2006 02 China

China
A Chance in a Lifetime

This may seem backward to you, but China for me started with Greece! At the Berkeley Breakfast Club one Autumn morning about eleven years ago, our speaker was Professor Stephen Miller, of the Classics Department at the University of California, Berkeley (“Cal” for short). Professor Miller described his amazing discoveries at the Olympic Stadium in Nemea. He made the work at Nemea his lifelong study. Professor Miller, (I now call him Steve) had opened up the ancient stadium to the point where it actually could be used as a stadium. The Cal connection to Nemea was very strong due to the scholarly work he had done and the support of both the University and the Greek Government Department of Antiquities. To celebrate his work, Steve had planned a wonderful re-creation of the original Olympic games. Nemea was one of four sites for these ancient games. To further the Cal-Greece connection, he wanted some trumpet heralds…members of the Cal Band…to go to Nemea and announce with their trumpets the start and conclusion of the various events.

After the presentation that Friday morning, I went up to Professor Miller and said, “I have a son who is a trumpeter in the Cal Band”. He responded, “That’s great. Have him call me”. So I went home that night and told our son about the possibility of a trip to Greece. I told him that I thought this would be a chance in a lifetime which he should probably do. He called Professor Miller right away. We were not in a financial position to fund the trip, but I didn’t want that to quash the possibility. The connection was made and Steve found the money to support three Cal Bandsmen for the trip. That summer E went to Greece, ran a footrace at the Nemea games, won a coveted celery wreath, played his trumpet, had a good time and indeed had an experience of a lifetime.

So how does this relate to China? One day at the office I received a call from a friend of mine from San Francisco. He asked if I would be excited to play a concert in Davies Symphony Hall, home of the San Francisco Symphony. I had played there before, so that experience was something I wasn’t super keen on, especially if it didn’t pay, which it didn’t. But then he told me that the featured star for the concert was Art Linkletter of 1950’s television fame. That made it a bit more interesting, so I said I’d do it. He then said, “There’s one more thing. Following the appearance in San Francisco, the orchestra is going to China. Do you want to go with them?” It was scheduled for November, just a few weeks away. I already had certain commitments, not the least of which were my family and my business. One son in college with two children yet to have that experience, didn’t seem like a good use of our family resources at the time. Besides, I really never had the desire to go to China. So I told him no on the spot. He asked if he could fax me the information anyway? I said, okay. So the fax came and I took it home and laid it on the dining room table, thinking that was the end of it until the paper was thrown away.

E came home that night and saw the announcement of the China trip and said, “What’s this?” I replied, “Oh, a friend faxed that to me. I’m not going to do it”. E said, “What? This looks like a chance in a lifetime, you should go”. So after some discussion with R and the children, I did decide to go to China with the Veterans Affairs National Medical Musical Group. What follows is my story of that trip.

We left San Francisco and headed north almost to Alaska then down the other side of the Pacific Rim, avoiding North Korea and landing in Shanghai. They processed us through China customs, then we immediately boarded another airplane to fly to Beijing. Naturally we arrived very tired, but we still had a bus ride to the “foreigner” hotel. So that this doesn’t become a boring travelogue, I’ll just share a couple of incidents which made the trip memorable.

The duet
We met our Chinese orchestra partners in a cold theatre for our rehearsal. I was playing concertmaster so the top Beijing Conservatory Student was assigned as my stand partner on the first desk of violins. He spoke decent English and played very well. During the rehearsal break, he and I were “fiddling” around with the simple Minuet in G. Conductor Victor Wahbe heard us and asked if we would play it for the concert. Indeed, we did. That one piece, with just the two of us and a bit of piano accompaniment is the number which brought the house to its feet in wild applause.

