China would have been a bigger shock if we weren’t living in Southeast Asia. When we arrived in Guilin, we were pretty tired from the day of travel and the change in altitude. We got on a little tour bus that had a microphone and the local guide started talking and kept talking and I began to wonder if a tour was such a great idea. It was already dark, and the scenery from the bus window didn’t look very different from Malaysia--people standing on the white lines in the middle of the street waiting to cross and boxy buildings that look like storage areas, but they’re shops that open onto the street. One big difference was that there were a lot of bicycles (instead of motorbikes) with all kinds and numbers of people and things being transported on them. The weather was a big shock. Malaysia is mostly in the upper 80s and 90s. During our stay in China, it was 50s to lower 60s during the day and 30s and 40s at night.

In a manner of welcoming us, the local guide said that Americans are especially popular for 2 reasons. One reason is President Bill Clinton and family’s recent visit to China to talk about the "5 ‘T’s"—Tiananmen, Technology, Trade, Taiwan, and Tibet. The second reason is the region that we visited hosted the air bases for the Flying Tigers, the volunteer American pilots who, flying over the Himalayas, delivered supplies and helped the Chinese fight the Japanese before the U.S. had declared war in WWII.

We were in the southern provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi. After Guilin we went to Kunming, Dali, and Lijiang.

Our tour group was made up of ten people—A family of four, Dale, Lee, Pamela (18 years old), and Ed (14); Mariann and Alex (8); Carol; and Kathy (the last three had husband/father units that were working and couldn’t come); plus, of course, Brett and myself. It was a great group. Dale does something with sales of chemicals in this region. Lee is an ultrasound specialist, who started one of the first schools to teach the technique. Pamela had a lot of homework to do because she’s getting a fancier than normal high school degree and is excited about picking a college this spring. Ed plays basketball and kept us up to date on the situation with the Bulls. Mariann was an English teacher before she started moving around the world for her husband’s work; they lived in Dubai before Malaysia. Alex was a great traveler and eased our way through the more difficult social situations. He was also, without question, the most effective bargainer in the group. Carol the group leader, has two successful kids in their twenties and she and Brett were able to talk about sailing; Kathy, I believe was a chemical engineer, with a specialty in technical writing, and she’s also the mom of a 16 year old heavy metal guitarist. In addition to hanging out with some really fun people, each person’s focus and perspective added to what and how we saw things in China.

In addition to the group, we also had a national tour guide who went by the English name "Rush" and four local tour guides, one for each city. Rush lives in Beijing and was responsible for putting the tour together.

Day 1 Sunday, January 3, 1999

Chinese people eat Chinese food for breakfast, but we ate the western items available on the breakfast buffet. Brett was very happy with the coffee throughout the trip. However, they eat out of small bowls and drink from small cups so everyone was lingering over breakfast, with half-open eyes, signaling for the waitress to fill up their coffee cup for the fourth time.

Due to the early wake-up call and the impact of the scenery in full daylight, we sat on the bus in a daze. The tour guide had picked up where he left off the night before, except I think the driver had secretly vetoed the microphone, saying it wasn’t working. Soon we were out of Guilin city and there were people out, building a new road one stone at a time. (I mean no heavy or other machinery, no hand cranked cement mixers, no tractors, just people with buckets, sticks, shovels, and spades). People were carrying the rocks in buckets at the ends of ropes attached to a pole across their shoulders, just like you see in pictures. There were pigs and chickens and people and bicycles out. The guide had reached a futile part of his speech and was saying something like "and some people say ‘why do you talk so much?’ and I say…" Luckily someone raised their hand and said, "I’ve got a question whenever you get a chance." And that’s how we found out that we were looking at fish farms and that water-buffalo are bred for work and that there is a national cremation policy in the cities because there isn’t enough land left for traditional burial, like the small graveyards we were seeing. This guide was definitely a talker, but from that point on the talking was much better.

Our big adventure for the day was the Li River Cruise. This stretch of river is the one that’s featured in Chinese scroll paintings. The boat wasn’t at all what I’d expected. It had cushy chairs and tables with snacks and drinks and glass windows the length of the boat with pretty curtains. Our guide hustled us immediately onto the top deck so that we could occupy the best space for observation.

What the Chinese tourist industry expected us to see was numerous mountains that resembled things. Each hill had a name like "bats," "boy reading," " woman with baby on back," "2 dragons playing," "dog ears," and "Buddha." The local guide pointed them out. Some mountains had one name as you headed toward it coming down river and a different name when you looked back at it as you passed. Some hills we said "oh," and some hills we said, "where?" It was a really neat landscape, because the limestone hills jutted out of what seemed to be a very flat area. If you picked the right path, you could walk over the whole region like you were walking in Kansas, but you’d have to walk around a lot of hills. It wasn’t a great day for pictures partly because of mist, partly from pollution [they still use coal as the major energy source and new factories without ecological controls have been put into place within the last several years], and partly because we visited during the dry season and the air had turned into something like the dust bowl. Everyone agreed that this place was Arizona/West Texas dry. Instead of trying to take a million pictures, we bought a book. This river is the best mode of transportation for the people who live on it. We saw groups of twenty people sitting on the riverside with baskets of firewood (to sell) waiting for the boat bus to come. We saw lots of women and girls doing laundry in the river. In addition to fish, they collect the riverweed on those long thin bamboo boats to feed to their livestock. We also saw an owner giving its water buffalo a bath, with a bucket and rags, something like a car wash. We could hear sheep up in the hills and sometimes see a small white moving line. We also saw local people using the other form of transportation–their legs--walking with large colorful bundles on narrow, hilly paths.

