China Trip 4/18/2014-5/2/2014 Travelogue

Dear Friends and family,

This is now my third trip to China.  I went with my wife, Tao, in 2007, then we went back in 2012 with our son, James, and now this is number three.  The plan for this visit is to stay pretty close to Zhengzhou (to my Western ear, it is pronounced "Jen-Joe"), which is Tao's family's hometown.  Her parents live there and her brother and his family are close by.  

Zhengzhou is in the central plains of China.  Geographywise, if China were the USA, then Zhengzhou could be Omaha, Nebraska.  Zhengzhou is a crowded, smoggy, smelly polluted factory town, under constant construction, powered by coal, and it is surrounded by farmland which the peasants burn.  There is no US analogy to how it feels to be here. Los Angeles on its worst day is not close.  The only possibility could be Pittsburgh in the 1950's, but that is a guess as I wasn't around in the 1950's and I've never been to Pittsburgh.   You can see clearly through the smog here (so to speak) what China is doing to itself through rapid industrialization.

Zhengzhou is the end point of the Silk Road, the ancient trading route, and so there is a sizable Muslim population here.  This makes for an interesting culture and tasty food.  Zhengzhou and other nearby cities (Kaifeng, Luoyang) were

capitals of ancient China.  So, although it would not be anyone's idea of rest and relaxation, Zhengzhou is an interesting and relevant place with a diverse culture and a long history.

Below is a detailed account of our 2+ days on the plane and 10 in China, and then a breakdown of the expenses, and then a special inquiry at the end.

Flight over from LA-- 4/18/2014-4/20/2014

We've planned our trip well in advance.  We chose a departure date of April 18, 2014.  It happens to be Good Friday, and that means we'd land in Zhengzhou on Easter Sunday. It's not ideal for Catholics to spend the holiest part of the year on a plane and in a country that's outlawed Catholicism, but this works best with James' school and T-ball schedule.  He will miss only 1 week of school and 1 game if we leave on Good Friday.  It's not ideal but it is an acceptable trade off.

As I write this, it occurs to me that Good Friday may be a good day for this kind of trip. You really see the power of nations when you cross borders.  There are official people everywhere, people in uniforms with dogs, etc.  Everything you have is inspected, you're searched, wanded, metal detectored and pictured.   The airport may be the only place most people get to see who's in charge in a 21st century democracy. 

We're decent fliers. The trick is to plan ahead.  Get everything packed and organized in advance.  Be at the airport very early.  Keep the essentials-- passport and dough-- secure and readily accessible in the money belt.  Keep things simple.  Don't take any more than necessary.  Wear soft clothes because you will sleep in them.  It is more than 24 hours in airports or on a plane.

Our only mistake this time was trying to a baseball bat on the plane.  We packed an equipment bag for James so he can practice while we're there.  The problem was we didn't check it in.  So when we put our carry on bags through the metal detector he told us you can't take a bat on plane.  This slowed us down having to back and check it in, but we had given ourselves plenty of time.  We were at the airport bout 4 hours before takeoff.

The plane is a double decker, and it was packed.  I heard the head count was somewhere north of 400.   Even so, it was pretty comfortable as far as these things go.  We got as much water as we needed and we could listen to music and watch a movie.

You get a preview of coming attractions on the plane.  Each of the three times I've flown over, people have smoked on the plane.  This never happens on a domestic flight (at least since they banned smoking), but it always happens when I go to China.

We arrived in Guanzhou, which is in Southern China,  on the morning of 4/20/2014, Easter Sunday.  We lost Saturday as a result of the time differential, which we will pick back up on the way back.  

After a 4 hour lay over, we took a 2 hour domestic flight to Zhengzhou.  We checked into our hotel, and went over to Tao's parents to visit a bit. 

 

4/21/2014 Day 1

In the morning of our first full day in Zhengzhou, we did a little throwing and batting practice at a rundown, underutilized quarter mile track and soccer field at a nearby herbal medicine school. There were cigarette butts thrown everywhere, the grass was dead, and the soccer goal had no net, but it was open to the public, was not crowded and was perfectly suited to our needs.  There were a few other people there making use of the track. 

In the afternoon, we went to a science museum.  James loves the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, so we wanted  to check out its counterpart here.  James wasn't much impressed, nor was I.  But there was a group of about 20 students.  They wanted their picture taken with "the foreigners" and practice their English.  James had a dust up with one girl who wanted to touch him.  There is no respect for personal space here, as there is the US.  You can see him chastising the girl in the pink shirt to his left.

The teachers in charge of the field trip, for reasons obscure to me, wore the uniform of the US military.  It seems to be a common thing that people and groups will dress like American soldiers.  I don't get it, and no one has really explained it to me.  I asked a woman who wore a patch that said "US navy' on it.  She couldn't tell me why.

