October 30
Buffet breakfast at hotel. Rearranged bags (took way too much) and they were picked up outside the room at 9 AM. In lobby, met the four group members who did not arrive until late last night, Lee (from California), Sally (from New Mexico), Sandy (from Colorado)and Jan (pronounced, “Yon,” from Boston and England). Bags loaded, and we boarded the bus for the ride to Kaili, about three hours. Members of the group are “age appropriate.”. I’m probably towards the high end, but not the oldest, and there are no “kids.” Does not appear to be a “loser” in the group.
Nevada talks on bus, both about the trip and photography. She says that we are primarily travelers, and the object is to have a good time. She talks about photo etiquette when traveling in a group, what to do and not do. The trick in photography is not to be seduced by an interesting subject, but to create an interesting image. She also talks about photographing in low light conditions, which we will encounter. Nevada’s hope for herself is to get one good image a day, and, by the end of the 2-week trip, to have three images that she is happy with.
The group is more experienced in photography and knows much more about (and carries) far more equipment than I do. There was a lot of interest in my Sony NEX7, and some seemed envious of the light load I was carrying. Sally also has a NEX7 along, but just got it and is not using it as her main camera on the trip.
Our guide, Lee, who lives in this area, spoke about what we’ll see. He has personal connections with tribal headmen that will get us to places, and see things, that others can’t see. He’s also arranged for us to go to a local wedding. He talked about the many different kinds of Miao people, likening them to the many types of Indian tribes in the U.S.
Stopped for lunch and walked around town while lunch was being prepared. Very overcast, but not rainy, comfortable temperature. Located store with umbrella hats that look goofy, but most of us bought (for $2.50). Here’s Lee, from San Francisco, trying on her hat.They should come in handy to facilitate photography in the rain. Lunch was very good, more chopstick practice.
Driving on, very major construction of new roads and city being built on huge scale. Long, very colorful murals along walls, depicting minorities in area. Stopped at a small village of about 40 households called Shiching and walked around for about an hour, photographing people, the town, a water buffalo in his “house” and the burial mound of an ancestor.
Drove on to Kaili, where we stopped at a recently-renovated museum on Miao and Dong culture and history. While it was way too much to absorb, it gave us a bit of an advance taste of the costumes and festivals we’ll be seeing on the rest of the trip, and a bit of a feel for the culture.
We have been heading east out of Guiyang and, instead of staying in Kaili, which was the (revised) plan, we are heading farther east and will stay in a small village tonight that will get us closer to the festival we’re going to tomorrow. True to Nevada’s promise, the itinerary is flexible, and may well change again. We are driving through hilly country, with terraced fields that would be very pretty in the sun, but not so much in the heavy overcast. Nice to be able to write the blog and download photos on the bus.
Stopped at a modern Wenzhou International Hotel in Jianhe, which seems quite fine. Plugged in devices and went right down for dinner.another quite good dinner, though all the meals seem to be pretty-much the same, which could begin to wear pretty thin soon.
Conversation over dinner, which is always at a round table for eleven is easy and fun.
Back to the hotel by 9 PM. An early start tomorrow, 7:30, which will be our first real full day of the trip.
October 29
Final breakfast at hotel, and check out.
Mr. Pi shows up on time, Evan checking twice to make sure. Friendly guy, Mr. Pi (pronounced “pea”) and able to communicate in English. Uneventful trip to airport, arriving two hours early. Long lines, and unclear which one I need to be in. Had been unsuccessful in trying to print out boarding pass at hotel.
After some 15 minutes in one line, I ask a Chinese fellow with U.S. passport where I need to be. He very kindly takes me around the airport asking various people questions and finally approaching airline people at a counter not in operation, and they check my bags and issue boarding pass. Not sure I’d have made it without this fellow’s extensive and kind help. May he be rewarded, either in this life, or another. Hope to honor that kindness by showing similar concern for foreigners I may encounter from time to time in the U.S.
Through security, I have unsuccessful attempts to get money from an ATM and make an equally unsuccessful effort to sign into Wifi. Isn’t travel in a country you don’t speak the language fun? Now at gate awaiting flight to Guiyang on Air China.
Reflections on Beijing. Seems much less “foreign” than it did twelve years ago. Looks like a modern Western city, with excellent and distinctive architecture mixed with some basic fairly ugly older stuff. Pollution is considerably worse, as will happen when you replace bicycles with cars.
