6: by the dawn's early light...

we hauled our packs and our bleary selves through the gray dawn of the shenzhen station to yet more waiting busses. first impression: shenzhen looked a lot like downtown houston, if houston had any street trees. a grid of broad streets- 6 to 10 lanes at least- could serve as landing strips, if not for the fences down the middle. similar pedestrian fencing separated sidewalks from street traffic; jaywalkers are physically restrained until the major intersections. though streets were deserted at the moment, it was apparent that they would soon be teeming. unlike houston, the broad sidewalks are lushly shaded; beyond the sidewalks, there's another strip of dense greenery before the building line. this layering of public space seems typical here; only the interior lanes are directly fronted with commercial activity. the arterial street grid is for moving- the interior lanes are for lingering.

from a bus window, one is aware of a city, but not necessarily of any individual buildings, the tops of which are only apparent in a long view. the built area is flat, but flows around intervening mountains; steep and fuzzy green bumps, devoid of any structures, emerge everywhere, terminate every major street, and gather for a continuous backdrop to the north. we mount a motorway ramp that is draped in bouganvilla; the land captured inside the ramp is tended like a garden: hibiscus and patterned planting beds under varieties of palm trees. as the day brightened, the vivid colors became apparent. while the moist blanket that enveloped us on emerging from the station felt like beijing, the lush vegetation drove home the point that we were now in the tropics.

a short distance up the motorway, a turnoff started a climb into a cleft in the mountains to the north. snazzy apartment blocks with views of the city held tight to the winding road as we made our way to the top, where an earthen dam held back a picturesque lake. the still water was edged with willows, piers, bridges and pavilions, and a fleet of paddle boats (not swans, but mini helicopters; not sure what that imagery was all about, unless a reference to dragonflies). at the far end, we wound over an arched bridge, past another lotus pond and into the motorcourt of the silver lake lodge, the next punch on our ticket. in a rare moment of efficiency, room keys were pre-sorted and distributed on board the bus. steve and tristan, two of the frat boys from the early train that arrived the night before, had our checked baggage laid out in a meeting room for us. their clear and bright eyes confirmed what they told us sotto voce: "man, it's like a monastery up here; i think we're in detention." word was passed that we would gather at 10am, giving us time for a shower. as i entered the new room, my first image was of pill bottles and plastic bags arrayed on the table and ledge at the far end of the room; as i should have suspected, james the gerbil was still my roommate...

it was only from the new printed schedule handed out at the meeting that it registered: this was a sunday morning, the 20th of august, the start of our fourth week in china. this would be our home until distribution to our individual schools. in the meantime, we had to navigate the bureaucratic shoals: resident visa applications and police paperwork, an official medical exam, and the secret deliberations over our school assignments. our meals were to be group buffets in our own dining room. we were encouraged to enjoy the peaceful scenery and to relax. and we were discouraged from descending the mountain in search of the bright lights; yup, we were in detention. it seems previous groups had run into problems with the blood test component of the medical exam; we were in preventive rehab...

the resort was quite a nice place, if a bit scruffy and worn. the low-rise buildings probably dated from the 1970's, good tropical modernist design around courtyards, with lots of waterways, bridges, cascades, manicured gardens and some private villas clustered to the rear. the swimming pools (one a brown soup, the other an empty tub) and the chained gates to tennis courts gave the place an air of "sunset boulevard"; this was obviously not the high season at the silver lake resort. my guess is that august is too damned hot- winter is when they make their money. the young teachers were completely seduced by the western food served up on our buffet: trays of crisp french fries and mounds of sliced roast beaf with mashed potatoes and gravy kept all but the diehard fratboys content on our mountaintop. my preferred asian fare was so-so, but they had good seafood, noodle dishes and lots of nice fruit; and it was available without having to mangle the language or play menu roulette. velvet handcuffs- i'm sure the chinese invented the idea.

