Augustana who suggested a trip to Yan’an, which was where the Communists fled in the 1930s from their bases in the interior–Kiangsi, Fujian, Szechwan–driven on the Long March by pressures from Chiang Kai-shek. How could Augie do something we did not, that sounded attractive?
I took the May Term 1996 class there, accordingly. We left from Xi’an,
taking the long road through the loess landscape, still filled with troglodytes, though we could see the glare of TVs inside the caves. It was a long ride, but we stayed a few days in Yan’an, viewing the cave where Chairman Mao regaled Edgar Snow for Red Star Over China. As we had come to expect, the hardships of the 30s made for touristy opportunities for the 90s, including pictures in Red Army gear. Including one of Weidade Jiaoshou, the great teacher (one of Mao’s names for himself). I have pictures to prove we went elsewhere, such as Xi’an, Nanking, Shanghai, and Beijing, but the Yan’an visit remains the most vivid memory of the trip.
I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but this was the first May Term trip. The shift from January to May changed a number of things.
First May Term
In some ways, it got harder to fill after 1995, when IWU overhauled its curriculum, requiring only 32 classes, and eliminating J-term. Student protests, however, led to a voluntary May Term, and the university put one of its most powerful leaders, Mona Gardner, in charge of it. Despite my fears that the May term would wither, partly because students could otherwise work that month, and partly because government funding got cut off, May term prospered, and as evidenced by the material in the blog, I enjoyed the opportunity to travel in May, with students, and after those trips without them. However, since class was no longer required for faculty or students. That meant a harder sell to attract students and some maneuvering to get to lead one of the trips, since it meant faculty taught fewer courses during the regular year. For me, I sometimes combined sections of classes to get the six, sometimes went as a co-leader, sometimes (to the annoyance of the administration), led a trip without it being part of my teaching responsibilities–i.e., taught for free. On occasion, I even (for the first JTerm) wound up paying for the trip myself.
I had also been a strong advocate for having two faculty on those trips, a cause abetted when an English professor had an accident and had no backup. That came to pass with May Term. I was consequently able to travel with Zhenhu Jin, Jerry Olson, Dave Willis, Jin Park, Tim Query, Ruth Ann Friedberg, Bill Walsh, Jim Sikora, and Ella Pana.
The co-leader for this trip was easy: Zhenhu Jin, a finance professor at IWU, who was born in Shanghai. We spent several years on trips to Asia and SE Asia. In 1997, I was on sabbatical, and my adventures are detailed elsewhere.
Nanking on the steps of the Sun Memorial
Obviously, May was warmer. That meant no pictures without vendors on the Great Wall. With Dr. Jin aboard, we changed the itinerary a little, looking at Shanghai, Nanking, North China (Xi’an and Yan’an), and Korea. One of our interesting site visits was a traditional Chinese hospital, where some of us sought acupuncture. And I got to visit Tuan and his wife, which was a treat for me. And our national guide, once
again, was Mr. Li. We also had (the only time) an alum who expressed interest and joined us.
The Korean part of the trip was memorable because one of our students found (most) of us lodging in a yogwan. A rich student lodged himself at a Western hotel. Ours was authentically, Korean, with mats on the floor and condom machines. It was during the NBA finals, and I watched as Michael Jordan soared with one of his dunks, starting at the free throw line, and the Taiwanese announcer went, “Wow.” Perhaps there was no other word to describe it, and certainly not one in Chinese.
And this was the group that had all the gun lighters confiscated!
Shortly after Viet Nam and the United States resumed diplomatic relations (1995), De Paul University organized a conference to introduce foreigners to the country. The conference itself was in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) at the “floating hotel” which was moored in the Mekong ? River. The after conference was stunning: Danang, Hoi An (China Beach), Hue (what was left of the imperial capital) and Hanoi, without the embellishments the future would bring. These are notes I made at the time, and probably shared with the Asian Studies committee at IWU.