As an aside, during WWII, the Japanese bombed Guilin and the surrounding area, killing 95% of the population. Our guide’s grandmother was killed in the bombings, so his father hates the Japanese. Tourism, including a lot Japanese visitors, is the major industry in the area. On this boat, it was just us and some Japanese tourists. Our local guide said he didn’t care (to hate the Japanese).

When we got off the boat down river in Yangshou, we were mobbed by vendors yelling "hello" to get our attention and "just looking!" to mean "get over here and look at this now!" They also grabbed at our shoulders and shoved things into our hands. The local guide intended for us to get directly on the bus, but we got a peek down a street away from the dock and managed to buy 20 minutes time in this little touristy backpackers village. Brett and I walked away from the "hellos" and then turned to the right into something that was more like the local’s market. By the way, the Chinese are very fond of frightening (dead) reptiles floating in liquid in glass jars. The dried lizards were for wine, but the snakes might have been pickled.

The streets were too narrow for a car, it was bicycles only, but the shop signs advertised Internet and coffee and Private Ryan, one of the movies which hasn’t yet come to Malaysia. Walking back, we came upon Alex and Mariann. Alex started up a little one on one soccer with a kid in the street that was kicking a ball. Watching him, we came to be standing there, spacing out a few minutes later when a very small, very old, hump-backed lady came up to us from behind with both hands extended straight up in the air. I was visibly startled when I first looked her way, because I didn’t hear anyone approach and if I expected anyone to approach, it wasn’t a very small, hump-backed lady with both arms extended upward. Her arms maybe reached to my eye-level and what she had in one hand was a statue of 3 turtles in a stack, and in the other, a laughing Buddha (the one with the open-mouthed smile and big belly) with a bag on his back like Santa Claus. She showed us, by showing us bills from her pocket, how much she wanted and we paid what she asked—a ten yuan bill and a five yuan bill. The yuan was 8 to the dollar, so we paid about $1.80 for 2 little plaster, Hallmark style statues. When we got back on the bus, the vendors knew we were sitting ducks and they tapped on the windows and stood in the doorway. This is when Alex’s superior bargaining skill became apparent. He opened the window and asked "how much?" His mom generally gave him twenty yuan at a time for shopping and I think he’d already spent some, so he said, "but I don’t have ten yuan" and the price started coming down. Before we knew it, he’d got the turtle statue for 3 yuan, postcards, and probably more stuff because there were about seven vendors huddling around his window when the bus pulled away.

Our next stop was the "pearl factory." The guide told us that it was government/ military operated and that the government was well known for corruption as though this would be a secret just between us. There was a big picture of Hilary Clinton on the wall, and the guide said she’d purchased the biggest (most expensive) black pearls. A lady opened up an oyster for us and extracted a pearl. They showed us how to tell real from plastic and then offered to let us shop. I felt a little like I was in a duty-free shop. Big bottles of perfume and liquor aren’t things I usually want or need, but you hate to miss out on the opportunity for a bargain. The black pearls were especially pretty. Within a few minutes, the majority of the group had gravitated outside. The general consensus of those who buy jewelry was that such things could be had for better prices under more pleasant circumstances in Malaysia, Bangkok or Singapore, although not the U.S. because jewelry prices are artificially raised with hidden taxes. Unfortunately one person got left inside feeling very pressured to buy, not only from the sales people, but also from the local guide. As she finished her transaction, the guide disappeared into the back room. Basically, anyone who drives or guides tourists in this part of world tries to get you to shop and buy at places where they get a cut. This was only the first of a lot of shopping stops on this trip.

Back on the bus, we continued to Guilin’s University grounds where we looked at "Solitary Beauty" hill, aptly (or unimaginatively) named, since it is the only hill around for miles. We only looked for a moment or two and then we were led into a shop to buy Chinese scroll paintings done by professors and students. Brett and I decided the two dimensional/ cartoonish quality of these paintings isn’t an aesthetic we like enough to invest in, so along with some of the others, we climbed the steps to the top of Solitary Beauty hill and looked at the cityscape. It was the most athletic part of the trip. When we came down, it was getting dark and time to go to dinner.

We always ate dinner and lunch around a big table for ten. This part of the day reminds me of Chaucer. We got to recount the day, get to know each other a little bit, hear about the adventures of other group members on other travels (and these were all adventurous people), and maybe complain a little about the dust and the pressured shopping. We were surprised at how long Pam, Ed, and Alex stayed at the diner table, something usually adults enjoy more than youth.

That night, we watched the comerants fish. The comerants are birds leashed to one of those long, skinny pole-propelled bound bamboo boats. They are great divers and it was neat to see them dive and swim. The birds have rings around their necks, so that if they catch a big fish, they can’t swallow it. They jump back on the boat with the fish tail sticking out of their beaks and the fisherman makes them give it up and put it in the basket. This part is a little painful to watch because the bird clearly wants to swallow the fish and after they give it up, they keep swallowing, like they’ve got a pill stuck in their throat, until the fisherman shoos them back in the water to dive again.