Being with Evan made for a unique Beijing experience and an opportunity to get some feel for what’s happening, though the details are way beyond me. Hell, I can’t even pronounce the names of the main characters. Evan’s hospitality converted what was to be a stop to get over jet lag into a quite memorable couple of days.
Plane is pretty-much full, and with Chinese. Almost nobody speaking English. About a 3-hour flight. Spent a good part of it reading Barbara Demick’s excellent book, Nothing to Envy, and learning much about Korea of which I was ignorant.
Arrival about half an hour late, raining but not hard. Met by Lee, part of Nevada’s team, who introduced me to Randy, a very gregarious guy from Toronto, who has taken many photography trips, but not with Nevada. I think he will prove to be a good travel companion. Checked into a large Sheraton, very acceptable and very like Sheratons the world over.
Relaxed for a while, then discovered there was wifi available in the lobby, so I checked emails. Around six, Nevada and six of the ten group members, plus Lee, and Xue Biao (pronounced “shway bee-ah-o) had drinks together in the lobby and Nevada talked about the trip, telling us that there’d already been several changes in the itinerary. This did not come as a surprise, since she’d said that would happen in the materials. Nevada has a very nice manner.
Besides Randy, there’s Sheila, Suzette, Evelyn and Dayton. Seems like a very congenial, low-key group, several of whom have traveled with Nevada before and looks as if we’ll get on very well together. Short bus ride over to a Chinese restaurant, where we had a good meal of many courses, pre-ordered, with Nevada. I think using chopsticks will cut down on my food consumption, which is a good thing.
Rode back to the hotel and, because I hadn’t taken any photos all day, I wandered over by the river to take some night shots, several of which are below.
I intend to try to post this blog, then retire for the evening by around ten. Feel good about prospects for a good group experience, but tomorrow will be the first real test.
This may very well be the last blog post for two weeks, because of lack of Internet access. If so, see you in Singapore. And good luck to us all in the presidential election.
October 28
Another great, and large, buffet breakfast at the hotel.
Evan arranged for me to be picked up by Mr. Zhang, Mr. Pi’s nephew. Pi had to attend a wedding, but will take me to the airport tomorrow. Evan estimated abbout an hour and a half drive to The Great Wall.
Miscommunication with Mr. Zhang. I thought he’d drive right up and pick me up. He was waiting someplace in front. Took two calls from front desk finally to connect, 25 minutes late. He drives a small, regular cab and speaks very little English. Hope this does not turn out to be more of an adventure than I’d bargained for. (I can, and am, writing this on the way to the Wall.)
The estimate of 1 1/2 hours was not bad to get into the vicinity of the Wall, but on this beautiful Sunday, it seems that everyone in the country had decided to visit the Wall. Road construction on the narrow uphill road left traffic at a literal standstill for long periods, and I began to despair of ever getting to (or leaving) the Wall. Finally, we managed to cram into parking lot a ways down the hill and I convinced myself that I would (might) be able to find Mr. Zhang when I returned.
The Great Wall spans some 5500 miles and was built over a period of about 2000 years, from the Warring States Period, 476-221 BC to the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644. The Great Wall was originally built in the Spring and Autumn, and Warring States Periods as a defensive fortification by the three states: Yan, Zhao and Qin. It went through constant extensions and repairs in later dynasties. It began as independent walls for different states when it was first built, and did not become the “Great” wall until the Qin Dynasty. Emperor Qin Shihuang succeeded in his effort to have the walls joined together to fend off the invasions from the Huns in the north. Since then, the Wall has served as a monument of the Chinese nation throughout history.
The uphill walk, running a gauntlet of Wall souvenir stands, was steep and I determined, definitely wisely, to invest fourteen bucks to ride the cable car up and back to the Wall. My recollection is that we hiked it with the Segals. If that recollection is correct, and if we were at the same point on the Wall, all I can say is that twelve years makes a hell of a difference.
The Wall is every bit as spectacular as I remembered it; indeed, perhaps more so in the surrounding Fall colors. It is such a monumental structure that it seems almost a part of nature, rather than something created by man. Hard to pick which photos to include, but here are a few.
