooded have a few choices in how to react: 1) they can accept the new housing the government is preparing for them with some expectation that they will be paying a portion of their new homes, 2) they can move in with relatives above the anticipated water line or in other areas of China, or 3) they can be relocated to other parts of China even though they have no relatives in those places. Most have elected to stay in their original towns and cities along the river.

Those are the good things about the dam; the negatives include the destruction of the natural world scenery, river creatures, birds who live on the river creatures, and the as yet unsolved problem of silt build-up behind the dam. At least a third of the river people are fisherfolk entirely dependent on the bounty of this very cloudy river. The fish and other animals have adapted over the centuries to this “thick water.” What will happen to these creatures when the water’s texture and content are changed? How will the endangered Chinese fish eagle (of which we saw many) survive? How will the people make a living and find food to feed their families and to sell for profit?

Even more of a threat to the riverine environment is the obstacle that the dam itself will present to the fish who must return upstream to spawn. Other dams all over the world have demonstrated that this problem connected with damming a river has never been adequately solved. Fish ladders

are notoriously inefficient. Will the animals simply die off after the dam is completely closed? What will happen to the fishermen? The other problem that is not yet solved is the silt build up behind the dam itself. Chinese engineers are hopeful that they can keep the waters running so rapidly that the amount of silt deposited is kept in check. However, build up is inevitable, either rapidly or more slowly. No one else in the world has solved this problem either. Silt build-up is eventually a dam killer.

TRACKER TRAILS

To emphasize the unknowns about the great dam project, we were taken to a clear and lovely tributary, Shennong Stream, to see an example of what happens when technology overtakes people, leaving them without their former means of livelihood. Before steam and power engines, boats had to be pulled up the Yangtze by human power. Footpaths lined the river all the way, some rocky parts along the shore, other trails built up above the river level by carving them out of the living rock, yet others attached to the rock faces by logs driven into the rock faces at various points with the “track” laid over them.

These “tracker trails” composed the route on the shore that the Tula minority men used to haul the boats upriver. Now, of course, their labor is no longer necessary since the steam and engine driven vessels can go up and back down the river under their own power.

Now the Tula men demonstrate this ancient labor to tourists (both Chinese and foreign) by keeping their boats in trim and dragging them filled with the tourists against the current using the tracker trail along the Shennong. In the old days, the men worked naked (to combat the extreme heat in this part of China) with only woven grass shoes to protect their feet. We did not see any bare Tula men, but we did see how muscular they have become with this work since their dress was swimming trunks and “muscle shirts.” This is difficult labor and while the Tula men give us this performance, the women sell trinkets and souvenirs to the tourists as they get off the boats. There are at least 50-60 stalls set up along the way to and from the wharf where we boarded the Tula canoes so it’s hard to escape buying something. The cruise ship line pays the men something for their demonstration and then they wait for tips to complete their pay.

This clear stream may be a sanctuary for more than the Tula minority who live here and keep their ancient work alive. Maybe it will also harbor some of the river creatures and birds who cannot adapt to a changed Yangtze River environment. We did spot some three golden monkeys on our way to the “tracker show” and we are sure that the people feed them there so the tourists can see them. Maybe that increases tips as well, who knows? But these folks are living on an old occupation which is no longer necessary but they have not the skills to change. The Three Gorges Dam will cause many such dislocations in both the human and the animal worlds. Nevertheless, it is an astonishing accomplishment already!

TRANSPORTATION

The great variety of transportation media we used in China was another unexpected pleasure. Because of its blend of ancient and modern, China’s many different vehicles mirror this fusion. However, it is quite clear that the ancient is being rapidly nudged out into the purely “touristical” realm.

AIRPLANES

Every day in China, we had the happy occurrence of learning something new and unanticipated. Our first moments in the brand-new and modern Beijing airport were only the first event. As it happened, all of the airports we visited and there were several (Beijing, Xian, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Lhasa) were no more than 3 years old and most were younger. The aircraft we flew internally were also very new, mostly Airbuses by Anglo-French manufacturers. All our fears about flying in unpressurized ancient aircraft with unknown maintenance histories and troop carrier interiors were quickly extinguished. Even the service on the airplanes was amazing to us now cynical frequent flyers on US carriers. Drinks, meals, snacks and “coffee, tea or me” smiles were bestowed on us frequently. Though some of the foods were not palatable to Westernized tongues, there was no need to go hungry if hungry we ever were! The staffs seemed eager to please and always helpful, too, to all passengers foreign and domestic.

