Letter to Students 02 June 2008

Dear Reader

I never really finished the letter I began writing in Europe, and I am disapointed in myself as so many thoughts were flying round in my head which are now lost to cyber space.  I tried to access my email yesterday, and my INBOX folder was empty.  I know it contains thousands of messages, and probably thirty since I last opened it last Friday, so there is something strange going on.  I always try to think what the meaning for all that happens is, but I think this is just a technical gliche and I shouldn't get too philosophical!

Some lives follow predictable paths, and as I look out the window of my small hotel, I see a street seller making pancakes from his little basic stall which is pulled by the bicycle attached at the front.  He works away quietly, talking to his customers who walk away with their breakfast in a plastic bag.  Opposite are the fruit sellers who sold me some grapes, pineapple and a strange fruit that tasted a little like a lychee but was bigger and had a hard, purply skin. Shan Zu is the name the locals call it. I broke the rough cover and as the purple juice stained my fingers, I extracted soft, white morsels which I carefully put into my mouth. Hu Chen told me he had had diaorhea for the first few days in China, and I was careful to wash everything with the filtered water in my room.  However, I am not overly careful as I think that your body has to build up resistance to the enviroment in which you place yourself, and I remember the first month in Egypt where we teachers learnt the full meaning of "gypo" tummy!  Staffroom talk so often turned to the state of our bowels that we used to howl with laughter when someone mentioned it.  How predictable our conversations became! It is now nine o'clock and already the tone of the letter has dropped!

It took a long time to reach Beijing, having had to leave the family on Sunday afternoon, and stay over in a hotel near the airport.  Although I have friends with whom I could have stayed, I knew that the four o'clock check-in the following morning would have been difficult for everyone.  Usually, I am very frugal with my spending money on trips, and forego dinners for myself, knowing I would be eating on the plane.  However, I have become more sensible about every day living, and the importance of looking after myself.  I therefore had a delicious Caesar salad at the hotel restaurant, the making of which is a good sign as to the quality of the restaurant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I missed the family terribly, but made the most of the quiet to reflect on all manner of things. It was like eating in Asia as all the staff were Asian except for one overweight Kiwi girl. One of my favourite songs as a teenager was Helen Reddy's "I am woman," and this song was being played as I ate.  It inspired me to do my best, and know that "girls can do anything!" Although I had my usual crazy dreams, and woke every hour, I actually woke feeling ready to tackle the big day ahead of me.  I was awoken by reception ten minutes later than I had requested, but hopped on the bus to the airport just before four o'clock. I still had time to have a shower, and pack my bag which had few clothes but lots of brochures for potential studnts. I have never checked in for a flight so early, and it felt somehow surreal.  My eyes were very sore as I had come down with some kind of allergy during the weekend, and I spent some time choosing a cream for the damaged skin around my eyes.I felt like an old woman with wrinkled, reddened skin around my beady eyes!  The shop assistant brought a cheerful moment to the day as she showed me the different creams and recommended a manuka honey mix which just happened to be the cheapest for sale.  She told me she had had the same shift at the same shop for nine years, and loved her job.  She wished me well and I left with a big smile on my face, and the feeling that my skin was just that little bit softer!.  I had used the sample product in the shop for my eyes before leaving, as the cream I bought had to be put in a sealed bag and collected later. The terrorists certainly have a lot to answer for.  How complicated flight travel has become, but more relevant to you, how mundane this letter has begun! 

Having said that, there is a need for the mundane, but it doesn't make for great reading.  I will finish here as I am about to be picked up and taken back to Beijing airport where I arrived on Monday night at nine o'clock in the evening. There had been a tropical storm and we were forced to hover over the city for an extra half hour or more.  The flight from Sydney had been a good one, which was more than could be said for the Star Jet connection from Christchurch to Sydney.  I thought I was flying Qantas and was disappointed to find that the budget flight made you having to pay for even your water!  My fugality set in and I refused to pay the exorbitant three dollars, preferring to put my head down on the empty seat beside me and get some needed sleep!  I sat beside a delightful Chinese girl on the next leg of my journeyto Beijing, and we got to know each other well as we chatted through the flight.  Susan had studied at a language school in Auckland, but being run by Chinese with mostly Chinese students, she didn't learn much about New Zealand.  She has just graduated from Griffith University on the Gold Coast of Australia, but again, the student population was almost totally Asian.  I love getting to know other people and hear their stories, She was feeling nervous as she was staying with her Chinese partner's parents in Beijing whom she had never met.  Feeling ill from the flight, and nervous on top of this, I tried to comfort her, and called the flight attendant who gave her eucalyptus oil to inhale. I am lucky never to have been afflicted with this.  I still love flying after many years of trusting my life to the sky, and value the time to reflect on life without the need to have to do anything at all!  It is one of the few times in my life when I don't have to be responsible to anyone, but in fact have to rely on everyone around me for my survival!       