The Great Wall is one of those sights in the world that, no matter how many photos you’ve seen, or what your expectations are, you can’t be disappointed. For that reason, I chose to see it again, unlike, say, The Forbidden City, which, though terrific, did not beckon for a revisit. Other things I’d put into the same category as The Great Wall: the Grand Canyon, Michelangelo’s David, the Ajanta caves (in India),The Acropolis, life on the Ganges River in Varanasi, Tiger’s Nest (in Bhutan), Abu Simbel (in Egypt) and Machu Picchu. The Taj Mahal, while great, would not make my cut. Petra would be a very close call, and I might give it the benefit of the doubt. The huge sculpted heads on Easter Island would be close, too.
As I’d seen the Wall before, and because it was crowded and I was a bit concerned about finding Mr. Zhang, I did not spend a long time up on the Wall, perhaps 30-40 minutes. Running the commercial gauntlet downhill, I was offered Great Wall t-shirts, two for a dollar (6 Yuan), but it turned out that the ones I was being shown were cotton t-shirts, which cost 50 Yuan. I left a number of vendors, but finally settled on 20 Yuan for one (a bit over three bucks). Not too bad, but Carol would have gotten it for 10 Yuan, or walked away content without anything.
Amazingly, getting out of there was easy and the ride back quick, until we hit heavy traffic near Beijing. I recalled that on our first visit to the Wall, on the initial stage on the way back, we rode bikes for the first time on the trip, an easy introduction, because it was virtually all down hill. All in all, it was definitely worth seeing the Wall again. And I might very well do it a third time, for sure if it were with grandchildren.
Arrived back at the hotel around 3:15 PM, and relaxed, answered emails and made a few preparations for tomorrow’s departure, before Evan and Sarabeth picked me up at 5:30. (Didn’t need to blog, as I’d done that in the taxi, en route home.). We taxied over to a very funky bookstore/coffee house, a center of ex-pat activity in Beijing.
There we met with a Stanford professor, Andrew Ng, who is promoting a consortium of American universities who are offering free, online course materials to students around the world under the name Coursera. Evan is interested in what Andrew is doing in China and conducted an interview with the professor that Sarabeth and I listened in on. The professor then met with approximately twenty Chinese Cousera students, and Evan listened in.
Taxi to Duck de Chine, very attractive restaurant only a couple blocks from my hotel. Talk about Evan’s book, which will be an examination of the tensions between individual ambition and autocracy in areas of financial growth, truth and belief, as seen through the lives of people Evan has followed over several years in China. He has a 9-month leave to write it.
We are joined by Barbara Demick, a good friend of Evan and Sarabeth, who is the Bejing bureau chief of the LA Times and wrote an amazing book on North Korea called Nothing to Envy,. The book won the U.K.’s top non-fiction prize, the Samuel Johnson award, in 2010 and was a finalist for both the National Book Awards and a National Book Critics Circle Awards. I have downloaded a sample of Nothing to Envy and begun reading it. And it’s terrific. Her earlier book, Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood is being republished in 2012.
Sarabeth ordered a great dinner, featuring duck, shrimp, dumplings and eggplant. Great conversation over dinner. Evan and Barbara have a deep knowledge of goings on in all aspects of Chinese life, from politics to the arts, including dissident artist Wei-Wei. Barbara’s eleven year old son, Nick, lives with her.
Walk back to The Peninsula. Glimpses of Beijing by night.
Evan and Sarabeth plan to move to the DC area. After seven years in China, Evan seems ready, though he expects a big culture shock. He thinks that his China experience will allow him to cover the U.S. with fresh eyes, and that the political scene in the U.S. is one of the few things that rivals China for interest. I’m hoping that Evan, Sarabeth, Jodi and Robby will hit it off and become good friends.
Off to start the adventure tomorrow. Though neither have been there, both Evan and Sarabeth report that Ghizhou (pronounced “Gway-Joe”) is supposed to be among the most interesting places in China, and a spot that not many folks get to. First day will just involve arrival, meeting the group and some orientation.
October 27
Some difficulty finding the person who was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but managed to connect after about half an hour. The 45-minute ride to the very upscale and beautiful Peninsula Hotel was traffic free, and check-in went smoothly. Able to post my first blog from China and check and answer emails, though access to some NY Times links appear to be blocked. Below, detail from hotel lobby.