After the fishing show, we hit the night market. They had crafty type items, souvenir type items and tacky items (like naked lady chopstick holders). We bought some of these crafty/souvenir type items, looked at more and then we avoided the grasping and pushing hands and the "hellos" and walked briskly to the end of the stalls. I told brett I was looking for "happy dragons" and in the last stall there was a dragon, hand-carved from a white hardwood and stained orange. The seller was a young guy in his twenties, who spoke great English and explained the finer points of the dragon--rooster’s feet, tail of a fish, holding an eagle’s egg and the Chinese symbol for king, because the dragon is king of all the other Chinese zodiac animals. The guidebook said not to pay more than half of the seller’s initial asking price. The group figured (especially after watching Alex bargain) that 25% of the asking price is what that item would reasonably sell for. Earlier in the line of stalls, I’d seen a carving that was a little more intricate with three dragons intertwining, for which the seller asked 720 yuan and I didn’t bargain because I didn’t really want it. The seller in the last stall started at 400 yuan, emphasizing that he was not starting at an outrageous price. I thought about how much I was willing to spend on a woodcarving and decided no more than $30 USD, which would be 240 yuan. The seller emphasized that his opening offer was so reasonable he didn’t want to hear 200 yuan because that would be ridiculous. (He’d probably read he guidebook, too.) So we started to walk away, which led to "how much? You say how much." I said 200 and he said no, very disapprovingly, but when we were fifteen feet away, he said, "all right, 220. Let me make a little profit here." So I went back to the bus triumphant, really proud that I’d gotten a really good bargain probably even for Chinese prices, let alone American ones. Then we got back to the hotel and I was bragging about my cultural triumph—not just a dragon, but the ability to bargain and bargain hard—when brett said, "did you notice his glasses were crooked and broken? This whole place is so depressing and his English was so good." Then I felt a little sick to my stomach. One of the problems of living and traveling here with light skin and a big nose is that people see you only for your buying potential. And generally whiter people with big noses can spend a whole lot of money in comparison to the average local (and women don’t really have anything else that they can do). I did notice that his glasses were broken when I thought about it, and he used idioms in his speech; maybe he even studied in the U.S. So then I felt badly that I didn’t give him an extra $10 or $20 to get ahead in the world. I didn’t really bother to bargain hard the rest of the trip.

You think you’re tired just reading this? Well, we were really tired at the end of the first day!

Day 2 Monday, January 4, 1999

We slept great and started with a slightly later wake-up call. First we went to see the Panda, China’s national animal, like the USA’s is the bald eagle. This Panda is 31 years old and pandas usually have a life-span of 20 years. She was asleep in her cage when we arrived, but the keeper got her outside just for us. She walked around quite a bit and seemed in good shape. In the same park, we saw the commemorative rock where President Clinton gave his speech on the "5 ‘T’s" in front of "Camel Hill."

Then, we drove outside the city again, this time for a cave tour. The inside of the cave was warm. Especially since we traveled from Malaysia and didn’t have any of our winter things, I was wearing a tee shirt, a long sleeved shirt, my one sweatshirt and a jacket. The guide recommended leaving jackets on the bus, but I thought, "I’ve never been in a warm cave," so I took mine. The cave was honestly warm and humid inside, because of hot springs inside. Again, the tour industry intended for us to see stalactites and stalagmites that resembled things. There were "mushrooms," "Chinese vegetable harvest," "Santa and a Christmas tree." Again, you look at something up close and they call it one thing. Then you walk away, look back, and they call it something else like "city in the distance." They really like to look at rocks (things?) from different angles, distances, and directions. They say "the 8 directions" including northwest, southwest, northeast and southeast instead of our 4 directions. There was a really beautiful pool in the cave that reflected the stalactites above it. One of the most amazing things about this cave is that the stalactites and stalagmites were hollow so that if you tapped on them, they resonated like a drum. Touching and tapping was encouraged and our local guide was able to point out the best, biggest, and lowest sounding stalactite because his dad is a geology professor.

We had time for the "silk factory" in our schedule. There was a room with a tall loom and a girl working at a carpet, typing the knots. It looks like tedious work. The person talking said it takes 3 months to finish a one square foot. After the 2-minute demonstration, we were led into the showroom. Nobody was interested in buying rugs, so they took us upstairs. Here is where we started to become suspicious of the "factories," which are really government stores with touristy items. Tons of glass showcases with jade jewelry and knickknacks, pearls, painted scrolls, and other miscellaneous souvenirs. Brett and I didn’t go to China with a shopping list, but it was interesting to see a demonstration on those enameled vases, and they had some perfume bottles that were hand-painted on the inside. There were some painters demonstrating the scroll paintings. One guy only did the mountains, that was his specialty, and the other one finished the details. We didn’t buy anything.

When we got to the airport, we found out our flight to Kunming was delayed for an hour and a half. Carol suggested we pay 20 yuan to sit in the nice waiting area with couches and Dale asked Rush to tell us a little bit about Chinese history. Up to this point the local guide had talked so much and taken such charge that we hadn’t really noticed Rush much. He turned out to be a great storyteller, someone very proud and knowledgeable about his heritage and issues China faces in the world now. For some reason, I know some Chinese history and a lot of it was familiar, but it’s different to hear it, rather than read it, especially when you’re there. He started with Qin Shihuan (221 BC), the man responsible for building the Great Wall and unifying the Chinese, especially the language. Rush worked his way forward with stories over facts when there was a choice, and he was particularly good with metaphors, which helped when talking about touchy issues. He evaded a question about Mao, but said, "the Cultural Revolution was a very weird period in our history. It’s like slavery in the United States. A lot of people suffered for no reason." Asked, he addressed two of the "5 ‘T’s", Taiwan and Tibet. It was the best $2.50 we’ve spent in a long while.

