Shanghai Journal Page 1 [Oct. 22, 2002]

Well, I've been here two full days now and, from what I've seen, it should be a great experience.

I start teaching on Saturday; class in the morning from 8:30 to noon and the same class again from 1 to 4:30. Then I hop on a flight to Shenzhen, just outside of Hong Kong, for all day class on Sunday. The Shenzhen class meets just four Sundays.

This means I have all the rest of the week off to "experience" China. Tomorrow I'm taking the train to Nanjing, two hours from Shanghai, to see that city. It's just up the Yangtze from here, and has its share of history.

The flight was pretty exhausting, thirteen hours from Detroit to Tokyo, but it was uneventful. Webster does a great job of taking care of the professors. Sprite, the assistant employed to host us while here, has been showing me around and helping me find whatever I need for the apartment. There's an "ayi", Chinese for "auntie", who takes care of the cleaning, laundry, some cooking, etc. She comes in each day and spends most of the day here.

The premises have a health club with swimming pool, tennis courts, and a fitness center. You pay based on the use of the facilities; the apartment rent pays the membership.

Of course, my body hasn't yet adapted to the change in time, but by staying up during the day and running around, I hope to recover from the jet lag in a day or two.

That's it for now. I'll fill you in on any truly interesting happenings in future editions.

Steve

Shanghai Journal Page 2. [Oct. 26, 2002]

Just got back from my first trip to teach in Shenzhen. The class order is the reverse of what I was told originally; we meet in Shenzhen on alternate Saturdays and then I return for the two sections in Shanghai on Sunday. I taught the same folks from 8:30am to 4pm with just a one-hour lunch break at noon. They were a really great group of students - some fairly young, some older. There were 34 there yesterday out of a group of 37 or 38 listed.

Of course the weather there was considerably warmer than here, which is identical to Charleston's climate. Shenzhen is just across from Hong Kong and is just inside the tropics. It's at the same latitude as Cuba. Naturally the a/c was only effective for the brief time it really wasn't needed. By the afternoon, it was really starting to heat up and we were all beginning to feel the effects of the heat and our lunch. We had to open the windows to get some breeze, but that also allowed in the heat.

The facilities are quite good, they still use a chalkboard, but they have all the modern trappings of today's classroom. There's a computer hookup, a screen that rolls up and down electrically. No cable or phone hookup for Internet access. The school itself is the Shenzhen Managers School, a training facility for the local communist party.

Anyway, I think they were all reasonably happy with my performance - just as I was dismissing them, they broke out in applause. I applauded them back for being such good and appreciative students my first day on the job. I find they are much more demonstrative about their feelings than American students. I've heard that if they don't like what you're doing they will

a. fall asleep on you

b. talk to each other right in front of you

c. tell you to your face how they feel

d. tell the school administrators how they feel, and/or

e. tell the mayor to have you fired.

So I'm pleased that the initial feedback was on the positive side.

Today I teach two sections of the same lesson here in Shanghai that I taught yesterday morning in Shenzhen. Next Sunday I'll teach yesterday's afternoon lesson here in Shanghai, and then in two weeks I return to Shenzhen for another all-day marathon of lessons three and four followed by two sections in Shanghai on Sunday. And so on till the end of the semester in mid-December.

Then they take a final exam that has to be graded by me, hopefully before I leave for home. I may or may not be in attendance for that exam, but I'd like to be, so I can answer questions and start the grading there and on the plane ride back to Shanghai.

Lest you're wondering why you get e-mail from me at 3:30 am East China time, it's just that my internal clock still hasn't adjusted. Jet lag only gets worse as one ages.

Well that's it for now.

Shanghai Journal Page 3 [Oct. 31, 2002]

Yesterday was a turning point in my life here.

It started out innocently enough. I left the apartment around 9 or 10 am. I’d just finished studying some Chinese and communicating with folks on the Internet. I was getting kind of antsy and was trying to decide how to fill the rest of the day. So I figured I’d go for a walk.

As I walked out the door of the building I realized that walking was not the best idea; it was nasty out with a light rain and temps in the 60s. So I walked out to the street and decided to have a Shanghai adventure. I got on a bus.

Well, it took me some time to get up the nerve to get on one. By chance I got on the 47. I had no idea where I’d be going, but I figured I could go as far as I liked, sightseeing (guangguangjie 逛逛街) along the way, and then get back on a 47 back. The bus cost all of two RMB (kuai), or 25 cents.

After about 15 minutes, I noticed we were at a really nice shopping street, so I decided to get off the bus. Many of the others had the same idea. As it turns out, this was one of the oldest sections of the city and famous for shopping by Shanghainese. As I was walking along the street, North Sichuan Road, I came to a quaint little street with nice shops on it; antiques, embroidery shops, old bookstores, etc. As I was looking around I saw a place for continuing education and asked if they had need for somebody to teach English during the week.

