The REAL Highlight of My Nanjing Experience

We spent four full days in Nanjing and, for me, being there was the best part of my China experience.  We stayed long enough to meet and interact multiple times with some very nice people and we did very little tourist stuff; we had classroom time learning more Chinese language and some practical knowledge and experiences (translation:  "we shopped") and we had a series of interesting lectures from professors at the Nanjing Normal University.  I will have more to say about the days we spent in Nanjing, but I have to get the peak experience out there to the world first.  I am so eager to tell this story that I am skipping the day spent in Suzhou, but--not to worry--I will go back to that.

It wasn't a particularly interesting day (Wednesday, June 8) till we went on a trip to the other campus of Nanjing Normal.  It is far from the original, old campus (the school is older than Pace, by the way), and seemingly way out of town, but the way things work around here, it's probably still in town, just doesn't seem like it. So this campus was built about ten years ago and it is very spread out with all shiny, modern buildings.  Very impressive.  We met up there with some of the same people we seem to see everywhere and a few new ones.  First, we had a meeting, quite formal and structured (I've lost count of how many of these we have sat through). Then we were driven to the library, which has a cafe downstairs, so we (now a subset, i.e., just the visitors and a couple of our entourage members, including my personal favorite and new friend, Mr. Wu). Then we were driven to another building and had another big banquet with all the same people from our previous meeting. I got to sit by Mr. Wu again and he and I talked about literature, teaching and summer vacations.He is going fishing, just so you know.

We had numerous dishes, including a surprise birthday cake for Deborah, and a soup with some very strange stuff in it (the one thing I thought I could identify looked like a chicken gizzard)(I only tasted the broth, yuck), and--the bonus round--what turned out to be fried chicken "paws," as Adelia delicately called them. I didn't know what they were, so crunched through one and ate it, then crunched another and spit it out (Mr. Wu was away toasting someone at that moment, fortunately). Tried another and spit it out too. I thought perhaps the first one was an aberration, but it turns out they were all like that. On purpose.

Then the party was over and two of our Pace people (I am protecting your identities) decided to go for a foot massage at some place back downtown that an incredibly gorgeous PPMG staff person recommended and I was invited to go with them. You are surprised I said ok, right? Obviously this is a trip where I have stepped way outside my comfort zone! And, to be honest, I have not regretted that even one time.  Even with the chicken paws and the donkey.

Well, I can't begin to tell you what a weird experience this was. The PPMG rep (we had all met Isabelle at Pace before) took us to the hotel (not one we were staying at) and made the arrangements. Then she left and we fumbled through the rest of it with people who spoke not one word of English. And it's not like we've learned a helpful vocabulary for, say, foot and head massages, which is what we all had. We were all required to take showers first, and the charge for the showers was greater than the charge for the additional services, so we see how they turn some profit.  None of us knew the proper, shall we say, protocol for dressing and undressing in a Chinese spa, so we just got on with it however we could.  I, for one thing, ended up with both my towel and my abandoned clothing getting wet from my shower.  Oh, and we had lockers to deal with, but only a staff person had the key, so I can't begin to tell you the embarrassing number of  times I had to call her back, since I was pretty disorganized.  I don't exactly have my own routine for Mandarin Massage established. 

We finished our showers at all different times so had to be led individually through multiple turns down hallways lit for perpetual twilight.  It was eerie  because there were so many doorways off the hallways but I could get no sense of whether there were people behind all the doors, or even some of them. Was I being kidnapped? Had we been separated and assigned to different interrogators?

The foot massage was very pleasant.  Once we were situated in our room that had several BIG comfy chairs in it, these young women dressed like 15-year-old private-school girls came in and took our feet in hand(s). After they determined that we did not want to watch tv, they got to work, but soon set up an incessant chatter. That part was not relaxing but since we couldn't understand a single word, it was sort of like Muzak.

When they were finished, the head massage woman came in and was shocked to find three heads, rather than the one she had been informed needed massaging. She was peeved about this, I would surmise.  I went last so had time to examine her performance by using my peripheral vision. Anticipation had plenty of time to build.

