CHINA JOURNALHali Hammer, July 24 - August 4 2009, halihammer.com/chinajournalHali Hammer: halihammer.comThis trip actually started earlier in the year when I got a flier in my school mailbox which said “Summer Trip to China”. Everything was included (except the visa) - round-trip flight from SFO to Beijing, round trip flight from Beijing to Shanghai, tour bus, local tour guide who spoke English, four/five star hotels, all the food (except for our last day, a free day in Shanghai), all admissions to attractions - $1800!! I took a look and decided that I’d be a fool to pass this up. So I called Bing who was organizing the trip, as did 18 others, and now several months down the line, this dream was becoming a reality. Bing was a Shanghai native, and wanted to go back to see his family. This was the first time he’d organized a tour. I had only been on an organized tour once before, when a contingent from Freedom Song Network went to Cuba with the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange in 1995. We’d been invited by members of the Cuban trade unions and had met with officials much higher up in the government than we’d ever see in our own country - the Minister of Health, members of a women’s organization like NOW that was part of the government (we called them the goddesses), Labor Union officials, etc. At other times I’d hitched around Europe (1973: Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, England, France), and traveled twice via Eurail in the 90’s (Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Holland, England, Ireland, France). I’d lived in a van in hippie days and roamed about (trans-Canada once from British Columbia to Toronto, several times across the US, both northern and southern routes). I’d gone to several places in Mexico (driving south to Tijuana and Juarez, visiting Puerto Vallarta, Cancún on the way to Cuba and traveling all around the Yucatan), Hawaii (Maui, the Big Island, Kuwaii) and even had taken a boat to Morocco from the Gibraltar coast so I could set foot in Africa. I’d climbed to the top of the pyramid in Chichén-Itzá for my birthday one year, flown over a volcano on the Big Island, awakened to a view of the Alps from a train in Switzerland, touched the rock pillars in Stonehenge. But I’d never been to Asia, the Great Wall was calling, and this was my chance. Friday 7/24 - Saturday 7/25/09
There was a family group: Paul Kurjiaka (retired from IBM, a handyman and mechanic who can fix anything or it ain’t broke) and his wife Susan (Dr. Susan Kurjiaka, Professor of American Lit. and Women’s Studies at Florida Atlantic University, retiring and moving to Berkeley in December), her brother Stephen Hopkins (who works at ML King Middle School, 6th grade Humanities, where I’ll be teaching this coming year), and Stephen’s daughters Baily and Rebecca (both graduated from BHS. Baily is an actress and violinist and Rebecca is a lawyer). There was a group of retired folks who spent a lot of time traveling together: Fred Turner (who’d been a teacher, a principal and vice-principal and educational administrator), Tony Hampton (who left Detroit in 1970 and moved to New York to work as a model/ actor, came to CA after 2 years. Earn his B.A., retired in 2005 from The Bay Area Rapid Transit District, after working there 32 years as a mechanic and Q.C. Inspector. He is now a real estate investor, manages his properties, and also does quite a bit of volunteer work and community service stuff. He’s been to Mexico and Hawaii, South Africa and now China.). Vivian Stewart is retired after working 34 years for the State of California Unemployment Services. She has three daughters and two grandkids, and enjoys spending time traveling. Shirley McDonald worked for the Oakland Unified School District for 34 years, first as a teacher at Oakland Tech and then as a central office administrator. Rickey Henderson was a student at Tech when she worked there (1967-81). She retired in 2001 and now spends her time traveling, line dancing and enjoying life. Carol Langston retired from the State of Ca -EDD as a senior manager in 2001 and has enjoyed herself ever since. She and Shirley are sisters. Evelyn Smith is a retired educator who taught school for 35 years. Her teaching career started in 1968 in a small town in Shaw, Mississippi, where she taught PE and coached the girl’s basketball team. She moved to Oakland in 1970 and taught at Hamilton Jr. High School for 7 years, teaching PE and coaching after school sports, basketball, softball, and track and field. She took a sabbatical and did graduate studies at Cal State, Hayward. Evelyn returned to Oakland in 1980 where she stayed for the remainder of her career. “I taught at several Schools: Dewey High, Farwest High, and Fremont High School. I taught several subjects, Biology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Biotechnology. I held positions as Science Department Chair at Fremont High as well as Co-Director of The Arts Academy.” Cynthia Foucher traveled with our group and often vacations with the rest of these friends. Tess Cunningham is Sandy Wara de Baca’s sister. Sandy, an old friend, former teacher and former and current substitute teacher, was going to come but her daughter got very ill in Guatemala and Sandy flew down to be with her. Tess teaches special ed in Portland Oregon and had just come back from Guatemala. She tries to spend her vacations traveling. I’ll be rooming with her when I’m not rooming with Pat. Amy Gorman is a speech/language pathologist and produced Kidshows, introducing children to the live performing arts, in 5 venues around the Bay Area, including the Julia Morgan Theater. She wrote a book called Aging Artfully: Profiles of Visual and Performing Women Artists 85-105, www.agingartfully.com, available at Amazon, in which Faith Petric (grande dame of the SF Folk Music Club) was one of the people featured. Amy now writes Life Stories of older people. Emily Kramer is her cousin, who will fly from NY and meet us at the Beijing airport. Emily is a retired Database designer and manager and now a volunteer mediator in Manhattan Civil Court (usually money issues), in a middle school in East Harlem (between students who aren’t getting along with each other) and in Community Centers in Brooklyn and Manhattan (many neighbor issues - a big subject in our crowded city). She finds it fascinating and learns something every time she mediates