China Travelogue

The plane ride from L.A. to China was a long one... over 13 hours in a none-too-comfortable seat. There was one amusing incident though that I didn’t find out about until later, when Darryl (a friend I met during this trip) told me. Darryl was speaking to an aged Chinese man, who was just returning from a visit to the U.S. He asked Darryl, “How could you have Bush as president? Clinton – very smart man. Bush – very stupid man!” I’d say at least from all the Chinese people I spoke to during the trip, this seems to be very popular opinion over there. Many, many folks I ran across spoke quite glowingly about our former president (despite a couple humorous Monica references) and many restaurants and hotels proudly proclaimed that they hosted Mr. Clinton in the past. References towards Bush were mostly negative or indifferent at best.

Going through passport check and customs was remarkably painless. Despite some rather long lines and stony expressions, getting through the Beijing airport was fairly easy… much more so than my recollections of the Moscow airport. The first big shocker to me upon arrival was the heat. 93 degrees has been the average high temperature since we’ve gotten here. It seems that early June is the height of summer in this part of China. The second biggest shocker was the sheer number of people. The press of bodies can be amazing… 12 million people live in Beijing and it doesn’t appear to be a very spread-out mass. High-rises can be seen everywhere you look… everything from mundane, blocky-looking Moscow-style apartment buildings, to futuristic, towering, Vegas-reminiscent corporate offices. Beijing’s “downtown” area seems to stretch for miles and miles.... often looking around you it’s possible to imagine that the buildings and urban area just never end.

I suppose there’s a price to pay for this great density of people - the air quality here is probably the worst I’ve ever experienced. (I hear Manila is pretty bad but that’s so far back in my memory I can’t really remember it.) My tour book claims that China has the dubious honor of containing 9 of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world. After a few days in Beijing I still haven’t gotten acclimated to the constant smell of diesel and exhaust fumes. The perpetual haze is reminiscent of Los Angeles’ lovely brown canopy, but more pungent. It’s remarkable that there’s so much pollution despite the fact that most people in Beijing rely on mass transit and bicycles for transportation.

It’s a phenomenon that has to be seen to be believed. Our tour guide tells us that in this city of 12 million, there are 10 million registered bicycles. The result is amazing… great masses of people peddling their way to and from work, forming up like schools of fish at every large intersection. How they manage not to run into each other, causing a massive tangle of legs and bicycle spokes is beyond me. Even the way the bike-masses move is fish-like – the rule of “safety in numbers” is very much in effect here. Whereas one bike crossing in front of a bus can be rather dangerous, close to a hundred cyclists suddenly surging into the middle of the street in unison is enough to intimidate any sort of vehicle. For those poor S.F. Bay Area cyclists that always speak of being a harried, oppressed minority, the scene of hundreds of cyclists storming across a busy intersection at the height of rush hour could be quite an uplifting experience.

While I personally can’t get enough of watching the masses of cyclists here… I get the feeling our bus driver would much prefer running them all over in a crazed rampage. I should take a moment to describe our driver and the other fellows who have so far led our tour. Our bus driver is a serious, stocky, block of a man… with a very short military-style buzzcut and a constant Dirty Harry, “Go ahead, make my day” sort of expression on his face. He drives with single-minded intensity… blasting on his horn with a frequency and vengeance that would make a New York cabby weep. His bus has two horn settings as well. He’s got the regular, “get out of my way” sort of high-pitched beep… and if he flips a switch on his dash he can access a tremendously loud sonic blast that sends more of a “DIE INFIDEL!!!” type of message.

Having done a bit of traveling in the past, I’m no stranger to bold drivers. But Filipino jeep-drivers, Italian scooterists, and New York cabbies have absolutely nothing on this guy. He’s fearless and crazy, often barreling down on an oncoming car, lone pedestrian, or absent-minded cyclist with such speed and disregard that I have to wonder whether or not the man has ran over anyone in the recent past. Remarkably enough, our bus is dent-free… so I must conclude that he’s really more stable than he appears. I guess.

Our tour guide is Eddy… a skinny, young fellow who somehow manages to look alternately nervous and nonchalant, depending on what angle you’re viewing him from. He’s a bit slow to warm up to you, but once you get past his always-cool expression… you get to realize that he’s really a very amiable sort of guy. Though he speaks in halting English, he will often let slip a remarkably witty joke that reveals just how strong his grasp of our language (and humor) really is. Touring in an organized group is a very new experience for me, always having been an independent traveler in the past. Fortunately so far, Eddy has been able to watch over us and herd us as a group without making me feel like a constantly supervised toddler. Eddy will be leading us for the entire 16-day tour.

Our Beijing local guide is a stocky, balding fellow named Kent. Blessed with a wonderful speaking voice, I can never tire of listening to his extensive monologues on the history of Beijing. Obviously trained in classic English style, his odd mix of proper English and Chinese accents seems very fitting as he describes China’s imperial dynasties, bicycling traditions, and growing capitalism.

