8-23-98

Today is the day we are leaving for China. I really still do not want to go. Up until the day before I was hoping that a miracle would prevent us from getting on to that plane. It was not to be.

We left for the airport early. Kathy and Mom sent us off. We had to take Mom's car too because we had like nine pieces of luggage in all assorted sizes. Hugh had like a computer in one of them and we were carrying two laptops between both of us besides the cameras, camcorders, baseball bats and mittens, toilet articles and first aid stuff. Mahala had her toys and books. Of course we had all that too. We were loaded down with too much as I had told Hugh on many previous occasions when we were packing for our year in China.

We reached the airport in one piece, the luggage divided between the two cars. Mom and Mahala rode with Kathy and Hugh drove Mom's car. I was with him. We had a very hard time getting all the pieces of luggage to the check in counter. All of us were tired lugging the baggage. Hugh carried most of it.

At the check in counter we were informed that the plane has been delayed by at least 4 hours. That was a very bad start to the whole trip. We checked in our luggage and we are now in the lounge.

Mom and Kathy left us a while ago. There were tears all around. I cannot help but think we are getting into a big mistake by gong to China. I am very very unhappy. While all of my thoughts are centered on this trip, I wonder if Mom got back safely.

The plane is really late. On board everyone speaks Mandarin, even the flight attendants. I see no other Americans, just Hugh. Everyone is Chinese.

At the airport Mahala and I got really "antsy". We must have spent like 8 hours waiting. Because the flight was delayed the airline gave us a food voucher that amounted to $21-00. We used it at Burger King. We spent about $14-00 and never received our change back. That was a rip-off.

Our flight took off from LAX around 5:30 p.m.

We are now in the air. Mahala is looking out the window. She seems okay. I am feeling sleepy and tired.

We have just finished our 2nd meal on the plane. We had chicken. Actually both meals were pretty good. We will be arriving in Beijing in an hour or so. I slept through two movies. I would wake up every so often and look at the screen. The crew never gave us any earphones so we just followed the movies by reading the sub-titles. Both movies must have been produced during the early seventies and low budget at that. We were not missing much anyway. Hugh looks miserable and unsure. Maybe he has doubts himself about this venture. My eyes look red and puffy and dry. Mahala still looks all right.

We took two cars to the airport—my oldest sister Kathy came and helped us with all our luggage. The drive over was surprisingly uncongested on the new freeway to the airport. We arrived at the terminus and piled down the elevator with all our bags in tow. Each one of us had at least one bag to carry. We had a total of nine bags to carry with us, far too many even for the cars.

We were early and one of the first in line, and the lady at the ticket counter told us that the plane, scheduled to leave about noon, was to be delayed four hours. It turned out that we didn’t board until around 5 P.M. I sent my mom and sisters home and told them not to wait around with us. We ended up waiting in a very crowded boarding area—there were not enough chairs for everyone to sit down and people kept losing their seats when the got up to do something. We sat near a bunch of Brazilian men wearing expensive designer clothes and cowboy-type hats and leather boots. They spoke in Portuguese.

Nearby was a Virgin Airways plane leaving for England, and all the people about were speaking with British accents. We waited and waited, with little to do but to read our magazines. I drew a sketch of a log cabin, and read at least ¾’s of the new issue of Scientific American—space debris, desert gardens, the state of the U.S. economy. Rosie had picked up a recent issue of the new George Magazine that was published by John Kennedy, Jr. The cover of the magazine was quite provocative but the models were skinny and had way too much make-up on their faces. There weren’t many interesting articles but one review of a recent movie that dealt with an American who had fought with the Mexicans during the Mexican-American war. Finally, I saw the notice for our flight posted on the electronic board, and saw a huge line forming by the boarding gate—mostly Chinese, with quite a few people struggling to be in the front of the line. We made our way to the line and waited perhaps another half-hour before the boarding gates finally opened. We bottlenecked by the doorway, and then rushed with the flood of people in front and behind us down the long accordion passageway to the airplane. It was a huge 747. China Airlines in light blue. I picked an LA times up on the way through, the Sunday edition with the funnies. The plane reminded me a lot like the Malaysian Airlines we had taken four years previously to Penang, although it appeared somehow dingier, and less well kept. The stewardesses were older looking and not as pretty as the Malaysian one’s I remembered, but they were nice and appeared to know well what they were supposed to be doing. Suddenly, our world was Chinese and all we heard spoken on the flight was Chinese. Occasionally, and announcer on the intercom system would send out a message in broken English.

The flight was mostly boring and unremarkable. It was evening when we took off, and I don’t remember it ever becoming dark, as we flew with the halfway around the earth. I believe we reached up a little northward before cutting across the Pacific Ocean to land in Beijing about 10 hours later. The windows were closed. Some movie played—it was a terrible C movie filmed in L. A. and dubbed in Chinese. Too much gun violence and murder. Was this how the Chinese thought of the Americans? Then another movie was shown, later into the flight. It was a Chinese movie with English subtitles. It was called the "Water Carrier" and was about a love affair between a Portuguese man and a Chinese woman who walked bare-foot and carried water for a living. They fell in love, and into hard times, being rejected by both the Portuguese and the Chinese, and then finally, with the birth of children, everything worked out for the best in the end. I don’t remember a better movie on that flight. I only remember keeping an eye on the screen when it showed our flight progress, the speed and altitude. We could hardly sleep. We ate a couple of meals that weren’t very appetizing but I believe were better than the previous flights we had taken.

By the end of the flight, we had medical forms to fill out, and people were restless to get off the plane. Even the stewardesses were anxious to get off. It was always that way on a long flight. When we were near the end of our itinerary, and dropping down low over Beijing, it was finally dark out and we could only see lights of the countryside far below. I was amazed only to see how few lights and how sparse it seemed below. And when we finally came into our final landing path to land outside of Beijing, all I remember was the long rows of streetlights that glowed a strange yellow in the night—not intense as was usual with streetlights.

When we landed we saw an airport with the planes well arranged in a very military like order. Large planes in rows. Small jets in rows. It seemed sparse, almost Spartan, and I recalled the days in the Marines when we would fly into one or other military air base. It was near midnight already, local time. We came off the plane with everyone else, unsure if we were to remove our hand luggage or not, because there was one last leg to fly to Shanghai. As usual we waited until we were about the last to leave. I had my computer bag and another hand luggage to carry. We came down on old style steps. There was no bellows style portable passage way to connect to the plane, and soon we were out onto the Tarmack. The air outside was dry and cool, but not cold. It was not the humidity I had come to expect in Malaysia. We were all very tired as we herded down to the tarmac. There were step in buses waiting for us and many people in gaudy military-style uniforms with the round parade style hats and white gloves, ushering us quickly onto the buses. Most people seemed confused, and many of the Chinese were noticeably grumbling aloud, openly critical of the military authorities there to greet us. I must admit, at that point my heart sank greatly about being in China. I recalled my first greeting off the bus in boot-camp. We hung onto overhead handles on the bus, and a center pole, as the bus wisked us across the tarmac. Soon it stopped, and we all poured off the bus again and out into a building. People were shouting orders, and there appeared some confusion, and at that point, those moving on to Shanghai had to part from those coming off at Beijing, and then someone else came in shouted some more orders, and soon we were all marching back outside the way we came and then up a flight of steps and then into another room and down a long hallway and down some steps. I couldn’t but help smell the urine in the corners and notice the dilapidation in the darkness. This further added to my great diss consolation I was feeling at the time. Mahala was noticeably exhausted, and on the verge of tears. In fact, she started crying when she saw all the strange people with their military uniforms, and I couldn’t but help feel quite terrible for bringing her into this mess.

