Egypt -- Jim & Donna's Excellent Adventures, Pt. 20, Bartering with the Pros

     We were not due at the Luxor airport until 4:30, so Nagy brought us to a traditional market for one last cultural exposure (and shopping opportunity). Our van pulled up to an alley entrance that appeared dark because the buildings were close together. The alleyway seemed to be covered with fabric although it may just have been that individual stalls were draped. It looked just like the markets you see in the movies except we seemed to be the only customers, which meant shop keepers, eager to sell something, had no one else to approach.

    Eager is one appropriately descriptive word for the merchants. Persistent is another. What the timid North American tourists thought might be an opportunity to see the market and the wares -- to browse, as it were -- quickly become an exercise in trying to say "No, thank you." Then, just "No!" 

    Several merchants approached me straightaway with items in hand saying, "Don't break my heart."

 

 

    [These first two photos and the last are thematic rather than specifically from Luxor on our last afternoon. This street scene is intended to capture donkey cart and the merchant scene is from the Pyramids at Giza.]

    I must confess to feeling more than a bit heartless to turn down every approach despite being told I was breaking hearts. More than once we called to Nagy to step in for help. 

    One merchant was particularly insistent so Nagy told us to wait "over there" while he had what we thought was an animated exchange.We did eventually buy a very nice table cloth, which now adorns our dining room table; somehow Nagy negotiated a workable price for us. 

    Danil and the Friedmans found a few things they had been hunting for, so the market experience was profitable for all of us -- though it may have been tiring for Nagy. 

        My last photo in Egypt is of this drawing we found in a cafe we stopped at on our way to the airport. I thought of Picasso. It was displayed near a row of traditionally dressed men who were sitting against the wall chatting. I thought for a moment of trying to get them in the same frame as the drawing, but decided that would be rude.

    Nagy was prepared to order another lunch for us, but so close to our river cruise lunch we voted for coffee, tea, and soft drinks instead. 

    After this last stop we were dropped at the airport where we said our goodbye's to Nagy, who had become a good and valued friend in the ten days we had known him. Once inside, we underwent three different head-to-toe security screenings -- X-rays of carry-on bags; shoes, belts, coins, phones, laptops, et. al., in little bins on the conveyor belt, and so forth. 

    Before we were able to check our bigger bags I had to open them so an expert in antiquities could check to be sure we were not taking genuinely ancient items out of the country. He ripped open all the tightly wrapped stone objects and the nativity sets, which we then had to re-wrap and repack. So much for the strategic, careful packing we had engineered earlier in the day!

    The antiquities inspector was wearing an ID lanyard that read "Saint Louis Art Museum," so I asked him if he had been in St. Louis. He said he had spent six weeks in St. Louis working with the Egyptian Antiquities Collection housed there. 

    When I asked what he thought of his experience, he said it was "OK." Then he added that St. Louis is as hot as Luxor.

    Air travel back to Toronto for our drive home was, as expected, long and uncomfortable, but full of specific answers to prayer, mostly directed toward border crossings. We arrived in Cairo about 10 p.m. with a layover for the flight to Frankfort at 4:30 a.m. Once in Frankfort we said a quick goodbye to our Canadian team -- Matt, Chandra, and Danil. They had to reconnect in something like 45 minutes, so it was high-fives and run. Our connection was four hours, so we took our time locating our gate, found a place to eat, and tried to stay alert for the boarding call.

    Our specific answers to prayer had everything to do with getting in and out of countries due to enhanced and/or shifting Covid requirements. These never did develop as an issue.

 

    At the US border, which can be a long, tiring experience, we found we were the only car. The Border Agent asked his three obligatory questions -- Where are you coming from? Where are you going to? and Are you bringing anything in that we need to know about? -- and sent us on our way.

    Actually, I am not sure of his exact wording since we had mostly been awake for the last day and a half, and I just wanted enough clarity of mind to drive back to Houghton. That was its own adventure but the major hurdles had all disappeared. Thanks be to God.

Busan Journal, China Adventure, Part III: Shenzhen

The New China: Buildings, Food, and our Kids

Between Hong Kong and Shenzhen lies a border that is like national borders everywhere. Access to Hong Kong or access to "the mainland" from Hong Kong is managed efficiently this way.  Hong Kong can remain the international city it has always been, and China can maintain control over who gets to enter or leave its own space.  It appears to be mutually advantageous. Fears in the west about what would happen to Hong Kong once the British turned over management to China a little more than a decade ago largely failed to play out.

With visas in hand, we left Hong Kong with Edward in a van driven by a family friend as dusk settled into darkness. We saw very little except for lights.  The highway we traveled had all the charm of an American interstate.  Nevertheless, once we had passed beyond the border station where our newly issued visas were examined, we felt suddenly overwhelmed.  It was a true can-you-believe-it experience.  We are actually in China! Imagine that!!!

I had had a similar feeling in 2004 when a group of us, middle-aged men and our teen-aged basketball-playing sons, had traveled to Russia to help the Wesleyan Church in Vladimir.  The teenagers were suitably impressed, I suppose, but for those of us who grew up during the black and white days of the Cold War, being in Russia was almost too much to take in.

China was even more unimaginable -- if that is possible.

Yet there we were.  China!

We were met in Shenzhen by Edward's parents, who put us up in the Elite Hotel, near their apartment building. We ate the first of a series of grand meals, with real Chinese food -- not the fake Chinese food we Americans are so fond of.

