Travel Journal: People's Republic of China, 1980 – Part 5

 

[This is the conclusion of the transcription of my travel journal of my trip to the People’s Republic of China in December 1980 and January 1981.  Aside from concluding my visit to Peking (now called Beijing) and the group’s return to Canton (Guangzhou) and Hong Kong, at the end I wrote out some impressions and observations of both the country and the tour. 

[Things are completely different in 2021-22 than they were in 1980-81, perhaps especially with respect to China and its relationship with the United States.  I’ve bever been very good at prognostication, so my opinions 41 years ago are probably miles off the beam.  Readers can judge that for themselves, however. 

[I thank all the ROTters who’ve read along with this posting.  I hope my account had been at least somewhat as interesting to you as the living experience of the journey was for me.  If it was and you haven’t already done so, I suggest you also read my “Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982,” posted in 12 parts from 11 July to 20 August 2021. 

[I’ll shortly be transcribing the third and last of my long-ago travel journals, covering a high school trip to Poland and the Soviet Union in 1965; I will publish that as soon as I can, hopefully later this year.  (By the way, that’s no typo: 1965 is correct.  If you do the math, you’ll see that that was 57 years ago.  I was all of 18 years old when I went on that journey.  Talk about things having changed!)]

Peking [Beijing] – Thursday, 1 January 1981 (New Year’s Day)

We started out very early (5:45 a.m.) to get ready to ride the train to the Great Wall (2 hours).  I put on seven layers of clothing, including my fur “vest” from Nanking [see entry for 29 December 1980, Part 4], and brought along two more. 

[I still have that vest, but it’s stashed in a storage trunk that lives in the basement of my building.  It came in handy in February-April 1981, though, when I did an Off-Off-Broadway production of Macbeth.  It was designed for a rough, primitive look (Macbeth was king of Scotland in the 11th century), so I wore the vest cinched with a wide leather belt with a free-form brass sun-burst buckle that looked “primeval” and “druidic.”]

The train ride was very pleasant; not only was the scenery increasingly rugged and beautiful as we approached the mountains on which the Wall was built [Jundu Mountains], but Elise Miller’s birthday had been yesterday and we had a big cake on the train. 

[Obviously Miller, one of my traveling companions, didn’t run into the same roadblock I did with respect to getting a cake (see entry of 25 December, Part 3).  Maybe the explanation was simply that Beijing isn’t Suzhou.

[On the train ride north, I remember feeling that this scenery was what I saw in so many of the old Chinese scroll paintings—gnarled trees rising up from steep mountain cliffs, sometimes shrouded in fog.  We were riding through a living scroll painting!]

As we neared the Badaling stop (the fortress protecting a pass along the Wall), we caught glimpses of the Wall topping the mountain ridges.  Quite a spectacular sight, even from the moving train.

[Badaling railway station, opened in 1979, is a stop on the Jingbao Railway in Beijing; it’s about 50 miles northwest of the center of the city.  (It should not be confused with the high-speed rail line’s Badaling Great Wall railway station which opened in December 2019.)  Badaling is about 3,300 feet above sea level and is the most visited section of the Great Wall.]

From the train, there is a brief bus ride to the wall itself, but there are fewer buses than train passengers, so some must wait for the buses to return for a second run.  Between the bitter cold and the peddlers selling fake antiques, the short wait was less than pleasant.  It was very short, however, and the Wall is certainly an impressive structure. 

(Unfortunately for me, I had a touch of the runs [probably a 24-hour flu or something; I was fine the next day] and had to trot [sorry about the scatological pun; it wasn’t intentional] back down to the bus area against the bitter wind to use the Chinese public crapper – quite an unpleasant experience!)

[That requires a little explanation—grotty though it be.  Has any of you ever used or even seen a Chinese public bog?  It’s literally a hole in the ground.  There’s a cement floor with a hole in the center; the user straddles the hole and squats, does his/her business, cleans up as well as possible, redresses as well as he/she can—and hopes not to have to return. 

[All the extra clothes I had on made this a hassle as well as a disgusting experience—there are no hooks or pegs for hanging coats and the floor is decidedly not dry and clean!  (The same hole is used for #1, too.)  One has to keep any hanging garments from getting between one’s butt and the hole . . . for obvious reasons.  Get the picture?]