a new case. Pat Wynne, my musical compadre of 20 years, (we originally connected through Freedom song Network), voice teacher and musical director of the Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Heritage Chorus, will be coming a few days later with another chorus member, EileenWampole, who is a retired librarian. She also volunteers in an SF public school through Experience Corps and is active with Single Payer Now, organizing to win single payer health care in CA and nationally. Eileen also grows food in a very small urban back yard. The Labor Chorus will be performing on Saturday night - Pat has written a piece on Pete Seeger for the chorus and they’re debuting it this weekend. Originally the trip had been scheduled to leave on Sunday the 26th, but due to hotel scheduling, it had been moved back 2 days. Due to Bing’s generous nature, after the rest of us have gone they will be staying a few extra days at the end and will accompany him to another town where he has some business. Today is Carol’s birthday, so Bing brought a couple of bottles of champagne which we shared on the bus (very carefully, since the driver was going back to pick up a group of kids after dropping us off, and we didn’t want them to smell any alcohol). The plane was scheduled to take off at 2:50, but the flight was delayed and we were finally in the air at 4 p.m. About an hour later the flight attendants served a very good hot meal - shrimp with rice in a tasty sauce, melons, salad, a choice of beverages, including red wine (!) and a moist warm towelette for after the meal. We’ve just finished filling out cards attesting to our health, where we’ll be staying, etc. I’m hoping we have a plane full of healthy people - since the H1N1 (swine flu) scare, they take your temperature when you land, before you leave the airport, and if anyone a row in front or behind you has an elevated temp, all are sequestered at a Chinese hospital. (Better than a week ago - the quarantine temperature went down a degree Celsius and the seating from 3 rows back and forth to 1). This is the only part of the trip that makes me nervous!!! This is a 12-hour flight, and there is a 15 hour time difference, so we don’t have much of a July 25th. This is definitely not a U.S. plane. I dozed for a while after reading (The Siberians by Farley Mowat), and when I woke up I adjusted the headset and the first thing I heard was “What the F--k! They were running an uncut version of the Coen Brother’s movie, Burn After Reading). It’s 2:42 a.m. our time and we’re landing in Beijing The flight attendants passed out pork buns and I had tea. Now I have to get my body to pretend it’s 5:42 p.m. - we’ll see how that goes! 11 p.m. Beijing Time (8 a.m. our time) - Okay, now I’m going to bed! We made it through the “fever sensors” at the airport and none of us were quarantined - hooray! Ted, our tour guide, met us as we left baggage claim (where they actually checked your claim ticket, unlike US airports these days) waving a red Spring Tours flag and holding a sign saying “BUSD”. (Someone later asked Ted where he got his name. He had a teacher who spoke only English, and couldn’t pronounce or remember all the foreign names of his students. He put a bunch of names in a hat and Liu Po chose Ted, the English name he’s used for 15 years). We waited briefly for Emily’s flight, then got on the bus idling out front with our driver, Mr. Lee. We checked in to the “New World Beijing Hotel’ and later were taken to a restaurant for dinner - lots of yummy greens besides meat and a couple of veggie dishes. Took a shower and Tess bathed while I got the voltage adaptor out and ironed the wrinkled dress I’ll wear tomorrow. (Later I discovered that there are irons in the room. The only thing that needed adaptors were the chargers for the cameras. Our cell phones wouldn’t work in China, but Bing got a calling card we could access if we needed to call family. He thinks of everything!) We’re getting a 7:15 wakeup call (4:15 p.m.?!!). This is considered a 5-star hotel. It has an amazing buffet breakfast, a gym, pool and hot tub, massage service available, a safe in your room and all the amenities. But they still have to leave a bottle of water per person each day because while you can bathe, you can’t even brush your teeth with the water. Sunday, 7/26/09What a day! Got the wake-up call at 7:15, but I’d been up since 6:30 after waking up 3 or 4 times during the night. So I ran my energy, did some meditation and a T’ai Chi set (I was practicing at the same early hour as the Chinese) while I waited for Tess to awaken (I wish I could sleep like her!) We went to the “continental breakfast” expecting cereal and some fruit, but it turned out to be a huge buffet with both Occidental and Oriental style foods - all kinds of interesting things I’ll try in the next few days (we’ll have 4 breakfasts here). Ted picked us up at 8:30 and we went across town to Tiananmen Square. I never realized how immense the area is - it will hold 500,000 people! Before we were allowed to enter, we went down a pedestrian underpass, then through a security check much like one at the airport. People are lined up for an hour and a half wait in order to get in to Mao’s Mausoleum. It’s a Chinese trip to Mecca - you’re supposed to go at least once in your life. A large obelisk, the People’s Monument, had been erected in honor of those who had perished during the Revolution. There were several huge statues as well. The park is bordered to the west by Parliament (Great Hall of People), to the east by the National Museum of Art, and to the north by the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Blvd. Tiananmen means “everlasting peace” (ironic), and the street is named after the gate which leads to the Forbidden City. This is the longest road in Beijing, 30 miles long. (The city limits span 100 miles north/south and 60 miles east/west!) There are fountains and guards who stand motionless at the north end of the square in four hour shifts at the site of the national flag. Street vendors were abundant, and I bought parasols for 6 of the females I wanted to gift upon return, and carried them through the entire Forbidden City. A pre-arranged photographer took a group picture, then later met us back at the hotel and sold us books about Beijing that the majority of us had ordered for 80 Yuan (about 6.7 to the dollar). They were beautifully done and well worth it.