I had to go to sleep as I couldn’t continue any more after a very exhausting day of heavy touring. I now continue from the back of our air-conditioned bus while waiting for others to finish their meal. Where to start?

The trip so far is not what I had expected. We seem to have booked a rather ritzy tour… the hotel we are staying at (The Tianlun Dynasty Hotel) is every bit as extravagant as it’s name sounds. Everyone is constantly bowing to you and smiling in a way that makes me markedly uncomfortable. The accommodations are nice… with a few touches that you’d never see in most U.S. hotels (like the nightly opera singer and string quartet playing in the courtyard…. labour is cheap in China, and such things are affordable.)

We started the day off going to the Temple of Heaven, a place of meditation for past emperors in Beijing. It was a good first sample of classic Chinese architecture. There were some interesting sights to see such as the “echo room” where you could stand across a great circular wall and speak quietly to the person standing across from you, and a high pedestal you could stand on where Heaven and Earth were supposed to meet.

After this site, we proceeded over to Tianamen Square, the spot of much notoriety and fame… where we were warned not to take photos of demonstrators, lest our cameras be taken and emptied of all film. We saw no demonstrators, but there was certainly no shortage of tourists. The square itself was immense (apparently the largest in the world) and highly reminiscent of Moscow’s Red Square. A large intimidating painting of Chairman Mao overlooked the whole area, and soldiers marched lockstep here and there… lending the huge square a foreboding sort of feel.

Passing under Mao’s painting, we then proceeded to the Forbidden City… the heart of Beijing which was made even more famous by the movie “The Last Emperor”. Covering an area of over 200 acres, the Forbidden City was every bit as impressive as the movie made it seem… a surreal testament to the splendor and extravagance that surrounded the Chinese Emperors. Architectural marvels were everywhere to be seen, and Kent did a commendable job explaining the history of the place as we walked through the city. We witnessed many great gates, buildings, and stairways… as well as interesting sites such as the Emperor’s throne room and the concubines quarters. Kent’s descriptions of the city officials, emperor’s concubines, legions of eunuchs, and the emperor himself, all helped really bring the place to life… though the overall feel of the place to me was one of massive emptiness and lost splendor.

We also took a quick tour of the emperor’s summer palace… an area built on a manmade mountain, overlooking a manmade lake, which kept the emperor cool during hot China summers. It was a beautiful location, remarkably close to central Beijing… and we got to take a ride on a “dragon boat” followed by a walk around the palace. Though admittedly very touristy (as most attractions have been since we got here) the area was still definitely worth a look.

After a one-hour stop at a Chinese art “museum” (really more of a local art sale than anything… contemporary art was available for us to purchase), it was then time for dinner. Dinner on the first evening was authentic Peking duck, served at Beijing’s most famous duck restaurant… which has hosted country heads from around the world (The senior George Bush’s picture adorns the wall here along with many other notaries from abroad). The duck was good though to me more a novelty rather than a delicacy. Eddy noted that the restaurant proudly served “Every part of the duck but the feathers” – I’m sure that’s supposed to be a nice selling point somehow though I rather failed to see things exactly in the same way. I even ended up eating a serving of duck-heart before I got a bit squeamish and decided against eating anything else that I couldn’t readily identify.

After dinner, we were whisked away to see the Beijing acrobats. The show was quite amazing. I’ve always been a fan of the Chinese acrobats (at least from the performances I’ve seen on TV) but seeing them perform live was a real treat. The only other thing I’ve ever seen that compares to the Beijing acrobats is the Circue du Soleil show. I tried taking some pictures (yes, incredibly enough flash photography is allowed) but stills can’t really capture any of the excitement of the acrobatic maneuvers. There was a girl on a unicycle, using one foot to keep the cycle balanced while piling one, two, three, then four bowls on her other outstretched leg, then flipping all four of them up and onto her head in a stack. Another girl balanced 5 tall ornaments on slim rods, using her hands, feet, and mouth to support them…. then rolled over from her back to her stomach then on her back again, all the time balancing the wobbly ornaments. There were two girls who were tossing two smaller girls around with their feet, flipping them over and flinging them around in somersaults in the most remarkable way. All sorts of balancing acts and leaping maneuvers… each successively more impossible than the last, kept me grinning ear to ear and laughing off the tension when you realize that the people on stage really weren’t going to break their necks.

All too soon, the show was over and we headed back to our hotel. After a very full day of walking and stair-climbing, I treated myself to a very thorough full-body massage. The massage was extremely relaxing, though I did have a brief scare when the girl seemed to push her thumbs completely through my calves and I realized in a panic that I couldn’t tell her to “go easy” in Chinese…. I survived though, and my muscles felt much better from the experience.

