Fred Hoyt's Travels – Page 22 – Exploring International Business with Illinois Wesleyan's Fred Hoyt

I have a yoga mat in my room

Associate Professor of Business Administration Fred Hoyt traveled to India for a Faculty Development in International Business program.

Mysore in Bangalore

I am pretty sure I am in India because:

a) My GPS says I’m 8000 miles from home, at 12 degrees north, 70 some degrees west, or something like that.

b) My body feels like it’s been in the air for about 26 hours. I know it will get here sometime to join me. Hopefully soon.

c) It’s 32 degrees outside, but that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit.

d) The main crops are coconuts and sugar cane, with evidence of rice fields.

e) Traffic is developing-country level—I spent 4 hours getting from Mysore to Bangalore (about 100 miles), and that wasn’t entirely due to the presence of 4 legged animals—no elephants or camels, though a few goats, water buffalo, Brahmins (the cow kind)—and a 4 lane road that despite reminders that people should “follow traffic discipline” expanded to 6 to 8 lanes to accommodate taxis, overloaded trucks and busses, motorcycles, bicycles, and the occasional hiker.

f) I had masala dosa for breakfast (spicy potatoes in a rice pancake), eschewing roasted and baked beans—the hallmarks of a former British colony (and I’ve always suspected one of the reasons the British sought an empire—for the food).

g) There’s a yoga mat in the closet, and two do-it-yourself yoga channels on the TV.

h) I am having a hard time reading any of the official 14 languages except for English. The local one is Kanada, or something like that, but I’ve not heard anyone say “ya betcha.”

I was thinking back to my first impressions of India, formed 15 years ago, when my family and I arrived on January 1, 1997, and I wanted to know the football scores. I rushed for the Times of India (there’s that London connection again!) and found the football scores—Manchester United 1, Arsenal 0—at that time, pre internet, it took 2 weeks to find out who won the NFL playoff games (I think it was the Packers with that quarterback Aaron Favre), but it was a reminder that for the better part of two centuries, India was part of the British empire.

Today’s visits reinforced that heritage for me. For one thing, I visited the Mysore Palace. Mysore stayed under the thumb of the British resident, who assisted the Maharajah (a Hindu ruler is a Maharajah) until Indian independence in 1947, when the new state forced all the principalities to unify—I think it was the first time in Indian history that the subcontinent was under one ruler. The Maharajah, whom the British restored in 1799, built a splendid palace on the grounds of the original one that the dynasty’s founder had erected around 1400. When that burned down after 1900, he commissioned the same architect who built the Indo-Saracen buildings in Kuala Lumpur and Bombay to spare no expense in building him something similar in Mysore. Anyone who has seen those other trappings of the raj (me, in other words) would recognize the paternity—with Bohemia crystal, Venetian cut glass, and Italian marble. It owes a lot to the Moghul influence on regal architecture, but in this part of the world—the Indian subcontinent—that was the gold standard, even though the Moghuls never came this far south.

A few years ago, I read a fascinating history of the East India company, which is how the British originally became involved with India. The company had its own army (in the 1790s, the governor was Lord Cornwallis, fresh from his starring role at Yorktown), and its own government until after the Sepoy mutiny (the Indians call it the first war for independence), when it became part of the British realm and Victoria added Empress of India to her titles.

Part of the company history occurred in this area when the Maharajah of Mysore brought in a warrior named Hyder Ali, who helped the Maharajah defeat the Company; Ali’s son, in fact, deposed the Maharajah and became Tipu Sultan (sultan being one title the Muslim rulers took). The British, led by the man who later became the Duke of Wellington, aided by one of Tipu’s assistants, captured Tipu and killed him. We saw his tomb and the summer palace he built, where, surprising to me, the British kept intact his paintings depicting his victories over them. They did destroy his palace, however, and restore the ruling dynasty—who had the guidance of a British resident.

I guess I didn’t think about it, but India was the target of a number of European empires at the time the Company was making its moves. The Portuguese were early in the game, and got ousted from Goa long after Independence. The Dutch were in the area, and before the Napoleonic Wars, had Sri Lanka. And of course, the French were here as well, and French troops helped Hyder Ali defeat the English in the 1760s as part of what the Europeans called the 7 years war, but Americans—even not knowing of the battles in India between the French and British—call the French and Indian War. Now you know why!

Note: this last paragraph history lesson is inspired by the Grimm’s fractured fairy tales on Bullwinkle! Goodnite.

