June 13

Shanghai

Last time I wrote about food. This time I will write about toilets. What goes in must come out. If you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

Thus, when you travel one of the most important challenges is finding a toilet. One lucky fact is that, next to “OK,” probably the most recognizable word in the world is “toilet” (or some similar version of that word or the word “WC”). Adding a question mark or gesture creates, luckily, an understandable question: “Toilet?”

As we travel around the globe, we have confronted a variety of interesting situations toilet-wise. We eased into the “world of toilets” with the Holland-American Cruise line which was just like home. In Western Europe, the biggest question was how to find one. We soon learned in Spain, for example, that it was best to rely on buying an espresso. With that decision you had three benefits in one: a delicious espresso, some nice people-watching, and free access to the toilet. In the other European cities we visited there were actually some public toilets scattered around, but you had to know where they were, so cafes were the best bet there too.

We noticed a good technological innovation in Europe that has not reached home yet, the two-button flusher on the back of the toilet,: press one button to flush “number one” and two buttons (with more water) to flush “number two.” This saves water. Why don’t we have this?

There is also that extra bowl you find in many European bathrooms, especially in France. There is the sink, the toilet, and “that other thing” (called a bidet). Americans get perpetually confused with what to do with this item: pee, wash feet, wash clothes, or what? (I won’t go into it here…)

Toilets got more interesting as we crossed Asia and got into Siberia. There we confronted new toilet challenges, beyond where to find one, in particular the squatting toilet. With this toilet, you place your feet beside the bowl and squat down. This is probably the most prevalent form of toilet world-wide, and I have read that it is healthy. It certainly keeps you limber!

Tour guides must be constantly aware of how to plan for toilet availability. Not paying attention to this issue probably can lead to lots of complaints and fewer tips. (They must teach a course on getting clients to the toilet at the right time in “tour guide school.”) Our first Chinese tour guide gave a fifteen minute “toilet lecture” on our first day in the country. The Chinese do not seem to be a prudish people; she was very comfortable discussing toilets at length in front of a large mixed group of males and females. She said that she had a four level classification system for toilets, with those ranked “1” as the worst and those ranked “4” as the best. Grade 1 toilets are co-ed, squat toilets with no doors and no toilet paper. (“We don’t take our customers to those.”) Grade 2 toilets are co-ed, squat, and there are doors but no paper. (“We only take our customers there when someone is really desperate.”) Grade 3 toilets are single sex with doors,  but no paper.   (“This is what we usually have available for our customers.”) Grade 4 toilets are single sex,  and with paper. (“These are really great toilets!”)

We listened to her talk, and someone (a female) shyly raised her hand to ask this question. “What about sit toilets vs. squat toilets? Does that affect your grade?” Our guide laughed at that question and answered, “In China those sit toilets are for handicapped people or Westerners. They usually have those in big hotels, and you will find one or two in each big tourist bathroom. You can use it if you want to.”

It is amusing to me to see the American and Western European ladies lined up to use the “handicapped” toilet while there are empty stalls for the squat toilets. Perhaps because of my time in Africa and other less developed countries, I am usually happy for any kind of toilet. “When you got to go, you got to go.” Call it a free yoga class. (And I always carry a wad of tissues in my pocket.)

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June 10

Haungshan

Our river cruise boat made it through the five locks in the Three Gorges Dam in about five hours beginning around 10:00 pm, at which time, of course, we were asleep. The next morning we toured the dam along with everyone else on the boat. Big dam. Then we headed down stream for the last of the Three Gorges, the “most treacherous,” due to its fast current, completing the river journey in the “small town” of Yichang, population 1.5 million, and the place where most of the Yamaha pianos in the world are made. A transportation service met us and deposited us at the huge new, very crowded high speed rail station in time for the usual on-the-second departure, this time 2:30 pm. A good Samaritan helped getting the bags on the overhead rack.

We were off to Hefei. (or “He Fei,” you see it both ways.) What did I know about this city before hand or why we were going there? Nothing. You could ask how two elderly travelers could stumble through China with no idea where or why they were going to the next destination. In our weary defense all I can say is it is a pretty long trip, it is hard to keep up with all the moving parts, and we like surprises.

