Happy Good-Bye

I'm a little worse for the wear of the road, but I'm still smiling.

Yes, yet another tour is coming to an end. My bags are packed, and my mind has already placed me out at the hotel entrance waiting for the taxi that will take me to Dalian International airport.

It was a good tour, but not a great tour. That could be the reason for my happy good-bye.

Thanks for tagging along! I'll let you know that I arrived home safely.

Not A Bad Day in Dalian!

The sun arose and stiff wind of the China Sea blew out the pollution that had shrouded Dalian since I arrived. The wind also caused the humidity to drop to a level that allowed one to walk more than a block without breaking into a heavy sweat. These were reasons enough to celebrate, but then, the study abroad exhibition was a pretty good event! A triple whammy!!
I was on a Chinese roll!! But then .... I got back to my hotel, and found that a wedding reception was taking place in the garden court that my 2nd floor room overlooks. This was not good.

A Chinese wedding reception is a very elaborate affair. There is a welcoming speech by a "MC" (at a highly amplified volume). Directly after the speech is the cake cutting (to much applause and cheering). A traditional Chinese wedding cake is huge, with many layers. The layers symbolize the couples climb to success. The couple cut the cake from the bottom to the top. The bride and groom feed each other a piece of cake (sound familiar?). Then, they cut a piece of cake for the parents and grandparents. The bride and groom feed each of the pieces of cake to the parent or grandparent together (to much cheering). Wedding toasts are given (...many, and loudly). The wedding guests then (with great hilarity) greet the bride and groom and the parents. Then (in the case of this one) a 10 course meal is enjoyed, and then, there is "music"; loud music, karaoke singing, guest "singers"; all oiled by (a lot of) alcohol.
The reception began many hours ago. They are all having fun downstairs.
Upstairs ..... it's a different story.
....... but then; this is all part of the adventure.

Take Anshan Off the List

Hot as Chinese Temple Dog in July

Evening ~
I'm sure that there are wonderful things about Anshan to recommend to your friends, but I just didn't find any.

The education exhibition I participated in here was held in the lower hall (basement) of a "science center". The temperature yesterday was 90 F, and the humidity was at least 90% and .... the "lower hall" was not air conditioned, and not well lit. About half of the exhibitors folded up their stuff and left within the first hour. Not me! I sweated it out, and made certain that everyone who came by my exhibit space who looked even mildly interested, or able to read English (or not), walked away with a brochure. If they didn't learn anything about La Verne, at least they had something imported with which to fan themselves. The day ranks up there with one of the longest ones I've ever experienced. I vote for not sending me here next year.

When I returned to my slightly air conditioned room in the not grand Wuhan Grand, there was a brochure stuck on my door. I entered my room and slipped off my clothes, (which was easy to do since they were drenched in sweat), sat down, and perused the brochure. It was printed in Chinese, with a picture of the hotel in the background. I found the strategically placed English subtitles on the brochure to be intriguing.

"Customing the room card, you will have a surprise!" boasted one phrase. A few lines down below more Chinese characters it read: "Sing the passion in our heart. Set free the burning flame. Lead the trend of the times. Sing with the wine. Health depends upon preserving." ....... ..... what????

I called it a day, packed my bags and made ready for the bus trip to Dalian in the morning.

Thursday Morning ~

I was taken to the bus station, a ticket was purchased for me, and I was told to wait till the Dalian bus was called for boarding. After sitting in the terminal for about 45 minutes, the thought occurred to me, "What if I get on the wrong bus?" The place is a Chinese puzzle. There is nothing written or spoken in English anywhere. Buses coming and going, people crowding to get a seat, or to get their bags loaded, children crying, announcements (who knows what they're saying) being shouted over the public address system. I began looking around for someone who looked "foreign", like me, so I could ask, "Have I missed my bus?"

Apparently I looked sufficiently clueless enough for a uniformed person with an official red sash (obviously left over from the Red Guard) to approach me and ask (in English!), "Where are you wishing to go, sir?"

"Dalain; am I in the right place?"

"Follow me, sir". She kindly barked at the assembled masses of my fellow travelers, thus clearing a path, and led me to the proper exit door for the Dalian bus.

Happy to be pointed in the right direction, I settled in for the three and a half hour trip. The elderly man that I sat down next to did not look thrilled with the fact that a "loawai" (foreigner) had become his seat mate. I happily and wholeheartedly assured him that I would make the travel time fly by with entertaining stories of my life and travels. He stared at me for a few seconds, then mumbled something to himself in Chinese as he turned his face towards the window. I did not take this personally. Sometimes it takes people a while to know what a fun guy I am.

South to Anshan

Yesterday, on a 90 minute, public bus ride south from Shenyang, a kung fu movie entertained the majority of the passengers, and the lone Westerner took in the landscape rolling by outside. It was agricultural, mostly; rice paddies, pig farms, and mushroom growing facilities. The few villages that the newly constructed, 6 lane highway bisected were small. It was easy to understand that fewer and fewer Chinese are living in rural areas.