the first afternoon passed like a glacier as we were step-by-step instructed (then re-directed) on the proper filling out of the stack of forms in front of us in the stuffy meeting room; my years of slandering school teachers came back to haunt me. teacher: yesterday i couldn't spell it- today i are one. the questions from the floor were as exasperating as the shepherding from the stage: seems many of my young colleagues have a lot of difficulty with shades of gray. the specifics of our school contracts- the permissability of part-time work, the recognition of unmarried couples and their living arrangements, and all other issues amiably covered by the "don't ask-don't tell" wording of our agreements (another chinese invention, i'm sure) just could not stand unchallenged. a further insistence on answers for, and predictions of the unknowable had me climbing the panelled walls; perhaps china will illustrate for them the beauty of what's between the lines, and the latitude afforded by ambiguity. the kicker? every contract states that the chinese version governs, no matter what the translation says. signing anything here is a leap of faith.

the next day saw us loaded onto busses and taken to the port clinic for our medical exams. mentally prepared for the worst, i spent the day marvelling at how much brighter, cleaner and more efficient the whole operation was than any medical facilty i'd seen (or been a victim of) in new york; and remember now, i've spent years designing hospitals. the clinic was on four floors of an office building on an interior street of a superblock, near the main hong kong border crossing. we were handed a sheet of 16 bar code stickers and a list of 12 departments where we were to "spend" them, scavenger hunt style. most of the stops were fairly routine, like vital statistics, an ekg and a blood test (with a flourish of of sterile-packaged needles to ease our concerns), but some were uniquely chinese: an ultrasound scan of our bellies and internal organs was kind of creepy. and the live-action chest x-ray was spooky; our feet were simultaneously imaged. the dental exam was satisfied by having evidence of teeth.

the bus commute to and from the clinic gave us another glimpse of our new home town, this time while populated. it seems that every tall building- and there are lots- must wear a party hat. where shanghai is dense with glassy needle buildings, shenzhen is more chunky apartment blocks, 30- to 40-stories the average. groups of towers are banded together with swoopy trelliage at the top, or cornice and wainscot bands in the middle. every variant of the grid facade is on display, with lots of sky gardens and multi-story cutouts and bridges- and lots of applied color. i'll have to do some photos of the most amazing ones later...

back on our mountaintop, we were informed that the schedule had been compressed: our contract signing and distribution to schools would be the next day. we were instructed to show up at the meeting room at 9am on the dot, looking sharp; meanwhile, our actual assignments were being deliberated in secrecy worthy of the sistine chapel. all would be known in the morning...

james brook, one of the handful of brits in the group, stopped by my table at dinner to whisper that a breakout had been arranged for this evening- taxis would appear at about 9pm. was i interested? duh... brit james, coincidentally, had been james the gerbil's teaching partner; consequently, he was sympathetic to my difficult "home life", and always included me in the frat boy adventures. this breakout was a rather benign one, and all were back up the mountain before dawn; our first taste of nightlife in shenzhen was a good one, however. there were lots of outdoor drinking venues- trendy and expensive compared to our neighborhood in beijing, but quite pleasant and crowded, with locals and a smattering of westerners.

next morning, we were instructed to be packed up, checked out and ready for departure before arriving at the contract signing. the lobby had a list with our seating assignments; the meeting room was set up with rows of narrow tables, like a college classroom. my namecard was on a table in the second row on the right. when i took my chair, a very tall and pretty asian girl intoduced herself as lulu, my contact teacher at the jiao yuan middle school. and handed me a huge bouquet of coral roses (19 i counted- i'm sure it means something) and palm fronds; this really was a claiming race, and i was the horse. she then introduced me to a shorter, stocky guy in a polo shirt: mr. wang, our headmaster (who speaks no english) and asked if i was william or james. huh? they were assigned two teachers: william rogan and james brook- they had only our names on the cards. about this time james ambles up: "you're not gonna believe this" i mouthed to him over the crowd. i pointed james out to lulu, and he was saddled with his own matching bouquet; we were seated across the aisle from our claimants, and we made small talk with them as similar scenes unfolded around us: 96 teachers were meeting their new owners that morning. almost every group was bearing some sort of token for their horseflesh, but few approached the scale of funerary tribute as ours; looks like we hit the jackpot, i thought. checking out our new headmaster during the inevitable speeches, i noted the huge gold rolex he was wearing- not a hong kong fake, i could tell; no ordinary schoolteacher, this one.