A bunch of surprises were ahead of us. We were met at 7:17 pm at another behemoth station by our new guide, “Ellen,” who was actually standing on the platform, a no-no in these stations, only passengers allowed. If you want to get an idea of how big the new, high speed rail stations are, think Dulles Airport terminal. She explained she “had connections,” and charged toward the exit with Embry’s bag in tow with Embry at her heals. I staggered not far behind. Hefei was only an overnight stop to allow us to go to the main attraction the next day, Huangshan, or the Yellow Mountains, said to be the most beautiful mountain range in China, which we learned from Ellen. She is in her early thirties, married with a three-year-old son, and does not have a seventy-year-old grandmother. In fact her grandmother died a few years ago in her early eighties. Could spell trouble, I thought, since we no longer had a compelling, anti-forced-march tactic. It turned out that of all the terrific guides we have had, Ellen was the most knowledgeable and the most honest; and since we traveled with her in the car for several hours, we learned a great deal about her personal life and about modern China, most of which I will have to save for a subsequent blog post.

That evening we collapsed after a good Chinese meal at our luxury Westin Hotel and were sort of rested and ready to go at 9:30 am the next day (negotiated down from an 8:00 am departure).

In checking out I heard an American voice at the spot next to me and commented to him, “Another American!”

“Not many of us here,” he said smiling. “In fact you are the first I have seen in the week I have been here.”

We briefly told each other what we were doing here, and it turns out he is a Harvard Business School professor (late 30s) on a Sabbatical and also going around the world, studying various economies, having spent the last several months in China.

To my question as to what he thought about the New China, he said, “This is frankly the most extraordinary thing that I have ever experienced. I still cannot believe it. Here we are in Hefei. Who ever heard of Hefei? Hell, there are over 7 million people who live here. It barely qualifies as a ‘medium sized’ city by Chinese standards. There has been nothing like the capital investment in housing and infrastructure in such a short period of time in all of world history.”

I asked,“Do you think this is going to bite them, all the overbuilding and whatnot?”

“You bet.”

But, sadly, there was no time to go into depth because Ellen and the driver were waiting, rested and raring to go. We wished each other good luck and off we went , headed to Huangshan.

Did we know anything about Huangshan? Of course not. But we learned from Ellen that it is a very beautiful mountain except that a good portion of the year it is shrouded in clouds, often with zero visibility. With rain two out of every three days and over 80 inches of annual rainfall, she could not promise anything.

Off we went. Three hours later we were at the tiny village at the base of the mountain, which naturally was invisible due to the clouds and rain. We took a bus going pretty much straight up for a half hour, then a cable car for 15 or 20 minutes up to where the mountain peak—1,700 meters or 5,500 feet–was supposed to be though nothing was visible. At the top we donned our rain outfits and started out in the fog and midst. (We had left our bags behind and carried only a small backpack with essentials.)  Our hotel was about a mile and a half away and accessible only on foot. Ellen said it was “a bit up and down” and usually took two hours. For seasoned walkers like us, a mile and a half in two hours seemed awfully long. We should be able to do this in maybe 40 or 50 minutes max.

Two hours later we finally reached the hotel, totally exhausted and in my case thankful I had not broken a leg or worse.

Shortly after we started the walk the magic began. If you looked closely, actually you could make out steep cliffs and high peeks, which at times became more visible. The whole experience had a fairyland feel to it. It rained on and off and toward the end of our walk was raining steadily. There were few people on the mountain besides us, and we were engulfed by a strange, eerie silence with the only sounds from an occasional bird or the wind sweeping clouds and mist past us. The name Huangshan means “yellow mountains,” but that has nothing to do with color but rather the association (somehow, I never fully understood it) with heaven. We were on a mountain considered by some to be heaven.

We tediously made our way up and down steps toward our destination. That for me was the problem. Before we finally reached our hotel, according to the iPhone 6 health app, we had climbed the equivalent of 15 flights of stairs and descended 25 flights. These steps were not typical of what we have in the U.S. They were narrower and steeper and very wet and slippery. In one instance looking down on what had to be at least 500, very steep steps with no hand rail on either side and cliffs below, I came very close to panicking. One false step and you were history. The solution to steady my shaky knees–and nerves– was to place one hand on Embry’s shoulder and one hand on Ellen’s and to inch down. A bit embarrassing, but that is the stage of life I am in. For the record for the two days we were on the mountain, I did not see a whole lot of people who looked like they were in their seventies.

