China Revisited -- 2013 [#4]

WHERE ARE WE GOING?  WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

In October when we were invited to spend the Christmas Break with Edward's family in China, we named a few places we would like to visit: Beijing, Xian, the Great Wall.  Tibet, via the week-long train ride from Beijing.

Beijing, come to find out, is a four hour plane ride from Shenzhen, where Edward lives.  It is very cold in winter, which would mean packing extra winter clothes, which seemed prohibitive. And the smog this winter has been intense and debilitating.

Xian, site of the life-size clay army, is far from Shenzhen, too, and also cold. Ditto the Great Wall.

Tibet on the train was a joke, although we'd have done it if Edward and his mother had agreed.

Since Edward was not going to plan the itinerary until he had gone home for the break (he attends Syracuse U), we also gave him some general ideas about the kinds of things we would prefer:  old over modern, country over city, the seldom-traveled over the much-trampled tourist meccas, people over most alternatives, traditional Chinese anything over global or western or "fusion" stuff.

Especially, we made a specific request to visit the "home village" Edward has mentioned many times.

With a proper understanding of Chinese and a very detailed map, it is even possible to locate his home village. (To give you an rough idea of where to put your finger on a map of China, Taiwan is approximately behind Yujia's elbow and Hong Kong is approximately behind Edward's.)

With these interests expressed, but no clear sense of where we were going or when or how, beyond the JFK to Hong Kong and the Hong Kong to JFK parts, we departed for China. You might say this was "learn as you go."

Eighteen hours later, most of it in the air and the remainder in line at immigration in Hong Kong, we found Edward waiting for us.

You've got to love a city with buses that carry "sincerity" and "eternity" signs on the back.  From Hong Kong we crossed the bridge and stopped for another border crossing to enter the mainland.

The border crossing is more involved than this toll station, but not a lot more involved. It is rather like crossing into Canada from Buffalo, New York.

We rested from our long flights at the Edward's home, then from Shenzhen we traveled north and east about three hours drive to see the Yuanshan Temple in Lufeng.

Then on to Luhe, the town near the villages we would be visiting. Edward's family owns an apartment building there. Like their big home in Shenzhen, this building has room for much of the extended family. In fact, his father's older brother and family occupies the second floor.

From Edward's family residence in this town we took daily trips out to see the mountains and the villages that his parents were born and raised in.  First his mother's village . . .

 Then his father's . . .

I will have more to say about both of these villages in later blogs; but for this thumbnail sketch they must just be points on the map.

After three days of town and village life we drove back to Shenzhen.  From there we went to Guangzhou, as we did during out 2011 visit, where we ate with a lot of people we know, toured several old treasures, and sat in traffic.

At this point we were nearing the end. We went back to Shenzhen to pack and then to Hong Kong for a day before heading back for New York.

Day to day we knew generally where we might be heading, but often we waited for Edward to say, "We're leaving now," which was sometimes preceded by animated conversation in Chinese and sometimes came out of the blue.  Gradually as we became seasoned travelers, we knew the drill: grab your coat, put on your shoes, and wait at the door.

There it is in a nutshell, a succession of surprises and priceless experiences. In retrospect, the trip that rolled out before us one surprising moment at a time looks straightforward and easy.

And far too short!

China Revisited -- 2013 [#3]

TEA?  ANYONE?

Our experience so far in our Asian travels, limited though it may be to Korea and China, is that Asians are very hospitable people. National expressions of hospitality differ, of course; but we have been welcomed and embraced everywhere.

Hospitality in China begins with tea. Always.

 Come in. Sit. Sit here in the best seat.  We are honored that you have come.

When you are seated on the couch or in the good chairs in front of the tea table, the host will pull up a short chair or a stool that puts him at the height of the table, lower than his guests, for ease of handling the water, pots, cups, and loose tea.

The host will begin to make the tea. In every home we visited -- and we visited quite a few -- and in most restaurants, we were offered tea.