Slept decently and down for excellent and extensive buffet breakfast, before Evan Osnos came by at 9. Spent a quite delightful day with Evan and, in part, with Sarabeth. It’s difficult to explain, except to say that it was a terrific slice of life in Beijing. We started by taxiing to Evan’s old apartment area where we walked around. No English on the signs, past vegetable sellers, migrant day workers with hand made signs, barbers,
dentists (who, for some reason, would not let me photograph them), checkers players,
a large market area where Evan and Sarabeth used to buy virtually everything, past a homemade basketball hoop,
by a lake with fishermen,
then up a large bell tower with very steep steps. Evan is fluent in Chinese, and so chats everyone up. Stopped for lunch at a small Vietnamese restaurant, where Sarabeth met us, and Evan ordered an assortment of their favorite dishes.
After lunch, Evan and I taxied to the “Bird’s Nest” Olympic structure and inside the very impressive and architecturally interesting stadium, which seems to be something of a white elephant, being so cavernous that the soccer team refuses to play in there, because the arena would always appear at least half empty. But the large, public area around the stadium appears to be used quite well for skateboarding and strolling.
From there we taxied to near the house that Evan and Sarabeth now rent in an area bordered by a Tibetan Buddhist Temple, a Confucian Temple and fortune tellers. We had coffee with Sarabeth and chatted for about an hour. China is very much more built up than I remember it 12 years ago. The bicycles that dominated traffic then are barely noteworthy now, replaced by cars and motorized bikes. Streets seem wider, more gracious.
Difficult to capture in the blog, but what made the day, was the steady stream of conversation with Evan (and Sarabeth), ranging from both our families to Evan’s fascinating assignments–interviews with the Dahli Lama, covering the nuclear plant problems in Japan, a piece on Rich Daley, stationed for a couple years in the Middle East while with the Chicago Tribune, 6 weeks in Burma, including being smuggled from China into areas of hostility in the north of Burma, and more–not to mention much discussion of the puzzle/contradiction that is China today, combining enormous economic progress with equally enormous corruption and gangland-like activity. Evan says that the Chinese are not surprised by their newfound growth and success, viewing it as returning to their natural place, which they occupied for two thousand years except for an aberrant couple hundred years. He expects that any changes will be slow, as the Chinese view with alarm what has happened to Russia and “walk carefully on the stones when they wade across a river.” Sarabeth is delightful, and has a responsible position in development for teach for China, modeled on teach for America.
Evan hailed a taxi, which took me back to the hotel, where I relaxed and blogged, then took a taxi to a concert at “The Egg,” a modern concert hall, surrounded by a moat-like body of water. Taxi dropped me on the wrong side, so I had a hell of a time figuring out how to get in. Concert hall and building are very modern and quite spectacular. The concert was varied and good; very lively overture by a Chinese composer, Bruch Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
Notable differences from U.S.: orchestra comes onto stage together to applause (rather than wandering in and tuning up), encore by violin soloist in first half (encouraged by audience staccato applause and foot stomping by the concertmaster), two orchestra encores after the Dvorak and flowers presented to the conductor, and–best of all–couple next to me, talking, was told twice by usher to can it (my Chinese translation).
Walked a distance from the Egg to try to get a taxi unsuccessfully. Was getting chilly so agreed to pay way too much to a guy in a car. But I’d paid less than I’d expected to for the ticket, and I did get back. Club sandwich dinner, with a beer in the lobby, live jazz playing nearby. Worked on blog in bar, and intend now to go up to finish.
Relatively little picture taking, limited to local scenes, a sample of which are above. I’ll end with the obligatory cute kid shot.
October 25-26
Okay, looked as if we were going to get off on time, but now we’re sitting on the runway because of weather, waiting to take off on the 6570-mile, 13-hour flight to Beijing. Fortunately, it turns out that this is a short delay, and we take off exactly an hour late.
I could read one of the many choices I’ve loaded onto my iPad, including The Garlic Ballads, by the recently-annointed Chinese Nobel laureate, Mo Yan, a grim story of which I’ve read about a quarter, or a book I probably will not understand, called, The Age of Insight, the Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present. So, now I guess you understand why I’m not reading, right?
Blogging is a bit of an odd endeavor. I think of this as primarily a record for myself, a journal. But, of course, I know that you’re along (though perhaps not for long, if I keep this up). I’m going to trust that you’ll be able to skim/skip the personal reflections, if you’re not interested. I’ll even give you a signal IN ALL CAPS when I return to the trip at hand.
