June 3

Chengdu

So here is the story of a 48-hour period of time, which in some respects is a poster-child for the entire Chinese leg. The day began at 4:00 am at our high end Hilton Hotel in X’ian so we would have time to pack and meet our guide at 4:30 am to take us to the train station for a 6:00 am train boarding to the village of Chengdu.

While the village was on our carefully prepared itinerary by Asia Transpacific, we knew very little about it except that it was on the way to Chongqing where we would board a ship to take us down the Yangtze, was near another small village (Leshan) where the world’s largest Buddha could be found and contained a large Panda Park with over 100 Pandas. Sounded like a nice place to stop before reaching the mighty Yangtze for our three-day river cruise.

Always punctual, our friendly guide met us and got us to the train station in plenty of time. This station was one of the older stations and not designed for bullet trains. Since there was no elevator or escalator, Embry and I had to haul our 50 pound suitcases down at least a hundred , very steep steps and then back up another hundred to get to Platform 2. After struggling for 15 or 20 steps and creating a bit of a roadblock for the hundreds of passengers racing for the train (which paused for only a few minutes in X’ian), a friendly hand appeared, lifted the bag from me and kindly left it at the bottom of the stairs. I wanted to thank him and shake his hand, but he was gone. Embry had similar luck. The same thing happened going up the stairs to Platform 2. This unsolicited, merciful aid has occurred every single time—both up and down stairs—when we have been confronted with this challenge. Would this have happened in the US?

So we made it to Platform 2 and there was our train, on time to the minute and pausing for desperate passengers to board. The train must have had at least 20 cars and we were assigned to “carriage 8,” probably somewhere in the middle. So that was where we bolted with luggage in tow, miraculously found the carriage where it should have been, and dragged ourselves and suitcases (again, with help from a lady conductor) up the steps into the carriage. Less than a minute later—on time to the second—the train pulled out.

Now there are a lot of things that our travel agents have done right in setting up this trip—terrific boutique hotels, excellent guides and tours, fine dining experiences, occasional evening entertainment with local dancing and singing—but nothing ranks higher on my list that buying four tickets for us for a “soft sleeper” compartment. That meant we had the entire sleeper compartment to ourselves on a sold out train. There is no way we could have gotten ourselves and our baggage into the tiny compartment if we were sharing it with two other people. Some of the compartments even had six berths instead of our four! Way to go, Asia Transpacific!

Even though it was only 6:00 am, I collapsed, went sound to sleep and when I woke up around nine found myself in a different world. The scenery was now lush and green with no hint of the mainly semiarid landscapes we had been witnessing for the last several weeks, starting in Mongolia. We were in fact in what resembled a rain forest—and it was appropriately raining outside—with towering peaks above us on both sides and no sign of any roads or houses, only occasional mountain goats perched precariously on steep cliffs. This breathtaking scenery would be with us for the next 12 hours with no letup. The only changes would be that a tiny village would appear every now and then, many with no apparent roads to connect them to the rest of the world. Valleys would also emerge below occasionally with cultivated fields—rice fields, which we were seeing for the first time—and larger village clusters. After a few hours of chugging up hill at 40 or 50 miles per hour, we started to head down the mountain, picking up speed and following numerous rivers and streams, some with many class 2 and 3 rapids. Occasionally we would see flimsy foot bridges and when there was a calm spot in the river, a small barge serving as a ferry. And toward the end of the journey—which lasted for some 17 hours—larger towns appeared, a few with large factories. We learned after arriving Chengdu that we had crossed the second tallest mountain range in China, separating north China from south China, with peaks in excess of 4,000 meters or over 12,000 feet.

The only frustrating thing about the journey was that about half of it was through tunnels. Just as you were marveling over the most beautiful landscape you had ever seen, bingo, all black, and you were in a tunnel for a good five minutes before you emerged, and it all repeated itself minutes later. Perhaps the biggest surprise was lunch in the dining carriage, which turned out to be spectacular though we had no idea what we had ordered since nothing was in English. And the most disgusting? The rest rooms, which were filthy, in stark contrast to the spotless rest rooms on the bullet trains.

Since it got dark at 8:30 and we did not arrive in Chengdu until almost 11:00 pm, we missed a lot of the dramatic scenery for the last one hundred miles or so. As we approached the village, I was aware that there were a lot of lights outside and that the village was probably not really all that small. When we rolled into the station and dragged ourselves and baggage off the train and then, with good Samaritan help, got the bags down and then up steep staircases, we found ourselves in what could easily have been Penn Station. It was almost midnight, and the huge station was jammed packed. A bit disoriented, we stumbled to the exit hoping to find a smiling guide holding up a “Howell” sign, and there she was—a petite, 20-something with a broad grin. How could anyone do a trip like this without a guide?

As we crossed the huge plaza, buzzing with people and with many people sleeping in sleeping bags along the side (Aha—so there is homelessness in China after all, I said to myself, only to discover later they were college students with a very early train to catch the next day), I asked the obvious question as to the size of this “town.”

“Carol” replied, “Officially only 16 million. Unofficially probably a lot more, maybe 20 million. We are a middle sized city in China.”

That moment you could say was my Epiphany. It was finally dawning on me just how big this country is.

By now we were pretty familiar with the protocol. The guide charges ahead. We follow as best as we can, but I usually fall back so far I fear I will get lost and will never be seen again. She momentarily stops—this time on a street more jammed with honking cars than Times Square—and a car and driver mysteriously appear out of nowhere. The driver takes the bags, throws them in the trunk , we hop in, and off we charge to the hotel, honking madly, swerving to miss jay walking pedestrians, swerving again to miss pedestrians on cross walks but, God forbid, never stopping for them, which as far as I can tell is some kind of unwritten rule, and dodging in front of a smaller car when you need to change lanes. Then there are the countless bicycles and electric motor bikes heading at us in our lane, going in the wrong direction and dipping in the tiny spaces between two cars stuck in traffic. Somehow the driver manages to miss them too and the hundreds of people legally crossing on a red light for us when we make a frantic right-on-red and plow through them as they scamper to give us room. You would think I would be getting used to this by now, but frankly it is having the opposite effect; and when we get back to the US, I am certain I will have to check myself in to Kaiser with Level I Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

But I have got to say, the Chinese drivers have to be the best in the world. Over three weeks in this country, observing more near head-on collisions and pedestrian wipe outs than I can count and not one sighting of an accident of any type.

We arrived at our hotel after midnight. A quaint, 35-room traditional Chinese hotel, it is nestled in one of the historic, protected areas, which is quiet and peaceful with narrow streets, which during the day fill up with vendors. There is a large, active Buddhist temple and monastery around the corner. We were completely wiped out and collapsed and fell into bed at close to one in the morning.

But we were in a new city. When you get to a new city, your guides are rested and ready. They are bursting with enthusiasm and energy, and they want you to see everything. That is their job. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and you want to see it all too.

So before we headed to our room, Carol suggested we start early in the morning. She would pick us up at eight and we would head out for the two hour plus drive to Leshan were we would see the world’s biggest sitting Buddha, followed by a nice lunch and then a full tour of Chengdu and then dinner and authentic entertainment at the world famous Chengdu Opera. All on the itinerary, all paid for in advance. Sound like a plan?

While she was going over all this at one in the morning, it already was the next day, and I was wondering how I would get through the night, let alone tomorrow. It is times like these when we had young guides, that Embry would pull out her grandmother routine. It usually went something like this:

Embry: ”Is your grandmother still alive?”

Guide: “Yes.”

Embry: “How old is she?”

Guide: “Seventy.”

Embry: “That is my age and my husband is almost four years older. Do you think your grandmother could do all this?”

Argument over. Worked every time. We settled for departing at 9:30, a half day visit to see the great Buddha and no afternoon activities, no dinner and entertainment to be discussed later.

