Friend's visit to China

[schlimm]

M636C:  I hope you get the opportunity to visit China again.  It has changed incredibly.  My first visit was in 1990, the most recent in 2014.  Night and day.   In 1990 it was still a 3rd world country.  Now the many major cities are modern, but sometimes/often losing their charm in the process.  Transportation has advanced by leaps and bounds: roads, rail, subways and air.  Spoken English and foreigners were rare in 1990; now it is pretty easy to navigate on your own since in so many areas, younger people are quite good in English, albeit with thick accents, since they start studying in early grade school.

[M636C]

I visited China in 1980 and 1985.

The 1980 trip was a conventional group tour which ran pretty much as planned.

In Manchuria, some of the hotels were from the Japanese occupation era, as were the railway stations. The more recent hotels were put together by people who'd never seen the finished article and had truly strange features, window spacing not matching the room sizes, carpets not tacked down and folded over where the carpet didn't fit the room.

We flew north from Canton to Beijing in a Hawker Siddeley Trident Mk3 and in the reverse dirction in what appeared to be a brand new Ilyushin 62, two types I'd never seen before let alone flown in.

Visits to railway facilities (and anything else visited, a factory or a school) started with a formal presentation, a lecture, cups of tea followed by a guided tour.

The country had changed a lot by 1985.

The trip started off badly.

Four of us were joining two different group tours in Beijing, organised by two different British organisations. Those two groups were flying Pakistan International from London and the aircraft went unserviceable in Islamabad delaying them by 24 hours.

The Chinese tour guides were advised of the delay but were unaware of (or forgot about) the others joining the tour. After a couple of hours and failing to contact the local tour organisation, we called a taxi and went to one of the big airport hotels. The hotel (which we later found was the one we were booked into) was booked out (including of course, the rooms we were booked into). About four attempts later we found a small hotel that could accommodate us for the night.

We went back to the airport and met the delayed plane, but it took about a full day before the trip organiser realised what had happened and refunded us the cost of the first night's accommodation.

The first day was a bus trip to the Great Wall, which I skipped. I'd made a major error and assumed that like every other major airport I'd been to, I could buy tickets across a counter, maybe even using a credit card. I wanted to do this because the fare from Beijing to Sydney was much less than that in the other direction, due to the vagaries of exchange rates, so I'd arrived on a single ticket. It took about half a day shuttling between a bank and the downtown airline office to convert traveller's cheques into an airline ticket. I seem to recall I needed a docket from the airline to cash the cheque but had to take the cash back to the airline to pick up the ticket.

But that left me with half a day photographing the big Henschel diesel hydraulics and blue Bejing 3000s hauling passenger trains in and out of the station, something that no other fans on the trip saw. Since they are now all long gone, it was worth while, and I saved a couple of hundred dollars on the air fares while learning a lot about Chinese business at the time.

The rest of the trip went fairly well although it was very cold at various times, but we got good shots of steam freight trains in the snow.

M636C

[daveklepper]

This may seem off topic.  But some of you may wish to railfan China, and this can give you some idea of how foreigners are treated and permit better interfacing with their culture.  I think you will find it both interesting and non-controversial.

 

THE CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Report Of A Visit in September, 1997

        Ever since the time of Marco Polo visitors have tried to convey their impressions of China to others in the western world.  For many centuries China kept aloof, considering herself superior and self sufficient. The twentieth century forced itself on China . The communist ideology of Mao Tse Tung and the vicious Japanese invaders forced China to recognize the world outside of itself. It began to recognize that western science and its bastard child, technology, had to be contended with. China had always honored scholars. Now it included scientists in that category. Despite their misgivings the Chinese government sent promising students to Western Universities and welcomed Western scientists to visit their Chinese counterparts. I'm not sure when this started but I'm sure that it explains how it was that I was invited to visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences in September 1997.  If some readers of this report have visited China prior to 1997 or since I would appreciate learning how their observations compare with mine. I must add a disclaimer. I am a biochemist, not an anthropologist, so many of my conclusions about Chinese society may be misinterpretations of what I observed.  What I saw may be more useful than what I thought it meant. In any case I couldn't have become an expert on China in two weeks. I hope that this report will be entertaining even if not authoritative.