Getting off on a trip like this involves working hard to pack only about half again what you’ll need, rather than twice. In this case, I had to make some decisions I’m not normally faced with. Do I follow Nevada’s advice that you must bring a second camera (in case of malfunction of the first). I did, despite the fact that if my camera malfunctions, I am going to be one very unhappy dude, because I bought the new Sony NEX7, just for this trip. Do I lug a laptop? Hell no. A tripod? No. Take toilet paper, as suggested? Uh-huh. Anyway, eventually, time runs out, and so you make decisions, by default or otherwise.
And there’s always some crisis. Let me say that whichever one of you stole or hid the walking shoes I’d intended to take on this trip, that’s not funny. Carol and I, and Barbara, our housekeeper who knows where everything is, looked all over for them. And both daughters confirmed that I had not left them at their house. So, after lunch, I ran out to buy a new pair (pretty nice, actually). The good thing about expenditures such as this on a major trip is that they can’t possibly impact significantly the overall trip cost.
OKAY, BACK TO THE TRIP.
In the time before leaving on a trip, you get so wrapped up in the minutiae of preparation, that it’s easy to lose sight of why you decided to do the trip in the first place. I’ve now had time to read through the itinerary again, and I remember why. It’s going to be an amazing trip of festivals, eating, drinking, markets, dances, songs, bullfights, huge bronze drums, costumes, hot spring baths, 2000-year old towns, shamans, rituals, horse races, crafts and experiencing different cultures in a way that few people have the privilege of doing.
While, basically, this is a photography trip, it’s bookended by a few days in Beijing and Singapore( where, among other things, I’ll bask in the luxury to which, rather obnoxiously, I’ve become accustomed). To take just Beijing for now, I’ll be staying at the Peninsula and I’m quite excited that I’ll be able to see something out of the ordinary, because of a great connection. I’m going to be shown around by Evan Osnos (and his wife, Sarabeth), the son of my college classmate, Peter Osnos. Peter and I lived in a large house that we rented with four other classmates senior year at Brandeis. I won’t go into that, but ask me, sometime.
Peter has had a distinguished career in journalism and publishing that has encompassed working for I.F.Stone, Newsweek, the Washington Post, Random House (where, most notably, he published my book The Essential Book of Interviewing) and at the company he founded, Public Affairs, which has published a wealth of outstanding, non-fiction titles by an astounding range of prominent authors.
And Evan, in his thirties, has already built an enviable reputation as a star reporter for The Chicago Tribune, and now as head of the China bureau for The New Yorker. Evan has graciously agreed to be my guide and facilitator for my two days in Beijing, and has mapped out a detailed schedule.
Okay, I am now going to steal some assorted facts about China from Wikipedia (somewhat edited and reworked). This is typical of the type of depth and intellectual engagement that I bring to these trips. Hey, how about a little credit, though? I didn’t have to tell you I was stealing this stuff from Wikipedia, did I?
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), is the largest country in East Asia. It is the world’s most populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the country is the world’s second-largest country by land area (after Russia).
China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province.
The ancient Chinese civilization—one of the world’s earliest—flourished in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. China’s political system was based on hereditary monarchies, known as dynasties, beginning with the semi-mythological Xia of the Yellow River basin (approx. 2000 BC) and ending with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Since 221 BC, when the Qin Dynasty first conquered several states to form a Chinese empire, the country has expanded, fractured and been reformed numerous times. A history of the dynasties, while very interesting, would be beyond this blog.
The Republic of China, founded in 1911 after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949. In the 1946–1949 phase of the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party defeated the nationalist Kuomintang in mainland China and established the People’s Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949. The Kuomintang relocated the ROC government to Taiwan, establishing its capital in Taipei. The ROC’s jurisdiction is now limited to Taiwan and several outlying islands.
Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China has become the world’s fastest-growing major economy. As of 2012, it is the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States, by both nominal GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP), and is also the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods.
I’m going to call it quits on Wikipedia, at least for now. There’s much more, of course, and I may (or may not) try to sneak additional material in on later days.
Well, after blogging and dinner, I have only a bit over 5000 miles and less than eleven hours to go. Hope this pilot guy knows what he’s doing, as the monitor shows him heading for the North Pole. Maybe I should go up and point out the short cut; just head West across the damn Pacific Ocean. Time to try to get a little sleep, and, if not, maybe tackle the iPad books.
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