As the sun sets on my last full day in China, I'm lying in a berth on the train to Shanghai, watching the peaceful countryside of Hunan roll by. The drab gray of the run-down sections of urban Zhuzhou have given way to the green fields and low hills where three fourths of the Chinese people live. The lotus stand proudly in marshy plots; their large pink or white flowers contrast with the dark green of the broad leaves. The rice is ripening. Seed pods are filling out and slowly turning to gold, and the double rush of the summer harvest will begin soon. The rice fields and small plots of vegetables stretch to the horizon in a glorious patchwork pattern of green, gold, and brown. Their edges conform to the curving lines of the low earthen terraces that have served the Chinese peasants for thousands of years.
A few farmers are still hoeing in their vegetable patches. In addition to an endless variety of greens, they are harvesting yard-long beans, long cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers, and several types of squash. They build extensive trellises from tripods of poles connected into networks across the top. Yellow squash blossoms decorate the trellises, which are tall enough to walk under. The most spectacular squash is donggua, which typically grows 4 feet long and eight inches or more in diameter. It is hard and solid, except for a hollow center. A woman might walk to market in the morning with two large donggua hanging from her shoulderpole. She will cut off a short section with a cleaver, weigh it using a hand scale, collect her payment, and deliver it to the shopper in a cheap plastic bag. The hand scale is basically a tray hanging from a balancing stick, with a movable weight that slides along the stick. Vendors use them everywhere; many have been used so much that the round metal trays are worn through the bottom.
Outside my window, an occasional ox browses along the footpaths that run along the terraces. A few flocks of black goats or small white ducks grace the scene. Loose chickens wander in every farmyard. As the western sky fades into dusk, I pull out a snack and ponder the future. How much will this scene change in the next thousand years?
Some fruit and bottled water are my fare for the overnight trip. The fruit markets are full of watermelon. Also in season are peaches from the north; Hami melons from the west (like an oblong, golden honeydew); and bananas, mangoes, and leechee from Hainan Island in the south. In a few months local oranges will flood the market — green and sour at first, but soon sweet and juicy. We'll also get kiwis from western Hunan. The three main seasonal waves of fruit are watermelons in the summer, oranges in the fall, and pineapples in late winter. After weighing a pineapple, a vendor peels it deftly and quickly with a special, sharp, knife. There are several styles of peeling. Some dig out each little brown dimple individually, leaving a pattern of divots. Others slice out grooves connecting the dimples, giving a spiraling barber-pole effect. Often a vendor will slice a peeled pineapple into three or four pieces, skewer them on sticks like candied apples, and sell them on the street to passersby for one yuan each. To my knowledge, the Chinese in Hunan don't use pineapples in cooking. In fact, the only cooked fruit that I have seen is a fried-banana dish served in melted sugar. The sugar quickly solidifies into a hard mass that is quite difficult to break up with chopsticks. Nevertheless, it is our favorite restaurant dessert.
All week long, students and friends have been calling to wish me good fortune. Some have insisted on giving me a gift in parting, which I now feel obligated to lug back to the USA with me. One student gave me an old coin that he has carried many years for good luck. Another gave me a small, gold-leafed painting of two bulls, complete with a case. It has long been a prized possession of her mother. I tried politely to refuse, but she wouldn't let me. Another gave me some little earpieces that nicely keep my eyeglasses from sliding down my nose. Another gave me a half-dozen little vials of stomach-ache medicine, which she hinted would be good for motion sickness when traveling. So it goes, and so my bags are heavier.
Last night Frank treated my family to dinner at the Xiangtan Guest House. It is the swankiest joint in the city, though I had not even known it existed. Chairman Mao stayed there overnight in 1959 during the Great Leap Forward when he visited his home village of Shaoshan, we were told by several people. Our friends Craig and Mr. Cai also came. Craig gave me a small book from the time of the Cultural Revolution — revolutionary artwork for farmers and educated youth — unique and fascinating to me. Mr. Cai, a painter, gave me one of his small exhibition pieces — a brush-and-ink traditional landscape on yellow paper. We ate in a large, circular room with large windows that faced on an interior oriental garden. Frank insisted that I occupy the seat of honor, in the center of the windowed section. As we were passing around big slices of Hami melon after the meal, I jokingly remarked that this had truly been a meal fit for a Chairman. To my surprise, Frank responded that, as this was the most spacious and elegant private dining room in the guest house, almost certainly Chairman Mao had eaten in this very room and even occupied the same spot as myself. Tongue in cheek, I replied that I hoped it showed that things have improved since that time...
