Eric's Beijing Diary

This evening we are leaving for the countryside. I mentioned previously that I had met a lady from a small village in Shanxi Province. Tonight Lucy is going to be taking me to her village. I asked Jean and Claire, some friends from church, to come with me, and help to assess the situation, because they both have extensive experience working with relief and development organizations. During SARS, they spent four months at a small Catholic orphanage in another part of Shanxi Province.

Tonight we will be taking the sleeper bus out of Beijing. It's a ten hour ride to the city of Lishi, where Lucy will help us catch a local village shuttle to the town closest to her village. She estimates that her village is about a thirty minute hike from there.

I have always avoided sleeper busses like the plague. This time I have no choice, because we were not able to get train tickets because of the holiday. October first is the 55th anniversary of the founding of New China. Bad planning, but this time it isn't my fault. I had originally planned to leave Sunday afternoon on the train. Travel then will be a little lighter. But when I asked Jean and Claire to come with me, Jean said they would like to visit the orphanage where they had worked. I readily agreed to this, because I think it would be helpful for me to see this orphanage.

Moon festival this evening. The revelers are outside partying with their music and games. I was coming out of my class at about 8 o'clock when I ran into a bunch of them at the park. One of them said, "Oh, please sit her and be our special guest!" I knew right then I was in for a bunch of moon cakes. Man, those things are filling!

Went to a banquet at the Great Hall of the People this evening. The Office of Foreign Experts Affairs had organized this event to celebrate the 55th Anniversary of New China. I had a class, but the powers that be had ordered the Software College to change my schedule so that I could be thee. I boarded a bus with other Foreign Experts from here at Beihang University, and we worked our way through Beijing traffic to the center of the city. Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) on one side, and behind it, the Forbidden City. On the other side, the huge square, bordered by the National Museum, Mao's mausoleum, and the Great Hall of the People.

It's hard to say how much the fifties style design of this building was influenced by Russian vs. Chinese architecture. Or perhaps European. It is rather square and plain, but still impressive for its size. Although it is a government building, it is also used as a convention center. Most of the Foreign Experts seemed impressed with it, except for one ABC sitting near me, "Is this some kind of famous place or something?"

The food was very, very good. Very delicious salted fish and lots of other meat and vegetable dishes. That's not unusual for Beijing, still it is always interesting to taste yet another unique course. And everyone seemed to enjoy the food, with the exception of one finicky foreigner, who sat patiently waiting for the fried rice. I guess he was allergic to sea food or something. That's alright. I ate a little extra smoked salmon for him.

This morning on Dialogue, Hazim Hamed, Arab expert with the Xinhua News Agency was talking with Yang Rui about the current quagmire that the war in Iraq has become. He pointed out that Iraq is very much a tribal culture, and that the Americans have become enmeshed in a situation they do not seem to understand. He talked about the growing disillusionment among the people of Iraq concerning the war.

It is hard to get a handle on what the people in Iraq are really thinking, because their opinions are usually represented by someone who has a particular position to defend. I don't know if there is anything approaching a scientific poll in Iraq. But there does seem to be some question in the minds of the Iraqi people whether the Americans, in cooperation with the interim government, are going to be able to stabilize the region.

I am not sure how objective Mr. Hamid's position would be--it's really hard for me to judge. But, if nothing else, it was a reminder of how the Americans have failed once again, to really count the cost of waging war.

World War II was consuming. There was no one in the country who was not touched by it. But somehow Vietnam was different. The poor boys went to war, and the privileged somehow found a way out. For twelve years, now, this country has been ruled by men who were among those privileged, and were able to escape the horrors of war. They never lived in the battlefield. They never felt bullets whizzing over their heads. For this reason, they simply do not have a personal awareness of the horrible cost of war.

The modern American idea of trying to fight a war without an army is hopelessly unhistorical. Of course it is not a bad idea to destroy the materiel of war from the air. But as soon as possible, you must go in with heavy artillery and pound the daylights out of enemy defenses. And then (and this is the part everyone seems to forget), you must go in with the Army. And you need to go in with enough divisions to completely overwhelm the enemy and occupy the territory.

