By Kathleen Dixon Donnelly
Perhaps as a result of my experience teaching throughout Southeast Asia on Semester at Sea in the summer of 2006, at my university I have recently inherited the role of Link Tutor with Guilin University of Technology in China. Three times each year I will travel to Guilin to recruit students to join the marketing course with my university in Birmingham, UK, teach classes, and then oversee the academic results of the students who will come. On each of these trips, My Irish Husband Tony can come with me [at our expense, of course].
So, as an addendum to the Dixon Donnelly in Asia blogs I wrote on Semester at Sea, below are two blogs to cover the two weeks we just spent in Beijing and Guilin.
I'd love to know what you think-- kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Saturday, 28 November, 2009, Guilin: Getting Out of China
It’s been an interesting week in Guilin, southern China…
Sunday
We arrive in Guilin after a three-hour flight south from Beijing. Much warmer. And the Sheraton is five star, and all week proves to be a little touch of Park Avenue right in the middle of Guilin.
As advised by all, we spend the evening on the city river cruise, narrated in Chinese, and discover a real wine bar—with real wine!—operated by Clarence, born in Shanghai, who moved here after years in California, and end the evening listening to the jazz duo in the lounge bar of the hotel.
Monday
I finally get a reply to my messages to my liaison with the university, Echo, who tells me she missed us at the airport and didn’t know we would be gone all day today on the highly recommended River Li day cruise. I assure her I’ll be back first thing Tuesday morning. Well, haven’t I made a good first impression on the new job?
The cruise takes us through the beautiful mountains of southern China, pictured on the 20 yuan note. We meet an American woman who has fallen in love with the country while teaching English in Szechuan province for five years. Tony and I imagine Szechuan overrun with Chinese kids speaking English with Arkansas accents.
Because of the drought, the ‘river’ is so low that we finish the trip to by bus. Our tour guide has arranged a terrific hotel for us in Yangsho, and smoothes things over when we discover we were expected to bring our passports with us. We have the local delicacy, fish cooked in beer, at the recommended restaurant, which appears to be a hang out for some interesting Chinese mafia characters.
Tuesday
We awake early to the sun rising over the local McDonald’s and get the bus back to Guilin so I can start work. The dusty air on the road doesn’t help Tony’s cough, which is spreading to me; the air feels worse than in Beijing.
My fellow teacher from Birmingham, Kathy, who has been doing this gig for the past few years, meets me in the hotel lobby and we are off to the university in a van with Echo. Guilin University of Technology [GUT], 20 minutes away, has a large modern campus behind a big gate. We meet with Jeffrey, the head of the management school, in his office and discuss our schedule. He invites us all to the first of many dinners.
At a lovely restaurant, across the street from the local Wal-mart, Tony and I meet other faculty and assure Jeffrey we’ll try new foods, but not pigs’ stomach. The director of the university’s international programs, Judy, invites us to lunch the next day.
The chili pepper that lodged in my throat doesn’t help the cough that is seeping from Tony to me, so we opt for bed early.
Wednesday
At a pharmacy around the corner I buy herbal remedies for our colds, but then, off to campus for lunch. Kathy steers clear of both of us, worried that she will catch our germs and not be allowed to board the plane home on Saturday.
Judy, our hostess, leads us through the student cafeteria, then upstairs, past the restaurant where the students with more money eat, and upstairs again to a private dining room she has reserved. Tony and I hide our coughs by swilling Diet Coke.
Kathy and I go back to her on-campus apartment to work on the presentation—from opposite sides of the room—that we’ll give the students that night. Even so, after I change at the hotel and come back to campus, she tells me she doesn’t think I should go. I’m terribly disappointed but she is right—I’m in danger of infecting Kathy and all the Chinese wearing face masks, and also, I feel like crap.
After a long rest at the hotel, Tony convinces me I need to get out, so we end the evening at Clarence’s wine bar down the street. And then to bed.
Thursday
Jeffrey takes me to meet the other marketing faculty, where I try to hide my cold by coughing into Kleenex. As we chat about what I’ll teach next April, in walks Kathy, coughing into a handkerchief. She’s got it too.
She hands me the presentation to give to the second group of students tonight.
But it’s Thanksgiving! Determined to have a traditional dinner, Tony and I wolf down tough turkey, crispy Brussels sprouts and some weird but tasty ‘mashed’ potatoes at the hotel before I take off with Jeffrey, out to GUT’s more modern campus.
The 100 or so students are interested in our program, but I’m not sure they get all my jokes. They love the video Kathy brought showing the GUT students currently in Birmingham enjoying themselves in class and in their western apartments. Afterwards, a few of those planning to enroll in the program chat with me, and leave saying, ‘Thank you for your fabulous presentation.’
On our way out, Jeffrey and I walk past students practicing hip hop routines.
On the drive back, along the dusty road from Yangsho, I ask him about the background of the students who go to GUT. Education isn’t free, and coming to our program in England is even more expensive. How do their parents afford it?
The GUT students, he explains, did not have high enough marks to go to prestigious schools, like Beijing University, but studying in England will open up new opportunities for them. If their English is good enough.
‘Their parents have done well with the new economy,’ he explains. ‘Some would have started businesses at the very beginning, and want to invest in their children’s future. With an English degree they will be able to live and work in other countries, but could also get good jobs in western companies in China.’
Jeffrey also mentions that, when he visits our campus in February, he would like to discuss enrolling in our Ph.D. program.
Friday
Jeffrey has invited Tony and me to ‘Sports Day’ on campus, where the faculty and staff take part in basketball, rope skipping and relay races with the students serving as referees.
While waiting outside Jeffrey’s office, we meet the American who teaches English at GUT. When I explain that I’m recruiting for the Birmingham program, he asks what kind of support we give the students to help them with culture shock. I realize that, except for intensive English classes for the few weeks before the semester begins, we really don’t do much to help these Chinese students, many away from home for the first time, make the transition to western life. No wonder they socialize only with each other and cluster together in classes.
At the games, we meet Jeffrey’s wife, an accountant at the university, and their two-year old son. They’re thrilled with the Aston Villa and England football shirts we’ve brought for them. There’s another lunch, at a restaurant near campus, and one last dinner invitation for our last evening.
Our coughs are subsiding, and we feel better in the warm sun, but it’s been a long week and we’re leaving tomorrow for Beijing. Tony and I buy all the souvenirs we need for some of you lucky readers back home, and see Kathy and her family for the last time at the dinner. The evening ends at Clarence’s, with real red wine.
Saturday
Off to the airport, still hiding our dwindling coughs, for the flight back to Beijing. Along the way we pass miles of construction, new apartment buildings going up, highways connecting. Lots of dust.
Over the next few years, how many young Chinese will feel the need to leave when there is more opportunity for them here at home?
Watch this space.
Epilogue
Often the last night of a long trip produces the biggest surprises.
On our first trip on the Beijing subway, we were helped by a lovely young woman with good English named Camille. As we parted, we gratefully asked for Camille’s e-mail address. We contacted her during the week and asked her to meet us at our hotel on Saturday, our last night in Beijing, so we could treat her to a meal.
Camille showed up with her friend Iris, and we invited them to join us for dinner. Once again, Chinese women live on air and water. Cheap dates.
Camille is a photographer and shares an apartment with Iris, a student at the Film Academy. They grew up together in a small town south of Beijing and their Chinese names are Chen Chen and Yu Yu. Really. We had a chat about popular culture; Iris is fond of European films like Trainspotting and Amelie. Good taste, Iris.
Then they asked, ‘Do you like coffee? Our friend has a coffee shop and very good cheesecake.’
Ever conscious of our advancing age and our long trip back home tomorrow, we asked,
‘Is it close by?’
‘No, we will take a taxi.’
‘What the heck!,’ I said to My Irish Husband Tony.
So there we were in a taxi with these two gorgeous young Chinese women, racing through expressways heading north in one of the largest cities in the world, with no idea where we were going. Tony turned to me and said, ‘Should we be worried?’
‘I don’t think so. But if he pulls into a dark alley, and they start speaking perfect English and get out whips, we’re in trouble.’
The driver did indeed pull down a dark street. We followed Camille and Iris past a brightly lit store to a funky coffee shop with wicker chairs, couches, very few customers, soft jazz in the background, and a big fat adorable white cat. We sat in a booth, had coffee and the best cheesecake ever, and Iris confided that it was Camille’s birthday. They had celebrated with friends the night before so she could spend time with her new friends from England tonight.
Safely back in our hotel, hugging us in the lobby, Camille and Iris volunteered to come with us to the airport the next morning. We told them we would be fine on our own, but we promised to keep in touch by e-mail and see them the next time we are in Beijing.
The perfect ending to a perfect trip.
Sunday
We arrive in Guilin after a three-hour flight south from Beijing. Much warmer. And the Sheraton is five star, and all week proves to be a little touch of Park Avenue right in the middle of Guilin.
As advised by all, we spend the evening on the city river cruise, narrated in Chinese, and discover a real wine bar—with real wine!—operated by Clarence, born in Shanghai, who moved here after years in California, and end the evening listening to the jazz duo in the lounge bar of the hotel.
Monday
I finally get a reply to my messages to my liaison with the university, Echo, who tells me she missed us at the airport and didn’t know we would be gone all day today on the highly recommended River Li day cruise. I assure her I’ll be back first thing Tuesday morning. Well, haven’t I made a good first impression on the new job?