Though it was very cold (ca. 5°F) and windy, being dressed for it made the visit no real hardship [except for . . . you know].  The climb up the Wall was a struggle, and I decided not to make the whole climb.  Then the wait, first for the shuttle bus and then the train in a crowded waiting room with insufficient seats.  That put the only blight on an otherwise pleasant morning.  The train ride back and the box lunch were also pleasant (a far cry from our last box lunch [see entry of 22 December, Part 2])!

We got off and met our buses for our visit to the Ming Tombs.  The tomb itself was less impressive (except as an architectural accomplishment) than the grounds and the approach (particularly the animal statues).

[After the death and burial in Nanjing of the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor, in 1398 (see 30 December, Part 4), the third Ming Emperor, Zhu Di (1360-1424; reigned: 1402-24), moved the capital to Beijing.  He and 12 of his successors are buried at the Thirteen Ming Tombs in Beijing, located about 30 miles north-northwest of the city’s center.

[The grounds for the 13 tombs cover approximately 15½ square miles (that’s the size of the City of Alexandria, Virginia).  The monumental animal statues, along with statues of officials, line the Sacred Way that leads from the entrance to the grounds to the 13 tombs; these figures, which include sculptures of mythical beasts as well as living ones such as elephants and camels, guard the resting places of the emperors.

After an early (and not particularly good) dinner at a Henan (not Hunan) restaurant, we took in a dance drama. 

[There are several places in China called Henan and I don’t recall if the one connected to this restaurant was identified.  It’s something of a guess, but logic suggests it’s the Province of Henan in the center of the country, 430 miles south of Beijing (measuring to the provincial capital, Zhengzhou).  Henan cuisine is a mix of influences from all its surrounding regions, but despite the array of flavors available, Henan cooking is known for not taking them to extreme levels; Henan food is renowned for the moderate and balanced mix of flavors in its dishes.

[Dance drama, or wuju, is a 20th-century development in China.  Its origins date only back to the 1950s when Soviet dance troupes introduced ballet to the PRC.  Chinese dance drama is a hybrid of Western theatrical elements and traditional Chinese forms: orchestras mix Western and Chinese instruments (with the Western instruments dominating), musical styles combine Western and Chinese forms, and the choreography is an amalgam of ballet and Chinese folk dances.]

The show is a modern piece, based on a legend or folk tale, utilizing Western instruments and Western-style music and choreographed in semi-balletic and semi-stylized movement and pantomime. 

There was no dialogue or singing; the story was all told in dance and movement.  [Two other 20th-century performance forms that derive from Western influence are huaju, or spoken drama (of which Lao She’s Teahouse is a prime example; see entry of 30 December, Part 4) and geju, or sung drama.] 

The costumes were quite brilliant and colorful and the sets were very effective, using mostly painted drops and flats, but very little constructed pieces.  The work as a whole was charming and thoroughly enjoyable, but not exciting in its originality.

[Despite what I characterized as a lack of originality in the dance drama, I gather that it’s a popular form of entertainment in China, after Beijing opera.  With China having so many languages (linguists identify eight dialects, but each of them has many subdialects) and most of them being unintelligible to speakers of the others, maybe an all-dance-and-movement theater form is welcome to lots of Chinese entertainment-seekers.  Just a thought.]

Peking [Beijing]/Canton [Guangzhou] – Friday, 2 January

This morning was taken up with a trip to the Temple of Heaven, a magnificent 15th-century pagoda with several outbuildings located on a hill overlooking Peking, and the Summer Palace, where the Empress Dowager [Chongqing (1692-1777)] held court in a very imperial – and imperious – style.  An impressive layout along a beautiful lake, now completely frozen – to the delight of skaters and ice-walkers – the Palace was entirely built for the Empress’s use to the virtual exclusion of anyone else (except her thousands of servants and eunuchs).

[The Temple of Heaven (or Tiantan Park; the Chinese name means “altar of heaven”), built between 1406 and 1420, during the Ming Dynasty (the same period as the Forbidden City; see 31 December, Part 4), is a complex of 92 religious buildings set in gardens and surrounded by a pine forest.  The emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, considered “sons of Heaven,” offered sacrifices to heaven and prayed for good harvests. 