At first they weren’t very positive about the idea. I was talking to this fellow, Leon, who was an English instructor there. He walked with me across the street to tell me a little bit about the buildings along the alley and I started to try to read the signs in Chinese. He asked if I wanted to be paid and said they really couldn’t pay much. I explained I’m really not doing it for the money; just want to exchange English lessons for Chinese lessons.

He helped me read the Chinese, and then suggested I meet his class of “rich kids”. He had this small group of students that just hang out at the center. Zili is the name of the company and they have several centers around Shanghai. These students don’t have to work.

We went upstairs and there were three young people there, two young ladies and a fellow. I started talking to them in English and it was immediately clear that they were real beginners. I wound up spending the rest of the day there. They would not let me leave. They ordered me lunch and plied me with green tea (lu cha).

It turns out that Leon studied in St. Louis and Geneva with Webster and knows the folks at the SUFE center. He used to work in Geneva for an American company, did translating there and in Beijing, and studied at one of the most prestigious Universities in Beijing. He’s originally from Inner Mongolia province (Nei Mengu).

The young man is a tour guide and strictly for the locals. He would love to learn English and expand his horizons. One of the young ladies is from Wuhan, capital of Hubei province on the Yangtze, and teaches Chinese literature in high school (zhong xue). She took a leave of absence to come to Shanghai and learn English so she can go to Australia or Canada to continue her studies.

I’m not sure what the other young lady does, but she just wants to learn English. I don’t think she has any particular reason other than just being able to expand herself. She is outspoken and a lot of fun.

Later in the afternoon, another woman joined the class. It turns out she is to marry a Chinese fellow attending medical school in San Francisco. So she wants to learn English before she leaves in about a month.

About 2:30 Leon asked me if I’d like to join them for a fondue at a little restaurant they go to regularly. I had nothing planned so agreed. We would leave about 4:30 when the class was over.

About 4 pm someone from downstairs came up to invite me to teach for the school. They’d pay me 50 kuai per hour, or $6.25 (better than Stateside minimum wage), for up to nine hours per week: Mon., Wed. and Fri. from 1-4. I met the manager and was shown the classroom where I’d teach. Today I’ll meet the class for an hour or so and then next week start in earnest.

She introduced herself as Abigail, I called her Abby and she seemed quite pleased, and she is the headmistress for English programs. I later found out from Leon that she had been getting ready to go to the States to marry her fiancé in New York. Somebody called her on September 12 last year to say that he didn’t know her, but had been told to call her to tell her that her fiancé was missing in the World Trade Center.

At 4:30 we walked out to the main drag and caught a bus for the fondue place. We had a very pleasant evening eating and drinking beers and cokes. This is when Leon told me about the lady who’s going to San Francisco. She is a walking advertisement for Chinese capitalism.

According to Leon, she came to Shanghai when she was 17 years old and got a job sweeping streets. There are hundreds of street sweepers all over Shanghai. She later started working for a furniture manufacture and today is manager at the company and, according to Leon, a millionaire (dollars or kuai?). I mentioned that I was interested in seeing the Three Gorges before the dam is completed and it turns out her fiancé is coming in mid November with a group from the States and they are going up the Yangtze to see the river as well. She invited me, and as I don’t teach in Shenzhen that Saturday, I eagerly accepted.

About 6:00 or 6:30 we all left to go home. I took a taxi back, and realized I’d had more than enough beer. I checked my e-mail and went to sleep. Woke up at midnight and began working on the Journal. That’s it for now. At 9am I am expected at Zili to work with the group. My life here in Shanghai is now planned for the duration, at least through next week. But I bet this will be the regular thing whenever I don’t have anything else planned.

Shanghai Journal Page 4 [Nov. 8, 2002]

(This is being sent on Nov. 12)

I'm back in Shenzhen. I just took a day trip yesterday to Guangzhou. It's really not that developed a city; nothing like Shanghai. I took the train at 8:15AM and arrived there at 9:30. I decided that, rather than take a taxi to the White Swan Hotel, in the center of the old colonial area, I'd just take a local bus and see whatever I could of the city.

It was a pretty good idea as I got more of a feel for the actual city. It has one really tall office building not far from the RR station. That part of town is very new with parks and stuff, and is mostly up-scale commercial, but has none of the real local flavor.

After passing by the building, the bus made a beeline for the Pearl River, the Zhujiang in Chinese. It crossed halfway over this island called Ersha and then exited onto the island. We drove west on the island and passed by the art museum, which I stopped to see later on my way back to the train station.