We crossed under the street via a pedestrian pathway and arrived at the gate to the Forbidden City. Thousands of people were swarming about, then funneling across a small bridge. Ted said that 60,000 would pass this spot today. Most carried umbrellas/parasols to keep off the sun, and every place was amazingly crowded. A huge picture of Mao hung above the entrance. It looked like a photo, but was actually a painting, one that was replaced every year with slight differences each time. (Someone asked if he got older every year, but didn’t get an answer).
We spent the rest of the morning in the Forbidden City, after waiting about 45 minutes for Ted to get the tickets. Once again, street vendors were everywhere. The city had been the walled home of the emperor, and the general population was forbidden to enter, hence the name. It was built 600 years ago, housed 24 emperors and 2 dynasties. There are 9,999 buildings divided into the outer court (for ruling China) and the inner court (for residences). In 1911 the last emperor was ousted, but remained in the city for 13 more years. Since 1925 the grounds had been open to the public (for a fee). Ted said that when he’d been there as a child it wasn’t a popular attraction. It was only since the 1990’s that people flocked to the site. Most of the buildings were two stories high, and in those times no structure could be built that had more stories than the emperor’s. (They must be rolling in their graves now with all the skyscrapers in Beijing!) The side rooms in one section had been the actual sleeping quarters of the emperor. Ted told us the story of the 13 Concubines: There were once 13 concubines whom the emperor had in his bed at the same time. They felt humiliated, and decided to kill him. They put a noose around his neck to strangle him, but he escaped. He had all of the concubines sliced with knives and it took them three days to die. He also showed us a pathway where the concubines resided. (During the day a goat was sent through, and if the goat stopped at a doorway, that concubine was chosen to come to the emperor. One concubine was chosen most often, and she became very powerful. It turned out that she put salt at her door and that is why the goat lingered.)
There was a class system for the concubines (as for everyone). Those of the lowest class were made to walk naked through the street to go meet the emperor in his chamber. (Nice guys, those emperors.) We saw the places where the emperor conducted business and where he relaxed. The movie “The Last Emperor” was the only one ever to be filmed on the grounds, in the actual setting. We were picked up on the north end of the Forbidden City by our bus. First we walked along the street where the moat and the wall were visible. There were several beggars, mostly blind men playing instruments. We are told that these people get compensation from the government and do not have to beg, but I wonder… We ate a huge lunch of guess what? Chinese food! I asked Bing if they were catering to the American palate but he said no, the dishes were pretty typical of the cuisine of the region (although we weren’t getting eels, sea cucumber or monkey brains). They did, however, bring us French fries - the only thing put before us that I didn’t eat!
Half the group was exhausted after lunch and took cabs back to the hotel. The other eight of us were exhausted but went on to the Summer Palace. It’s on 700 acres, 3ž4 of which is a man-made lake dug out and filled for the emperor. There is a place called “Knowing Spring” where the ruler sat and watched the ice on the lake melt each year. High on the hill is the “Buddha Fragrance” pagoda and temple, where he prayed while having what Ted called “a high view” of his surroundings. We walked about a kilometer on the “covered walkway” built to keep the emperor always in shade and cool. On the far end from his residence was a restaurant, previously a theater and originally a kitchen, where 128 dishes, 30 different kinds of porridge (called congee), alone were cooked for the emperor, then brought heated in a cart, powered by a servant, all the way back to him.
After touring the grounds, we took a boat across the lake. We had heard about and seen the residences of the thousands of concubines and eunuchs. Many of the eunuchs had come from poor families and had volunteered to be castrated and live at the palace to help their lives and the lives of their kin. One eunuch became very rich and powerful, and was a constant companion of the “dowager empress” known as “the dragon lady”. Women were generally powerless, but she was really in charge while her nephew and then her son (who took the throne at age 9) were emperors. She would sit behind a curtain while her son ruled and when he was asked a question of importance, she would answer in his stead. (Sort of like Nancy Reagan and Ronald). We passed over a 250 year old replica of the bridge Marco Polo had crossed when he’d entered Beijing. There were people in costume re-enacting a parade of the emperor’s retinue. They seemed to be shooting some scene for the cinema. When we asked what was being filmed, Ted said, “another emperor movie”. We then drove to the area that had been built for the Beijing Olympics. On the way over, there were some men flying what was a series of small kites, about 15 or 20, on a string. I bought some to give to my grandsons. We saw the Bird’s Nest which had been used for track and field events, across the wide pedestrian boulevard from the Water Cube, used for aquatics. (An aside: I heard that during the Olympics, the athletes were complaining about the air quality, since it was hard to train due to the pervasive pollution. Everywhere we went the skies were a dull gray. Ted said that even the native population of 18 million didn’t find it safe to drink the water. In Shanghai, the sun peeked through haze much like it looked in California last year during the raging fire season, but without the red sunsets. You felt like the sun was behind a filter