The airplanes and airports we used internally were all quite modern, thank goodness. None of the airports was more than three years old and the aircraft were usually Airbuses seating about 300 passengers. Air China and its subsidiaries were strong on service with attentive stewardesses and plenty of food not all of it palatable to western tongues, however. We jaded Americans were amazed to find that the “coffee, tea, or me” smiles and service have migrated to China. And I had been worried that we would be flying in unpressurized military aircraft of ancient vintage.

OVERNIGHT TRAIN

The other really astonishingly modern transport we utilized was the overnight fast train between Beijing and Xian. It was so comfortable and OAT was so generous in giving each two people traveling together their own compartment, really meant for four. There were two upper and two lower berths, each with its own separately controlled TV set where you could watch American movies or Chinese choices. There was a table with fresh fruits, bottled water, and tissues between the berths. The toilet compartment was down to the hallway and, though it was used by all in that car, it was kept clean and well-supplied by the all night attendant. The lavatory area had three separate sinks and this area was also well maintained. The ride was smooth and we all slept very well on our way. The trip was delayed about two hours because of water on some section of track (which apparently happens fairly frequently during the rainier seasons) but there were no untoward events. We all found the ride comfortable, entertaining, restful and surprising!

OUR BUSES

The buses that were used to get us between cities close enough not to require plane flights were also comfortable and air-conditioned none of them had onboard potties, however. A couple of the drives were over 7 hours and the biggest scarcity on these rides was “happy stops” and some of them were not happy at all they were truck stops along a limited access highway and the toilet areas were unspeakably filthy. It is best not to discuss them at all! At one of those awful places, we were marooned for a while because our bus actually broke down there. We had realized that something was amiss as we traveled along beautiful rural scenery with picture-book farmhouses and fields of every shade of green imaginable because it was getting warmer and warmer in the bus. We asked our local guide to get the driver to “ramp the AC up a bit” but nothing seemed to work.

When we finally found the “happy stop,” and everyone jumped out in great relief, we realized that it was quite hot outside as well, but that did not explain our ever-warming bus interior. While we all waited in line for the wretched facilities, the bus driver and Joe, our local guide, tried to locate the problem but there was only much head shaking and shoulder shrugging. It was apparent they did not understand the problem or know how to resolve it. Finally, we reboarded the bus and now it absolutely would not start at all. So off we came again and stood for a bit under a portecochere type structure to stay out of the intense sun while Joe and Stephanie made frantic phone calls. The upshot was that the company would send a new bus from the city we had left a few hours ago but that the bus driver of our current bus would try to get it repaired at the same time. Whichever solution worked first would be the one we accepted.

The ailing bus was towed away to a garage about an hour down the road and we were left to console poor Stephanie who was pretty upset. In her 5 years with OAT, she had never experienced

a problem like this one. We all reassured her several times that we were well-traveled and understood such mishaps just happen and we knew that it was not her fault. She calmed down and we all joked that this breakdown would end up as one of our “funny” travel stories to folks back home. Soon we all wanted to sit down and we were allowed to go into the truck stop restaurant to sit at the unused tables there. Some folks read others played cards, some chatted. Everyone occasionally went reluctantly off to revisit the very “unhappy stop.” Even Aurora and George behaved admirably during this time, never berating Stephanie, Joe or the driver, or cracking sarcastic jokes at their expense.

Finally, our original bus lumbered back into view and pulled up next to the restaurant with a purring sound that we hoped meant AC! The replacement bus driver was informed that we were “on go” with the first bus so presumably, he turned around to head back to town. We got on the bus and proceeded along the way with no further difficulties and with a good supply of AC air circulating. We did arrive at the restaurant where we had been expected about two hours late, but the manager, his wait staff, and the busboys were all in readiness. The meal was served posthaste, though whether that was for our sakes or the sakes of the staff, it wasn’t really clear. The worker-bees obviously were ready for their day to be finished so they could go home! The food was good and much appreciated too. None of us had eaten anything at the truck stop restaurant since the whole facility was so filthy.

VICTORIA RIVER CRUISE SHIP

We had been headed towards Yichang where we to begin our Yangtze River Cruise for 4 nights when we met with the unexpected delay. However, the ship was waiting for us after our sumptuous, if hurried, meal. What a step into luxury we took then.