It would have been nice if it had turned out this way. But actually it was our fault that it didn’t.

First the Buddha. My idea of what the day would be like was that we would take an ancient, two lane road through villages arriving at an isolated and holy spot in the middle of nowhere. As we inched our way in heavy traffic out of Chengdu, we made it onto an eight lane, super highway that was like the New Jersey Turnpike except more crowded. For almost the entire two hours we were on that road (which eventually did narrow to four lanes), passing through rice fields and tiny, prosperous looking villages. As we got closer to the tiny village of Leshan, first a 30 –story, modern apartment appeared, then another and soon the landscape was covered with towering high rises and tower cranes.

“What is all this about?” I asked Carol, who promptly responded that we were now in Leshan, a small city of three plus million people official, maybe four or five unofficial. So much for the tiny village idea until I realized that in modern day China, Leshan actually is a small village.

The Buddha was great. It was something like 275 meters high, carved out of a mountain side over a thousand years ago. We boarded a boat carrying about 50 passengers, all Chinese except for us, and viewed this ancient wonder from the water. Peter, our son-in-law who is himself a Buddhist, emailed us that this famous Buddha is not only the world’s largest, it is the largest pre modern sculpture of any kind in the world.

We then had lunch at a nice riverside restaurant before heading back. Our strategic error with regard to scheduling was that on the way to Leshan we had passed by a huge structure that looked like FedEx Field (100,000 seat football stadium) cubed. When we asked Carol what it was, she said it was “Global Center,” the world’s largest building, which opened about a year ago and was primarily a shopping mall with a hotel and a water park. We had to see it. Though it was not on the itinerary, we made the side trip, which was worth it. We counted the stories: 27. We estimated the footprint: at least twelve football fields. The size and scope of the mall inside is indescribable—every multinational chain store in the world represented with huge stores, a water park similar in size and scale to something you would find at Six Flags or Disney World, regulation size ice hockey rink, health clubs, restaurants, an Imax movie complex of something like 50 theaters, escalators going up eight or nine levels, a floor made from precious jade that resulted in the leveling of an entire mountain in Burma. The list could go on. And at 5:00 pm on a week day, plenty of people were walking around, ogling just like we were. Marx and Mao, is this what you had in mind?

          

So that is why we did not get back to our hotel until around six, just in time to shower and change clothes for the Chengdu Opera, which did not disappoint. We returned to our hotel around ten.

As we were getting out of the car to head for the hotel, Carol enthusiastically reviewed the next day’s agenda. Start at eight, morning spent visiting the Pandas, special “hot pot” lunch, tour of the city….

Time for Embry’s grandmother speech again. And if you are counting, at 10:O0 pm, we were only on hour 42. The 48-hour mark would not arrive until 4:00 am. Not a typical two day period but one close enough to give you the flavor of our Chinese experience.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

June 2

Chengdu

(Sorry that there are no photos. Internet is to weak to handle them. Will post later.)

Someone asked us what we have been eating. Having now sampled the cuisine of six countries, I am sitting down to give you a sense of what we have been eating. In my diary, I have kept a list of our favorite foods and food “experiences” along the way. Here you go:

Cruise ship: I think Joe has filled you in about our sumptuous and frequent meals on the cruise. We started our fantastic eating experiences while crossing the Atlantic!

Spain: Our favorite foods and drinks in Spain were: (1) the Valencia oranges (Supposedly it was “late in the season” and “they are not as sweet now,” but that was hard to believe); (2) espresso coffee, any time of the day (with a great machine in our apartment, thanks to Juan and Vincen); (3) paella (more on that in a moment); (4) tapas, a terms which seems to be used for a wide range of foods, usually on a “small plate”; and (5) the great, inexpensive wine, especially red wine, which spoiled us for the rest of the trip, given the cheap price (a good bottle for 4 Euros!). Our favorite experiences were: (1) the wonderful rabbit and snail paella at a very special restaurant recommended by Juan (El Raco de la Paella); (2) Joe’s birthday dinner at Ricard Camarana (written up in a previous blog post) in Valencia; and (3) a mid-day meal of small plates at La Tasquita de Enfrente in Madrid. Both of the wonderful restaurants were recommended by Michelin, which did not let us down. Our only problem with restaurant eating in Spain was timing. We just couldn’t stay up late enough usually to eat out at night. We found that it was better to eat out for the mid-day meal, which would be from 2:30 to 4:00! In summary, our favorite cuisine of the trip was Spanish, a big surprise since we weren’t so familiar with it.

France: Of course, French cuisine was great, and probably needs no description. The café au lait, bread, and pastries were my favorites. And of course, there’s the wine and cheese that are as good any other place in the world. Our favorite food experiences were: (1) waking up each day at our friend Mireille’s house to warm croissants and a warm baguette, which she had walked out to get for us, and a lunch of cheese and beet salad, eaten right in her front room where we heard the bells of Notre Dame ringing; (2) an amazing dinner of fresh langoustines (Brittany lobsters) prepared by our sister-in-law, Martine, and her partner Bernard. (The French restaurants we sampled were nowhere as good as this “home cooking.”); and (3) two scoops of ice cream (pistachio and vanilla) on the Champs Elysee, the best of my life. (I guess the setting helped.)

Germany: We were only in Germany briefly, and could not really sample the cuisine in any kind of comprehensive way, but we loved the beer, brown bread, and sausage. Our favorite experience was dinner with our friends John and Grace at the Berlin restaurant, Rotisserie Weingraun, where we sampled wild meats, lamb, and pork that were “home raised gently.”

Poland: Again, we were just there briefly, but we loved the potato pancakes and wild boar. (Are you drooling yet?)

Belarus: Believe it or not, although we did not get off the train in Belarus, we had one of our best meals there. We had had some challenges finding our train and getting on for the overnight trip from Warsaw to Moscow, and we had not paid attention to the fact that we might need food. Once we boarded the train, we were distressed to discover that there was no dining car, and that everyone else had their own food. What to do? The problem was solved when we got to the border and a troupe of Belarussian ladies boarded the train bearing food of a variety of kinds. We purchased the most delicious whole roasted chicken, warm potatoes, several large pickles, bread and yogurt (the latter two items constituting our breakfast the next morning).

Russia: The term borscht seems to apply to a variety of kinds of soup, not just beet soup, although this one did have some beets and more potatoes and other vegetables, as well as beef. Delicious! Other good foods in Russia are mashed potatoes (seriously, they really do make good ones from fresh potatoes) and dried fish of a variety of types. Most of our meals were served on the Trans-Siberian train (and excellent).   In general, vodka seems to be the drink of choice everywhere, and it’s cheap. I have never been a fan of vodka, but I have to admit it’s pretty good over there, especially if accompanied by good company and a round of toasts (which it always was). My best Russian food experience was eating a bowl of borscht, purchased at a sidewalk stand in Moscow, on the way to the Tretyakov Gallery. The weather was fine, and music was playing nearby, as I sat at an outdoor table.

Mongolia: Because they do not grow food crops, Mongolian cuisine is based on dairy products and meat. They have a wide range of dairy products from cows, goats, sheep, camels, horses (Yes, they love fermented horse milk), and yaks. We tasted some of these, which have a sort of exotic taste that is interesting but not “delicious” to me (except the yogurt, which has been wonderful throughout all the trip). In Mongolia we had good barbecue of various meats, and wonderful soup. The best two experiences were (1) sharing morning tea (it’s salty) and cheese with a Mongolian family, and (2) being out on the steppes with our tour group having a Mongolian barbecue while being serenaded by local people on traditional instruments.