and it was - a product of coal being burned and little environmental regulation of 20 million people. Seeing the sun is a rarity. It feels like you’re in a sci-fi movie or an episode of the Twilight Zone.) After our stroll we went to a restaurant within walking distance. They had a floor show (I came to equate floor shows with the more mediocre meals). They did have souvenirs for sale at the front with better prices than you could bargain down the street vendors. Many of us got things there. (I tried to buy all my take-home items early on so I wouldn’t have to carry things around the entire vacation. That worked for the most part, and I just filled in with other special items along the way.) From there we went back to the hotel, singing “Lean on Me“ and “Stand by Me” on the bus. I was sitting in the front and Ted put me on his mike. It’s getting on 10:30 p.m. and I’m going to sleep (doing a half-assed job of ignoring the fact that to my body, it’s really 7:30 a.m.) Monday, 7/27/09I tried a more Chinese-style breakfast for the buffet, with dim sum and noodles. We met in the lobby and headed for the Yonghegong Lama Temple, which is a Tibetan-style Buddhist Temple and houses the world’s largest wooden Buddha carved from one Burmese sandalwood tree trunk. It is 18 meters above ground and 8 meters below. The temple had been a palace in 1694 during the last Quing dynasty, but when the resident prince became emperor and moved to the Forbidden City, it became a Lama temple. According to Ted, Tibetan Buddhism continues in China, but most people are not very religious. The majority go when they are having problems or need something in their lives. The Dalai Lama now in exile is the 14th, but the 11th Panchen Lama, now 19, is still in China with permission of the Central Government. (The original 11th of Tibetan descent “disappeared” after the government said he was not the “true” lama, and put this one in who is Chinese. From the web: traditionally second only to the Dalai Lama in spiritual authority in the dominant sect of Tibetan Buddhism, a Panchen Lama installed by the Chinese Nationalist government in 1949 later became an official under the Chinese communists. He remained in Tibet after the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959 but was imprisoned in 1964 after criticizing the government. He was released in the late 1970s and died in 1989. The Dalai Lama and government subsequently chose different successors.)
This was my favorite place so far. The grounds were beautiful and even with many people, there was a calmness and reverence about it. Photos of the inner rooms were not allowed, but they passed out little disks for your computers that had a short video (which, when I got home and watched it, had footage of the large Buddha as well as monks telling things about the temple, albeit mostly in Chinese with a few English subtitles.) There were people everywhere burning 3 large sticks of incense at a time, about 2 feet long and 3/4" thick in huge fire pits and there were kneeling pads in front of the large Buddhas for prayer. In the room with the largest “Maitreya” Buddha there were also 10,000 smaller Buddhas in the room, plus along either side wall, 9 huge statues of guardian monks. (This pattern of large Buddha and guarding monks was repeated in the other Buddhist temples we later visited.) I bought some small incense, 2 small brass “happy Buddhas” and a beautiful brass dragon for Randy. But best of all, I got two beautiful paintings on silk of Quan Yin for about $50 for both. Earlier this summer I’d seen a small one on silk at the Kate Wolf Festival, but the vendor wanted somewhere between $300-400 for it, so I didn’t pass this up. From the temple we stopped at the Pearl Factory where they demonstrated how the pearls were removed from the oyster. The large one selected by a member of our party had 17 pearls when it was opened and several others embedded in the shell wall, which was “mother of pearl”. They brought us to a large showroom, where to my surprise I bought some pearl necklaces as gifts and one for myself, all with matching earrings.
After eating lunch we went to the “Temple of Heaven”, which is four times bigger than the Forbidden City, but is mostly wooded. It dates from the 14th century, and every emperor of the Ming and Quing dynasties worshipped there twice a year - once in spring to pray for bounty and once in winter to give thanks to the gods. There was an immense courtyard where, at the “Echo Wall”, someone could whisper and another person could hear them at a distance. The place had already reminded me of Chiché n-Itzá in Mexico, and that solidified the similarities. Other facts I learned: round = heaven, square = earth; yellow = emperor, blue = heaven. The buildings were mostly covered by blue roofs, but there was one building with a yellow roof. It was where the emperor changed into his ceremonial garb on his way to pray at the temple. We then rode to an old part of town and visited a Hutong (the name comes from Mongolian for Water Well). A young woman who was a little too gung-ho and pretentious when talking to us met us in front of a wealthy person’s home (a bit outside of the hutong). She talked about how good Feng Shui is very important, and about the class structure. Facts: gray roof/gray wall - common people; green = long life; the number of beams on a house is a class symbol, and people had to marry their first wife within their class (although concubines could be of lower classes.) No beams = poor, 2 beams=middle class, 4=first class family, 8=royalty. High thresholds kept out the ghosts (who could only hop!) Decorative corners above either side of the entrance were “eyebrows”. There were stone carvings of lions at either side of the doorways called gate pillows. The female was at the left holding a baby in her paw, and the male at the right holding a globe. The steps are even for yin/yang balance. The houses in the hutong are generations old with shared bathroom and kitchen areas.