The cruise takes us through the beautiful mountains of southern China, pictured on the 20 yuan note. We meet an American woman who has fallen in love with the country while teaching English in Szechuan province for five years. Tony and I imagine Szechuan overrun with Chinese kids speaking English with Arkansas accents.
Because of the drought, the ‘river’ is so low that we finish the trip to by bus. Our tour guide has arranged a terrific hotel for us in Yangsho, and smoothes things over when we discover we were expected to bring our passports with us. We have the local delicacy, fish cooked in beer, at the recommended restaurant, which appears to be a hang out for some interesting Chinese mafia characters.
Tuesday
We awake early to the sun rising over the local McDonald’s and get the bus back to Guilin so I can start work. The dusty air on the road doesn’t help Tony’s cough, which is spreading to me; the air feels worse than in Beijing.
My fellow teacher from Birmingham, Kathy, who has been doing this gig for the past few years, meets me in the hotel lobby and we are off to the university in a van with Echo. Guilin University of Technology [GUT], 20 minutes away, has a large modern campus behind a big gate. We meet with Jeffrey, the head of the management school, in his office and discuss our schedule. He invites us all to the first of many dinners.
At a lovely restaurant, across the street from the local Wal-mart, Tony and I meet other faculty and assure Jeffrey we’ll try new foods, but not pigs’ stomach. The director of the university’s international programs, Judy, invites us to lunch the next day.
The chili pepper that lodged in my throat doesn’t help the cough that is seeping from Tony to me, so we opt for bed early.
Wednesday
At a pharmacy around the corner I buy herbal remedies for our colds, but then, off to campus for lunch. Kathy steers clear of both of us, worried that she will catch our germs and not be allowed to board the plane home on Saturday.
Judy, our hostess, leads us through the student cafeteria, then upstairs, past the restaurant where the students with more money eat, and upstairs again to a private dining room she has reserved. Tony and I hide our coughs by swilling Diet Coke.
Kathy and I go back to her on-campus apartment to work on the presentation—from opposite sides of the room—that we’ll give the students that night. Even so, after I change at the hotel and come back to campus, she tells me she doesn’t think I should go. I’m terribly disappointed but she is right—I’m in danger of infecting Kathy and all the Chinese wearing face masks, and also, I feel like crap.
After a long rest at the hotel, Tony convinces me I need to get out, so we end the evening at Clarence’s wine bar down the street. And then to bed.
Thursday
Jeffrey takes me to meet the other marketing faculty, where I try to hide my cold by coughing into Kleenex. As we chat about what I’ll teach next April, in walks Kathy, coughing into a handkerchief. She’s got it too.
She hands me the presentation to give to the second group of students tonight.
But it’s Thanksgiving! Determined to have a traditional dinner, Tony and I wolf down tough turkey, crispy Brussels sprouts and some weird but tasty ‘mashed’ potatoes at the hotel before I take off with Jeffrey, out to GUT’s more modern campus.
The 100 or so students are interested in our program, but I’m not sure they get all my jokes. They love the video Kathy brought showing the GUT students currently in Birmingham enjoying themselves in class and in their western apartments. Afterwards, a few of those planning to enroll in the program chat with me, and leave saying, ‘Thank you for your fabulous presentation.’
On our way out, Jeffrey and I walk past students practicing hip hop routines.
On the drive back, along the dusty road from Yangsho, I ask him about the background of the students who go to GUT. Education isn’t free, and coming to our program in England is even more expensive. How do their parents afford it?
The GUT students, he explains, did not have high enough marks to go to prestigious schools, like Beijing University, but studying in England will open up new opportunities for them. If their English is good enough.
‘Their parents have done well with the new economy,’ he explains. ‘Some would have started businesses at the very beginning, and want to invest in their children’s future. With an English degree they will be able to live and work in other countries, but could also get good jobs in western companies in China.’
Jeffrey also mentions that, when he visits our campus in February, he would like to discuss enrolling in our Ph.D. program.
Friday
Jeffrey has invited Tony and me to ‘Sports Day’ on campus, where the faculty and staff take part in basketball, rope skipping and relay races with the students serving as referees.
While waiting outside Jeffrey’s office, we meet the American who teaches English at GUT. When I explain that I’m recruiting for the Birmingham program, he asks what kind of support we give the students to help them with culture shock. I realize that, except for intensive English classes for the few weeks before the semester begins, we really don’t do much to help these Chinese students, many away from home for the first time, make the transition to western life. No wonder they socialize only with each other and cluster together in classes.
At the games, we meet Jeffrey’s wife, an accountant at the university, and their two-year old son. They’re thrilled with the Aston Villa and England football shirts we’ve brought for them. There’s another lunch, at a restaurant near campus, and one last dinner invitation for our last evening.
Our coughs are subsiding, and we feel better in the warm sun, but it’s been a long week and we’re leaving tomorrow for Beijing. Tony and I buy all the souvenirs we need for some of you lucky readers back home, and see Kathy and her family for the last time at the dinner. The evening ends at Clarence’s, with real red wine.
Saturday
Off to the airport, still hiding our dwindling coughs, for the flight back to Beijing. Along the way we pass miles of construction, new apartment buildings going up, highways connecting. Lots of dust.
Over the next few years, how many young Chinese will feel the need to leave when there is more opportunity for them here at home?
Watch this space.
Epilogue
Often the last night of a long trip produces the biggest surprises.
On our first trip on the Beijing subway, we were helped by a lovely young woman with good English named Camille. As we parted, we gratefully asked for Camille’s e-mail address. We contacted her during the week and asked her to meet us at our hotel on Saturday, our last night in Beijing, so we could treat her to a meal.
Camille showed up with her friend Iris, and we invited them to join us for dinner. Once again, Chinese women live on air and water. Cheap dates.
Camille is a photographer and shares an apartment with Iris, a student at the Film Academy. They grew up together in a small town south of Beijing and their Chinese names are Chen Chen and Yu Yu. Really. We had a chat about popular culture; Iris is fond of European films like Trainspotting and Amelie. Good taste, Iris.
Then they asked, ‘Do you like coffee? Our friend has a coffee shop and very good cheesecake.’
Ever conscious of our advancing age and our long trip back home tomorrow, we asked,
‘Is it close by?’
‘No, we will take a taxi.’
‘What the heck!,’ I said to My Irish Husband Tony.
So there we were in a taxi with these two gorgeous young Chinese women, racing through expressways heading north in one of the largest cities in the world, with no idea where we were going. Tony turned to me and said, ‘Should we be worried?’
‘I don’t think so. But if he pulls into a dark alley, and they start speaking perfect English and get out whips, we’re in trouble.’
The driver did indeed pull down a dark street. We followed Camille and Iris past a brightly lit store to a funky coffee shop with wicker chairs, couches, very few customers, soft jazz in the background, and a big fat adorable white cat. We sat in a booth, had coffee and the best cheesecake ever, and Iris confided that it was Camille’s birthday. They had celebrated with friends the night before so she could spend time with her new friends from England tonight.
Safely back in our hotel, hugging us in the lobby, Camille and Iris volunteered to come with us to the airport the next morning. We told them we would be fine on our own, but we promised to keep in touch by e-mail and see them the next time we are in Beijing.
The perfect ending to a perfect trip.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Saturday, 21 November, 2009, Beijing: Inside China
As we braced ourselves against the wind on the most accessible part of the Great Wall, I said to My Irish Husband Tony, ‘Remember that you put on our annual Fantasy List, Stand on the Great Wall on 5th May, 2005 [05/05/05]. You only missed by four years—that’s not too bad!’
Although it was bright and clear, the wind and the cold limited our upward hike and we took a break to have tea in an overpriced coffee/gift shop.
Tony kept checking his phone to see if he had another text from his friend Shinny. When she had contacted him that morning, she was taking the train to Beijing and would be there about 1:30. He texted back that we were already heading for the Great Wall and wouldn’t be back at our hotel until early evening. That was the last we had heard from her.
Tony had met Shinny via Skype about three years before. She wanted to improve her English and he wanted to know more about China, firmly believing that we would get back there some day.
And here we are, with four sightseeing days in and around Beijing before I start my work at the university in Guilin next week.
We had told Shinny that we wanted to see her city, Heng Shui, and could visit on a day trip, three hours each way by train. She insisted on coming to Beijing to meet us.
When Tony and Shinny first met on line, she was working in sales at a wire factory, and living in the dormitory for the workers. She hated the conditions there, and her father, a teacher, got her an administrative job with the local government. Shinny, in her late twenties, says she works seven days a week and, ‘It’s boring.’ Her workaholic boss has given her these two days off to visit her friends from England.
Just as I was about to give in to Tony’s plan of heading for the huge Beijing West railway station, one of the largest in Asia, to see if we could find her—Shinny called! She’d never been to Beijing before, but, after a phone call to our hotel, found her way across the huge city by bus and taxi, and was waiting patiently in the lobby.
Tony recognized her instantly from her pictures on Skype and Shinny was thrilled to finally meet her internet friend in the flesh. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant—Chinese women apparently survive on air and water—and got her a room near us.
We had brought presents for her, including Birmingham’s own Cadbury, and a Marks & Spencer scarf for her mother. However, Shinny explained that her home was two hours beyond Heng Shui, and that her parents were shy and didn’t speak English. We were disappointed that we wouldn’t get to meet her family and see her home, but still excited for the opportunity to go into a China where tourists rarely ventured.
So this morning we got up early, squirreled away a croissant and some orange juice from our breakfast, and headed to the Beijing West railway station. Shinny directed us to the correct waiting room, which had four gates around its perimeter, and a big thick queue already forming for our train. I said to Tony, ‘The phrase “seething mass of humanity” comes to mind.’ Feeling like extras in a scene from The Good Earth, we inched forward with the others and were propelled into the upper floor of our assigned carriage.