We finally made it to a surprisingly elegant hotel (incredibly, one of six on the peak) and celebrated our victory at the fancy hotel lobby bar (like all hotel bars, never any Chinese customers and few customers of any nationality) with a triple Chevas Regal on the rocks for me, white wine for Embry. I had to explain how to fix the triple-on-the-rocks several times to the bartender (and so you won’t be alarmed, one shot of whisky in China is one-half ounce max.) That night I had trouble sleeping because of the fear of getting back the next day. Going up the steps was do-able, going down a nightmare.

As luck would have it, we awoke the next morning to blue skies overhead–the first blue sky we had seen the entire time we have been in China–and clouds beneath the mountains. Jackpot! You get this kind of weather only a handful of times each season. The scenery was beautiful the day before in the rain and mist, but on a day like this it was incomparable. The word must have gotten out because the mountain was packed with people. Where did they all come from?

All I can say is that Shangri La does exist, and it is here on Huangshan Mountain. Another one of these Chinese sleepers. Maybe most of the world knows about this place, but of course we didn’t. This was one of the most delightful surprises yet.

There are two perplexing questions about this magical place: how did they build six luxury hotels in the first place? They are on a mountain over 5,000 feet tall and 3,000 feet above the nearest road. Second, how do they get food up and trash down the mountain? There are over 2,000 hotel rooms up here. Can you imagine the food, beverage, and trash requirements? I never really got an answer to the first question, but as to the second, over 150 porters hike up the steep trails every day carrying up supplies and carrying down trash, a perilous hike of three hours each way.

After the hike back, which turned out to be much easier than the day before because the steps were not slippery and there were more steps up (25 flights) than down, we took the cable car down, then the local bus, which let us off near the restaurant where we had lunch the day before and had left our luggage. As always, our driver was patiently waiting.

That afternoon we took the back roads through lush valleys and tiny villages with white houses, mainly following a roaring stream. We made a stop at famous World Heritage site that afternoon (quaint and picturesque) and eventually arrived at our Crown Plaza Hotel alongside a wide river in Huangshan, a “small” town of about 200,000. This is also Ellen’s home town and she was proud to give us a quick tour of the gated community she lives in. This is a typical new development with many high rises and lots of stores, a kindergarten, a supermarket, and various community amenities. Her family of four (her mother is the live-in baby sitter for her three year old, and commutes every week from the farm where she and her husband live ) has lived here in their three bedroom, 1,200 square condominium for four years (original cost $50,000 plus around $15,000 for interior finishes, things we take for granted in the U.S. but not provided by builders in China.) She loves it.

“This is a dream come true. Just think, I grew up on a tiny farm in a tiny village and never dreamed I would ever leave. Then I got in a good university [in Shanghai], got a good education and have a career. Unlike my grandmother who did not meet her husband until the day of the marriage or even my parents who had sort of an arranged marriage, I married whom I wanted to. I am a professional. I live where I want to and can say and do what I want to. Tourists often ask me about the New China. The New China is great!”

We settled in early after a buffet dinner in order to be ready to head out early to Hangzhou the next morning. Every day is a new adventure in this county of infinite surprises.

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June 8

En route to He Fei Nan via high speed train

The three day cruise down the Yangtze is over. If you ever have a chance to go from Chongquin to Yichang on the Yangtze River, do it. There is nothing I can write or any photograph I can take that will do it justice.

Like everything else in China it is supersized—not quite as long as the Nile but much more water flow. The portion of the river we cruised on was about 700 kilometers or just over 400 miles, beginning in the largest city in China and flowing past perhaps a half dozen large towns or cities before we stopped in Yi Chang Dong. In the Yangtze River basin live almost half a billion people, over a third of China’s population. Most of the county’s fertile and productive farm land is here, producing more than half of all food in China. While you see a number of good size cities as you cruise along, because of the tall mountains, much of the time you think you are in the wilderness. In one sense the Yangtze River and its wide basin is the very soul of China. How goes the river, goes China.