The ship is American-owned and is fitted out and run to please American tastes and expectations. Our cabins were quite comfortable, the dining room was spacious and the meals were definitely planned with Americans in mind. However, there were other nationalities on board since this ship was not an OAT vessel. Actually, it was rather sad because there were only 43 on board (including our 15 OAT folks) and the ship holds about 150 passengers usually. The SARS storm and the ongoing fear of flying since 9/11 have really cut into Chinese tourism in a cruel way. However, the small complement of passengers made our trip even more enjoyable because we had no lines, no waiting, lots of staff attention and full use of all shipboard amenities.

The crew put on two special evening programs for us which were quite colorful and pleasing. The first show involved a “fashion show” displaying typical costumes of some of the 55 minority peoples of China. They were dazzling creations of silk dresses and gorgeous colors. Of course, the young people themselves were also quite attractive and set off the costumes well. We all ooohed and aaahed at the brilliant macaw-feather reds, the royal blues, the banana yellows, and the resplendent purples. The 2nd presentation was a talent show starring the same young people in completely different amazing costumes we had singers, dancers, musicians, acrobats, magicians, and martial arts performers. Very entertaining programs.

The ship offered programs during the day in addition to narrations on deck about the three gorges and the further planned inundations. Interesting sights we passed were identified and pointed out to us as well. The crew offered talks on the history of the Yangtze River geologically as well as its part in Chinese history and development.

There were talks on traditional Chinese medicine and cooking and we had the opportunity to learn how to play Mahjong. The best talk, however, was the “open and free” Q & A session we had with Jackie, one of the river guides, who promised to answer any questions about any aspect of China we cared to ask. He promised no censorship and that no question was forbidden. He

seemed quite straightforward in his answers to our (at first) timid and (later) more brazen questions. He even treated “stupid, naïve, and argumentative” questions with dignity and with what appeared to us an honest response. China is definitely a more open society today than it was in the l970s when George and Aurora had studied Mandarin in Beijing for three months and in 1996 when Heidi and her husband had traveled here for three weeks. The four of them were really stupefied at the changes they could document for the rest of us. Another of our preconceptions of Chinese life was overturned on the scenic and informative river cruise portion of discovery of the new China.

Completing the discussion of our various modes of transportation, of course, we also rode city buses (called “city boats” by the locals), trams, cable cars, trolley cars, the Star ferry in Hong Kong, the Shennong Stream tracker canoes, sampans in Hong Kong harbor, and most interesting of all, the longest escalator in the world in Hong Kong! We observed other people taking taxis, taking rickshaws, and even one donkey cart. In the rural area, we saw water buffalo pulling wagons and observed some folks riding horses and donkeys. The most thrilling of the rides was the already described cable car ascent up to a portion of the Great Wall.

ESCALATOR OF HONG KONG

However, the most fascinating of all the rides was the 29 stop escalator in Hong Kong. The huge escalator ascends/descends a high hill where people live to take them down into the town center at sea level.

At each of the 29 stops or levels, there are commercial enterprises of various kinds and complexity from little fresh fruit stalls, to meat markets, to department stores, clothing marts, shoe repair shops, electronics stores, internet cafes, tiny restaurants, tea shops, and flea markets. The escalator is a fascinating place to watch the Hong Kongers “taking care of business” in their

daily lives. Conveniently, the escalator goes downhill from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then promptly (exactly on time), at 10 a.m. it reverses direction and goes uphill until 10 p.m. at which time it stops for the night. What a rational, convenient, and easy way for the citizens to get around in their hilly city. The escalator is always crowded but apparently rarely breaks down. We thought it a grand concept!

HONG KONG

When we left Lhasa and the poor Tibetan Administrative Area to fly on to Hong Kong, we really felt some culture shock. Though we had seen modern shopping centers and office complexes in other parts of China, Hong Kong was “a whole nother” story as we say. It is very flamboyant, rumbustious, arrogant, and cosmopolitan. Las Vegas and its “glitter gulch” has nothing on Hong Kong where the city is bright as day during the lovely tropical evenings and nights.

Lights play on all the big buildings lining the harbor (which is fine in itself) and change colors in delightful ways. Fountains splash and gleam in the multicolored lights. There is even a show displayed on a “water screen” proclaiming the pleasures of a visit to Hong Kong. Many buildings from the British past are preserved and treasured. The huge old Peninsula Hotel with its modern towers (added because more rooms were needed and city regulations did not allow the hotel building itself to grow any taller because it might obscure waterfront views), the many government buildings, and museums all testify to the wealth and grandeur of Hong Kong’s past and its vibrant present.