We went to the end of the island and crossed back to the north bank of the river (I later learned that the old colonial part of the city is on the south bank, across from the island). When we got to where everybody else got off, I got off also and began to walk through the streets.

It wasn't awful, but it wasn't particularly interesting either. I was in a part of town where locals come to shop in bulk. You'd have a whole bunch of the same type of shop, then a different type and progress through the gamut of items people needed. For example, there were five or six shops selling items used by shoemakers, then several shops selling posters for teenagers. There was one area loaded with shops selling cheap toys. One of them was like a mini-bazaar. I went through it to the end and came out into an alley filled with millions of mushrooms; some in big bushel baskets, others in clear plastic bags.

That's where I saw this guy smoking from this huge wooden bong. He offered me a hit, and I politely declined, turned to the left and walked out the alley back to the street. I assume it was opium, but who knows?

After about an hour or so I stopped into a department store to cool off and find a bathroom. It was a pretty upscale store and had fairly fashionable items there. I bought some shoe cream to use on my shoes and left the store.

I walked back to the river, waited for the number 277 bus, the same as I'd taken to get there, and started back toward the train station. I got off at the museum and spent about an hour there. It really didn't have a lot there, but a couple of the artists I liked.

I got on another bus back to the train station and got on a 4:15 PM train arriving at Shenzhen at 5:30. Getting out of the station was another thing. Somehow I kept returning to the lines taking you to Hong Kong. The station is right on the border, so you pass through customs in the station before getting on the HK trains. As I have just a single-entry visa, I would have to pay for a multiple entry one if I went there. Which is OK if I really wanted to go there. Actually I do; maybe I will go there another time. The express train takes only about twenty minutes to get to Kowloon.

Well, that's the latest from China.

Shanghai Journal Page 5 [Dec. 5, 2002]

Dear Reader,

It has been many a day since last I recounted to you the wondrous things I have seen and done here in the Far East. I feel a little like Marco Polo sometimes. The country has undergone an unbelievable transformation these last twenty years or so.

The main reason I’ve been so slow in writing is that I have become so busy. It’s all my own fault, but I sometimes feel torn among the different lives I lead here. Obviously I teach the finance classes for Webster, but that’s only on weekends. One weekend I teach classes all day Saturday in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, and all day Sunday here in Shanghai, and the alternate weekend just here on Sunday. This coming weekend I’ll be going down south a day earlier to take in Fantastic China, a theme park in Shenzhen in honor of all the minority races throughout China. The people working the park are actually brought in from the respective regions, so it’s very authentic. And I can’t wait to taste the foods!!

I will fly back right after the class, the last time I’ll be in Shenzhen this term, and try to get some sleep in preparation for the classes here in Shanghai. The good thing is that I teach the same lessons this Sunday and next that I rehearsed in Shenzhen. The Shenzhen students will take their exam next weekend and these will be sent here by DHL for me to grade. My Shanghai classes take their exams in two weeks just before Jacki and Jon arrive on Monday night, Dec. 23. Hopefully, all the grading will be done by the time they arrive.

That’s my real job. My second job is teaching English at the Zili Centers here. This is a private continuing education school founded and owned by the Headmaster, with whom I’ve struck up a friendship. He’s a young man with an MBA from a French University located here in Shanghai. The program is in Chinese and he wants to learn English himself so he, his wife and (now) two-month old daughter can emigrate to Canada. I asked him how he could walk away from his business, and he replied in his broken English that the business wasn’t really all that important to him; his mother-in-law is extremely wealthy from her business manufacturing wire used in motors and she also wants him to go to Canada to help her expand her market in North America. He hasn’t said so explicitly, but I surmise, where the financing came from for his Zili schools.

Which brings me to another story that you all might find kind of interesting from an OB/HRM standpoint. Last year the Headmaster needed to hire a director of English instruction for the school. He asked a friend for any recommendations and was given the name of a young lady named Abigail Lee. He hired her. Well, it turns out Ms. Lee is a very difficult person to work with or for. I’ve managed to get along with her principally by ignoring her as much as possible and poking fun at her in the classes we teach together. I do it in a nice way and she loves me. Not so with the other teachers, some of whom have left the school, apparently because of Abigail.

Now the Headmaster has to do something; Ms Lee is driving everybody crazy and he’s losing his best teachers because of her. The problem is he’s a really nice guy, he’s Chinese, and she was recommended by a friend. But I think the final straw might have been reached on Sunday when she proceeded to call the Headmaster on his cell phone during the two-month anniversary of his daughter’s birth – an important milestone for Shanghainese and attended by at least two hundred guests – and regale him about the problems she’s having with her English teachers. Apparently he had a meeting with her yesterday afternoon, the outcome of which I’ll learn soon, I guess.