The bicycle ride
Since my stand partner and I had become friends, I wanted to visit with him on his turf, so to speak. I needed to figure out how to leave the tour group and get to the Beijing Conservatory, about three miles across Beijing. My choices seemed to be a taxi or a bicycle. At the Hotel desk, I asked for a good map (of course in Chinese) and how to obtain a bicycle. For a small deposit, I could rent a bicycle, which I did. They wheeled out a beautiful new bicycle which looked as if it had never been ridden. Anticipating that I might get lost I used a key chain compass and a map to verify directions. The bicycle worked very well, so off I went to find the Conservatory.
From time to time, I checked my map against the street signs and the compass. Confidently, I made my way across town. The streets are very wide, with bicycles, foot traffic and automobiles having separate lanes. Being tall and blond among many Chinese and having the only bicycle with a brown seat were two of the identifiers which made me stick out in a crowd. About a mile from the hotel, with two miles to go, the right pedal of the bicycle fell completely off. Now what was I to do? Bicycling with only one functional pedal is almost impossible. With a combination of using it like a scooter and walking, I finally made my way to the Conservatory.
When I got there, I took out my little notebook and showed the Chinese characters with the address on it to a passer-by. She told me to go into a building and up the stairs to a particular room. I’m glad I did, because what I found was not my friend, but I did get a glimpse of a dark and crowded dormitory with all the normal mess you’d expect of college students in any country. Asking for directions again by pointing to my book, they indicated that my friend was in another six story building in the practice rooms on the fifth floor. That’s where I went. In the concrete stairwells, the single light bulb for each level operated by a motion sensor…a tribute to the Chinese being very energy conscious. There was an elevator, but as I remember, it was off limits except for certain hours.
We did make the connection. My friend played a movement from the Brahms violin concerto for my comments, which he welcomed. His violin was a decent German manufactured student instrument. Then I discussed with him my need to fix the bicycle. He told me that he knew of a place we could get it fixed. So we walked down the stairs, I got the bicycle from the bicycle rack and we wheeled it under the main thoroughfare to a dirt sidewalk. He said. “I think it’s just over here”. Expecting to find a small shop, I was surprised to see a single man with a tiny tool kit kneeling on the dirt sidewalk. My friend said this is our bicycle repair shop. Within seconds, the problem was explained and the repair man had dis-assembled the entire pedal mechanism, leaving the parts on the dirt. He then proceeded to ignore us while he finished his previous customer. It was as if he took it apart first to keep us from leaving if we got impatient with how long it took him to finish the previous job. Once he came back to us it was a matter of five minutes before he had it fixed. Everything he needed, from ball bearings, to grease were contained in his little kit. From that point it worked fine. He asked for a few Yuan in payment, but my friend insisted on paying over my objections.
Following the bicycle repair, I was invited to lunch as a treat. We went up an small alley to a little restaurant. The bathroom was a tiled area with a single small hole in the floor. For lunch, I was treated to a scrumptious meal with many courses, of course served with the chop-sticks. Special memories came from the chicken feet delicacy and the spicy squid served on a burning hot iron skillet.

The trip to Benpo, near X’ian
The group flew to X’ian for a few days. We played a concert there, but had plenty of time to explore the sites. One of those sites was an excavation of a very early Chinese village. They had a nice archeological dig now sheltered with a building, where they unearthed some ancient artifacts which helped to explain some of the ancient farming customs through good scholarship. Right next to the dig was a women’s museum. While we didn’t have time to explore that as well, the attraction was made more interesting because of it’s six foot high breasts which formed the entrance to the museum. That was totally unexpected, as I imagined such things would have been censored.

The Terra Cotta Soldiers
Also in X’ian are the famous terra cotta soldiers. They were discovered by a farmer who started to dig a well, but hit something hard in the clay soil. That farmer was actually present in the museum, and available for signing books. The excavation continues. Each soldier was taken from a real live model and is unique in the folds of the uniform, the weapon carried and the look of the face. The building which was constructed around these amazing artifacts is very large. I was impressed with the vast number of statues all lined up in formation.