When she finished her talk, a group of rickshaws was waiting for us to take us around the hutong. I shared one with Tess, and we felt kind of exploitative, so we gave the driver a 20 yuan tip instead of the expected 10, and made him very happy. We rode through narrow streets that barely accommodated two rickshaws (and sometimes didn’t), stopping at Mrs. Shen’s house. She was waiting to show us her home, although it was really guest quarters - she actually resided next door. Mrs. Shen had been in this place 30 years. Six generations of her family had lived in the hutong and her house was 140 years old. She loved it there in the summer, but in the winter it was less pleasant when she had to use the unheated communal showers in 20 degree weather. Even so, she was hoping the government would leave her house and not tear it down to modernize. (All over urban cities in China, the government is tearing down houses in the hutongs to build skyscraper apartment houses. With a population of 1.3 billion, the government is constantly building housing. Between Beijing and Shanghai alone, there are 38 million people. People are compensated for their lost housing and are sometimes given apartments in the housing built over their ancestral homes. We were told that they could also bargain for more money. But sometimes these people are moved to high-rise housing on the outskirts of these huge cities, where financial recompense does not assuage the emotional pain of being uprooted from the hutong which was their center - even with its inconveniences, and most likely because of the hutong’s non-modern feel.)
By this time only about 15 or 20 minutes had passed, and I’d had enough of shopping. I went back to the corner where I was supposed to reconvene with the group and sat on some steps in front of a KFC. (Lots of KFCs and McDonald’s -at least McD is usually good for a bathroom. When I’d been in Paris years ago, McDonald’s passed out free maps of the city at the train depot. The McDonald’s icons were bigger than Notre Dame, Bigger than the Eiffel Tower icons. But you could always find a toilet in a city where they were scarce. The map was dubbed “The McDonald’s bathroom map of Paris”.) I decided to look through the pictures on my digital camera and delete photos I didn’t want until the rest of the group showed up. A young woman was sitting to my left. Her little boy was playing. She looked over at my camera, so I moved it to where she could see the screen. She moved a little closer and we sat there for about 20 minutes or so as I showed her the pictures and she’d smile or nod in recognition. A few times she’d say something in Chinese or I’d point and say something in English, but all we could do was shrug and laugh. When I left, we gave each other broad smiles and waved goodbye. Pat and Eileen met up with us at the restaurant soon after this. Most of the food was fried at that meal and there were fewer vegetables than usual. It was another stage show place and the dancers looked especially bored. It was Amy’s birthday, and the cake was the best part of dinner. Amy got a birthday crown and we all sang to her as she blew out the candles. When we got back to the hotel, Pat, Eileen and I went to the hot tub and met Amy there. We chatted for a while about mutual friends like Selma and Arnie, Faith and Julie, and seemed to be involved with some of the same circle of people even though we’d never met each other before. Enough writing, now I am ready to go to sleep… Tuesday, 7/28/09
Another was a different kind of love story:
Pat, Eileen and I sang “Step by Step” (my pick) and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody” (Pat’s pick). People applauded when we finished, but we were really just doing it for the joy of singing on the Great Wall. Pat and I started toward the topmost tower in the distance. We went a short way and didn’t see anyone else from the group, so the two of us continued up together. There were modern railings to hold on to, in contrast with the ancient stones, some worn down at the juncture of contact by the constant flow of thousands upon thousands of feet over the many years. We stopped a few times to enjoy different vista points and look ahead and back. Nearing the summit, there was an outdoor area the size of a large patio, where Pat and I once again sang “Step By Step”, as I held the Flip camera to get a video. Finally we made it to the topmost tower! Looking down was amazing - the people at the entrance appeared to be little dots. We descended, once again pausing every so often just to look, and returned to the entrance. We stopped in a little store and bought “I Climbed the Great Wall” T-shirts (had to do it!) Back on the bus, stopping for lunch in the rear of a large shop which, among other things, was a cloisonné factory. Most of us rebelled at this point and continued on to the restaurant, forgoing the demo. It was already 2 p.m., we’d just climbed the Wall, and we were starving!!! When we came out, Pat and I sang “Mr. Lee” for our bus driver. He handed us the lyrics to an old pop song, in English, and put it on the bus loudspeaker.
On the way in, we had seen a group of what seemed to be about 20 college students. Bing told us to watch them go through a high-beamed passageway that arched over the walkway as they were exiting. They made a lot of noise, laughed and wiped their bodies with flicking motions. Bing said they were telling the spirits to stay where they belonged and go away from them. We were sure to do the same on the way out (although there was also plenty of room on either side to exit without going through this portal if you didn’t want to). We got back around 7, dropped 9 people off at the hotel, and the other half of the group went to eat dinner, with a serving of Peking Duck. Came back, semi-packed, located my plane ticket, then went to meet Pat and Eileen - at the pool for about a minute, then to the hot tub for about 10. It’s a little after 11 and time to say good night… Wednesday, 7/29/09We had a more leisurely morning - I checked email and sent a few important ones out, ate, and went back to the room to read until it was time to go. I had a fresh noodle soup with breakfast - the chef took a breaded piece of dough about 5" long and an inch wide, looped it through his fingers again and again, and turned it into thin noodles! Left for the airport at 11, plane at 1:30, arriving in Shanghai 3:30ish. The new Beijing airport terminal is shaped like a turtle and is quite beautiful. There is another shaped like a dragon. When we got to the Shanghai airport we were met by Jeffrey, our new guide - a younger man than Ted with a big smile and very white teeth, who seems nervous speaking English and talking to us. Maybe he’ll calm down when he gets used to this. Got to the Holiday Inn Shanghai and about an hour after check-in we went to eat and see the Shanghai Acrobats at “Circus World”. We had excellent seats at the front of the dome-shaped building. There was music, video, acrobats, contortionists, high wire and trapeze performers, singing and dancing with a theme. Reminiscent of Cirque de Soliel, with the addition of eight motorcyclists zooming around a darkened room in a giant ball with their multicolored headlights on. Great show, everyone is exhausted, good night! Thursday 7/30/09A 7:30 wakeup call, then left for Hangzhou at 8:30. The buffet here was good as well. Stopped at a rest area just outside Shanghai city limits, then another about 20 minutes further down the road because the air conditioning on the bus wasn’t functioning. Jeffrey gave us the choice of waiting at the service area for two hours for a new bus, or meeting a bus in Hangzhou and spending about another hour on this bus. We all opted for the latter. Jeffrey felt so bad that he bought us all feather fans and gave us free water for the duration of the trip. (In Beijing, we’d paid 10 yuan for 3 bottles of refrigerated water. These weren’t warm, but weren’t ice cold either. And I’ve been missing ice - along with the water, we can’t usually have ice in our drinks.) Hangzhou is the place where many Chinese go to vacation and relax. I could see why.