[The layout of the complex, which covers just over a square mile, and its architecture both symbolize the relationship between earth and heaven.  The design of the main buildings is a combination of circles and squares, which symbolizes the belief that Heaven is round and Earth square.

[The Summer Palace was first built in 1750 (it was destroyed 110 years later in the Second Opium War, 1856-60, and then rebuilt in 1886) is not just a palace per se; it’s an ensemble of lakes, gardens, pavilions, halls, palaces, temples, and bridges 6¼ miles northwest of Beijing.

[The site was originally an imperial garden beginning in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) in 1153 and grew over the centuries as succeeding emperors added buildings.  Around 1749, the Qianlong Emperor (1711-99; reigned: 1735-96) ordered a palace to be built near one of the lakes to celebrate the 60th birthday of his mother, Empress Dowager Chongqing.  

[After the reconstruction following the Second Opium War, Emperor Guangxu (1871-1908; reigned: 1875-1908) rebuilt the palace for use by his aunt, Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908; concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor [1831-61; reigned: 1850-61] and de facto ruler of China from 1861 to 1908), and renamed it the Summer Palace.  It became the property of the former imperial family after 1912, but in 1924, when Puyi, the last Qing emperor, was evicted from the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace became a public park. 

[One of the most startling Summer Palace structures associated with Empress Dowager Cixi is the so-called Marble Boat.  Also named Qingyanfang, the Boat of Purity and Ease, it’s a lakeside pavilion, first erected in 1755.  The original pavilion was made from a base of large stone blocks which supported a wooden superstructure done in a traditional Chinese design.

[In 1860, when the Palace was razed, the pavilion was destroyed.  It was restored in 1893 on order of the Empress Dowager, when a new two-story superstructure was designed which incorporated elements of European architecture.  Like its predecessor, the new superstructure is made out of wood but it was painted to imitate marble—giving the pavilion its name.

[On each deck, there’s a large mirror that reflects the waters of the lake to give the impression of floating in the water.  Imitation paddlewheels on each side of the pavilion make it look like a sidewheel steamer.  The Marble Boat was used by the Empress Dowager to view the scenery and for entertaining guests.

[After 1949, the park became a facility of the CCP (among other uses, Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong, lived there) until 1953, when it was restored and renovated as a public park again.]

We had lunch in a restaurant on the Palace grounds.

This afternoon, we flew back to Canton for the start of our homeward journey.  The trip to China is virtually over. 

The flight to Canton was easy and peasant.  I was able to rid myself of my long underwear for the first time since leaving Canton [23 December] and relaxed most of the flight.  When we arrived and got to our hotel (Bai Yun, the one we stayed in before), we had the same jumble to assign rooms. 

Dinner was to be in 45 minutes, and I wanted to take a last look in the nearby Friendship Store for the ceramic lion I missed at Foshan when we were here last, so as we got our rooms, I ran over without going to my room. 

I didn’t find the lion (just as well – at $55 [¥82.50], I really don’t need it!) and came back, freshened up and went up to a decent, but not outstanding dinner. 

At least the weather is warm again (though after tomorrow in Hong Kong, we will have to face winter in New York anyway). 

Tomorrow starts early again, but we are supposed to catch an express, non-stop train to Hong Kong, so we are due in at ca. 11 a.m.  That’ll give me another real half-day in Hong Kong to look around.  I don’t think I’ll shop anymore.

It’s hard to sum up an opinion of the trip now that it’s really over.  Of course, it was interesting and informative, and the Chinese we met, both official and non-, were gracious, charming, and helpful, but I don’t really feel I saw China. 

Part if that is due, I’m sure, to the fast pace of the trip – six cities in 13 days didn’t leave enough time see any one, especially Peking – but some of it had to do with what we did see – too many craft factories and stores. 

Of course, we had those damned shoppers with us who took time in every shop, store, and souvenir stand we passed, and even made us stop at several Friendship Stores I could have done without.  In several cases, they delayed us en route while they shopped and we waited on the bus for them.  I was often embarrassed at how much – and what – they bought – kitsch and junk of every description.