Finally we came to some customs booths where other military type people were in uniform behind glass. We got into a relative short line with a woman customs official. She was quite silent and stolid when she took our medical declaration forms and our passports. I was not even sure then if she would chop them or what would happen. Finally she looked up at Mahala and gave a brief smile and said something in Chinese, chopped the passports and handed them back to us. I was hopping we would have a moment to sit and relax before the next flight, so I could take the bags off my shoulders. They were quite heavy and afterward left bruise marks on both shoulders. Mahala was still upset, and Rosie was more and more upset also. But just then someone came in and called out and we were all on our feet again and back out to another waiting bus, that took us further round the airport terminus to a smaller plane waiting by itself on the edge of the runway. We boarded this small jet and found some seats near the rear, just in time to buckle in. We noticed that a couple of Indonesian or Malaysian-looking young men were nearby us, speaking in Indonesian. We were soon in the air again and given some snacks with some soda. We were not in the air much more than an hour before we were coming down to land again. By then it was very late. We landed quickly and were soon coming off the plane in Shanghai one final time. We were greeted again by military looking people, but at least they appeared to smile to us. We already knew the routine as we got into another bus and were soon going into a baggage area to collect our things. My big bags were slow in coming. Everyone was crowding the circular conveyor belts near the opening, so I hung back and identified the bags and pulled them off as they came down the other side. Soon they were all stacked up, and I gathered a two luggage carts. While going to fetch the carts I looked out the windows at people waiting outside for their new arrivals, and I saw a thin man holding a sign with my name on it. I waved to him and he caught my eye. I fetched the luggage and was a little worried that we would have fun with the customs with my three computers and all. Soon a porter and I were pushing out the two carts past the customs officers who did not bother us at all and we were soon outside in the air once again, to the confusion of Taxis waiting, and arguing about our fare and all the bags we had. Mr. Zhou explained little to us or to the taxi drivers, and soon we were in one taxi with his wife and child while Mr. Zhou took the other taxi with our bags in another, and we were due in a hotel somewhere downtown. We drove through Shanghai in the wee hours of the morning, and there were almost no cars on the streets, except on a few corners where there seemed to be some night life going on. I saw one man on a bicycle in the middle of the roadway, and a woman crossing a street. Mostly I saw mostly young men in construction work, bare-backed, pushing crude wheel barrows and shoveling what appeared to be cement and digging holes beneath the upturned rubble of the city. The city, even at that hour, had a strange feeling about it—I could only describe it as some how "gothic" without the art nouveau more like "Gotham City" from the bat man movies. It was almost surreal, and it felt unlike any city I had ever been in before at night. We exchanged few words in the taxi. The taxi turned and asked me how I liked Shanghai, and I told him that it was "interesting." I was surprised to see what looked like a "Volkswagen" logo on the steering wheel of the taxi, that needed some repair as it rattled and wobbled through the dark streets of Shanghai. I remarked that the cars here reminded me of the taxis in Kuala Lumpur, but it was a point that vanished into the darkness with the glinting light from the windshield.

We drove a long way, almost an hour, until we arrived at the hotel. It was about 3:00 A.M. and we went into the hotel and walked up to the counter. The other car holding Mr. Zhou and our other bags had gotten lost. Someone forgot to give the right directions, or something, and we stood out on the street almost a half-hour for the other taxi to arrive. When it did there was an ensuing argument between Mr. Zhou and the first taxi-driver because he expected more pay for waiting there, and Mr. Zhou refused him. The argument grew loud and I was a bit embarrassed and offered to pay myself almost whatever the driver asked for. He said that he had children to take care of, and was not being paid to wait around. I was left with a sense of significance of this small battle in the wee morning in front of a pretty fancy hotel with bellhops and all. I had seen fights before with the clan-Chinese of the Jetty, but only over money and jobs. I was intrigued, did China have hidden labor problems? How money appeared to have become so important in a communist society. We went into the lobby with all our bags piled on hotel luggage carts.

We waited at the register another half hour or so, squaring away our identity. Mr. Zhou almost immediately had a form in a leather binder for me to sign—I assumed it was a legal contract or something for the teaching position. I thought it was strange that he would be bothering me at that hour with such a minor thing. When he paid the hotel people, I saw him take out his wallet containing probably several thousand Chinese dollars hundred notes, and gave about seven or eight of these to the lady. I changed a couple of travelers cheques myself for local Chinese currency. Soon we were going up another elevator with all our bags on a cart. We came out on the seventh floor, and down a hall with the carpets were very old, dirty and bright red in color. I did not care for the décor. We were shown our room and I was let down to see how small it was. Mr. Zhou left us soon and went down to his room. He did not tell us where it was, but told us he would call on us in the morning. I don’t remember much. We cleaned up in the little bathroom. We had paper slippers to use—the carpet was so dirty that it felt grimy and greasy on the feet. We laid down and I think must have slept poorly for a couple of hours, still too wound up after the flight.

8-25-98

@7:10p.m.

We arrived in Shanghai around 11:00p.m. We cleared immigration easily. Not a lot of immigration or customs officers were working that time of night. A porter helped us with our luggage. He wheeled it right through customs with no problem. We had nothing to declare.

Mr. Zhao was there to meet us. He was waiting outside the entrance of the airport. He is in his mid 30's and is skinny. He had a taxi waiting for us but because we had so much luggage we needed another taxi.

Mr. Zhao took one taxi with half our luggage and all three of us took the other. From what I can see of Shanghai at that time of night, it is a big city. Construction was going on even at that time of night. The streets were busy with pedestrians, cyclists, cars, tricycles, motor bikes, buses and handcarts. I pointed out to Mahala Colonel Sanders. We arrived at the hotel long before Mr. Zhao. Mrs. Zhao was there waiting for us outside the hotel. She speaks no English at all. We communicated with her using our hand signs, simple English and the little Mandarin that I knew. Mr. Zhao arrived about 10 minutes later.

There was a bit of an argument going on with Mr. Zhao and the 2nd taxi driver. We deduced that it was over the fares because obviously the 2nd driver took the longer route so he could charge more on the fare. All the other taxi drivers hanging outside the hotel foyer joined in berating the 2nd taxi driver for his unscrupulous practice.

All Hugh and I could do was watch helplessly. We were no help. Finally the fares were settled to everyone's satisfaction. By the time we were showed to our room it must have been around 1:30 to 2:30 a.m. August 26th.

The New Asia Hotel where we stayed those 2 days in Shanghai is located in the downtown area. It has seven storeys and we were on the 7th floor. Our room was very small. We had hot water to shower with. It had all the modern conveniences, color television and air condition. There is also a hot water flask in the room. We made ourselves some coffee with our stash of coffee packets that we had brought along. Finally we could relax and clean up. The bath stopper is not working, so only hot showers for now. We turned on the T.V. Started watching an American movie with sex and violence. Mahala was upset at the Shanghai airport. She was crying because she was afraid that we had gotten lost. At that point the whole trip, I think was getting to her. By the morning she was feeling bright and cheerful, or maybe she was just trying to hide her insecurity by singing a ditty she made up. It goes like this: "I am a little girl in a little world."