Shinny had bought her ticket at the last minute, so it was SRO for her, but soon some passengers shifted and she was able to sit most of the way.
As the train pulled out of the station at 10 am—on time—Western classical music began to play throughout the carriage. It felt as if we were floating into the Chinese countryside, passing other trains with lace curtains in their first class windows.
We left the outskirts of Beijing behind and saw acres of dry farmland. There has been a drought in China, as evidenced by the few patches of green the train passed. I remembered from our lectures on Semester at Sea that the country has lots of land for its one billion people, but too little of it is fertile enough to feed all of them.
Shinny talked to a family of three sitting across the aisle. The mother was breastfeeding, and the father was fascinated by us Westerners. He stared with a big grin, and asked Shinny questions about us. Eventually he took a picture of Tony holding his baby.
A uniformed woman stood up in the carriage and began giving a sales pitch for an educational project to teach children math, using a whiteboard and marker to demonstrate arithmetic examples. She must have done a good job because the staring father across the aisle bought one for his growing family. She was soon followed by another woman selling toothbrushes and toothpaste.
About an hour into the trip, a large group of people got on the already full carriage. They were obviously ‘country people,’ or ‘culchies’ as the Irish would call them. They carried huge burlap bags, the kind that rice is shipped in, filled with clothes and other belongings, which they used as seats and pillows in the aisles. We could see the dirt on their hands, and both Shinny and the middle class couple across from us visibly turned their noses away. I didn’t notice any particular bad smells; what caught my attention was that these people had perfect teeth. Not sure what kind of dental plan China has, but it must be better than that of our NHS.
As we neared Heng Shui, Shinny pointed out the window to one of the many cities we had passed. ‘That city is nicer than mine.’
‘Why?’ I asked her.
‘It looks better. My city is old and poor.’
‘I bet the people in that town think yours looks better!’ I told her. ‘And we’ve never been to your city before, so to us it is new, not old.’
The country people were thrilled that so many of us got off in the big city of Heng Shui, giving them more room for the rest of their journey, two more hours along the track.
The station at Heng Shui, like the city, is old and crumbling. We walked out in to a cold but bright and sunny day, with cleaner air than Beijing.
On the wide and mostly empty street to the left of the station, Shinny tried to find a suitable restaurant for our lunch. Locals were selling all types of objects on blankets on the sidewalk. As a marketing professor, I was fascinated to think how much they could possibly gross; they all sold the same products without much evidence of demand.
Shinny decided that all the restaurants were too dirty for us, and so we took a taxi for a short ride into the city center. After a few tries, she found a suitable place that was open, and we had only a short wait for a private room. I figured they put us back there so the regulars wouldn’t see foreigners eating in their restaurant.
After we vetoed certain items based on the poorly translated ingredients and the photos, Shinny ordered from the menu. We definitely vetoed the dog stew. I remembered reading that the authorities had banished Fido from Beijing restaurants before the Olympics, in deference to Western tastes in pets, but here we were way outside the Olympic zone.
As usual, the food was fabulous and there was too much of it. Tony and I had weak beers but Shinny just had Coca Cola. She managed to sneak out long enough to pay the bill, despite our protests, and then took us on a walking tour of downtown Heng Shui.
We gathered many stares as we ambled down the crowded street. Tony at first enjoyed his newfound celebrity status, but soon felt uncomfortable at the pairs of eyes looking back at him. We might be the only foreigners here today, but not the only ones they had ever seen. Two of the shops on the street were Nike and the NBA—basketball being hugely popular throughout China. Close to these two stores was obviously the best hotel in Heng Shui, with a well-stocked bar, probably for the Nike regional manager’s visits. And thank God, they had a Western toilet, not the Asian hole-in-the-floor that is ubiquitous in that part of the world.
Shinny took us to a big department store where we rode the escalator through five floors of clothes, jewelry, housewares—the same stuff they ship over to us. It’s even cheaper here. I pointed out to Shinny that the appliances were almost all brands from countries China had warred with in the past—Japan’s SONY, Korea’s LG—and that all the brightly colored posters and advertisements, as well as the mannequins, featured Western models. Blue-eyed blondes—where were all those beautiful Chinese women we saw everywhere? Would sales fall if the clothes were advertised using Asian models?
Shinny said, ‘But foreigners are taller and thinner…’
‘Thinner!’ I said. ‘Americans? Are you kidding?! We’re all a bunch of porkers compared to you!’
Leaving the department store, we had time to wander back to the station before our train left for Beijing. Shinny kept asking what we wanted from the street vendors selling fresh fruit and vegetables, but we told her we were full and didn’t want to take anything back. She settled on a bag of fresh chestnuts as our souvenir from Heng Shui.
We took pictures of each other outside the train station, and bought me a Diet Coke for the trip back. All the signage throughout the station was only in Chinese, and I didn’t feel confident that we were getting on the correct train until I clearly saw the same number on the platform sign that was on our ticket. After big hugs for Shinny, with promises to come to her wedding next year and pleas for her to come visit us in Birmingham, we crawled back on to our train with our SRO tickets.
As Shinny predicted, there were seats which we staked out right away, figuring occupation would be 100% of possession.
With everyone heading into Beijing on a Saturday night, the atmosphere in the train was lighter than before. This time the sales pitch was from a young, short woman with a gamine haircut, who was shining a little flashlight on paper currency. Was the light a way to detect forgeries? Our fellow passengers were fascinated.
In the dark sky outside we could see a silver slip of a moon.
Back in the Beijing train station, which we had made our way through twice before, we knew where to get the bus to the subway that would take us across the city to our hotel near the Olympic Birds’ Nest stadium.
It felt good to be back where we knew what to do and, while not natives, were not looked at as quite so ‘foreign.’
Leo, the hotel manager, convinced the restaurant to stay open long enough to serve us some food, and, after catching up with BBC on the telly, we got organized for our trip the next day to Guilin in the much warmer south.
Watch this space.
Although it was bright and clear, the wind and the cold limited our upward hike and we took a break to have tea in an overpriced coffee/gift shop.
Tony kept checking his phone to see if he had another text from his friend Shinny. When she had contacted him that morning, she was taking the train to Beijing and would be there about 1:30. He texted back that we were already heading for the Great Wall and wouldn’t be back at our hotel until early evening. That was the last we had heard from her.
Tony had met Shinny via Skype about three years before. She wanted to improve her English and he wanted to know more about China, firmly believing that we would get back there some day.
And here we are, with four sightseeing days in and around Beijing before I start my work at the university in Guilin next week.
We had told Shinny that we wanted to see her city, Heng Shui, and could visit on a day trip, three hours each way by train. She insisted on coming to Beijing to meet us.
When Tony and Shinny first met on line, she was working in sales at a wire factory, and living in the dormitory for the workers. She hated the conditions there, and her father, a teacher, got her an administrative job with the local government. Shinny, in her late twenties, says she works seven days a week and, ‘It’s boring.’ Her workaholic boss has given her these two days off to visit her friends from England.
Just as I was about to give in to Tony’s plan of heading for the huge Beijing West railway station, one of the largest in Asia, to see if we could find her—Shinny called! She’d never been to Beijing before, but, after a phone call to our hotel, found her way across the huge city by bus and taxi, and was waiting patiently in the lobby.
Tony recognized her instantly from her pictures on Skype and Shinny was thrilled to finally meet her internet friend in the flesh. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant—Chinese women apparently survive on air and water—and got her a room near us.
We had brought presents for her, including Birmingham’s own Cadbury, and a Marks & Spencer scarf for her mother. However, Shinny explained that her home was two hours beyond Heng Shui, and that her parents were shy and didn’t speak English. We were disappointed that we wouldn’t get to meet her family and see her home, but still excited for the opportunity to go into a China where tourists rarely ventured.
So this morning we got up early, squirreled away a croissant and some orange juice from our breakfast, and headed to the Beijing West railway station. Shinny directed us to the correct waiting room, which had four gates around its perimeter, and a big thick queue already forming for our train. I said to Tony, ‘The phrase “seething mass of humanity” comes to mind.’ Feeling like extras in a scene from The Good Earth, we inched forward with the others and were propelled into the upper floor of our assigned carriage.
Shinny had bought her ticket at the last minute, so it was SRO for her, but soon some passengers shifted and she was able to sit most of the way.
As the train pulled out of the station at 10 am—on time—Western classical music began to play throughout the carriage. It felt as if we were floating into the Chinese countryside, passing other trains with lace curtains in their first class windows.
We left the outskirts of Beijing behind and saw acres of dry farmland. There has been a drought in China, as evidenced by the few patches of green the train passed. I remembered from our lectures on Semester at Sea that the country has lots of land for its one billion people, but too little of it is fertile enough to feed all of them.
Shinny talked to a family of three sitting across the aisle. The mother was breastfeeding, and the father was fascinated by us Westerners. He stared with a big grin, and asked Shinny questions about us. Eventually he took a picture of Tony holding his baby.
A uniformed woman stood up in the carriage and began giving a sales pitch for an educational project to teach children math, using a whiteboard and marker to demonstrate arithmetic examples. She must have done a good job because the staring father across the aisle bought one for his growing family. She was soon followed by another woman selling toothbrushes and toothpaste.