 

        September 12, 1967: Yesterday I flew into Shanghai . Professor X (name withheld for reasons that will become apparent) met me at the airport and accompanied me by taxi to the Guest House of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where I will be staying until September 19, when I am scheduled to fly to Beijing .

        This is the program that Prof X has set up for me for my stay in Shanghai . On Saturday he will take me for a picnic in the Shanghai Zoo and for dinner in his apartment in the evening. On Sunday he has arranged for me to be taken to see Jewish historical sites in Shanghai . On Monday I will give a talk at the Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and I will be taken to lunch thereafter.  I will also visit the Institute of Biochemistry .

        From the 16th to the 18th I will visit the Cheng Zheng Hospital labs and I will sightsee and on the 19th I will fly to Beijing .

        Clearly Prof X is investing a lot of time and money in me. I must use my ingenuity to find a way to repay him. For instance: I offered to repay him for the taxi fare from the airport but he refused to accept it.

        Now for some non-technical impressions of Shanghai from only a one-day's stay. During that time I was tired from not having slept on the plane. My impressions will therefore not be well-considered.

        On the taxi ride to the guest house I confirmed that Shanghai is crowded. (There are almost 14 million people here.) I had arrived at 6:45 AM and people were commuting to work. Traffic was mostly by bicycle. Our taxi threaded its way through the bicycle riders and had a hard, slow time doing it. The number of private cars was far less than of bicycles and also less than the number of taxis.

        The compound of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is approached from a gate opening on the street. Each side of the gate is protected by a cement lion which has been eroded by rain and wind. Inside the compound the door of guest house is flanked by two beautiful, large porcelain vases. Professor X led me to the registration desk where I received my room assignment. The lobby, the elevator and the room itself showed signs of decayed elegance. The ceiling of the room was high. The entrance to the room had an inner and an outer door. I understand that Cambridge and Oxford Dons' rooms are constructed that way and that 'sporting the oak' means closing the outer door, showing that you don't want to be disturbed.

        A private balcony led off the bedroom and provided a view of the courtyard garden and of an attractive, Chinese-style building opposite that houses the administrative offices of Academia Sinica, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

        Emphasizing the split personality of the Guest House, the furniture was sparse and of poor quality. There was no chest of drawers (presumably because guests were not expected to remain for a long stay) and the table, valise stand etc were of a particularly uninspired institutional sort such as might be built by convicts in a prison. The room had been cleaned but the walls hadn't been painted recently. The carpeting was worn and badly needed a cleaning. On the favorable side: there was a reading lamp (an item missing in many five star hostelries). The bathroom also showed a split personality. It had well made fixtures, both a shower and a bath. The wall tiles bore a delicate rose pattern. On the other hand the lamp over the sink provided so little light that it was difficult to see adequately while shaving. The face towel was thin, more suitable for a dish towel and the bath towel was rough and not as absorbent as those that I am used to.

        In the bedroom a pair of 'flip flops' was supplied. A thermos flask full of boiling water, tea bags and sterilized glasses was placed on a table and the thermos was changed regularly to ensure that tea was always available. An air conditioner was a welcome treat because Shanghai 's weather was hot and humid. Mosquitoes didn't seem to be deterred by the cool air however.

        At suppertime I went down to the dining room and was presented with an English menu. I ordered beer as a precaution inasmuch as I frequently find oriental food spicy enough to require copious amounts of fluid with which to wash it down. I could have dispensed with this because my tea was replenished whenever my cup ran dry.

I ordered steamed perch. Talk about fresh, a waiter netted it from a fish tank and took it into the kitchen to be cooked to my order.

        I struggled to use chopsticks and was able to manage with the vegetables but dividing the fish into edible morsels stumped me. An understanding waitress sensed my distress and brought me western cutlery.

        I signed for the meal using my room number, just as in an exclusive hotel.

 

September 14, 1997.  I spent yesterday with Professor X. He is an outspoken dissident. It was raining and we had taken refuge in the giraffe house of the zoo. While we were there he complained (in English) that at various times he had been persecuted by the communists, the KuoMinTang and the Japanese. He asked about the Israeli-Palestinian problem but didn't seem much interested. He showed me that Chinese bills have Chinese, Arabic and Tibetan writing on them and I countered by showing Israeli coins with Hebrew, Arabic and English inscriptions. Curiosity seekers gathered around us while we were talking in what would have been considered a severe violation of privacy in the west.