The point of the story is the manner in which personnel matters are handled here. In the U.S. Abigail would have been quickly dealt with, probably relieved of her duties as English director, demoted to teacher, or fired. Here, however, the relationship between boss and employee seems to be much more formal and guarded. A good case study in OB and HRM don’t you think?

Last night I was invited to the Headmaster’s home for dinner; his wife was out and he wanted a bit of extra English instruction. I got a great dinner out of it and some Chinese as well. The best way to learn a language is by trying to converse with someone at or near the same level of ability as yourself. His English and my Chinese are fairly close.

Which brings me to my third life here. One of the first students I taught at Zili is a young lady named Cai (the same name as the Chinese fellow we interviewed for the finance position two years ago). Miss Cai is from Wuhan in Hubei Province, a Chinese literature teacher by profession, and hell-bent on learning English so she can study in an English-speaking country so she can get a decent-paying job. She works part-time now selling securities for a brokerage, but with the Shanghai market in virtual free-fall, business hasn’t been too good.

Her English was just at the beginner level when I first met her and it’s still not great by any means now. The same can be said about my Chinese, for that matter. But our attempts to converse in the respective languages have improved both of us. I’ll meet with her a couple times a week and often I’ll take her with me on my forays through Shanghai. She serves as guide/translator and instructor. She has also taught me how to write Chinese characters as well as the characters themselves and has worked on my pronunciation, which is not easy to learn. The same can be said for her English pronunciation. Chinese and English are two of the hardest languages to speak.

And now I have my acupuncturist, Dr. Zhou (pronounced Joe). Thanks to one of our MBA students – Jeremy Fow – I have developed a gimpy right hip. That’s what I get for playing tennis singles with someone half my age. Dr. Zhou does a number of Americans here as well as several international athletes, including tennis players. Dr. Zhou says with a series of ten sessions he may be able to cure the arthritis that I’m experiencing. Yesterday I had my second treatment. I’m not sure if it’s the five needles or the fifteen-minute massage that makes me feel so good after the sessions. The feeling lasts for a couple days; hopefully, by the time I leave I’ll be better permanently. Watch out Jeremy!

On my way home after the acupuncture session I stopped at the Jin Mao office building, the fourth tallest in the world, after the twin Petronas Tours in Kuala Lumpur and Sears Tower in Chicago. You go from the ground to the 88^th floor observatory, 340 meters up, in a minute or two on a ride so smooth a coin placed on its edge on the floor of the elevator doesn’t budge (I know this because the operator does this on the way back down). The view is magnificent.

Well, that’s my update for now. I’ve got to finish my grading for the Saturday Shenzhen class before I leave on Thursday and I have to work on the Chinese version of the survey I’m doing for Tom and Ron. I meet with one of the translators at 10 am. Then I meet with Cai for a Chinese/English lesson. Next I meet with the second survey translator this afternoon and finally, I may teach a class this afternoon and tonight. We’ll see.

Shanghai Journal Page 6.

[This page was written in response to an old friend and collaborator from Boston, Mickey Clampit. He currently lives near Guadalajara, Mexico and previously had moved to Thailand. He suffers from depression brought on by long winter nights and wanted a climate and diurnal cycle more to his liking. He spoke about his experiences attempting to learn Thai, mentioned how Mexico is losing manufacturing jobs to China, and asked my opinions about Japan’s economy.]

The thing about China is that they figure that labor costs are zero. Under communism, the state provided all the jobs and so everyone had work, no matter how useless. Still today, the streets are immaculate as they've put millions of people to work sweeping and picking up cigarette butts, etc. Every time one of these people gets a low-paying factory job in the private sector it reduces the cost to the government by about an equivalent amount. Thus, the notion that labor is costless.

This has created a problem for companies competing with China. Many have filed complaints with the WTO arguing that this is, in effect, "dumping" products onto the world market below cost. This is probably true; however, from the government's point of view, it makes sense to think of labor as free. And even if they did figure it at cost, labor is still extremely low. This cheapness of labor results in such phenomena as greeters at restaurants, where six young ladies will be at the door all saying "welcome" (shou huanying, in Chinese) in unison as you walk in the door. That's all they do. For this, they may get paid 200 RMB, or $25, per month. Receptionists greeting clients and answering the telephone may get 400RMB a month. And don't even think about walking around a store just to browse; salespeople, whose salary is based on commissions, constantly pursue you. It takes all the fun out of the experience. But they don't understand that. No wonder so many people do so little.

As for Japan, I don't quite understand their problem. Of course they had a financial crisis, but that alone should not explain their problem. We had a similar transition problem going from an industrial to a post-industrial economy in the '70s and '80s, but we just had "stagflation" not depression. I think that Japan's problem is that it was so inefficient in everything non- industrial: finance, distribution, etc. Even their hi-tech industry was based to a great extent on foreign, i.e., U.S., technology that they adapted to consumer products.