MacArthur ruled Japan as a virtual dictator for five years after World War II. This time, the Americans have rushed to turn over the country to in interim government before they have even begun to secure the area! They clearly do not have control of the country, and they are already declaring victory and relinquishing what little control they have. It's hard to watch. War is a horrible, dark, dirty, disgusting thing. If you find that you must wage war, then you fight to the finish, push the enemy to a full surrender, and bring healing to a broken land. This new American practice of trying to fight a war without an Army is self-defeating. It will never work.

Went to dinner this evening with one of my homeboys from the old country, and a guy from the Caribbean country (actually a British dependency) of Anguilla. The guy from Japan is a student in my Japanese class. He did not go to University, and he is in China trying to learn enough Chinese to be able to do business here. He has a small "arubaito" business selling jewelry, but he told me that he is hoping to get into the auto business. Japan's economy is getting better now, but it is sad to see how Japanese young people struggle so much to try to establish themselves in a profession. Many years ago, Japan was in very much the same position as China. The currency exchange rate when I was a child was 360 yen / 1 dollar. The United States put pressure on Japan to revalue their currency, and the result was disastrous. Japan's economy has been flat for ten years. Now the United States is trying to do the same thing to China. Fortunately, China is a little more independent.

I remember, when I was in college, watching some US Congressmen getting together with sledge hammers and pounding the daylights out of a Toshiba boom box, as a demonstration against the persistence of Japanese exports. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Since that time I have spent seven years as a truck driver. Trying to load steel out of a union steel mill gave me a very real picture of how the labor unions destroyed productivity in the American labor force. It wasn't Japan's fault then, and it isn't China's fault now.

The guy from Anguilla works in a gym and he is here in China visiting his Indonesian girlfriend. He told me something that took me by surprise. He has an EU passport, since he lives in a British colony. Somehow, in the development of the European Union, it had escaped me that the individual countries no longer issue their own passports. Interesting.

Went to the Air Traffic Control exhibition in Beijing today. Lots of interesting displays. Lockheed Martin had a capture of the traffic pattern at Heathrow, and the whole air traffic control system was running on a laptop computer.

Beijing is not a terribly busy airport right now, but the volume of air traffic in China over the next five or ten years is expected to increase by several orders of magnitude. The technology I saw today will not eliminate the need for skilled professionals (particularly skilled pilots and skilled air traffic controllers). But it will allow for a significant increase in volume of traffic without compromising safety.

Another interesting feature of this phenomenon is that companies from Europe that find it all but impossible to compete in the American market, are welcome in China, and are making headway. I talked with a corporate representative from Zurich, and one from Sweden. The guy from the Swiss company told me that it was absolutely impossible for him to break into the American market, but here in China he already has a couple systems in place. China really has become the new "land of opportunity" as far as international business is concerned.

This evening I was going through the roll for one of my evening classes, and a student from Xinjiang Province corrected my statement of his name. I thought perhaps I had mispronounced it. But that was not the issue. He said, "That is my Chinese name, but my real name is Abdullah. We are Muslims."

He is part of the Uygur minority. The Uygur are a Central Asian people who have been in China for about 1200 years. They are largely Muslim. In the past, China seemed to be determined to wipe out, or at least minimize the effects of religion in China. But things have changed. The government seems to have resigned itself to the presence of religion. In some places in Xinjiang, they actually put a the large character for "East" on one wall of all hotel rooms, so that the faithful will know which direction to face when they offer their homage five times a day.

She is from a small village in rural Shanxi Province. Her parents were desperate to give her a good education. She had scored high on the National Entrance Examination, and the opportunity was there to give her a university education. Her father borrowed quite a bit of money--more than he could afford to pay back, but it wasn't enough. Finally, he sold the horse that he used to farm his small plot, and pulled the plow himself. With a horse, it took a few hours to a day. Now it was grueling four day job. She told me that he cried the day he sold his horse.