Roamin in Rome

August 8, 2011

You know I like to see as much as possible when I am somewhere, so I think you can understand my challenge here in Rome when I describe it for you: it’s as though every Chinese capital I’ve been to was all in one place—Beijing, Xian, Soochow, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Anyang (actually haven’t been there yet), Kaifeng, Luoyang, etc., and that most of what was there remained (sometimes recycled, as in a Buddhist temple becoming a church, or a small palace becoming a temple). That’s my impression of Rome—overwhelming. For about 500 years, it dominated Western Europe, borrowing a lot of Greek ideas, including religion and architecture; and for about 2000 years it has been the center of Christianity (since the Reformation of Catholicism). It’s the center of Empire I thought I’d see in Athens, but didn’t.

Here’s how I tried to master—or perhaps experience is a better word—as much as I could.

Tours. Carolyn and I did four tours with guides. When we got in Saturday, we took the on-off bus tour, which we’ve found the ideal introduction to a new city. Turns out, the ancient walls (circa 3^rd century A.D) enclose a small city—around 16 kilometers, and most of the sites are in that area. As you’ll see though, most streets were too narrow for buses, but the trip did hit the highlights—the major plazas and palaces, skirting ancient Rome and the Vatican City.

Two of our tours were of the ancient world. One was of the Appian Way, which got us out of the ancient city into the early Christian catacombs. The other was a walking tour I did of the three major areas of the Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills on which Rome was built. It was the center of the religion and politics, including what’s left of the palaces (the marble is mostly gone—much of it adorning churches, some of them in the ancient city of Rome; Constantine’s conversion around 325 ensured the churches would start taking precedence over the temples), including the ones of the first emperor, Augustus, and the remnants of the huge additions Nero did; the Forum, where in the republic senators debated issues of the day (bailout anyone?); the supposed home of Romulus and Remus, the founders of ancient Rome, the pyre on which was burned Julius Cesar, ending the Republic; and above all, the Coliseum (which got its name from the Colossus of Nero, a huge statue that stood on top of the arena, a name it has given to other sports arenas over the years). To the cheers of 60000 Romans (including Victor Mature in my youth) gladiators fought each other, animals (they’ve been excavating the area under the stage which made possible a flow of activity), in the “sports” of the day. My favorite, though, has to be the arches of victory the legions marched through during the reigns of Constantine and Trajan; the 50’s movies featured lots of the Romans tromping and triumphing, as they in fact did for centuries.

The other tour was of the Vatican City, the smallest independent enclave in the world. The visit there almost required a tour to “jump the queue” since August is THE tourist month (Europe essentially closes) and Rome is a popular destination. I heard something like 3 million tourists, but that may have been just the crowd at the Vatican today. Three hours barely scratched the surface. We did a quick tour of some of the rooms of the Vatican museum, which as befits the history of the Papacy, has some of the greatest art in Western Civilization, including Michelangelo’s Pieta (would I love to wander in the entire museum!), the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo spent nine years painting the ceiling (and designing the uniforms of the Swiss Guard which protects the Pope) and the ‘last judgment” behind the altar, and Botticelli and other famous Renaissance artists covered the sides of the walls (no pictures allowed inside what is a private chapel of the Pope, built by Pope Sixtus, hence Sistine), and St. Peter’s Church, which is the largest Catholic church in the world (none are allowed to be bigger). Constructed over 300 years on the site of the burial of St Paul, it’s lavishly decorated, as you might imagine. The Popes can determine where they want to be buried (and many of the 200 plus are in St. Paul’s; the papacy was not always located in the Vatican City; for a time, the Popes were kept semi prisoners in Avignon France); some had lavish monuments, others were mummified, etc. At one time, the Pope had political as well as religious power—as late as the 17^th century, for example, he was one of the instigators of a war after the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 that ended in 1699 with a treaty that began the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire (tying together parts of my trip!).

A personal highlight though was a function of the art deco boutique we are staying at—the Hotel Locarno. It’s famous for being the centerpiece of the movie, Hotel Locarno, which I do not know anyone has seen, but it’s charming for its 6 person cage elevator, rooftop restaurant—and the fact that it lends bicycles. In other words, it’s helped me see this manageable city by bicycle. The best time to see was Sunday morning; I was on the road at 7—and had the city essentially to myself (most Romans vanish during August; most tourists vanish in the morning), when it was almost cool enough to enjoy. I was especially interested in finding the Baroque masterpieces (can you imagine, the Romans brought back many obelisks from Egypt; one Baroque master put one on an elephant), but the small streets, many of them pedestrian malls, went all the places that the bus could not reach. I went two other times, including tonight, when I took most of the Baroque tour from Fodor’s; I hadn’t realized Rome was the ringleader in the Baroque, which was part of the counter reformation, the Catholic Church’s response to the rise of Protestantism in northern Europe—an over the top ostentatious glorification of God. I had to go back to the main Jesuit Church for a second look tonight. Though it’s a lot busier at 7 pm than 7 am, Rome is still a fascinating city to wander around, on foot or on bicycle.