Thus, they had nothing to fall back on once all the manufacturing started drifting offshore. And China is really the last straw. There is no hope now of retaining any industries there. China will just progressively take over the entire world's industrial production; it's pretty much inevitable as long as they're underemployed and underpaid. They just keep pulling in labor from the countryside as they need it and pay them next to nothing. They all want to work and so far have accepted very low wages - and been thankful for the opportunity. I fear even for such "miracle" economies as Taiwan and South Korea; their days are numbered as well.

As for the Chinese language, I have trouble with three things: the tones, the consonants, and most of all, the characters. At least you can read Thai and Vietnamese. The Chinese, in order to unify the people (and this includes the Japanese as well) retain their characters. Thus, all Chinese can communicate via reading and writing, even if they can't understand a word the others are saying. It always seems weird that Chinese movies and TV shows are subtitled even in China, but that makes them understandable to all Chinese regardless of what language they speak and understand.

Actually, this makes Chinese the ideal Internet language, since they can advertise products to anyone who can read the characters. Have you tried to buy products from France or Germany over the Internet if it's not translated into English? Not a problem for the Chinese. They do have one little problem I've run into in teaching finance here. They have a unique numbering system that makes it hard for them to read our numbers. They use the decimal system (thank God), but they have a system of 10,000 instead of our 1000 grouping system. Thus, they have 1 yi(1) 一 , 10 shi(2) 十, 100 bai(3) 百, 1000 qian(1) 千, 10,000 wan(4) 万, and 100,000 yi(4) 亿 . [The numbers in ( ) refer to the tone] Then they repeat with 100,000 = 10 wan, or shi wan, 1,000,000 = 100 wan, or bai wan, etc. 10,000 wan, or 100,000,000, is one yi(4), and 100 yi , or qian yi, = 100 billion. And after that, they are clueless. There is no word for trillion, although you could say wan yi. But this violates the system. (I subsequently learned there is a word; I don’t remember what it is and believe it’s a new invention, probably from Taiwan) I have asked numerous people what the Chinese GDP is (it’s about 5 to 10 trillion dollars, PPP, or b/w 10 and 20 trillion yuan – RMB), but no one yet has been able to tell me what it is. There’s no such number in Chinese. Trillions don’t exist; the number didn’t exist when Chinese was invented. I propose the following compromise; we all learn the Chinese language and characters and they adopt our numbering system. I think they get the better part of that deal. By the way, Chinese have an equally difficult time learning our numbering system based on thousand groupings.

The language itself is fairly simple – the syntax is very specific and easy to learn. Contrary to what many say, there ARE tenses; they’re just not contained in the verb itself, only via helping verbs. Thus the simple past relies on adding a “le” after the verb, (qu le, is went), the compound past follows the verb with guo, (qu guo is have or has gone), zai qu is am, is, or are going, yao qu, is will go, etc. There are no plurals – verbs, nouns, adjectives – and no masculine/feminine. The bad thing though is that it is very definite in how you say things. The slightest change in word order may change the meaning of the entire sentence. And because of the tones, you cannot rely on voice inflection to help you; for example, to ask a question or make an exclamation. The words have to say it.

Well, that’s it for now.

Shanghai Journal Page 7; the ultimate page [Posted some weeks after our return]

My last three weeks were like a blur.

First I had to prepare my final exams for the two sites, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Shenzhen took theirs, a shorter, non-comprehensive version, on Saturday, December 14. The courier brought them up Monday afternoon and I picked them up at SUFE that afternoon. I graded them over the next two or three days. All was uneventful but for the one student who claimed that we had misplaced his exam. It drove Janny Liao, the Webster assistant in Shenzhen, crazy. She had 34 students on her roll as taking the exam; I had 34 exams and 34 grades on my Excel file; but the student was nowhere to be found. AND he never even took the midterm. Finally Janny confronted him with the evidence and he fessed up. He was lying and resigned from the program before being expelled.

One crisis over; now came the BIG one – 90+ students in Shanghai all taking their exams on Sunday, December 22 one day before Jon and Jacki were to arrive in Shanghai. Somehow I managed to complete the grading by 4PM on Monday, in plenty of time to rest up before their arrival.

One very interesting side note. There were two French students from the University of Bordeaux in my morning class. They were clearly cheating on the first exam, as were dozens of others. That’s why the Shanghai classes had a comprehensive final. For the final, all the students were in two large lecture halls with spaces between them, which supposedly would avoid cheating. I’m sure it didn’t; I would not be at all surprised if a copy of the exam got out. In addition, the students could easily place their completed questions on the desk beside them and another student pick it up.

