Just In Time
China
The big story is that we got there at all. The war talk had been heating up through the winter and it was a question of what would happen first: our plane taking off for China or bombs dropping on Iraq. Those bombs, we knew, would close down our window of opportunity. But the plane did take off. Just barely.
When we got to Detroit, the first leg of the trip, George Bush was all over the big screens at the airport, giving Iraq 48 more hours. We jetted away to a land that has always been isolated – some say splendidly so. In Beijing, we were in the middle of the Middle Kingdom. The monuments seemed to scoff at our momentary concerns.
Of course, that was before news of the SARS epidemic broke. There had been rumblings beforehand about some disease going around in China, but, supposedly, it was confined to the southern region. We weren’t going anywhere near Guangdong so we didn’t give it a thought. Sure, there were a few people on the streets of Beijing wearing the now-familiar surgical masks, but our guide told us they were screening out dust from the Gobi Desert. What we found out later, when we got back, was that the government had been hiding the news that the disease was even then spreading over the whole country. At that point, our ignorance was bliss. The civilization we had paid our money to see was about to come alive.
There we stood in Tiananmen Square � four high school students and their teacher, along with the youngest student’s aunt � looking out on an ecosystem of concrete. The largest public gathering place in the world, it was here that Mao Zedong announced the birth of Communist rule in 1949. It was also here that students rallied and died for democracy 50 years later. On the west side of the square, the Great Hall of the People was off-limits to us, because the National Peoples’ Congress was inside selecting a new president and premier.
Always a big moment for China, this convocation would take on added significance as these two men, Wen and Hu, were forced to deal almost immediately with an old-China-style cover-up of SARS; then, set out to convince the world that there would be more transparency in politics. Just their desire to do so, the fact that they cared what the rest of the world thought, was remarkable. The image of throwing the Olympic Games in 2008 and nobody coming probably worked in favor of cultivating new habits.
We were diverted to the south rim of this man-made canyon, to a building where the embalmed body of Mao lay in full public view. Standing among throngs of tanned peasants who came from the provinces to catch a glimpse and lay down flowers, we marveled that he was enshrined here like an emperor and a god. These were the very shibboleths his revolution was supposed to abolish. Marx forbid he be treated this way! We emerged shaking our heads at the irony. Then it was time for lunch.
Our guide, Charley Sun, led us into the first of many banquets. We soon learned that the lazy Susan in the center of the table is where the action is. On cue, as soon as we sat down, waiters started bringing plate after plate of meat and veggies, placing them on the revolving glass disk. As fast as we could scoop up the bits and pieces and drop them on our plates (some of us were better with chopsticks than others), the waiters would deliver more.
For awhile, it became a contest to see who would flinch first. Soon enough, though, Charley had to explain to us, now groaning in defeat, what we were up against – tradition. A good host always makes sure his guest never leaves the table with an empty plate. In a country where people still go hungry, it’s considered virtuous to throw away food.
These are the people who sat around the table that day: Robbie Knouse, a bright and active freshman who became a bargaining legend. Street vendors cowered when they saw him coming. They hid their goods and pretended to be rickshaw drivers. Yet he’d still come away with loads of gifts for almost no yuan. Robbie is almost solely responsible for reversing the balance of trade in China.
Next to him was his aunt, Ann, a tall, graceful woman who nurtured not only her nephew but the whole group. She invested countless hours and trod innumerable miles catering to the whims of teenaged boys. One day she walked through the entire labyrinth of the Forbidden City, then climbed a steep hill at sunset because the group wanted to get a bird’s-eye view of the whole complex. We paid for her foot massage that evening (or should have).
T.J. Boyland was the quietly confident one. An experienced Asia Hand, he went to Vietnam with Mr. Dang as a freshman. A doctor of traditional medicine who found something wrong with the rest of us could find nothing wrong with T.J., no matter how much he examined his tongue, breathing, pulse and posture.
Ryan Flynn was the elder statesman – calm, smart and reliable. He was always in touch with how it was going within the group. Halfway through the tour, he knew we needed a break from the local food so he found a pizzeria that served breadsticks. Tears of gratitude were shed for him that night.
Ryan Farishian, who obviously expended a lot of energy earning high grades during the previous quarter, fell asleep at the table that day. He would nap at every break for the first part of the trip. When he finally caught up, Ryan showed keen awareness of the nuances of culture – sketching, taking notes, asking questions. He was the youngest unaccompanied member of our group and, all kidding aside, handled himself like a mandarin.
Charley Sun presided over the meal. Veteran guide of a hundred trips like this, he was ever fresh, fanning the flames of our enthusiasm. Desperately he wanted to visit the States, but the government thought him a flight-risk and wouldn’t let him out.
And I, Bill Mohan, was the chaperone, who came to see whether my hunch about China was right, and if so, what to do next.
We got up from that first lunch both satisfied and defeated. Over the next 11 days, the theme continued much the same – one overwhelming event after another. The Great Wall seemed to stretch to the heavens. The Forbidden City was a palace within a palace within a palace. Martial arts performers flew around like ghosts at the wushu school. Acrobats repealed the laws of physics on stage. Opera characters appeared as Jungian archetypes in the theater. Tea ceremonies conformed to the dao. Herbal reflexology stimulated the chi. Children played mandolins like masters. Silver skyscrapers arose out of rice paddies. Men in nursing homes divulged secrets of longevity. Pearl necklaces went for a song.
We walked backwards with old women in the park to strengthen our spines, brushed poems in calligraphy on the sidewalk to strengthen our hearts, glimpsed the future in the Shanghai financial district to strengthen our resolve. When we finally completed the agenda and were settled into our seats for the return flight, it was like Dorothy going back to Kansas. Yes, there’s no place like home but home will never be the same.