Earlier today, Frank arranged for a driver and escorted me to the train station in Zhuzhou. Perhaps he was simply being his normal, unflaggingly helpful, self; perhaps he was concerned for my safety; perhaps he wanted to make sure I left the country... On the way from Xiangtan, we took a scenic route along the Xiang River. After weeks of high water, the stage of the river has dropped by about six feet in recent days. All went according to plan. I picked up my ticket from the agent upstairs, and said my thanks and goodbyes to Frank. I bought a quick, Hunan-style dinner from a street vendor near the train station — white rice, do gan (fried dry tofu), stir-fried peanuts, and hot red peppers — all for 5 yuan, about 60 cents. I bought some fruit and waited in the tea room until the train was announced. I hauled my luggage down some long, steep steps, through a corridor, and up more long, steep steps to the platform. After a minute the train glided into the station, hissing like a long, green snake. I managed to lift my bags into the carriage, negotiate the narrow passageway, hoist my big bag onto an overhead rack, and climb into my middle berth. (I'm traveling with a daypack, a heavy bag, and a framed embroidery for my sister. It — the embroidery, not my sister — isn't heavy, but it's four feet long and unwieldy. The bag holds some clothes, a few books and papers, my wooden flutes, and some gifts, including a lot of silk material with factory-woven patterns.)
As usual, it had been more difficult to get tickets than I had expected. First, all of the low-cost airfares had been canceled because of the World Cup. (Most flights from China stop in Tokyo or Seoul.) I booked flights on China Eastern using the Internet, only to find that China Eastern did not issue e-tickets. It was too risky to have tickets mailed to me from America, so I canceled the reservation. I went downtown to the local travel agent and, with some help, was able to book a flight from Shanghai to Los Angeles. I paid using Chinese currency, waited a few days until a paper ticket was delivered to the agent, and went downtown again to pick it up. I booked the inside-the-USA flights on the Internet.
I decided to travel to Shanghai by train. Frank was concerned that, because of the cumbersome reservation procedure and because I would be traveling at the same time as zillions of college students going home for the summer, I wouldn't be able to get a ticket. We tried several different ways to get a ticket in Xiangtan, but it proved impossible. Frank even got a special letter from the vice-mayor of the city, but it didn't make any difference. We took the bus one day to Zhuzhou and walked the few blocks to the train station. The main ticket office area indeed was entirely crowded with college students. After a few discreet inquiries we were directed to a quiet office upstairs. The agent promised that she could secure a berth on the right train at the right time, so I paid the deposit for a ticket, which I picked up earlier today without incident. Now, as I'm leaving China, I know a reliable, no-hassle way to get a ticket; it only took three years to find it.
Written later...
I watched the countryside stream by outside my window until it got dark. I read a Tom Clancy novel that my sister had sent me until the lights went out at 10:00. We have about a dozen Clancy pot-boilers from Freddie — hey, we're starved for English reading material. Ever since I got married, my sister occasionally has sent us boxes of miscellaneous stuff. We are always curious to see what is inside a "Freddie box" when it arrives. It always contains a few useful or interesting items, but usually holds a few "head-shakers," too. Sometimes she gets tired of looking at or tripping over things, but doesn't want to throw them away. Instead of holding a garage sale, like a normal junk collector, she puts them in a box and sends them to me. Maybe it's like gift-wrapping your trash and leaving it in the back of an open pickup truck for someone to carry off, or perhaps like stuffing a body into a steamer trunk and shipping it to some distant city. One time she sent an old tent peg — don't ask me why.
In China, though, we have grown more appreciative of Freddie boxes, because they are sure to hold treasures that we can't get here. She always sends comics and clippings from the newspapers and, more recently, popcorn. In my family we have used one special pot for making popcorn since I was about 8 years old. My dad took an old cast-aluminum pot from the 1940's and fitted it with a wooden top that has a hand stirrer. Well, last year we told Freddie that it was hard to cook the bag of popcorn she had tossed into one of her boxes. After a few smoky experiments in scorching, I had forbidden Anne to make it in our wok, and the metal pots sold in China are likewise useless for the purpose — they are not much thicker than aluminum foil. Voila — one day we opened a Freddie box to find the pot and lid inside, with a big jar of popcorn. Since that time Taalan has taken on the popcorn chore. He likes to cook eggs and Ramen soup, too, but I think popcorn is his passion. Whenever he makes popcorn, he invariably puts in about twice the prudent amount. Before long the lid lifts off the pot and popcorn spills out onto the gas stove and floor. Somehow he also manages to scatter salt all over the tile of our living-room floor. The next morning, the floor is covered with water droplets that have condensed on the salt granules. It could be worse; one day we may finally get the Freddie box that has the big chunk of cheese that she mailed to us more than a year ago...