four copies of contracts were signed, with much flourish and nodding and handshaking, by we and our schools, two in english, two in chinese. and then it was time for- what else? a banquet.

on the way to the dining hall, we were instructed to gather our luggage with our new keepers; the pic below was snapped by lulu as we loaded ours into the headmaster's snazzy honda stretch van. i had the feeling this was so they could identify us if we bolted...



the banquet was another grand production, in a big room overlooking a pond. seated at tables of 10, we were served great wall red wine this time, and more fantastic food. our headmaster was seated at the head table with the program directors and folks from the shenzhen education ministry; he was obviously a player, as i suspected. at one point during the inevitable toasting, i looked up to see that the education ministry honcho had come down to our table, and was raising a glass to me: "i hear that you are almost as old as i am" was his toast; i guess he had to come see for himself. my new headmaster and the program directors all bobbed and nodded around him... when that hubbub died down, lulu leaned over to ask me quietly, "by the way, do you guys like to drink? our headmaster really likes to drink; we all have a hard time at faculty parties." when i stopped laughing, i leaned over to james to tell him how we must have qualified for this placement, and asked lulu to repeat her question for his benefit. we had clearly hit the jackpot.

the party broke up about 2pm; more farewells, but big anticipation this time. the headmaster drove us as lulu pointed out the points of interest: the convention center, the new city government building, a performance hall and library. heading south, toward the border i could tell from the road signs, suddenly we were there. this was my first view of our new school.



we drove around the athletic field to the south gate; guards quickly rolled back the barricade for the headmaster's locomotive. smiling little men appeared from everywhere to fetch our bags and take us up to our new quarters, on the rear third floor of the building below.



our little parade was led by the headmaster; as we each entered the doors of our adjacent rooms (with more little cleaning people bustling around inside), james shook my hand and summed it up with "well, here we go"...

next: be it ever so humble...

5: moving on...

just as nothing can happen in new orleans without a parade or a festival to mark it, nothing in china passes without a ceremony and a banquet. we, of course, had both.

i realize i’ve uncharacteristically neglected the food in beijing to date, other than the breakfast cart and the melon vendors. that’s not to imply there wasn’t great food to be had. beijing has a fervent attachment to spice: black pepper and star anise (together) seem to dominate. our favorite “wu kuai” (5 yuan, 60-cents-a-hearty-bowl) noodle shop across the street was open ‘round the clock with steaming bowls of beef broth and home-made noodle, swung like a braided rope overhead and beaten on a worktop while you wait. some slices of beef (and things), a handful of fresh cilantro, and you were off to your table to add your own measure of their seasoning paste to your bowl: a black goo that looked like asphalt but would make even your flip-flops a meal to remember. wash that down with a 36-cent super-litre bottle of tsingtao beer (significantly cheaper than bottled water) and you were well-satisfied for less than a dollar.

in a gatehouse below our hotel, we were soon to discover an enterprising guy had set up a business for “er kuai” beer: 24 cents a giant bottle. better yet, if you brought him back four empties, he’d give you a new full one: the closest thing yet to a perpetual-motion machine, with this crowd. with the small lobby and front driveway as our only common space (and refuge from roommates- james the gerbil was never awake past 9pm), our group pretty well took over the furama hotel every evening: lesson plan confabs became beery frat mixers, launching pad for the nightly club sorties.

evening dining options included some sidewalk-table muslim grill shops (spiced lamb on wooden sticks, 10 to an order) with roasted eggplant and cubed potatoes, a rather fancy place next door, with choose-your-filling dumplings and stir-fried squid with chiles (they sort of adopted me, and would feed me after closing), a hot-pot shop, a few mom-and-pop kitchens, and lots of other things I didn’t get to.

midday dining was surprisingly varied, too: there was a discreet commercial district on campus, with privately-run restaurants to augment the soviet feeding halls. though I skipped those most days for melon-on-a stick and a nap in the shade (scenes below), the few meals I shared there were quite good.





our graduation banquet was a szechuan extravaganza in an upper room in the campus dining district. coats and ties, lots of good and spicy food and rivers of beer served banquet-style to at least fifteen tables of ten, we were awarded our red silk credential folders (fancier than any other diploma I’ve scored, and probably more useful: certified now to teach anywhere in china) and told to prepare for evacuation the next day.