While waiting for Mr. Zhao, all the taxi drivers hanging around the hotel foyer kept looking at Mahala. One tried to make conversation with her. It was no use. I think he was asking Mahala whether we wanted to use his taxi. I swear they were talking about us. Maybe it is better I did not understand Mandarin then. I might not have liked their conversation.

While waiting outside the hotel I also noticed a motor bike with a male driver and a female pillion passenger drive up. They stopped a few feet away from the main door of the hotel. The young female got off the bike. She was young maybe about 18 years old, no more that 25. It was her face that struck me the most; she had the most tired and resigned look, almost like she did not want to be there at all. She walked into the hotel.

Almost at once I thought of only one thing. Maybe I am wrong but at that time, almost 2:00 a.m., a young girl, a hotel and the look on her face, prostitution sprang to mind. My conclusions may be wrong but I seriously doubt it. In a big city like Shanghai the market for prostitution is there. Shanghai at one point in history was known as "Sin City" of China. Hugh himself saw two women in the elevator, all made up and wearing short skirts. They got off on one of the lower floors. He felt the same way I did about those two young girls as I did with mine. Both of us came up with the same answer.

Our hotel room overlooks the back alley. From our windows I can see numerous skyscrapers and in between old style Chinese shop houses where whole families lived upstairs. Old and new side by side. It reminded me of my hometown, Penang.

8-26-98

The next couple of days were spent uncomfortably Jet-lagged in downtown Shanghai with our new "friends" the Zhou family. Because we could not sleep early in the morning, and we didn’t know how to get in touch with Zhou, we decided to be bold and go down and find some breakfast in the restaurant in the hotel. It was a fairly fancy affiar, with white table clothes and napkins on round tables. We were seated by a young waitress wearing a red Chinese dress and soon we were besieged by several young Chinese girls pushing carts of finger food and "dim sum" that we had found familiar. We got our breakfast by pointing and smiling, and plate after plate piled up on our table until we had more than we could eat. I had no idea of the cost of everything but we were quite surprisingly hungry. Mahala was uncomfortable. Other families and couples were sitting around, but by the time we had finished our meal the restaurant was mostly empty. Finally, I asked for our check and was surprised to see that that total sum was only about 70 or 80 yuan—or Chinese dollars. We ate, and paid, and having nothing better to do, while we waited to hear from the Zhou family, we strolled out the Hotel entrance, where two young girls dressed in bellhop uniforms opened and closed the door for us, and we found ourselves on the busy street outside. We strolled up the street to the corner of the busy intersection. A strange man on a bicycle came up to us, stopped and just smiled and stared at us. I decided we better beat a retreat and we soon returned inside the relative security of the Hotel. We looked in at the gift shop on the other side of the lobby opposite from the restaurant. There was a middle-aged lady behind a counter who looked at us as if we were intending to shoplift something. This made us a little uncomfortable and anxious to escape. We were considering buying some gifts for people when a young man came up and spoke to us in English. He told us that he had worked at a resort beach and had studied English and had gained a job in this hotel where the pay was not so good, but better than where he had been. He wanted to improve his English and go to work at a better place. We took our leave of this young man, wishing him luck in his future, and then we returned upstairs to our room to wait to hear from Mr. Zhou.

While sitting in the hotel room we waited for Mr. Zhou. I turned on the television and found an American movie in English—it was one that I hadn’t seen before and found it interesting. About a private detective trying to save the life of his police friend, getting caught up in the Russian mafia. I remember looking out the window of the hotel, and being able to see down below to the rooftop of the building next to us. There two men dressed in chefs outfits with tall hats standing near the edge of the roof, they appear to be leaning over and spitting down onto the street several stories below—soon they turn away from the wall laughing to each other.

It was not until late morning when Mr. Zhou’s young son came calling on our door with a special language keyboard that had the sounds of the Chinese language. Mahala and him took up a little bit of a kid conversation, as Malaha broke out many of her toys. Soon Mr. Zhou came knocking at the door and asked if his son were bothering us. He said that we could go out now and get a bite to eat. We ended up walking outside the restaurant, crossing the street near the intersection that we had stopped at earlier. We walked up a small side street of little shop houses—it reminded me a great deal of Georgetown, except that the shop spaces were much tinier and more crude. The Shanghainese did their living and their business right on the crowded street. We finally found a place that was to be our second breakfast, and there I thought it would be good to get some "bao" or dumplings. The son looked disgusted when they ordered "pao tzu" and he turned his nose at them. We sat in a small stall and ate the pao. A woman was cooking fried egg like a pancake and Mr. Zhou ordered one of these for his family, and I asked him if he could order one for us as well. The woman was quite pleased that we ordered her food. We went back by the hotel where Mr. Zhou’s wife and son were to take a bus to go to a buddhist temple. I offered to go with them, but Mr. Zhou insisted that we go to the tourist market.

Later that day we walked a few blocks to the International Market where we shopped around. It was all reconstructed in an old style. Many foreigners were there. Mahala became entranced with the Chinese costumes in a department type store full of fancy and expensive tourists goods. We found some silk scarves and Mahala bought a couple of these scarves for her Grandma and my sister. I had to explain to Mr. ZhouFew people were buying. Downstairs we found the "antique mall" and I was surprised to see so many old things like the small slippers the Chinese women with bound feet used to wear, an old Fedora hat that was several sizes too small and whose label read from the late 19^th Century. We looked then at some of the ceramic antiques and statuary that were all marked at hundreds of yuan. A lady put a great deal of pressure on me to buy a vase or a plate I had been looking at. I liked the style but thought they might be fakes—too many of the same, they didn’t look right. She gave me a card and assured me that all her things were authentic and legal to sell. Mr. Zhou found us and he appeared quite bored and disinterested with the antiques.

We grew tired from the Jetlag by the early afternoon and told Mr. Zhou that it would be better for us to go back to the hotel. So we made the long walk back and checked back into our rooms. We got back to our room by mid-afternoon and slept for a couple of hours. We were awakened by a phone call in the evening and Mr. Zhou wanted to take us out once again to get some dinner. So we walked out to the same area where we ate our breakfast. We found another small restaurant nearby that had glass windows. Inside was stuffy. The owner cleared a table and made a small party give up their table for us. We ordered some chicken that came boiled and chopped up, and Mr. Zhou had ordered a plate of potatos that had been sliced in long thin strings and cooked in vinegar. It was quite sour and I did not find it very appetizing. I noticed people outside dealing with vegetables.

After that, we were still quite tired and I told Mr. Zhou we had better go back to the hotel rooms. We returned and Mr. Zhou’s son came up with us to the room and played a little while with Mahala. He left his toy in the room for Malala to play with and went with his father back to their room

@9:15a.m.

