Category: Travels with David after trips

May 29, 2006

David and I are about to embark on the long journey home–36 hours to Beijing, then 15 or so hours in the air, a four hour bus ride to Bloomington–then a campout this coming weekend.

We have been trying to figure out what is special about this trip.

Here are some thoughts about Henan, China’s most populous province (with 100 m people!)

1) Unlike our trips with students, this was not prepackaged to visit with other tour groups at restaurants, or even to visit factories (followed by a factory outlet store to give you the opportunity–in case you missed it–to purchase the tchotchkes that everyone purchases their first time in China. Indeed, our guide has picked restaurants for us where we have gone in as the only ones from out of town–and had little children point to us and describe us to their parents as foreigners (they may be from out of town, too). We have not been to a factory–perhaps because Zhengzhou’s largest factory sells buses, and they are difficult to get back home.

2) There are not large crowds in this area of China–not of tourists, anyway. We had dinner with our guide’s boss, the number one English- speaking guide in China, and he told us that he has been to SE Asia to promote Henan tourism to overseas Chinese. “Why would people come here,” I asked. His reply, “it’s the birthplace of Chinese history.” Here, near the Yellow River, were located five of the ancient dynasties, and 12 of the 27 modern ones (aren’t you glad you have to memorize only 40 presidents!).

He’s right–we’ve seen lots of history, beginning here in Zhengzhou with the remains of the Shang dynasty town wall–about 1700 BC. We’ve been in the museum here and in Luoyang, and I’ think I’d be afraid to dig anywhere around the province because we’d probably dig up some priceless tomb with priceless artifacts.

On the way here from Luoyang, we visited the Shaolin monastery, home of the Kung Fu monks. In the Sung dynasty, they saved the emperor, and thus the monastery—one of the sacred hills in China–has the rank of number one monastery. We saw a wonderful exhibition of kung fu by some of the 16,000 students enrolled there. Unfortunately, the monks could not save the monastery in 1928, when one of the warlords, suspecting his enemies were hiding in it, burned it down. There is one original building, and a whole lot of others that have been rebuilt to specifications and pictures, so you would never know they were replacements.

Kaifeng used to be the big city of the province. It was the capital of the Northern Sung, around 900 years ago. War and revolution–and the love hate relationship the Chinese have with the Yellow River (in the 1930s, to block the advance of the Japanese, Chiang Kai-shek opened the dikes near here and flooded much of the countryside, killing almost a million Chinese) leveled the city over the centuries. There’s one pagoda left from ancient days, and an interesting section of the city called “Torah reading street,” a testimony to the trade that brought Jews from Persia to China. Our guide of the area was a descendant of the Jewish converts, who showed us a picture of the synagogue (long since destroyed) that for all the world looks like the mosque in Xian. Which looks for all the world like a Chinese pagoda!

3) We went to a Cultural Revolution themed restaurant the other night, where my 1960s Mao came in handy. I think it is a measure of how far China has come that they can poke fun at a terrible time in their history. Last night, to bring closure, on a walk through a Shang dynasty remains park a block from the Holiday inn where we’re staying, we had an ex-English
teacher talk with us and wound up at a jam session with an accordion, singing Chinese and American folk songs. Neat evening.

Another add-on trip with David went in 2006 to another of the ancient capitals of China—Kaifeng. That trip was enlightening, too. As I looked at what was happening in China, I realized that China was improving infrastructure and rebuilding historical sites. Unlike the Cultural Revolution, when an impassioned intervention from Zhou En-lai saved the Forbidden City, the Chinese were burnishing places like the palace at Kaifeng. In Kaifeng, for example, David and I went to the sites commemorating the Jewish Community in Kaifeng—yes, along the Silk Road, Jewish and Muslim merchants plied their trade. The site of the old synagogue had been replaced by a church; that church, in turn, was the early 20th century home of a Canadian Bishop, who was also a collector. Remnants of the Muslim/Jewish period are in the Royal Ontario Museum.

Hello from Luoyang
May 25. 2006
The last 24 hours were frantic, but as JR can tell you, traveling with two people is a lot different than with 29!