About an hour into the trip, a large group of people got on the already full carriage. They were obviously ‘country people,’ or ‘culchies’ as the Irish would call them. They carried huge burlap bags, the kind that rice is shipped in, filled with clothes and other belongings, which they used as seats and pillows in the aisles. We could see the dirt on their hands, and both Shinny and the middle class couple across from us visibly turned their noses away. I didn’t notice any particular bad smells; what caught my attention was that these people had perfect teeth. Not sure what kind of dental plan China has, but it must be better than that of our NHS.
As we neared Heng Shui, Shinny pointed out the window to one of the many cities we had passed. ‘That city is nicer than mine.’
‘Why?’ I asked her.
‘It looks better. My city is old and poor.’
‘I bet the people in that town think yours looks better!’ I told her. ‘And we’ve never been to your city before, so to us it is new, not old.’
The country people were thrilled that so many of us got off in the big city of Heng Shui, giving them more room for the rest of their journey, two more hours along the track.
The station at Heng Shui, like the city, is old and crumbling. We walked out in to a cold but bright and sunny day, with cleaner air than Beijing.
On the wide and mostly empty street to the left of the station, Shinny tried to find a suitable restaurant for our lunch. Locals were selling all types of objects on blankets on the sidewalk. As a marketing professor, I was fascinated to think how much they could possibly gross; they all sold the same products without much evidence of demand.
Shinny decided that all the restaurants were too dirty for us, and so we took a taxi for a short ride into the city center. After a few tries, she found a suitable place that was open, and we had only a short wait for a private room. I figured they put us back there so the regulars wouldn’t see foreigners eating in their restaurant.
After we vetoed certain items based on the poorly translated ingredients and the photos, Shinny ordered from the menu. We definitely vetoed the dog stew. I remembered reading that the authorities had banished Fido from Beijing restaurants before the Olympics, in deference to Western tastes in pets, but here we were way outside the Olympic zone.
As usual, the food was fabulous and there was too much of it. Tony and I had weak beers but Shinny just had Coca Cola. She managed to sneak out long enough to pay the bill, despite our protests, and then took us on a walking tour of downtown Heng Shui.
We gathered many stares as we ambled down the crowded street. Tony at first enjoyed his newfound celebrity status, but soon felt uncomfortable at the pairs of eyes looking back at him. We might be the only foreigners here today, but not the only ones they had ever seen. Two of the shops on the street were Nike and the NBA—basketball being hugely popular throughout China. Close to these two stores was obviously the best hotel in Heng Shui, with a well-stocked bar, probably for the Nike regional manager’s visits. And thank God, they had a Western toilet, not the Asian hole-in-the-floor that is ubiquitous in that part of the world.
Shinny took us to a big department store where we rode the escalator through five floors of clothes, jewelry, housewares—the same stuff they ship over to us. It’s even cheaper here. I pointed out to Shinny that the appliances were almost all brands from countries China had warred with in the past—Japan’s SONY, Korea’s LG—and that all the brightly colored posters and advertisements, as well as the mannequins, featured Western models. Blue-eyed blondes—where were all those beautiful Chinese women we saw everywhere? Would sales fall if the clothes were advertised using Asian models?
Shinny said, ‘But foreigners are taller and thinner…’
‘Thinner!’ I said. ‘Americans? Are you kidding?! We’re all a bunch of porkers compared to you!’
Leaving the department store, we had time to wander back to the station before our train left for Beijing. Shinny kept asking what we wanted from the street vendors selling fresh fruit and vegetables, but we told her we were full and didn’t want to take anything back. She settled on a bag of fresh chestnuts as our souvenir from Heng Shui.
We took pictures of each other outside the train station, and bought me a Diet Coke for the trip back. All the signage throughout the station was only in Chinese, and I didn’t feel confident that we were getting on the correct train until I clearly saw the same number on the platform sign that was on our ticket. After big hugs for Shinny, with promises to come to her wedding next year and pleas for her to come visit us in Birmingham, we crawled back on to our train with our SRO tickets.
As Shinny predicted, there were seats which we staked out right away, figuring occupation would be 100% of possession.
With everyone heading into Beijing on a Saturday night, the atmosphere in the train was lighter than before. This time the sales pitch was from a young, short woman with a gamine haircut, who was shining a little flashlight on paper currency. Was the light a way to detect forgeries? Our fellow passengers were fascinated.
In the dark sky outside we could see a silver slip of a moon.
Back in the Beijing train station, which we had made our way through twice before, we knew where to get the bus to the subway that would take us across the city to our hotel near the Olympic Birds’ Nest stadium.
It felt good to be back where we knew what to do and, while not natives, were not looked at as quite so ‘foreign.’
Leo, the hotel manager, convinced the restaurant to stay open long enough to serve us some food, and, after catching up with BBC on the telly, we got organized for our trip the next day to Guilin in the much warmer south.
Watch this space.
Monday, 2 July 2007
Wednesday, 30 August, 2006, Birmingham, UK
What We Have Learned
I arrived home yesterday morning, one day late and one suitcase short (although it did show up today). My Irish Husband Tony arrived home this morning, having driven back from Dublin (yes, there’s a ferry). The cats are fine, the apartment is fine, the new grandson is fine, work is fine, and the weather stinks. We’re home!
Our Executive Dean Don reminded us throughout our voyage that we are ‘Academic Adventur-ers,’ and the point of traveling on Semester at Sea is to learn. So what have we learned?
Tony says he learned that you should never judge people by your preconceptions before you actually meet them, and how to make a puppet.
I learned that…
I arrived home yesterday morning, one day late and one suitcase short (although it did show up today). My Irish Husband Tony arrived home this morning, having driven back from Dublin (yes, there’s a ferry). The cats are fine, the apartment is fine, the new grandson is fine, work is fine, and the weather stinks. We’re home!
Our Executive Dean Don reminded us throughout our voyage that we are ‘Academic Adventur-ers,’ and the point of traveling on Semester at Sea is to learn. So what have we learned?
Tony says he learned that you should never judge people by your preconceptions before you actually meet them, and how to make a puppet.
I learned that…
- I like wine better than beer. Like beer, but like wine better.
- Forks are better than chopsticks. Really.
- I pride myself on being a risk-taker, but not when it comes to food. I don’t buy food from street vendors in America or the UK, so I sure wasn’t going to do it in the Asian night markets. Even in restaurants, I reverted to my childhood fallback position of fried shrimp if everything else made me think ‘Eeeuw…’
- Yes, when you stand by the door with your coat on you are rushing me.
- I am able to fall asleep without BBC World Service on my headphones, but being on a rocking ship helps.
- When riding in the back of a speeding taxi in a foreign country, look out the side window, not the front.
- When looking for a bathroom in a foreign country, there is always a disabled toilet, because they don’t expect them to do that. And I can’t, so I am disabled.
- Invest in 7-11. They’re everywhere.
- The second Contac capsule never works as well as the first.
- Be nice to everybody. You don’t know who might someday be assigning rooms, and I must have been really nice to the person who gave us the big balcony.
- It’s good to have family and friends, even if you only show up once every few years to do your laundry, eat their food, and exchange stories.
- There are too damn many people in this world. The most telling statistic we were given was that, if all 6 billion+ inhabitants consumed as much per capita as Americans do, we’d need two more planets to hold all of us.
- Westerners look at those high-rises in huge, burgeoning Asian cities and are stunned that there are so many people living there. But there are a lot of people living in high rises in London and Miami Beach and San Diego as well. Why are Asian high rises such a shock? Because the people in them are not us? Because they are all eating raw fish and practicing Buddhism?
But here is the most important thing we both learned.
The oldest passenger on the ship was ‘Chief’ Al, our next door neighbor on Deck 7, who is 91. He had been to many of these countries during his long career in the US Navy, and was able to get off the ship and travel around in most ports.
As we approached China, Chief found out that he hadn’t signed up for an overnight trip to Beijing, to see the Great Wall. One of the adult passengers knew two students who wanted to go, but didn’t have the money. Chief generously agreed to cover their expenses if they agreed to take him, and they did.
The two young women took great care of him. All three walked the steps of the Forbidden City, and all three did indeed get to the Great Wall.
Whatever age you are right now, sitting there reading this, do you think that when you are 91 you will be standing on the Great Wall of China with two lovely American college students?
You know what?
When Chief was your age—neither did he.
Anything can happen if you let it.
Continue to watch this space
Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Columbus, Ohio
En Route…
- To the Faculty/Staff Lounge Thursday morning with a cup of tea to mark papers while looking out on the gorgeous Pacific.
- To dinner on my own Thursday night while My Irish Husband Tony rehearses the puppet show.
- To the Faculty/Staff Lounge Friday morning with a cup of tea to mark more papers while looking out on the gorgeous Pacific.
- To the puppet show Friday night to video Tony as narrator and envy those who bid for the puppets afterwards because they won’t have to ship them back to England.
- To the ‘KD’s assignments’ box in Purser’s Square Saturday morning to drop off all the marked papers for the students to pick up.
- To the final ‘Logistics Preport’ Saturday night to tell us how to get around our last port, San Diego (‘The currency is dollars, you can drink the water, most of the people speak English…’), as well as the mechanics of finally getting off the ship.
- To my mailbox Saturday night to find one last late paper and a tearful note from a student not happy with her grade.
- To the Registrar’s office Sunday morning to turn in the final grades.
- To Convocation Sunday night to watch the students who have finished all their college credits graduate and the students who have done well in their classes receive honors.
- To our neighbor Nancy’s room until 2 am Monday morning to party with the other faculty and staff, while the students hang out in the hallway hoping for a glimpse of their professors drunk.