Seats were assigned, so they were not to sit where they wanted. About ten minutes into the exam, I noticed that Philippe and Vivienne were not sitting in the specified seats, one behind the other, but way in the back, in the same row, and separated by just one seat. I told them to take their assigned seats; Philippe grumbled a bit, but the two of them complied. The upshot is that he got a 40 and she got an A on the exam. At the end of the exam, she came up to say she had felt challenged despite being an undergraduate accounting major. Guess who was cheating from whom

Now I was faced with a second dilemma; Philippe wanted to stay in China through the end of the year to improve his Chinese and work on his master’s degree. An F in the class would mean the end for him. After some soul-searching and much tongue-biting, I gave him a C, thus permitting him to continue in the program. I told Rick Foristel (the Webster-China director) what I’d done, and he seemed ok with it.

Now off to the airport to pick up the rest of my family. Xubing, my neighbor’s taxi man came by at 7:30 all flustered to tell me that the plane was due in at 8 rather than 8:45 as I’d thought. We rushed out and got to the airport in record time about 8:05. The plane actually got in at 8:20 and they got through immigration and baggage claim about a half hour later. Jacki had had a cold the week leading up to the flight and wasn’t feeling all that great. We got them back to the apartment and into bed.

Next day they accompanied me to Dr. Zhou’s. The apartment was not heated and they left to go to lunch on their own at the Shanghai Café just around the corner. I met them after the session and after they finished lunch, we went to the SuperBrand Mall in Pudong. (see the pictures at the website given below) Zhenyu Zhu, one of my students and University of Michigan electrical engineer graduate met us there. He helped arrange a place for my party on Thursday (a combined birthday, thank you, and going away party for my China friends) and hotel accommodations our last three nights in Shanghai. The weather was nasty, as usual, but we still had to go pay for and pick up the tickets for Beijing and Xi’an. From there we went to the Flea Market to buy clothing we’d need for Beijing, coats, gloves, scarves, hats, etc. While it was a lot of fun bargaining – Jacki really digs this – it was exerting.

By the time we got back, Jacki was feeling pretty awful and spent the next day, Christmas, in bed. I went with Jon to retrace the path I first took when I went to Sichuan Bei Lu and the Zili Center. We went to the Center where Leon’s class was waiting for us. I let Jon teach the class. He turned red, as was observed by the students themselves, and Leon and I assisted Jon. Despite the nerves, he enjoyed the encounter.

We then went out to buy Jon the jackets and pants he wanted to bring back; he and I also bought boots for Beijing and the Great Wall. I took pictures of the walk along Duolün Lu. These are available, along with others at http://www.citadel.edu/faculty/silver/china_photos/

By the time we got back to the apartment, Jacki felt a bit better, but Jon was coming down with a cold. So the next day, my birthday, Jacki and I went into town. We had a pizza delivered from the Pizza Factory, across the street from the apartment, for Jon and were off to Fuzhou Lu to see the Foreign Languages Bookstore and then walked over and along the Nanjing Lu pedestrian mall. We must have hit every jewelry store there and then headed back to the apartment. I detoured to Duolun Lu for her to see it and we went into the Old Film Café for an espresso for her, a tea for me, and a couple of appetizers. Then we returned to the apartment. Jon felt a bit better and was able to go with us to the party.

It was great! Most of the friends I’d made were there. It was at a Brazilian Barbeque and the food was very good. Even Miss Cai, whom I hadn’t seen for two weeks, was able to come with a friend from work. The headmaster was there with his wife and they invited me to her mother’s house when we got back from the North. Leon, Sprite and Zhenyu Zhu were there. Rick was there and bent Jacki’s ear. Steve Fieldman couldn’t break away from work in time and my neighbor, Sue Foster, was busy.

Next morning Xubing picked us up to take us to the airport. Off we went to Beijing. We spent three nights there and saw the major sights. The first day we took a taxi to Tiananmen Square. It’s not all that fantastic and we didn’t have time to go into the National Museum or the Peoples Palace – the “parliament”. However, two young people speaking very good English latched onto us. At first I figured they wanted either to practice their English or act as our guides, which would have been fine. Instead, it turns out they are artists and wanted us to visit a collection of works that ostensibly will be taken on an international road tour next year.

We were introduced to their professor, who also spoke wonderful English and were shown many lovely examples of contemporary and traditional art works. They were all very nice and we just waited for the finale, a request for a donation. We were not denied that pleasure; however, we were actually sold works of art at what seemed very reasonable prices. As with just about everything else in China, we bargained them down to reasonable prices for us and got some very nice pieces. Even Jon, who is not the most generous person with his money, bought a few pieces to give as gifts to his friends.