Along the highway there were many private residences and what looked like smaller apartment buildings. Most had raised, squared-off rooms at the rooftop level with glass windows. Bing said they were constructed to be altars for ancestor worship. This is common in the outskirts of town, but they aren’t seen in the high-rise apartments within the city limits. I’m not sure whether this is because people are too urbane to want them, or because of space constraint with hundreds living in one building. As we approached our destination we passed hazy mountains draped with clouds and beautiful green fields and terraced hills of tea. We were escorted to room #9 where we had a tea ceremony (and sales pitch). On the 3rd refill of water in our glasses, the pourer added orange peel and hawthorn, supposedly good for weight loss and cholesterol. The “emperor’s” tea was edible and tasted like spinach. I bought a small tea along with hawthorn and orange, as well as a few bags of a deliciously subtle jasmine candy that I’ll bring out at special occasions. From there we drove to Tiger Springs - idyllically beautiful, lushly green and serenely magnificent. It was getting later and darker in the day, so I wasn’t able to take pictures that captured the quality of the place. Bing wasn’t sure that the spring water so healthy for the Chinese was good for visitors, so I only watched as it poured from a wall and from the spout of a huge metal teapot. We went back to town and ate at a lovely restaurant near West Lake. After dinner, 9 of us (Pat, Stephen, Susan, Baily, Rebecca, Amy, Tess, Eileen and I) went with Bing for a “15 minute walk” around the lake, en route to our hotel. We got back about two hours later and had had the best time yet! First we saw some fountains spouting up, and when we got closer, found that they were synchronized with music and lights to produce a wonderful water show. We stood there for a while, and as we continued on our walk we could see another group of matching fountains at the far end of the lake. The lights from houses on the hills shone with a misty, translucent glow that gave them a magical sheen. We came to a large group of line dancers following the beat of some decidedly Occidental music. Some of us joined in, but it was hard to imitate the intricate steps at full speed. A short distance down was the biggest thrill of all. A group of folk singers and musicians were playing Chinese folk songs. We stopped to watch and they invited us to come into their gazebo. There was an accordionist, a harmonica player, a man tapping some small hand percussion, two wonderful women singers with a song book they referred to, and two stringed instruments called Er-hoos, similar to a koto. One of the latter bowed “Auld Lang Syne” and we sang it for them, to much applause. They returned the favor with a rendition of a simple and beautiful song in English, “You and Me”. It was easy enough to follow both the words and melody, so we all sang together, grinning all the while. The lead woman singer held her song sheets for reference and looked at each of us, sweeping her hand at the group in a graceful motion. It was the kind of sublime moment that transcends cultures; one that only music can afford us. We continued on our walk. Bing asked a young Chinese woman and her male companion a question in Chinese. It turned out her English name was Jackie, and she was a teacher of English at an elementary school. She was delighted to talk to us and practice her English. They walked with us for a while as we continued around the lake. We finally turned away from the water’s edge, crossed a bridge, and all too soon found ourselves back on the car-strewn road. We decided against a bar and instead walked back into the sanctuary of the park, following the sound of a singer playing what sounded like an amplified guitar (or it could have been a recording). We once again traversed the bridge for a spell, then somewhat reluctantly headed for the hotel. It was a hot, humid night and Bing stopped to buy us all ice-cold waters - delicious! We discovered to our delight that we were actually heading in the right direction, crossed a couple of intersections without getting killed, figured out where Pinghai Road was, and made it back on weary legs. (A note about right of way for pedestrians: it’s minimal. Pedestrians do not have the right of way except at lights, and even there, watch your step. There is a lane for bikes, scooters and mopeds, and they won’t stop either. Crossing at a light is iffy. Even if you’re walking with a large group, you need to be totally alert to the fact that anyone turning will consider it their right to do so and you, a person on foot, is an inconvenience for them. With all the focus on building new subways, getting cars off the road and getting people to use public transportation, there needs to be some kind of campaign to raise consciousness among drivers of every kind of vehicle that a non-driver has to be able to get safely from one side of the street to the other. At some of the largest intersections there are underground pedestrian walkways, but on most of the busy streets there are none, and crossing anywhere can be hazardous to your health). We returned covered in sweat, energy spent, yet completely exhilarated. Our original plans, before our schedule ran too late, was to see a 5-part show about cultural stories from China, including the story of the Two Butterflies that Pat loved, but tonight we had the best cultural show of all - we saw the real Hangzhou. And a shower in the room never felt so good! Best evening in China? Yeow Hangzhou! (The story of the two butterflies: There was a young girl from a wealthy family who wanted to go to school, but only boys were allowed to attend. So she disguised herself as a boy and became a student. She became good friends with a little boy from a poorer family who did not know that she was a girl. Eventually she told him and they fell in love. Forbidden to marry because of his class, her family found her a rich person to wed. The boy killed himself. The girl said she would marry on one condition: that she could visit the boy’s grave before the wedding. She went to the cemetery in her wedding dress, threw herself in with the boy and died. Then from the tomb, two butterflies emerged and fluttered away together.) Friday, 7/31/09We’re at the Jasmine Holiday Inn in Souzhou - arrived about an hour ago and I’m writing in the tub as it’s filling with bath gel bubbles. It was a good thing Pat was up this morning when the wakeup call came. I had earplugs in and had taken a sleeping pill (which I use sparingly though I have a lot of trouble sleeping these days) since I thought I’d never get to dreamland after being pumped up from our very stimulating evening the night before. I was so exhausted that I slept through the phone ringing twice for our wakeup call! We had our usual sumptuous breakfast buffet, but I stuck to a small fruit plate and porridge (called congee). The bus left at 8:30 and we returned to West Lake for a leisurely boat ride across the water.