In 36 hours, our journey will be over, around 1200 digital pictures and 15 guidebooks richer. My favorite business story occurred in Istanbul, in the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar, built in the 16^th century, houses around 5000 shops, some selling the same trinkets (and knockoffs) you find in the Silk market in Beijing, some selling the high class merchandise you can find in the Pearl market in Beijing—and everything in between.

I tried bargaining using my Chinese skills. “How much for an Old Friend?” I asked. “We’re not old friends,” the grizzled shopkeeper replied, “ but if you buy this, we’ll be better friends in the future.” We’re now better friends.

Talking Turkey

Talking Turkey:

Our tour next took us to Istanbul, which was on my bucket list, and it still is because even one fully-packed day is not enough to more than sample the at least 2000 year old city of 16 million, the capital of not one Empire, but two—the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) and the Ottoman Empire

(after 1453). Approaching it from the sea, we clearly saw the three parts of the city—the Golden Horn (old city), Galata (the older commercial district), and the new city which is on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. Istanbul sits astride one of the major maritime arteries in the world—the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. That strategic location has been important in its history, since the grain from Black Sea countries (Russia and the Balkans) was important in feeding Europe, and could provide revenue to support an empire (which it did). It also got the Ottoman Empire involved in the politics of Europe and the Middle East.

What we saw was mostly the Turkish delights (a local candy; pardon the pun), the splendors of the Ottoman Empire—including the Blue Mosque, a magnificent dome, the Topkapi Palace of the sultans, and the now-museum Church of Divine Wisdom, probably better known as the Hagia Sophia. The latter dates from the early Byzantine period, a wondrous Orthodox Church that became a mosque after the conquest; when Turkey became a secular republic, the government turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, and stripped the walls back to when it was probably the largest Church in Christendom, revealing the mosaics that are, and deserve to be, world renown. It was the only Byzantine art we saw in Istanbul, so I was glad to have spent an hour in the Byzantine/Christian museum in Athens.

Topkapi Palace was quite impressive. The seat of government for the “sublime porte” as it was known, its only rival for me might have been some of the Mughal palaces in India, which have some of the same architecture—the eaves, arches, open areas, tile-art decorations (floral or calligraphic; Islamic art doesn’t permit paintings of people). One of the areas that surprised me (though it shouldn’t have) was the religious display. The Ottoman Empire early conquered Mecca/Medina, and thus became the protector of the Holy Relics of the Prophet Mohammed. There were relics (the beard of the prophet, his sword, a footstep), as well as the rod of Abraham and something from Moses (the Ottomans also controlled Jerusalem). I read somewhere that periodically the Sultan would trade Christian relics to the West.

The trip to Istanbul tied for me several of my trips together—from Mongolia (where the Turks supposedly originated) to the trip in Eastern Europe last year, which was the battleground between East and West—the sieges of Vienna (which at least twice beat back Turkish incursions). The early Sultans saw themselves as the inheritors of the Roman mantle as universal rulers, just as did many of their Western European contemporaries, with incursions into northern Poland, not to mention the occupation of the Balkans, and the incessant Russian-Turkish wars, as Russia crept to the Black Sea (conquering the Khanate of Crimea and depriving the Turks of the cavalry it provided).

As we cruised along the coast of Anatolia (Asia Minor in Turkey), we stopped at Izmir, a city once known as Smyrna, and for a long time settled by Greeks. As a result of the division of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and the resistance to it by Turks led by Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, Greeks were pressured to leave; about the same time a fire and an earthquake caused major damage in the city. When we landed, we had a choice of a city tour, or a visit to “another pile of rocks.” Those who took the city tour told us that it consisted of “here there used to be…”

Carolyn and I took the tour to “another pile of rocks,” which happened to be at Pergamon, one of the most striking of the 4000 ruins in Turkey. We got to see the Acropolis, and the medical spa; the Acropolis sits about 1000 feet above the town, our visit facilitated by a cable car. The medical spa was in pretty good repair, but the Pergamon was another of those ancient ruins excavated to Western Europe—in this case, to Berlin. Happily, when I was in Berlin in 2002, our guide insisted in taking us to the Pergamon museum, not realizing how useful to me that would be a decade later. We also stopped at Ephesus, another impressive “pile of rocks”.