- To breakfast before 7 am Monday morning because who knows when we’ll get lunch.
- Down the gangway lugging two carry-ons and balancing a Vietnam hat, while My Irish Husband Tony, also balancing a Vietnam hat, tries to get a picture.
- To the Holiday Inn which seemed to be right across the street until Nurse Ellen and I had to lug four heavy suitcases and one big backpack there.
- Back to the ship in the Holiday Inn courtesy van to pick up the rest of the luggage and ‘my husband with the heart condition…’
- To lunch with Nurse Ellen after she and everyone else booked on late flights dumped their luggage in our hotel room.
- To bed to nap Monday afternoon while watching crap American TV in the hotel room.
- To dinner Monday night at the pseudo-British pub in the hotel, and then to walk by the ship one last time with My Irish Husband Tony.
- Back to bed after Tony leaves at 5 am Tuesday morning to catch flights taking him back to Birmingham.
- By train to Santa Ana Tuesday morning, to be met by Cousin Cathy who takes me to the Last Aunt, Noreen, 93, who tells me I sure have an interesting life.
- To Cathy’s house Tuesday afternoon to give her presents, do laundry, check e-mail, and then catch the train back to San Diego.
- To dinner on my own Tuesday night, again at the pseudo-British pub, sitting outside desperately watching for anyone from the ship to walk by.
- Back to sleep Wednesday morning after Tony wakes me up at 2 am to tell me he arrived safely in Birmingham and the cats and the apartment are fine.
- To the airport at 5:30 am to go through security with two carry-ons and two Vietnam hats, but no gels or liquids.
- Onto the plane in Houston Wednesday afternoon to change for Columbus, but nap while we wait on the tarmac for 90 minutes in pissing rain.
- To Columbus Wednesday evening, with two carry-ons and two Vietnam hats, minus one suitcase, met by my brother and sister-in-law who take me out for dinner and then to their wonderful home in Westerville where I fall sound asleep in the Steeler room.
Watch this space.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006, Honolulu, Hawaii
An Interview with Tony Dixon
We’re near the end of the voyage, so it’s time to hear from a different voice. I’ve asked My Irish Husband Tony to tell you about our week on Semester at Sea.
Gypsy Teacher: Last Wednesday we pulled out of Kobe, Japan, under a full moon. The next day we had classes and you and I both had coughs and colds. The following day, Friday, we had classes and also the charity auction. So, Tony, tell our readers, how was the auction?
Tony: Pretty well. But it was too much money spent by these kids. They were buying things like ‘Steer the ship for an hour’ for $600. ‘Raise the ship’s flag’ for $500. One of the staff bought our house for a week in England for $400, which I was excited about. I wanted to bid on a weekend in Dinard, France but it went out of my range in about two minutes. I didn’t think that many people knew how gorgeous Dinard is. The usual items were up for auction—professors’ books, items around the ship, and Colombia. Adult passenger Minor bought a week in Colombia for $1200. Him and Conduct Officer Joe duked that out for about five minutes, but Minor went to $1200 and Joe couldn’t match it. It’s a good deal tho because it’s a week for two at one of the students’ family homes.
GT: Was the auction entertaining?
T: Very entertaining, but there’s a couple of parents in the US who are wondering why there is this massive chunk of money on their credit cards for ‘Steer the ship for an hour.’
GT: The next day was August 12th.
T: There were two August 12ths. Coming across the Pacific, we had to go thru 48 hours of August 12th because of the time zones. We were coming towards the International Dateline, or passed it, on the 12th of August, twice. It’s a funny thing to go through a day twice; I still can’t get my head around it.
GT: On the evening of one of those 12ths of August, the crew put on a talent show.
T: A great talent show. They started out singing gospel which I thought was going to turn into a Jesus session but it didn’t. Then we had a gay steward, dressed up as a nun. I guess gay men like to dress up as nuns, but he was very entertaining, a pretty good dancer. Then Vincente, who was a fabulous singer. He wins every karaoke competition. There was Antoinette, our favourite bartender, who sang a nice song. And in the finale they sang We Are the World.
GT: But there was another part of the finale.
T: They made an ice sculpture.
GT: A nice sculpture?
T: No, an ice sculpture. The head chef made an eagle and his assistant, from down in the bowels of the boat, made a swan. We didn’t stay too long tho because Kathleen discovered when she went up to the bar that she could see it on the TV. So we had a glass of wine and watched it up there.
GT: The following day, Sunday, we had the student talent show.
T: Absolutely cheesy American bullshit. One guy sang Brave New World or some musical stuff. Roger, it was, sang it with one of the chickies. Lovely fella tho; he sang something from The Lion King.
GT (pathetically): ‘A whole new world…’
T: Right. A lot of kids were very talented. One sang Imagine: ‘Imagine no possessions...’ She probably had more possessions than 99% of the people in the world. And there was a kid who wrote a song in his basement. Absolute rubbish. But I’m sure he had a message there. We’ll hear from him in a couple of years, but absolute rubbish.
GT: Sounds like you didn’t enjoy it.
T: I did enjoy it. I enjoyed Roger singing. And the Parrott boys. They were on with my friend Jing Jing. Think Yoko Ono in a younger, different time—that’s Jing Jing. Mad as a carp, but she’s a nice person.
GT: And very professional. What did she do?
T: A kung fu demonstration with the Parrott boys and then she painted Chinese characters as an entertainment piece. She’s very good at it. I think she destroyed $3000 worth of furniture in painting this thing.
GT: She destroyed furniture?
T: She dripped paint on it. But I suppose it’s worth $3000 for arts’ sake. There was also…The Parrott boys. They just kept appearing. First in kung fu and then on the cello and the piano.
GT: The next day, Monday, was our anniversary. 14 years since we met in Dublin, honey bunch.
T: The wife and I have been together for 14 years. Not an easy road, I have to say.
GT: In honour of our anniversary, that night on the ship was the Ambassador’s Ball.
T: The Ambassador’s Ball was this money-raising thing for good causes. We went to the Union for an hour to see a video of how we can feed the world. I had gone to these orphanages but they didn’t take pictures of me with Down syndrome kids. In the video you see a chickie in a strapless top holding up a Down syndrome baby. But I also held the babies and I helped them read, and played with them...
GT: Back to the Ambassador’s Ball.
T: Right. We were lucky enough to have Nurse Ellen, Doctor Renee and Barbie the Librarian at our table and some really nice food. Kathleen had salmon and I had steak and we had champagne because it was our anniversary.
GT: Everybody had champagne.
T: We then took a lot of pictures with kids who were asking me to be photographed with them. They never spoke to me before but they wanted to take pictures with me. This is what Semester at Sea is all about. Everybody loves each other the last week. Friends forever.
GT: The following day, Tuesday, was the last day of Global Studies, the course that everybody takes. Some faculty—all women faculty—were asked to give their reflections on the trip. I’m sure you felt that your beautiful wife did the best job, but tell us about the other faculty.
T: I always find the wife interesting as she is a very entertaining woman when she gets in front of an audience. The other faculty included Andrea Parrott, whose sons are the megastars, and Tavia. One of the most creative women I’ve ever met and I’ve gone to almost every one of her classes. She is extremely entertaining and creative. Love this woman—but not as much as I love the wife. After Tavia, Carrie spoke and she gave her—what do they say in the Senate? ‘I want to surrender my time’?
GT: Yield.
T: ‘I want to yield.’ She yielded her time to my lovely friend, Shira, who has cerebral palsy and has spent most of her life in a wheelchair. Talking about interesting people, this woman far outweighs or outstretches any of the characters on this ship because she has done basically everything she could do. Including going and seeing the Great Wall of China, which is something that I promised myself to do a couple of years ago but she has done it. She’s disabled but can get around and do things and she’s a good person. She’s a very determined woman and when she was finished speaking, there wasn’t a dry eye in the faculty. And there shouldn’t be when you see someone like Shira who is a gorgeous human being.
GT: Today is Wednesday the 16th, and this morning we had final exams. We’re in Honolulu for the day and then we take off.
T: This was the first land we had seen for like 10 days. When I got up this morning I went out on deck 7 and all of a sudden there was this huge chunk of land on the port side—that’s the left hand side if you know anything about shipping. It amazes me after being out in the Pacific Ocean in this vastness for so long that you come across anything. You see a ship, and you’re all excited. You see a bird, and you’re all excited. And you see a flying fish and you’re all excited. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can describe seeing Hawaii. I spent a couple of hours out there on the 7th deck, taking pictures of the islands, and then we got into Honolulu. Not being blasé, but we had been there eight or nine weeks ago.
GT: And tonight we had dinner with our lovely granddaughters.
T: Stephanie, Erin, Rachel and Nicole. Shauna didn’t come because she’s weird. It was quite nice to see them all. We got pictures out on the back deck as we were steaming away from Hawaii after re-fueling. We weren’t let off in Hawaii, by the way. We had to stay on the ship for the best part of seven hours and no smoking. No smoking. It was quite nice to get back on the road to San Diego.'
GT: You’re very busy now because you’re in the puppet performance. What’s that like?
T: We’re in rehearsals for our puppet show which is based on snippets of Asian mythology from every country we’ve been to. We incorporated them into a play for one of the last days on board and it counts as credits for a couple students. About 20 people have drifted in and out of the class. I’ve stayed with it most of the voyage and I ended up narrator. I tell the story, the Song and Dance Man acts it out, and the players play it. I’m looking forward to that.
GT: We’ll be in San Diego on Monday. What would you tell people about this voyage?
