Blog Post #12

Beijing Airport, Sat., April 5, 2014

It was early when the alarm went off at 5 this morning, but we finished off the last of our instant coffee and met Pastor Wang for a trip to the Wuhan airport. All has gone smoothly, except that here in Beijing we have a 7-½ hour wait for our flight to Detroit, then on to Minneapolis/St. Paul. No change, it just is the way Delta scheduled us.

I thought I would fill you in on yesterday.  We had no classes to teach yesterday, so took the day to visit the huge provincial museum of Hubei with Lydia directing us and translating for us. First we took the bus about half an hour to the museum. It costs 1 Yuan to ride the bus, that is 16 cents. If you buy a prepaid card it is 12 cents. Buses run frequently and are really crowded but efficient. As we rode through the city we saw cranes everywhere and 50 story buildings rising in all of its corners. Still the city retains its character, with street vendors and little noodle shops and shoemakers holding forth on every corner.

We had visited the same museum last year, but for a short time and without the benefit of translation, so got more out of it this time. Several galleries showed  “100 Luminaries of Hubei Province” and included revolutionaries, generals, government leaders, scientists, artists and writers. I noted that there were no women included and asked Lydia why. She was puzzled too. She said Sun Yet Sen, who became the leader of the 1^st Chinese Republic in 1913 really revolutionized the role of women so she thought there were many who should have been noted. Later, asked the same questions, others said certainly Chairman Mao opened opportunity for women. So I still don’t know the answer to my question.

Lydia told us a couple of interesting stories. First she said her grandmother told her once about being a young girl, maybe 10 years old, maybe as old as 13, and living in a little village between two mountains in southern China, where villages were scattered and villagers seldom saw people from other places. One day, her grandmother was washed and dressed up and put in a box carried on poles by two men, front and back. She was closed up in the box and couldn’t see where she was going. It turned out she was taken to another village and turned over to the family of her designated bridegroom (whom she didn’t know and hadn’t heard about.) She lived with that family for about six years before she was married. Except for visits she never returned to her village. This sounds much like the book Wild Swans. The other story she told was of her grandparents and parents during the time of Chairman Mao. They were (and her parents still are) rice farmers near Guilin. Each morning after they got up and before they went outside to work, they went to the picture of Chairman Mao hanging in their house and talked to him, telling him everything they planned to do that day. At the end of the day, they again talked to the picture of Mao, telling him what they had actually done that day, and how it differed, if it did, from the plans they had at the beginning of the day. Everyone in the village did this (and in all of China). She said they had to, because they never knew who would report on them if they didn’t do it, and there were terrible punishments. Her parents had to memorize Chairman Mao’s Red Book as children.

Lydia said about him now, that he was a sinner, that he did some very, very terrible things, that he killed and hurt many people, but that in some ways he did good things too. She said, “He was a sinner, but I am a sinner too.” And she recognized that he had equalized men and women as they had not been before.

And she felt like that was a period in the past, that the world now in China is much different. She is in her mid-20s so she has not lived through that period and only knows it from stories, though she knows it was terrible.

We took her out for a great lunch, and she choose the dishes. We had a huge bowl of fish and spaghetti-like noodles with a wonderful rich sauce on both, and fiery snow peas, Szechuan style. Jim and I are getter pretty good at chopsticks. In fact people often compliment me on how well I use them. It is hard, though, to pick up flaky fish with chopsticks.

After lunch we headed for the fabric market to pick up Jim’s new sport jacket. It just fit and he was so excited. I have attached a photo of him in it with Lydia. All the vendors fussed over him and were thrilled that he was thrilled.

In the late afternoon, as we were packing, Lydia stopped by with a lovely tea set for us as a parting gift, along with an invitation to meet her at her hometown next tie we come. We really bonded with her in a wonderful way.

Pastor Wang invited us to dinner, along with a couple of other people. One, Abraham, was going to the airport for a 9 o’clock flight, so there was a little business conducted in Chinese at the meal, and then everybody except us took off after goodbyes, and Jim and I stayed a few minutes longer nibbling on the remains.

After that, it was packing and trying to sleep before the alarm early this morning.

I am writing this in Beijing, but will post it in Detroit, once out of Chinese territory. I don’t want to endanger Lydia in any way by sending fro China. People tell us there is surveillance everywhere, though in sophisticated ways that are not obvious, and that people sending emails are always careful about what they disclose. 

It has been frustrating to get news while we have been here. There is a national Chinese TV station broadcast in English, with one perspective. The New York Times, Google, Facebook, and many many other sites are blocked. The internet for public media seems so slow that you give up waiting for a page to come up, and you don’t know whether someone is watching what you are trying to get, or whether it is just that the internet is slow. We have heard lots about Asian news and President Xi’s successful visit to Europe, and about Malaysia Flight 370, as well as about the NBA (the Chinese love basketball) and the international snooker competition, but not much about North or South America or Europe, so we will have a lot to catch up on. But that is a small price to pay for this wonderful experience.

I will post all of these blogs on www.ChinaforCarolyn.blogspot.com when I get home too, so take another look at the photos and comments, or direct others to do so if they are interested!  Thanks for listening!

Carolyn Nestingen