I always stick out here.  My wife, and even possibly my kid, can blend in, but that is not an option for me.  Sometimes I stick out in a good way, sometimes not.  On a previous visit a soldier came up to us who wanted to know what we were doing.  That was not a pleasant encounter.  People in uniforms (except when they're actually teachers) can be scary and are to be avoided, but kids are friendly and curious.  This is probably true everywhere, but especially true in China.  If you're going to be a zoo animal, it's best to be the kind that people throw treats, not rocks.

04/22/2014 Day 2

On Day 2, we went to the Yellow River, which was surprisingly not very crowded. We had a little practice consisting of pop ups and batting on an open concrete space devoted to a strange war memorial.

The war memorial is a wall that tells the story of Japanese occupation in this area with pictures and a little bit of narration.  The first depiction in the Memorial is of Japanese soldiers during the war of occupation running through Chinese civilians with bayonets.  Then it describes the response of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist government that eventually founded Taiwan.  The Kuomintang retreated to the west of the yellow river, then diverted the course of the river to impede the Japanese, but in so doing killed and displaced millions of Chinese.  In the middle part of the wall, there are very mean looking soldiers pitted against very poor and upset peasants.  Then, on the final part of the wall, Communists are muscular brave worker types, including one woman. 

 I've seen war memorials in the US back east, and this is completely different.  The ones back east honor so and so for bravery and sacrifice at a particular battle.  This one focuses on the cruelty of the enemies, and then only at the end is there the obligatory praise for the prevailing party.  

This Memorial, which was constructed in 1999, serves primarily to keep the hatred of the old enemy,  Japan, alive.  This was confirmed by our friend who drove us out there by his comment that most people still hate the Japanese and would willingly go to war with them.  The second meaning is that Communists are the ones aligned with the Chinese people, not the Taiwanese government, and are the only legitimate governing organization.

This thing apparently happened as the Memorial claims.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood.  It allows a twofer attack that the Communists can still get mileage out of, 60+ years after the fact.

On our way back to the car we saw a group of either college students or young workers, I couldn't figure out which, who invited us to play tug of war with them.  So I jumped in. My team lost.

4/23/2014 Day 3

On Day 3 we went to a very good history museum.  There were very old statues, pots etc going back thousands of years which were purported to be genuine and were accompanied with good explanations.  Many, although not all, of the explanations were translated into English and the translations were better than average.  But James got tired quickly so we had to cut short this visit. 

4/24/2014 Day 4

On Day 4, we took the gleaming new subway to a Dinosaur Museum.  I think the bones were replicas but there were there were dinosaur eggs that purported to be real. Who knows.  James liked this one.  

In the afternoon we started our interview of Rui Tu Ma, Tao's dad.  I got a digital audio recorder for the occasion before we left.  The goal is to get his life story.  On this first session, which lasted about 45 minutes, we got from before his birth in 1939 to about 1953

4/25/2014 Day 5

I lost this day.  I'm not sure what happened or what we did.

4/26/2014 Day 6

In the morning of Day 6, we returned to the History Museum.  We had to stop our visit last time prematurely last time because James was too tired, and he played the tired card again. 

We continued with the interview of Mr. Ma, and got up to about 1958 which is just about when the really heavy things start.

We met a 5 year old boy who runs a toy store when his mom is out. He knows the prices and works the cash register. He befriended James and offered him a rubix cube, which have become popular here. We refused because James already bought one.

4/27/2014 Day 7

On the morning of Day 7, we went to a park Tao used to go to as a kid.. They have good exercise equipment and ping pong matches.  I had considered trying for a match, but chickened out.  They were just too good, and didn't feel like having my *ss handed to me.  It's somewhat similar to the parks at home except there is no playing on grass. Grass is either not there or it is roped off.  Also, there is a higher proportion of retired people at parks than you see in the US.

Then we went to a different history museum, but James cut this one short too.

Then we had lunch with Tao's buddy.  Tao has a friend who, for many years, has always worked free meals at restaurants and drinks at the karaoke bar.  I was her meal ticket this day.  Without telling us, She had apparently told a businesswoman friend of hers that she was going to lunch with her "foreigner" friends and invited her along.  She came, with the implicit assumption, that she would pay for it.  

After lunch there were pictures with the foreigner (i.e., me).  My wife says I have a "free food face."  I call it the "picture with the foreigner meal."  The deal is to get the pictures afterward and then show your buddies your foreigner friend or put them up in your business.  I may discover the next time I'm out there that I've been advertising a stone countertop business in Zhengzhou.

After lunch, the whole team went to a coffee shop and then, after that, we went downstairs to an underground simulated golfing driving range and drove some balls and played a little pool. 