but not before a closing ceremony…

we had to surrender our luggage and our rooms early the next morning, but our train departure was not until late in the evening. morning was a reunion with our class, to help them rehearse for their skit in the big show. unknown to brooks and i, they had expanded and enhanced their newscast into a full-blown burlesque, complete with fake commercials and an "entertainment tonight" sequence.

final ceremony was just after lunch. the preamble was typically chinese: a last march to find suitable spots for lots of group pictures. (in all fairness, it was the americans who stage-managed this final trek, but they had learned from the masters.) we filed into the theatre over an hour behind schedule. with twelve groups to take the stage, a time limit was imposed: no one brought out the hook, however, as our group brought down the house in at least triple the allotted time.

grand finale, tearful goodbyes, more pictures- we were on our own until a 6pm bus departure from the hotel. i had a chance to make a last campus meander, check out my old haunts, revisit my morning study hall- the cap on this memory of beijing.



in previous years, the entire group made the train trip to shenzhen together. this year we had to be divided into two groups: the early-departure 24-hour train, and the late-departure 30-hour train. i got assigned to the latter.

we were all bussed together to the station, arriving around sunset; the early folks would have a wait of about an hour for their 8pm train- the rest of us had 5 hours to kill before our midnite departure. the station was even more vast than i remembered; mom and i had been through here on our trip, but the scale of the place just doesn't fit inside your head. even a head as big as mine. the waiting room itself was hardly remarkable, to anyone who's ever been in penn station or a big train depot in europe; but this waiting room was only one of twelve just like it. threading your way through the concourse to find the waiting room, you were sure that nearly all of the 1.3 billion chinese were here for roll call. sitting on our luggage, we were islets in the ebb and flow of the nearly biblical human tide over the five hours; we were awestruck. it was the perfect comprehensive test of our readiness for immersion in chinese culture.

our berth tickets were handed out about an hour before boarding: six bunks per compartment, three high each side. our scramble to board was all you can imagine, but we pulled out on time; auld lang syne was blaring from the speakers. beijing was still flashing by our windows at least an hour after departure- the city is just huge- but on our side of the glass, the party had started. sales carts worked the aisle with noodles, pies, snacks, and of course beer. the compartments reminded me of the old submarines i'd visited with pop. the only place to congregate was on the bottom bunks or in the aisle; we had pretty much occupied an entire car. a few chinese- and james the gerbil- cowered on their assigned shelves and peered out with frightened eyes; this was going to be a long trip for them.

i understand there was a pretty emphatic "lights out" around 2am- i missed it. i made a tentative climb to my assigned top bunk around 1:30am- to be certain that i could make it! personal space gets a little dented with strangers stepping in your bed, but i was surprised to find how pleasant the windowless aerie was once i arrived- the vaulted roof gave lots of headroom, the a/c was good and the bedding was thin but comfortable. and it was quiet; i promptly fell asleep.

it was my first wake-up without my cagemate! the whole carriage slept late, in spite of the "happy travel morning music" from the speakers; it was full daylight when i heard rustling below me, and peered over the edge to see dan on the middle bunk across from me staring out the window. when i asked him where we were, he replied "iowa, i think"; no one had ever seen so much corn.

it was a beautiful day for an eye-popping ride: after the farmland, we traversed rice paddies, the mighty yangtze, canyons and mountains. we saw water buffalo, ancient villages and waterwheels, dams and bridges, nuclear cooling towers and cities of millions that none of us had ever heard of. i tracked our progress on my big map of china, and earned the name "mr. gps" as the go-to guy for location.

like the kids in the grapes of wrath, we giggled at the plumbing on the train: a squat-hole in the floor with daylight flashing under. "don't drop anything!" was the warning passed on to the next occupant; the lavatory was a communal trough in an alcove off the aisle. our meals came from the carts on board, or contraptions wheeled out on the platforms at the station stops. lots of naps and story-telling and card games thru the afternoon; at about 4pm, the party atmosphere rekindled. everyone had stashed a bottle of something; bars were set up and snacks appeared. by dark, all the action was back on our side of the glass...

i think it was near 1am when someone started tuning a mandolin; i started the climb back to my aerie before that got going...

next i knew, the overhead lights were flashing and the chinese anthem was blaring over the speakers; it was 5:30am and we were arriving in shenzhen.

next: by the dawn's early light...