However, there is a darkness hovering in the background of all these bright lights and opulent shopping malls. SARS, of course, cut Hong Kong’s tourism by half just as it has the mainland and therefore there is less of that money about. But since the “takeover,” the Hong Kongers have suffered many of the changes they had feared. Many jobs are now outsourced to the mainland causing the dislocations we Americans are growing familiar with. Because of the employment competition from the mainland, wages have gone way down in Hong Kong and so the standard of living for citizens is falling. Hong Kongers are very resentful of these changes and feel that they are calculated to bring them down from the heights they previously enjoyed. Of course, there is also political unrest because there is less democracy now than before. While we were in China, there were enormous demonstrations in Hong Kong against the central government’s trying to control the election of a governor for the former colony. What was even more amazing to us was the fact that Chinese TV and the newspapers carried stories about the hundreds of thousands of protesters in the streets! Formerly, no news of such political activity would have been reported anywhere else in China all information about the marches would have been suppressed ruthlessly. Whether or not the demonstrations effected a change in the central government’s selection of a governor we never knew, but the people were allowed to protest the policy and their unhappiness was reported to their fellow countrymen.

LANDSCAPES

Though Kay’s pictures will definitely be a better record of the physical appearance of China, something must be said here of the variety of the landscapes which we saw there, from the flat plains to the majesty of the Himalayas. Surprisingly enough, the flat areas we saw were the exception everywhere we visited hills and mountains were always hovering at least in the perimeter. Even Beijing, though relatively flat, was girted round with the hills and mountains through and over which the Great Wall ran. The Jinshanling section of the Great Wall ran across the tops of several mountains which added to its splendor and its interest as a civil engineering feat.

As we passed from Beijing to Xian on the night train, our eyes focused on the surprisingly familiar bright red iron-filled dirt very like the Georgia clay. While the train pierced into the interior of China by traversing valleys, mountain ranges were everywhere on the horizon.

The aptly named “Furnace Cities” are located along or in the near vicinity of the Yangtze but there are basically river bottoms, flat and hot. According to our guides, it is not unusual for temperatures in these cities to reach 120. While we never experienced that degree of “cooking” it was very steamy and hot in Wuhan, Chengdu, and Jichang. Indeed, having understood that the Sichuan province where the pandas survive is mountainous, we were shocked to realize how very hot it is there. The furry pandas looked way overdressed for the climate.

The farmlands through which we often bussed were rich and highly productive, but less than 15% of China’s land is arable. Too many mountains, too much desert, and too much population. Another shock that assailed us was the fact that Beijing itself is under threat of desertification. The winds bring the desert sands in constantly, not only adding to the pollution of the city but also actually warring with the existing land, threatening to cover it. A massive tree-planting project is going on all over China in an effort to stabilize the land and hold back the sand. It is evidently like trying to sweep the rising waters out of your home during a flood. However, we saw the new trees everywhere, even in the midst of farmers’ fields, along with the roadways, in

the areas near the Great Wall. In far-flung Tibet, an effort is being made to plant trees in this inhospitable area. Like the Sahara which is creeping ever southward in Africa, the Gobi is assaulting Northern China and swallowing up the more fertile lands as it blows south.

Tibet itself is a relatively treeless plateau, the bottom of a great bowl created by the high Himalayas. The land here is dry as well but the temperatures are much cooler than the other parts of China we visited. Enormous rivers pour out of the mountain heights running down to Nepal, India, and Bangladesh, but providing plenty of water for most human needs in Tibet farming, drinking, sanitation. The majesty of Tibetan scenery is created by the blazing blue skies above the treeless plateau surrounded by the snow-covered sky-piercing mountains. The predominating color in the landscapes is an earthy ochre, punctuated thinly by patches of green-gray low vegetation and wrapped by the ribbons of silver and blue rivers. Though the gorges are going to be significantly reduced in scale when the dam project is complete, they will retain the rugged look of the gorge sides. Much arable land will be lost to the rising waters, and the relocated cities and towns will be even steeper. One of the relocation cities we visited, Wenzhou, demonstrates this growing perpendicularity very well. Its new streets were very steep and there was scarcely a flat spot in the whole city. The Chinese living here should be very healthy from all the hill climbing they will be doing getting from place to place in their hometown.

Hong Kong is a very hilly island as already revealed in the discussion of the 29 stop escalator. Part of every tourist’s experience in the city has to be a visit to Victoria Peak, high above the harbor area. The peak is high enough to give a wonderful perspective on the brightly lit city at night so that it feels like you are looking up at the night sky filled with stars when you gaze from the Peak down onto the city and its beautiful harbor.