China: It is just impossible to sample and describe the variety of Chinese cuisine. This vast country has spawned so many wonderful types of food, and we (having been here just 11 days so far) have only scraped the tip of the iceberg. This is actually not a good metaphor, since most of the best food we’ve sampled has been very hot! The places we have been so far have many spicy dishes, especially in Xian, which was the terminus for the Silk Road and where spices were imported into China. Joe got a picture of half a plate of peppers of various types that we extracted from our lunch one day; we just couldn’t take the spicy taste that everyone else gobbled up happily. The northern part of China where we have been so far is primarily a wheat-growing area. This means that noodles and dumplings are the specialties. Noodles are eaten by local people morning, noon, and night. I saw fresh noodles being made when the cook shaved slices of dough into boiling broth. The dumplings are small steamed dough with fillings (similar to ravioli and what we call “dim sum” at home, but I haven’t heard that term used here). The ones we have sampled have all been savory. They have a variety of fillings, of both meat and vegetables; my favorite has been pork. There are also larger steamed buns, more like rolls, that may or may not have a filling like a sweet bean paste. Another treat is the tea, which is delicious with many local varieties that are touted as having specific medicinal qualities. My favorites so far are jasmine and oolong. The best food experience for me (and I expect to have more) was having a bowl of fresh noodles cooked in a delicious spicy broth in a tiny local restaurant (four chairs) in Pingyao. It cost 10 yuan ($1.50) and was so tasty.

I will end this “food blog” with a quote from a book Joe is reading (Chinese Philosophy on Life. ) In it, the author describes the importance of mealtime in Chinese culture.

When dining out in China at restaurants where local people go, it becomes clear immediately that the dishes placed on the table are not specifically for those who have ordered them, but are to be shared. On a fresh dish being served, the host or hostess picks out the choicest morsels for their guests, who reciprocate. A dinner generally begins with a warm-up period, when small talk, courtesies, and toasts are exchanged. Things then liven up. Table conversation becomes animated, with much joking and laughing. The whole scene takes on a more familial ambience until a moment of supreme harmony is reached when discord born of class difference, personal prejudice, or the generation gap momentarily dissolves, and a feeling of shared warmth prevails. All present feel cheered and secure within the ethos of harmony.

While he was discussing China, I think his comments could apply to a lot of the places we have visited going around the world. Food is truly the “tie that binds”

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

June 1

X’ian

(Can’t get photos to insert,will try later)

We are in X’ian, which was the capital of China beginning around 200 BCE and lasting for more than a thousand years. In those days it is said to have contained a population of over one million and was the largest city in the world—with an elaborate system of domestic water, sewers and streets. Today its population is almost nine million, having doubled in the last twenty years and is one of the most dynamic cities in China though probably not in the top ten in size.

Our high speed train from Pingyao arrived here in about three hours where we were met by our guide and driver and taken to the luxurious, downtown Hilton Hotel, a ride of over an hour and a half. The new train station in X’ian is spectacular and located in a outer suburb with new roads and towering, mostly empty skyscrapers—the same situation we witnessed the first day we arrived in China. Eventually we reached the second ring road where signs of life started to appear, and minutes later we found ourselves in another bustling Chinese City with 50 story apartment houses everywhere and busy streets lined with shops.

We spent two full days here. The first day involved an hour’s ride out of the city to see the famous Terra Cotta Warriors and the second day a tour of the city when we visited two pagodas/temples dating back to the 900s, the city museum and a few lesser sights. That afternoon Embry rented a bike in the rain and peddled along the top of the ancient wall of the old city. For lunch that day we were treated to a “banquet “ of dumplings, 15 different varieties in all, in the “best dumpling restaurant in X’ian.”

The Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit has been labeled in some books the eighth wonder of the world, and there is no way to do it justice here. Some 8,000 clay, life size, human statues of warriors were unearthed beginning in 1972, the first one by a local farmer who discovered fragments in his well. (He was at the museum signing autographs and Embry got it on the book we bought.) Excavation has been going on ever since, and thousands more clay warriors are thought to remain under ground. The museum structures actually expand over the excavation site and are very impressive.

The clay warriors were placed in several tombs following the death, around 200 BCE, of the first Emperor of China, Emperor Qin, who it seems was the Mao Tse Tung of his day, destroying all things past, including most of the scrolls of Confucius, murdering all his enemies and ordering all the workers involved in his tomb construction to be buried alive with him so that no one would know how to replicate his elaborate tomb. (Others buried alive included all his concubines who did not bear children). In any event this sight is worthy of anyone’s bucket list.

The most interesting thing about the pagoda visits the second day is that the Chinese government has spent a lot of money restoring the temples and the pagodas since considerable damage was done by the Red Guard in the 1970s, very similar to what Putin has done with Russian Orthodox Churches in Russia. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em , as they say, or at least co-opt them. Our guide suggested that it was really all about tourism and trying to help the X’ian economy.

Our guide for the visit, “Diane,” turned out to one of the best yet and quite honest about the issues facing modern China. She has been a tour guide for over twelve years and has an eight-year-old son and a husband who works in the office of an electronics company. She openly discussed the abuses and hardships  of the Cultural Revolution. But she also mentioned that her parents were peasants and that her “middle class” life and her successful career were made possible by what happened then. Though current economic disparities may be creating a kind of new class system in China today, Communism under Mao did pretty much eliminate the old class system and created opportunities for peasants and for women who surely would not have had the opportunities they have today without the revolution.

X’ian is actually a terrific city, less imposing than Beijing and a bit less stress for tourists. It has great parks, lots of trees providing shade for pedestrians and more sights than you can see in two days. Sadly, we have seen few American tourists since we have been here and only a handful of Western Europeans. If you ever get to China, it should

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 29

Pingtao

We are now in Pingtao, located about 400 miles southwest of Beijing and the oldest and best preserved walled town in China, with a history dating back some 2,700 years and buildings dating back to the 900s. It is a miracle the Red Guard did not destroy this town in the 1960s when they were destroying everything else of antiquity that they could get their hands on. In fact we were told that had not Chou ordered the army to protect the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and other Chinese treasures, they would have destroyed them as well. But Pingtao was located in a forgotten, out-of-the-way place, and nobody thought much about it. In the 1980s when tourism was getting started again, somebody got the idea this might be a tourist destination. Bingo! Today it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in China, a World Heritage site and a well deserved one.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The trip from Beijing to Taiyuan was uneventful with our train arriving on time as has every single train we have taken during the entire trip. A city of over 3.5 million, Taiyuan is a center for manufacturing and mining and not a tourist attraction. We were met by Jenny, our guide for the next two days, who suggested we get out of this bustling, somewhat raw town as quickly as possible. After a quick lunch, we began the two hour-long drive to Pingtao. This was the first time we had been on Chinese highways. Our driver was excellent as was the driver in Beijing, but driving in China is not the same as driving in the US. At one point, I commented to Embry that this was the most terrifying ride I had ever been on, and then she reminded me that India was far worse because there in addition to wild and crazy drivers you also had sheep, cows, camels and even elephants to watch out for. Here it was mainly other drivers and huge 26-wheel, behemoth trucks.

Drivers in China also seem to drive with their horn as much as their steering wheels. The rule of the road here, as in India, seems to be that the big guy wins, so you can be as aggressive as you want with approaching smaller cars, but you do not mess with the behemoths. I was certain several times that a head on collision was unavoidable. The main issue has to do with the way the roads are designed. There are two fairly wide lanes and a shoulder, and for the most part the roads are new and in good condition. The problem is that the two-lane roads are wide enough so that there is actually room to pass in a non existent middle lane—barely enough. Of course, the roads are jammed with traffic, even in somewhat remote locations like the road between Taiyuan and Pingtao, and everybody passes all the time using the non existent, middle lane. This usually works out ok since the roads are wide enough to squeeze between the car or truck you are passing and the one coming at you from the opposite direction, but not if someone else coming from the other direction decides to pass at the same time. This is when the Big Guy Rule takes effect, so if the vehicle coming from the other direction is bigger—or God forbid, a 26 wheeler—you dodge back into an opening if one is available. Actually this is a lot like sailboat racing as boats vie for position when rounding the weather mark. While there is no “starboard right-of-way” or “room at the mark” rule, the slower cars seem to understand, slow down and give you a space to dodge into. If they don’t, it is curtains. But it is curtains for them too, so the other drivers oblige and make room. As for me, after awhile of watching this, I just tighten my seat belt, hold my breath, and put my hands over my eyes every time it is our turn to pass in the middle lane.

