On the Road - 99/11/20

The first part of this adventure is over, at least the onsite visits. The
folks at the Fujian Provincial Library gave us a dinner send off and put
us on the plane for Shanghai a few days ago. I'm taking a few weeks of
vacation to add a tour of the main tourist sites of China to the menu
before I come back to the US: Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, Xi'an,
Guilin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. A very strange type of visit to China
compared to the previous 6 weeks; fast, concentrated and packaged -
American style. I can't say I really recommend it. It's good to see these
amazing cultural artifacts and to see how varied this big country is, but
our interactions with the Chinese people are minimal, and that is one of
the things that is most valuable about coming over here. And that is also
one of the things that is most misunderstood between our cultures. Our
stereotypical characterization of the Chinese people is totally off
target. But you wouldn't know that particularly from the "tour", because
there is no real interaction, everything is programmed. I ran into a
fellow from Victoria in Quanzhou who had created a ginseng processing
plant in Fuzhou where ginseng grown in Washington and BC was processed. He
had been in China for 6 years. The first 3 were a loss trying to figure
out how to do business, but now the factory was turning around. He seemed
pretty comfortable; one house in Fuzhou and another in the hills outside
of Fuzhou. In his opinion, as a world traveler, the Chinese culture was
the best in the world. I couldn't disagree.

People interaction aside, seeing the other cities, particularly the big
ones, and I do mean big, shows just how different things are there than in
the smaller cities and towns. Shanghai is about 13 or 14 million, and
Beijing is about 12 million. There is building going on everywhere in
China, but the building in the big cities is bigger, and a lot more
western looking. The roads are just like downtown LA or San Francisco,
freeways swoop right in to every neighborhood. For some strange reason,
there is more order to the traffic in the big cities. In Fuzhou, where
there are only a few million, people, bicycles, cars and trucks are all
over the road going in every direction at once. In the larger cities,
there are more cars, lots of bicycles, but fewer pedestrians and there are
not all intermixed as much, and not going I all directions from
everywhere, so you get the semblance of more order. And one correction
from previous perception, there is quite a bit of horn blowing, just not
in the middle of Fuzhou. In fact, I'd say the horn was as important to the
Chinese driver as the steering wheel. I'm not positive, but I believe I
have detected the beginnings of a horn language between drivers. Somebody
should jump on this and modify horns so that they can carry more
information content. "Hey, move left!" "Let me in!" "Hurry up!" "I'm
making a U turn here!"


We have purchased a "tour", our own tour. We told the travel agent in the
US where we wanted to go and what our dates were and she arranged with the
Chinese of one of the bigger CITS outfits to arrange the hotels, tours in
the locations, and meals. We are met at the airport, or train station, by
the local tourist agency, and we have a guide and a driver for the few
days or whatever we have at that location. Pretty painless. We are in
Beijing right now, as I write this, and tomorrow morning we fly to Xi'an,
where they have discovered the well known terracotta warriors and burial
grounds of one of the early emperors. So, we are about half way through
this romp. Shanghai had the best guide and driver. "John" spoke English
well enough so that we could pretty much have conversations, which was
nice. And he had had a lot of experience with big and little tours all
over China. His experience helped us get a better picture of how the
tourist industry works. It has till now been totally controlled by the big
government CITS organization. This organization has branch offices all
over China. And, until recently, there has not been any other kind of
travel for tourists. Now that is changing. Now there are starting to be
independent travel agencies and tours are being formed which pay
lipservice to CITS, but are really independent. Travel is one of the
industries that China's entry into WTS, and the accompanying agreements
with the various countries, will open up to foreign investment and perhaps
joint ventures. Couldn't happen too soon. The monopoly that CITS has had
has created really poor service, and high prices, in our experience, that
could easily be improved if there was some incentive.

In any case, as far as the tour is concerned, the being met at the airport
is very helpful, the three star hotels are fine, the guides vary
considerably in ability to speak and understand English and in their
willingness to help you understand what they are showing you, the drivers
are great, and the food is the pits.  I can understand why. Imagine trying
to get American tourists to adjust to the typically "varied" stuff the
Chinese fix for dinner, much less use chopsticks. So these tours have
adjusted the food that they serve you. And I our case, every meal is
planned out, without our consultation. The guide in Beijing asked us if
there was any kind of food we didn't like and we both said "American". So,
tonight, she took us to a Turkish (!) restaurant. Amazing. My advice, skip
dinners. Even your hotel will have better Chinese food than the tour
provides. Breakfasts are fine. They are in the hotel. Lunch you can't
really argue with as it is squeezed into a busy day. But just say no to
the prepackaged Americanized dinners. Chinese cuisine is really suburb.
You have to experience that, even if it does mean you will eat something
that you might never eat at home.

From Shanghai we took a day trip by train to Suzhou. I was disappointed
that I had not made more of an effort to make the connection between
Suzhou and Portland, as they are sister cities and Portland is getting one
of the famous Suzhou gardens, which will probably be the best Chinese
garden in the US. If I return, I will plan to do some book collecting for
the library. As a sister city, we should have a few of the really good
photographic essays on Suzhou that I saw there in our library. Hey, I'm
willing to go back! We did see several of the famous gardens and some of
the other local sites, including a boat trip on the canals. It's the
Venice of China, you know. The next day we took the train to Hangzhou, a
two-hour ride from Shanghai through rice fields, farms, and small
villages. These short train rides were really fun and not a strain in any
way.  Hangzhou is the site of China's largest university and most famous
lake. We were there for a couple of nights, then on to Beijing. By this
time, we are moving north, but not as far north as Portland, and the
weather is turning cold, 8 degrees C. or thereabouts. But we're used to
that. And, if not, there is nothing to get your blood circulating and
temperature up like a good climb on the Great Wall! This is work. I'm
carrying pretty heavy bags all over China and now we are going up and down
staircases at 45%! I should have done "tourist training".

From the middle of China,

Brian