4: another long march...

so started my new days: at 4:30 am, i was vaguely aware of the gerbil's rustling around the room: was it sit-ups? yoga? i still don't know; i wouldn't open my eyes until it clearly became foraging. while he had rice cakes and fruit, i had my shower (while stomp-rinsing a load of sink laundry), brushed, dressed, and fled. i was usually out the door before 6am, when the streets were just coming alive.

my favorite stop was an ancient cart on an adjoining street: on a griddle plate over an iron firepot, a little guy would lay what looked like a doughy pita; with chopsticks, he would prick the top layer, peel it back, and crack an egg into the pocket. spreading the egg around inside, he would re-cover the wound and grill the bread on both sides; after a little browning, he would slide the hot plate aside, and drop the disc down into the firepot, resting it on the side for awhile, facing the flames to crisp it up. at the right moment, back on the grill, a paintbrush swipe of chili sauce, another of garlic/plum sauce, some fresh crunchy lettuce (some mornings cilantro sprigs instead) and a burrito-style roll-up into a sandwich baggie- two yuan (about 24 cents). and a big smile; other carts closer to the hotel, and later to get started, had some funny shish-kabob things, and a lady had a larger egg burrito topped with bean sprouts, but my favorite was the pita guy; next stop was the lotus pool behind the hotel. at this hour, i could do my oral drills- growl and sing out my nascent chinese utterances- with only the flowers and goldfish to suffer.





an hour or so later, this garden would start to come alive (with people eager to converse with a westerner, there was another language school in the adjacent building), and it would be time to move on, closer to my teaching venue on campus, and prepare for the morning activities on a bench by the classroom building.

put aside the heat and overdress, and put aside the grim surroundings, and put aside the friction with brook, and put aside the rudderless curriculum- classes were quite enjoyable. we had a group of eighteen kids, ages 14 thru 16: once past the grinning shyness, they were bright and clever, fun and funny.



we sort of threw out the book for my classes: instead of word drills and simon says, i had them explain stories from the local newspaper to me, and look thru the new york times for articles they wanted me to explain to them. our effort is supposed to be stirring up conversation: they get the grammar from regular english classes. i showed the class the pictures katie and liam took of their house in port chester- special emphasis on toilet, bathtub, kitchen, their bedrooms and contents, and their yard (the pool elicits shrieks every time), then had the class draw a plan and give me a verbal tour of each of their homes. it appears that the one-child policy here is losing ground: a good many of my chinese students have siblings now, judging from their home tours. and household help. and grannies living in the room next to the kitchen... most of these students were children of professors, and had paid steep tuition to rub elbows with we native speakers for three weeks, so i wasn't sure if they were truly representative of china.

first break in the march was a tuesday: we were packed onto busses and trucked to the great wall, at badaling. this was a different spot than the one mom and i had visited on our trip; we walked up on foot (a look at the available cable lift convinced even me) and rode down on a wheeled toboggan in a sheet-metal chute laid on the mountainside.





into the second session: just like the first, only chinese class mornings, teaching practice afternoons. i was living on cantaloupe and watermelon slices from street vendors thru the day (too damn hot to think of food), noodles and beer at night. the bhudda belly i arrived with (no thanks to the barbecue tour) was beginning to shrink. the frat boys (and the little sisters) had established a pretty steady circuit of neighborhood clubbing every night; i ran with the big dogs a few nights, but nothing like my prime. they were impressed that the old fart could even get off the porch...

by the end of the second teaching session, even ol' brooksie came around: dropped the kiddie crap, and came up with a jeopardy game that the kids were crazy about. one kid so reminded me of my new york friend benny lin (such a drama queen, sorry benny...). he lived up to his promise, writing and directing a "network newscast" skit that was a sinister and sarcastic howl. irony barely exists here; discovering satire was a surprise.