As I said, her test scores were good, so she could have gone to a very good school, but the tuition was quite a bit lower at the teacher's college, so she decided to go there. After graduation, she returned to her village to teach for a few years, and then was granted admission to the Second Foreign Language Institute in Beijing, where she completed her Bachelor's Degree.

I met an American English teacher on the train from Kunming to Shanghai. He told me about her. He said he had met a lady from Kunming who was trying to start a "crossstitch" business for her home community in Shanxi Province. He said that there were some people in her village who were very good at crossstitch, and she thought perhaps this talent could be used to alleviate the poverty in her home community. I got her email address from him.

It was quite some time before I heard back from her after I had written. She doesn't have a computer, so she is not able to do her email very often--only when she can get to an internet cafe. She sent me her cell phone number, and I gave her a call. I found, to my surprise, that she was now teaching at a small school east of Beijing. Her husband is still going to graduate school in Kunming, but pay is quite a bit lower there, so she came here. Her father is disabled now, so she has to support him, and of course, she also helps to support her husband's education.

I met her this morning at the KFC in Wudaoko. She was very willing to come and meet me, even though it took her three hours by bus. I told her that I am not a businessman, and I don't know what the chances are for starting a crossstitch business. I told her that my primary interest was in bringing volunteers to her community who could help to enhance the education for the young children there. I told her that it might be good if I could visit her home village. She told me that it would take about 10 hours by train, and another four or five hours by bus. I am not sure what I can accomplish by going to her village, but life is like that. Sometimes you don't know until you take a step and see what comes next. We walk by faith and not by sight.

Went to church this morning, and after Church, I had lunch with one of the seminary students. We talked for some time about Christianity in China, and how things have changed in recent years. It really does take some time to get a handle on the condition of the church in China. It's not quite like America. China is still a controlled society. And there is definitely a strong proscription against foreigners coming to China to proselytize Chinese nationals. But having said that, the situation is so much more open now then it was before. I told the seminary student that I view China as being very much like the house that has been "swept and garnished" (Luke 11:24-26). The demon has been cast out--there's no question about that. It's not like before. That sense is overwhelming. But what China will become is an open question. I have two dreams for China, one of them very positive and the other a nightmare. China is definitely a culture and a society at the crossroads. This is perhaps one of the most critical periods in the history of this country.

Last night when I got home, there was a note on my door from one of my neighbors. My neighbor said that he had some of my mail. Needless to say, I was very curious. This morning, I knocked on his door, and he handed me a whole bundle of mail dating back to last January. What happened was that when I gave my forwarding address to the Post Office in Tempe, they put in the name of the University, but not the name of the Software College. So my mail ended up with the Foreign Languages department, probably because they saw the foreign looking name and assumed that I was an English teacher. They just dumped it in someone's box, and it didn't get picked up until this guy (my neighbor) started this fall, and found it in his box.

Even stuff that is addressed to the Software College sometimes ends up taking a long time to get to me, because it sits on someone's desk for quite awhile before I get it. What I have finally come to is having everything sent to my home address, because I do live on campus, and there is only one place for them to put it if it is addressed to my apartment in the teacher's dormitory. Here it is, if you're interested:

Eric Langager
Building 114, Room 1404
Beihang University
37 Xueyuan Road
Haidian District
Beijing 100083 CHINA

I went back to the Stomatology clinic at Peking University today. I had actually scheduled an appointment, but I told them that I really needed to get a good idea what the whole procedure was going to cost me. I had a very hard time getting them to tell me a specific amount. I heard the word "about" quite a bit. Three different dentists quoted me three different prices for a root canal. Finally I found a dentist who wrote down a list of prices for everything. I told them that I had to consider this, and took the list to the Arrail Dental clinic, where I had gone in March. One thing I like about that place is that all their prices are printed. Definite. They never use the word "about." Their quote was considerably less than the medical school, which was curious, because I had always been told that the medical school was cheaper. To be fair, the difference between the two places was about $100 US dollars, which isn't really that much, but I have to pretend that it is, because I am living on a Chinese salary now.