The trip ended in Anshan at a grimy central city bus station next to a vast train yard. The rain-soaked streets and 50’s era mass housing projects were covered with a layer of brownish muck. The air was foggy with heat and humidity, and yellowed by pollution.

Anshan is known for its iron and steel mill complex; China’s largest. The entire city and surrounding area is dominated by this huge plant which covers over 10 square miles and employs close to half a million people. The city has a population of 3.6 million, with more than 38 thousand students studying in high schools, and 20 thousand in universities and institutions. Thus it is a natural venue for an annual study abroad education fair; and that’s why I’m here.

I’m staying at a hotel called the Wuhuan Grand Hotel. So far, I’ve found nothing “grand” about it. Yesterday evening I wanted to order my dinner from room service, but the menu was only in Chinese. I phoned room service to ask if they had a menu with English subtitles, and the person who answered hung up. An hour later, a woman called back and said in broken English, that she was the only one who spoke English, and asked me what I wanted to eat. I explained that I didn’t know because I couldn’t read the menu. “No worry”, I was told, and she hung up. About 10 minutes passed when someone appeared at the door with a (sort of) English menu, then left. It was Chinese food ….. of course. A brief survey of the menu’s offerings convinced me that Anshan has outdone Shenyang in the culinary arts:
~ Savory Ox Liver with Bamboo Shoots
~ Fat Intestines Fried on the Pan
~ Bamboo Scented Mutton Neck
~ Scallion Scented Flatfish Head
~ Homely Dough Drop Sea Food Soup
~ Iced Cheese
~ Delicious Peppery Stewed Tendons
~ Prawn Meatballs with Fungus

Room service called me back a few minutes later. “You see menu. What Chinese food you want?”

“I’ve decided to wait until morning for the breakfast buffet” I replied. ‘Please, God; let there be eggs …..’

The Wild, Wild East

Shenyang Exhibition Center:

Today was the second and last day of the education fair I attended here. It ended an hour earlier than planned when a fight broke out between members of two study abroad agencies who were exhibitors. (I am not making this up. ) It seems that one of the agents became enraged when she thought that an agent from the next booth had "enticed" a prospective client away from her. A shouting match quickly developed into a brawl when after seeing the two "ladies" start to exchange blows, the staff emptied from both booths and tore into one another. The noise created by the fracas, now involving at least a dozen men and women, drew a crowd of locals who (and I have to guess at this because it was all in Chinese) began rooting for their favorite agency's participants.

Uniformed, whistle blowing, security police, looking like leftovers from the Cultural Revolution, suddenly joined this bizarre scene, muscled their way through the cheering onlookers, and broke up the fight with night sticks.

A few minutes later a desperate sounding announcement was blasted (in Chinese, of course) over the p.a. system. The clueless, jet-lagged representative from the American, liberal arts university with the French moniker, was informed by his translator that the fair was being closed and that we should exit the hall within 30 minutes or face arrest. The translator then offered her opinion that the security people were just using the incident as an excuse to go home early and have their Sunday lunch. Dumbly staring out into the emptying hall, as if waiting for the events to catch up with me, I threw in my own opinion, that people here took student recruiting very seriously.

She responded with a Chinese word that sounded a lot like, "Duh!"

On the Road Again

Shenyang, Liaoning Province:

I'm happy to be deplaned and free of airports today after 29 hours of travel. I've spent the day catching up with myself and finding out just where in the world I am.

Before I left California, I studied maps of China, familiarizing myself with the region. You can see from the map above, that Shenyang is in the north east part of China, just to the west of North Korea. Liaoning province has a population of nearly 43 million people. Shenyang is the capitol city of the province, and China's fourth largest city. It's a leading manufacturing hub and a highly industrialized area. There seems to be more buildings under construction and destruction than there are those occupied. I can almost see it growing as I look out on to it from my hotel room. (So much for the geography lesson ...)

Shenyang is also one of the venues for the 2008 Olympics. It will host some of the soccer matches at the new stadium (pictured above). With the start of the games only a few weeks away, there is a lot of buzz (and flags) in the city already. I flew into the new terminal of the Beijing Capitol Airport yesterday, and there were hundreds of newly minted Olympic "hosts" and government personnel "practicing" making nice with visitors. I could still smell the paint drying; everything is new, shiny and ready to roll.

The Sheraton Lido Hotel, where I'm staying, is suitably upscale, but (to my disappointment) has no electric toilets. It does, however, have some interesting items on the room service menu:
- Aged Pumpkin Soup
- Marinated Jelly Fish Heads with Black Vinegar and Cucumber
- Braised Whole Shark's Fin Served with Plain Rice
- Sweetened Superior Bird's Nest with Lily Bud
- Boiled Sea Cucumber Dumpling

....... decisions, decisions, decisions .......

I can make out a KFC sign down the block; the Colonel never sounded so good.