        Professor X is retired, possibly on health grounds, but continues to work in the laboratories of various collaborators. I felt that I could be helpful in regard to only one of his research projects.  I know a researcher at Tel Aviv University who is actively working on that subject. Perhaps they can do something together.

 

September 15, 1997. This morning I gave my talk to the Institute of Cell Biology . I believe that it was well received. I was taken to the Hope Hotel for a nice lunch. I was told that the hotel had been built by the government and dedicated to peace among nations.  Then I visited laboratories. They are well equipped for studies in molecular biology and cell biology.  While talking over research I told one of the staff about some international meetings that I had attended and gave her the address of the organizer. The next such meeting took place in Charlottesville , Virginia several years later and I met her there. My contact had thus borne fruit for someone. 

 

September 16. 1997.  Today's visit was to Cheng Zheng Hospital , 2d Military Medical University . The hospital is newly opened. It consists of two buildings 32 storeys high. My host was Professor Lin Zhi Min, head of the endocrinology department. After visiting the laboratories and discussing work with them the whole department took me to a Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant of the sort that uses vegetables to masquerade as other dishes. We enjoyed an enormous banquet (3 soups, for instance). We were served veggie crab, veggie chicken, duck, beef, sausage, kidneys etc. This engendered much hilarity. A good time was had by all. Afterwards a car and guides were provided to take me to People's Square, the art museum there and to the houses where Jews were interned during World War II. I was then driven back to the Guest House. I feel that it is almost a matter of false pretenses to be treated as a VIP but I must admit that it feels good to be treated that way

.

September 17, 1997. Today two faculty members of the endocrinology department arrived with a military car and soldier-driver. They took me to visit the TV tower in the new district of Padong, from which we could see far and wide in a 360­o angle. The pollution in the nearby river showed up dramatically. From there we went to lunch at the Peony Veggie Restaurant, then to the Long Hua Buddhist Temple . I note that Chinese Buddha images differ from Thai ones. Buddha did not let his followers make images of him so no one knows what he really looked like. Chinese Buddhas are sometimes fat. Thai Buddha images never are.

From there I was taken to the French Quarter to see the special architectural style of the buildings. Then I was returned to the Guest House. A message from my daughter, Ilana, awaited me. She was pleased to get word from me in China .

 

September 18, 1997. Today I was driven to Dionahan Lake , about a 2 hour drive. The gardens there are designed to illustrate a classic Chinese novel, 'The Dream of the Red Chamber' (also called 'The Story of the Stone'). It is a beautiful, peaceful place.

        I must figure out a way to repay my hosts. I am aware that I am not a VIP and that my visit has not added luster to my hosts' reputation but to my own.

 

September 19, 1997. Prof X came this morning and accompanied me to the airport. I flew to Beijing on a Boeing 747, which makes it clear how many people fly this route. A PhD candidate of Professor Chen's met me at the Beijing airport. He took me to the Guest House of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The grad student, Shaorang Gao, spoke for awhile about his work using English which I found hard to understand. He gave me a map of Beijing which I expect to find useful in my wanderings about town. Tomorrow he will come at 8 AM to bring me to a bus stop from which I can go to the Great Wall. That should be an easy target to arrive at. How will I know where to get off the bus on the way back here?  That will be part of the adventure, I suppose.

 

September 20, 1997. The accommodations here are dormitory-like but adequate. The TV speaks only Chinese and I can't find English language newspapers so I'm a week behind on what's going on in the world.

        There are mosquitoes here (as in Shanghai ). I apply repellant but it lasts only part of the night so I get stung in the early hours of the morning.

        Yesterday I walked around the neighborhood. I was surprised to see that the outdoor vegetable markets and the row of food stores are all private enterprises. Taxis are also privately owned. China therefore isn't all run on communist principles.

 

September 21, 1997. Now for a blow by blow description of yesterday's adventure.  Shaorang Gao, my doctorant guide, accompanied me by taxi to the starting point of a bus trip to the Badaling entrance to the Great Wall of China and saw me safely placed in the excursion bus. Fortunately I was seated near two English speakers, a German married to a Chinese woman. Both were friendly and served as good companions during the day-long trip. (She told me of an interesting anomally.  There are different hotel and airline rates for native Chinese and for foreigners. Even though they are on their honeymoon and sharing the same hotel room she pays the Chinese rate and he the foreigner tariff.)  She served as translator for both of us.