Before I go into our second full day here in China, a few notes about the sights we’ve seen around Beijing. Despite the heavy pollution, blaring street noise, and countless high-rises that overwhelm the senses here, the healthy and distinctly Chinese lifestyle is still evident everywhere you look. In the morning you can see old men taking their birds for a walk. They keep singing thrushes in little cages and walk around the parks, often jostling the cages to keep the birds active in the belief that fat birds do not sing well. Wherever there are parks and peaceful expanses of city, you can find men and women practicing Tai-chi and other graceful exercises – the movements are mesmerizing to watch, and the physical condition of some of the older people here is quite remarkable. (As in most places I’ve traveled to, overweight people are so rare as to seem non-existent compared to the U.S.) Couples of all ages practice dancing on impromptu open-air dance floors, waltzing or tangoing to tinny music, intent on improving their maneuvers. Armed only with buckets of water and large brushes, people practice their Chinese calligraphy on broad expanses of sidewalk and any other flat concrete space. My dad (who is a full-blooded Chinese descendant) remarked on the amazing skill of some of the writers, whose flowery writings lasted only a minute or so before the water evaporated from their concrete canvas.

Our second day in Beijing was much less hectic than the first. I got to know the people in our group better, and learned to appreciate what a fun group it is in general (there are only 23 of us and that will slim down to 18 by the time we reach Shanghai). Of course I miss the independence of solo travel, and the opportunity of meeting various travelers at each hostel… but we have a good group and I look forward to traveling around with them for the remainder of our trip.

First stop for the day was the famous Ming Tombs where emperors of the Ming dynasty were buried. Set in the beautiful foothills near Beijing, the tombs themselves were set deep underground (which though a bit eerie, was a welcome break from the hot weather on the surface). We climbed down several flights of steps into the tombs where furniture, ornaments, and even money were buried in order to provide the emperor with creature comforts in the next life (people were still tossing money in the tombs for good luck I suppose… I chucked a few dollar bills and some coins hoping the emperor would appreciate some American spending money too.)

After the Ming Tombs, we stopped by a state-run jade factory/store where we learned a bit about different types of jade and the Chinese fascination with this precious stone. Our tour was allocated an hour at the store, where there was little to do but shop and buy jade products (interesting, considering we were only given about 10 minutes to visit Tianamen Square). It was at this point in our trip that I made some realizations. Our tour so far has been a pretty lavish affair, small groups assigned several guides, a nice comfortable bus, five-star hotels, and fancy Chinese meals. The entire 16 day tour costs $3000, including international airfare as well as 5 domestic and 4 international flights (no train rides for us this trip). It seems to me that the price is really amazingly cheap, and I asked myself what sort of profit margin the travel agency could make on us. After considering the many “shopping stops” that are being worked into our very busy itinerary, I’m guessing that our tour agency may be subsidized by the government… which would be a good way to bring foreign money into China. Either that or the shops themselves pay off our tour agency.

(Interesting note, Kent tells us that only 80% of the business in China is state-run, with entrepreneurial ventures accounting for about 20%. Whereas private businesses used to be strictly illegal, the government now allows and encourages more and more private-sector growth… and privatization is spreading quickly. It would seem that this formula is working out well for China as a whole, which has enjoyed around 9% economy growth per year for the last several years, and expects to continue growing at this rapid pace.)

After the leaving the Jade shop, we finally headed for that most famous of Chinese sights, The Great Wall. Set in the picturesque mountains north of Beijing, I’m happy to say that no amount of preconceived notions, and over-hyped expectations were able to spoil my first sight of this wonder. Built atop improbably steep hills and mountainsides, the sweeping expanses of the Great Wall were a marvel to behold. I was ironically a bit disappointed at how perfect a condition the wall was in (the section we saw is constantly restored and maintained by the Chinese government) but it didn’t lessen the thrill I felt when I first walked upon the ancient structure. We took a gondola ride up to the highest point of the wall in that region, and climbed up to get a breathtaking view of the valley it protected below. Following the Wall’s snaking path over the mountains as far as one could see, you couldn’t help but wonder at the ambitious scope of such a project, and the kind of manpower that must have gone into its construction.

After some grueling climbing and much picture-taking, we left the Great Wall and headed back to the hotel. The next day saw us on a plane bound for Xian.

Xian was a very different place from shiny, cosmopolitan Beijing. Whereas Beijing is China’s current showpiece, their capital, contender for the 2008 Olympics, and the home of China’s emperors for the past 500 years, Xian is something of a relic - older-looking and shabbier, the ancient heart of China for over a thousand years prior to the rise of Beijing. Smaller by Chinese standards (population a mere 7 million people), Xian was a very different experience for our group. Buildings were much more reminiscent of Moscow’s run down and blocky-looking structures, city streets were in a greater state of disrepair, and fewer people sported signs of western goods and affluence.