When the plane landed in Kunming, it was dinnertime and we ate at a restaurant with a pretty poor quality Vegas style show—a magic trick, girls in costume, a singer. The duck with plum sauce and rice wine was really good though.

Day 3 Tuesday, January 5, 1999

There was a carpet on the floor of the hotel elevator that said "Tuesday." Very helpful for keeping us "oriented." After breakfast, we got on a bus to go to the Stone Forest. The traffic in Kunming is unbelievable for a city of 4 million. There is none. The bike/pony & cart lane looks busy, but not too crowded. We never encountered any stopped or slow traffic wherever we went in the city.

After we’d been on the road long enough that I was wondering if there were rest facilities in China, the new local guide announced that we were stopping at the "jade factory" because this is one of the best places for jade, being so close to Burma. This time, we knew right away. The two guys sitting behind a cutter and a buffer didn’t fool us, or do much to overshadow those counters with the same jade trinkets, pearls, and other pricey souvenirs. The real jade factory was definitely up the highway somewhere. I was grateful for the restroom, but this time we didn’t even look. We went out into the parking lot where Alex was practicing sliding in for a home run. Ed let me use his binoculars to look at a pile of fishing nets on a platform standing in the lake that from a distance looked like a little house on the water.

Basically, we saw a lot of China from a bus window on this trip. This landscape, since it was closer to Burma, was starting to get mountainous and we had views of the railway weaving its way around and through hills and some very pretty bridges. A lot of local people still use horse and cart and there’s a narrow lane on the side of the road for them. Another vehicle people use looks like a cross between a big tractor lawn mower and a compact truck. People put any and all things in these vehicles—rocks, pigs, people. . . In some places it’s the village bus. (I finally got a picture of one of these on Day 5).

The stone formations in the stone forest were smaller than those on the Li River cruise, ranging from 2 to 30 feet high (by my estimation). It was a crystal clear day, some of the nicest weather we had on the trip. The forest is actually a small, nicely paved and groomed park. Again, the trick is to identify rocks that look like things—"fire beneath snow covered mountains," "American soldier," "two love birds." One rock was called the drum rock because it was hollow and resonant. Brett fell behind the group as we passed that one. The people in this region are Sani ethnicity. I think their traditional dress has been modified by the availability of western clothing, which you see them wearing the pictures. Some of the younger girls, however, wore a very pretty and coordinated ethnic dress including a hat with 2 points that looks like cat ears. If both ears are up, she’s not dating anyone seriously. If only one ear is up, you might get lucky, and if no ears are up, she’s married with lots of kids.

Games are really big in China. Everywhere we went there were people sitting around outside playing Majong or cards.

After our walk, a tea shop presented us with a tea ceremony. The ceremony is a stylized tea serving ritual, which includes washing the little cups while holding them only with chopsticks, and pouring the tea while straining it, since there’s no little paper baggies containing the tea leaves. Serving order is important. Whoever sits to the left of the server is the "queen of the tea."

Next, we walked through a rural village. It was one of the more genuine moments in our trip. No one was selling anything and although they didn’t seem surprised or annoyed with us, at least one person disappeared inside when we interrupted his meal. I can’t imagine what I would do if a group of Chinese tourist showed up in my apartment building, peeking in the windows and doors as best they could. We walked into a school yard where 2 kids were playing a little basketball. The school was a concrete building 3 stories high, a little out of place among the dirt paths and houses made of mud bricks. Rush said it’s often the case that school is the nicest building in town because the federal government pays for it. Also, China has a big propaganda campaign right now promoting education. School is compulsory in China. (It’s not in Malaysia.)

The old school house was attached to the school yard and the teachers were living there. Ed and Alex started playing basketball with the boys and a crowd of kids gathered. The girls were giving little shrieks and running away from our cameras. Dale turned the viewer screen of his video camera around so that the boys could see him taping the basketball game. They liked watching the screen and let him tape them. Pamela had a harder time with the girls—they liked the screen but they didn’t want to be in the picture themselves. She finally got them to line up with her for one picture right before we left. There was a woman sitting outside twisting a great mound of pine needles into a rope about 2 inches in diameter to use as fuel. After we saw her, I noticed lots of women (usually in pairs) walking along the roadside with backpacks larger than their bodies filled with pine needles. We peeked into their meeting hall, a large uncovered courtyard, before getting back on the bus.

That night, we went to a culture show. This performance had an amateurish "Waiting for Guffman" quality about it, like something you’d see at "Cowtown" in Wichita. We were in a huge theater with seating for over 1,000 (with no heating). Our group sat in the front row and another similar-sized group sat in the row behind us. All the other seats were empty. For the big, ensemble numbers, the music was piped in and there was a maximum of 30 or so people on stage. It was mostly dancing which told a story. There was a big number with drums and another where the men in our group had to go up on stage to help enact a wedding ceremony. There was a girl that played a really short (about 5 inches long) oboe-type instrument. It only had 3 finger holes, so with one hand she controlled the pitch of the instrument simply by moving her flattened palm close or far away to the end and used a similar technique for vibrato.