Greece is the Word

August 1, 2011

Greece is the word

We’re back in Greece again, having wandered in and out of Turkey—where we’ll wander back again and here’s some impressions:

Athens looks less like the capital of an empire (which it wasn’t) than the spiritual and cultural leader of the Western world, a position it owes as much to the Romans, who adopted the architecture and the gods (whom they renamed—Zeus became Jupiter, for example) and the Byzantines, who were the curators of classical wisdom and channeled it back to the west in time for the Renaissance—as to the political power of Greece.

Athens did save Europe from one Asian Scourge (the Persian Empire, but that was in the 5^th century B.C.) as the leader of a Greek confederation, and Greek city-states left ruins of settlement throughout the region, but the highlights of the city—the Parthenon and the Acropolis—date from the end of the Persian wars. The grateful citizens of the other cities gave Athens protection money, and Athenians spent it on the fortress (Acropolis) housing temples that celebrated the city’s patron, Athena, in what is now a world heritage site looming above the city. It helps to imagine what it might have been like that I’ve been to the British Museum, which houses the “Elgin marbles” that once graced the temple of Athena—Lord Elgin took the temple decorations home, but was forced to sell them to the British Museum (which can fend off Greek requests for their return by claiming to have “purchased” the marbles, not stolen them).

As I said, the Romans took the architecture and expanded on it, both in Athens and elsewhere. In the city, there’s a Temple of Zeus, built by Emperor Hadrian, who had a soft spot for the Greeks, who had reciprocated, building a triumphal arch for the Emperor’s visit to dedicate the Temple. Alexander the Great, a Macedonian barely mentioned in Greece, helped popularize Hellenistic Civilization as far as India, but it was the Roman legions who made it the European standard.

Greece’s esteem in Western civilization also comes from its being a democracy (of a select few), who voted to use the money to build the Acropolis. Thus, Greece has earned a sentimental spot in curricula and emotions, which led, among other things, to my taking Western Civilization, and the EU voting to bail out the notoriously corrupt economy, not to mention Lord Byron, who joined the fight that brought Greece independent of the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s (and cost Lord Byron his life).

From the modern period, there’s the parliament (formerly the palace of the first Greek king, one of the princes of Bavaria; when he did not work out, the European powers placed a Danish prince on the throne, and his dynasty lasted till the mid 1970s). One interesting statue is to Melina Mercouri, actress and politician, but another is of Harry Truman, whose Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan helped save Greece for the west after World War II; a bitter civil war against the communists resulted in an anti-communist victory and a pretty ruined city!

Greek Islands

Reflections 2024

As I have said, if you want to savor Greek civilization, you have to sample the settlements the Greeks had in the Eastern Mediterranean and on the coast of Turkey. That was one of the purposes of this trip–to Crete and Naxos and Delos and above all, the photogenic Santorini. That island, blown up in a massive volcanic eruption, has the familiar white and blue buildings that identify it immediately. Many of the islands have, by contrast, ruins that demonstrated their importance in the ancient Greek world. Not so much today, however, but the ruins themselves are extensive and impressive. Perched atop the hill, Santorini is accessible by funicular–or donkey!

Some of the other islands included Patmos (where the Book or Revelation was written in a cave), and surprising island of Crete. There, we toured the palace of King Knossos of Minoan fame, a wonderful museum, and the Venetian fort, a reminder of the Serene Republic’s grandeur .

And the wonderful windmills at Mykonos. Easy to remember, but hard to keep straight.

Last Day (really)

What I did this morning really summarized at least the China part of the month-long journey. I got up in the morning and stood in line (for an hour) waiting for the National Museum to open. The tickets are free, but limited, so getting there early was a priority. I think I was number 20 in line. I had time to see three exhibits (not necessarily in this order):

The first one was Ancient China to 1911. While I took some pictures of the artifacts, I was more fascinated by the explanations of the dynasties and what they brought to Chinese history. The coverage included descriptions of the Chinese periphery (the other than Han peoples) and some information on foreign relations. I paid special attention to the 80-year Yuan Dynasty (founded by Genghis Khan). Most museums have wondrous collections of Chinese materials; Scouts who went to New Hampshire last year with me saw one in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. What was surprising to me was that the last time I was here (the museum seemed to be always closed), which was probably around 2000, the exhibits stopped at the Ming Dynasty, and the explanations could have been lifted directly from Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao—and probably were. Feudal was the most common word (or to put it one way, it was like the museums in Vietnam). I remember asking my colleague Dr. Jin why history stopped around 1400. Based on his experience as a mainlander whose family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, he suggested that any closer to the present incurred the risk of a revision in the party line—and dire consequences for the historian. 1400 was safe.

The new exhibit, much more spritely displayed, demonstrated why China’s cultural supremacy was so pronounced in Vietnam and East Asia.