Hue imitates ChinaEmperor and Empress
I. 1963: Bill Williams and John Kennedy (and Fred Hoyt wanting to learn about Asia)
II. Viet Nam in the 1960s and Fred Hoyt’s growth
, but was caught in the emotionalism of the made for TV series. Believed President (Fred as Cold warrior ala Kennedy)
III. The offer crossing my desk and the memories it conjured up.
IV. The conference
Paper available
Business opportunity of the future
V. Arrival (Aseana Airlines with Bing Crosby singing White Christmas; Beer Nuts as a snack. Tan Sen Hut airport still had the hangers for fighters I remembered from the news)
Viet Nam (some basic facts)
Long country–over 1000 miles from Saigon to Hanoi. All in the tropics. Hanoi roughly on parallel with Manila. Valetudinarian factors important.
Populous–over 72 million people. Most of them born since 1974. Over 2x size then. Hence, population is young and growing. Population control is nowhere near as extreme as in China, but govt is now encouraging 1-2 children at most. Could be a problem in near future.
Poor–average income less than 200$ US a year, but an awful lot of $2500 Hondas in the cities. Some of it may come from overseas Vietnamese, who are both retiring in Viet Nam and sending money back to relatives.
Government seems to be following the Chinese model of opening to the West–in a limited way and on well-defined terms. Non-Viet Namese managers on site all say the same thing: looks better from a distance than close up.
May benefit from brick walls around China and need to diversify portfolios: e.g., Taipei is encouraging Chinese investment in Viet Nam. Korea is eyeing, and of course, the French would like to return. Belief growing if you don’t someone else will.
Great potential for the smokestack industries to follow. Korea/Taipei/HK all getting too expensive to do the labor themselves.
Conclusions
Glad I went; gladder I was not there in the 60s
Certainly expanded my images of East Asia. Probably gave me a better idea of what China must have been like 15-20 years ago.
As a market for business, more attractive from a distance than close up.
For most Vietnamese, Imperialist Americans and their fascist allies is history, probably more than is true here.
I’d almost forgotten, but Carolyn and I parleyed this trip to visit Taiwan. Taiwan was then (as it wants to be now), the “real China.” The
purpose of visiting was to stay in the Palace Hotel, designed by Mme. Chiang Kai-shek and to see the treasures in the Palace Museum that Chiang Kai-shek took when he fled the Mainland. Magnificent. It was interesting to see the cult associated with Chiang and the Kuomintang, a slightly (!) different version than on the Mainland!
I said I’d wanted to get back to China as often as I could. When an opportunity came up to attend the IAS workshop in Beijing, I was interested. When I approached Provost McNew, she stated she didn’t realize my desire, and had named my friend Mike Seeborg as the faculty member whose way would be paid. I said if I could get nominated, I’d pay part of my own way and seek additional grant funding, and that’s how I got to travel to China with Mike, Minor and Ellen Myers.
Minor was always a treat, whimsical if sometimes unfocused, with myriad interests that were always semi pursued. He was a sometimes collector of (fill in the missing blanks) and one of those interests was philatelic. When I purchased a passport of a British soldier who went from China back to England, with the appropriate stamps, I was so excited I had to show it to him. “That’s wonderful, Fred,” he exclaimed, looking over his glasses. “I think I have one just like it.” I never tried to trump him again.
The 1995 trip to Beijing started with a Minor Myers treat: a chauffeured limousine to O’Hare. Good start. I remember Minor pursued Liulichang with the enthusiasm of Carolyn in a chocolate shop, gushing over the antique “treasures” he had found, while his long suffering wife rolled her eyes. Ellen freaked out when we were served scorpions, but then, she thought Tokyo–where you can literally almost eat on the streets–was dirty.
When the conference was over, I talked Mike into a train ride to Qingdao, which looked fascinating. We were staying in the “guest house” which, to my great joy, turned out to be the former residence of the German Governor General, who had surrendered it to the Japanese after a siege in 1914. A sign on one of the rooms indicated Chairman Mao spent a month there, and I hoped in the future, Mike and I would get the same recognition. What I remember best was being introduced to a Lada, a Soviet bloc car we chartered for touring, and having to push it uphill. Mike, more familiar than I with Eastern Europe, was not surprised. Qingdao was another place that would draw me back several times, for its salubrious seaside, and its still extant German efforts to make it resemble someplace in Germany.