T: This is my third voyage. The first one would be hard to beat. The second one was an 11-day stretch last year between Antwerp and Dublin. On this one, I enjoyed the people. I didn’t particularly have a good time with some who enjoyed listening to themselves as opposed to talking to people. That’s not my style, I love listening to people and talking to people. It’s always a joy to be on Semester at Sea.
GT: What about the others?
T: I made some good friends who I’ll probably know for the rest of my life. Raymond who is a New York fireman. Mike, whose wife Jane is here with him, lives on San Marco Island in Florida. Raymond’s mother, Carol, possibly one of the greatest photographers I’ve ever come across. She left me with about 600 copies of her photographs on a CD which I will not claim to be mine. Lauren, an absolute a treasure of a child who is my friend and also Kathleen’s student. I would love to be able to keep in touch with these people; they are absolutely fantastic.
GT: What about the ports?
T: Pretty good. Vietnam was a big eye opener. I loved Vietnam, moreso than Singapore. I did enjoy Singapore but I think Semester at Sea should go to more places that are a bit raw, a bit edgy. Japan I loved. Had no idea how gorgeous Japan was. I had looked at the image of that domed building in Hiroshima from the time I was a child and then to stand in front of it in silence was absolutely one of the highlights of the trip for me. So many people lost their lives on that particular day 61 years ago, it was nice to be there and just be quiet.
GT: What was the worst part?
T: The worst part for me was Busan, Korea, and not because of Busan, Korea, but because I was sick there. You come on Semester at Sea, you’re going to get sick because you’re with five or 600 people and they all have diseases or flu. As much as I enjoyed Korea, this was a bit of a downer.
GT: What was the best part?
T: Two best parts. There was the day in Hiroshima and then there was a day on the Mekong Delta. These places I’ve heard about, seen pictures of both, and I had no idea what they were like. Being on the Mekong Delta and being down there, with local people—that was one of the highlights. Vietnam is definitely a place that everybody in the world should come to at some stage and see what these people are doing after what was done to them. They have no bitterness towards anybody. No bitterness towards the French, no bitterness towards America. An absolutely lovely race of people.
GT: What would you say overall about Semester at Sea?
T: My experience with Semester at Sea is great. There are people who are moved by it and changed by it and who look on life a little bit differently when they get off these ships. Every couple of months Semester at Sea are changing maybe four or 500 lives on average, so that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for Americans to be here, to be looking at the world from a different perspective. And you can not get a more different perspective than to be on a boat travelling to somewhere you’ve never been before and observing the culture. I would recommend it to anybody.
GT: And, if you could sum up this voyage in one word…?
T (Pause): Asia! Come to Asia!
Watch this space.
We’re near the end of the voyage, so it’s time to hear from a different voice. I’ve asked My Irish Husband Tony to tell you about our week on Semester at Sea.
Gypsy Teacher: Last Wednesday we pulled out of Kobe, Japan, under a full moon. The next day we had classes and you and I both had coughs and colds. The following day, Friday, we had classes and also the charity auction. So, Tony, tell our readers, how was the auction?
Tony: Pretty well. But it was too much money spent by these kids. They were buying things like ‘Steer the ship for an hour’ for $600. ‘Raise the ship’s flag’ for $500. One of the staff bought our house for a week in England for $400, which I was excited about. I wanted to bid on a weekend in Dinard, France but it went out of my range in about two minutes. I didn’t think that many people knew how gorgeous Dinard is. The usual items were up for auction—professors’ books, items around the ship, and Colombia. Adult passenger Minor bought a week in Colombia for $1200. Him and Conduct Officer Joe duked that out for about five minutes, but Minor went to $1200 and Joe couldn’t match it. It’s a good deal tho because it’s a week for two at one of the students’ family homes.
GT: Was the auction entertaining?
T: Very entertaining, but there’s a couple of parents in the US who are wondering why there is this massive chunk of money on their credit cards for ‘Steer the ship for an hour.’
GT: The next day was August 12th.
T: There were two August 12ths. Coming across the Pacific, we had to go thru 48 hours of August 12th because of the time zones. We were coming towards the International Dateline, or passed it, on the 12th of August, twice. It’s a funny thing to go through a day twice; I still can’t get my head around it.
GT: On the evening of one of those 12ths of August, the crew put on a talent show.
T: A great talent show. They started out singing gospel which I thought was going to turn into a Jesus session but it didn’t. Then we had a gay steward, dressed up as a nun. I guess gay men like to dress up as nuns, but he was very entertaining, a pretty good dancer. Then Vincente, who was a fabulous singer. He wins every karaoke competition. There was Antoinette, our favourite bartender, who sang a nice song. And in the finale they sang We Are the World.
GT: But there was another part of the finale.
T: They made an ice sculpture.
GT: A nice sculpture?
T: No, an ice sculpture. The head chef made an eagle and his assistant, from down in the bowels of the boat, made a swan. We didn’t stay too long tho because Kathleen discovered when she went up to the bar that she could see it on the TV. So we had a glass of wine and watched it up there.
GT: The following day, Sunday, we had the student talent show.
T: Absolutely cheesy American bullshit. One guy sang Brave New World or some musical stuff. Roger, it was, sang it with one of the chickies. Lovely fella tho; he sang something from The Lion King.
GT (pathetically): ‘A whole new world…’
T: Right. A lot of kids were very talented. One sang Imagine: ‘Imagine no possessions...’ She probably had more possessions than 99% of the people in the world. And there was a kid who wrote a song in his basement. Absolute rubbish. But I’m sure he had a message there. We’ll hear from him in a couple of years, but absolute rubbish.
GT: Sounds like you didn’t enjoy it.
T: I did enjoy it. I enjoyed Roger singing. And the Parrott boys. They were on with my friend Jing Jing. Think Yoko Ono in a younger, different time—that’s Jing Jing. Mad as a carp, but she’s a nice person.
GT: And very professional. What did she do?
T: A kung fu demonstration with the Parrott boys and then she painted Chinese characters as an entertainment piece. She’s very good at it. I think she destroyed $3000 worth of furniture in painting this thing.
GT: She destroyed furniture?
T: She dripped paint on it. But I suppose it’s worth $3000 for arts’ sake. There was also…The Parrott boys. They just kept appearing. First in kung fu and then on the cello and the piano.
GT: The next day, Monday, was our anniversary. 14 years since we met in Dublin, honey bunch.
T: The wife and I have been together for 14 years. Not an easy road, I have to say.
GT: In honour of our anniversary, that night on the ship was the Ambassador’s Ball.
T: The Ambassador’s Ball was this money-raising thing for good causes. We went to the Union for an hour to see a video of how we can feed the world. I had gone to these orphanages but they didn’t take pictures of me with Down syndrome kids. In the video you see a chickie in a strapless top holding up a Down syndrome baby. But I also held the babies and I helped them read, and played with them...
GT: Back to the Ambassador’s Ball.
T: Right. We were lucky enough to have Nurse Ellen, Doctor Renee and Barbie the Librarian at our table and some really nice food. Kathleen had salmon and I had steak and we had champagne because it was our anniversary.
GT: Everybody had champagne.
T: We then took a lot of pictures with kids who were asking me to be photographed with them. They never spoke to me before but they wanted to take pictures with me. This is what Semester at Sea is all about. Everybody loves each other the last week. Friends forever.
GT: The following day, Tuesday, was the last day of Global Studies, the course that everybody takes. Some faculty—all women faculty—were asked to give their reflections on the trip. I’m sure you felt that your beautiful wife did the best job, but tell us about the other faculty.
T: I always find the wife interesting as she is a very entertaining woman when she gets in front of an audience. The other faculty included Andrea Parrott, whose sons are the megastars, and Tavia. One of the most creative women I’ve ever met and I’ve gone to almost every one of her classes. She is extremely entertaining and creative. Love this woman—but not as much as I love the wife. After Tavia, Carrie spoke and she gave her—what do they say in the Senate? ‘I want to surrender my time’?
GT: Yield.
T: ‘I want to yield.’ She yielded her time to my lovely friend, Shira, who has cerebral palsy and has spent most of her life in a wheelchair. Talking about interesting people, this woman far outweighs or outstretches any of the characters on this ship because she has done basically everything she could do. Including going and seeing the Great Wall of China, which is something that I promised myself to do a couple of years ago but she has done it. She’s disabled but can get around and do things and she’s a good person. She’s a very determined woman and when she was finished speaking, there wasn’t a dry eye in the faculty. And there shouldn’t be when you see someone like Shira who is a gorgeous human being.
GT: Today is Wednesday the 16th, and this morning we had final exams. We’re in Honolulu for the day and then we take off.
T: This was the first land we had seen for like 10 days. When I got up this morning I went out on deck 7 and all of a sudden there was this huge chunk of land on the port side—that’s the left hand side if you know anything about shipping. It amazes me after being out in the Pacific Ocean in this vastness for so long that you come across anything. You see a ship, and you’re all excited. You see a bird, and you’re all excited. And you see a flying fish and you’re all excited. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can describe seeing Hawaii. I spent a couple of hours out there on the 7th deck, taking pictures of the islands, and then we got into Honolulu. Not being blasé, but we had been there eight or nine weeks ago.
GT: And tonight we had dinner with our lovely granddaughters.
T: Stephanie, Erin, Rachel and Nicole. Shauna didn’t come because she’s weird. It was quite nice to see them all. We got pictures out on the back deck as we were steaming away from Hawaii after re-fueling. We weren’t let off in Hawaii, by the way. We had to stay on the ship for the best part of seven hours and no smoking. No smoking. It was quite nice to get back on the road to San Diego.'