......

It is now Wednesday afternoon, and Hu Chen,our marketing manager who convinced me to take three weeks away from my precious family and school to do this marketing of our school in China, is doing his best to organise these three precious weeks It seems that one doesn't organise the whole trip in advance, a very different approach from the Japanese who have the itinerary in concrete three months before arrival.  I have decided to just go with the flow, another new experience for me, and allow Hu Chen to take control.  In fact, I really have no choice as the language is a huge barrier here for me. However, it is not a daunting process and I love the challenge of learning a new language and learning more about this fascinating culture.

Arriving in the new Beijing airport was like arriving into a futuristic world, and everything ran to clockwork.  It is a bigger model of Hong Kong, and I sat in front of the train which took us to the main arrival terminal, marvelling at the engineering genius which inspired the building of this edifice.  Hu Chen was waiting for me in his bright pink shirt, and we found our way down barely finished elevators to his friend's waiting car.  It was already 3:00am by my body clock, and although fine, I was happy to be dropped off at the simple but clean hotel, and crawl under a clean green coloured duvet and fall asleeep.  Unfortunately, the same old dreams plagued me, and I woke several times wondering if my bag was still in the room!  I had the air conditioner on,  but awoke with it being too cool and preferred to sleep without the whir for the last couple of hours of sleep.  I ate some of the fruit we had bought at the street vendors across the road from my hotel the night before, and yet saved my appetite for my first Chinese breakfast in Beijing. I love the dim sim breakfast, a variety of tasty morsels such as steamed prawn dumplings,and even the chicken feet were delicious!  Nearby, was the famous lama temple, Yong He Palace, which our atheist agent didn't think was worth paying the $5 to enter.  "It is just a temple with trees." However, Hu Chen wanted to show me this magnificent part of Beijing's history, the palace being the former home of the Emperor. It was an untypically cool day, and we walked through a series of stunningly beautiful and surprisingly, for me, spiritual temples.  Each temple housed huge Buddhas or Tibetan guardians,but the most dramatic image was of an eighteen metre high gold plated female deity created out of a single sandalwood tree. The hidden base stretched eight metres underground, and I stood in awe at the majestic figure.  Hu Chen has discovered his Buddhist roots since being involved with the Thai community in Dunedin, and I have always felt an affinity with the powers that flow around a temple.I felt moved to prayer, and said a special prayer for all the people I knew, and for the school in general. It seemed a fitting start to our business trip, although our atheist agent just shook his head! He said he couldn'd understand how praying to an image could make any change in a person's life.  I replied that I thought that prayer was the same as believing in the  power of positive thought, and how this gave a person increased confidence.  It is this confidence which allows people to succeed in their chosen areas. What do you think?

Catching up on emails is an important part of my working day at home, and we visited our agent's office to meet two of his colleagues and check the emails.  Unfortunately, there has been a gliche in my email system, and my Inbox folder said it was empty. If only that were the case sometimes!

I am still sitting in one of the many lounges at Beijing airport, in the domestic terminal which is as spectacular as its equally new international wing. It is interesting to sit and watch people, and observe how they deal with different situations.  It was fascinating listening to the reaction of the passengers on the plane when they were told in Chinese that the flight had been cancelled due to flooding.  I had drifted off to sleep as we sat for ages on the tarmac, and was awoken by an uproar of laughter.  I somehow knew that the flight wasn't going anywhere, but their reaction was so different from a plane load of Kiwis that I smiled, be it briefly.  However, I haven't become upset over this delay, although it is the first time in my life I have been on a flight that has been cancelled. I am determined to remain relaxed during this period, although it is not a natural state for me.  I feel myself getting short tempered with Hu Chen at times, but remind myself that I am in his culture, and that it is important to defer to him.  Instead of sitting and feeling miserable waiting for some airline food that they said would be offered within the hour, Hu Chen and I went to have some Japanese noodles at a busy restaurant.  About eight young men, with gauze face masks on, deftly prepared bowls of piping hot noodles, and I was reminded of the classic Japanese movie, Tompopo, one of my favourite movies. Have you seen it?  I must have seen it over twenty times, and I find something new in it every time.  It is so seemingly simple, but says such a lot about Japanese society. As Hu Chen and I ate our piping hot noodles out of big bowls with wonderful big bamboo spoons,we talked about the fact that in China, the food has to come to the table quickly or there are complaints.  Last night, we went to try some Peking Duck as I realised that I hadn't tasted it when I was here for two days last year. We were told it would take forty five minutes to cook as it had to be placed in a special wood fired oven, and we gladly waited while we tasted other delicious morsels.  When the chef brought out the duck, it was the first time that I realised that Peking duck is served in a pancake with a strong soy sauce, celery and spring onion.  The skin of the duck is served separately, and is dipped in a little sugar before eating.  The skin can also be put in the pancake, a crunchy surprise  This evening in Beijing was in stark contrast to the last time I was here. At that time, I spent a day on my own in Beijing, visiting Tiananmen Square, and ending up tasting different kinds of tea for the afternoon with a seemingly cultured young man who taught me a lot about tea.  He ended up being a very sharp operator who tried to rip me off when it came to paying for the tea I chose. His tea shop was in a famous old street just down from the Square,and although the shop frontages mainly stood, the shops themselves had all been renovated. I loved to imagine the old China, and enjoyed being taught about how to drink tea and learn more about the individual teas.  I had decided to buy a couple of delicious teas and was therefore so upset when I realised that the shop owner was trying to overcharge me. I told him so, in no uncertain terms, that he had ruined a beautiful day for me in Beijing, and I at first refused to pay the inflated price. Up until that moment I had so enjoyed the experience and was so hurt that he had tried to cheat me with the price and spoil the experience. He had originally said he wanted Beijing to look good for the Olympics, and I told him he was ruining it for his country.  We finally agreed on a price, but I must admit that I have seldom drunk the tea.  I should have walked away without paying.  I took a taxi back to my hotel that evening, and didn't surface till my early morning flight home. I feel much happier travelling with Hu Chen and would find it difficult to enter into the culture without an interpreter.  Having said that, though, I do seem to be able to communicate well with others, even though I can't speak the language. Travelling on my own, I tend to meet people who lead me into a whole new experience. I am trying hard to learn Chinese as well, and want to buy a grammar book as soon as possible.  It was by going into a bookshop to ask for a Chinese language book at the airport that I met a wonderfully gay young Chinese man who was very keen to use his English, and engaged in a lively discussion with me.  He even followed me out of the shop, and I gave him our school brochure to go with the business card I had given him in the shop.