The real lesson, though is that good dental care can be had in China for a price that is a quarter to a third of the American cost. Unless you go to the clinics that are cater to Americans. These clinics play on American fears about going to a Chinese dentist, and charge prices that are many times the market value of the service they offer. They are the real hucksters, and Americans living in China are fooled into giving them unholy amounts of money for a service that is certainly no better than what can be obtained at the medical school or the dental clinic. That statement is a little too broad. They don't fool all the Americans. The US Embassy sends all their personnel to the same clinic I went to. As people begin to wise up, I think the hucksters are going to be hurting for business.

Barter. It's a skill I definitely have not mastered. I really am not comfortable with this, and before I set out this summer, I thought perhaps it was one of those things I could bypass. I don't think I am going to be able to get by this one. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that those who barter start from the assumption that foreigners are rich and more than willing to pay inflated prices. When I got off the cruise ship in Chongqing this summer, I was met by three men who immediately picked up my luggage and started carrying it for me. I had been told by the folks on the ship that there was a taxi that went directly to the bus stop. These guys pretended to be taxi drivers, but they weren't. Instead of taking me to a taxi, they walked me up a series of steps and down a street which led directly to the bus station. Then they stated a price that was considerably more than what a taxi would have charged me. Now, perhaps I shouldn't complain, because most foreigners probably would not have a problem with it--after all, they did carry my luggage all the way, and took me directly to the window I needed. But it was a hustle, and I don't like being hustled. I needed to catch my bus, so I just paid them, but as I was sitting on the bus going to Chengdu, I began to think that perhaps I should have taken a different approach. I had been focusing on the fact that the reason I was hoodwinked was because my language skill is limited, but, although that is probably true, I decided that I would encounter situations like this again, and I should learn how to deal with them. I didn't have long to wait.

Dali and Lijiang are both tourist cities, but Dali is the one where the street side cobblers really went after me. I had to hand it to them--they were pretty aggressive businessmen, and they were excellent craftsmen. Anyway, this street cobbler started pointing to my old tennis shoes and motioning to me to come over to where his equipment was set up. I was actually amused that anyone would think there was a way to fix an old pair of tennis shoes, so I asked him how much it would cost. He held up four fingers, and told me it would be four kuai. I thought that was a pretty low price, so I let him start working. Pretty soon he started noticing more and more things wrong with my shoes, and also started criticizing my backpack. Well, before I knew it, he had put a bunch of patches on my shoes, and rebuilt the strap on my backpack. He told me that I owed him 150 yuan. I refused to pay it, and offered him 20. I realized my mistake then. When he started doing additional things, I should have asked him directly how much each additional thing would cost. Well I was determined to figure out how to do this, so I held firm. We finally settled on a price of 50 kuai, which was a third of what he wanted, but a whole lot more than he had originally quoted me. Fifty RMB really is pretty good money for a street cobbler to be making in China for one job, but in US terms, it comes to about six dollars--three for the backpack and three for the tennis shoes. I guess I will have to call it a good deal. He sowed new rubber heels on my Converse All Stars.

A couple of weeks ago, I was planning to have a party in my apartment, and I had gone with Chanel to the Wudaoko market to buy some dishes, because I was a little short. She looked at one place, and found some dishes. I told her that this was a barter market, so she tried to get a discount. The lady told her very bluntly that she did not give discounts to foreigners. Chanel relayed this information to me. She told me that because foreigners make more money, they are expected to pay more. After finishing at that booth, we started home and realized that we needed some more things. So I told Chanel to go to another booth, and I stayed back where nobody could see me. The lady Chanel talked to quoted her a price which was quite a bit lower than the other place. At this point, Chanel became upset, because she realized that she had been cheated by the first merchant. She wanted to go back to the original place and try to get some money back. I was dubious about this, but I thought it might be interesting to watch, so I told her to go ahead. Needles to say, the original merchant didn't budge. Too late smart. At this point, Chanel said that we needed to talk to the manager of the market. I knew nothing would come of this, but, again, I was curious, so I followed obediently. I watched as she told the manager that the second merchant sold her exactly the same dishes as the first merchant for a much lower price. Since this was a barter market, I knew her complaint would come to nothing--once a merchant and customer have agreed on a price, the deal is over. But I was amused by his answer. He told her that the two items probably looked alike on the outside, but were of very different quality. Oh well. You live and learn.