GT: You’re very busy now because you’re in the puppet performance. What’s that like?
T: We’re in rehearsals for our puppet show which is based on snippets of Asian mythology from every country we’ve been to. We incorporated them into a play for one of the last days on board and it counts as credits for a couple students. About 20 people have drifted in and out of the class. I’ve stayed with it most of the voyage and I ended up narrator. I tell the story, the Song and Dance Man acts it out, and the players play it. I’m looking forward to that.
GT: We’ll be in San Diego on Monday. What would you tell people about this voyage?
T: This is my third voyage. The first one would be hard to beat. The second one was an 11-day stretch last year between Antwerp and Dublin. On this one, I enjoyed the people. I didn’t particularly have a good time with some who enjoyed listening to themselves as opposed to talking to people. That’s not my style, I love listening to people and talking to people. It’s always a joy to be on Semester at Sea.
GT: What about the others?
T: I made some good friends who I’ll probably know for the rest of my life. Raymond who is a New York fireman. Mike, whose wife Jane is here with him, lives on San Marco Island in Florida. Raymond’s mother, Carol, possibly one of the greatest photographers I’ve ever come across. She left me with about 600 copies of her photographs on a CD which I will not claim to be mine. Lauren, an absolute a treasure of a child who is my friend and also Kathleen’s student. I would love to be able to keep in touch with these people; they are absolutely fantastic.
GT: What about the ports?
T: Pretty good. Vietnam was a big eye opener. I loved Vietnam, moreso than Singapore. I did enjoy Singapore but I think Semester at Sea should go to more places that are a bit raw, a bit edgy. Japan I loved. Had no idea how gorgeous Japan was. I had looked at the image of that domed building in Hiroshima from the time I was a child and then to stand in front of it in silence was absolutely one of the highlights of the trip for me. So many people lost their lives on that particular day 61 years ago, it was nice to be there and just be quiet.
GT: What was the worst part?
T: The worst part for me was Busan, Korea, and not because of Busan, Korea, but because I was sick there. You come on Semester at Sea, you’re going to get sick because you’re with five or 600 people and they all have diseases or flu. As much as I enjoyed Korea, this was a bit of a downer.
GT: What was the best part?
T: Two best parts. There was the day in Hiroshima and then there was a day on the Mekong Delta. These places I’ve heard about, seen pictures of both, and I had no idea what they were like. Being on the Mekong Delta and being down there, with local people—that was one of the highlights. Vietnam is definitely a place that everybody in the world should come to at some stage and see what these people are doing after what was done to them. They have no bitterness towards anybody. No bitterness towards the French, no bitterness towards America. An absolutely lovely race of people.
GT: What would you say overall about Semester at Sea?
T: My experience with Semester at Sea is great. There are people who are moved by it and changed by it and who look on life a little bit differently when they get off these ships. Every couple of months Semester at Sea are changing maybe four or 500 lives on average, so that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for Americans to be here, to be looking at the world from a different perspective. And you can not get a more different perspective than to be on a boat travelling to somewhere you’ve never been before and observing the culture. I would recommend it to anybody.
GT: And, if you could sum up this voyage in one word…?
T (Pause): Asia! Come to Asia!
Watch this space.
2006, August 9, Wednesday, Kobe, Japan
“Children Get Older…”
Last Wednesday morning we arrived in Busan, Korea, and stayed until Friday night when we left for Kobe, Japan.
I had passed the ship’s head cold on to My Irish Husband Tony, so we used Busan as a rest stop. We were docked in Da Daepo Port, a bedroom community 30 minutes from the centre of Busan, with a total population of 5 million. We had enough shops, restaurants and bars near the ship, so we limited our travel to, for me, the Korean tea ceremony and a Lotte Giants baseball game (they lost; apparently not unusual), and, for Tony, a van-and-driver trip through the countryside with our “granddaughters.”
But Korea is not just tea and baseball, so I interviewed our student, James MacLean, an International Relations major from Boston University who is in the ROTC program. His mother was born in Korea in 1961, eight years after the war there ended. I asked how he felt about visiting his mom’s home country.
“When I saw that this voyage was going to Korea, that sealed it for me. I wanted to figure out what I was. Half Korean, half Scottish, I don’t look Scottish. Figured I’d better learn something about the Korean half.
“I honestly didn’t know a whole lot about my mom’s background until a few weeks before this trip. I think she was in the orphanage when she was three, wasn’t adopted until she was four and didn’t actually make it to the States with her adoptive parents until she was five.”
James originally wanted to travel to Seoul, about four hours north, to see where his mother grew up, but those plans fell through. I’ll let him tell you what he did for three days in Busan.
“I got off the ship and was on the Tongdosa Temple tour. It took two hours to get to the first stop. We were just driving around; I’m lookin’ out the window. It was really bittersweet. I wasn’t sure how I should be feeling. If I should be feeling enthused or I should be feeling remorse. I seriously was torn for the first couple hours.
“We got to the Temple and it was one of the most beautiful places I’d seen on this trip. There was a river leading up to it and local families swimming, having a good time laughing, playing. A lot of little kids too.
“Came back towards Busan, swung by the UN cemetery, went to a park for a little while and then I left the tour at one of the markets. I know very, very little Korean, and a lot of the vendors knew very, very little English. But I was able to talk to a couple for a few minutes. Mostly hand gestures though.
“That first day we went to a buffet and had bulgogi. I have to say I like mine better. I’ve gotten pretty good at cooking that. Around the time I was getting interested in my background, I decided to try cooking some Korean things.
“The second day I had completely free. That morning I thought about everything and outlined some of my thoughts from the day before and looked at my pictures. Four of us decided to go to one of the local beaches, walk around. If I was Korean and had the day free I would probably be at the beach, so it was nice to see locals in their natural environment.
“The last morning, Friday, I ran to a peninsula about three miles away and it was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. There was an island, pine trees and a lone fishing boat with the sun coming up. I really wish I’d had my camera for it. It was also weird because I was sitting right next to a pillbox, a very poorly camouflaged pillbox. It reminded me that the country is having some problems. There were people playing badminton and Korean troops doing exercises, guards with M240 Bravo rifles.
“Then some of the girls and I went out to the market. My mom had asked me to bring her back a stone. Just a regular old stone. That first day, I went to the river, grabbed a stone. But I’m also the brat kid and I decided to spoil her a little bit and I wanted to get her another kind of stone.
“I only had about an hour because I had a trip leaving later, so we went to the international market. At a jewelry store they had an emerald pendant, yellow gold, heart-shaped, with diamonds around it. But I’m a white gold guy, so I had them make another one from white gold. So she asked for a stone, she’s getting two. It’s her birthstone, so that was perfect.
“Then I caught a cab back to the ship because I had signed up for a visit to an orphanage. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was really mixed, not sure whether I would want to be there. But what could I do? If I didn’t do this I’d be kicking myself for the rest of the trip home and for a long time after.
“They walked us around the orphanage, gave a few presentations, we met the director. Then we got about an hour to play with the kids and that was one of the most bittersweet moments of the whole trip. This particular kid was just reaching out, grabbing my face. He literally reached into my mouth and was pulling on my teeth.
“But the toughest thing—I don’t have any pictures of this because I just couldn’t do it—there was this girl that looked just like my mom did 40 years ago. I had seen my mother’s pictures, and it was like, whoa! That is too creepy. I tried to talk to her and the only thing I could think of to say in Korean was sa rang hae, which translates to I love you. I said that a couple times. I couldn’t think of anything else to say and the little girl started crying. It just…that got me. I’ve been through my share of crap and, I’m not going to lie, I’m a hard bastard some times. But that got me where it counts.
“Then we came back to the port, and about 12 of us went to a restaurant your husband recommended. It was like the first real Korean meal I had. It was a good way to end the trip.”
James knows that he will come back. “This voyage has prompted my mom to suggest that she come back here with me after I graduate from college. I think she has kind of been using my newfound interest to get herself back here.”
Thanks, James, for sharing your experiences. And tell your mom thanks too.
After spending Saturday teaching classes as we sailed through Japan’s Inland Sea, past uninhabited islands and big cities, we docked Sunday morning in downtown Kobe, Japan.
Picture a country with half the US population shoved into California—but just the mountainous part. And you dropped nuclear bombs on two of their largest cities but within 40 years they became the world’s second largest economy.
Our visit to the peace memorial at Hiroshima left at 6 am for a five-hour bus trip through Pennsylvania-like mountain tunnels. Considering the Japanese suffered nuclear radiation, getting up at 5 am wasn’t much of a sacrifice.
Our students had folded 1000 origami cranes to hang at the memorial for a 10-year-old girl who died from leukaemia after the blast. When our trip leader, Professor Judit Gellerd, found out on the bus that there should be an accompanying ceremony, she pulled together a moving sermon. It was hot, standing there in the August sun. But that didn’t match the 5800C temperature when the first nuclear bomb exploded there 61 years and 1 day before. No one complained on the long bus trip back that night.
Tony and I signed up for the “Home Visit” program, and our hostess, Mrs. Nakahata, met us at the subway station (Gee, how did she pick us out?). She took us by taxi to her high-rise apartment, clinging to the side of a San Francisco-steep mountain looking out over the bay. We could hear the crickets around her building and see our ship from her living room.