When I arrived at IWU in 1987, students had to take 35 course units (roughly the equivalent of a regular course elsewhere), except that each course unit equalled 4 hours elsewhere. Each faculty member taught 7 courses. A January term class provided students the opportunity to take at least the three additional courses needed for graduation, and could include an international (or domestic) trip in January. The trips were supported by federal loans. Faculty members were required to offer a January term class.
Up until 1994, I had edged my services marketing class into a 3 night stay at the Palmer House (as the students viewed it) or 4 days of site visits (as I viewed it) in Chicago. That trip included a performance by the Chicago Symphony or the Lyric Opera, a discussion with Information Resources Incorporated (an early data-mining company), the marketing director of the Art Institute, etc.
It was obvious to me, however, after my 1990 trip to China, that my “calling” was to take students overseas and share my background expertise and love of adventure with a January term class. What prevented that was that a member of the business department had a lock on the trip, and the chair insisted that (at the time), there could be only one business trip.
There were still some Mao statues
Fortunately for me, Dr. Kieh, chair of the (nonexistent) International Studies Department (nonexistent because it was cobbled together with faculty who had appointments in other departments, but taught an International Studies class) offered me the opportunity to develop a course on Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast for International Studies credit. That was my 1994 segue into teaching a travel course for over 15 years at IWU. It started in China, but gradually expanded to East and Southeast Asia, to Europe, and in 2001, a trip around the world. Most were in business.
The two memories that stand out the most to me from this trip both involved Xiamen, one of my favorite cities in China. Known as Amoy in earlier days, it had, on the island of Kulangsu, the “other” International Settlement (other than Shanghai). With no cars, the island was pedestrian friendly, and still full of colonial remnants, including a well-deserved reputation for music. This trip, we managed to stay on the island, in what I thought was a wonderful old hotel, but which was so primitive that I feared I’d have to barricade the doors. It didn’t mollify the students that the Wall Street Journal staff was quartered in the same hotel–as a reward! A funny story afterwards: I called to order the Far Eastern Economic Review (I’m teaching an Asia Pacific freshman class on occasion), and I got talking with Ms. Li, who worked for the Wall Street Journal Bureau in Beijing. “Oh, you must know Jim Macgregor, head of the Bureau,” I suggested. “How do you know him?” “He headed the only other group at Gulangyu island when we were there several years ago.” “I was there–wait, I remember your students. They were the ones who whined!” Yes, IWU does have an international reputation!
The second memory was finding a shop that could make the impressive scrolls that hung on so many public meeting sights in China. I commissioned one that celebrated the last January Term and the Weidade Jiaoshou and his xiansheng who were on it. The banner used to hang in my office, and is now safely secured in my apartment.
Two buildings of the now Peace Hotel
I think this was also the year we stayed at the Palace Hotel in Shanghai, across from the more famous Sassoon House (now the Peace Hotel).
I believe it snowed in Shanghai this trip or the previous one, and a visit to Fudan University (the IWU of China, as was Yenching in Beijing) furnished my lesson to business students for several years. China was energy poor, and heat was limited south of the Yangtze River. Shanghai was south of the Yangtze, and so the school was unheated. We saw students in their down parkas in a study room, preparing for final exams. In later years, I would point out that their Chinese competitors took studying seriously. As Thomas Friedman pointed out, “They’re hungry for your jobs.”
When I came back from my first trip to China in 1990, I was infected–the desire to return as often as possible, with and without students, had struck. Hence, when one of our alumni at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shatin told me about a conference over Thanksgiving 1993 (?), I HAD to go. Carolyn and I stayed in a faculty dorm overlooking the ocean in Shatin, and had a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving–along with a dragon dance! The conference explored some of the villages in Hong Kong that were distinctly different from the splash of Kowloon and Wanchai. Centuries different.