The flight to Beijing was uneventful, but I think I told you we were being transferred to a train for an overnight ride into central China, to the city of Luoyang.

We arrived in Beijing around 3 pm, and had until 10:30 to wander—with a guide who was quite agreeable. She took us to Tiananmen Square (largest public place in the world–no one was watching us, Kevin Eack, except some of your CIA types!), and to my great surprise few people
were there. When I have been there in the past, it’s been mobbed. I also learned that there’s a flag ceremony in the evening, when they take down the flag—and I’ve been getting folks up at sunrise (4:30 here) when we could be going to the square at 7 at night…..Glad no one found out!

The guide asked about a meal, and took us to a Shanxi restaurant, where we ate cat ears. Before you think this is standard fare in China, let me tell you that it is not “cat ears,” but a pasta dish shaped like cat ears (least I hope it was!). Dinner for four cost $15, which told me
we were no longer in Hong Kong.

We still had some time, so the guide took us to a Beijing Opera performance. If you have never seen “Farewell my Concubine,” the film is a great introduction to Chinese opera. It is a combination of acrobatics and high-pitched singing, banging gongs, and a whole
lot more fun than it sounds.

Then to the train station, where 9 million people gather. Fortunately, there is a separate waiting room for the “soft sleeper” passengers, and I have learned that is the best way to travel in China on an overnight train–it’s only 4 to a compartment. We settled in at 11;30 for the ride, which got us to Luoyang at 9:30 this morning.

David likes North China–he says it is more like Illinois in food, and looking out the window, he remarked, “We’re in Indiana.” They grow some corn, but lots of wheat that is featured in noodle dishes (and cat ears!).

Luoyang is a “small city” of 2 million, with around 6 million total in the suburbs. It’s a grey city, but like most Chinese cities, has increased splashes of color recently. It was prominent in the past, one of 8 cities (can you name the others) that served as capital of China. It accommodated 12 dynasties, most recently the northern Sung in the 10th century; which was way before my time.

Yes, before MY time.

The Longmen grottoes–Buddhist caves with statues carved by emperors, their concubines currying favor, empresses, and officials–are world class, and dominate two sides of the Yi River. I shot about 50 digital shots, and probably will keep 49. The Tang statues are plump, the Northern Wei slender, so I will be able to tell them apart. Maybe.

There were two other major sights on the itinerary. In talking with the guide, I learned the Guang Gong is buried here–at least his head is. He is the statue I collect since I think he is fiercer than Tommy Titan, and I’d like to use the GG as the IWU mascot. He was a general in the period of the Three Kingdoms, and he was slain. His head was sent to the emperor at Luoyang, who attached a wooden body (!) and buried him with honors. There is now a temple on the spot that dates (in its present form) from the Ming dynasty (1500s), that is a quiet spot in a noisy world. The Guang Gong is a symbol of loyalty (a scout is loyal!). I’ll show you the statue I bought here.

The other place dates from around 65 BC, when the first Indian monks brought Buddhism to China, to the White Horse Temple. After getting through the hawkers who wanted to sell us things we did not want, including pictures on a white horse that they told us (at least I think that was their Chinese) had brought the sutras back from India to Luoyang, the temple was one of the best preserved I’ve seen in China.

In other words, though Luoyang is only #9 on the list of places to visit in China, it is really a pretty neat place.

The sun finally peaked out this afternoon for the first time in a week. Hope it stays!

In 1999, David joined me for an “after May Term trip” to explore western China. It was shortly after US planes bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and tensions between the two countries was high. I remember Dr. Jin constantly on the phone to his friends in China, debating whether we ought to proceed to China given the anti-American protests. Having learned how to say, “Ottawa is wonderful this time of year” (everyone loves Canadians), we proceeded. When the group left, David—who’d joined us in Beijing—and I boarded a train that took us to Xi’an and eventually into Xinjiang.In Xi’an we had some visits to new sites—for example the tomb of the Empress Wu?, the lone female emperor of China. As we went west, we encountered more Chinese named Muhammad

 

 

 

