Category: May Term 1996 China and Yan’an

Reminiscences 2024

I remember it was a professor from

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. That included 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.

Reminiscences 2024

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.

In some ways, it got harder to fill trips 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,  May term classes were 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.

 

 

 

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.

Excitement came when one our students reported that his airline ticket and passport had been stolen.  While our suspicion was that he had been inebriated, he still needed those documents to continue the journey.  Fortunately, Dr. Jin and Mr. Li were able to convince the airline and the consulate to reissue the documents.  What a predicament that could have been!

A chance visit in Nanjing was to a restaurant–in what had been the home of Chiang Kai-shek as president of China before World War II.  He gave it to his wife, and it’s now known as Mei-ling’s palace.  What a surprise that was!

That year in Beijing we got to the Great Hall of the People.   While there, Carolyn and I got our picture taken in the Shanghai Room.  A great feeling in the Great Hall!

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!