Returning to China last year, I was amazed at the progress China had made since I last visited in 1983.  I have just heard a flight called for Guilin, and this was the stunningly beautiful place I visited with my Japanese partner all those moons ago.  The Air China plane we caught felt like it had been used since the war, and we were given cheap little plastic comb sets as we sat in our flimsy seats.  How different the flight experience is now!  We had to stay in a special hotel for foreigners, and spend our "foreign yuen" only in shops exclusively set aside for the "aliens." The products were simply made, most people wore the bland uniforms associated with the cultural revolution, and  bicycles clogged the streets.  Labourers pulled huge loads of wood by cart, and everyone looked warily at us, reluctant to engage us in any way.  Snakes were in baskets at the doors of tiny restaurants, and you felt that progress had passed China by.  How far China has come!  Even since last year, I have seen huge changes in Beijing. Huge malls with all the latest in designer products now line the busy roads on which the latest foreign cars  disobey the road rules, most cars being made under licence in China.  One may not like the politics of China, but it certainly is raising the standard of living of so many of its people. Of course, you still see poor people in the street, although most have been banished to the countryside for the Olympics! At what price the country will pay for this rapid progress only time will tell.   The pollution in Beijing is testimony to the disregard for proper controls being placed on factories and cars, but the harnessing of a people to create a city worthy of hosting the 2008 Olympic games in August is awesome in the extreme.  Apparently, many buildings that can not be finished by August have had to go on hold and have boardings put around them with beautiful scenes so that the there is no visual pollution caused by unsightly construction sites! Countless people have been displaced to make way for new apartment buildings, their old homes being sacrificed in the name of progress. The small street vendors who used to sell food to passers by have been moved away as the government thought they looked dirty.  To me, these are the people who give the culture its particular uniqueness, and bind a community with its particular local delicacy. 

As a tourist, they are the people you remember when you recall your travels, and the society becomes bland when they are removed.  The colour disappears from the photo in your mind.

I have just returned from using the toilet, and the spotlessly clean tiled bathroom, the automatic flushing toilet and faucet reminded me of the contrast with the first time I was in China when you needed to take the toilet paper with you and hold your nose as you entered!  When I walked into the toilets at Auckland airport after having been in Hong Kong, I felt like I was going back in time.  New Zealand has been overtaken in providing top service in their toilets!

Unlike Europe when I couldn't use my Vodaphone due to a technical hitch, and couldn't be contacted by my daughter in the moment of crisis when her best friend died, my Telecom phone is working well and I am in constant contact through text. I have overcome my abhorrence of texting, only because I see it as the best way to keep in touch with family so far away.  Han and I became even stronger after our month away together, and although we both hate the fact that we are apart, the separation is strengthening our bond, not weakening it as can sometimes happen with couples who spend time apart. 

I am still in Beijing airport, and have been sitting at my baby computer with it plugged into a socket conveniently located on the floor between the row of seats on which we are sitting, and those opposite.  People are beginning to move toward the gate to finally board our plane, so six hours late, we are on our way to Kunming, the city deluged by rain today! Floods debilitated the centre of the city, but obviously, they have been able to clear the runway! Wish me luck!

Love

Sharron