Apart from eating, our first morning in Shenzhen was spent visiting the cultural center near the city hall.  Shenzhen is a new city, a modern city.  Since it has been built from the ground up in the last three decades, all the buildings are recent and spectacular.

The Shenzhen City Hall is built with a flowing roof to suggest an eagle in flight. Across this wet plaza a young couple posed for photographers, in a scene that could have come from any city in America.

The cultural center itself houses many attractions, from stores to a library to performance halls.  A bronze statue of Pavarotti welcomes visitors to the complex.

We stopped in the midst of the plaza to have our picture taken with Edward's mother and father.

Edward's mother made sure we were well taken care of.  She led Donna by the hand everywhere we went. It was, I think, good insurance for my wife, a woman who tends to be navigationally at risk.

We visited a very large bookstore with scores of people sitting on the floor reading. Nearby was a library with a huge map of the city in the foyer.

Edward agreed to explain its geography. Well, he explained the geography without prompting; but what he actually agreed to do for me was to pose for a picture.

In a passage between buildings we found a street musician playing haunting traditional melodies on an electrified erhu.  Like the little girl, I am drawn to performances of this kind, but I am not bold enough to stand as close as she was. 

In the performance center itself I found many things to catch my attention, including a fascinating ceiling made of hundreds of glass panes and dozens of angles.

Apparently, I was unaware that my photography interests were pushing us off schedule.  When I finally did catch on, we zipped back to the hotel where we were surprised to find a number of former Houghton Academy students waiting to greet us.

Seeing Yujia, Simba, Yi, and Syan coming toward us on the sidewalk made us feel just like old times in Houghton.  If it had not been for the tropical air, we might have thought we were home.

We were not going to see the Great Wall or the ancient cities, but we were able to see what we had come for -- our kids!

Day 9

Welcome to London

My first memories of Russia include a certain unpleasantness.

We had been primed for customs when we landed in Moscow. Stand in line, papers in hand and in proper order. Keep your mouth shut. Certainly no joking or horsing around.

Border crossing in our time has become a exacting, tense experience. Even the US - Canadian border at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, that used to be "Hi" and "U.S." to the citizenship question, now requires a passport and twenty no nonsense questions -- if you are lucky. If you very lucky, the Canadian customs agent will give you a smile too.

But in Russia it is all serious business, even though, I am told, things have lightened up considerably. Step up to the booth when the soldier inside signals. Hand him the passport, visa, and entry declarations. Know how much money you are carrying when he asks so you don't have to dig it out and count it. Smile if you can't help it -- they expect that from Americans -- but no jokes.

So we did that, one at a time, as summoned. The soldier turned out to look extremely young. He may have been a teenager, for all I know. But for any child of the cold war, as I am, the familiar Russian military uniform is sobering regardless of the person wearing it. The difference between Russian Federation and Soviet Union seems negligable as you stand there rigid with concentration. This was 2004, but it could have been 1964 for the residual fears that somehow bob to the surface. A few tense moments while he examines the paper and looks you in the face, then relief when he waves you through.

Once through, the first thing we wanted was a bathroom. Relief from all that tension comes in many forms. And we had a long ride ahead of us. We had heard the toilet stories and had been told to expect the worst.

The bathroom when we found it tucked in under a set of stairs reminded me of older sections of the New York City subway system. A whole lot better, all in all, than the-hole-in-the-floor stories we had been treated to; however dated, this was a good bathroom.

So, I had taken my turn and was waiting to wash my hands in the sink when an old man lurched through the door, staggered over to the lone sink, and vomited into it with great force and noise.

Stunned, we all stepped back as the old man, with his long white hair, long white beard, and dark clothes, layered and deeply soiled, straightened up and lurched back out the door.

So, my friends: Welcome to Russia.

I was reminded of that sobering experience Tuesday morning on the streets of London. I was returning from Heathrow, where my wife had just left for home to see a new grandchild into the world, and had decided to walk through center London to pick up a knife-sharpening steel at John Lewis.

Heading down Tottenham Court Road in the general though distant direction of Foyles, the landmark book store, I encountered twenty-five young people pulling large suitcases traveling slowly in the same direction and effectively obstructing the sidewalk. Feeling confident from my four weeks as a Londoner and, no doubt, a tad amused at that familiar initial suitcase hauling ordeal, I made my way to the front of the suitcase crowd by side-stepping and moving up into gaps.

I had just reached the front of the crowd, where an efficient sounding young woman was shouting directions toward the sluggish stragglers, when a tall young man coming toward us, suddenly bent over and vomited with great force and noise in the middle of the sidewalk.

He was almost upon us, I might add. I managed to avoid splatter by hopping to the side.

I turned quickly to gauge for myself if the young man was sick. He straightened himself, mostly, and staggered forward. I recognized on his face the same mask of drunkenness I had seen on the old drunk in Moscow, the same flushed skin, at once abnormally pink and colorless, the same concentration of the eyes that focus on nothing but the next step, the same set jaw and fixed mouth as if grim determination will get them through just this one more time. His sports jacket and slacks had the sheen and varigated staining of many nights on the ground.

Many things might be said here, but they've been said before. And those who need to hear them most aren't listening just now. The differences between the young drunk in London and the old drunk in Moscow -- or the ones I used to walk past sleeping in doorways in San Francisco -- are almost incidental compared with the damning similarities.

Oh, my young friends, no one starts out thinking he -- or she -- will end up a public drunk. But sure as you are reading this tale to its end, when you reach that point, the rest of us will have only one option -- to step aside and move away as quickly as possible.