Tea begins with a washing of the tiny tea cups.  Boiling water, which come from a small metal tea kettle on a quick-heat burner that is often part of the apparatus is poured into each cup, as you watch; or it is poured into the first cup and from there into the second, so that each cup in turn is washed in the hot water. The hot water is dumped onto the tea table itself, which is built as a slatted wood grating. The larger part of the tea apparatus, usually a rectangular wood device about four inches tall, consists of this grating with a platform for setting tea cups at one end and another for housing the hot-pot capabilities at the other end. We saw quite a few different tea tables, but they were all built with the same basic design.

The tea process is not women's work, as we observed it.  It was performed, usually, by the father of the house. In his absence, it was performed by the mother. In her absence, another adult relative took the honors. And so forth. Sometime the eldest available child steps up to the task.

In a restaurant, depending on the status of the establishment, it was performed by a manager or by a waitress.

The tea itself is made on the spot in a little pot.

 The tea is always loose. Boiling water from the hot-water kettle is poured over a small strainer containing the loose tea into the little pot and then, without letting it steep, directly into the tiny cups.  Traditionally, the first little pot of tea is also poured over the cups before the cups are filled and passed out.

The guests are offered tea first, then the others in an order that respects rank or seniority.  The tea cup is usually so hot from the boiling water that it must be grasped at the rim with the thumb and first or second finger. It appears to our western eyes as a strange way to hold the cups, but it is necessary.

Then, once you have sipped the tea or drained it, the cup is immediately refilled.

The hosts may also offer fruit, often sliced oranges or whole clementines. This is a particularly nice feature of Chinese hospitality since, for us at any rate, the timing of the next meal is indefinite.

On the other hand, I was frequently offered cigarettes by other men.  It was an informal, friendly gesture -- two cigarettes in an extended hand. One hates to offend, so in addition to jet lag I have come home with a terrible nicotine habit.

Just kidding.

Turning down cigarettes was not a problem, but turning down tea was not possible. By the end of a morning or an afternoon of visiting, we were on constant alert for restrooms.  We learned to take advantage of restrooms when they appeared rather than to wait until we needed them.

Another lesson we learned was simply to recognize how to handle the tea refills.  Since the host wants you to feel welcome, it helped to finish the first cup straight away.  That addresses the hospitality issue.  Then allow your cup to be refilled. It is OK to leave that second cup essentially untouched. The first cup seems to be the culturally sensitive one -- so, bottoms up!

China Revisited -- 2013 [#2]

The Chop Sticks Diet


Traveling to China may not be the big deal it used to be.  Every town in the U.S. -- well, in fact, in much of the world -- now has Chinese students from somewhere on the mainland. Chinese from Taiwan, once common, are now the exception rather than the rule.

Nevertheless, for anyone old enough to remember Richard Nixon's famous trip to Beijing,  China is the exotic center of the world. It seems somehow pre-historic. Before Nixon's visit, we understood Beijing's Forbidden City to mean, essentially, forbidden to Americans. Fixed in my mind are the Mao jackets, the small-brimmed caps with the red star, and the bicycle-crowded boulevards. The images are all in black and white.

Now, of course, the memory itself is an anachronism.

Still, the lure of China remains strong.  Thus, when the invitation to visit China was extended, we could not not say "yes!"

On the day before we were to leave, with bags packed, house tidied, fears restrained, we began to feel a bit of trepidation. What if the winter storm that was forecast arrived sooner than expected and delayed or cancelled our first, short flight to JFK?  What if Donna's cold, already creating a bit of congestion suddenly got worse?  What if?  What if?

What if we just don't fit in?

I had thought for a number of years that I would learn Mandarin, so that we could function once we made our long anticipated voyage.  But somehow my several attempts were brief, frustrating, and eventually abandoned. I got as far as "thank you."

During that same forward-looking period, I decided to learn how to use chopsticks. To do this, I first tried observing experts, which is to say, our Asian students. I discovered two things. One is that they all preferred forks to chopsticks. Two is that on the infrequent occasions they did take up the wooden skewers, they invariably told me, "Don't copy my style. It is improper."