Day 4 Wednesday, January 7, 1999

We had an early morning flight to Dali that I really don’t remember. As soon as we got off the plane, we got on a boat to cruise Lake Erhai. Although it’s a huge lake, with clear water, the scenery from the boat wasn’t so great, again due to pollution—2 new factories. We could see towns on the lakeside, the hills in the region, and the occasional fisherman. The boat made two stops for shopping.

After the boat ride, we stopped in a village to view a local, uninhabited home. In China, all the doorways and gateways have raised ledges, ranging from 2 inches to a foot, that you have to step over. It’s to keep spirits from walking in and out. Chinese houses are built so that every room, both bottom and top floor, opens onto a courtyard. A white wall (to reflect light and heat) borders the courtyard on one side, and household rooms border the other 3 sides. If you want a bigger house, you add more courtyards; the house we looked at had 3. In addition to the bedrooms, men’s study, and women’s sewing room, there was a big room--the equivalent of a western ballroom--for entertaining a crowd with an opera performance. Also, I was interested in the meeting room, which is the stuff of novels, with two grand chairs against the back wall and two tiny long benches along the side walls. I could picture the elders addressing the other members of the family, who were sitting in order of importance on the benches.

We walked around the town for about a half-hour. Along with the shops, we saw some pigs being herded, horse taxis and a child learning to write his numbers with the help of this granddad (and the child looked as though he felt learning to write numbers was an insurmountable task).

Next we visited the three Pagodas. We couldn’t go inside them because they’re structurally unsafe, but we did go up in the bell tower to get a better view. There used to be 800 Buddhas ornamenting the pagodas, but they’ve disappeared.

Around dinnertime, we walked through the old town in Dali. The town gate is very old, but we can’t remember now if it’s 400 years old or 1,000 years old. Most of the houses were wood, but some buildings were being replaced by new cement ones, which didn’t fit the rustic atmosphere that brought us there. The road was still mud, but it looked like they were working on paving it.

Usually, we ate dinner and lunch in hotels, but this night, we ate in an open-air restaurant in the old town. As we traveled north and west, the cuisine was becoming less of what we think of as Chinese food. We had a really great butter bean dish and people had started to look for and avoid a dish that was mostly chunks of meat fat. They also served us something that night that looked like a big plate of large worms. Light brown, dusted black tubular things. They actually tasted crisp, kind of like a cracker, without any extremely distinct taste. It was roasted ginseng root.

Everybody had purchased a guidebook before coming. With such a small group, the tour organizer had said, there might be some free time to choose your own activities or sights. So what happened after dinner is that we had a little free time on our own because we could take a taxi (horse and cart) back to the hotel. The guidebook said that in Dali you could order a good cappuccino or a burrito. So we went into a place that said it had the best brownie in town. And by we, I mean six of us, ordered coffee and brownies, which were good and then everyone was done shopping about the same time, so we all ended up going back to the hotel together. The good cup of coffee and brownie was the one thing that, as a group, we researched and sought out. And given the opportunity to spend time on our own, we figured it was more fun to hang out together.

Day 5 Thursday, January 7, 1999

Thursday started with a four-hour bus ride through the mountains to the west. The scenery was especially beautiful with lots of terraced farmland. Chinese farmland tends to look quaint anyway because they vary the crops in something like 20-foot squares so it looks like a patchwork quilt.

Rush took the opportunity to tell us part of his family’s story. Rush is registered as a Han, the ethnicity of the vast majority of Chinese, but he is part Manchu on his father’s side. The Manchu dynasty (also called Qing dynasty) was from 1644-1911, when the Republic of China replaced it. The story included some Manchu history in addition to his father’s personal story. This is what I remember:

The Manchu were a strong race, especially good at riding and shooting with bow and arrows. Land ownership was based on these skills. The amount of land you could encompass on horseback within a prescribed time belonged to you. Or you could shoot from a certain point and wherever the arrow fell defined your land. So it was important to be a good sportsman. When then Manchus were battling the Ming for rule of China, they captured an important Ming warrior, who they hoped would desert the Ming and join their own fight. They tortured him for days without success. Then a beautiful girl appeared in his prison cell who said that she also was captured by the Manchus. She said that she had a vile of poison he could drink to end his suffering as a prisoner. Gratified, he unhesitatingly drank it. But the girl had actually given him a powerful healing herbal potion and he instantly felt strengthened and made love to the girl. When he realized he wasn’t going to die, he was bitterly disappointed, but the girl said that he was already dead and now in his second life, which he should live for himself, but also for her sake, he should help the Manchus. So he did and the Manchus came into power. The ex-Ming warrior felt guilty about being a traitor, so he went to the new Emperor and said, "why not do something for the Manchu’s future prosperity?" "Why not give all Manchus a government stipend, so they don’t have to work?" The Emperor agreed and the traitor felt happy knowing that the Manchus would become lazy and uncaring so that their rule would not last a long time.

So, 280 years later (a long time by American history standards, but a short time by Chinese history standards), sure enough, the Manchu empire crumbled.