The original flag of the New China in 1949

The second exhibit I found quite by mistake. It had some weird title like,

“the Rejuvenation of the Chinese People.” It was also in a difficult-to-get-to part of the immense building, which is a twin to the Great Hall of the People, where 1000 delegates meet in the Chinese Parliament. I suspected it was the party view of history since 1840, since I knew that the new Museum had merged with the Museum of the Revolution. When I got into the exhibit, I realized that yes, it was about the freeing of the Chinese people from the century of humiliation, and I was the only foreigner there. The captions were mostly in Chinese, but it’s the Chinese I could read (sort of) from learning my Chinese during the Cultural Revolution. There was the otherwise missing rhetoric on feudal society and the imperialists who made war on China and whose businessmen and missionaries drove a militarist policy that reduced China to poverty and oppression. This was the “remember history, save the nation” that I saw in several places, culminating with a party history of the period through the end of the 1990s and the wisdom of following Deng Xiaoping’s version of Communism—the creation of the New China.

The third exhibit was the one I knew I had to see more than I wanted to see. It was the “New New China,” the global player of global economic integration (and political influence), as emphasized by Louis Vuitton and some of the art he inspired. The first room was dominated by octagonal mirrors featuring a video of an explosion of a rock, called “the beginning.” One of the highlights was a variety of trunks that LV had created over the near-century of its existence. This was the “New New China” I’ve been talking about (and if there’d been a few copy-LV bags, it would have been perfect).

And then it was time to go home. Here’s what I’ll miss (and some of the items on it may surprise you).

1) Fresh pineapple in Thailand, and fresh fruit in Southeast Asia

2) Murtabak in Malaysia, and the ambience of Penang

3) Order in Singapore, but the chance to bicycle in a jungle

4) Crossing the street or walking on the sidewalks in Vietnam. Good exercise. Adrenaline rises.

5) Vietnamese food

6) Vietnamese prices

7) Old and new friends in all of Asia

8 ) Hong Kong scenery

9) Macau’s resemblance to Lisbon, and vice versa

10) Imperial sights in Beijing

11) Traveling with students, sharing experience and enthusiasm and knowledge. Hopefully, some will be infected.

12) Traveling alone, which I enjoy partly because of #11. Better restaurants as a result, and am responsible for one irresponsible person.

13) Crowds, because there must be something worthwhile at the end

14) Solitude, because crowds make you appreciate it when you can get it

15) Realizing nothing’s in English and no one speaks English and it’s obvious I’m from out of town

16) Learning new things, and remembering old. Putting things together to make sense.

17) Learning from guides. And sometimes teaching them.

18) Asian toilets. I like a challenge.

19) Long train rides. Did you ever find where I left those cobras on the train in Vietnam?

20) Beijing duck someplace atmospheric

21) Working on my Chinese to the point where Chinese answer back in Chinese—and I understand what they’re saying

22) Long flights are great if you can sleep—or if you read

23) Mindlessly wandering through markets or parks

24) Asia

25) Adventure. Give me a few days and I’ll be ready for my next one!

The “New New China” — Last Day in Asia

Mao proclaimed the “New China” in 1949 from the gate of Tiananmen, a China free of imperialism and one that would reclaim its role as a great power and a leader in promoting peace and stability. They’re still the themes of the current regime.

It occurred to me when I returned to Beijing that I’m witnessing, as well, the “New New China,” in the big cities anyway, prosperous, modern, integrated into the world economy—and full of a middle class that understands consumerism!

I saw both in Dalian. As I identified yesterday, the city was born of the ambitions of the Russians and the Japanese, who fought a major war on Chinese territory for Chinese territory—without resistance from the Chinese, who’d lost the right when they lost the war against Japan in 1895. Japan wanted the resources Manchuria held; Russia wanted to compensate for a “mistake” it made when it reached the Pacific. Unlike the U.S., which found San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, and Seattle had harbors, Russia had Vladivostok, which froze in the winter. In addition, by its borders with China, Russian contact with its Far East had to go around the long Amur—I prefer the Chinese name, Black Dragon River—bend. Hence, Russia cut straight across with the trans Siberian/Chinese Eastern Railroad, then dropped a railroad to Dalian from Harbin, a city still with some marvelous Russian buildings. In fact, Stalin tried to get the Chinese to cede Russia the use and possession of Dalian into the 1950s (Sino Soviet friendship indeed!). The Japanese, who took the Liaodong Peninsula, which included Dalian, from the Russians, with the consent of the United States (Roosevelt won a Peace Prize!) made it the headquarters of the Kwantung Leased Territory, run by those generals who gave us World War II in the Pacific. It was the location of the railway headquarters too, that helped drain the resources—coal and iron—that helped make Japan one of the great powers. As I recall, Japan kept the Kwantung Leased Territory as a possession into World War II. I know I have Japanese stamps used in Dalian through at least the 1930s.