One highlight was high tea at the Peninsula, the old colonial hotel that was so posh the Japanese had commandeered it for their headquarters in 1942. While we were dressed up, it was more downscale than I had anticipated; the quartet played “Misty” rather than Schubert. I stopped at a tailor shop to get the first of my Harris Tweed jackets that were made for me and thus, fit. Suits and jackets, shirts and pants became regular additions to my wardrobe. Eventually, I had my “own tailor” (thanks to Ruth Ann) and my “own optician” in Hong Kong.
On the way home, I insisted we stop in Seoul and explore for a few days. We discovered Kalbi and other Korean dishes, the palaces, and more reasons to return when possible. As the blogs make clear, that happened.
Although I began the blog in 2008 as an effort to educate participants and their parents, as well as my Scout troop and family, not to mention jogging my memory from time to time….I wish I had started it in the beginning of my meanderings.
They started in 1989, when my son, David, was in Europe—for the third time. I mentioned to my wife that we had always wanted to go to Europe, but we had felt we couldn’t afford it—and we couldn’t afford it because we had been sending him. The logic escaped me.
A little later, she confessed that she had thought about it. The result? “I have tickets so we can join him in Paris for Christmas and New Year’s.”
“But I always go cross country skiing with my troop at that time,” I retorted.
“Which would you rather do?”
“Where should I send you the postcard from Eagle River?”
“You can take the exam as many times as you want until you get it right,” she offered. The third time I got it right.
Paris at Christmas. Midnight mass in Notre Dame, one of the most moving experiences of my life. Christmas 89 also marked the end of the evil empire. Our hotel was around the corner from the Rumanian embassy, and the anti-Ceausescu crowd besieged the embassy as we watched his fall and execution on the TV. It was exhilarating to see so many places we would read about or seen in picture books. It stoked my appetite for travel.
Hello DaliJune 5, 1990 restricted access to the Square
There was a trip to China, through IWU, that followed in 1990. I was chosen with Tom Griffiths to accompany an ISU delegation as guests of the China Publication Bureau. The Bureau sent some employees each year to ISU, and in return hosted ISU (and IWU) faculty members. It was a dream come true. China–from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, Kunming, Shanghai, Xian and Beijing. My long-disused Chinese (3 years at the University of Illinois) returned. I visited places I’d not only read about, but written about in my dissertation. I imagined gunboats at Shanghai, kowtowing to the Emperor in the Forbidden City, or wreaking havoc at the old summer palace. An exotic atmosphere marked our trip from Kunming to Dali (home of the Bai nationality. The 11-hour bus ride with academics on the old
Cannon on Shamian, Canton: Opium WarA true “outhouse”
Burma Road was punctuated with verses of “Hello Dali,” and puns touting the best bais in Dali. By the end of the trip, I understood why the people I had written about in my dissertation, Americans in China and the Myth of the China Market, never wanted to come home. I did not either.
An epiphany took place a year or two later, as I sat and mused at the Florida Keys with my Scout troop. The leisure gave me an opportunity to ponder what it meant to be 50. I realized that I had better do what I wanted to do whenever I had the chance. It was as true at 20 as at 50, but I’m glad I had the impetus to seize whatever opportunities I had—and to make some I didn’t have. For the next twenty years, I traveled whenever I could. And it started to come down to at least 4 options, as you’ll see in the blogs in this book.
First, the January and then May term trips with Illinois Wesleyan students.