next one-day break between sessions was a rainy sunday: the frat boys had put on a helluva party the night before to celebrate, stacking the beds to make room for a bar in one room, dance floor in another. i slept in and skipped the en masse march thru the forbidden city. turns out the virtuous attendees were led in the back door, so they could park the bus. glad i missed it: one of the world's most spectacular spacial sequences experienced ass-backwards. i went back another late afternoon on my own for a re-visit from the front.

third session was chinese classes mornings- tefl classes afternoons. education about education- could have been packed into a quarter of the time: dragging it out didn't make it more profound. i skipped the last class and went to the summer palace- thought i'd been there before, but i was wrong. even though the brits had blown it up in the 1890's, it was reassembled for cixi and puyi and the last chapter of the emporer thing: pretty amazing...



had my chinese oral exam the last morning; we'd finished a full semester in fifteen 3-hour class days. i could (sorta) count, order beer and noodles, and say "go away", "don't have" and "don't want" a few different ways. it was time to graduate...

next: moving on...

3: plebe summer revisited

the situation seemed weirdly familiar: swept far from home, sharing living space with a stranger, and a lifeboat with more strangers, with forced interdependence on urgent projects of dubious significance. then it dawned on me: annapolis! but i was a tender lad of 17 for that adventure- i'm an old man, now. what the hell have i done?

the tuesday morning orientation session dragged on for hours: there were nearly 100 introductions to be made. we had been pre-sorted into 3 groups (based on teaching experience), then subdivided into groups by chinese proficiency. from there we were whittled into alphabetical couples; my spouse- and new teaching partner- was brook roberts, now from boston, originally from kansas. we were to interview each other on 3 or 4 subjects, then introduce each other to the multitude: a sample exercise for conversation classes. everything that happened in that room was to be a lesson: this was our first education class, teaching english as a foreign language (tefl). our other components were to be practice teaching and chinese classes. ideally, one had tefl classes before practice teaching; those of us with prior teaching experience were to start practice teaching first, however. our session 1 was to be 5 straight days, wednesday thru sunday: three 50-minute practice teaching sessions starting at 8:30am, then three 50-minute chinese classes from 1:00pm. like annapolis, there was little time left for reflection...

we were then treated to lunch at one of those soviet-style feeding halls we'd passed (cafeteria-line food was surprisingly good, with lots of variety), herded back for more education (brook and i had to prepare for 3 hours of instruction the following morning), then force-marched again on a campus tour. the miasma from guangzhou had followed us north to beijing; all of china seems to be hazy and brutally humid in august. and hot, hot, hot; the salt rings on my clothes from dried sweat that i normally wear in summer are not to be seen here- because i am never dry. the fog i've mentioned seems to be just that, however- no sting or smell of pollution like i expected. the smell of diesel is less here than in any american city; but clear days were rare this august. i got little from that tour- the full stream of 100 parched, bewildered, light-headed and jet-lagged penitents couldn't hear a word of what was said at the front- but i was able to get some of these shots later, as i learned my own way around.

the campus of peking university is surprisingly beautiful- a cool green oasis in the midst of this huge and dusty city. the imperial summer palace is within walking distance, and the campus lagoons and landscaping date from some nobleman's imitation of it for himself.





the core buildings date mostly from the 1920's, though the university dates from the late 1890's- it was founded somewhere else. lots of turmoil through those years, and photos in the campus museum do little to explain it all, but mao seems to have spent a lot of time there. surprisingly, the main building is called democracy hall; the tianamen square activists were all from peking university. the building below is where we had chinese classes.





our chinese instuctors were graduate students there; they told us everyone jumped into the campus lagoon on the collapse of the soviet union- and say they are eager to do the same for end of chinese communism. (yet most of them were party members, too- go figure.)

the newer parts of campus were bustling with construction; our classroom building for student teaching had barely escaped the wrecking ball this year. it had not escaped the progress, however, as construction was literally at the door...





and i'll bet confucius won't be there for my next visit; this old classroom building behind our teaching building looks particularly vulnerable.

brook had little interest in collaboration; our lesson plans were going to have clear demilitarized zones between them. our initial planning session was an exercise in tight-lipped restraint; our later ones weren't so genteel... as a final military parallel, we were expected to dress the part for practice teaching: dress shirts, no shorts or sandals in the classroom. notice all the open windows in the classroom building below? they didn't do a bit of good... we were on 3rd floor in the center block.



next: another long march...