The boat we were on—the “Victoria Grace”—is part of a fleet of seven ships owned by an American Company whose founder and CEO is a Chinese American. Our ship with a crew of 80, can accommodate 198 passengers but had only 119 on this cruise, due in part to the increasingly competitive nature of the river cruise business with lots of new boats owned by Chinese public/private joint ventures.

There are a number of things that stand out about Yangtze River journey. The first is that the trip is stunningly beautiful, in spite of–or perhaps because of–the mist and clouds that are forever changing the appearance of practically everything. The second is the several stops along the way for brief visits to pagodas, temples, or small tributaries. The third is the heavy commercial traffic that we continuously passed. And the last two are the special ones: coasting through the Three Gorges and seeing the Three Gorges Dam.

There are three areas on the river, the famous “gorges,” where it narrows and mountains and cliffs go straight up thousands of feet. Each gorge has a special Chinese name and varies in length, the first and “most beautiful” is only about 20 kilometers, the second, the “most magnificent,” is over twice that long and the third, below the dam and the “most treacherous is midway between the two The total amount of time spent marveling as you cruise through all three is probably only about three or four hours but time you will never forget.

After passing through the first two, which happens on Day 2, you hit the Three Gorges Dam, completed in 2006, the largest dam in the world and the largest public works project of any type, taking 17 years to complete and costing over $60 billion. The dam was controversial from the first time it was proposed by Sun Yat-Sin in the 1920s and remains so today. Over 1.3 million people were displaced and permanently relocated. Numerous archeological sites were impacted. The natural beauty of the gorges was diminished by flooding the areas where rapids occurred. Some say enormous ecological damage was done.

At the same time it seems to have accomplished its most important objectives—flood control, promoting and facilitating commercial traffic, and producing hydro electricity. Since we had not experienced the river in its “before” state, it is hard to know if the negatives outweigh the positives. But what I can say is that while the natural beauty of the place may have been altered, it remains today one of the most beautiful and holy places on the planet Earth.

The trip was fun in other ways as well—getting to know the Indian family I talked about in my previous blog, watching all the Chinese passengers (and 20 Korean ladies) have such a good time, and enjoying evening entertainment by the crew—costume show, folk dancing and fabulous singing by Aalayah, the USC student from India.

We are now on another high speed train headed for He Fei Nan, which I know nothing about and look forward to more surprises.

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June 6

On the Yangtze

We made it! We are on a river cruise ship on the Yangtze with a 115 other passengers, all of them Chinese or Korean. Frank Sinatra is singing one of his classic ballads, “The Best Is Yet To Come,” as we wait for the captain to welcome everyone. It is misty with a little rain, and in the fog you can barely make out the giant mountains towering overhead or the ghost-like silhouettes of passing barges and small container ships. It is pure magic.

Getting here turned out not to be all that hard. The high speed train got us to Chongquin in less than two hours through hills and mountains similar to what we saw en route to Chengdu where on our second day there we did see the Pandas (about 40 or so) and were quite impressed with the Panda Park, the largest in the world. (What in China isn’t the largest in the world?) We gave in and agreed to eat the “hot pot” lunch Carol insisted on (delicious) but took the afternoon and evening off, said goodbye to her the next morning, and were met in Chongquin around noon by “Sue.” Like Carol, she is a cute 20-something, who also has a grandmother, who happens to be age seventy.

Have you ever heard of Chongquin? We hadn’t, and if nothing else this trip has reminded us just how provincial we Americans are. The official number for the people who live here is 32 million, probably closer to 40 million unofficial, making it the largest city in China and perhaps the world. Its history goes back some 2,500 years. What is perhaps more remarkable is that the city is built on hills, most of them steep—much like San Francisco. Like everywhere else we have been, buildings are new and tall and often stunning, the opera house especially. It is probably the most dramatic cityscape we have seen yet. Because we planned to board the cruise ship around four, we only had time to visit the Three Gorges Museum (very impressive), stroll around the large central plaza in 90 degree heat and high humidity and grab a Chinese fast food lunch (not very good) in a national chain restaurant located between a Walmart and a KFC.