There were spirited arguments as the bus filled up, probably about seat assignments, but people were good sports about returning to their assigned places after stopovers. The bus was full, including places made by folding seats that blocked the aisles. There was no formal commentary by the driver except to warn us when to return to the bus at stopovers. Luckily my new friends were able to tell me when to return to the bus at each stopping point. We arrived at Badaling after traveling along a curvy road through a beautiful, forested mountain area. Once at Badaling we had to work our way through an alleyway of kiosks of trinket-sellers and food merchants in order to reach the stairway to the top of the Great Wall. The wall is one of the few tourist sights that is as impressive as one's preconceived notion of it.  We hiked along it for about an hour, retraced our steps, refreshed ourselves with some hot eggs that had been hard-boiled in tea, then clambered aboard our bus. The mountain range that the Great Wall sits upon is covered with a pine forest and the road is bordered by willows.  Glimpses of the Great Wall could be seen along the mountain ridges from time to time as our bus wound its way along the narrow mountain roads. It was a glorious sunny day and the greenery enhanced the pleasure of the trip. Not far from the Wall are the tombs of 13 Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. We visited two of them. Emperors were buried with artifacts of their rule so the exhibits showed jewelry, crowns, silver and gold vessels and brocade fabrics from the time of that dynasty – hundreds of years ago. One of the tombs had been opened and we walked into it. The size approximated that of a modern subway station. A very large room housed the emperor's throne, his casket, those of two wives and the boxes which had contained the articles that had been buried with them.

        The trip had started at about 10 AM and when we left the Emperors behind it was 3:30 or so. The drive back was as scenic as the drive there. Slanting rays of sunshine cast shadows that emphasized the contours of the green hills. We arrived at our starting point at about 5:40. I was directed to a bus going to the street where the Institute of Zoology lies and an English-speaking passenger on that bus started up a conversation with me. We got off the bus together and he pointed out the way for me to walk back to the Guest House – so I negotiated the trip successfully thanks to friendly people. On Monday my scientific program begins.

 

September 23, 1997. Let me summarize what happened yesterday.

        My guide, Gao, conducted me to the Institute of Zoology , State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. I was shown around the laboratories and introduced to the staff. Unfortunately Chinese names escape me even more readily than others do. I received reprints of various articles and I can recover the names from the lists of authors. Prof Chen, who invited me, is out of town. He will return briefly this afternoon. Perhaps I can meet him to thank him for having made arrangements for me.

        I have tried to be useful by, for instance, introducing the staff members to the androlog interest group on email. The Chinese scientists do not have free access to such communication. They have email accounts routed through their departments. They were interested to learn about my account with hotmail.com, where messages could be exchanged without going through a government censor.

        After the laboratory visits I was taken to lunch. At 2:30 I gave my lecture on flow cytometry. I'm not sure how well the audience understood the English.  The talk was received politely but there were no questions. I fear that the talk was more useful for my ego's sake than for the audience.

        I returned to the Guest House for an hour's respite. I have a sore throat, possibly from talking too much. It will be good to get to bed early. Today I am scheduled to give the same talk at the Chinese Agricultural University . I'll try to shorten it a bit.

        1:30 PM. I have returned from a nice visit to the Chinese Agricultural University , State Key Laboratory for Agrotechnology. Prof Chen Yong Fei offered to cooperate. I should send him reprints with info on possible cooperative projects. He will ask about research funding opportunities.

        I have never consumed so much tea in my life. As a courtesy I am presented with a cup of tea in every laboratory that I visit. Yesterday I felt heart palpitations. I was getting caffeine shock (or was it theine shock). I notice that my colleagues use one tea bag several times, thus avoiding an overdose.

 

September 24, 1997. Wednesday. 4 PM. It's a rainy day. This morning Gao took me by taxi to the National Institute of Family Planning.  Dr Meng-Chua Jia gave me an interesting article on c-Kit receptor, a subject we are currently working on. She had worked in the lab of Martin Dym, a former colleague of mine at Georgetown University .  Jia seemed helpful and interested in possible collaboration.