So, turns out the head massage is done by this woman who sits behind you in the big massage chair.  She wears a long, split skirt and she hikes it up and "mounts" (so to speak) behind you.  Let's just say that by the time this was over, I figured that she and I were--at the very least--going steady, if not planning the size of the family we want to have together. I was, literally, in a sweat and she was too, because at one point she paused in the massage and heaved a big, hot sigh. We were making a lot of sweat between us.  Man oh man. I opened my eyes at the end (closing them was part of my unsuccessful relaxation attempt) and--uh oh!--my friends were gone and it was just this head-massager with me in this dark room.  And I wasn't sure at this point that I had given her the kind of encouragement that would signal that we had bonded in a special way. And I had forgotten to drop breadcrumbs in the hallway so I could find my way back.  She led me out the door of our twilit room into the twilit hallway around the many corners and did deliver me safely. She did not ask me for my phone number or email address so we could touch base later or plan whose family to visit over the holidays.

We had a good laugh about all of this in the cab.  A very good laugh. A very, very good laugh. Anyway, the foot massage was relaxing, but the head massage was...strange. I wasn't quite relaxed enough for it, let's say!

And then there was the part where we tried to stiff the cab driver for his fare, but just don't check the Nanjing police blotter for that evening and you will not risk destroying the high reputation I have attained with you.

PS: If you had a bad day today, will it make you feel better if I tell you I somehow managed to pee on both pants legs in a squat toilet before dinner this evening? 

People and Pandas

Got this from Andrew Revkin's tweet:

"China moves from human census--1.33 billion--to panda census--1596--at last count."

http://tumblr.com/x7037woxfs

We came so close to those mountains outside of Xian!

Traditional Chinese Music on the Guzheng

The performer is Liu Fang, a native of China who now lives in Montreal.  She is a world-renowned performer on this instrument and other ancient ("gu") Chinese stringed instruments. There are many YouTube videos, some sounding more like western classical music on the harp.  This performance, though, is traditional music like what we heard in Xian. This tune is "Seagulls Playing in the Water." It is an excerpt from a longer work.

From Beijing to Xian

[Conjure for yourself here a picture of confusion and consternation at Beijing Airport as various passport data-entry errors are discovered.  Picture dread and consternation as our flight is late in departing.][International incident narrowly averted.][Endless ride in darkness from the new, soaring Xian airport to Xian city accompanied by our guide, Mr. Harry Wu.  From the window of the bus we see coal plants belching smoke into darkness.  We pass through mysterious intersections where cars are stopped curbside and numerous ladies are observed strolling the sidewalks. There seems to be quite a lot of activity in what feels like the middle of nowhere. Much of it feels like an industrial area but occasionally we pass by groups of children playing under streetlights. A Dantesque landscape?  Or was I just tired and hungry?]

Xian is a large city now, but at its core is the old, walled town that was a major stop on the Silk Road.  In Xian we observed much greater ethnic and racial diversity than in Beijing, because there is a sizable Muslim population, the result of movement west to east along the Silk Road hundreds of years ago. Xian has much to recommend it, but here the trip began to feel a little like a Long Walk, with stops for feeding, whether we were hungry or not.  The weather began to be much hotter too.

Our first morning in Xian we took a long bus ride toward the mountains (there are pandas up there somewhere, but they were not on our agenda), eating lunch in a restaurant with a very local feel to it, and finally arriving at the location of the famous Terra Cotta Warriors. Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones offers an interesting description of the accidental discovery of this very significant 3rd-c BCE archeological find and the history of its excavation.  1974! Imagine! This vast repository of individualized, life-size (and larger) terra cotta figures, including horses, and chariots--truly an army--was discovered by a farmer that year. I can't help thinking of Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" here as the mundane activities of the humble farmer and the intended glorious afterlife of the first emperor of China come together in a field.

To this point, China hadn't seemed so crowded to me, but on this particular hot, dusty day, part of a holiday weekend in China, thousands of people had shown up to see the army of Qin Shi Huang. It started out feeling like Disneyworld (crowds! lines! trams!) without the fun rides and Mickey. The warriors that have been excavated are in three different areas and, fortunately for us, they are now covered by protective buildings. Getting through the entries to each building was a test of our individual aggression and physical strength.The crowds inside the buildings meant that it was hard to get up to a railing to see the dig and this raised the level of paranoia among some of the shorter members of our group who feared being trampled, crushed, lost or all three, but the sight of the warriors is breathtaking and thought-provoking and I think that at some point each of us experienced a moment of, simply, awe. The trip was long, the day was really hot and the crowds were daunting, but my advice is...just don't go on a holiday weekend. Duh.