Our local guide in Xian was a youthful-looking, energetic fellow who called himself Charlie. Though he lacked Kent’s pleasant speaking style and studio-announcer’s voice, Charlie made up for it with his candor and personal sense of humor. Fiercely nationalistic, political correctness was definitely not Charlie’s forte. He spoke proudly of his country’s growing affluence and power, and shared his dreams of a great China in the not-so-far future. He also explained a bit about China’s one-child rule (not very strictly enforced, the only penalty for extra children is about $1,000US on average per child.) Charlie spoke about his own dear daughter, and jokingly told of how he hoped to marry her to an American “Bill”, citing the success of our very own Gates and Clinton. He had a great joking manner and had our whole group in an uproar while in the bus, often taking good-natured jabs at the tourists expense (such as telling us how well we’d be taken care of, being spoiled American tourists... and thanking us for helping turn China “green”)

Xian’s main attraction is the excavation site of the Terracotta Warriors. Everywhere you look there are signs, shops, and street vendors capitalizing on this amazing archeological discovery. The Terracotta Warriors are a collection of over 7,000 life-sized statues accidentally discovered by a Chinese farmer while digging a well. Impressively detailed and sculpted, the 2,000 year old warriors were believed to be buried by an Emperor to guard him in his afterlife. Though the warriors are annoyingly over-hyped via posters, signs, replicas, and trinkets everywhere in Xian, the site itself is still a wonder to behold… the rows and rows of warriors force you to consider the enormous effort that must have gone into constructing this ancient stone army.

After visiting the Terracotta Warriors, while walking back to our bus, I learned an interesting lesson about the Chinese bargaining system. Spying a pair of samurai swords, I talked a woman down from about $80US to $68 and made the purchase. A few stalls further down, another woman saw my swords and offered my brother the exact same pair for a much higher sum. He tried to tell her that her price was outrageous and proceeded to talk her down, citing the price I paid for my swords as leverage. I was feeling pretty good at my bargain until we realized the woman thought my brother was dealing in Yuan instead of US dollars! (The ratio is about 8:1 right now). It seemed that he had inadvertently talked this woman down to $25US. He happily bought the exact same set of swords while my dad lectured me on my folly for being too eager to close my deal. My brother’s happiness only lasted a short while though, as a man a few more stalls down started hollering at us… offering the same pair of swords for $12US. My brother was irate and I was ready to go take a whack at the first vendor with the swords. It was a good learning experience at any rate.

We later had an opportunity to walk upon Xian’s city walls – Xian being the last major Chinese city to preserve it’s original defensive wall (unlike Beijing and Shanghai which had demolished theirs to make way for roads and buildings). The wall was of impressive height and thickness, a great place to let my imagination wander as I pictured archaic imperial Chinese troops marching upon its fortifications. The gatehouse was a solid-looking structure, with monstrous gates opening into a large, square, killing field which would have to be crossed should the gates themselves be breached.

The most beautiful attraction we saw in Xian was the emperor’s winter palace. Artfully designed and laid out, the palace was composed of graceful buildings surrounding small picturesque lakes and streams. Every angle of this place was pleasing to the eye, a perfect representative of what I always imagined when I thought of beautiful Chinese architecture. The whole palace was set at the base of a low mountain, lushly green with many colorful fish darting through the waters of the palace grounds.

In Xian, we were treated to a performance called the “Tang Dynasty Dance” – named after the period in Chinese history from which this show was derived. Though not as flashy and thrilling as the Beijing acrobats, the performance was nonetheless very entertaining and informative, as the performers were trained in very old dance styles and the instruments used were of the same sort played centuries ago during the Tang Dynasty. Beautifully clad and costumed girls performed intricate dances on stage, routines once reserved only for the emperor and his entourage. Alien yet pleasant sounding instruments were played skillfully by the musicians, and watching the stage one could almost imagine himself as part of the emperors court, watching a performance from centuries past.

The karaoke bar at our hotel in Xian was also the source of much entertainment for our group… particularly the twenty-something to thirty-something crowd. My brother mustered the courage to sing onstage with the two Filipino karaoke girls, while the rest of us hooted and cheered him on. Eddy even joined in the festivities, the skinny fellow getting nicely drunk off of a single beer (I think I may have finally met someone who can drink even less than I can.) A lot of bonding within our group happened during Xian (we even had a fellow named Nick who defected from another tour group when he saw how much fun we were having) and my brother later told me that Eddy, during a drunken moment told him, “Usually, I am just a tour guide… I serve the tourists. But you have been friend to me, and the rest of the group treats me like a friend.” My brother told him, “That’s just the beer talking,” but he assured me that he was quite touched by the comment. Eddy’s really a helluva guy.

What can I say about Guilin? Much of what I came to see in China, I found in Guilin. Those beautiful landscapes and vistas often found in Chinese paintings and photographs found their inspiration in Guilin and its surrounding areas. Once hailed as “The most beautiful place in the world,” Guilin, or at least the area surrounding Guilin, can still be considered worthy of that title… at least to my eyes. Also in a land of stark contrasts, Guilin offered some of the most shocking examples of disparity that I’ve beheld since arriving in China.