Another part of my confusion is that I really didn’t know what to expect.  Old China is so remote and unreal, and new China so stark and unformed that I had no previous impression to confirm or deny.  Only the people really made an impression on me.  Their energy and commitment is boundless and seems genuine and sincere, even under all the slogans and propaganda.

They are far more open, generous, and receptive than their Soviet counterparts, far less paranoid and frightened, especially now that they feel themselves free of the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four.  Their own relief is obvious all over; the question is not whether they live better, but whether they feel they do – and they do.

And their curiosity about us – from our clothes to the more intellectual levels (our economy, culture, city life, etc.) is boundless.  It is very impressive what has been done here in a scant 30 years, especially when 10 (1966-76, the Cultural Revolution) were retrogressive.

My prevailing impression of the Soviet Union 15 years ago [I went there on a school trip in 1965; that journal will be appearing on ROT in the near future] was that life there was drab and gray and without energy or hope of improvement in material ways; here the impression is very different.

Though strictly controlled by government policy and the needs of the country, life, though below our standards, is improving and is productive and progressive [I didn’t mean that in the political or ideological sense, just that modernization was moving forward].  Cooperation, though enforced, seems intuitive.

My one small fear is that with all their hunger for modernization, they don’t import too much of our plastic, throw-away culture and destroy that which is old and good in their own.  (Our American-built hotel in Peking is a foreboding example – built and furnished like a roadside motel with Holiday Inn décor and atmosphere, it probably will be run-down and tacky in two years.)

Another small feat is that as the influx of tourists increases, the Chinese do not lose the charm and earnestness they evince now.  Already with the buying and shopping, are coming the complainers – those who expect the Hilton slickness and American food and cannot accept the cultural hardships as someone else’s way of life to be accepted and adjusted to with some grace and tact.  In our group alone were several who wanted to turn China into another American Chinatown or large Taiwan.

HONG KONG

Canton [Guangzhou]/Hong Kong – Saturday, 3 January

Our departure from Canton was uneventful (though delayed by a small number of our group), and we got on an express, non-stop train to Hong Kong.  The ride was both pleasant and scenic.  I  hadn’t notice the scenery coming in, except the New Territories on Kowloon and the farms – I never saw the hills and picturesque bays and inlets we passed on the way back.

I got Patsy to recommend a tea house that served a dumpling lunch [dim sum], the Luk Ye Tea House on Stanley Street, and walked over after check-in at the hotel.  It wasn’t the kind of place that served from carts, and I got a menu to mark my choices all in Chinese.

I got the waiter to recommend four dishes (all were very good) and had a pleasant lunch alone.  (After 13 weeks of eating with 92 other people, I needed the privacy!)  [Actually, of course, there were only 93 of us in one place the one time the three IPTIC groups crossed paths in Wuxi (see entry of 28 December, Part 3).]

After lunch, I walked to the bus terminus and rode to Tiger Balm Garden.  I met Yosif, an Iranian Jew now living in D.C. and teaching at Howard University (after studying at Georgetown).  We wandered through Tiger Balm and he asked me all kinds of questions about China.  He was on a very extended trip around Asia and on to Europe (he has family in Israel).

[In 1935, Sino-Burmese businessman (best known as founder of Tiger Balm, an analgesic heat rub), entrepreneur, tycoon, and philanthropist Aw Boon Haw (1882-1954) built a villa in the Wanchai section of Hong Kong.  The Haw Par Mansion was surrounded by an ornamental garden that was open to the public. 

[The centerpiece of the 8-acre garden was a 7-story pagoda, and the rest of the phantasmagorical park was festooned with hundreds of figurines and sculptures that depicted ancient Buddhist beliefs (because Aw was a devout Buddhist).  It was a popular spot for many Hong Kongese on their day off. 

[The garden was closed in 1998, the year after Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control, and sold to a property-development company.  It was demolished in 2004 and the site is now occupied by a residential high rise.  The Haw Par Mansion is still standing and has been renovated as a museum.]

After Tiger Balm, a Chinese whimsical fantasy land, I took the Peak Tram up Victoria Peak to see it in daylight.  The train was odd in that on the way up, we felt straight [i.e. level] and the buildings looked tilted!

