Photo: In flight, upwards towards the Artic Circle."Back to the Future"
As I embark on this adventure, I can’t help but be thrown back to another time, another century, another millennium. The year was 1978, and I was 23 years old. It may be difficult for many people to realize today, yet in those days China was a forbidden land. Since the revolution in 1949 Chairman Mao had effectively closed the borders, thus developing a society that was shielded from the world. The Chinese could not leave, and foreigners were not welcome. He created a remarkably insular, isolated and frustrated society based on both revolutionary and tradition Chinese ideas. It was unlike any place in the world, and when I stepped into it that fall I could only have dreamed of what was to follow. It was the most exhilarating time of my life.
The backdrop to the trip was that I had finished college 19 months earlier and was fortunate enough to have secured a job teaching English in Japan. I spent the next year-and-a-half teaching Japanese students from the age of 4 to 65. Talk about an interesting and very different country, Japan is one. After being there for awhile, and realizing that I could return home going west as easily as going east, I began to imagine a trip through Asia, the Middle East and Europe that I could never have conceived of even 2 years before. With great trepidation, I decided I had to see how the rest of the world lived. So on my own, with a very small backpack, wearing blue Converse sneakers, and $4,000 in earnings from Japan at my disposal through American Express offices, I began the journey around the world. Hong Kong was the first stop.
I had a rough plan of where I was going, and China was definitely not on the list. The simple fact was that the People’s Republic of China was a closed country- or so I had thought. While in Hong Kong, and staying with a college friend, I learned that China had begun to organize government-sponsored tours for foreigners. I was shocked, and elated. Leaving from Kowloon I joined about 50 other tourists in what was part of the first wave of outsiders to travel and move about mainland China. Although highly controlled and neatly organized so that we experienced only the best of what China had to offer, it was thrilling. There I was in Maoist China, a country you could only read about in books.
We arrived to China a mere two years after the death of Mao Tse Tung. At that point, the so-called Gang of Four, who included Mao’s wife, had lost a ferocious battle for control of the communist country and Mao’s legacy. Reformers, led by Deng, began the long, slow process of transforming China from a insular, inwardly-directed, government-run economic model to a more open, engaged, and capitalist one. That was a lifetime away, however, and what we stepped into then was Maoist China.
When we arrived by train to Guanchow, Canton, it was as if we had stumbled into a parallel universe. Everyone stopped and stared at us. There was a 50-foot portrait of Mao in the square by our hotel. The loud speakers blared revolutionary music and public announcements from 6:00am to 9:00pm. There were very few cars on the street. Instead of a long line of cars at the intersections, there were literally hundreds of bicyclists lined up at the red lights. People’s attire varied minimally with most people in the plain, drab black or blue “Mao suits” that seemed to be the only clothes available.
In the days that followed, we visited factories, Buddhist temples, museums, craft centers, and a host of other attractions that painted an idealized version of communist China. I asked a lot of political questions of the translators who gave polite, politically correct responses about the problems of China. We were not naïve enough to believe that we saw “the real China” because that was not on the tour. But in spite of the propaganda and the contrived nature of the tour, what we saw was still breathtaking. Of particular note was the food. Not only were we treated to the 12-course Chinese banquet our last night, we were fed food daily dishes that defied our Western palates because there were so many layers of taste. How sweet it was.
Thanks for listening.
PS: We just went over the ice fields of northern Canada, where the ice is breaking open. Did not see any polar bears.
As I embark on this adventure, I can’t help but be thrown back to another time, another century, another millennium. The year was 1978, and I was 23 years old. It may be difficult for many people to realize today, yet in those days China was a forbidden land. Since the revolution in 1949 Chairman Mao had effectively closed the borders, thus developing a society that was shielded from the world. The Chinese could not leave, and foreigners were not welcome. He created a remarkably insular, isolated and frustrated society based on both revolutionary and tradition Chinese ideas. It was unlike any place in the world, and when I stepped into it that fall I could only have dreamed of what was to follow. It was the most exhilarating time of my life.
The backdrop to the trip was that I had finished college 19 months earlier and was fortunate enough to have secured a job teaching English in Japan. I spent the next year-and-a-half teaching Japanese students from the age of 4 to 65. Talk about an interesting and very different country, Japan is one. After being there for awhile, and realizing that I could return home going west as easily as going east, I began to imagine a trip through Asia, the Middle East and Europe that I could never have conceived of even 2 years before. With great trepidation, I decided I had to see how the rest of the world lived. So on my own, with a very small backpack, wearing blue Converse sneakers, and $4,000 in earnings from Japan at my disposal through American Express offices, I began the journey around the world. Hong Kong was the first stop.
I had a rough plan of where I was going, and China was definitely not on the list. The simple fact was that the People’s Republic of China was a closed country- or so I had thought. While in Hong Kong, and staying with a college friend, I learned that China had begun to organize government-sponsored tours for foreigners. I was shocked, and elated. Leaving from Kowloon I joined about 50 other tourists in what was part of the first wave of outsiders to travel and move about mainland China. Although highly controlled and neatly organized so that we experienced only the best of what China had to offer, it was thrilling. There I was in Maoist China, a country you could only read about in books.
We arrived to China a mere two years after the death of Mao Tse Tung. At that point, the so-called Gang of Four, who included Mao’s wife, had lost a ferocious battle for control of the communist country and Mao’s legacy. Reformers, led by Deng, began the long, slow process of transforming China from a insular, inwardly-directed, government-run economic model to a more open, engaged, and capitalist one. That was a lifetime away, however, and what we stepped into then was Maoist China.
When we arrived by train to Guanchow, Canton, it was as if we had stumbled into a parallel universe. Everyone stopped and stared at us. There was a 50-foot portrait of Mao in the square by our hotel. The loud speakers blared revolutionary music and public announcements from 6:00am to 9:00pm. There were very few cars on the street. Instead of a long line of cars at the intersections, there were literally hundreds of bicyclists lined up at the red lights. People’s attire varied minimally with most people in the plain, drab black or blue “Mao suits” that seemed to be the only clothes available.
In the days that followed, we visited factories, Buddhist temples, museums, craft centers, and a host of other attractions that painted an idealized version of communist China. I asked a lot of political questions of the translators who gave polite, politically correct responses about the problems of China. We were not naïve enough to believe that we saw “the real China” because that was not on the tour. But in spite of the propaganda and the contrived nature of the tour, what we saw was still breathtaking. Of particular note was the food. Not only were we treated to the 12-course Chinese banquet our last night, we were fed food daily dishes that defied our Western palates because there were so many layers of taste. How sweet it was.
Thanks for listening.
PS: We just went over the ice fields of northern Canada, where the ice is breaking open. Did not see any polar bears.
2 comments:
Thanks for the context, Tom, and for the update on your travel.--Al
Tom,
It sounds like you're having an excellent time already. It's great that your trip triggered memories of the previous one. I'm curious to know how China has changed from the time of Mao's rule and what exactly has influenced that change. It seems that overtime they have developed around foreign influences, but I'm sure you will tell us more about them as they are observed. Looking forward to hearing more about your journey as it progresses!
-Megan
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