Two things contribute to Guilin’s startling beauty – massive limestone deposits and the constantly misty, steaming hot weather. The former is responsible for some impossibly spectacular rock formations… mountains that resemble gigantic fingers reaching into the sky, and the latter is responsible for blanketing the entire area in a lush, deep, carpet of green. To this scene, add a backdrop of constant ghostly mists, and you may get an idea of what the place was like. The combination of these elements has created a place that may never be rivaled in my experiences, a primordial-looking land where the rocks are thrusting out of the ground and the greenery belongs to a prehistoric era. As we took a river cruise down the Li Jiang river, it seemed like we were floating through a land trapped in time, it wouldn’t have taken a very large stretch of imagination to picture dinosaurs moving through the dense, leafy vegetation, or prehistoric fishes swimming beneath the green waters.

Unfortunately this illusion only holds so long as you don’t come upon the “modern” settlements around Guilin. Guilin itself is a nasty, garish place set squarely in the middle of all this beauty. Much of recent Chinese architecture (if it can be called that) is already unpleasant enough as it is, but set against the amazing natural backdrop of the area, it can be downright nightmarish – sort of the aesthetic equivalent of dropping a rotting section of Detroit squarely in the middle of Yosemite Valley. It was even more horrifying to hear the tour guide mention how quickly Guilin was growing, and how cheap the land here was, as he encouraged all foreigners to come here and invest in the ever-sprouting buildings that looked like cancers growing on the countryside.

Guilin was also the first place where I’ve witnessed some of the intense poverty experienced by China’s peasantry. Everywhere you went you heard locals yelling, “Hello, hello! One dollar, one dollar!” as they held out handmade reed flutes, unusual rocks, handcrafted bags, or anything else they could sell to these tourists who are the monetary lifeblood of the area. Little children, adorable but pitifully thin, surrounded us begging us to buy their trinkets. Driving through the city, poverty was evident everywhere and I was strongly reminded for the first time in a very long time of many childhood scenes from the Philippines. Everywhere in the city, particularly in the outskirts, you could see buildings in terrible disrepair, even worse than the dilapidated apartments of Moscow (quite amazingly shabby, I assure you), many of them looking like they had been bombed or looted recently. Our guide told us that in the past, many building developers had overestimated the growth potential of Guilin and had built too quickly, dotting the landscape with these cheap, hastily constructed monstrosities… which then went unsold and untended, rotting into old age and decay. Thankfully so far, the human stain has not yet spread over much of the remote area along the Li Jiang, leaving the scenery largely untouched, except for the occasional motor-boat cruising along the river. I can only pray that the Chinese government will recognize this area for what it is, and do their part in preserving its beauty.

Despite the gorgeous landscape of the Guilin area, some of the most spectacular sights I witnessed in the area were underground. The Reed Flute Caves tour was an amazing visit, my first foray into a natural cave and an experience I’ll never forget. The Reed Flute Caves are like a subterranean wonderland, filled with queerly carved walls, huge limestone columns, and majestically large caverns. Rather than bathing it all in a regular yellow or white light, the Chinese have lit the place with multi-colored bulbs, throwing vivid red, blue, and green illumination across the already-unearthly scenes within the caves. Imagined fantasies come to life in this place, where the rocks themselves seem to morph into shapes and figures plucked from the subconscious. Unfortunately our tour-guide insisted on pointing out every other rock formation, exhorting us to “visualize” the lion, the caterpillar and his mirror, and even the Statue of Liberty that could be seen in the limestone formations. It seems that there is a tremendous Chinese preoccupation with identifying and naming every possible natural sight with an animal or human name… and perhaps I can sort of understand the fun in this, but as we make our way through China I’ve really learned to detest this practice and dread our various guide’s efforts to point out these sights. In the caves, I purposefully stayed far behind the group, though the lights were constantly going out, threatening to leave me in the dark… just so I could enjoy the beauty and majesty of these caverns in silence.

Another thing worth noting, had these caves been in the U.S. most sections would have been cordoned off, and there would have been many strictures placed against touching any of walls and features around us, for fear of upsetting the natural growth of these still-living caverns. Unfortunately no such rules were in place here, and people were free to touch what they wished, and clamber all over the still-growing rocks as they desired. Yet another pity (in fact the tour guide told us happily of how a recent Swedish group had paid to have a large catered dinner in one of these caves.)