Undeterred, I taught myself, properly, from one of those red paper sleeves that bamboo restaurant chopsticks come in.  It was easy to position the chopsticks, hard to make them work.  While I was learning, struggling first to get food off the plate, then struggling to get it into my mouth instead of on my shirt, I became convinced that Americans would be thinner and healthier on the whole if we were all forced to use chopsticks. A nationwide chopsticks diet would address our obesity problem!

Gradually, however, I worked my way past the dropped rice, the stick flying off across the table, and the hand cramps. Technique and practice.  I can't quite snatch a fly out of the air like the Karate master, but I am, with quiet modesty PDG (pretty darn good) bordering on QE (quite excellent).  I can seize a rolling grape, pluck individual rice grains from a flat surface, and roll spaghetti as if it were a fork.

OK, so the chopsticks won't help me when I need to ask where the bathroom is, but it does make me feel a bit more at ease about the trip.

The night before we were to leave I mentioned to my daughter, the nurse, over the phone that I was hoping her mother wasn't going to get sicker.

"It's a cold, Pop." She replied without hesitation. "Give her meds and get her on the plane!"

After all, China is not an option every day.

China Revisited -- 2013

Beginning at the End

Travel is about many things. Even when we think we know what lies there, beyond that door, travel is a new way of knowing.

At the end of our trip to China in this new year 2013 – Tuesday in Shenzhen, Wednesday in Hong Kong, Thursday New York – I am newly impressed with two fairly obvious things about travel.

The first of these is difference.

China has been, for us, a revelation in this respect. 

The un-surprising differences include language.  My one-phrase-Mandarin-vocabulary, thank you (Xiexie), has increased to six or seven – incremental, not dramatic. I have learned not one but two forms of greeting – and the Cantonese expression for excusing myself from the table.

It’s not much, I admit, but you don’t need much when you have a translator, even if, like Edward, he quickly runs out of energy for the linguistic work. I have discovered, however, that I can establish a kind of rapport by trying out my words. Everywhere we went, I got laughs with my phrases, which if nothing else relieved some of the stress over expectations.

Even without understanding the language, it is interesting to watch people talk in a language you don’t know.  It permits you to watch for and listen to the “other” aspects of conversation we can easily overlook.  Tone, volume, enunciation or lack of same, the little grunting noises we make in conversation that signal our attentiveness, body language, eye contact, gestures -- in short, anything that embodies meaning beyond the words spoken.

“Aren’t  you  bored?” I have been asked many times via Edward, who is our host, driver, travel consultant, and general handyman besides being our translator.

“No,” I usually say, “I am listening and learning a lot.”

The food, of course, is different.  I will have more to say about food in another post. Suffice it to say, Chinese food as we know it from American Chinese restaurants, by and large, bears little resemblance to Chinese food in China. I suppose you could say that what we get in America is a translation of Chinese food.

Food and language are the two big embodiments of culture that are exceptionally different. To say this is to say the commonplace, of course; yet it cannot be overstated. Food and language are who we are: our present and future as well as our past.

There are many other differences, too – faces, for example. By this I do not mean the obvious notion that Asian faces look different from my own Germanic face.  I mean that Chinese faces are so different from one another. You will immediately understand that I am suggesting the recognition of individuals rather than of race.  It is amazing, nonetheless, to see such an obvious fact unfold in front of my eyes.

The second aspect of travel that impresses me now is recognition.

I suppose this happens both inwardly and outwardly.  A broom is a broom even if it is unlike any broom I have ever seen in America.

Babies and small children, whom I love to photograph, are the same everywhere -- as are parents and grandparents who attend, carry, fuss over or herd them.

In the village we visited, a little girl came out with her grandmother to see the foreigners.  She was shy, but after some (what I understood as ) coaxing from her grandmother she tried out her English on us -- "Hello" -- and then let me take her picture.

It isn't much, I suppose, but for us it was a way to open the door, to catch a glimpse inside this place we had come so far to see.

Loose Ends, # 6

The Un-Civics

As an 8th grader, I took a genuinely old-school class called "Civics" that was required of everyone.