Health Care
Since we were on a Medical Musical tour, we had several visits to health facilities planned. Our bus guide spoke fine English and was willing to answer questions about the health care as well as insurance, a topic of interest to me. I asked him about the problem of “over utilization” since health care is free to the first born child. He said that is a problem they’re working on. They are now going to a system where there is a charge for every visit. They are considering going to a plan of deductibles and co-pays. I found that fascinating to compare that with our system and those advocating for a single payer government sponsored system. Visiting the hospital in Beijing was also fascinating. There were hallways with wheelchairs and drip systems for plasma. Patient’s families were sitting there with the patients waiting to be seen. Obviously there were not enough rooms for the demand. We were ushered into a room with a doctor seeing a little girl patient. It was a private room, but with a single bare light bulb in the ceiling. They graciously showed us that they were providing care, but there was little in the way of monitoring equipment or technology. Just a bed with the intravenous drips. The girl must have been about four years of age and suffering from dehydration due to the flu.

The Great Wall and the hat purchase
One of the fun side trips we took was to the Great Wall. It was quite a long bus ride from our hotel, but worth the trouble. As we neared the mountains, the road got narrower and narrower. We generally followed the slope up one side of the valley. Finally, we could see a bit of the wall extending off into the distance. The bus pulled into a very broad parking lot and we were instructed how long we had to visit. Overall, we had about four hours. So I climbed up the very steep huge steps up the wall. The watch towers were spaced so they could see each other. The wall is wide enough to allow many foot soldiers to move freely to meet any breach of the wall. At some points, the wall was very level. Even in the watch towers, it was quite cold with the wind blowing through the openings. I managed to get to a point where the wall is no longer maintained. I could see the remnants of it off in the distance, but clearly, it had fallen into rubble and was only maintained for short distances for the entertainment of tourists.
After purchasing a cheap T-shirt at one of the outposts from some entrepreneurial locals, I made my way back to the parking lot, the official gift shop and the independent vendor stalls where they were selling all manner of souvenirs. One of our party had purchased a Mongolian fur hat. I asked her how much. She said, 60 Yuan (about $10). Being almost Christmas and seeing a bargain, I went over to the first fur hat vendor and asked if he could sell me five hats for 100 Yuan. He said no. I went down the line to the next vendor with the same proposition. The same answer. At the third vendor, he said no, but when I started to walk away, he said “wait”. They all know enough English to conduct their business. Sure enough, he brought out five of the fur hats and I paid him 100 Yuan. We enjoyed wearing them at our winter vacation in Tahoe that year. From time to time, I still bring mine out, as it is very warm. They’re made from rabbit and are dyed black. The dye does run if it gets too wet, so I generally will only wear it on cold, non-snowy days.

The walled (Forbidden) city
One of the fascinating things to see in Beijing is the forbidden city. Basically, it was the campus of royalty. As you would imagine, it is very large. On one side were the female attendants to the emperor and the other side were the soldiers (male). Eunuchs (castrated males) kept the women in their place and did the bidding of the emperor in finding the right lady when he needed companionship. There was a device like an early American stock, but only two holes instead of three. We were told that this was the device used to measure the lady’s dimensions to see if she measured up to the emperor’s expectations. Thousands were employed to serve the emperor and I am sure he was made to feel very important. He had his own theatre. There was a significant space between his quarters and the performers. I am sure that if you had business with the emperor, you were duly impressed as you entered the very large buildings. All of the buildings had high thresholds to keep the evil spirits out. Unless you were very privileged, you entered from the side doors, rather than the central doors.

Church
One of the most moving experiences I had in China was attending church. I couldn’t understand a word that was spoken, but I can tell you that the Chinese Christian church empowers a passion among it’s worshipers which is unmatched anywhere. The singing, the praying, the spoken word all evoked a response in me which brought the world close. These are people living their God-given lives with the same struggles and challenges any other people have. They embraced the spirit of God in their worship. Afterwards, a lady came up to me, gently grabbed my head and put her forehead on mine and said a prayer which led her to tears. I made a nice plate offering which I hope has made a difference in these lives.


©Frank Bliss 2006 All rights reserved
February, 2006