If you look closely, you can see Quemoy from XiamenMacau Where Caleb Cushing signed the unequal treaty with China in 1844Elusive, but they did existOn the way out by 1994 Tip expected
As I said, an opportunity to share my excitement and discovery with 10-25 students for two to three weeks, mixing business with history and culture. What excitement to visit the old foreign enclave in Xiamen, the international settlement at Kulangsu in Amoy, with classical music wafting from crumbling colonial structures, visiting various spots along the
John and I shared the honeymoon suite in XiamenRoss’ dad owned McD’s franchises in Gibson City
Great Wall, a vain effort to keep the barbarians at bay and to mark the end of the civilized world. We stayed in the Palace Hotel in the former Sasson Building, classic Art Deco of the 193os. The famed Jazz band was back, along with a restaurant on the top floor. When we went there for a meal, I spotted chopsticks with Peace Hotel markings. I was so excited I asked if I could buy a pair. The waiter said 25 yuan (or whatever), took my currency, and went to the next table. He picked up a pair and brought them back. The next 5 pairs were free, since I eliminated the middleman.
We went to Korea as well, and students were so broke they could not afford to go out of the hotel. However, I had played “Let’s make a deal” with one of our Korean students whose dad was a senior executive with Samsung. He provided us with a guide, a bus, and all the meals we desired, and we went to Panmunjom, Samsung, and the King Sejong grave (he invented the Korean alphabet).
The 1994 visits gradually spread to include other Asian countries, revealing the historical importance of China, and watching the rebirth of the dragon. In 2001—the last trip before 9/11—it was an ambitious venture around the world, via London to New Delhi, to Bangkok, Bali, Saigon, and Hong Kong. Many stops at the airport hotel in Bangkok, since most of the flights were on Thai air, and routed through the capital of Thailand. May added opportunities to extend the trips and go places I probably wouldn’t take students—such as Mongolia, Tibet, and parts of Eastern Europe.
Hotel Frontenac Quebec
Second, in my 40 years as Scoutmaster of Troop 19, Best You’ve Seen, a Normal (Illinois) troop that became close to Normal when it moved in 2021 to Bloomington, several of our high adventure trips spilled into excursions. In 1993, coming back from the last hundred miles on the Appalachian Trail in Maine, one of the boys suggested coming back through French Canada. Quebec and Montreal kindled thoughts of Europe—but also of New France, which included the one-time French fort (de Chartres) that marked early settlement in the Illinois Country, and where we had discovered the Rendezvous that provided November and June encampments that became a regular calendar commitment. We also went to the Bahamas sailing, and kayaking and glacial climbing in Alaska, with a blip into the Yukon territories, which yielded our only bear sighting. The Canadian jaunts increased my understanding of the French/British wars for North America. The Bahamas trips were my initial contact with the Caribbean.
The Korean Temple of Heaven
The third source of my travels came courtesy of the US Government. In an effort to educate business people and faculty, the government funded several university outreaches. The Faculty Development in International Business afforded me opportunities to travel with other faculty to explore business and culture in foreign countries. I went on one early to China, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, and realized these would be good preparation for my student trips. The University provided initial funding through a grant, and the trips became addictive. When IWU curtailed my May terms, the FDIB trips to Cuba, Latin America, and Africa expanded my knowledge of international business.
Fourth, Carolyn had come on parts of trips with me, sometimes during and sometimes for extended trips afterwards. She was especially intrigued by a Baltic visit as a chaperone to the IWU choir. I promised instead that we would go cruising, and I kept my word. That began over a decade of trips, mostly Europe and the Mediterranean, which culminated in a land tour in March 2020, when Covid and we arrived at about the same time in Spain. She accompanied me on a number of business conference trips, including Viet Nam (shortly after it was opened to foreigners) , my 1997 sabbatical to India and Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and China/Korea.
The remainder of the blogs fall into one (or more) of these categories.
We left from Xi’an,
long ride, but we stayed a few days in Yan’an, viewing the cave where Chairman Mao regaled Edgar Snow for Red Star Over China. As we had come to expect, the hardships of the 30s made for touristy opportunities for the 90s, including pictures in Red Army gear. Including one of Weidade Jiaoshou, the great teacher (one of Mao’s names for himself). I have pictures to prove we went elsewhere, such as Xi’an, Nanking, Shanghai, and Beijing, but the Yan’an visit remains the most vivid memory of the trip.
, but was caught in the emotionalism of the made for TV series. Believed President (Fred as Cold warrior ala Kennedy)