Civics was a class in government, similar to the subject taught today. But at least in my school Civics was more. It included an element we might call citizenship, the point of which was to help us become good citizens. If a democracy functions on the strength of how informed and responsible its people are, as our forefathers clearly believed, a certain amount of civic awareness is essential.

My classmates and I were not particularly strong on the practical tools of responsibility -- at least the boys weren't. Despite the odds, that class provided practical lessons that I still remember.

Among the projects that we immersed ourselves in was a city planning project, in which we laid out a town, devised a charter, elected a town manager (a configuration we preferred to "mayor"), and addressed issues of infrastructure, such as where to put streets, where to locate schools, when and how to put up necessary signs, how to raise money to pay for it all, and so forth. You might call these necessary government functions. Some things just need to be done.

We also held a primary election. Given that New Hampshire was in a Republican state, during that primary season our mock-primary election featured Republican front runners -- Nelson Rockefeller, Margaret Chase Smith, and Barry Goldwater. There was no Democratic contest that year as the other candidate was an incumbent president.

Through a process that I no longer recall, I was chosen to run as Barry Goldwater. I am certain I protested that I was a poor choice and, furthermore, that it was unfair to give me Goldwater.  Rockefeller was a popular moderate Governor from New York; Smith was a very popular moderate Senator from Maine, which, given that Maine was 10 miles away, meant we knew a lot about her; but Barry Goldwater was from Arizona and known even among Republicans as an "extremist."

We were told to campaign for our mock election by forming a campaign committee and then by giving a speech. Voting to determine the winner would follow the speeches.  I don't know what my committee actually did besides making posters on construction paper, but I was on my own for the speech.

To cut a long campaign down to tolerable size, I approached my speech in a totally uncharacteristic fashion: I prepared. I bought Goldwater's book, The Conscience of a Conservative, and I read it.   I am not sure whether it was more impressive that I paid the 50 cent cover price or that I read all 127 pages, but I will let the preparation speak for itself.

I spent hours on my speech, making sure I understood Goldwater's ideas. As if that were not enough, I made sure my language forcefully articulated the issues his campaign was about. When it came time to deliver our speeches, my opponents clearly had not prepared.  Rockefeller's stand-in said two minutes worth of  things like "my opponent is a chump." He got laughs. Margaret Chase Smith apologetically noted that women could be worthy public servants.

For the young, this election was in 1964, a long time ago.  Nostalgia aside, we have been through a lot since 1964 that should not need to be repeated. Few of us really want those days back.

From time to time, I think about what I learned in Civics class. This extremely long campaign season I have had many opportunities to do so. The American people, as candidates like to say, have been subjected to enough ignorance and stupidity to embarrass a class of 8th grade boys -- and they don't embarrass easily.

There are lots of ways to express opinions that will one day embarrass us: signs on lawns that say "America vs Obama," for example. They are just wrong. In every way wrong. Claims that Obama is a socialist or, as I read two weeks ago in a local paper, that he is a communist, are so glaringly out of touch as to be laughable if they weren't also indicators of how badly informed our electorate can be. And those urgent warnings by folks with religious views like my own who claim this President is anti-religion.

Countering these claims would take up too much time and space in an already long blog. Best to consider them this way. Like the jack-o-lantern above, they are pretty scary in the dark.  But in the daylight, with the flame of rumor extinguished, they are . . . well, they are something else entirely.

It all makes me wonder why Civics was not required at every grade level like Math and English. Maybe it should be a requirement for voter registration.

Tomorrow I plan to vote for the President. After work, I will stay away from election coverage and go to bed early with a good book.

I am praying that the President wins. But either way, I will sleep well. I have every confidence that God is still sovereign.

PS
My 8th grade campaign speech took 12 minutes. I touched on all the crucial points of Goldwater's platform, including the developing war in Vietnam and Civil Rights.

I don't have the speech any longer for reference, sadly, but I think it was one of the most effective political speeches ever.

For the record, I won the mock election in a landslide. I know I made my mother proud.