We will be leaving Shanghai for the provincial capital of Henan Province, Zhengzhou tomorrow. All foreigners in China need an identity card for the duration of their stay in China. While there we are supposed to get the cards. Mr. Zhao has booked "soft sleepers" on the train for our trip to Zhengzhou. Then we transfer to another train to Xinyang. This is what Mr. Zhao had planned. The school semester starts on September 3rd.

This morning we woke up around 8:00 a.m. All of us were hungry so we went downstairs. The hotel had a restaurant and at that time of morning breakfast was being served. Not knowing the language we just walked up to a table and made ourselves comfortable and hope that the waitress will come by to take our orders. One waitress came by with a cart full of goodies. We recognized the steamed dumplings and sweet pastries. The girl stopped by our table and gave us an inquiring look. We pointed to numerous plates and it was served to us. I thought it went rather well considering the whole transaction was totally done without any spoken language. After a breakfast of "dim sum" we managed to pay without any hassle. There were no paper napkins so I gestured for one by rubbing my two hands together hoping that the waitress will figure it out. Instead she motioned me to follow her, and she led me to the restroom. It worked out. I washed my hands instead.

We walked outside after breakfast. We took a very short walk around the side of the hotel. The first thing was there were people everywhere. The streets were busy. It was choked full of vehicles: electric trolleys and busses full of people. The scene was chaotic. Honking and revving of engines from the motorized vehicles was too much. It made me afraid to even be out there amongst those entire crowd. It felt dangerous. Mahala wanted to go back to the hotel. I did not say anything but deep down I wanted to be back in the hotel too. On the way back to the hotel a guy on a bicycle stopped and looked at us. He said "Hello". We acknowledged his greeting.

Mahala is still unsure of the situation. She feels much safer in the hotel room.

It is 1:25 p.m. We have just come in. We spent a few hours this morning at a huge tourist market with Mr. Zhao. Mrs. Zhao and their son did not come with us. Instead she went to a temple to pray. Mr. Zhao explained to us that he is not a religious person but his wife believes in Buddhism and he respects her beliefs.

Before that Mr. Zhao took us to breakfast with his family. He walked us through the streets of Shanghai until we came to a morning market. He lead us to a small restaurant and ordered some steamed "chiao tze" and potatoes cooked in vinegar. "Chiao tze" looks like wontons but taste slightly different. I do not care for it too much. Mahala was not too hungry. The owners of the restaurant brought us some glasses of hot water when we indicated that we were thirsty.

I believe that the tourist market we visited was called "International Market". All the goods there catered to the tourists who had money to spent. There were also locals but they were not buying. Mahala bought silk scarves for her Grandma and Sue. She wanted to buy gifts for Jeannie, Christy and Kathy too. We talked her out of it by explaining that when we leave China we will get them then. She was happy with that.

We took a taxi to and from the market. It was a hot and humid day. Mahala was feeling tired so we left abruptly. I think Mr. Zhao would have been happy playing tour guide but jet lag was catching up with us real fast.

Back at the hotel Mahala laid down and fell asleep.

Mr. Zhao and Hugh had a conversation between themselves. I was not paying too much attention to them. Their talk was mostly about the school.

The next morning, we got up early again and couldn’t sleep. We waited for to hear from our new friends. Soon the young son and Mr. Zhou came knocking again on our door and he stayed in the room to play with Malaha. Mr. Zhou stayed in the room a little while and asked me what I thought about China and how it was changing. He told me that the old style communism was all but dead, and Tinniamen square was not forgotten history. The telephone then rang and it was Mr. Zhou checking on his son, asking him to come back down to their room. I decided I would take the boy down myself and he led me down to the second floor where he knocked on the door. They were quite surprised to see me and let me into their room. I was surprised to see that their room was quite large and luxurious compared to ours—twice the size of our small room and more normal to a standard hotel room in the States. I didn’t think much more about it at the time but figured there were some double-standards operating. I didn’t stay long but returned the game and went back upstairs. He had made arrangements to meet us in a half-hour downstairs by the elevator door. So we got ready and went back downstairs.

This time we walked out from the hotel and down a couple of streets to a river, over a bridge. It was hoter that day than the day before, and by the time we got to the bridge, we were already sweating. On the other side of the bridge was a long waterfront walkway along the harbor of the Shanghai. There was a vendor and I ordered some water for us. The man gave us warm water and I asked Mr. Zhou’s wife to ask for cold water—he produced a bottle of cold water from a small refrigerator. I gave him about five yuan and he at first didn’t give me any change back, and then Mr. Zhou’s wife angrily scolded him for shortchanging me. I didn’t really even realize what happened but mused to myself that we were paying tourists prices once again.

We walked about half a mile along this waterfront. Trees and flower bushes were neatly trimmed in Gardens, and there were statues dedicated to workers and fallen soldiers of the revolutionary movement. I enjoyed the natural flora far more than the man-made objects. We soon arrived at the other end of the queue where a ferry was going across the channel to a small "special development" island, we took this ferry across to the other side, where we came down and walked about another quarter of a mile to see the famous "television" tower that was supposed to be the tallest building in China and akin to our "statue of liberty" as a national landmark. We got near the entrance of this tower and there were people at the gate. It was crowded all about and I took pictures but could not get a view of the whole tower. The attendant told Mr. Zhou that it was fifteen yuan per person to go inside, and forty yuan to go up the second level, sixty yuan to the second level and about eighty yuan per person to go to the very top. I noticed many people were not going inside, and many others were paying what I considered to be inflated prices. I wondered to myself why it should be so expensive in a theoretically classless state for poor people to get to see the top of their national treasure. I kept the thoughts to myself, but Mr. Zhou apparently did not want to pay this amount and I was not sure if he was expecting that I should pay for everyone. We lingered about for a couple of minutes, and then began our trek back towards the ferry. I found the ferry more thrilling a ride than the tower, which architecturally didn’t impress me very much except as an enormous structure of concrete pilings. On the way back, I was accosted by a couple of tiny kids in very dirty and tattered clothes begging me for money. I noticed a man across the street watching us. I tried side-stepping around the little boy, who couldn’t have been more than three or four years old, but he kept blocking my path. I bent down and asked him in English where his parents were and why weren’t they taking care of him. I found this to be yet another contradiction of the communist state, and figured it to be a scam for the tourists. Many Chinese tourists who come to Shanghai appear to be quite gullible to this kind of thing. I had become inerred to it since my time in Penang. Mr. Zhou finally scolded the little boy in Chinese, and he let us finally pass.

We rode the ferry back across, and by the time we got back on the dock our feet were sore and I insisted to Mr. Zhou that we take a taxi back to hotel. I paid for two taxis that soon had us back in front of the hotel.We were jet-lagged once again and though Mr. Zhou wanted to go shopping I told him to do it without us. He seemed to be a little irritated by us middle aged fuddy duddies and I insisted to him that it would be allright if their family go out by themselves, and not to worry about us.

8-27-98

@7:00a.m.

I hate the situation. Everything is so complicated. It is also frustrating. We are over burdened with luggage. They are heavy and big. Hugh woke up this morning and started to repack everything. At the end of that we managed to consolidate two pieces of luggage thus saving having to carry one extra bag. Big deal. We still had 8 pieces of luggage.

This evening we are going top take a 10-hour train ride to the provincial capital to get our working papers. After that we go to Xinyang which is another 4 hours on another train. This is getting to be quite a hassle. I wish it is over with. Hugh feels okay with it, but my feelings are different.