, or who had beards. There were stunning mosques, and ruins of previous cities along the old Silk Road. Underground aqueducts nourished crops in the desert, as they had in ancient times. The Mogao caves at the entrance to the Taklimakan desert preserved Buddhist art from the 4th thru 14th centuries, scarred by Muslim invaders and Red Guards, but still magnificent. Dunhuang also offered camel rides, which gave one a feel for the enormity of “land travel” in ancient times. Grateful merchants had had the grottoes filled with paintings, either grateful for a successful passage, or in hopes of propitiating the gods and having a good trip. I remember Urumqi as an armed camp, with prominent Liberation Army troops in the streets, and in trucks; the locals had their own idea of what “liberation” meant, bombing busses occasionally. Kashgar stimulated me to read about “the Great Game”—the clash between the British Lion and the Russian Bear for India. Kashgar was one of those flashpoints, where the Russian Consul (whose compound included our guesthouse) had a private army. Inspired, I wanted to cross the Pamirs into Pakistan and Afghanistan….but even then, disturbed and disturbing countries. We visited ruins in Xinjiang: Gaochang and Jiaohe, Bezeklik Caves, which the Russians pilfered in the Great Game days and brought back to the Hermitage.  “I know what wall those came from,” I said when I saw them in St. Petersburg.  We also toured the TianShan mountains and rode horses to look at snow-capped peaks.  We were really in the Wild West.

Interestingly, China is one time zone, at least government offices think so. They run on Beijing time. The rest of Xinjiang thinks local time makes more sense. It is certainly “different”.

 

My international travels with David began with my sabbatical in the spring of 1997.  I had hoped to expand my knowledge of international business by working with Motorola in Beijing.  I approached that company the year before, and tentatively discussed two months’ work, then a stipend to travel around the country. The Asian financial crisis put paid to that dream.

The rethink centered on a conference in Hyderabad. Non-resident Indians frequently set up conferences so they could return home during breaks.  The conference was on global organizations, and I submitted a paper on “The United Nations in Short Pants,” a discussion of International Scouting.  A discussion with one of my students led to an invitation to stay with his family in New Delhi; “how can you be an Asianist without knowing anything about India,” he questioned.

I would take my family with me to India, and Carolyn agreed that if I traveled afterwards with David, I could stay on in the East.

Thus began our first visit to India.

After the conference, we based other Indian excursions out of the Malhotra’s (former student) who lived in a gated community in Delhi, riding the train to the Taj Mahal and Agra and Jaipur, riding elephants, before spending a day on

 

 

the Ganges at Benares. Mr. Malhotra questioned that only one day at Benares. I told Jaghi that we had seen Muslim India (the Taj and the Red Fort), and British India (the Cantonment and streets of Delhi, the Gateway to India, and Luytens’ imposing buildings in Delhi. When young Mr. Malhotra graduated IWU, the family stayed at our house in Bloomington.  They told Carolyn we had a lovely house but needed servants; they had six plus a cook and a driver.

We sent Carolyn home from India.  David and I continued on to Bangkok where we boarded a train for my introduction to Malaysia, with stays at Penang (which looked, I thought, like Hong Kong had in the 50s), and a now-defunct bungalow-hotel in Malacca that, with its expats at the bar by noon, could have been a setting for an early 20th century novel.

Thence to Singapore, Hong Kong and home.

It was the first of several memorable trips to East and South Asia with David.

In 1998, David accompanied me to the Asia Pacific Region Scout meeting. I talked my way into the US Delegation, stayed at the building HK Scouts built as combination headquarters, hotel, and office building. Dealing with multiple religions was a really different “religious” service, truly non denominational. The other highlight was a “potluck”, one of the best meals I’ve had at a Scout event. No mac and cheese or hot dogs. And since we were all adults, we could behave like adults. That is, there were adult beverages. I was in a group that included the head of Australian Scouting (a volunteer), Singapore, etc. Best fraternity party since 1962. Memories….then we left for Bangkok, Chiang Mai (I discovered Sibelius on a Japanese Symphony broadcast) and thence to Laos.