Before returning to our hotel, our guide took us to a foot-massage center in Guilin, which is supposedly well-known for its massage practices. Our group was herded into a low building where over a dozen young men and women sat us down and proceeded to administer a most refreshing and invigorating massage to our feet, legs, arms and shoulders. A somewhat docile though smiling bunch, the masseuses and masseurs worked quietly and surely, except for the occasional bits of conversation coaxed out of them by our group. My dad asked one young lady why it was that only young people worked the massage rooms, and her reply was at once sobering and depressing. She said that the work was very difficult and taxing, and most workers didn’t last more than a couple of years before having to find new work. Once my dad had related this to the rest of our group, it wasn’t so difficult to imagine the rough working conditions these people faced. They seemed to crank tourists through at a fast pace. Though the massage rooms were designed with the client’s comfort in mind, they definitely were not designed for the massager’s well-being. One had to stoop pretty low to administer the foot massage, squatting over something that didn’t quite count as a seat. The methods used to give our massages seemed quite conducive to inflicting Repetitive Stress Syndrome. The entire 45 minute massage only cost about $12 US as well, and I can only assume the workers just got a fraction of that amount in pay… needless to say though I was very relaxed, I didn’t feel terribly great about the massage afterwards and I did leave a rather large tip when I left.

Another show awaited us back at the hotel in Guilin, one that would be the source of much fun and hilarity for our group. There was a dinner show with dancers, jugglers, singers, and other such entertainment. At one point in the show, the performers needed a volunteer, and they must have noticed my brother who was grinning ear-to-ear watching them, as they selected him for a special performance. They took him up on stage, where they dressed him up in an emperor’s robe and headpiece. They then marched him to a high-point offstage where a veiled figure climbed onto his back and they circled the stage together with many attendants with much pomp and ceremony until they climbed back onstage together. Then the veil was removed, revealing one of the beautiful dancers, who was to be his mock-bride for the performance. The whole time this was going on our entire tour group was roaring with laughter and cheers, as my brother had been the social centerpiece of our trip thus far. It was evident he was having a great time, and we were all enjoying the show with him. After the mock wedding ceremony was over, one performer approached my brother with a microphone and started speaking to him in Chinese, assuming he knew the language. Overwhelmed and speechless, my brother replied “Hao.” (which roughly translates into hello… we later found out that the woman had asked him his family name, and Hao is actually a valid family name.) She asked him another question, assuming he had understood the first. Now, confused and embarrassed, my brother stammered out that he couldn’t speak Chinese and the entire audience was in an uproar at his smiling discomfiture. The woman finally asked, “Are you having a good time?” and my brother of course replied with a hearty “Yes!” to more enthusiastic applause from the audience.

Later on Kurt (one of the friends we made in our tour group) remarked that my brother seemed to be a magnet for such spectacles during our entire trip… I’m sure this will be one of the more memorable journeys of his life.

It was with Guilin that we finally bid goodbye to two of our merry crew… Nick, the defector from the other tour group (they were now bound for Shanghai while the rest of us were going on the Yangtzee River cruise) and my brother, the life of our party, who now had to head back to Hong Kong then home in order to be back in time for summer school. The group of twenty and thirty-somethings in our tour have managed okay so far without them, but they are certainly missed and it was with some sadness that we parted ways in Guilin.

The Yangtzee River Cruise probably would have been something of a letdown after all the great sights we’d seen previously, but after the hectic pace of our tour, it was actually quite a good break. The Yangtzee is a great, wide, muddy river… the longest in China and third longest in the world. It’s long been the main artery of China, and is believed to be the origin of some of the oldest human archeological finds to date. It has also been the source of quite a bit of controversy lately due to the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam. By the time it is finished, the dam will raise the river by as much as 175 meters in many places, covering many cultural and archeological treasures, submerging the much-touted Three Gorges and Little Three Gorges, causing many foreseen and unforeseen ecological changes, and displacing over 2 million people from the area immediately surrounding the Yangtzee.

Even within our group and other groups aboard our ship, the building of the dam was a constant topic of debate… it was eerie sailing through river-carved gorges while imagining the entire area around you being completely submerged someday by a man-made lake. It was even eerier driving through towns and villages and imagining the buildings which will soon be far beneath the waters, rather than overlooking them. The Chinese government ostensibly plans to generate one fifth of the entire country’s electricity output from the dam, and hopes to curb the occasional flash floods which sweep away people living along the Yangtzee’s riverbanks. But I also heard much discussion that claimed the same goals could be met by building several smaller dams which would not have such a drastic affect on the Yangtzee’s natural water level and landscape.

Anyhow, the cruise itself was a lot more fun and educational than I had expected. It was during a daytime excursion from the ship that I saw the most abject poverty I’ve witnessed to date in China. The village we drove through on the way to the Lesser Three Gorges was a very shabby and dejected sort of place. The buildings were in an astonishing state of disrepair and the very narrow streets were lined with trash and filth. Villagers thronged on the roadsides, some gawking, some carrying heavy loads of various goods on their back, some cooking in some very unsavory-looking street side kitchens. Eddie tells us that half the women we see in the village are prostitutes, and half the men are robbers... I think he’s exaggerating but then again, it wouldn’t be too surprising given the deplorable conditions these people lived in.