We are still suffering from jet lag. We went to bed around 7:00p.m. in the evening yesterday and woke up at 1:00a.m. We stayed up until 3 or 4 a.m. Then we slept. We woke up at 6:00 a.m.

I wish people here spoke English. It is so difficult for me. Just because I am Chinese it does not mean I speak Mandarin. Everyone presumes I do. Mahala is hanging in there. She tells me she misses her grandma. To be honest I am too and would like to be back at her place. I do not know how things will work out here but I sincerely wish that there is something in the States to go back to. A job would be nice. I will jump on the next plane back, pronto.

Seems like the apartment (Mr. Zhao calls it the hotel) where we will be living in has everything except a microwave. We have a kitchen. I do not know. I just have to wait and see. In my heart I know that what Mr. Zhao is telling us are just half-truths. I am afraid of the reality of the our dwelling. It cannot be like what he had wrote to us and as our time gets closer to see our apartment I know I will be in for a disappointment in a big way. I am sad and unhappy. I feel tired and I miss all that I have left behind. The situation here might work out, who knows, but what I am feeling now is not optimism.

Last night we had dinner with Mr. Zhao and his family. The food was good but a little on the saltish side. Everyone dips his or her food in soy sauce. We had boiled chicken. The chicken was chopped up into small pieces. We were served fried rice with it. Of course we had the hot water to wash it down with. The restaurant was small and only had like 5 tables. The person preparing the food had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. I looked at him and hoped that the ashes from the cigarette did not drop into our food. Mr. and Mrs. Zhao’s son, Ah Mor, really enjoyed his meal. By the time we finished he was literally smacking his lips. Grease was dripping down from his chin. He really enjoyed the chicken. First he ate the meat then he sucked on the bones.

As usual on the way to dinner and back, we encountered people everywhere. Traffic was terrible. Pedestrians and vehicles fight for space on the road. Vehicles did not stop when the red light is on. They kept going. No one pays any heed to the signs and signals. You cross the road at your own risk, dodging vehicles as you cross.

I hope that this one-year will pass especially fast.

8-27-98

8-27-98

@11:45a.m.

Earlier this morning went over the Huang Po River by ferry. The Zhao’s wanted to show us (more for their sakes than ours) the latest and newest Industrial Trade Zone in China. The Zone is actually an island in the middle of the river. The island is man made. It was miserable walking around the island because it was a hot and humid day. We were still suffering from jet lag.

We had to walk through the city streets to get to the ferry terminus. That was an experience. Besides the heat we had to deal with the traffic and the people and the stares especially those directed at Mahala. We were thirsty so we stopped to buy some bottled water. The vendor overcharged us and on top of that he under changed us. Luckily Mrs. Zhao caught this and questioned the vendor. The guy gave us the correct change after that. I wanted to tell the Zhao’s that we really did not want to be tourists that morning. We had a long train trip to look forward to in the evening. Of course we were too polite to say anything.

We just followed the Zhaos on the island. We walked to the tallest structure there. Mr. Zhao called it the TV Tower. Mr. Zhao wanted to go up to the top of the Tower but the asking price was too much. We decided to go back to the hotel. On the island two beggars at different places accosted us. They were both children between the ages of 5 to 7. Mahala felt sorry for them and asked Hugh and I why they were begging. On the ferry coming back to the mainland an old man approached us for money. On all these three occasions we did not give any money. With the children Hugh said "No". They kept following us and finally the Zhaos scolded them and told them to leave. With the old man we looked at him and shook our heads. He left us after that.

There was this young man on the ferry who looked at Mahala weird. I caught him winking at Mahala numerous times. I made sure Mahala stayed close to me.

In another ½ an hour we are supposed to meet the Zhaos for lunch. We are treating them this time. Mahala and Ah Mor is in our room playing with her toys.

8-27-98

Mr. Zhou insisted to take us out to lunch in the afternoon, but I felt tired of the press of the crowded streets and traffic, and told him instead that I would treat his family to a meal at the hotel restaurant in the afternoon. So we returned to the hotel and went inside to the restaurant and sat down at a large table. We ordered several plates of rice, fish, soup and other things that waitresses kept bringing out to the table and offering us from their carts. Mr. Zhou’s son had grown real fond of me, holding my hand everywhere, and now he sat next to me and ate everything. He almost devoured the entire fish we ordered by himself. I was surprised to see him so hungry, especially for the meat. After the meal, the woman brought the bill and it came to about 315 yuan. I was not unhappy to pay it but Mr. Zhou was upset and called over the main receptionist and they began arguing loudly in the restaurant. I was quite embarrassed by the spectacle he was making, and he kept insisting that the tea they had drunk should be free and that they knock off some money from the bill. I ended up paying 300 yuan even for the meal and was quite satisfied to have eaten a good meal. By then it was time for us to leave, and we went back up to our rooms and got our luggage ready to take to the train station.

@2:25p.m.

It is me again. It has been raining since 12:30p.m. It is a heavy downpour. I am feeling down and wishing I was back in the States.

Lunch was good. I did not eat too much. The food looked good. We ate in the hotel restaurant. The Zhaos, especially Ah Mor enjoyed the food. The Zhaos complained about how expensive the meal was. Hugh wanted to treat them to lunch because the Zhaos had paid for our meals since we arrived. My reasons were different. I did not want to eat any more "chiao tzes". Also I wanted to eat in more comfortable surroundings. We have always gone with the Zhaos on their terms, now it is on our term.

As usual Ah Mor enjoyed the meal more than the adults. He ate most of the roasted chicken. Mrs. Zhao enjoyed the fish soup. When the bill came Mr. Zhao grabbed it. Mrs. Zhao looked over his shoulder and both of them made the comment that the meal was too expensive. Mrs. Zhao told us the cost of the meal came to half of her monthly salary. Hugh was going to pay for it anyway. Mr. Zhao called the waitress over and started haggling with her over the cost of the food. All of this was of course in Mandarin. He finally managed to persuade her to deduct the cost of tea from our bill. Hugh felt embarrassed about the episode and I felt confused over it. What is the big deal?

After lunch the Zhaos went upstairs to their room. We went to the gift shop located in the lobby of the hotel to look around. We talked to the salesman who knew a smattering of English. He was trying to get us to buy from him and telling us that he would give us a big discount if we did. We talked with him for awhile and he told us he came from the country. He picked up the English from a friend who is American. That friend has left for home. The Chinese man was trying to save money so he can visit the States. After talking with him I get the impression that this American friend is his gay lover. The Chinese man seemed pretty effeminate to me.

We went upstairs to our room and tried to unlock the door with our card key. The door stayed locked. We tried several times. Finally the maid on duty said, "Front desk". We took the elevator down and inquired at the desk. The receptionist did not understand English. Hugh went upstairs to get Mr. Zhao. He came down and settled the matter with the front desk. We were locked out because the room had not been paid for that day yet. Check out was 12:00 noon and obviously Mr. Zhao did not inform the front desk that we would be using the room until we leave in the evening.

