{"id":2095,"date":"1996-05-26T09:53:14","date_gmt":"1996-05-26T14:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2025-06-05T16:31:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T21:31:25","slug":"the-east-is-red-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/1996\/05\/26\/the-east-is-red-1996\/","title":{"rendered":"The East is Red 1996"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shantung and Taishan 1996 (2024 reminiscences)<\/p>\n

\"\"I was (and still am) fascinated with Qingdao, and in May 1996, after leading a May Term, indulged that interest in touring the Shantung peninsula.\u00a0 It was my first trip in China on my own, which meant, essentially, going from town to town in a car with driver.\u00a0 The driver was Feng Hong, or \u201cred wind,\u201d a classic Cultural Revolution name.\u00a0 His English was confined to \u201cMichael Jordan #1,\u201d incontestably true for the greatest of all time. In fact, one of my fondest memories of Michael Jordan was watching a finals game in a yogwan in Korea (a room with a condom dispenser). The announcer (Taiwanese) watched Jordan float from the top of the key to the basket, and said, \u201cWow.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Not a Chinese word, but a universal description of MJ.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The former British barracks at Weihaiwei<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We went to Qingdao, Yantai (Chefoo), and Wei Hai Wei, three of the important treaty ports on the peninsula.\u00a0 I was surprised by how much of the colonial areas were still extant. Mornings in Qingdao definitely required joining in dancing on the squares in front of the Bavarian style Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

\"\"I also remember asking Feng Hong to stop at one point so I could take pictures of a harvesting team of machinery that was the most mechanized agriculture I had ever seen in China. Combines in China. A first.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>One other stop was a note worthy: Qu’fu, the home of the Great Sage, Confucius.\u00a0 The main shrine was massive, a paean to the importance (reemphasized in contemporary \"\"China) of a philosopher who encouraged order and obedience.\u00a0 The Confucian exams for centuries defined winners and losers in the civil service, and remnants of the rote learning it required are still embedded in China’s educational system.\u00a0 Qu’fu was one of the few places in China I saw stars and heard birds (not in cages).\u00a0 It was tranquil, in other words.<\/p>\n

\"\"The literal highlight of course was Tai Shan, one of the most sacred mountains in China.\u00a0 It\u2019s where Mao said, \u201cThe East is Red,\u201d but Confucius sagely remarked, \u201cThe Earth is small.\u201d\u00a0 I stayed in a Chinese-speaking\"\"\u00a0guesthouse.\u00a0 At an ungodly hour, the phone rang and a voice announced (my translation\u2014get up and get dressed, daybreak is coming).\u00a0 There was a PLA topcoat in the closet to protect me from the mountain chill; I threw it on and joined the throngs there to watch the sun come up over China.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can see me in the pictures: I\u2019m the one without the cigarette.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, in mangled Chinese, I assured others I was from Shantung, which is why I talked and looked funny.\u00a0 Ironically, David’s wife’s family is from Shantung, and reached the US via Korea and Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shantung and Taishan 1996 (2024 reminiscences) I was (and still am) fascinated with Qingdao, and in May 1996, after leading a May Term, indulged that interest in touring the Shantung peninsula.\u00a0 It was my first trip in China on my own, which meant, essentially, going from town to town in a car with driver.\u00a0 The … Continue reading “The East is Red 1996”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shantung-and-taishan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9561,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/9561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}