2: from the far side...

it's been impossible to post to this blog since i've arrived in china: something about "beta versions" and a changeover. now that i'm back in business, there's a lot to catch up on. hope i can get most of the high points down before i forget...

i departed from lax on saturday night, the 29th of july. probably two thirds of the 90+ people in the program were on the china southern airlines flight to guangzhou. we began to pick each other out from the photo sheet that had been distributed by email; it's a pretty young crowd, mostly new college graduates, but i had been assured i wasn't the oldest fart in the group.

fifteen hours from lax, we landed in what looked like a dense fog in early-morning guangzhou, guangdong province, china. we were to clear customs and board another plane for a flight to beijing. now i might of heard of guangzhou before, but i was certainly unprepared for the airport there: it's closest rival would have to be the new lord foster hong kong airport. and that's exactly what it is- mainland china's response to the nearby rival: huge, dynamic, and heroic in scale, lots of tensile fabric and glass curtain, aeronautical styling and high-tech detailing. my friend pete drey complains that walking anywhere with me is like walking the dog: i have to stop and sniff everything. true to form here, i sniffed my way right out the transit lounge and into the main airport traffic; instead of a quiet, controlled plane change, i got to experience the pathways and concourses of the entire airport. which is really what i wanted anyway...

there was still plenty of time to connect with the flight to beijing, which was delayed an hour on the ground in guangzhou, then extended another hour while in the air. once landed in beijing, it was another hour before we could get a spot at a gate- welcome to china. once regrouped in the terminal, we sat on our bags for nearly three more hours waiting for busses to arrive; our noontime arrival was stretching into late afternoon. seems there had been a rainstorm just before noon, and there were some big puddles on the airport access road that the busses couldn't get through. another plane arrived in the meantime, this one from newark and bearing another 20 or so east coast americans from our group; our meet-and-greet was with clenched teeth, and talk of mutiny. my worst fears of travelling in a group were realized...

late afternoom brought two busses; after a forced march thru all the terminals, each with all of our possesions on back or dragging behind, half of the group was loaded up; the rest of us were left standing on the steaming pavement. it was a bit of time before some other busses were commandeered, a mountain of stray luggage loaded, and we were off.

first impression out of the airport was quite positive: beijing has planted a gazillion trees, i assume for air quality improvements for the 2008 olympics. the airport access road is like driving thru sherwood forest; look closely, and you note that the trees are planted like cornfields in the old days. with discernable rows orthogonally and diagonally, no hand of nature in this sherwood forest... our destination was on the fourth ring road- fourth orbit of the forbidden city, and quite a ways out, but maybe 120 degrees around from the airport; along the way we passed the unmistakable new birdsnest stadium, by herzog and de meuron. pretty spectacular, even as a construction site.



we arrived finally at the furama hotel (far right edge in photo above), several blocks from peking university (for some reason, it keeps the old name, while the city is now beijing) and our home for the next few weeks. i was assigned another old fart (one year my senior) as my roommate: james cisar, a part-time gerbil from gary, indiana. everyone crashed on arrival; our first meeting was set for the next morning, tuesday in china.

the gerbil began his rituals at about 4:30am; an exercise and health food enthusiast, james brought rice cakes to china, yes, you read that correctly- lots of rice cakes. and protien powder, and vitamin supplements, and enough pill bottles to cover the only desk that he staked out as his own. in fairness, this routine was to work to my benefit: i was usually fleeing the premises by 6am, and got lots of early morning walks and study in before classes, a new approach for me.

at 8am, we gathered as an army and were marched to a classroom at the university; our initial approach was thru the back gate of the walled campus- thru the bicycle racks, past the laundry and bedding racks for the student dorms, and along the truck delivery road and several soviet-inspired feeding halls. it was pretty grim: a route only an efficient american would choose; that afternoon, a few hundred feet from our destination, i discovered the main ceremonial gate to the university. i mustered out of the army and walked on my own after that; this was then my morning experience:

from the street...



thru the main gate...



over the pond and into the main quad.



there was no mistaking this for someplace else...

next: plebe summer revisited