The time arrived in the late afternoon for us to catch our trains. I was confused by the situation and kept asking Zhou for details, but he seemed not to want to bother to explain anything to me. We had too many bags, even though we consolidated two into one. I felt bad already that we had yet to travel so far still. We ended up getting a couple of taxis and I helped them load everything into the cars. Next thing I know, they are shouting things to one another in Chinese and Mr. Zhou is jumping into the lead taxi and Rosie and Mahala and Mrs. Zhou are getting in the one in the back. I decided that there was no room to be with Rosie, and made the mistake of getting into the cab with Zhou. The driver just took off and I watched behind the rear view glass and watched the other taxi still parked by the curb, as it vanished and then started and tried to catch up with us. I realized when we passed through a traffic signal just changing red that we had lost the taxi behind us, but it did not seem to dawn on the driver. I considered our driver either very incompetent or rude, as he just drove through traffic signal after traffic signal not bothering to wait for the following taxi—soon we are turning here and there, and suddenly he looks in his rear view mirror and must realize that the other taxi is nowhere to be seen. Soon he drops us nearby the bus station—I with most of my biggest bags and the computer bag. The other taxi doesn’t arrive. Not for an hour. I waited anxiously out by the street where it curves in front of the shipping station. Mr. Zhou disappears into the bowels of the building to look for them. I am at a loss about the situation. Many people walk by me staring. Many people look poor—some with just their belongings bundled into dirty old blankets and sheets. I wait and wait and wait, hoping to see them drive by in the taxi. Soon Mr. Zhou comes up and calls me from another direction, and tells me he has found them. A couple of people are with him. They are porters who offer to carry my bags. I allow them to help me. We find Rosie and Mahala near the entrance of the station. Mahala is sobbing. The porters begin arguing with Mr. Zhou over a couple of yuan pay. I decide it is not worth bothering with and then shoulder most of the bags myself, and in anger and frustration, ask Mr. Zhou where we are supposed to go and simply walk off in that direction. Once inside we find we must place all our bags through an x-ray scanner. I am surprised and worried about damage to my unprotected film and computers—everything goes through the machine anyway and dumps out the other side. We then go up a flight of stairs to a waiting area where there are uncomfortable looking black vinyl chairs and many tourist shops with nobody buying anything. Mahala has calmed down a bit and to soothe her a little I take her and Mr. Zhou's boy, Amor, to shop at the tourist counters. Mahala sees a stuffed beany baby with tags that look authentic. I see that they are not too expensive and offer to buy a couple. I buy one for Malaha and one for Amor. Amor is elated and takes it to show his mother and father, but they make him return it to us and give it back to us. I am a little offended and tell them I wanted to do it, but they insist and refuse, and so I give it back to Mahala to keep. I am a little angry and embarrassed by the situation and by everything else and just walk by myself around the waiting lounge until my mood changes a little.

8-27-98

@6:35p.m.

We are waiting for our train to come in. We are in the lounge of the railway station.

Mahala and I had an experience today that I hope never to repeat again.

We left the hotel in two taxis. Mr. Zhao and Hugh in the first one and the rest of us in the other. We got separated in the heavy traffic. Upon reaching the train station they were nowhere to be seen. The taxi driver was impatient to be off. He started unloading our bags onto the street. Luckily I had some money with me so he got paid. There we were with all our luggage with only Mrs. Zhao and her son.

People, men and women, who were vying with each other to carry our luggage to the platform, surrounded us. Mind you this was outside the station. Mrs. Zhao waved them all away. She was as lost as Mahala and I. Between us both; we managed to carry the luggage from the street to the sidewalk. Mrs. Zhao gestured to me to wait where I was while she went off to look for Hugh and her husband. She left her son with us.

By then I was getting agitated. People were trying to talk to me in Mandarin and trying to carry my luggage. I was angry to be in this predicament. It was no fun to be alone and lost. I was angry with Hugh for putting us in this situation. Mahala started crying because she was afraid Hugh would not show up. So we waited there for at least ½ an hour on our own. It was hot and humid. It looked like it was going to rain. So on my own I carried the luggage I had with me under an awning. I felt so helpless, Mahala was still crying. All I could do was tell her "We’ll be all right, Daddy will come." I did not feel that way though. I felt we had been abandoned.

We spotted Mr. Zhao easily because he had a bright red shirt on. We still had to wait while he went to get Hugh. Mrs. Zhao returned then. Ah Mor told her his dad went to get Hugh. She took it upon herself to go find them instead of staying with us. There we were again, Mahala, Ah Mor and myself left together. It is a frightening situation to be in. Mahala must have sensed my feelings. She started to cry again and that got me upset. How am I going to handle this unbearable and uncomfortable situation? It makes me wonder how I am going to last the year and we are not in Xinyang yet. I am feeling more and more alienated and alone and Mahala is picking up all these negative vibes flowing through me. I am trying to be more positive but what happened in the train station really puts my feelings into the negative mode. It is an impossible position. I really hope things improve down the road otherwise my negative attitude will definitely show through.

Hugh wants me to give it a chance but it is so difficult. So far nothing positive has surfaced.

Our wait suddenly came to an end when Mr. Zhou told us to wait and he came back about five minutes later and told us we were to go now. We had to go up a long escalator that didn’t work with all our bags. I could only manage this by carrying as many bags as I could manage and leaving them at the top, and then returning for more. Zhou lead us around to the top of another flight of steps where, at the bottom, our train was waiting for us. So I carried the first big bags down to the bottom and tell Rosie to wait there while I go back up to get the others. As I turn to go up the steps I suddenly see a flood of people pouring over the top like a wave coming down, barely heeding my need to travel up stream—I force my way through shoulders and around people to get my other bags. I am exhausted by the time we are on the platform, and we must suddenly hurry to get the train onto our car before the train moves off. So I load our bags on board one more time, putting a few in the aisle of the car, then going back down to get more. By such a means, I made all our bags in our little sleeping compartment, where we stacked them in the small storage compartment above the door and under the beds. I was quite relieved and sweated a great deal to get everything securely on board the train. Soon it began to move off, without a signal, without a sound. As we left Shanghai station, it was dark out, and we could see little but the lights. A conductress in uniform soon came by and checked our tickets and took our passports, looking at them real closely. In China, one never gets beyond the preliminary customs check that, in most country, ends at the border. One is always having to show ones papers and in a sense, explain ones legitimacy whether it is to a hotel receptionist, a train conductress or even a postal clerk. Soon we settled in, the kids up on the top bunk—Amor could not settle down and kept climbing up and down like a small monkey—Rosie and I layed down on the same bed, opposite of one another, and Mr. Zhou and his wife were on the other side. We had no extra food with us and brought no water. We were not advised of anything, and I was growing a little resentful that Mr. Zhou would not tell me what he was up to each step of the way—I kind of dismissed it as a blanket kind of incompetence, but still was irritated by the lack of intelligence.

I was happy though that we made it that far and the sleeping compartment seemed cozy and clean enough, and private. We were only disturbed by the periodic appearance of the conductress, and at some point there appeared to be an argument between Mr. Zhou and the lady, even bringing another senior-looking conductor into it, over what I took to be the required fair for the children, who were only supposed to be half-price if they were above a minimal height, and free if they were below that height. It turned out that Mahala was too tall—they took her down to the end of the car and measured her by a line on the wall, and therefore they wanted Mr. Zhou to pay the extra fare for her ticket. Mr. Zhou appeared to be stalling on this, and in the end, it seemed, got away without paying anything as the lady either was replaced down the line or forgot about it in all her other business. I didn’t mind paying our fare share, but I could not conduct the necessary transaction in Chinese, so was at a disadvantage. Mr. Zhou seemed to be capitalizing, even then, on this disadvantage of ours. It perturbed me a little and made me a little suspcious of him.