There were many memorable times during the cruise... in no particular order, practicing tai-chi with the ship’s doctor, learning to play mahjong with Eddie, visiting the “spooky” ghost city (and getting frisky with the statues), coming within a minute of winning a “lottery” (where we guessed the exact time when we’d pass through a river-lock), Eddie making himself a spectacle by dancing for us or drawing tattoos on his hand, watching a fat cop chase a pack of peddlers straight up a cliffside on a “lonely” beach in the Lesser Three Gorges area, wondering at the crew which seemed to handle every conceivable task (including dancing for our entertainment), enduring jokes about the “gorges” scenery, learning more about my family’s history from my parents (particularly some colorful tales about my childhood in Washington), flying kites and having kite-fights by the moonlight atop our cruise ship.... it was a fun little excursion, largely because the company of our tour group broke the monotony of river-travel. For days after we got off the ship, I still felt like my hotel rooms were rocking slowly with the waves at night.

Wuhan wasn’t a terribly remarkable city, but there were a few memorable experiences. We got to see one of Mao’s old homes... a sprawling complex with all sorts of Mao pictures and memorabilia to be seen... where we learned a bit more about this sometimes eccentric, sometimes admirable, and sometimes unfathomable man. We saw displays from an ancient tomb, including a gigantic set of intact bronze bells which were buried there. At night we also went to Wuhan’s bustling night market, where I had the distinct displeasure of being gawked at endlessly by dozens and dozens of locals for the first time. Though the night market was a very commercial and modern-looking place, it still had a back-water xenophobic sort of feel compared to Beijing or any of the more modern coastal cities. There was a great open area overlooked by a huge television screen, and about a hundred people were sitting around watching. When our group walked near the center of the area, we were suddenly the focus of attention for everyone, people openly gawking at us and some with none-too-friendly eyes. Staring them down didn’t really work, and several didn’t seem to have any of our notions about personal space either. A bit disturbing, but not terribly dangerous I guess... as there were police officers to be seen everywhere in the night market.

Shanghai would be our last stop on mainland China, and perhaps our busiest. There were very few items on our schedule, but the group was very eager to do some shopping and partying in the fabled city, and we did just that.

Boasting a population bigger than Beijing (and covering a much smaller area), Shanghai was a crowded, bustling, and remarkably modern place. I gathered that Shanghai is the commercial and industrial jewel of China, an ancient city which has made a great leap into the present. There was the Bund, a remarkable area where a river dissected the city. On one side, old European architecture was dominant, as the area had long been occupied by western colonists and merchants in the past... on the other bank, Shanghai’s futuristic skyline looked like something out of a movie, with roundish buildings and pointy towers rising into the sky.

Shanghai has a very colorful history, being a busy trading port and having been exposed to so much foreign influence compared to much of ancient China. The city has never ceased reinventing itself and the signs of construction and growth are everywhere to be seen. Picture the financial district in San Francisco, with its numerous, tall office buildings. Now imagine the financial district on a greater scale, stretching in every direction for many, many miles. The number of people concentrated in all these buildings is somewhat mind-boggling... and Shanghai has a lively, bustling feel to it.

Eddie graciously let us have as much free time as he could squeeze out of our schedule to do some shopping. My mom had a field day here, going from store to store bargaining and buying up some impossibly cheap clothing. I did a fair bit of shopping myself and came away with a good amount of loot. Just walking through the various stores and forests of vendor-stalls was an experience in itself.

Our last dinner together as a group (many were staying in Shanghai) was a touching one and a few speeches were made. We even sang a round of Auld Lang Syne and conned Eddie into singing a Chinese song for us (jeez, the man could even sing... imagine that!) We had many laughs together during that meal... and I could just imagine the people outside our dinner-room thinking “those crazy tourists!”

The young’ns went out that evening as well... we first went to a bar where our boisterous drinking and merrymaking drove all the other clients away. Unabashed, we proceeded to toast the night away, russian-style, drinking to each other’s health (and anything else we could drink to) and watching Eddie turn progressively redder and redder. We then hopped into some cabs and went for a hair-raising ride to a club called “Real Love Disco Bar”. It was a very fun sort of place, placed oddly enough below a bowling alley, and packed FULL of young Chinese. I can’t say I found real love, but I did end up dancing with a tremendously cute Chinese girl for a while. =)

Eddie danced until he almost passed out. Between the drinking, the dancing, the heat, and the constant press of bodies, I don’t think many of us were that far from falling over ourselves. Eventually, knowing most of us had to rise early in the morning to leave for Hong Kong, we sadly left the club and headed back to the hotel. There were some tearful and near-tearful goodbyes as Eddie and the Chiang family were not coming with us to Hong Kong. It was with many mixed (and drunken) feelings that I finally fell asleep with that night.