Then back on the bus to Ling Yin Temple, where the largest Buddha in the world is housed. (Ling = soul, yin = retreat or refuge). We walked through a cave where the stone walls were carved with Buddhas. I touched my right hand to the right hand of a large carving for health (of course I touched my right hand to the wrong side first, so I hope I didn’t cancel it out!) Many had been defaced during the Cultural Revolution. The large statue of the “Happy Buddha” had only survived because an enormous picture of Mao had been placed in front of his stone niche, completely hiding him from view. We passed a stone pillar erected in honor of a Zen monk who had traveled here in 326 from India and said the place looked just like his homeland. He talked about a black monkey and a white monkey and they supposedly appeared on the hill above where the pillar now stands. The hill is limestone instead of sandstone and is supposedly very different from the rest of the area. We visited four huge buildings on a hillside, each higher up the hill than the next, filled with gigantic Buddhas and their accompanying guarding monks flanking each statue. At the very top was a museum housing artworks and statues, which displayed a reclining Buddha about 5 feet long. He seemed to be made of porcelain, with the most serene expression and beatific smile. We met Jeffrey in a tree-shaded gazebo at the bottom. Tess had bought a little Buddha pendant hung on a red string and some Chinese writing on the back. If you gave the woman your name (you wrote it down), she would choose the right one for you. Bing said that the words under the Buddha said “peace and safety”. Pat and I each got one, plus I got one to give to Julie Bidou (a 90-year-old Buddhist friend). After leaving the beautiful grounds, we stopped to eat (of course), then got back on the bus for a 2 1ž2 hour ride to Xitang. I was sitting with Pat - I took out my guitar (I’d brought the Baby Tailor) and sang until we got to the rest area about an hour later. The whole bus was chiming in - it was a lot of fun and made the ride pass quickly. We even made up a song, “Hanging out in Hangzhou”. After the pit stop I put the guitar away, but Pat and I continued to sing a capella, mainly for ourselves.
Xitang was a small, relatively undiscovered city until it was featured in the Tom Cruise movie “Mission Impossible 3”. (Randy and I watched it a few weeks after I returned. It actually was a pretty good movie, and there were several scenes filmed in Shanghai as well as Xitang.) Now it still retains the air of an ancient city, but they charge admission to get in, and it has become a tourist attraction. Xitang is much smaller than the large cities we’d been to, with only 3,600 residents as compared to millions. We first went through a “Root Museum” where there were huge, intricate carvings of peacocks, monkeys, tigers, dragons, etc., each made from individual large tree roots. There was a “Button Museum” (both of these museums were probably put up for the tourists) which featured a man making buttons on an old machine. The best thing about this place was the view - if you went up a steep staircase to the 2nd floor, you could look out on the river, lined with generations-old houses and shops. Upon exiting, we walked through the very narrow walled streets to reach the shops I’d seen through the upstairs window. I bought some green peace sign earrings. I thought it was cool that they were selling peace jewelry in China. (Actually, everywhere we went, there were people taking pictures of each other, and the younger ones gave the peace sign more often than not while they were being photographed.) We walked around for over an hour, then drove to Souzhou, where we had the worst meal of the trip at a restaurant where Pat found a fly in her glass and the other table had a dirty tablecloth. They sent a singer to our tables to play one song for us for 30 yuan. She played well enough but had a very nasal voice and I couldn’t wait for the song to be over. The meal was really strange - mostly dishes with lots of onions and not much else, and a platter with a few balls of fried mystery meat slathered in inedible hot red peppers. We were all glad to get out of there and our guides swore they’d never bring anyone there again. On the way to Souzhou, Pat and I had a laughing fit on the bus for about 20 minutes. Jeffrey was going on endlessly and Pat was having a lot of trouble understanding his English. (To be fair, he’d never had a group who spoke English and was self-conscious about his mastery of the language. The longer he was with us, the better he got. This did not change the fact that he was a person who did not seem to think outside the box, nor want to stray from its safety. He was a sweet and gentle man, nonetheless.) He was talking about the fact that there were many more men than women in China (most likely, since you were only allowed one child, more female babies were aborted), and so they had their pick of men. Someone on the bus commented on how the men had gone from having concubines to not even being able to find a wife. Jeffrey said women wanted men with money, condos and cars. Pat didn’t get the word condo and asked me why he was talking about the Kennedys, and then we nearly fell on the floor trying not to laugh too loud, but only succeeded in snorting and hurting our stomachs. We then got into a discussion about health care, which has gone down in quality for the Chinese, seemingly in proportion to the rise of capitalism. Now the government only covers about half the bills for the unemployed. The rich can go to private hospitals while the poor wait hours for service in overcrowded clinics or hospitals. If you’re working or retired you have coverage, but otherwise you might as well be poor in the United States. China has turned into an extremely capitalist country, and it’s very disappointing. (Maybe some of the beggars are trying to pay their medical bills…) Another subject we discussed was abortion and the birth policy. Abortion is legal and encouraged. People who have more than one child are fined a year’s salary (taken out from their pay in installments), but the government is rethinking the one child policy in certain circumstances. It is now sanctioned in certain circumstances, and it has always been allowed if your first child is disabled. We asked about gays in China. Bing says the government has a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, but that the society is still not accepting of gay relationships. There are places where gays meet in the parks, although it’s not well received if your child isn’t straight. Some parents go to the parks holding up signs trying to make matches for their children. The younger generation gets embarrassed by this. It was definitely an interesting discussion.