Xian has many other attractions, though we only took in a few.  We had a pleasant morning stroll along the top of the city wall, where many people enjoy riding bikes, and an evening of dinner and entertainment at the Shaanxi Grand Opera House.  Dumplings are the specialty of the Shaanxi area, and we had a wonderful dinner that evening featuring too many dumpling varieties to count as well as delightful music from traditional Chinese instruments and dancing.  The experience was a little dinner-theatre-ish but the performances were consistently interesting and I came away with the feeling that I had gotten at least a little flavor of the cultural traditions of the T'ang dynasty.  I discovered I really enjoy the music of the seven-stringed qin (guqin) and the zheng or guzheng.

One of the best things about Xian is the Shaanxi Provincial Museum.  Don't let the word "provincial" fool you into thinking this is some kind of dusty little set of shelves with a drowsy docent at the front desk.  This is a large and beautiful museum with artifacts of the four dynastic periods carefully displayed in a way that avoids overwhelming visitors and allows each object to be admired.  This is a very fine museum that is well-organized and contains many quite spectacular items including a kneeling archer from the Terra Cotta Army.  Finally, a chance to get close to one without others' heads in the way.

About this time, the group staged a mini-strike and opted out of some of the visits to ancient monuments, though quite a few people ended up taking non-forced strolls to the Bell and Drum Towers.  The proximity to Starbucks may have had something to do with this.

June 7 8:30 am

For me, and I suspect for some others, the highlight of our time in Beijing came on our last day when we met with a group of people in a hutong (a very old area of the city, a narrow alleyway lined by old residences, some of which consist of a series of small structures surrounding a small, covered courtyard). Most of Beijing was once covered with such places but now the majority have been removed to make way for new buildings. Beijing has come upon the idea of preserving this part of the past just a little late, though perhaps not too late.

Most though not all of the people we met at this "special cultural activity" were elderly, though some were probably in their fifties and one man was much younger. Through the many friends and connections of our dedicated and hard-working Confucius Institute director, Dr. Weihua Niu, we've met so many interesting people and this group was the most diverse in terms age, interests and experience.

Our conversation with them was facilitated by Weihua and her college friend Linda, who is now a travel agent. Most the people were old enough to have lived through the destructive and terrifying Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and '70s. They spoke about their experiences of the changes China has been through in the last several decades. One man said boldly that the Cultural Revolution had destroyed everything that was good about the old China. Many of their concerns were the same as people of their age in the US and elsewhere--taking care of older or ill family members who don't live nearby, children and grandchildren who have moved away, having enough money to be self-supporting, the availability of health care (I believe we were all convinced that we have it GOOD in the US, no matter how broken we think our system is).

The most touching part of the meeting was the singing performances. First, the group sang for us in Chinese and then we all sang "Auld Lang Syne" together lustily. Then one woman sang a lovely rendition of "Memories" from Cats and the most elderly gentleman sang a beautiful, beautiful "God Bless America." There was a lot of sincere emotion packed into this song by the singer, a former editor/publisher, and we responded in kind. I believe everyone, both Chinese and American, was moved.

We learned to make zongzi, sticky rice (and sometimes beans) wrapped in a lotus leaf and bound with lemongrass. This is a traditional Dragon Boat Festival activity. The packets are then thrown in a river, though we skipped that part. Deborah gamely tried her hand at the preparation but shouldn't quit her day job.

We drew numbers to exchange gifts--we received some lovely, meaningful ones--and then we all walked into another room and found ourselves in 44 Restaurant, where we ate course after course of creatively presented and prepared Hunan (southwestern China) cuisine. Rabbit (I wish I could post a picture of how this dish was presented--on a bed of lettuce, thin strips of rabbit topped with a light, dry chutney-like mixture of scallion, cilantro, and chilies, around this mound, a little L-shaped stockade fence and alongside the mound two small rabbits carved out of tiny tomatoes), catfish stew, pickled lotus root with blueberry, spicy pickled vegetables, beef with spicy chutney, rice wine soup--if you're ever in Beijing, go to 44 Restaurant!