Ahhhh, Hong Kong. I had heard so much about the place already, but it still couldn’t prepare me for the real thing. So much interesting history on this island, which had been a British colony and THE major Asian trading port for so many years. No longer just a big trading port, Hong Kong is now a tremendously influential financial powerhouse, and it shows. The number of people and buildings in Beijing was amazing. The increased density of people and buildings in Shanghai was even more impressive. But Hong Kong topped it all, with towers and high-rises sprouting like concrete trees everywhere you looked, clustered together in impossibly close formations, truly making the island worthy of the term, “concrete jungle”. Despite the ridiculous number of buildings that crowded the central area of Hong Kong, the surrounding areas were still remarkably beautiful and green. The waters surrounding Hong Kong were remarkably green and picturesque as well. The air during our entire stay was just drenched with humidity, and indeed it was raining heavily on our day of arrival. Though the temperature was a mere 82 degrees, I could barely stand to be outdoors for any amount of time at all, as the complete inability to cool off via sweating was maddening.

Our tour guide was a well spoken, well-groomed woman who called herself Rebecca. Despite our brief time with her, she managed to give us a very good picture of this remarkable island. We started our tour off with lunch at an odd (but very good) Australian-themed restaurant atop Victoria’s Peak... the ritzy area of Hong Kong which afforded the best view of the island as well as some of the most outrageous property values (apparently even some middle-of-the-road apartments on the Peak ran about $7,000-$10,000US per month rent). The food was delicious (I even tried some emu steak... yummy) and as you could get the cooks to make you as much food as you wanted, we all ate until we were stuffed. We then went for a bus-ride around the island and saw the homes of a few influential politicians and tycoons, while our guide told us a few eccentric tales about the local personalities and beliefs.

On our last evening together there (now deserted by our guides) we tried to rally the group for one last dinner out together. That didn’t work out so well (amazing how tough it is to keep a large group intact in a bustling, foreign land) and we slowly dispersed into smaller groups. I later ran into Kurt and, determined not to let our last night fizzle uneventfully we took a ride on the metro back to downtown Hong Kong in search of a bit of nightlife.

After a long, wandering, and very hot walk, we finally ended up in the strip club district of Hong Kong. Dozens of strip joints lined the streets and inevitably a woman at every doorway would try to get us to go in. Not really in the mood to ogle at strippers, we found a relatively normal club called “The Big Apple” and had a few drinks inside. The place was absolutely PACKED with Filipino women, with a few Caucasian men enjoying the view here and there. It was a pleasant enough place, and after a few drinks we finally went back to the hotel and called it a night. One funny observation Kurt made that night... he said he felt like we were on a Survivor show, and slowly people were dropping out of the group, until only me and him were left. He was right... it did sortof feel like that.

My parents and I had a precious few hours the next day before our flight left for home.... and we decided (or I should say my mom decided) to squeeze in some last-minute shopping before we left. That Sunday morning was a most bizzare experience for me, as Hong Kong was literally crawling with thousands of Filipino women. Everywhere you looked women were speaking Tagalog and thronging in storefronts and restaurants. I wondered mightily about this as I had not seen so many Filipinos... well, since I left the Philippines! While my parents shopped, I chatted up a pack of Filipino girls in one of the stores. Apparently there was a great market for housekeepers amongst the affluent citizens of Hong Kong, and women were coming over from the Philippines in droves to find a better life. One girl had been a nurse back home, making 7000 pesos a month, and now she said she was making the equivalent of 20,000 pesos working as a “domestic helper”. It gave me, once again, an amazing perspective on how lucky I am that my parents and grandparents made the effort to bring us to the U.S. The amount of things Americans take for granted becomes more and more staggering to me with every trip I take. Ah, but I wander...

We had lunch at an insanely busy and bustling dim-sum house in Hong Kong. All sorts of non-recognizable and frightening food (such as fish-heads and chicken feet) were being passed around while I tried to select things that seemed safe to my suddenly tame palate. The food was remarkably good, though the place definitely seemed a bit less than sanitary (I’d wager a good portion of my friends back in the ‘states wouldn’t eat a bite in a place like this). Interestingly enough, a few of the locals told us this was a very old and popular place to eat, a great restaurant by reputation.

The restaurant was my last great experience in China. We were soon enough on a plane headed back to the U.S., where I could spend a lot of time contemplating and absorbing all I had seen. The tour had been so much more than I had expected, as an adventure, a learning experience, and even a road-trip with friends/family. I’ve never before felt so connected to my Chinese heritage, yet at the same time so disconnected and foreign to the home of my ancestors. The weeks prior to my trip, I did nothing but worry about the seemingly fragile political ties between the U.S. and China. For weeks after I would be dealing with re-adjusting to “normal” American life, and a strange sadness at being back from such a fun and mind-bending trip. Perhaps most surprising to me is a strong urge to go back someday, to see many of the things again at a more relaxed pace, and to see many more things that I had missed in our whirlwind tour. That, and the urge to see some of the faces again that we met on the road, particularly Eddie, who did such a splendid job at making us feel “at home” during our stay in China.