We made two stops along the way—one, a well preserved, walled village which in the 19th Century belonged to an extended wealthy family and the other a Buddhist temple dating back to the 900s. Getting to the Buddhist temple turned out to be a challenge since an elderly lady was positioned in the middle of the dusty road with her bike blocking our lane and several tin wash bowls laid out across the other lane. Cars were lined up patiently waiting in the other lane, but our lane was clear except for the bicycle. Both our guide and driver got out and walked over to the old lady where they both gestured consternation and disgust. A few minutes later they returned to report apologetically that she would not budge. Apparently her son had been injured by an automobile, lost a leg, and she was demanding reparations from all who passed by. It would have been very easy simply to pick up her bike and move it out of the way, but our driver and guide honored her wishes, and we drove on to find another way to get to the Buddhist temple. Since she was not asking for much, only a few yuan, I wondered why our guide did not just give her the money.

“No way,” Jenny said, “matter of principle.”

By late afternoon we reached Pingao, where we drove through heavy traffic and countless gas stations, mechanic shops and junk yards to reach the gate into the old city. There we abandoned the car–no cars allowed inside the walls–and boarded a golf cart, which took us, our guide and baggage down narrow streets and eventually to our hotel. The side streets were mostly empty, but the major streets with all the shops were jammed with people.

I am writing this post from the dining room of “Jing’s Residence,” which is a 15 room converted private mansion (along with other previous uses such as a photography studio and small factory) several hundred years old. Madam Jing, a wealthy business woman, purchased the abandoned building several years ago and over four years restored it to a world class boutique hotel with exquisite wood carvings and Chinese wall hangings and artifacts. It is a true gem and the nicest hotel yet. The only puzzling thing is that the first night we were the only guests, and last night there was only one other guest, a couple from Singapore. That has not kept us from enjoying the excellent food and service, however, or our comfortable and beautiful room.

But what really makes this special is that as I sit here and type out a blog post in the dining room, I get to watch the world pass by—people on bikes, some walking, many families with their one child in tow, some older folks with canes, some school groups—almost all Asian, mainly, I suppose, Chinese. I look at them. They look at me. I occasionally take a photo of them. The tourists—the ones with the Canon cameras, probably from Korea or Japan or Beijing– occasionally take a photo of me.

Directly across the street is a mom-and-pop street vendor selling soup, bottled water and other street food, and every now and then people stop there, though they seem to be mainly locals and not tourists, and some just hang out. The mother is there during the day. The father returns from work somewhere else late in the day, and we watch them and their teenage son enjoy dinner each evening as they watch us enjoy ours. Actually we are not really sure how many people live there because all sorts of people of all ages come and go all day. Next door to them is a small shop where an old man sits out front most of the time, and we are not sure what, if anything, he is selling, and next to him is a very modest residence where a mother and teenage daughter spend most of their time sitting on their front steps and like me, watch the world go by. I could sit here all day and not get bored.

So that is life in Pingtao. We did get a full walking tour of the city yesterday with our excellent guide, a very sharp young woman in her early thirties, and saw much but by no means all of the city. It is actually pretty big. The wall is square with each side being about a mile long, and there are well over a thousand ancient homes—all built along narrow, cobblestoned streets and all with courtyards and tile roofs. On any given day we are told there are over 500 vendors and tourists numbering well into the many thousands. Embry is out today on a bike exploring the parts of the city we did not see yesterday. I am taking it easy, still trying to recover from the Meltdown and enjoying watching the world go by.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 28

Pingyao

I thought you might be interested in some additional information on a very unique aspect of Chinese public policy, the One Child Policy, which Joe mentioned in his blog post today. This is something that has interested me for a long time, having started my career as a demographer and reproductive health researcher.

As China entered the 1950s, with many adult men having been killed in the war, the initial Communist Party policy was to encourage large families. (My recollection is that in the 1960s average fertility rates were high in China, as in many other parts of Asia, with family sizes averaging 5-6 children.) At some point, however, with the population of China rising very rapidly and poverty increasing, a complete turnaround in policy occurred.

Initially the government sought to reduce family size through voluntary methods and increased availability of modern family planning (including legal abortion). When that did not reduce family size fast enough, in 1980 the government introduced the One Child Policy. Through this policy, the government mandates that married urban couples can only have one child, unmarried women cannot have a child, and rural farmers can have two. (They know you meet the criteria for being a rural farmer by your “residency card,” by which the theoretical residence of a Chinese person is defined. Often they actually live elsewhere. This is a whole other complicated and controversial issue that seems to be at odds with Chinese liberal economic policies.)

The One Child Policy is enforced in a variety of ways. First, government propaganda portrays the “ideal” family as a mother, father, and one child. A social norm has been established leading to peer pressure to conform to the norm, just as in the U.S. the norm is two children with families having more or fewer seeming somewhat “unusual.”

There are also penalties, including most importantly the loss of a government job if you have a second child. Government employment is still considered to be the most desirable kind of job in China, in spite of the large private economy. One young person we met mentioned having a younger sibling; when we asked how that happened, she said that her parents did not work for the government, so they felt comfortable having another child since no one lost their job. In addition, local governments have population growth quotas and local “family” (a somewhat ironic term, since families do not determine their own family size) planning bureaus for enforcement. They may impose fines on families for having a second (or subsequent) child. This has led to resentment against the policy. The “long arm of the State” thus reaches into the homes of most Chinese families in ways that would not be tolerated in most other places in the world.

Apparently another social norm that has been established is an acceptance of abortion as a routine and acceptable form of “family” planning.  I read a rather chilling article in the Global Times—a free English paper passed out in hotels (and illustrating that some free press does exist in China)—about one jurisdiction that did not meet it’s “abortion quota.” That jurisdiction came under pressure from the central government for having a high birth rate, so it established an abortion quota on its local jurisdiction family planning bureaus. The assumption was that in order to keep the population in check, it was necessary to have a certain number of abortions, and if they did not they just were not doing their job. Pregnant women who already had a child were pressured by the government agency to have an abortion, leading to protests and the newspaper’s coverage. The idea of the government pressuring me to have an abortion really gives me the creeps.  As a typical female Democrat, I am solidly “pro choice,”  but this is quite a different twist on the pro-choice issue than the one we have at home.

On the other hand, we have witnessed what is an apparently positive result of this very onerous government policy. Everywhere in China you observe well-nourished, happy children. Each family has only one (it is very rare to see a family with two children, and perhaps those are often tourists from other parts of Asia), but that child always looks happy and often is surrounded by two loving parents and frequently grandparents. All adult family members obviously cherish the cute little one.

It is still the case that boys are more cherished than girls in many families, although this is changing as life shifts to the cities where girls have equal access to education and eventually jobs. But the sex-ratio is skewed towards more boy babies, showing that selective abortion is occurring. In that regard, I had an interesting conversation about Americans coming to China to adopt babies. My informant said that Chinese people find it strange that Americans want to adopt a child that has been rejected by their parents. Chinese people assume that there must be something wrong with a child placed in an orphanage. Why would someone want such a child? I pointed out that most of the children I knew who had been adopted in China were perfectly normal girls, and that perhaps they were only rejected because they were girls. She had to agree that this could be the reason, in order for parents to be allowed to “try again for a boy.”

