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From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek
2004 In January of 2004 in accordance with my original schedule, I returned to Australia on annual holidays. I once again flew out of China from Beijing bound for Brisbane, via Tokyo. Flying home to Australia has always been a bit of a pain. My flights from Beijing required me to spend about 11 hours in Tokyo before the last leg to Australia, and my flights from Wuhan required me to spend an equivalent amount of time in Hong Kong before the final leg home. Although less troublesome, arriving in China has still required an overnight stopover in either Hong Kong or Beijing before flying to Wuhan the next day. Flying may be exotic, but the waiting is a killer. It was during that outbound trip that I did my second tour of Beijing's Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Great Wall, and the Ming Tombs. It was also the occasion that I met a young man who told me that he had not improved his English even though he had lived in Australia for 4 years. We had both arrived very late at Beijing Airport Check-In and had to be given the VIP treatment to get us through security and onto the plane in time for departure. We spent a day together walking around Tokyo while waiting for our connecting flights. I don't know what his reasons for being late were, but mine were two fold. The first reason was that the early morning reception staff at my hotel (near the West Beijing Railway Station), did not understand what it meant to have an in-house guest arrive at the front desk with his baggage and credit card, saying, "I want to check out!" on the very day that according to their check-in records, he was scheduled to check out. That in itself was not the total reason for my tardiness. No! That was thanks to a taxi driver who thought that the foreigner would not know that to get to the airport one was required to travel in a zigzag pattern of left and right turns. Even Children can figure out that if you turn left, then right, then right then left, that all you have done is add extra distance to your trip. He was nevertheless an honest driver. He didn't try to cheat the boss or the Government by interfering with the meter. The extra I ended up paying for that trip of course merely came out of his tip. That is to say that the boss and the government earned more from me than he personally did. [A Question: Why is it that foreigners stress that one should not 'tip' in China, whilst at the same time complaining about how little Chinese workers are paid?] My return flight to China in January of 2004 was via Hong Kong, where I had to remain overnight before catching a 90 minute flight to Wuhan next day. I know that Hong Kong is a famous place and is also the pride of China, but personally, give me Hong Hu or SuZhou any day. My next trip was in April while taking time off in Wuhan. My friends Eunice and Tobias took me to see Moshan Park . To date I've been there three times. The second occasion was with a friend while I teaching in Wuhan, and during that visit, I met the tourism officer who invited me to return (free of charge) on a 'better day' to take better photos so that I could help promote the park. She also later invited me to visit the 'MoShan Mei Yuan' which I wrote about under the title: Australian Terrorist at DongHu MoShan Mei Yuan (2006). In May of that year I visited Shenzhen with Zhan Yan, the youngest of my housemates. His mother had invited me to go with the both of them to stay with relatives in Shenzhen, but the week before we left, something came up and she couldn't go. Eunice and Tobias had invited me to Xi'an, and I had had to refuse their invitation. When Zhan Yan's mother told me that she wasn't going with us, I asked Zhan Yan if he especially wanted me to go with him to his relative's home. I explained that I was not upset by the turn of events, but that I could still go to Xi'an, but that if he particularly wanted me to go with him to Shenzhen, then that's what I would do. After telling me that he really wanted me to go with him, and given that the train journey would take time; that I would not be paying hotel or food costs because I would be living in a relatives home; and that we only had a few days, I decided to pay for both of us to fly down. As we were about to set off on our journey, and having made all the travelling arrangements, I got word that his relatives didn't want a foreigner in their house, so I ended up paying for hotel accommodation as well. To add insult to injury, for the 4 days or so that we were in Shenzhen, we didn't even see his relatives. That's life in China! I was to go through a similar experience a few months later, when QC's mother invited me to travel with him to Tianjin in Summer, and stay with family there. Being a little wiser, I told QC to phone his uncle and see if it was indeed acceptable for me to stay in his home. When word came back that it was not acceptable, I decided not to go to Tianjin, but circumstances arose which caused me to change my mind. My school had informed that I was required to teach in an onsite Summer camp, and given how 'organised' such things are in China, I decided that I needed to 'get away' from all the confusion that was bound to descend. I informed the school that I would only come back once I had received exact notice about all the details. So on July 3rd QC and I flew to Tianjin, and despite numerous events which you can read about for yourself (Tianjin), I do have some nice memories of that trip. A week later I Left QC in Tianjin to spend the summer with his family, checked