Loose Ends, #5

High Tides and Report Cards

Call me shallow, but I have had two bits of good news this week.

The first was the emergency created by hurricane Sandy.  As I write, the rains and wind are still blowing leaves from our trees, bringing an abrupt end to what little remained of the fall leaf-viewing season.

Beyond the coincidental fact that skeletal trees work better for Halloween than leafy trees, however gorgeous, this leaf-drop is not necessarily good news. Sadly, the trees outside my workplace, which produce leaves of various vivid colors and patterns, are nearly bare now.

Sandy has also caused deaths and created enormous hardships for millions along the Atlantic seaboard.

On the other hand, for my narrower purposes, Sandy has brought with it a brief, though temporary, hiatus to the political windstorm that has raged for, well, for nearly four years. Any respite, clearly, is welcome, even if it is delivered via the costly disruption of a late season hurricane.

I live in a community that is largely Republican and in a county that likes to express its "conservatism." I registered as a Democrat when I moved here nearly thirty years ago, in part to refute the received wisdom that all God's people vote Republican. Most of the time I vote for the Democratic candidate, but not always.  Sometimes there is no Democrat on the ballot in this county. Once or twice I even voted for the Republican, perhaps as lesser evil.

More importantly, if I were registered Republican, I would count as one more undifferentiated statistic in the great political discussion that allows amateurs to masquerade as experts.

I like to maintain what we might call a "thinking posture" and attempt to reserve my vote for the better choice. I read history, for example. I am also among the shrinking number of those who still read the newspapers; and I watch several newscasts, beginning with the BBC. What I don't do is watch political talk shows, although they are hard to avoid.

One immediate benefit of my position is that I understand how some problems have a longer shelf life than four years.  Think "wars in the Middle East" here, for example. Or Roe v Wade. Or poverty in America. Or the persistence of race as an issue in a post-racial America.

Sadly, my "thinking posture" is not necessarily shared, a judgment I make based on the quality of lawn signs and TV ads that appear locally with increasing frequency as the election nears. Some apparently believe this is the most important election of their lifetime, as the urging usually goes, although it is not the most important election of my now considerable lifetime.

This brings me to my second bit of good news.  In the mail yesterday I received my first ever "Voter Report Card."  Guess what?  I not only received an "Excellent" for voting in the last five general elections, but more importantly I also scored better than my neighbors! Being a good neighbor is important, but being better than my neighbors is simply great!

Imagine my excitement when this Excellent Voter Report Card arrived on a day that the campaigns took the day off.

What has me a bit worried, however, is the sentence on my Report Card that indicates my rating is based on "public records for your current address only." I have lived in a number of places during my adult life.  What do you suppose a check of other addresses would turn up?  Voter fraud?

I am planning to vote for the President, as one might expect. Now that I have a streak going, I would be remiss to skip this election, wherever it ranks on the "important election" list. All in all, it's not actually a hard decision for me. I have a long memory.

More important than my personal choice, however, is this:  On Wednesday after the election, while all the things that annoy us are still fresh in our minds, let's start thinking about campaign reform.  We should start by limiting the political season -- not only to improve our quality of life, but also to allow elected officials time to concentrate on doing their jobs rather than campaigning.  Then we need to find a way to reign in campaign financing. The PAC system is frightening. Then, if anyone is left standing, let's tackle the tricky question of truth in advertising.

These are highly political issues, of course, so clearly we need a commission that is non-partisan rather than congressional.  But I think it can be done if we set aside the what's-in-it-for me and the I'm-a-victim positions that have come to characterize our political thinking.

Let's treat it as a problem to be solved, a problem that needs to be solved. That's what Americans are good at, right?

Loose Ends, Number Four

Snapple Facts -- 

Or Why I Hate American Politics

Several years ago I began collecting lids from the glass Snapple bottles. Each lid comes with an arcane "real fact" printed on the underside.

I don't collect all "real fact" lids, just the ones that fit a category that lies a tad beyond bizarre and decidedly to the vaccuus side of trivial. This is where the true genius of the "facts" themselves lies.