That evening, the businesswoman treated the team to dinner at a seafood restaurant in which we're told she's a silent partner.  She also brought her business partner and his son to meet the foreigner.  We got out of pictures because James had a little accident using one of the bathroom pit type toilets there.  We took his wet pants and wrapped him in my flannel, and then he fell asleep.  That ended that.  The group was planning Karaoke after dinner but cancelled. 

The food at both places tasted good but was too salty and greasy. Taoski had swollen feet and I had a bad thirst.  Our bodies have changed since the first time I came out in 2007, nor did I have much appetite for free meals.

April 28, 2014 Day 8

On the morning of Day 8, we went to Kaifeng.  We left most of our stuff at the Sofitel in Zhengzhou and took out just what we needed for one night.  Ma Ke (Mark), Tao's brother, picked us up and drove us out there to our hotel, which he arranged. 

Kaifeng is a smaller and less crowded city about 30 miles out from Zhengzhou, and it's where Mark and his family live.  It is a cheaper city than Zhengzhou and there are more peasants and less foreigners, and less boring kids glued to their cell phones.  So far so far as I can tell, Taoski, James and I are the only foreigners here.

We checked into our room at a new 5 star hotel (which is nice and bright with big windows but like everything else here still smells in places like an open sewer) on the outskirts of town on the shore of a man made lake.  We had lunch at a restaurant down the road at a plaza that seems like a newer and less crowded version of the plaza in San Gabriel on Del Mar and Valley. 

After lunch Mark took us to a Buddhist shrine and the city center, Mark dropped us off and took James back to the hotel to play.  This is old, ancient really by US standards, and the contrast between it and the area by the hotel reminds me of the city v suburb contrast at home.  Our downtowns are revitalizing and theirs are still probably on the downward side of the slope.  

But I liked the wrinkled smiling toothless peasants and the absence of kids distracted by technology.  So Taoski and I walked around the old town center for about an hour and then Mark came and got us and took us to his temporary home here.  

That night we went to Henan University at Kaifeng, which was right down the street. There was a track and soccer field open to the public. There were people, most of whom looked college age, doing laps clustered around a guy with a radio blaring aerobics music that you would hear in a bally's and gold's. There must have been 200 people on the quarter mile track and three quarters of those were within 20 feet of the guy with the radio.  Other than the group aspect, this was pretty similar to what you'd see in the evenings at a track at a public high school or college in the US.   

April 29, 2014 Day 9

In the morning we returned to the same track for a little coach pitched practice for James.  We brought out the helmet, the bat an about 6 tennis balls. I pitched, Tao caught, and Uncle Mark, Auntie Ji Hong and cousin Bao Bao played the field. After about 15 minutes of batting practice, there was a group of curious onlookers. They got progressively closer until some jumped out and helped field.  You could tell when James got a good hit, even if you weren't looking at him, by all the "WA SEI!!!!!!!!" cheering from the crowd.

Then afterward we explored the campus a little. The school is set against the old city wall, the last functional one built 800 ago. Like the great wall, it has long since been destroyed but there is a replica there to remind people where it used to be. There is a lake on the other side of the wall, which serves as a nice backdrop but is gross if you look too closely. And people swim in it! Kaifeng is famous for its dirty lakes and rivers and year 'round swimmers.

I'm told that the school specialized in music and the arts and we could sure hear it. It is fluty, the same tune you hear everywhere here. Young people know it too and some try to perfect it. They even have a class building devoted to classes in the law. Tao informs me that this is a law school. You can sign up right out of high school for their law program and when you graduate in 4 years you have their equivalent of a J.D.

 

We went back for lunch with Taoster's family. Restaurant food is delicious, but the salt is killing us.  So we had good green vegetables with very little added to them.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon driving around to look at different monuments and lecturing Bao Bao ("Bao Bao" means "treasure," and she is her parents' one and only treasure). She's 16.  This is her first year of the secondary education endurance contest. School is year round and the day is broken into two segments. The first goes from 8am to 12pm, then there is a 2 hour lunch and siesta break. The second session picks up at about 2pm and goes to 6:30pm, Then there is two hours of study afterward at the library and she is picked up at about 8:30pm. And after this bus driver's split shift, there is two more hours of study at home. She thinks, and she may be right, that how she does over the next couple years will determine what happens in the rest of her life. 

 So Tao and I imparted what wisdom we could to a 16 year old in this environment. Put in a good effort, you can't control the result, live within your means, don't seek status, etc. She was very polite in receiving the advice, but what can you really tell someone to help?  Maybe we can bring her out with us within the next ten years. We'd looked into the possibility of adopting her, but we're informed that that is not a possibility. There may be other legal evenues out of there when she's older. We'll see.