This morning I went to Haidian Jiaotang, as usual. I was introduced to a lady who has a severely handicapped daughter. Her daughter looked to be in her early teens. She had to be carried. She could not talk or hold herself up. Her mother seemed to be very cheerful, but she obviously is carrying a very heavy burden, in more ways than one. I asked about the daughter, and was told that she was punished by a teacher when she was eight years old and spent seven months in the hospital. When I asked what, specifically, was wrong with her, I was told that she was physically handicapped and mentally handicapped. Very, very strange. Some people have a tough row to hoe.

Things like this are very hard to figure out. Why does God allow this? I just don't know. Somehow the words of the hymn sung by the choir seemed appropriate:

I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.

But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

I know not how this saving faith
To me He did impart,
Nor how believing in His Word
Wrought peace within my heart.

But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.

But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

I know not when my Lord may come,
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.

But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

Tuesday night I went to coffee with some friends--had to use up some coupons. Cathy said, "I can't have anything cold."

"That's fine," I said. "There is plenty of hot coffee here."

"Coffee keeps me awake."

"OK, then how about some tea?"

"I don't want tea."

Hmmm...that narrowed it down quite a bit. But I was up to the challenge. I found the perfect solution. Boiled Cola with Ginger. There's something for everyone.

Went to the dentist today. I got a new crown on the right side in March--this time it's a tooth on the other side that needs a crown. The tooth has actually been in good shape, just broken down to practically nothing. Recently, it has started to feel a little tender when I bite on something, which suggests that it might be cracked. So, I decided to get a root canal and crown it.

This time I went to the medical school. It's quite a bit more cumbersome than going to the dental clinic that I went to previously, but the dentists there are very competent, and I might save some money. I'll let you know. I don't really like having to take someone with me in order to get around, but I do want to see how this process works, because if it is good, I can more or less figure out how to work with it. The dentist took four x-rays. Man, I have had a lot of x-rays in the past year! X-rays for my medical exam before I came, x-rays from the dentist a day before I left for China. X-rays from the medical exam they gave me when I got here. X-rays from my dental visit in March. When I got home this evening, it was a little dark in my apartment, and I noticed that I was glowing (just kidding).

I have been listening to a series of reports on NPR called, On the Road in China. It is a very interesting journal of Rob Gifford's trip along Route 312 from Shanghai to Xinjiang. This highway really exemplifies the economic contrast between Eastern and Western China. It reminds me of the old "Route 66" in the United States, except that the direction of prosperity tends to be the other way. I guess that shouldn't seem strange, since the route from Xinjiang to Shanghai leads away from the poor, remote, rural inland areas to the coast where there is more prosperity.

During the "Dirty Thirties" in the United States, old Route 66 was cluttered with people desperate to get away from the impoverishment of middle America. I wasn't around then, but I can sure relate to it, because I ran that old route more times than I can count during the years when I was on the road. It's all freeways now--55 out of Chicago going down to St. Louis, where you catch 44 and head down to Oklahoma City, where you pick up 40 and head straight west across Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona until you reach Barstow, California. Then you take 15, which comes out of Vegas, down into L.A.

Some day I would like to travel Route 312 heading west out of Shanghai. Or maybe it would be best to start on the other end. I have always wondered what it would be like to hitchhike across China. Maybe I will get a chance--not sure if it would work. It's just not part of the culture here. When I hitchhiked across the United States as an eighteen-year-old kid, there were lots and lots of people who drove by without stopping. But nobody had to wonder what I was doing. In China, they might not be so sure.