In 2010 the One Child Policy was modified to allow couples who are both only children to have two children. Last year it was further modified to allow couples, only one of whom was an only child, to have two. Part of the reason for changing the policy is widespread dissatisfaction with the policy (due to some of the factors described above), but perhaps a more important reason is the distortions that the policy has created in the population demographics of China. First, there are more men than women. More importantly, when the cohort of parents of all these only children (people born between 1950 and 1980 or so) reaches old age they will have fewer young people to contribute to their pensions and look after them in old age. Just as with the top-down housing policies Joe discussed in an earlier blog, it appears that top-down family planning policies can lead to unintended consequences. There are many happy children in China now, but they will have many difficult responsibilities for their parents when they become adults. At that point the massive social experiment known as the One Child Policy will likely be a thing of the past.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 27

En Route to Taiyuan/Pingyao

We are on the bullet train to Taiyuan, a town about 350 miles southwest of Beijing. The 20-car train left exactly on time, and averaging about 185 mph, it is even smoother and fancier than the European high speed trains. Only twenty minutes after departing Beijing, we are in farm country with cultivated fields taking up every available inch of space, a large number of which are tree farms. The only problem is that it is hard to see the countryside because of the dense smog, which was present when we left Beijing, and after almost 100 miles is still so thick that visibility is limited to several hundred yards. While during our week in Beijing we experienced generally poor air quality, this day is by far the worst.

But what a week in Beijing it was! Despite temperatures near 100 degrees and my health problems ( I am continuing to slowly get my strength back), I was able to enjoy the experience. The second hotel we stayed in—the Red Garden Inn—was the best yet, a true gem of peace and serenity in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities. We enjoyed a farewell meal last evening with Pat and Chris (the couple on the tour who live in Ireland) in the peaceful courtyard of the inn. Our guide, Ben, was also terrific—well organized, smart, knowledgeable and flexible, a true master guide in every respect.

Ben(not his real name, of course, and it seems all the Chinese English speaking guides have Anglicized nick names) is 62. From age 17-25, when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, he was ordered by the government to work on a farm in Inner Mongolia. During this time colleges were closed so he missed that opportunity along with almost everyone else in his generation. He learned English on his own (and speaks extremely well), attended tour guide school in the late 1970s when China was starting to promote tourism and has been a guide ever since. His daughter recently earned a masters degree from Cornell and is living and working in New York City, and he has led several Chinese tourist groups to the US. Not one hint of remorse or sour grapes from him or for that matter any negative comments about the government. In fact despite what he experienced as a young man, he remains a fan of Mao.

I have to say that the China we have experienced so far is as clouded in mystery as the landscape we are racing through is clouded in smog. The construction that has taken place over the past 30 years has got to be a world record. Though there are some older areas like the Hutong District with tiny houses and narrow streets (now protected as a historic district, by the way) and we are told that some neighborhoods reflect extreme poverty (none that we have seen), what stands out is the newness of everything and the often stunning and generally tasteful architecture. But that is just the beginning: Trains are the best in the world. Unemployment is low and a huge middle class has been created. People seem to be happy, work hard, and always on the move. We have not seen one panhandler or any evidence of homelessness. Food is plentiful and delicious, restaurants crowded. Prices to us appear reasonable. And most miraculous of all: we have not seen one word of graffiti. Anywhere. Traffic and air pollution and overbuilding are big problems, but the Chinese are working on them. Many are fearful that economic disparities are eroding some of the gains made between 1980 and 2000 and the social safety net is eroding further, but despite this, on one level at least, we are witnessing one of the most spectacular turnarounds in world history.

On the other hand, though China is Communist in name only, it remains a totalitarian state. Freedom of speech is limited. There is no free press. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia are not accessible on the internet. You can’t get the New York Times on line. There are certain aspects of personal behavior, like the one child policy, which profoundly impact individuals. People whisper about cronyism and how high level officials get all the good deals. No one, however, criticizes the government very loud.

Mao’s image still appears prominently in Tiananmen Square and despite a legacy of an estimated 40 million deaths during the famine associated with  the Great Leap Forward and the upheavals of the  Cultural Revolution, is revered by many. One person told us that there is nothing available in school or anywhere else about the Cultural Revolution or the disasters associated with some of Mao’s “reforms” and that we probably know a lot more about that than the typical Chinese person does. (Compare Russia where Stalin is now viewed as an anti hero.)

So one question is why the iron fist. Thousands of Chinese study in US colleges every year. Thousands more Chinese now tour the US. It is not that Chinese people have no exposure to the West. What are the Chinese leaders afraid of when they are sitting on  a huge success story. Why not allow for more personal freedoms? I have asked this politically incorrect question to our various guides and have not gotten an answer. People do not go there.

One possible partial answer might be found in China’s 4,000 plus year history where centuries of empires and dynasties and tight government control have alternated with periods of decline, civil war and chaos. It could happen again. This is a country of almost 1.4 billion people, about sixty different ethnic groups, over 250 different dialects (but only one written language). Having experienced total chaos in the first half of the last century (and also during the Cultural Revolution), China is now in a period of stability and tight government control. It is producing wealth and has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of its citizens. Given their history of control or chaos, you can see how they could view the options as either/or. Providing more individual freedom could be viewed as a Pandora’s box. You open it up, and you don’t know what you will get. No one wants chaos. Their thinking may be that maintaining order with an iron fist is the price you have to pay.

Who knows? We still have almost three more weeks here. Perhaps the smog and mysterious clouds will thin out and we will begin to understand better what this extraordinary country is all about.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 26

Beijing

Body slam. The stress and rigor of the adventure finally caught up with me. I have loved, if not every minute, most every minute. My body has not. Body wins. “Level II Meltdown”. Time out.

So I am writing this blog on Tuesday from my bed in our quaint, boutique hotel in the old section of Beijing, the hutong or alley district. My collapse happened on Saturday.

The first two days in Beijing we were with the group in a five star business and tourist hotel, which was luxurious and elegant, but this 15 or 20 unit, ancient former residence is really special. Only three stories high it is tucked away on a quite alley and has a peaceful courtyard with an elaborate fountain and plenty of shaded tables used for outdoor dining—and the food is the best we have had in China. If you are going to get nailed and need a place to recuperate for a few days, this is it.

Embry has brought you up to date on many of the activities which unfortunately I have missed though on Saturday evening I did make a heroic effort and joined our group for a goodbye dinner of Peking duck and farewell toasts and speeches. I also went with the group for a tour on Friday of the Temple of Heaven, which frankly was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and now that Embry and I are on our own (which started Sunday) have visited with her and our private guide the largest Buddhist temple and monastery in China and a Temple and University related somehow to Confucius. Last night I managed to pull myself out of bed to join Embry for the Chinese opera. So given the circumstances (total exhaustion and horrible cold-like symptoms), I am doing pretty well. Today we went out for lunch and took a rickshaw ride through the hutong. No need to feel sorry for me.

In fact you should be proud of me because I single-handedly was able to obtain the one last essential document we need in order to be able to board the container ship, which departs in less than three weeks: an official health form executed by a certified Chinese physician that you are in perfect health. Furthermore, we had only a small window of opportunity to do this since it cannot be dated more than a month before you leave or less than two weeks. It dawned on us that Sunday was the only day that we could accomplish this without major inconvenience since our schedule was pretty much booked for the rest of the time in Beijing and who knows what would be available in the tiny villages we would be headed to next (one of which has a population of 35 million, but you get the point). And as luck would have it, there was a health clinic next door to the hotel.