[The Peak Tram opened in 1888, originally for the use of the British colonial governor and the Peak’s (expatriate) residents.   It now is available to everyone as one of the oldest funicular railways in the world.  The tram has undergone several up-dates since its beginning, including a comprehensive rebuilding in 1989 and a substantial upgrade starting in 2015 and continuing today.  

[The Peak Tram runs at 10- to 15-minute intervals between the Peak Tram Lower Terminus in Central to the Peak Tram Upper Terminus at the Peak and the journey takes approximately 8-10 minutes.  The fare, when I was in Hong Kong, was HK$2 (40¢).

[It’s a visual experience, as I observed, as skyscrapers glide past at what appear to be impossible angles while the tram makes its ascent.  This phenomenon, known as the Peak Tram Illusion, is explained as “induced by a change of the subjective vertical caused by the tilted visual environment and reclining body position of observers inside the tram.”]

For dinner, I arranged to go to a Szechuan restaurant near the hotel, the Sichuan Garden Restaurant in The Landmark commercial complex at the intersection of Des Voeux Road Central and Pedder Street.  I met Norman and Cherna Weinstein on my way, so they joined me for a very fine dinner.  We had a few drinks on me afterwards, and then we split for the night.  (The Weinsteins were staying an extra day gratis.)

DEPARTURE, TOKYO, & HOME

Hong Kong – Sunday, 4 January

On our day of departure, I took a walk to the Hong Kong Zoo (not very impressive as a zoo, but pretty and with a nice view of Hong Kong below) and, in the afternoon, to Wanchai [pinyin: Wanzai], the Suzie Wong district, full of night clubs (many topless) and tattoo parlors.

[The 14-acre Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, on the northern slope of Victoria Peak, is one of the oldest zoological and botanical centers in the world, and the oldest park in Hong Kong.  It was founded in 1864 and opened to the public in 1871.

[The zoo is too small to house large mammals—so no pandas—but it has a varied collection of birds (including flamingos and parrots), monkeys, orangutans, sloths, meerkats, and tortoises.

[The reference above to “Suzie Wong” is to The World of Suzie Wong, a 1960 British-American romantic drama film directed by Richard Quine and starring William Holden and Nancy Kwan.  Although set in Wanchai, the film was shot in locations around Hong Kong and serves as a historical record of 1960s Hong Kong and some of the lifestyle was depicted in the movie. 

[(Interesting, but irrelevant factoid: in the Broadway play of Suzie Wong, 1958-60, the part played by William Holden in the film was played by William “Capt. Kirk” Shatner; he won a Theatre World Award for his performance.)]

I had a quick lunch (Western – Salade Niçoise) in the coffee shop and we left for the airport and the flight to Tokyo.  We said good-bye to Linda Chan, Group C’s IPTIC guide, at the hotel and Patsy (Pepsi Cola) Cheung at the airport.  We are on our own from here on out!

Both Patsy and Linda were wonderful and helpful along the way.  Patsy was a little more patient with some of our less tactful and easy members, but Linda took her share of hardship, too.  She let herself get angry too easily, but she did her best.  (Both had some tough challenges to meet, and I wonder how well I would have done!)

Anyway – we’re on the way home now – for better or for worse!

[That’s where the journal ends.  The flight home, on JAL again, had an overnight stop in Tokyo; the airline put the continuing passengers up at an airport hotel which was like a high-tech, white molded-plastic, stationary sleeping car on a mid-20th-century train.  We slept in little cubby holes no wider than the single bed; there may have been a sink. but I’m not sure.

[I had a little problem with jet lag after my return to New York.  I had an acting class the next afternoon, but I actually slept through it!  I don’t remember now if I woke up while the class was still in session or if it was over by the time I opened my eyes, but I remember having to apologize to my teacher and I felt a little sheepish when I explained why I missed class. 

[I used to be such an inveterate long-distance traveler that a little body-clock disruption was a small matter.  The worst I remember was on the first morning after a trans-Atlantic trip to Rome: I awoke in the predawn morning because bedtime had come sooner than I was ready for it.  A friend on the same trip also woke up in the wee hours of the morning, and we came across one another wandering in the residence where we were staying.