If you are confused by “official” population counts and the “unofficial,” it all has to do with a centuries-old government policy of requiring everyone in China to register according to where they were born (or in some instances where their parents were born), not where they actually live. In the past this requirement has been used by the dynasty or government in power to control mobility and enforce rigid laws, but during the past 35 years of unprecedented urbanization, the system has slowly been relaxed, and now people can live anywhere they can find a job and a place to live. Because actually changing your official place of residence is more complicated, many people do not do it, hence the two numbers.

We were driven to the Yangtze through horrendous traffic and parked at the top of an embankment several hundred feet above the fast flowing, brown river. Sue hired a porter to carry both suitcases, over 100 pounds, down the steep steps leading to the riverboat, which we boarded a little after four, spending the rest of the afternoon resting in our cozy cabin. At dinner all passengers were assigned a table, and because we were the only two English speakers, we got a large table to ourselves.

During the orientation presentations, the talks were translated into English so all the English speakers could understand. The presenter would talk for awhile and then there would be applause. Then the English translation would happen (barely understandable) and we would applaud at the same points in the speech when the Chinese had applauded minutes before, only the two of us, which drew a few chuckles from the Chinese audience.

We later learned that Chinese tourism is actually a very new phenomena since until a few years ago, few Chinese were allowed to travel at all. Only five years ago according to the ship’s tour director (a Bulgarian), 90% of the passengers on a river cruise ship like ours would be American or European. Now almost everyone is Chinese (and there are many more ships). In fact everywhere we have been so far, almost all the tourists are Chinese, most, we presume, touring for the first time. You can sense it as you see families of two and sometimes three generations traveling together with looks of astonishment and awe. Most middle aged tourists will be holding the hand of their aging parent on a shore visit. This is their country and they have never seen it before. The vastness and wonder of this extraordinary country is as new to them as it is to us.

The fact that we were the only English speakers on the ship caused us to think about it, and since our Siberian tour group split up, we could not recall a single conversation with a European or American. In fact we could not recall even seeing more than a handful of people who looked like us. For the past three weeks when we have looked around we have seen only Asian faces. In one sense it is like we have just blended in, now look just like everyone else and have lived here all our lives. At the same time it is another reminder that we Americans are a tiny minority on a planet of close to seven billion people.

That reminder was hammered in again at the evening meal when we were joined at our table by a second English speaking group, a family of four from India, who had joined the cruise at a stop we made that afternoon. Actually for me it was a poignant  moment. The father and mother were probably late forties, two beautiful daughters , the oldest, Shaazia, in her early twenties, who works for her father’s company and the second, Aaliyah, a college student studying at the University of Southern California. They spoke perfect English with only the slightest “typical” Indian accent (no accent from Aaliyah, who it turns out is a terrific singer of US pop songs) due to the fact that English is the language they have always spoken at home (Mumbai). Talk about sophistication, intelligence, and charm! They were like people you would expect to meet at a fancy cocktail party in a posh apartment in the Upper East Side in New York or in Georgetown. The father, Saif, owns an energy firm (manufacturing transformers) employing over a thousand people and went to a prep school in Pennsylvania. The mother, Rauzat, is an acupuncturist.

Why was this a special moment? Because it illustrates the other side of the coin: just how small this planet is and despite cultural differences, how much we humans have in common. We are so much more like each other than we are different.

The other thing that hit me was that we were with people from the two countries which will determine the fate of the planet Earth. When it comes to climate change and the environment, they are holding the cards. We are now merely bit players. That does not mean we do not have to do our part or show leadership, but with India and China accounting for almost half of the world’s population and with their economies coming into their own in terms of wealth, improved living standards and energy use, this one is a no-brainer. Can they do it? We discussed world affairs, politics and values with this extraordinary Indian family and learned that India has made great strides since we visited there in 2005. They are very excited and optimistic about their country’s future. Since my visit to China in 1986, the changes that have happened in China are nothing short of extraordinary, as must be apparent to all readers by now.

Who knows what the future will hold, but after this trip I am surely more optimistic than I was before we started.

But what about the Yangtze? That will be the subject of the next blog.

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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.

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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”

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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