Case in point is Real Fact" #880, "A Venus flytrap can eat a whole cheeseburger."

The cheeseburger fact is empty but compelling,. It is a bit like the accident you can see happening but can't turn away from. The information itself is beyond useless.  There is no way to verify the truth of the statement should you even want to -- unless you had a Venus flytrap and were willing to sacrifice it to the cheeseburger experiment.  I am dead certain that the cheeseburger would kill the little vegetable meat-eater.

Perhaps there are Venus flytrap researchers out there who might also supply the data for us, but I don't have the ambition to track one down.

Apparently there are hundreds of these "real facts" out there waiting to be encountered.  The highest numbered "real fact" I have is #917, which says that "The average lead pencil can draw a line 35 miles long or write roughly 50,000 English words."

Consider that: over 900 facts that have no use and no value, but are, nevertheless, genuine curiosities, real brain grabbers.

Fact #917 appears reasonable, by the way, although I have no idea how close it is to being true. As with the flytrap - cheeseburger question, I am not motivated to find out. For all I know, a pencil researcher just "did the math" and never drew any lines at all. A smart mathematician could devise the formula, couldn't she?  At least that is what mathematicians always claim -- math can explain everything.

I keep my "real fact" lids in a metal can that was once filled with mint balls.  Uncle Joe's Mint Balls, to be precise, made in Wigan, England, according to the can; they are made of cane sugar, oil of peppermint, cream of tartar, and NO artificial additives.

The can also claims they are "PURE" and "GOOD," although I can't attest to either. I ate the last one decades ago.

This is, I suppose, a strange subject for meditation, although I am seized with an odd conviction that may give it a certain rationale. A few days ago I came across a Snapple lid that gave the real name for Barbie, of Barbie-doll fame. Amazing.  I mean, I had no idea! Barbara Millicent Roberts. A tad pretentious, perhaps, but good to know.

What really struck me about this Barbie "fact' is that my immediate reaction was to connect it to Sarah Palin, for some reason.  Huge cognitive shift here: I remember how relieved I was to be in London during the off-year election in 2010 since the London papers generally ignored the political noise and nonsense from back home.

I was asked once at a men's prayer breakfast to explain the American fascination with Sarah Palin as potential national candidate. These good Christian men were hoping for some insight.

Sadly, I was no help, being mystified myself.

My confusion got me a few laughs. The English, apparently, find us amusing when we are not trying to be too impressed with ourselves.

Now, after what seems like eternal presidential campaigning, during which a little other-worldly wisdom from Sarah Palin might be amusing, I would be in favor of exchanging campaign seasons for this: have each candidate write on a 3X5 card why I should vote for him and publish it in the newspaper every day for the first week of November.

This brief foray into the political realm reminds me of a few more "real facts" I am strangely fond of.
Number 893, fitting for October, reads, "Jack-O-Lanterns were originally made out of turnips."

I want very much to believe jack-o-lanterns were originally made of turnips, as it suggests simpler times, when politicians were public servants, men of substance. Still, I am finding it hard to believe anyone would go to all the work of hollowing enough space in a turnip for a lit candle.

Another favorite falls into the campaign promise kind of category.  Real Fact # 823, "Sailors once thought wearing gold earrings improved eyesight."  This one, far-fetched as it appears, sounds about right.  Because, why not? Sailors have not always been the brightest stars in the sky.

My actual point here is that much of what we call political rhetoric is largely of the same order, curiously fascinating but essentially pointless. And even should we think it true, it's hard to judge the actual value of the information.

"Real Fact" 795: "Hawaii is moving toward Japan at the rate of almost 4 inches per year."

Should we be worried?  Is the key word here "almost"? Or is 4 inches likely to create international issues during my children's lifetime?

My all time favorite "Real Fact" is the lid that got me started in the first place,  # 786: The brain operates on the same amount of power as a 10-watt bulb.

Kind of makes you wonder doesn't it, what that says about those of us who can't get enough of the political talk?