Rush’s grandfather was an opium addict who died in his thirties, leaving his grandmother with no means of supporting herself and the family, so she remarried. His father didn’t approve of the marriage and left to work wherever he could. He was working in the fields and not getting enough to eat, so one day, when a train came through, he and a lot of other workers jumped onto it, figuring wherever it went was more promising than the present. The train went to Beijing and the only work he could find was in a coal mine. It must have been worse than the West Virginia mines. He said the conditions were so bad that you would go down tied to the end of a rope and do a day’s work. Then you came back up, collected your pay, and then didn’t go down again until you’d run out of money and couldn’t scavenge anything off the streets a day or 2 later. Then the communists showed up. They organized committees of workers within the mine to talk about working conditions. Because Rush’s father had developed respect among people for his kick-boxing skill, he was elected leader of his committee and had to report to the communists what the workers thought. He felt that before the communists came, he was living like an animal, surviving from day to day. After the communists came, he was living like a man. His father became a communist official and has remained so. Rush is not a member of the communist party, but he has fond memories as a child of the early years of communism as a time when everybody looked out for everybody else and was self-sacrificing for the good of the group. He remembers seeing a young soldier jump in front of a skidding, brake-less truck, killing himself in order to push an old man out of the way.

Last fall, I read a book called "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang. She tells a lot of Chinese history in a personal way by telling her family story, beginning with her grandmother and continuing through the present with her own story. Because of this book, Rush’s story wasn’t a big surprise, but it was interesting to hear that more than one person has a similar story. I definitely recommend the book.

When we arrived in Lijiang, we visited the Black Dragon Pool, which is a spring and the only source of water for the city. The water was so clear that my pictures of the trouble fish taken standing on the sidewalk came out. The trouble fish, by the way, are fish that villagers have brought to the spring and thrown in, hoping the fish will take their problems with them. So there’s no fishing in this pool, you wouldn’t want to ingest someone else’s problems.

In Lijiang, we got our fourth local guide, Lao Deng, who was my favorite by far. He was young and his English wasn’t so good as the others, which meant he concentrated on his audience more while speaking and listening. He also didn’t mind if Rush helped him explain things.

The museum of Dongba culture had an instructive, artistic scroll depicting something like heaven, earth and hell, with 100s of human, god-like, and demon figures. They believe that depending on what you do during your life, you go to one of these 3 places—meaning you could return to earth, become a god, or go to a place of punishment. Because the quality of the exhibits was fairly rudimentary, it was a little unclear in the museum whether or not they sacrifice people when someone dies. It turns out they used to sacrifice people and now they just sacrifice paper figures of people.

We walked around the "old town" in Lijiang, which has a river running through it so that it looks a little like Venice. There was an earthquake in this area not too long ago, but they have tastefully reconstructed, unlike Dali. Lijiang was the least touristy of our touristy stops on this trip. In this area, the older women were the ones wearing the ethnic dress, while the younger ones wore western clothing. In other places, it was the other way around, making us feel as though we were being catered to as tourist. The "old town" was supplied with electricity but only limited plumbing; there was a woman washing her vegetables in the river and one public bathroom that was very used. In the old days, people got their drinking water for the day before 10 a.m. After that, you could wash dishes, etc. in the river. There were crafty shops, but also people’s homes.

Brass and copper items were out for sale in a small market area. Brett decided to look at horns that our local guide told us were Lama horns for the Lama religion (of which the Dali Lama is one of several leaders). Brett tried out about 10 of the horns, attracting a crowd of locals. The merchant asked for 200 yuan for 2. The guide translated and then said, "it’s too much. You should bargain." Brett asked, "how much is good?" but the guide said, "it’s your business. I can’t say." Then Brett took so long to think of a good number that the guide said, "30 for 2." Both of our eyebrows went up, and the guide made an offer for us. The seller said "no," and eventually brett offered him 80 for 2 which seemed very satisfactory. The guide definitely saved us money because brett and I probably would have been willing to pay twice as much. The seller made up for his unknown loss in volume because brett picked out one for Alex and Carol as well.

Lijiang is more tuned into the west than other places we visited, because the American botanist Joseph Rock (who inspired the book and movie Shangri-La with his writings on the region) lived there. He apparently didn’t find the new plant he was hoping to identify, so he wrote about the people instead. These people know about their fame and are proud of the culture that produced it.

When we had finished shopping in the open square, we sat down to wait for the rest of the group to gather. Pam, Ed, and Alex had joined us. An elderly gentleman, dressed in a dark blue, traditional proletarian communist outfit, approached us and politely asked a few questions in English like where we were from. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket with a poem written in Chinese and English. He wanted to know if we could check his translation. He explained that he writes his poems first in the local hieroglyphs, then in Chinese and then in English. He invited us into his home, which startled me a little bit, but brett and Pam took him up on his offer and Lao Deng encouraged the whole group to go. While he showed us a poem tacked to his door, a woman leaving the house rubbed her thumb against her forefingers with the palm turned up—the international sign for money. I asked if she said we owed money and Lao Deng said "Basically. She said he doesn’t have a pension or income." His home was very small, consisting just of his bedroom, and the bedrooms of at least two other ladies who seemed to live there, and a small kitchen all around a very small triangular courtyard. His bedroom consisted of his bed and a writing table. He’d hung his poems up on the wall and asked brett to read some of them. What he really wanted to show us, though, were letters from all over the world and books signed to him by famous people. He had several boxes full of them on the floor. He wanted us to stay longer, but we rushed off.