Next we went into the Forbidden City. The place is huge, and we barely had time to walk for about an hour. As it was cold out and both Jacki and Jon were suffering from colds, we left there and took a taxi over to the Beihai Park. Leon recommended it, calling it the most beautiful spot in Beijing. And it may well be. It’s an island in a lake, which this time of year is frozen over. People hired out sleds and propelled themselves over the ice. Others ice-skated. On the island itself there are restaurants – a KFC and a Chinese place – and a big white pagoda. Again, it was getting cold and we wanted to get back to save ourselves for the main event, the Wall. Dinner that night, as the night before, was in the hotel. The highlight of these dinners was the tea. The cup contains dried flowers. The waiter has a teapot with a very long spout that he holds about a foot away from the cup and “shoots” the tea into the cup. The effect is great and the tea tastes even better. Jacki has to go back to China now just to buy the flower tea (hua cha).

The highlight was the Great Wall (Wan li chang cheng), which we went to see the next day. It is unbelievable; but photos can never do it justice, although I have posted some at the URL given earlier. We rented a taxi to take us to Mutianyu, about 75 kilometers from the hotel. The trip there and back plus about an hour and a half wait cost all of 500 RMB or $62. When you get to the foot of the mountain you have to go up, you run the gauntlet; a long line of merchants’ stalls and restaurants. One guy dresses himself as a Mongolian warrior and has you take pictures with him – for a price, of course. Finally, you get to the ticket booth where you buy tickets for a cable car to the top of the mountain. From there, in good weather, you can walk the kilometer or so back down. In good weather and health, we might have done that, but under the circumstances we decided to return on the cable car after an hour or so. We did get some nice shots and an American lady, who’s a professional photographer, took one of the three of us.

That night, we went for Peking roast duck at a small restaurant near the hotel. It was so-so for China. It must have cost the three of us $10 or so for the dinner.

The next day we went to Xi’an, where we stayed at the Nikko Hotel. This is not important in and of itself; however it resulted in some embarrassment, as you will learn about below. As Jon was not up to traveling around, I arranged for a taxi to take Jacki and me to the terracotta warriors about thirty miles from town. After the taxi man dropped us off, we found, or more accurately were found by, a young fellow who professed to have majored in English and art at university and served as our guide through the museum and burial pit. His English was marginal and there were plenty of English signs to tell you what everything was.

As I took out my camera to take pictures, the door to the batteries flew open and three of four AAA batteries as well as the camera case went flying into the pit. Fortunately there was a guard down below who retrieved them and flung them back up one at a time. Even he had a bit of a smile on his face, clearly amused by the American tourists. As it turns out the main reason for the guide is to divert you into this museum at the end of the tour where you can buy some genuine copies of the figures. Jacki explained that genuine copies are copies made from the same soil as the originals. In any event, we begged off from going to the museum and went straight back to the car, much to the chagrin of our guide. Clearly, he made much more on commissions from museum sales than on what we paid him directly.

I had arranged to meet a student from Zili, Bebe who lives near Xi’an, to visit us while in Xi’an. The next morning, Bebe met us with his uncle. Bebe was to leave for Canada in another month or two and was spending the holidays and his birthday – also December 26 – with his family. He came down to see us and brought his uncle and a business associate of his father to meet me. They were probably offended, according to Jacki, by meeting me in a Japanese hotel. Most Chinese will never, ever forgive the Japanese for their treatment of the Chinese during the occupation before and during WWII. In Nanjing alone an estimated 300,000 Chinese were assassinated by Japan’s occupation forces. After paying the bill, checking out, and collecting the rest of the family, we went off to the west end of town to see “the fingers”.

Jacki has this idea of opening up a travel agency specializing in “Great Fingers Around the World”. When we were in Budapest four years ago, we visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral. In the cathedral we saw a stupa in which a finger of the great Saint resides. You put a coin into a slot and a light comes on and you get to see this finger. Well, the Buddhist Temple in Famen does St. Stephen one better; it has four fingers of the Great Man himself. Supposedly, upon his death, Buddha was sliced up into about 48,000 pieces. The Famen Temple claimed to have four of his fingers.

In 1982 or so, the pagoda collapsed as the result of centuries of seismic action and torrential rains and years of use and neglect. About half the temple crumbled and the rest was torn down. Before rebuilding it, archeologists found an underground palace. There they discovered a series of rooms with three of the fingers. Tests revealed that all of them were fakes. Finally they found the fourth finger, Buddha’s third finger, buried within a column at the innermost chamber. This was the only genuine human remain. This was the highlight of this day.

After the temple, we went back to the north side of Xi’an to a restaurant where we were treated to a lovely buffet. After dinner we went to the airport for our return to Shanghai.

