{"id":4669,"date":"1999-05-07T16:35:22","date_gmt":"1999-05-07T21:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=4669"},"modified":"2025-06-03T19:13:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T00:13:59","slug":"4669","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/1999\/05\/07\/4669\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on SE Asia and China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Johore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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May 1999 (reminisced Nov 2024)<\/p>\n

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Van Diesel at Bangkok fight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The trip was fairly standard for me by now.\u00a0 South East Asia, working our way to China, with a Yangtze cruise, ending up in Beijing.\u00a0 One thing Brad Hannam and I did was to cross the border into Malaysia for a look at the palace of the richest man in the world (at one time), the Sultan of Johore.\u00a0 His outrageous behavior led the British to station a “minder” in\u00a0 Johore.\u00a0 What I remember most about the palace was his use of elephant legs as waste baskets and umbrella holders.\u00a0 But we did get a stamp for Malaysia in our passports, which was an added benefit.<\/p>\n

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Li was our China guide twice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other “different” event was a monkey wrench thrown on May 7, 1999, when we received news that the US had “accidentally” bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and that anti-American protests had erupted in response in the China.\u00a0 With the safety of our charges in mind, Dr. Jin spent a lot of time\u00a0 contacting his friends in China to make sure we would not be endangered.\u00a0 We cautiously entered China, prompting our students to downplay their American identity (e.g., no Cubs shirts).\u00a0 At times it was tense, and we were known to say, “Ottawa is lovely this time of year.”<\/p>\n

The only place I caught some flak was in Xi’an, on my extended trip.\u00a0 When I got a haircut, the barber talked about bad Americans.\u00a0 I told him, in Chinese, I was in China to see where my dad had fought for China against the Japanese.\u00a0 That put paid to that discussion.<\/p>\n

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Bund from Broadway Mansions where we were housed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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We were lucky enough to connect with two of our alumni–at opposite ends of the expat spectrum–in Shanghai. One was Omar Sadeque, son of a Pakistani diplomat, who had gone to Baylor for an MBA.\u00a0 Hired by Cargill, at this point in his 20s, Cargill gave him $25 million to establish a chicken processing plant.\u00a0 He hosted our class and talked about his career and his opportunity.\u00a0 At the other end was Tuan Nguyen, who had come to China with me in 1995 as his last class at IWU before his January graduation; Tuan was so smitten by China that he resigned the job he had lined up and went to China to take his chances.\u00a0 When we met him, he was married to a Chinese woman and living a la Chinese.\u00a0 Omar, by\u00a0 contrast, lived in a gated community with a driver, a cook, and several servants.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"We also managed to visit a number of business sites: Ringsit contract manufacturers of running shoes in Bangkok, Caterpillar Logistics in Singapore, always a treat given Cat’s insistence of supplying parts anywhere in the world in 48 hours, City University in Hong Kong, with my friend Eleanor, and Omar’s plant in Shanghai.<\/p>\n

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And we did the sites as well, including the Yangtze cruise, with a stop in Chungking at a museum featuring Vinegar Joe Stillwell, Chiang Kai-shek’s World War II nemesis. And we had time to eat.\u00a0 In those days, I built the meals into the trip, realizing hygiene was not always a consideration, especially in China.\u00a0 Later, when I realized students preferred Mickey Ds to dim sum, I set one banquet per city–so I could e\"\"at real Chinese instead of watered down French Fries.<\/p>\n

But not before we had snake wine.\u00a0 I insisted on having the reptile brought to the table where the venturesome sat, and prepared for us–bile in alcohol, among other things. The live snake was beheaded, to the shrieks of the other table, but the snake was good: tasted like chicken, as promised.<\/p>\n

One treat for me was on the cliffs of the \"\" \"\"Yangtze, which marked where the “trackers” used to pull boats through the rapids.\u00a0 More powerful motors today, and more controlled river flow has rendered the manual labor unnecessary.\u00a0 The Three Gorges Dam, when completed, will basically eliminate the rapids.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps a commentary on contemporary China was this poster, a response to Deng Xiao-ping’s comment, “To be rich is\"\" glorious,” so true…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  May 1999 (reminisced Nov 2024)         The trip was fairly standard for me by now.\u00a0 South East Asia, working our way to China, with a Yangtze cruise, ending up in Beijing.\u00a0 One thing Brad Hannam and I did was to cross the border into Malaysia for a look at the palace … Continue reading “Reflections on SE Asia and China”<\/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":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-term-1999-se-asia-and-china"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669","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=4669"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9349,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions\/9349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}