We spent the trip mainly sleeping and looking out the window at the countryside. Frequently, trains at night would pass us by—always passenger trains, and hardly ever carrying any freight—just the opposite I though of the trains in the U.S. that mostly carry freight and hardly ever passengers. And the trains would suddenly pass by at break-neck speed, almost within arms reach—the lighted passenger cars would reveal countless multitudes of Chinese people appearing and disappearing again into the darkness. And inbetween the occassional train, there was just the lights of what I took to be farm houses in the countryside—the occasional vehicle, and, once, winding on a road in some hills among trees, what I took to be a relatively long convoy of trucks and other vehicles, what I assumed to be a military convoy, perhaps. And as the morning dawned it reveal a broad flat landscape of farmland and old red-brick farm houses, often with trees and fences in the compound area, round gate portholes, etc. And it was this way almost the entire length of the trip across the interior of China—a trip that took us more than 12 hours to make. During this time we passed through a couple of cities. I remember their names. Nanyang was one. In the morning I engaged in a dialogue with Mr. Zhou’s wife, of sorts, as she tried to teach me Chinese by counting. I was a good student but retained nothing.

8-27-98

@8:50p.m.

We are on the train finally. All of us are sharing a soft sleeper. It is comfortable and the sheets and blankets are clean. I suspect that Mr. Zhao did not pay for the children because the conductress came by a couple of times and pointed to the kids. Mr. Zhao seemed not to be too concerned over it. We offered to pay for the children if there was any problem. He told us "No problem at all." At one point the conductress took the children to be measured for their height. Mr. Zhao went with them. He came back and acted as if nothing had happened. We asked if we had to buy the tickets for the children but he was vague in his answer. We left the conversation at that.

We are now down to 8 heavy bags. Getting from the waiting room, to the platform and onto the train with all those bags was quite an adventure. First we had to go up on an escalator, down a long hallway and then down a long flight of stairs to the platform, and then up on the train. I swear I am never going anywhere again with 8 heavy pieces of luggage. It is a major headache especially when there is not enough people to help you carry it. From now on it is "go light" or not at all. I swear Hugh always carry a ton of stuff that is really not necessary. All that excess baggage is not worth it.

At the Shanghai railway station some porters did offer to help us carry our bags. The Zhaos haggled with them over the charges. We would have paid them for their help but the Zhaos thought the porters were asking too much. So we suffered.

As first class paying passengers we were allowed to get on the train first. As I mentioned before we had to walk down a flight of stairs to get on the platform.

So there we were. Behind us was a grill gate that was still locked. Behind that I could see a huge crowd waiting for the gate to open. Hugh and Mr. Zhao carried down the heavier bags to the platform. Mrs. Zhao was there waiting for them. They made two trips that way. Mahala and I stood watch over the other bags at the top of the flight of steps. As soon as those gates were opened the crowd just swept by us like a wave of water. They were running and pushing each other to get to the train first. I could see Hugh struggling to get to us to collect the rest of our bags. I cannot begin to describe it. Wave upon wave of people passing by us. The scene reminded me of the movie "Ten Commandments" when the Red Sea closed itself upon the enemies of Moses.

8-28-98

@5:40a.m.

Mahala is sleeping on the top bunk. The Zhaos are all asleep across from us. I woke up at 1:00 this morning and had a good cry. I feel like a stranger here. I miss all my familiar surroundings. Hugh talked to me. He seemed much more understanding than before. We talked about what happened at the train station. What kind of situation have we gotten ourselves into? The answer is not too clear or reassuring right now.

8-28-98

@9:55a.m.

We arrived in Zhengzhou at 9:15a.m. We alighted from the train and stood waiting on the platform while Mr. Zhao went to check on the schedule for the next train to Xinyang. He came back and there was a discussion between himself and his wife. Then the wife took off and came a few minutes later. She had the information he wanted. So there we were, on the platform with not a clue as to what was going to happen next. A man in uniform started hollering at us to get off the platform. No loitering allowed. The same thing happened to a group of young men waiting further down from us. A lady in the same uniform as the man gestured to them to leave the platform area.

We had no choice but to lug all our bags up and down 2 flight of stairs and down a hallway to the waiting room.

A dirty young man offered to help us with the bags if we would pay him. He was in his twenties and had on a pair of shorts and an unbuttoned shirt. Mr. Zhao gestured him away. He hung around us and started pulling at his nipple. He finally walked around a pillar. We lost sight of him after that.

We have had no food since lunch yesterday. I am hungry but what is there to eat. The Zhaos bought themselves some noodles in cups and ate that on the trip. We have survived on snacks and peanuts. We were hot and thirsty on the trip so we looked for iced water or iced soda pops. There was none to be found. So we bought bottles of water and cans of soda pops that were warm. Nothing cold to quench our thirst.

We are waiting for our train to Xinyang in a room full with other passengers waiting for their connecting trains to various parts of the country. It is a small room. There are no windows and the air is stale because there is just too many people crammed into such a small space. The two overhead fans just circulate the stale air and the three wall fans does not help either. There is a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. All the passengers are sitting on rows of uncomfortable wooden seats. In the front of the room there is a desk and behind that is a lady in uniform sitting down. She is not doing much except she seems to be observing the passengers and in the process is being observed. I feel like everyone is a school kid and she is the schoolteacher. At anytime she is going to whip out her cane and whip us for being naughty or for staring.

We found some seats. Mr. Zhao left the room. When he came back he was smiling. He has managed to buy us tickets for our trip to Xinyang. That train will leave at 12:51p.m. It arrives in Xinyang at 5:00p.m.

I observe the people in this room. Everyone talks loud even the women. It is not too polite. Coming from a woman it seems especially crude. I am being too judgmental, but I have never being exposed to such a situation like this before. I wish I were back in the States where it is more civilized.

In this room everyone stares at us and them make remarks. I wish I knew what is being said. Why can’t Hugh just decide to teach in Europe or even Japan or Korea or Thailand or the Philippines? It would have been different there.

I feel funny here. Ethnically I am Chinese, but I do not identify with the people here culturally or otherwise. I feel all of them are judging me and making comments about me being Chinese but not being able to speak their language. It feels weird.

I just caught a young man spitting on the floor. He is sitting in the front row. Come to think about it there was an old man doing the same thing. He was using the air sickness bag instead of the floor. The young man in the front row spit up three times in a row. First he makes a hawking sound then he spits. There is a guy who is sitting a chair away from me doing the same thing. It is a bad habit. I feel my family and myself have been contaminated just by the fact we are in the same room as these two men. I want them to stop doing it but the rest of the crowd seems not to be bothered with their spitting. I just hope I do not step on it when I leave the room. There must be dried spit marks everywhere in this room. This kind of behavior would not be tolerated in the States especially in a public area. The dragon ladies in uniform standing in front of the room is not saying anything to make them stop. Both ladies have a lot to say otherwise.