There were two challenges: first finding a doctor that would agree to do the check up and second passing the exam. On Sunday I already had one foot in the grave. Any competent physician would take one look at me and order me to the hospital. This challenge would take all the ingenuity I could muster.

The strategy was for me to go first and check out the situation. I used all my strength to stagger over to the adjacent building, located the clinic, and tried to pull myself together. As I approached the receptionist, I was tempted to throw my myself at her feet and plead for a cure, any cure—herbs, acupuncture, drugs—to get me past the Level II Meltdown. But, alas, that would mean no papers for the container ship. So I took a deep breath, told the nurse what I needed and showed her the form (which had stuff on it like, have you ever had tuberculosis). In fact I explained it to her about six times before she gave up, asked me to sit down in the waiting room where a dozen or so Chinese were patiently waiting in this sparkling, modern office, and said she would talk to the doctor. In less than five minutes she motioned for me to come forward. There was the doctor—a 30-something, serious looking man with a puzzled look on his face.

Show time: I explained that my wife and I needed this stupid form filled out in order to cross the Pacific, that we were both in perfect health (that comment got a second look) and that all I needed was his signature at the bottom of the page for both forms. Then I produced two completed forms filled out by our Kaiser physician just before we left. Was this a brilliant idea or what? He looked over the Kaiser forms carefully, gave me another puzzled look, mumbled something like, ”Kaiser, know Kaiser,” shrugged his shoulders and then signed the forms—both of them. I wanted to hug him on the spot. I said “thank you” for as many times as I could before the nurse pointed me to the door, smiling.

“Charge?” I asked.

No charge, just best wishes for a nice trip.

Now is China a great country or what?

Or what? That will be the subject of subsequent blogs when I get my health back.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 24

Beijing

We have now been in Beijing for three days, and Joe suggested I type in my notes from my diary about what we have seen so far in this vast, bustling city. So here you go.

We enjoyed the beautiful scenery on the train from the Gobi Desert, which consisted of high mountains and valleys, just as you see in Chinese paintings through the ages. We arrived at the Beijing rail station about 10 am (dead tired from the 5 am wake-up in the Gobi). We met our local guide, and believe it or not we got on the bus and set off on a “forced march” to see the beautiful Temple of Heaven, the place of worship for China’s Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasty emperors. The site was number one on the list of top places to see in Beijing, given to us by our friends J.Vic and Judy from their recent trip to China. They described it as the “Taj Mahal and Angor Wat of China.” I agree that these ancient wooden buildings, continually painted and re-painted in bright colors, are stunning works of art. They were built beginning in the 15^th century, and miraculously they were saved from fire and other forms of destruction throughout that long period, including during the Cultural Revolution. While most of China’s temples were taken down under the Communists, a lot of credit is now given to the efforts of Chou En Lai for using his influence with Mao to save some of the most important parts of China’s cultural heritage.

The Temple of Heaven was initially built beginning in 1420 by the third Ming emperor, Yongle, who usurped the throne and moved the capital to Beijing. (He also built the Forbidden City, described below). The Qing emperors maintained and rebuilt the Temple when they (the Manchus) conquered China (keeping the Ming designs and layout of the grounds). The emperors worshiped there with other officials, praying to “heaven” (not exactly the same as praying to a “God” but rather to the forces of nature and the ancestors who intervene) and offering sacrifices for good harvests, victories over enemies, and other important national needs. (This reminded me of the role of the Pharaoh in ancient Egypt.) The empress was allowed to worship with the emperor once a year, but no other women and only a few public officials were allowed in the Temple complex. One of the most beautiful buildings is called the “Circular Mound” (although it’s a building, not a mound), which is similar in design to round Chinese temples dating back thousands of years. In 1911 the “feudal system” (the PC term used here today for all imperial dynasties) was overthrown, and the Temple grounds were opened up to the public. It is now a UN-designated World Heritage Site.

The next day was another “forced march,” although a great one. First we visited a pearl factory, on our way out of town to the Great Wall. Of course this is primarily a shopping opportunity, but we also saw how pearls are taken from the oysters. (We had seen a much more complete presentation of pearly making in Tahiti.)

The section of the Great Wall that we visited is about an hour and a half out of town and is in a beautiful, remote location surrounded by high mountains and forests. I took a pretty strenuous climb up steep steps to see two of the watchtowers. The stunning views and fresh breezes were a welcome change from hot, noisy, polluted Beijing, where it has been hard to see the sky each day.

The Great Wall was designed to keep out nomadic people invading China from the North (although it was ultimately unsuccessful). Still it is a mind-boggling construction project. It is a bit sad to contemplate that difficult labor; apparently at one time half the men in China were conscripted to work on it. On the other hand, it is almost a spiritual experience to walk up a passageway built so many centuries ago. It was built by the Ming Emperors but incorporated parts of the “long wall” started in the Qin Dynasty (around the time of Christ).

In the afternoon we visited the Ming Tombs, where numerous Ming Emperors (beginning with Yongle) are buried along with wives, concubines (in mass graves), children, and certain officials. There are elaborate wooden buildings, painted colorfully as with the Temple of Heaven. (These temples are not actually the graves, which are deep under the earth. Some have not even been found, although archeologists have been searching constantly for a long time. )

One of the nice things about this site is that the tombs are approached by the Spirit Road, where the Emperor processed to visit his ancestors each year and down which he was taken when he died. (I suppose he had some interesting thoughts as he made that journey, knowing that possibly the next time he went he would be in a coffin!) The Road is lined with beautiful carved statues and a lovely park that was not crowded the day we visited. The statues have been miraculously preserved given their age and the turmoil that China has experienced over the centuries. These statues represent–in an important order of priority as you process down the road–various dignitaries (not actual people, but types of people). The most important are officials in the emperor’s court, selected for their performance on exams, according to the Confucian system, not because of their relationship to the Emperor. Next come the warriors, followed by interesting animals representing strength (lions) and other qualities of the Emperor.

On our way back to town we drove through the Olympic Village and stopped at the “Birds Nest,” the main Olympic stadium, for a photo op. I had heard that it was designed by dissident artist Ai Wei Wei. Our guide, who must give PC commentary, said that “some in the West say it was designed by Ai Wei Wei.” There is definitely NOT freedom of speech in China! Facebook does not work at all, and our guide warned us ahead of time not to ask about the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989 while we are in the square. “There are police there; do not ask any political questions.”

After this we visited a tea shop and had a tea ceremony, where we sampled several delicious teas. (I liked the Oolong the best.) Again, this was a “shopping op,” but an enjoyable one. That was the end of another VERY exhausting day. (Joe stayed back at the hotel, nursing his “Joe crud.” I am so sorry he is missing all these interesting sites and experiences, but he visited Beijing in 1985 and did get to the Great Wall.)

The next day we visited two very crowded places, Tiananmen Square and the adjacent Forbidden City. This was Saturday, and Chinese families seemed to make up most of the crowd. They were in family groups from babies to grandparents. (All but one family that I observed had just one child, and all the children were seemingly happy and beloved.) Many of the Chinese tourists and all the others were clustered in groups around umbrellas held up by guides trying to keep their stray ducks in order.

The square still has the ubiquitous picture of Mao. This is repainted and rehung each year, and it has been redesigned three times. When I showed the picture to Joe he noticed immediately that it was much smaller and that Mao looked older than the picture he remembered. The memory of Mao is an interesting issue in contemporary China. Many older Chinese still revere him, and many younger people are aware of the problems he caused and do not. Our guide said it’s about 50/50, in terms of who likes him. In contrast, she said almost all (90%) revere Chou En Lai and 60% revere Deng Xiaoping. All three of these Communist leaders are buried in a mausoleum on the square. Chinese people were lined up in a very long line to see them. (Luckily, we didn’t go.)