Saturday, 8/1/09We left the lobby at 8:30 to see Suzhou (called the “Venice of the East” by Marco Polo because of its many canals).
We returned to Shanghai, ate a much better dinner than last night, and checked in once again to the Holiday Inn. Six of us women (Pat, Eileen, Tess, Amy, Emily and me) met in the lobby, then went out for a walk. Amy needed a memory card for her camera and there was an electronics store across the street. We survived the crossing. While we were waiting for her, Tess, Eileen and I saw some unusual, whimsical plastic appliances, shaped like animals and such, seemingly geared toward children.
Sunday, 8/2/09We went to the Pudong area, and almost to the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is 1536 feet high, the 4th highest in the world. The actual top is a rotating restaurant, which Jeffrey said is expensive and not very good. It was raining and visibility was nil. We took pictures of the pictures of the panoramic view. Then we went down one story, and suddenly it was worth the trip. There is a clear plexiglass floor that circles the building and you can walk on it, seeing ground level far below. It’s like going to the observation deck at the Empire State Building, and being able to peer down to see Manhattan’s 34th Street. This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done!
After dinner some people went back to the hotel via cab and the rest of us went on a boat cruise on the Huang Po River. The boat was supposed to leave at 7, but due to flooding further down river and the water rising dangerously high from the day’s unusually heavy rain, the boat didn’t go out until 8:20, and then only went a short way. Rather than turning around at the mouth of the river as was ordinarily done, we had about a 40 minute round trip. I sat with Eileen talking the whole time, as we watched a building change colors and morph pictures on its side. We were in “VIP” seating at the front of the boat, warm and dry, and my soggy sandals were off my feet and on the floor. We got back around 9:30 and I have spent the rest of the time writing and talking to Tess. It’s now 11:40 but we don’t have to leave until 10 a.m. tomorrow, so we can still get a little sleep… Monday, 8/3/09Today was our last day in Shanghai and a “free day”, but Bing being Bing, he got the tour bus to pick us up and drop us off at different places in town including the one several of us had wanted to visit, the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. Those of us who chose to met at 10 a.m. and were dropped off at a few locations. Bing had brought along his niece and a few of her friends so that every group would be with someone who knew the city.
Before the bus came, Tess went down the block to find an address and take a picture. A good friend of her sister Sandy had been a baby in this Jewish quarter of Shanghai, and though the address had changed and the house was no longer there, Tess snapped a photo to bring back to her. The bus picked us up and the six of us (Tess, Eileen, Pat, Amy, Emily and I) were dropped off at the Bund (the frontage of the river, the view now obstructed completely by construction for Expo, which will open in 271 days, according to a countdown sign we later passed). Bing finally went off to join his family. Having different interests, Pat went with Emily and Amy, who wanted to go to an upscale restaurant, and I took off with Tess and Eileen because we wanted to walk a lot and check out the dim sum cafeteria.
Tuesday, 8/4/09
The food wasn’t as good as it had been on the plane inbound to China. I tried to get up every so often to stretch, as I had on the way there. Business class was up a staircase, which made for a perfect spot to extend your legs. I was sitting by the window for the first time this trip, but most of the time the view was obstructed by the glare of the sun. The window seat paid off when we flew over California and I got to see most of the state from the air. I didn’t get much sleep, but then I rarely do on planes. At least I’d gone to bed early the night before so I’d gotten a full night of rest. We arrived at SFO right on time, breezed through customs, picked up our luggage, and now it was time to reorient (or perhaps reoccident!) We are on our second August 4th, since we crossed the International Date Line. This has been an incredible journey, and one I never thought I would take. We walked on the Great Wall. We started at Tiananmen Square and ended at People’s Park with a never-ending flow of activities in between. The people in our group got along and I’m sure none of us will ever forget the time we shared. WHAT A TRIP!!! CHINA JOURNAL, Hali Hammer, July 24 - August 4 2009, halihammer.com/chinajournalHali Hammer: halihammer.com
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