out of my hotel, and returned to HongHu. There I discovered that the foreign teachers (17 in all), had arrived in Hong Hu in accordance with the schedule they had been given, but that date turned out to be one week earlier than the final starting date for the camp at my school. Being somewhat left to their own devices, and yet confined to their hotel, they were not in their best moods when I finally met them. I doubt that they found their experiences to be very exotic. During that camp I met a young university student who turned out to be the son of my dry cleaner. After the camp was over it was my great pleasure to dine in their home, and to be invited to the local swimming hole to swim with the family, and it transpired during this time that I mentioned that I intended going to visit the Catholic priests in PuQi - now called Chibi City, and that later in the holidays, I wanted to go to YiChang to visit the three gorges dam. The outcome of such discussions was that on August 11th 2004 Chen Yang, Tobias, and myself went off to PuQi to visit the Catholic Priests (I wanted to talk to them about abandoned babies); and on August 16th, Chen Yang and I went on a Chinese boat trip up to SanXia (3 gorges). These two trips stand out in my mind as the extreme ends of what might be termed 'exotic'. PuQi - the old name for the City, is an ordinary Chinese town about 2 hours drive from Xindi (HongHu), provided you don't get held up too long at the Ferry Crossing to Chibi town/village. I have some photographs of the bridge we walked over, and of the boys climbing the pylons underneath the bridge. Those photographs, like the ones of the River in YiChang, conjure up images for me of 'old China'. Those are the images which for me are 'exotic'. Another exotic experience was attending early morning mass in PuQi. Of course attending a church in China does, if you have a conscience, stir up a lot of guilt. I mean to say, how could , a 'rich western foreigner' be cheap come collection time. On the other hand, how can one be ostentatious in giving at collection time. Certainly an awkward position. My conversations with the priests (thanks to the interpreting skills of my friends) were certainly a marvel, although I surprised everyone at one point. I can't right now remember what it was that I wanted to convey to the Priest, but my interpreters were having a very hard time of it. Finally I had a thought. Given that he was an old man and had been in ministry before hardliner communism took hold, I figured that he would probably understand either Greek or Latin. So at one point I used one or other of these languages to convey my meaning; and he understood. That he then had to translate for me was certainly a laugh! It is the many conversations that I have had with ordinary Chinese, under ordinary circumstances, that provide me with the fondest memories of China. It's great to be able to describe 'things' that you seen, but it is altogether a different feeling to be able to relate meaningful conversations that one has had. A few days after our trip to PuQi, Chen Yang and I set off for the Three Gorges. I wish I had seen the place before they flooded it, but not to worry though, living in China means that I get to see all the normal everyday TV programs about the various places in China, and I have had the privilege of watching a documentary on all that happened before the dam really got underway. If you ever have the chance to go there, please do. I took a Chinese tour, which means that I paid about 20% of what you will pay, but then again, you will probably be provided with spacious cabins, western food, and English commentary. If they give the same commentary in English, as the Chinese get in Chinese, I feel certain that you will be just as mystified as I was. (That mountain top is famous because it looks like Mao Zedong - That one looks like a mother breast feeding her child. Get the picture?) I currently have 1000's of photographs, but of them all, there are three that just take my breath away. One was taken from the bank of the creek that is opposite MingXing's home. Taken as the sun was coming up, it is a photograph of a natural 'red coloured' sky. One photograph which I took recently was taken on Mt. Emei in Sichuan, and is surreal because the place just 'sits in the clouds'. The other one, which was taken on my trip to the three gorges, is of the most beautiful blue coloured sky that you could imagine. Mountains on the left and right ran down into the river, and the blue sky beyond was just so blue that everyone thinks that I 'adjusted' the colour. Sometimes nature's beauty is just too unbelievable. In addition to the wonderful sights I saw in the Summer of 2004, and the conversations I had with people like the priests from PuQi, the friendship and comraderie of my Chinese traveling companions was what really made my trip. Everyone needs someone close or at least someone close by to help them get through the drugery of life. Since my brother was teaching in another province in 2004, and with Mingxing and QC now finished high school, and given that Zhan Yan was about to enter his final year at Junior Middle school and so wouldn't be staying with me anymore, I prepared to return to the new semester in HongHu without house guests, and without having anyone close to keep me on an even keel. I was about to find myself very much alone. Or so I thought! These stories now appear in the book: R.P.Bendedek Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com
"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls. © Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star |