That night we went to a genuine concert. From what Rush gave us to understand, in the main centers of China, they had written examples of ancient Chinese music, but they didn’t know how it was supposed to sound. In the 20^th century, they discovered that this music was still being played, passed down in an aural tradition in the area around Lijiang, because it is so remote and wasn’t overtaken by more modern customs. I’ve heard some of this kind of music before; our "music for the Chinese Pipa" CD was one of my least favorites in our collection. We sat on wooden benches with backs. They served us some very good tea, which we could put in the large beverage holders (instead of communion cup holders), on the back of the bench in front of us. There was a lot of talking, both in Chinese and in very good English by the leader (who didn’t act as a conductor). It was more fun to watch while listening, because you could see the pipas (looks like a lute), gamalon, gong, etc. There was a drum the size of a large refrigerator and brett pointed out that gong and drum were used only on the sacred pieces. The musicians were mostly distinguished looking men in their seventies and eighties, some with very long beards and thick glasses, although 4 young women, who were maybe twenty, joined them as well. The men wore Chinese-style black jackets (with the raised collars and butterfly buttons) made from Chinese silk with the long-life symbol machine embroidered on it and long skirts. The girls, in contrast, wore the local dress—white pants, skirt, shirt, and a red and blue apron. (Just like in western orchestras, where women wear any old black thing, they looked dowdy in comparison to the men). There was a number when the ladies sang a poem with very nasally voices. The Chinese seem to prefer an extremely nasal sound—the one-stringed bowed instrument and the oboe-like instruments are nasally in addition to the voices. One of the greatest things about the concert, which struck me (and Dale commented on it, too), was how incredible their timing was for no conductor. In some sections the aesthetic is less precision. For example, no piece ever came to a sudden stop. Instead players faded and dropped out one by one. There were some parts, though, that required very precise percussion playing and many musicians were sitting with their eyes closed, but somehow managing to strike their instruments at the same time as everyone else.

Day 6 Friday, January 8, 1999

This felt like the last day of our tour because January 9 was a day of travel back to Malaysia. Everyone was a little more relaxed. In the bus on the way to Jade Dragon Snow mountain, we drove through a plain and Deng told us a story about the leader from another tribe who met the daughter of the Naxi leader and fell in love. She married him, against the wishes of her parents, and went to live with the other tribe. Soon, she got a message from her father saying that her mother was very ill and she should come home. When she got home, she found out her mother was fine, but her father knew he could entice the other leader into a war by kidnapping his own daughter. A great battle took place on the plain and the Naxi won, killing the leader of the other tribe in the process. So the victory was tarnished somewhat by the trickery involved, as well as the lost love. When he finished the story, he said, "and now I would like to sing you a song." And in a very nice voice, he sang us a folk song about the battle. He had one bead of sweat trickling down his temple. When he finished, he said, "I was so nervous. Oh my god!"

We took a chair lift up the mountain and then had to walk (or ride a pony which some members of our group did) about a quarter mile to the meadow with a view of the peak behind it. Climbing teams have never reached the summit of this mountain because the soil is too silty. There was snow in the meadow in the shade of the trees where the sun hadn’t melted it. (Which will have to do us for the whole winter). The scenery actually looked like very early spring since the grass was all brown and there weren’t any flowers. There were two groups of dancers who encouraged people to join the dance line for a small fee. Our group was too shy and too busy with video cameras to join in, but it was fun to watch. The flutist helped lead the dancing while he played. Those of us feeling the effects of the high altitude were hoping he wouldn’t pass out and he didn’t. The girls sung with beautiful voices (reminiscent of the Bulgarian women’s choir) not quite so nasally as the classical music we heard the night before, but definitely with an edge to carry through the mountain air. Often the song consisted of a lead singer who sang a line and then everybody else repeated it together. Deng asked the flutist to play a song especially for us since he knew there were musicians in the group. On our walk back to the chair lift, we saw some goats and sheep up close. On the way back into town, Deng got the entire bus to sing "Eidelwiess" together.

We stopped to look at some frescos in a temple established 600 years ago. The paintings included symbols from Lamaism, Buddhism, and Taoism, all at once, showing the influences in the region at the time. Outside there was an informal orchestra. Kathy tried to tell them that she used to play viola by motioning and they gave her some cymbals to play, which she passed along to Alex after a minute or two.

At a different Lama temple, one village over, the guide pointed out the figures and a hanging circular cloth thing which, if you stand underneath it, god sees your soul. I put money in the box and while the guide was still explaining, a very old man who had entered the temple unnoticed by us, started banging on one of those large drums and praying, making me jump and it was also harder to hear the guide. Then I remembered that in Chinese temples, you give money to have prayers said for you and the amount of money determines the number of prayers. So the prayers were actually for me. We also saw a very old (supposedly a couple hundred years) Camellia tree called the "love tree" because it wraps around itself as it grows. This one had pretty flowers in bloom. I bought some walnuts from a stall, because nuts in Malaysia are often rancid, even if they’re in a bag and before their date to expire, because it’s so hot and humid. These walnuts made it home and into my belated holiday fruitcake from Chatwin’s recipe.