[So as not to disturb anyone else with our restlessness, we decided to go out for a walk.  We walked from Trastevere into downtown Rome as the dawn came up.  We watched—and heard—the city wake up.  It was about a five-mile stroll one way, then we went back and joined everyone for breakfast.  After that, I was fine!]

[There were a couple of occurrences during this tour that more or less spread across the whole excursion.  They’re part of what I remember about the trip, so I’ll recount them here, at the end of the journal report.

[Almost every morning, when we boarded our bus for the first outing of the day—this really didn’t start until we began our travels in the PRC—someone inevitably asked the guide who greeted us, what was happening with the hostages.  We were, of course, asking about the U.S. embassy workers in Tehran who’d been held by Iranian “students” since November 1979. 

[Negotiations for their release had heated up after our 1980 presidential election in November in which Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) defeated President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924; 39th president of the United States: 1977-81) and we all felt that the release of the Americans might occur on any day, perhaps while we were in China. 

[The first morning we asked about the hostages, I think it flummoxed the guide, who was unprepared for that question.  She said she’d check at her next opportunity and tell us what was happening.  After that, our morning guide was always ready to answer the daily inquiry. 

[As it happened, after many delays and glitches, the hostages were returned home on 20 January 1981, the day President Reagan (40th president of the United States: 1981-89) was inaugurated—and 16 days after we all got back to the States.

[The other event was a story one of my tour mates told me one day early in the trip.  It was one of the Long Island matrons, but I’ve long since forgotten which one.  We must have been driving somewhere on the bus and she was my seatmate, but I’m not exactly sure of the circumstances; it could easily have been on one of our plane or train rides.

[In any case, the woman told me an incredible story—and I’m not sure I believed it completely at the time.  Not until we got back and I heard some of the details recounted on TV; then I checked it out.  Some readers who are old enough may remember this tale, which continued to make news every now and then for almost 20 years.

[My travelling companion’s account went like this: The son of a friend of hers on the Island had transferred from one New York State community college near his home to another one upstate.  When he arrived in September—that would be 1980, just before we left on the trip to China—other students whom he didn’t know began greeting him as if he were a good friend.  Men clapped him on the back and bro-hugged him; women kissed him.  And they all kept calling him Eddy, though his name was Robert.

[When he protested, the schoolmates explained that he looked exactly like a friend who’d been at the school the previous year.  Finally, a friend of Eddy’s discovered that Robert had been adopted, just like Eddy, and that the two young men had the same birthday.  Some checking led Robert and his schoolmate to conclude that he and Eddy were identical twin brothers, and after some phone calls to Eddy’s home, they confirmed that that was, in fact, the truth—Eddy and Robert were twins adopted separately and raised from birth by different families.  Neither adoptive couple knew their son had a sibling.

[The story of the remarkable coincidences that led the young men, then 19, finally to meet and be reunited, was picked up by the local newspapers, particularly Long Island’s Newsday, and when another adopted young man with the same birthday read the front-page coverage of the fantastic story and saw the photo of the twin brothers, he suspected he, too, was a lost sibling.  Sure enough, the adoption agency confirmed that there had, indeed, been triplets, and that David was the third boy.

[After the three brothers met for the first time, they discovered that they had had remarkably similar traits, habits, tastes, and experiences—even though they had been separated since just after they’d been born and didn’t even know of their brothers’ existence.

[When I got home and started to hear reports of this event, and saw the three young men on TV—they made the rounds of daytime talk shows and even appeared in some movies and television series episodes—I did a little research and collected some articles on the story.  (I later taught writing and kept a collection of provocative articles for reading assignments.)

[I won’t relate the rest of the story of the triplets, who’d all be 60 now (Eddy committed suicide in 1995) except to reveal that the young men’s names were Robert Shafran, Edward Galland, and David Kellman, so readers can look up the story.  I’ll also report that there was a documentary by CNN, aired in 2018, called Three Identical Strangers.  I will also reveal, but without details, that the story is not all happiness and food fortune—but, of course, I didn’t know any of that in December 1980 and January 1981.]