The males in this waiting room have a way of staring at us. I do not like it at all. All around me I hear the sounds of hawking and then spitting. I want to hold my breath or hold a handkerchief to my face so I do not have to breathe the air.

Since being here for the last few days we have made certain observations about the mode of dress of the people here. In Shanghai, a lot of people, young and old, male and female wear pajamas in public. It sure looked comfortable and cool on them. In fact while walking along the Bund by the Hang Po River I saw a young teenage girl wearing cream-colored nylon lingerie with high heels. She looked so out of place. A lot of the ladies wear nylons that come up to their ankles with their dresses.

To keep Mahala entertained while waiting for our train I let her draw on my notebook. A man in his mid thirties sitting in front of us turned around and watched her. Without warning he grabbed the pen out of her left hand and placed Mahala’s right fingers around the pen. I immediately removed the pen from her right hand and passed it to her left. I then told the man "No". That was rude of that individual. He must not have known better than to do that. In China all children are taught from young to use their right hands to write with. There are hardly any lefties in China.

A lady employee in uniform then came into the room with a megaphone in her hand. She was announcing the arrival of trains and their platform numbers. It seems silly to do that because she could just as well have announced it without the megaphone. Everyone would have heard her. The room was that small. There must have been a sense of power behind that megaphone.

I will never get use to the spitting especially in public places. The women do it too. Sometimes after spitting I see the individual use their shoes and smear it on the floor. Trying to hide the evidence, I suppose.

We arrived at Zhengzhou, where we were to catch another train to the south, in the late morning. We brought down all our bags, and Mr. Zhou tried to arrange it so that we could just remain on the train platform with our bags but the main conductor, an mean military looking man, would have nothing to do with it. He seemed upset by Mr. Zhou who asked for a little time while he went into the station to make inquiries. He did tell me that it would be easier to buy the necessary tickets from inside the station than to leave the station and reenter it again through the main entrance. We stood on the platform for about twenty minutes, the old conductor, who reminded me exactly of a lifer in the military, seemed quite irritated with our presence. I will never forget the site of him standing theire as a train was about to leave, and all the conductors of the train lined up in military manner, with their little tin cups in their hands, and as the trained moved off, there was a conductor or conductress in each door of each car, giving a salute to this man as it moved off. Soon Zhou came back and this man made us carry all our bags once again up the flight of steps and back down a long, dark and dirty corridor, where we were ushered into a small waiting room through some dirty thick plastic, yellow straps that covered the door. Inside the small room, where rows of chairs, and a young woman in a military uniform sitting in front, looking very important and very useless. A few scant magazines were in a counter, and a few drinks. She looked as if she couldn’t be bothered with anything. There we packed our bags in a corner of the room and found seats as close to each other as we could get. People kept coming and going from the room, and occassionally a short woman in uniform with a loud megaphone would come through the doorway and shout out something in Chinese—very loud and ridiculous looking. We remained there in that room for almost two hours. We had had almost nothing to eat or drink and we were growing quite thirsty. I had to pee and finally asked Mr. Zhou if he could find me a urinal to use—we ended up leaving the women and the bags in the room and walking out down the long corridor and out onto an empty train platform, even jumping down and crossing a few tracks, to find a set of outdoor privies by one side of a stairwell. There I peed into an open trench that was hardly protected for privacy. We walked back, and it felt good to escape that little room at least.

Rosie was quite perturbed by the people in the room—mostly Chinese men, who kept spitting on the ground. Spitting seemed a chronic habit and no one seemed embarrassed by it. It seemed uncouth and unsanitary, and I will never forget Rosie’s consternation regarding one man in front of her who spat more than sixteen times in a row in the same spot. She counted this man’s spitting and sat there in the middle of the room recording it all in her journal.

Finally, the call for our train comes and the lady with the megaphone comes in and points to us and it is our turn to go. We end up making our way again back down the long dark corridor and out onto what looked like the same platform we arrived at. We got onto another train but this time it was an "open sleeper" with three small harder beds stacked one upon another and hardly any room or privacy. We do our number with our bags, by then quite a routine, and while getting on the train the strap of my computer bag breaks and I have to mend it by attaching the latch of the strap directly to the bag itself. I worry it will not last the journey through, I am worried that the two laptops inside may have been damaged. Before leaving on the train I ask Mr. Zhou if it is all right if we get some water for the trip, and he leads me back down onto the platform to a small concessions booth. I ask the woman if there is any cold soda or water. She brings out bottle of warm soda, and I realize that there will be no ice in China. This single thought perturbed me more than any other experience I had had so far—the sudden realization that I had come to a hot place, where no one drank with ice, and everyone drank warm water or hot tea out of bottles. It was unimaginable, and for a moment I had second thoughts that we must have surely come to hell.

We moved off again, tired, hot, thirsty and hungry. All I had procured were a couple of bottles of luke-warm water to drink, and a strange looking loaf of sweet bread to eat. We did not find the bread very appetizing, and ended up giving most of it to little Amor, who was by now quite like a monkey crawling on the racks, much to the irritation of my already irritated wife. At some point she even scolded Amor a little. This trip lasted only three or four hours, and I was finally relieved to know that we were coming to our final destination. The landscape suddenly began to change—we were climbing to higher altitudes and hills could be seen with pine-trees covering them, inbetween farmsteads and small townships mostly covered with red bricks. Mr. Zhou pointed out his home town, and even the house of his father as we went by one small town. We arrived at Xinyang Train station late in the afternoon of Thursday. I was not looking forward to the luggage routine again, but knew it would be the last time. Mr. Zhou planned for our fast exit by putting our bags near the door early, so that we could more easily lift them down off the train onto the platform. The platform was smaller than the Zhengzhou one, but we again had to climb the steps with our bags and cross to the other side of the tracks and soon came into a large lobby crowded with people staring at us. I was loaded down with three or four bags myself, and had little time to notice things. We went straight out another set of doors to a small flight of steps outside and finally to some taxi’s. Mr. Zhou procured two taxis and a man helped me to load our things. I got in the rear taxi with Mr. Zhou’s wife, Rosie and Mahala. We rode down the city streets in the afternoon sunlight. Mr. Zhou’s wife was talking quite animatedly with the driver, and she kept turning and looking at me, and I couldn’t help but think the joke was somehow on this foolish American who would bring his family so far from home.

8-28-98

@ 1:30p.m.

We are on the train to Xinyang. This is the last leg of the long trip. This train is not as comfortable as the last one. Mr. Zhao has booked us tickets on the hard sleeper. A thin mattress covers the beds so the seating is not as comfortable.

I wonder what the city of Xinyang is like. It must be a small town compared to the bigger cities. I cannot wait to take a hot shower and change out off my dirty clothes. I have lost track of the days. The way I am feeling now, the Chinese can have China. I will take the U.S. anyday of the year even with all its problems. How are we going to last a year?

The Zhaos are taking a nap again. Their little boy is beginning to annoy me. He bugs the hell out of Mahala. Always wanting her to play with him. She is trying to ignore him but he is so pushy. Finally I told him to "cut it out". He might not have understood me, but he knew what I meant. He settled down to take a nap like his parents.

I do not know the date today.