The “new new” China was also on display. June 1 is celebrated in China as International Children’s Day. Given the One Child Policy, there were a lot of “little emperors” yesterday, in their finest clothes, usually with their grandparents, everywhere. In the morning, my guide took me to Ocean Park, a seaside park/aquarium that features several shows. In line with the new Russian theme (the languages are Japanese, Russian, and Chinese—much less English than elsewhere; I was easy to spot as the guy from out of town in the park), during the busy months there are Russian dancers, “beautiful blonde ladies with long legs,” my female(!) guide intoned. There’s a Russian street which has some old Russian buildings (one, an “Arbat” restaurant, reminded me of a similar street in Moscow, where similar goods are sold—the matryoshka dolls, Soviet-military things, binoculars, etc.) I had a guide once in Beijing who took us to the Russian market, where mafiosa-looking people came and loaded suitcases with goods to sell in Russia. “Is this a good place to shop, ” I asked her. “Not good enough for Chinese,” she

sniffed. And there is a Japanese street too, and more Japanese buildings left (the police station is now a Citibank), but the Japanese rule lasted from 1905 through 1945. And Dalian has a street I call Michigan Avenue, like so many of the big Chinese cities, with world-class brands (the real ones; the copies are a block away)

When I got back to Beijing, I headed for Dashalar, a street I remembered fondly for its small shops, in front of the Arrow Gate to the Forbidden City. It was close enough to walk. I remembered vaguely construction the last time I was there, and what had happened is that the area had gotten a complete makeover, made to look old and traditional—kind of forced, I thought. Next to the shops with the traditional brands (many of them from the vilified 19th century Qing Dynasty) from Beijing and elsewhere (a silk shop from the 1700s, sauces since 1871, etc.) in made-to-look traditional shops, were the Starbucks and the Armanis. The toilets were real (only the handicapped stalls or senior stalls have western sit-downers; and in any case bring your own papers), and so were the restaurants. The choice of a “last supper” was easy: Roast Duck at a place that had the fewest foreigners!

I walked down the back streets until I reached an area where the old shops were not “olde shoppes” to remind me that I was in China.

I leave the hotel in 7 hours, and I am hoping to get some last sightseeing in. My goal is the National Museum; I’ve not been there for years (it was often closed), and I understand a 2008 renovation tripled the size. The number of tickets is limited so I’ll probably stand in line after breakfast until the place opens in hopes of getting one. In line with the New New China, a special exhibit is on Louis Vuitton! I like my irony delicious.

Fred, the First Emperor, and the Russo Japanese War

The first emperor, Qin Shi huang, came to the city I visited north of Beijing over two centuries ago in search of an elixir that would guarantee him immortality. Needless to say, the fountain of youth eluded him (as it did Ponce de Leon and others), but the grateful (or frightened—emperors could be quite capricious) citizens renamed the city in his honor, which is how Qinhuangdao (Emperor Qin’s Island) got its name—and two thousand years later, it’s still the only city named for him.

My goal was much more modest; I wanted to see somewhere I’d not been that might be interesting. That’s what I was doing there, in a city of about 3 million containing the best harbor in North China.

Qinhuangdao is the hub for two nearby cities, Shanhaiguan and Beidahe, that it turned out were more interesting to me.

Shanhaiguan was located in what the Romans would have called the “limne.” Thus, it became a garrison town early, based on being where land and water meet—and where the Great Wall comes down to the sea. Beginning in the late 14th century, “old dragon head,” the encampment at the pass, assumed importance in barring the Manchurians and Mongolians from invading China; in 1644, however, an officer opened the gates for the Manchu invaders, who proceeded to Beijing and swept the Ming Dynasty into history. In 1900, as part of the suppression of the Boxers, the 8 Allied armies ransacked old dragon head; it was not rebuilt until the 1980s, and has become a tourist attraction (5 stars, no less). It had a maze within the walls for training troops! Qianlong visited here (he was emperor for over 60 years) and inscribed a thought on a rock (he did that everywhere), which was defaced by the Allied armies and restored along with the fort. His statue is there, and for a fee you can have your picture taken with him.

Shanhaiguan is also a walled city, and we visited part of the encircling wall (and part of the Great Wall), the “first pass under heaven.” Within the rebuilt wall, the city has traditional buildings—one story, with eaves, a museum—the home of the wealthy Wang family, providing a stark contrast to the grim cinder-block high rises outside the city walls.