Back to my narrative: The train arrived in Shanghai around 7:00 the next morning. I wrestled down the bag, squeezed through the narrow exit gate of the station, and stepped outside into the open air. I found the special bus stop for the airport on my third try, after passing several times within a block of it. From that point, I felt I had already left China; I could have been in any city in the world. The bus was modern and air-conditioned. The airport was cavernous and quite clean. When I filled out a departure card and handed it to the official, though, he asked me for my Chinese residence permit and kept it. I can't get another one without a Z visa, which is conditional on having a job in China. I was filled with a sense of finality and separation.
I felt wistful about leaving my family and, having about two hours before flight time, I used an old phone card to call them in Xiangtan. I didn't know how soon I would see them again, or whether I would ever return to China, a country that I have grown to love. I scolded myself for not showing more love to my children, for telling them to be good rather than expressing my joy and happiness with them, for letting them walk away without a big goodbye hug. I called four times before my flight finally was announced, but no one answered.
China Eastern gave good, if not outstanding, service and I arrived in Los Angeles around noon after a 12-hour flight. I had an 11-hour layover before my flight to Florida and, as it turned out, I was glad to have it. We came out of the gate to a scene of seeming chaos in the oversized immigration area. The computers had gone down; we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker to the agents to reboot everything — not a good sign. Holders of USA passports were told to circle to the right; I optimistically anticipated an accelerated process for people coming home. Instead, after going completely around the area we found ourselves at the tail end of a very long line that went all the way back to beginning point. Our lines blocked the way to the baggage carousels, hindering those who had cleared the immigration counters. In addition, the proper entry forms hadn't been passed out on the airplane, so I had to make an extra trip to section A (no, not section 8). I was in a big zoo, but, all in all, it was a very polite zoo. Many of my fellow passengers had relatively short layovers and missed their connecting flights.
I cleared immigration, collected my bags and wall hanging, strolled through customs, and wandered around until I found a food court in one of the concourses. I hung out in a sports bar, reading, drinking coffee, and watching baseball games. It's curious to sit in one spot and watch people come, have a quick drink or three for whatever reason, trade a bit of meaningless conversation, and toddle away. Are they just spending extra time, do they enjoy the ritual and the social setting, or do they feel some undefined compulsion to pump alcohol into their system? How much effect does a single drink have on your thought processes, anyway? How, if at all, does it make a person feel better? Does a beer, or whatever, actually taste good enough that someone might reasonably prefer it to orange juice or a chocolate milkshake? I'm not offering any answers. After all, I used to do the same thing. I'm simply describing my thoughts as I sat there and giving you a chance to ponder human nature.
By the way, many Chinese will tell you that drinking is not a problem in China because people only drink socially and don't drink more than one or two beers. This may be true for some people, but false for many others. Alcohol is often a serious problem. Among men, there is a strong macho (or "face") aspect to drinking. More than once, I've been challenged that if I don't drink, I'm not a real man. I reply that I used to drink, but then I got wiser.
About 10 cups of coffee and a few trips to the men's room later, I boarded an ATA red-eye flight to Indianapolis, where I transferred to another ATA flight to Ft. Myers. Neither flight served food. We landed in Ft. Myers late on a warm, sunny morning. Before leaving China, I had arranged with my friend Minoo to pick me up at the airport. Actually, Minoo told me she couldn't do it, so she had asked someone named Charlie to come in her place. As I stepped into the gate area, I confidently expected Charlie to greet me. Surely Minoo had given him my name and description — sandy red hair, ruggedly handsome — just like Robert Redford, but with a beard. Perhaps Charlie would have a sign with my name on it, like some VIP... Nope, no one waved me down at the gate. I shouldered my daypack and walked along with the crowd. We cleared the security area. Nada, no one there either. We descended the escalator and I saw several drivers with signs standing at the bottom. Nein, nein. I collected my luggage and hung out at the baggage claim carousel. I used the paging phone and paged Charlie; again; I paged myself; again; I even paged "Man from China." Nyetski. Mei you. Finally I called my mom and she phoned a friend to pick me up. As I sat outside in the shade waiting for Joe to come, I tried, with little success, not to sweat.
A week or two later, I was introduced to Charlie at a meeting. I told him I had waited for him at the airport that day. "Really?" he said. "Minoo asked me to pick up someone from China. I waited for the plane, but I didn't see any Chinese person, so I left." "Didn't you have my name or a description?" "Nope, all I knew was to pick up someone from China." "OK, Charlie," I laughed. "Thanks, anyway..."
If you have persevered in reading this far, you deserve an explanation about why I have left China and, moreover, left my wife and children behind. The main reason is to be close to my mom, who will be 90 this year. She fell and broke her hip when we were in Florida in February. We've done a lot of soul searching since then, and to make a long story a little shorter, if I a job comes through here, Anne and the kids will join me in January. If not, I'll join them back in China. Either way, we are all in God's hands.
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