        Prof. Wu Yan-Wen is an electron microscopist who has worked with Trevor Cooper (another former colleague of mine). She gave me some articles on her work, mostly in Chinese Journals.

        After talking to various researchers we had lunch together after which I was brought back to the Guest House by taxi in a heavy rain. I've been waiting for the chambermaid to come. I should go to the reception desk to ask for a change of towels. Lacking Chinese language skills I will have to do it by pantomime. This should be fun but a bit undignified.

It's chilly here. I have shown signs of a fever, on and off, for two days. It is minor and I hope that it doesn't develop into something worse, especially before I fly home.

 

September 25, 1997. Thursday. The scientific/technical part of my trip is completed. I have given talks and visited laboratories. The remaining days will be dedicated to tourism – something I find less compelling than work. I have been told that a car will be provided to get me to the airport on Saturday night. As usual I feel minor anxieties – how much money will I need to pay the bill at the Guest House? Do they take VISA cards or must I cash more traveler's checks at a bank? What is checkout time here?  These are simple questions but I can't ask them in Chinese and therefore I need help.

 

September 26,1997. Friday. The desk clerk gave me a map and instructions to take the 320 bus followed by the #1 bus to get me to Tiananmen Square .  An English-speaking passenger on the 320 bus was fascinated by my Australian Bush hat (which he assumed was a cowboy hat). That helped to break the ice. He helped me to find the #1 bus stop. Tiananmen Square is large and monumental, if you like that sort of thing. Postcard sellers were persistent and I was a bit mean in chasing them away. Later I found that their prices were unreasonably high so perhaps they deserved what they got. A lot of children in school groups were getting themselves photographed in the square. They were beautiful, as children everywhere tend to be.

        I crossed the square and entered the Forbidden City . That is a monumental collection of palaces built by the Emperors. Why did they need so many palaces? I think that they intended to intimidate their many willing subjects by displaying the Emperor's wealth and power but how did they accomplish this by building palaces in a complex that those subjects were never allowed to enter?

        And then I bussed home again, this time on minibuses that are slightly more expensive but are supposed to guarantee a seat.  I got in the bus early and thus merited a seat. Others had to stand. I couldn't have done so because the minibus wasn't tall enough for me to stand erect. I'm pleased that I overcame my timidity by going downtown by myself.

 

September 27, 1997. I minibussed to the Summer Palace . Enjoying this park requires hours of walking about the lovely formal gardens and along the lake. This was once a complex whose splendor was kept for the Emperor's favorites only. The lake is used for boating. I enjoyed watching tourists being carried about in elaborate boats with prows shaped like heads of dragons and sterns designed like their tails.

 

September 28, 1997.  Yesterday I arrived at the Guest House quite tired after my trip to the Summer Palace and waited about two hours for Gao. He arrived with a classy auto to take me to the airport like the VIP that I am not! But if no one knows it –

When I was checking in for the flight the security inspector asked the usual question: "Has anyone given you anything to take aboard?" Gao had given me a tea set, a present from the Institute. This caused consternation. I guess that passengers rarely answer that way. The gift was taken away for careful examination before ElAl found it inoffensive. The rest of my luggage was examined perfunctorily.

        The flight took ten hours. I arrived home at 4:30 AM, a short while before a general strike (scheduled for 6 AM) that would prevent unloading and distributing luggage.  I arrived home too tired to go to sleep so I talked to Bev and Ilana, unpacked and put some things away.

To summarize the China trip pro's and con's: I have been treated like a VIP and this gratifies my ego. I have talked to some interesting people and seen some interesting sights. I believe that I have conveyed some information that may be of use and I have received some. I doubt that cooperative projects will result from the visit. I am too old for planting seeds that will take years to develop (but I remember the Talmudic tale of the old man who planted a carob tree for his grandchildren to enjoy). I miss Bev and the family even on a short absence like this. Difficulties in communication make it a strain to shop and to travel.  All in all, though, this trip has felt like a partial reward for my years of effort, a kind of recognition that I rarely receive at home.

        Larry Lewin was a classmate of mine at MIT ('53) and is Emeritus Professor of Medical Biocemistry at Tel Aviv U.