We then drove to Beidahe, a salubrious seaside resort for the rich to escape Beijing, both then and now. At one time, the area was the summer home of the foreign diplomats (there were barracks for the troops, and the German and Japanese maintained foreign post offices); then it was the summer home of the party elites—Mao and Lin Biao, his successor, had villas there.

Today, ironically, the area welcomes a lot of foreign visitors—from Russia! The three languages for most signs? Chinese, English, and Russian. My guide said during July/August she doesn’t know whether it’s a Chinese city or a Russian city.

Well, that was yesterday. Today I’m writing from Dalian, a city of 7 million that is important in the histories of Russia, Japan, and China. On a peninsula extending into the Yellow Sea, it had the warm water harbor that Russia craved in the Orient. So much so that the Russians bullied the Japanese (who had defeated the Chinese in 1894-1895) into surrendering the spoils of war (the Liaotung Peninsula)—to them. Dalian officially celebrates its birthday from 1899, when it became a Russian city called Port Arthur. Five years later, the Japanese fleet appeared before the harbor, sank the Russian navy, then declared war. The war here was brutal, with about 60,000 dead Japanese and 20,000 Russians, but the Russians lost another fleet (the one from the Baltic sailed halfway around the world to get defeated at Tsushima Straits). In a peace brokered by Theodore Roosevelt (who won a Nobel Prize for it), the Russians surrendered Liaotung to the Japanese. For the Russians, the defeat hastened the demise of the Romanovs (see the movie about the Battleship Potemkin). For the Japanese, the defeat was the first by an Asian over a Western power (at least since Genghis Khan), and hastened the end of empires that went on till the end of the century. Japan controlled Dalian until its defeat in World War II, and used the base to dominate Manchuria economically (the region has resources, such as coal and iron, that Japan did not) through special rights granted to the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad Company, and eventually separated it from China under “The Last Emperor,” Puyi.

We went to the main battlefield, a hill overlooking the harbor which took 66 days for the Japanese to conquer. The Chinese have kept the battlefield, and the monument the Japanese crafted from bullets (to their arrogance and militarism, says the signs), but have turned the park into a reminder—roughly, don’t forget the past. If one needed another symbol of why China considered the 19th and early 20th centuries a century of shame, or humiliation, it certainly could be here. Russia and Japan fought on Chinese soil while a weak Qing government let it happen.

Quite a history lesson these past two days!

Beijing without Students

When I took the students to the airport and checked them to security—free at last, and convinced that the experience had been transforming—I returned to the city, where I’ve been busy ever since. Yesterday afternoon, I walked for about three hours. My main goal was to climb Coal Hill and take pictures overlooking the Forbidden City. At one time the highest location in the city, Coal Hill was constructed of dirt dug out of the moat to build the Palace. It offers the best view of the Palace, and I was delighted that it had been reopened since I was there two years ago. I realized I had not been there late in the day before (I like to get there early in the morning and watch the tai qi and line dancing and ballroom dancing, and calligraphy, etc., but couldn’t entice any night owls to join me). One note of history there—supposedly, the last Ming emperor went there when the Manchu armies seized the city in 1644 and hanged himself. Interestingly, the Manchus had him buried in the same valley with the other Ming tombs, and carried on the burial traditions themselves, becoming more Chinese than Manchu by the end of the dynasty (they came and were transformed).

I went around the Forbidden City to Sun Yat sen Park, which had been part of the Palace when the Emperors lived there, when it housed an altar for earth and grain. Another stupendous architectural wonder—and proof that the Middle Kingdom, or its rulers at any rate, was wealthy beyond belief. I emerged just in time to witness the lowering of the flag over Tiananmen Square, which had a larger crowd than in the morning (after all, 7:30 at night is preferable to most people over 4:50 a.m.), the same snappy military detail, but no inspiring anthem, or any music.

Today was my “OMG, I’m outnumbered by how many to one?” day. I left early this morning for the thing I’ve never had time to do—visit the Qing tombs. There are two sets, one in Eastern Hebei province, which were ravaged during the warlord period, partly because one of the graves is of Cixi, the wicked Empress Dowager who poisoned emperors to keep power, the other in Western Hebei. I went to the west, where we visited the tomb of
Y ongzheng, the 3rd Qing emperor, and supposedly the most resplendent. He set up the first tomb in the area (supposedly, he killed his brothers when he became emperor; it wasn’t always primogeniture, making succession one of the problems in any dictatorship, or even an entrepreneurial company. Consequently, he did not want to bury himself near his father). Yongzheng designed the Sacred Way after the model of the Mings (who copied earlier dynasties) with some differences; most notably, the scholar/officials had the “pigtail,” the Manchu hairstyle that the dynasty made every Han Chinese copy. The tomb was every bit as impressive as the more well-traveled Ming tombs, but being 70 miles or so from Beijing, much less visited by tour groups. They told me I was the only Westerner to have been there that day.