Xubing met us at the airport and we went to a hotel for our last three nights in Shanghai. Jon and I went back to the apartment to pick up our bags, which we’d left with our neighbor Sue Foster. This was New Year’s Eve and the city was resplendent for the night. Jin Mao had what looked like a waterfall flowing down its side, a cascade of light. On our way back from the apartment the waterfall had reversed direction, and all the lights were going up the building. The Bund was all lit up as usual, and additional lights were seen all over the city. We went back to the hotel and went to bed early. All of us were exhausted from the trip and Jacki was feeling lousy again.

New Years day Jon and I left Jacki at the hotel and went to the headmaster’s mother-in-law’s house in Pudong, not far from the airport. She is native Shanghainese, a rarity, and the headmaster’s sister-in-law is the deputy mayor of the town where they live. She and here son still live with the mother. The headmaster’s mother-in-law is quite well-to-do, and has a copper magnetic wire factory. Guess who one of her major clients is; Bebe’s father. We met the sister-in-law at the house as well as Ms Dong, who works at Zili school. Guess who her husband works for; Bebe’s father. We also met the three sons – Ms Dong’s, the sister-in-law’s, and Ms Dong’s brother’s. They wanted them to meet Jon. That’s a big thing in China; meeting the Americans. One never knows when that might come in handy.

The boys were all very nice and enjoyed trying out their English on Jon, who I think liked the attention as well. After watching the pirated version of Lord of the Rings II – or some such film – we were all ready for lunch. They took us to this seafood restaurant that serves rather exotic dishes, just what Jon needed. We ate Chinese style; that is, whatever we chose is placed on the lazy Susan and you eat a bit of everything. Jon and I left a bit hungry.

After lunch we had to go visit the factory. The mother-in-law herself was unable to go with us to lunch. Despite being New Years and a day off for most of the workers, she went to work and was in a meeting with the board when we got there. She made time for us and we had tea, looked at the various products she makes, and tried to converse with her. She does not speak any English and my Chinese is far from good. The headmaster, despite his best efforts, still struggles with English. In spite of all this, I was very impressed by this woman. Apparently, about ten years ago she realized that the future would be in the automotive industry and left agriculture for making copper wire for motors and engines. Now her plant is one of the main employers in the area and she sells her product all over the country. Now she wants her daughter and son-in-law to emigrate to Canada to help look for new clients.

After the plant, we went back to the hotel. We stayed in the night and Jacki was feeling really bad. I had managed to get some antibiotics from the sister-in-law and Jacki took a couple of them. The next day I took Jon with me to go traipsing around Shanghai a bit. I took him to breakfast at a restaurant at Portman Center and then to the metro. We went to Zhongshan Park, the end of the line, and then took the Qingway to Chi Feng station where SUFE is. I expected to get reimbursed for utility expenses by the bookkeeper, Ms Tong, who was out sick and to meet with Shirley and Sprite and drop off final exams in the event there were some questions by students. Both of them were not in. So, all in all, it was a wasted trip.

After returning to the hotel I left Jon with Jacki and went to Yuyuan, a great shopping mall in downtown Shanghai built in old Shanghai style. There I purchased gifts to bring back to Charleston for neighbors, friends and family. I found a sword for our neighbor Stan, who watched our dog Charlie. Now the only issue, in the post 9/11 era, was whether there would be any problem with customs. (There wasn’t)

Next morning Jacki felt well enough to go home, something she would not have been able to do two days earlier. To this day she swears she had a case of SARS, which I doubt seriously, but it gives her solace to think so. As for the trip itself, it was a nightmare. We were at the airport in plenty of time, I thought, and we got something to eat for breakfast. Then off to the check in. Boy was I wrong!!

Besides being mobbed with people waiting in line, it took forever for each person to get through. It was starting to look bleak, so I found some one to help expedite us to the head of the line. We barely made it in time for the flight. The one really good thing about the trip was that I had called to get bulkhead seating so Jacki was able to lie down at our feet. But then came Tokyo. For some strange reason you must deboard the plane in Tokyo even though the flight goes on to the U.S. I didn’t realize that there were two exits and was waiting at mine for Jacki and Jon to get off. I waited and waited and waited.

Finally I went into the lounge where they had been waiting nervously for me to arrive for nearly thirty minutes. Needless to say Jacki was nearly out of her mind with worry. And did she let me have it! Then back onto the plane – in my rush I forgot to take a scarf (a gift from Leon) and a sweat shirt I bought for the Wall. But we were back on the plane finally.

Then came Detroit. First one of the bags was apparently lost. It was Jon’s and because he was covered on Jacki’s visa, we all had to wait to get it through customs. By the time they finally found it, we had missed our flights, Jon to Atlanta and us to Charleston. We were able to get alternate flights and made it home safely even if a bit haggard. And thus the end of my Shanghai adventure.