Then Tao brother took us back to Zhengzhou, to our same hotel. They saved our room for us and held onto to the luggage that we didn't need for our 1 day trip out to Kaifeng. They take care of us. This is the third time we've stayed here, the second with James.  James is pretty popular here.

April 30, 2014 Day 10

We spent most of the last full day in China, Day 10, with Tao's parents.  I completed part IV of the interview with her dad, the final session for this trip.  It got us up to about the mid 1970's. So we've basically finished the first half of his life. We'll have to wait until we come back and he comes out to get all the way up to the present.

We said goodbye to the "nana's" outside their condo. The Nana's are a group of retired women who are friends/ former co-workers of Tao's parents. There are couches outside the condo, and they sit out there all day talking.  On our last trip out, they followed James around, but they've been counseled not to do that. The were so aggressive in chasing and grabbing him that he had to hide when they came, one time ducking into the bushes. So now they sit and wave and keep their hands to themselves. On this last day, James stuck his tongue out at them, and they laughed and did the same back.

Some others who had watched us previously but haven't said anything came up today to say "hello." I think they heard we're leaving and finally worked up the nerve to try talking to the "foreigners."  I taught two boys how to shake hands. One rubbed my arm and told me, through my wife, that the "fur' on my arms must keep me warm in the winter.

They were all staying at their place in Zhengzhou for the holiday so they came by that night, our last full night, to say "bye."  We'd discussed possible future trips, maybe to Mongolia or Sichuan, but who knows.  It's really our hope to get them out here permanently.  It's an extremely challenging life there, to put it mildly, without any benefit equal to the challenge.  I'm not sure everyone agrees with me on this, but my wife does. She lived in China for 36 years before uprooting herself and setting up here. 

May 1, 2014 Plane trip home

May 1 is a holiday in China, day of the worker.  The "workers of the world, UNITE" mentality is gone, but the holiday remains.  Our flight out of Zhengzhou was at noon, but we left before 8am so as to avoid holiday traffic. 

We got there plenty early, and just waited.  It ended up being the same grind as our trip over, only in reverse.  We were in an airport or plane for longer than a day.  If you include the shuttle ride from LAX to home, which took 3 hours because of multiple stops, it was about 28 hours.

We committed a mistake by trying to bring a bat on the plane in coming over, and I committed one waiting in the airport on the way back.  But a mistake a lesson well learned.  The lesson is to never order spaghetti with marinara sauce in an airport in China.  You end up paying $55 RMB for noodles with ketchup on them.

It seems that people like wearing shirts with English writing on them in the airport, especially in the international wing.  But they can't possibly understand what the shirts say, because the messages are ridiculous or inappropriate.  There was a lady who was wearing a foot ball jersey with "pervert" written on the front, a guy who was a "supreme court justice," a lady with the scarlet lady "A," and a guy who had an elephant with an apple in its trunk that said "teacher's pet."  Why do companies make shirts with such unusual shirts?  Why do people wear shirts  if they don't know what they mean?  This is a mystery on many levels.

Expenses

So the estimated grand total for 13 days in China (including the 2+ on the plane) for everything for the three of us, including food, is $5,698.  I had budgeted $6,000.00, so we did pretty well.  Going to the museums helped, because they were either free or very cheap.  Going easy on the restaurants helped too.  Also getting the tickets well in advance and avoiding peak travel periods within China cut down on flight costs. 

flight:                                                  2805

pictures for VISA:                              51

VISA:                                                 140x3=420

Gifts:                                                   $200+$16+51+14+30+12+30=$353

Airport Shuttle:                                   $90+$15 (tip)

Hotel:                                                  $935.21 + $232.39+$100=1267

Cash spent over there:                         $600 (includes food, gifts, taxis etc)

surgical masks, bandaids:                    13       

food for airport:                                  13+13

air mattress (James' bed)                    33

lost/ destroyed stuff:                           estimated $30 (pair of sunglasses, kid's tooth brush)

This isn't cheap.

Inquiry

We're thinking next time we come back we'd like to bring a group.  Why, might you ask, would anyone want to subject themselves to this kind of "vacation?"   It's not anyone's idea of rest and relaxation. It's very smoggy, crowded, noisy, you don't know what you're really eating when you're at a restaurant, and people spit, urinate, and defecate on the sidewalk when you're around them.  Also, the costs, even when you're frugal, are not trivial. 

All of that is true.  But we think it's important to educate ourselves as to how the other 90% of the world lives. Even though they live in a third world police state on the other side of the world, we're all in this together.  They make a lot of the stuff we buy.  Their is (or will be) our air.  And, of course, it's a great adventure.

We're curious as to whether there is any interest in joining us on the next trip.  We're not sure a group adventure is feasible but we're exploring the concept.  We will need at least 2 years to recover from this one, so the next will be no sooner than 2016.  Let us know if there's any interest.