We made one last detour to a rural village to see Dr. Ho, a Chinese herbalist doctor, that was romanticized by a traveling journalist and has been included in all travel guides since. Our Lonely Planet guide didn’t say to stay away, but it didn’t make a visit to Dr. Ho sound like a whole lot of fun. The guide knew the group was divided in its desire to stop at all, so he assured us a short visit. On the walls of the house in plastic covers were several dozen articles from magazines and newspapers featuring Dr. Ho. When we arrived, a daughter or granddaughter spotted us and immediately brought out Dr. Ho, who like our poet friend, brought out boxes and boxes of news clippings and letters. The guide asked him to tell us something about the flying tigers, since there’s an airstrip right by the village. He said that they came and threw chocolate to the children, they were great and was anyone a doctor or in the medical profession? Since Lee said yes, he handed her an article. The daughter returned with tea. My interest was never that piqued, so I moved away to hang out with Alex who was jumping around on some rocks. Deng joined us and said that one of the flying tiger pilots needed to light a cigarette and of course none of the villagers had a lighter. They had a huge fire going for warmth, so the pilot leaned way over with the cigarette in his mouth to inhale and somehow he burnt off his eyebrows and all his hair. So the villagers felt the Americans were nice and courageous, but not very smart.

This village was similar to the Sani village in that it was small and remote and a lot of the buildings were made from mud bricks. We walked down to the center of town where there was a truckload of people and children being dropped off by a woman driver. The guide used the opportunity to point out that Naxi women do all the work, even driving. The Naxi used to be matriarchal. Now they are still matrilineal, living and working with the mother’s family and passing property through the mother. They don’t really marry; relationships with boyfriends last as long as they last. The only way we really saw the difference in culture is that we saw groups of men taking care of children.

When we got back on the bus, we found out that Lee had asked Dr. Ho about medicines for Pam. She described the problem, he asked a few questions, and then he selected some herbs, which she paid for. I was glad that that someone in the group was able to show him respect for how he wanted to be perceived—as a doctor and not just another tourist sight. There are Chinese herbalists in Malaysia, but I haven’t sought that sort of thing out.

Day 7 Saturday, January 9, 1999

It was really cold on the way to our early morning flight and lots of people (including brett), had packed their warmest things knowing we would be landing in Bangkok and then Malaysia in the evening. On the bus, Lao Deng sang us another song, this time a love song, which he translated after singing. There was no heating in the airport, but at least it was out of the wind. Our plane was delayed, so our guide suggested a walk to the nearest village. Dale, Mariann, brett and I, started out with Rush and Deng while everyone else thought better of it and went in search of a cup of tea instead. The village was really just up the hill from the airport and consisted of 5 or 6 houses and their surrounding fields. One of the good things about a communist country is that the land belongs to everyone, so you can walk around without fear of trespassing. Deng asked a woman who happened to be out if we could visit her home. She was embarrassed because it was messy, but she invited us into the courtyard and we look around while she picked up the odd leaf on the ground and chucked it around the corner out of sight. The courtyard was surrounded on two sides with barn-like areas. On one side was the house and on the last side was a short wall. She had one cow and 2 pigs. The doors of the house had the symbol for double happiness signifying when they got married that the wife would be happy and therefore the husband would be happy. We asked if the cow had a name and she thought that was hilarious. As we were leaving, she asked if we would like some seeds and I said sure. She put a huge handful of sunflower and another of pumpkin-like seeds in my pocket since neither of us had a bag. I wished I had something to give her, but everything was back in the airport watched by Ed and Alex, so I had to settle for being the recipient of the gift.

As we continued walking, Rush stuck his head in the door of a wealthier looking home. When an old man came to see what was up, Rush asked if it was okay if we looked around. This man and his son were obviously just getting up, hair sticking up straight on one side. The son went in to get a baby and offered us cigarettes. Again, I wished we’d brought something. There weren’t women around, just men caring for the baby. When we got back to the airport, it was time to get on the plane.

Coming off the plane, somewhat to my surprise, we were met by our Kunming guide and we were loaded onto the bus for more sightseeing. The itinerary said "city tour if time," but I assumed the late plane probably didn’t allow for it. Next thing we know, we’re at the largest Buddhist temple among a whole lot of temples located outside of Kunming. To be honest I almost wanted to stay on the bus because I’d seen enough, but once we were inside, it turned out to be very interesting because Rush pointed out who and what all the figures were.

Rush explained that most Chinese don’t think about the temple unless they’re in trouble and when they step over the threshold to enter, they’re very nervous. Therefore, the first thing you see as you walk in is the laughing Buddha. I think he said the laughing Buddha is fat because he eats his and other people’s troubles (and troubles have a lot of calories.) Four "weather" statues surround the laughing Buddha. These statues are human-like figures. One holds an umbrella to symbolize rain and also protection; one holds a snake for power/force; one holds a sword for wind; and the last one holds a musical instrument to symbolize control. If you walk around the laughing Buddha, the figure of a guard stands back to back with it. This guard was on duty in the temple one night soon after Buddha’s death when bandits stole the box containing Buddha’s ashes for the value of the box. The guard fought them all successfully and returned Buddha’s ashes to the temple. From the statue of the guard, you pass into a courtyard and then into the main hall of the temple. The main hall is centered on a Buddha figure, with 2 smaller Buddha figures on either side. On the right is the god of the past and on the left is the god of the future.

Back at the Kunming airport, brett and I spent our last 23 yuan on a chocolate bar and passed through immigrations no problem. We had a few hours in the Bangkok airport, where the group sat down at a restaurant and talked about acupuncture, the all-fat diet that was popular in the seventies, and Mariann told some stories about living in Dubai.