Then we visited the vast complex of the Forbidden City where the Ming and Qing emperors resided. There are many, many massive wooden structures, all colorfully painted. The Emperor lived here with his wife, children, concubines, and the eunuchs who took care of them. (Did I hear right that one of the emperors had 20,000 concubines. Could that possibly be true?)

While it is possible to go inside many of the buildings, they are largely empty of the huge collection of furniture, paintings, and documents accumulated over centuries. These were mostly hauled off by the Chinese nationalists when they fled to Taiwan, where they now apparently can be seen in a museum. (Not surprisingly, this is one of many points of conflict between the two countries.) Still the architectural details are so beautiful. I particularly like the carved marble balustrades, each of which has a beautiful carving of a dragon. I also like the ceramic processions of people, animals, and gargoyle-like monsters that grace the roofs of the pagodas.

We climbed the hill to a Buddhist temple at the top, where it was possible to look down on the whole vast complex. It is so easy to understand why there was a revolution overturning imperial rule. The whole thing was set up and maintained for the benefit of one person, and financed by the labor of everyone else in the country. While it lasted for centuries, at last something had to change and it finally did. The results are still evolving, but no one in China seems to have a bit of nostalgia (in contrast to Russia) for those “feudal times.”

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 22

Beijing

We cleared Mongolia customs and China passport control without much ado. Hans proudly announced that he had “worked out a deal” with the Mongolian army troops guarding the border to move all our luggage for us (which they did in style, goose stepping and saluting). I don’t know if Hans had to pay off anyone else and we did not ask. We said goodbye to our extraordinary guide, Katya, as we all lined up to give her a hug and wish her well for her marriage in August. Our guide for the next three days will be Chinese. When we arrive in Beijing, Hans informed us we will have traveled almost 8,000 kilometers or almost 5,000 miles. Combine that with our journey to get to Moscow and my estimate is that we are close to the 10,000 mile mark. We are also just over half way in terms of time (day 69), so that makes sense.

So on to China! We are going to be here for almost a month, so we will see and learn much. The first three days we will be with our Siberian tour group, which will visit the major tourist sights in Beijing. Then when the tour breaks up, we will be met by the first of several private guides in various cities, who will guide us along the itinerary we arranged through Asia Trans Pacific.

This is not my first time in China. I visited China in 1986 as part of a US Delegation on housing. The idea was to bring US housing development expertise to China, which at the time was just coming out of the Cultural Revolution. The timing was perfect. Nixon’s ping pong diplomacy had broken down barriers, and the Chinese were anxious to be our friends. They clearly could use some help since we were told that no new housing construction had taken place for over 15 years. There was literally nothing new in the country. The only thing close to a high rise were the colonial administrative buildings built by the Brits in Shanghai in the Nineteenth Century, and they were under 10 stories. The Chinese infrastructure was old and falling apart. Hardly anyone owned a car. Both heating and cooking were usually accomplished by charcoal burning stoves. Electricity was limited and unreliable. Roads were often narrow and unpaved. Buses were always jammed packed and subways non existent. There was only one first class hotel in all of Beijing,

The Chinese were eager to move on. We told them to build houses. They did. I was looking forward to seeing what they looked like.

I was soon to find an answer. We found ourselves in the border town of Erlian when we emerged from passport control. Chinese buses transported us from the border to a hotel where we were greeted by our new Chinese guide, Lily, had lunch of countless, delicious Chinese food dishes, which just kept coming, and took a tour of Erlian, which included the new Dinosaur National Park (the site of numerous bone discoveries) and then the rest of the area. The dinosaur museum, which opened a few years ago, occupied several hundred acres at the edge of the Gobi desert and included three museum buildings displaying dinosaur bones and rocks. Several dozen bronze and metal replicas of various types of dinosaurs were placed in seemingly random spots in the desert surrounding the buildings. The overall quality of the exhibits and design of the buildings were quite good. However, except for a couple of local visitors (One, a father, asked if he could pose with us for his wife to take a photo.), the 100 or so people in our group were the only people visiting the museum, making the experience a bit weird.

After an hour and a half of wandering around among the dinosaur statues (which was about an hour more than we needed), we boarded the bus for a tour of the city, which was described as a very small town—about 120,000 people—without much of interest except the dinosaur park. Basically we were killing time until we could board the train headed for Beijing.

It was only minutes before we were on a divided, four-lane main street, which went on for mile after mile. Side streets were also wide and most included wide sidewalks and separate paths for bikes, and these side streets extended at right angles from the main street almost as far as you could see. New trees had been planted along the roads.

For the first few miles brand new, huge apartment complexes of 10-15 stories lined the main street and many of the side streets. Then you would drive for a block or two past vacant lots with only sand and scrub brush, and then on the next block would be more high rises, most of them very attractive. One building in the distance looked at lot like the famous opera building in Sydney, Australia. Many other structures were under construction. I stopped counting after awhile, but there had to be tens of thousands of units in hundreds of brand new buildings. Parks and plazas appeared every few blocks and then more open space with more statues of dinosaurs. A city planners dream, I thought, remembering the New Town Movement from my city planning school days in Chapel Hill. Toward the end where there was a huge overpass created by two huge dinosaur sculptures, we stopped to take photos. A large wind farm surrounded the sculptures with windmills stretching into the horizon.

There was only one thing missing from all this: people. They were nowhere to be seen. We were in fact driving trough a modern day ghost town. No people, no cars, vacant storefronts. It could have been a movie set.

When I asked our guide to explain what was going on, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say she did not know what I was talking about. So I asked specifically, how many of these new buildings were occupied, to which she replied, not many. When I pressed harder, she shrugged again and commented casually, “Nobody wants to live here. Cold in winter, hot in summer, no jobs.”

Welcome to the New China!

Embry commented, “Well, when you were here in 1986, you told them to build houses and they followed your advice. Maybe you should be a little more careful what you say next time.”

Whether this is representative of the New China or not is yet to be determined. When I asked Hans about it, he said that while there is a lot of overbuilding in China, eventually most of these new cities fill up, and it is a delicate balancing act to coordinate job creation with housing production. Thinking back again to my Chapel Hill days, I remember that in our own New Town Movement in the US in the 1960s, most federally insured new towns failed initially because of that same problem—not having the jobs to attract the people. While the development effort in Erlian     appears out of sync with housing demand, Hans says there are many more examples of similar efforts that have created new towns with millions of people, all happening within one or two decades. The next day our train would pass by one of those “new towns,” and we would get a glimpse for ourselves.

The evening following the tour included a stop at a surprisingly huge and bustling market (So despite the empty buildings, plenty of people must be living in the old part of Erlian.) and a “hot pot” dinner (Mongolian specialty) in a hotel in the old part of town. After dinner we boarded a commercial train to Beijing, which like every other train we have been on, departed exactly on time—this time at 9:16 pm. The train was very much like the Russian train, which had been our home for over a week and somewhat newer with elegant finishes to the compartments. Toilets—emptying directly onto the tracks—were at each end of our car, and we shared a wash room with Joyce, who was in the next compartment.

We woke up very early the next day—around 5:30 am—and spent the time watching the scenery, which was as spectacular as you will ever see—towering jagged peaks, going straight up with a sparkling river winding through the valley below the train tracks. Small, ancient villages with dusty, dirt streets and crumbling walls and tile-roofed homes appeared from time to time; and when the valleys widened, we could see farmers with traditional round hats in the fields, bending down, planting and weeding.

Along the way we also passed through several larger towns. One of these was Zhangiakou. What made this interesting was that the ancient, dusty villages lining the railroad tracks were just like the other villages we had passed except that right behind them were gigantic, modern 20-30 story apartment buildings, which extended for miles. Unlike in Erlian, however, there was plenty of activity on the streets. Hans later told me the city had grown in the last 10 years from a few hundred thousand to over three million. Tower cranes everywhere indicated the growth was still going on.