Fragrant Hill was similar. Another imperial park, it is on a hillside in another playground (my guide thought the problem with the Qing emperors was that they had too many playgrounds and did not spend enough time on government; after all, they permitted the century of humiliation!), this one

built by Qianlong. With a charming man-made lake (and a natural mountain, of over 1,200 meters, which we did not have enough time to climb or to ride the cable car to the top). The site houses the Azure Cloud temple. It’s another lama temple Qianlong built (partly to honor his mother), with Tibetan stupas; Dr. Sun Yat sen’s body rested here while the Republic prepared the elegant tomb in the capital (between the late 20s and 1949). Again, it was a park full of local people (it was Sunday afternoon), and I was the only American around. Beijing abounds with imperial sights, just as impressive as those on the tour, but more enjoyable because they’re not.

Right now, I am the only Westerner on a train headed (for me anyway) to Shanhaiguan, the mountain-sea pass where the Great Wall comes down to the sea. I’m spending tonight there, and visiting the pass, Qinwangdao (the only city named for the first emperor in his lifetime) and Beidahe, playground along the ocean of old and new elites. The car is a second-class sleeper (6 people, 6 bunks; fortunately I’ve got a bottom bunk), and if I speak English, I talk only to myself. I am, after all, in China.

I hope you’re enjoying your holiday as much as I am mine.

How I Spent my Memorial Day Weekend

On the road again

The students left yesterday in a burst of OMG activities. Before leaving for the airport, we:

1) Visited the Confucian temple and the Imperial College, both founded in the Ming period to train and honor the scholars who successfully passed the exams and became the ruling elite of China. Until the exams were abolished in 1905, the system of learning the Analects of Confucius was one of the surest ways to wealth and power. The top three scholars were honored by the emperor at the Forbidden City, and were allowed to march through the same middle gate as the emperor. All the scholars who passed the exams had their names inscribed on the steles, and I said that anyone whose name was on them would get an A in the class. Unfortunately for them, only my name and Professor Sikora’s were on the stele. At least that’s what I told them. Though the complex is not usually on the tourist main route, I thought it would be useful to see the “mother church” of Confucian education since we’d seen one of the “satellite” campuses in Hanoi, an indication of the power of Chinese civilization (I’d seen the equivalent in Seoul). As luck would have it, there was an International School graduation that day, so the college was set up to be a college that day. The Sage of Qufu (Confucius’ home town) would have been pleased.

Interestingly, the qualifying exams for universities today are just as competitive—and just as useful. When we went to Beijing University (the IWU of China), they boasted about the number of top student qualifiers the school had attracted from the Chinese provinces. And in Beijing several years ago, we had the president of Motorola speak to us. When she was done, she asked, “Any Questions?” She was Korean, and so I asked, “Did you graduate Seoul National or Yonsei University?” “Seoul National,” she replied, surprised. “But how did you know?” I knew because Confucius still lives in Asia.

2) The second must-do in that area, an area still marked by the dismount stones and other trappings of old Beijing, is the Yonghegang, the Lama Temple. Originally the home of Yongzheng (who will play a role later in this narrative), it was converted by Qianlong into a Lama temple to honor his mother (a stout Buddhist) as a place for his loyal subjects from Tibet and Mongolia who followed the Lama version of Buddhism. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing today, with a crowning hall housing a 23-meter standing Buddha made of one piece of wood (everything is the largest, biggest, tallest, etc., but you do have to watch the qualifiers). What I love most about it is that it incorporates the Tibetan/Mongolian gods, too, that are terrifying in their demonic postures, especially the blue demon that I think should be the DePaul mascot.

3) The third item (yes, we were busy—this was all before noon, and probably seemed an eternity to those who sampled the nightlife as a personal farewell to the trip and to Beijing) was a tour of the hutong area around Houhai, one of the artificial lakes the imperials created for themselves north of the Forbidden City. The hutongs were the old-style homes with four square units surrounding a garden; it’s a Manchu word. Once the predominant housing in Beijing, they’ve been replaced by high rises, and maybe it’s not a bad thing. The units once had no electricity, water, or sanitary facilities, except what was common. Today, the area has gentrified and is now the playground of young Chinese, and the residence of older ones. We stopped at one for lunch, where a woman and her retired husband preside over an empty nest (children get married and want privacy) together with same-generation elders.

Maybe I tired them out enough that they’ll sleep on the plane.