Northern China is a geographical area defined by Yangtze River on its lower border, the Gobi Desert at its northern edge, the South China Sea on the East and the mighty Himalayas to the West. Enclosed in those borders is a roller coaster track of land with more heights than dips. The Yangtze is squeezing the land as a result of the dam project and the Gobi Desert has declared a war of its own on the lands as well. Northern China is caught in a pincer partly of its own making. No wonder China often needs help feedings its billion plus population. That situation will probably only get worse in the future as the land is swallowed up and the numbers of Chinese continue to escalate.

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

PNEUMONIA

This trip of surprises included a few of a personal nature as well. First, Kay became very ill with an upper respiratory infection within the first couple of days and it persisted through to the end of the trip. Often she was pretty miserable and we all thought she probably had “walking pneumonia” since her chest was so tight and rattly. She could have purchased various medicines over the counter, including antibiotics, but she chose to buy only cough drops. We had a pharmacy with us and she took everything appropriately, but the illness would not disappear until after we were home. The heavy pollution in the air all over China had to have exacerbated the condition as did the very busy schedule we followed. There was no way to take a few days rest to fight the infection off. However, she soldiered on because this was a trip with so many wonderful facets, she refused to miss even one thing.

ALTITUDE SICKNESS

While Lois did not contract the URI, she had her own unwelcome surprise in Tibet at 12,500 ft. pretty severe altitude sickness. Diamox may have helped or it may have added to the misery by creating significant dehydration. Walking in Lhasa was a trial of very slow steps and labored breathing. Trying to climb up the Potala turned very dramatic as she almost fainted from dehydration. A bottle of water drunk rapidly helped clear that condition, but even then the whole exploration of the palace was slow and exhausting. She found herself wanting to leave this place which she had always wanted to visit! The flight from Lhasa to Hong Kong loomed as a muchdesired relief to come as the days crawled by. No real feeling of acclimatization ever occurred during the stay. So it was with great relief that she finally got on the Airbus (two hours later than anticipated because the plane could not leave Chengdu due to pollution and weather). Of course, as soon as the plane was pressurized to 7000 ft, the symptoms of altitude sickness disappeared thank goodness.

TURISTA

Suzanne suffered from “turista” in Lhasa and was down and out for a few hours, but the trusty medicine chest proved equal to the disease and she was soon on her feet again. Hetty felt some effects of the altitude but in general was fine, never catching the URI either. So poor Kay was the sickest of the crew for the longest. However, many of the other fellow travelers fell to the “turista” and Dr. Kay kept them going with her well-stocked “black bag” as well. In this case, the physician did better at healing others than herself.

On our return home, we both had a pleasant surprise we had lost weight, despite the sumptuous meals we enjoyed. Of course, the sicknesses we suffered probably helped but I think it was also because the Chinese diet is not as fattening as our own. Kay lost 10 pounds and Lois lost 7. So that was a nice gift from China!

The “river of surprises” trip was a huge success in every way (other than the illnesses) and it really did overturn many of our preconceptions and misconceptions about modern China. We learned so much that is promising for those people and so much that should be important to the outside world as China storms its way onto the international scene in ever more demanding ways. She will have to have more of the world’s resources to run her economy and to continue her modernization particularly the already dwindling energy supplies. She will need to trade more with the outside world in order to feed her millions of people and she will take a bigger bite out of the world’s food supply. Because of her strategic position in Asia and her growing wealth, she will expect to influence the world at large with much more power and efficacy. Her very young and still growing population will demand more and more to participate in and engage with the world beyond China’s boundaries and therefore her aging and creaking communist central government will have to evolve to meet the expectations of these young folks.

The China we met by visiting her will soon be a China that everyone recognizes as she emerges from behind her Great Wall and takes the world stage as a place for her “to bustle in.”

Watch out world, here China comes!

This China Diary was written under duress and inspiration. The hardship was caused by the fact I completed it in about 18 pages and erased it in one false combination of keystrokes irretrievably before it could be transferred to the disc or printed. Inspiration came after I despaired and raged a couple of days and then remembered that T. E. Lawrence lost his entire 350,000 word manuscript of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and had to rewrite the entire book. My little loss paled in comparison, so I got over it and just set myself a goal of writing at least 30 minutes daily until it was complete Though no masterpiece like Lawrence’s, this version is better than the first one I wrote