As our train got closer to Beijing, the mountains disappeared, and we soon found ourselves in the middle of a vast landscape of concrete and brick and marble buildings towering into the sky. Some were showing their age, but the vast majority appeared very new and for the most part very attractive. If I had been blindfolded and suddenly had it removed and asked where I was, I would have guessed maybe Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or perhaps Miami along Biscayne Bay. Who knows? Some glitzy, growing city on the make, flexing its muscle, strutting its stuff, with new, showy buildings, some gorgeous, some not, expensive shops for rich people to spend their money, fancy restaurants–exactly the kind of place that I would definitely not want to live in. And then I recalled the images of 1986, less than 30 years ago, of the drab, grey decaying buildings, the bike-filled streets and signs of poverty everywhere and wondered if this could possibly be the same place.

Is this China? Are we really in Beijing? Or is it just a dream?

We have about three more weeks to find out.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

May 19

Ulan Bator

When we were in Mongolia, we had the option to stay overnight in a “ger” (which is the Mongolian word for the more-commonly used term “yurt.”) Apparently in past years this early part of the season (the snow has only recently melted) has been “iffy” for ger-sleeping, due to extremely cold weather, so we were not encouraged to do this (in fact we were discouraged). However, when I read about this option long ago when we signed up for the trip, I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to do, since I love sleeping out in the wilderness, and being in the Mongolian wilderness sounded amazing. I was the only one of our group of 18 who chose to do it!

The following is the excerpt from my diary describing my overnight ger stay, which I took with my own personal English-speaking Mongolian guide, Baggi:

We made our way with a driver through the awful traffic of Ulan Bator out of town and through the beautiful countryside of Mongolia. It is extremely arid, all brown now, with some green grass peeping through and some wildflowers.

All sorts of animals graze in flocks with shepherds, usually on horses. (In the course of the trip we have seen horses, cows, sheep, goats, yaks, and camels.) Regardless of the species, all the animals are short, stocky, and with plenty of shaggy hair. This allows them to survive the harsh Mongolian winters by grazing in the snow. For the winter they are often on their own, especially the cows and yaks, who seem to know how to wander for food and get back home. Now is the time of calving and foaling, and there are lots of newborns in the herds. All of these animals are milked, and there are a variety of specialized milk products from each type. For example, horse milk is fermented overnight and drunk the next day (and not made into cheese). Cow and goat milk is made into cheese, etc.

When we reached the “ger camp,” we were in a beautiful, remote place which has been somewhat spoiled (but not much) by several of these camps, which have been developed for tourists (including Mongolians themselves from the city who like getting back to nature). Each camp has about 30 gers, as well a central facility with toilets and an eating hall. Ours was very nice. There were numerous staff, about 25, but It was confusing to me what their jobs were. Some were in the kitchen, some maintained the facilities, some stoked the fires in the gers, and some apparently are just sitting around waiting for more tourists to show up since it is very early in the season. The night I stayed only three gers were occupied, one for me, one for my guide, and one for an adventurous Swedish couple who are taking the “regular” Trans-Siberian to Beijing and just got off and Ulan Bator for a ger stay.

A ger is a round Mongolian house made of fabric (canvas, I think) that is a rather standard size, regardless of family size. These are used by many Mongolian families, no matter how large, and you see them in towns or in the countryside. They are completely round with a peaked roof, out of which goes the stove pipe. Some light comes in at the top, but there are no other windows. The style or color outside (off-white) does not seem to vary very much from place to place. While the outside is plain, the inside is quite colorful with painted wooden spokes that hold up the ger fabric and colorful painted furniture.

That night we had dinner in the central facility, and they stoked up my fire. The wood stove is necessary because it gets very cold at night. When the fire is going, it is very warm in the ger, and when it is not going, it gets very cold after sunset. Luckily, I had packed my “cat burgler suit” (so named by my friend, Sue Dodds, because it is tight fitting and solid black). Purchased it some time ago at REI for a sailing trip in the Puget Sound, this hooded fleece garment always warms me up, and luckily I had packed it for this very occasion. I put it on after supper and was never really cold afterwards.

When it got dark at 10:30 my guide took me stargazing up the hill. It was amazing to see the stars and Milky Way slowly appear in the vast Mongolian sky. Afterwards, with my warm clothes and four blankets, I stoked up the fire and slept like a baby.

After a great breakfast with Baggi and the Swedish couple, we set off walking across the nearby hills. We stopped at the home of a nomadic family (prearranged, I’m sure) for another breakfast with traditional food, including Mogolian tea (which is drunk with salt and not sugar) and dried goat cheese (which has a very savory—almost bitter—taste). Their ger was similar to the one I slept in but houses a family of five, with beautifully painted furniture inside. It also had the father’s medals from horse riding contests hung around on display.

We took a fairly strenuous walk up into the hills, where we saw a tree with prayer flags. Apparently this is a place where shamans come to offer prayers. Baggi is concerned about environmental issues, including one that is uniquely Mongolian. They used to have prayer flags made of silk which typically lasted only a couple of years. Now the prayer flags are made of plastic, and they never go away, a situation which apparently kills the trees.

Baggi is interested in birds, and we saw some on the walk, which he identified for me. It was interesting to see the magpies in their large nests.

After this we hiked down to the paved road where we were picked up by the bus with the rest of the group, who had driven out from town for the afternoon. I was able to tell them (trying not to gloat) what an amazing experience they missed!

In the afternoon we had a “typical” outdoor Mongolian barbecue, and then saw a nice show including two amazing musicians singing and playing on traditional Mongolian stringed instruments. One of the men sang in the traditional style called throat siging, which is difficult to describe. It is wordless for the most part. He sings both extremely low (sounding like a bass fiddle) and extremely high, sounding like a bird or a flute.

Then we saw some traditional Mongolian wrestling, archery, and horse racing. Mongolian racing resembles sumo Japanese wrestling; all ages and weights wrestle against each other, and there are almost no rules. The archers are both male and female. The horseback riders are old and young. These are the three big Mongolian sports, and there is a huge national competition in each sport every July.

We went back to town and again boarded the train headed for the border, sleeping on our Russian train one last time. Early the next morning we awoke in the Gobi Desert. It is a vast expanse of brown/beige sand, with some minimal foliage, somewhat like parts of Arizona. Astonished, I looked out the window and saw what I thought was a herd of horses, which turned out to be a herd of camels running very fast, herded by a rider on horseback. Then the train stopped and the camels and rider came up near to the train. Hans (our tour leader, the “big boss,” a very nice and out-going German, who speaks multiple languages fluently, including Chinese) had apparently arranged for this touristic “photo-op” stop. So most of us got off and put our feet down in the gobi Desert, which was actually pretty fun, if a bit surreal, even more so when the Mongolian musicians who had entertained us the night before hopped off the train and began playing and singing in the Gobi Desert surrounded by camels.

You wondered what those camels and their herder thought of these strange Europeans and Americans and all of their elaborate cameras. From the look of the camels, who were milling around and munching the occasional bit of desert grass, it looked like they felt it was all in a day’s work. The herder himself seemed rather amused (especially since he was going to be paid an unknown sum). He came right up, lay down, and listened attentively to the music, while his camels started roaming out into the desert. No problem. When the concert was over and it was time for the train to leave, he hopped on his horse, rounded up the camels easily, and headed off across the desert.

(Joe: As we returned to the dining car for breakfast around 8:30, we pondered two profound questions: how did Hans ever find these guys and how much did he pay them. But you have got to hand it to Hans. This guy knows how to run a tour and show his flock a good time.)

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!