During our afternoon together, she showed us her collection of brochures about English country garden tours, and we invited her to visit us in Birmingham (she likes cats). She was born during the war, but she didn’t look any older than us aging baby boomers. Japanese women have the longest life expectancy on earth, so, at 62, she still has a ways to go.
When she was an infant, her family home in Osaka burned. She moved to a nearby city where a couple adopted her and raised her with their own children. Her dark eyes looked away as she said of her adoptive mother, “If it weren’t for her, I am not here. I am not here.”
Thanks to this couple, she had attended university, taught school, married a teacher who became a government worker and school principal, and raised three children who have families and jobs of their own. She has visited America and Europe. What a Japan she has witnessed in this past 60 years.
Today, last port, last day, I went with another professor and his political science students to the University of Kobe, carved out of the same mountainside as Mrs. Nakahata’s apartment building, with the same chirping crickets for background. Professor Rieko Kage of their new law school talked to us about domestic politics under the popular Prime Minister with the great hair, Junichiro Koizumi.
Dr. Kage arranged for four of her students to join us for lunch, two Japanese, one from Paraguay, one from Sweden. Annemarie and Bjorn are among the 10% non-Japanese in the University’s 10,000-strong student body. Most are from Asia; only 300 are Western. They study Japanese law, read Japanese textbooks, and take their tests in Japanese. Annamarie said Japan attracted her with the best financial aid for international students.
With the lowest birth rate of any industrialized country, Japan is worried about who will support those aging women. Immigration to Japan? Walking the crowded and interesting streets of Kobe, I felt as though two siblings locked in a closet had developed this culture. They eventually passed their fascinating language and rituals on to 127 million descendants, but outsiders have a hard time decoding them. The Japanese take in Western concepts, but they don’t give up much in return.
For an American living in Europe, it’s hard to imagine a country loosening its immigration laws to attract workers. Attracting foreigners to study at university sounds like a good strategy.
After Annamarie gave us a campus tour, partly in Spanish, we got back onto our bus to wind down the steep streets, back to our ship for the last time, in the last port, on our last day.
Last night Tony’s first grandson was born. Dallan Brian Dixon Cusack came into the world in Ireland, not at war with anyone. His immediate family, including his eight-year-old sister, Erin, have all visited America and can legally live, work, and study in all 25 European countries. His grandfather is on a ship, under a bright full moon, sailing home from Japan.
Welcome to this world, Dallan.
Where will you go?
Watch this space.
Last Wednesday morning we arrived in Busan, Korea, and stayed until Friday night when we left for Kobe, Japan.
I had passed the ship’s head cold on to My Irish Husband Tony, so we used Busan as a rest stop. We were docked in Da Daepo Port, a bedroom community 30 minutes from the centre of Busan, with a total population of 5 million. We had enough shops, restaurants and bars near the ship, so we limited our travel to, for me, the Korean tea ceremony and a Lotte Giants baseball game (they lost; apparently not unusual), and, for Tony, a van-and-driver trip through the countryside with our “granddaughters.”
But Korea is not just tea and baseball, so I interviewed our student, James MacLean, an International Relations major from Boston University who is in the ROTC program. His mother was born in Korea in 1961, eight years after the war there ended. I asked how he felt about visiting his mom’s home country.
“When I saw that this voyage was going to Korea, that sealed it for me. I wanted to figure out what I was. Half Korean, half Scottish, I don’t look Scottish. Figured I’d better learn something about the Korean half.
“I honestly didn’t know a whole lot about my mom’s background until a few weeks before this trip. I think she was in the orphanage when she was three, wasn’t adopted until she was four and didn’t actually make it to the States with her adoptive parents until she was five.”
James originally wanted to travel to Seoul, about four hours north, to see where his mother grew up, but those plans fell through. I’ll let him tell you what he did for three days in Busan.
“I got off the ship and was on the Tongdosa Temple tour. It took two hours to get to the first stop. We were just driving around; I’m lookin’ out the window. It was really bittersweet. I wasn’t sure how I should be feeling. If I should be feeling enthused or I should be feeling remorse. I seriously was torn for the first couple hours.
“We got to the Temple and it was one of the most beautiful places I’d seen on this trip. There was a river leading up to it and local families swimming, having a good time laughing, playing. A lot of little kids too.
“Came back towards Busan, swung by the UN cemetery, went to a park for a little while and then I left the tour at one of the markets. I know very, very little Korean, and a lot of the vendors knew very, very little English. But I was able to talk to a couple for a few minutes. Mostly hand gestures though.
“That first day we went to a buffet and had bulgogi. I have to say I like mine better. I’ve gotten pretty good at cooking that. Around the time I was getting interested in my background, I decided to try cooking some Korean things.
“The second day I had completely free. That morning I thought about everything and outlined some of my thoughts from the day before and looked at my pictures. Four of us decided to go to one of the local beaches, walk around. If I was Korean and had the day free I would probably be at the beach, so it was nice to see locals in their natural environment.
“The last morning, Friday, I ran to a peninsula about three miles away and it was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. There was an island, pine trees and a lone fishing boat with the sun coming up. I really wish I’d had my camera for it. It was also weird because I was sitting right next to a pillbox, a very poorly camouflaged pillbox. It reminded me that the country is having some problems. There were people playing badminton and Korean troops doing exercises, guards with M240 Bravo rifles.
“Then some of the girls and I went out to the market. My mom had asked me to bring her back a stone. Just a regular old stone. That first day, I went to the river, grabbed a stone. But I’m also the brat kid and I decided to spoil her a little bit and I wanted to get her another kind of stone.
“I only had about an hour because I had a trip leaving later, so we went to the international market. At a jewelry store they had an emerald pendant, yellow gold, heart-shaped, with diamonds around it. But I’m a white gold guy, so I had them make another one from white gold. So she asked for a stone, she’s getting two. It’s her birthstone, so that was perfect.
“Then I caught a cab back to the ship because I had signed up for a visit to an orphanage. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was really mixed, not sure whether I would want to be there. But what could I do? If I didn’t do this I’d be kicking myself for the rest of the trip home and for a long time after.
“They walked us around the orphanage, gave a few presentations, we met the director. Then we got about an hour to play with the kids and that was one of the most bittersweet moments of the whole trip. This particular kid was just reaching out, grabbing my face. He literally reached into my mouth and was pulling on my teeth.
“But the toughest thing—I don’t have any pictures of this because I just couldn’t do it—there was this girl that looked just like my mom did 40 years ago. I had seen my mother’s pictures, and it was like, whoa! That is too creepy. I tried to talk to her and the only thing I could think of to say in Korean was sa rang hae, which translates to I love you. I said that a couple times. I couldn’t think of anything else to say and the little girl started crying. It just…that got me. I’ve been through my share of crap and, I’m not going to lie, I’m a hard bastard some times. But that got me where it counts.
“Then we came back to the port, and about 12 of us went to a restaurant your husband recommended. It was like the first real Korean meal I had. It was a good way to end the trip.”
James knows that he will come back. “This voyage has prompted my mom to suggest that she come back here with me after I graduate from college. I think she has kind of been using my newfound interest to get herself back here.”
Thanks, James, for sharing your experiences. And tell your mom thanks too.
After spending Saturday teaching classes as we sailed through Japan’s Inland Sea, past uninhabited islands and big cities, we docked Sunday morning in downtown Kobe, Japan.
Picture a country with half the US population shoved into California—but just the mountainous part. And you dropped nuclear bombs on two of their largest cities but within 40 years they became the world’s second largest economy.
Our visit to the peace memorial at Hiroshima left at 6 am for a five-hour bus trip through Pennsylvania-like mountain tunnels. Considering the Japanese suffered nuclear radiation, getting up at 5 am wasn’t much of a sacrifice.
Our students had folded 1000 origami cranes to hang at the memorial for a 10-year-old girl who died from leukaemia after the blast. When our trip leader, Professor Judit Gellerd, found out on the bus that there should be an accompanying ceremony, she pulled together a moving sermon. It was hot, standing there in the August sun. But that didn’t match the 5800C temperature when the first nuclear bomb exploded there 61 years and 1 day before. No one complained on the long bus trip back that night.
Tony and I signed up for the “Home Visit” program, and our hostess, Mrs. Nakahata, met us at the subway station (Gee, how did she pick us out?). She took us by taxi to her high-rise apartment, clinging to the side of a San Francisco-steep mountain looking out over the bay. We could hear the crickets around her building and see our ship from her living room.
During our afternoon together, she showed us her collection of brochures about English country garden tours, and we invited her to visit us in Birmingham (she likes cats). She was born during the war, but she didn’t look any older than us aging baby boomers. Japanese women have the longest life expectancy on earth, so, at 62, she still has a ways to go.
When she was an infant, her family home in Osaka burned. She moved to a nearby city where a couple adopted her and raised her with their own children. Her dark eyes looked away as she said of her adoptive mother, “If it weren’t for her, I am not here. I am not here.”
Thanks to this couple, she had attended university, taught school, married a teacher who became a government worker and school principal, and raised three children who have families and jobs of their own. She has visited America and Europe. What a Japan she has witnessed in this past 60 years.
Today, last port, last day, I went with another professor and his political science students to the University of Kobe, carved out of the same mountainside as Mrs. Nakahata’s apartment building, with the same chirping crickets for background. Professor Rieko Kage of their new law school talked to us about domestic politics under the popular Prime Minister with the great hair, Junichiro Koizumi.
Dr. Kage arranged for four of her students to join us for lunch, two Japanese, one from Paraguay, one from Sweden. Annemarie and Bjorn are among the 10% non-Japanese in the University’s 10,000-strong student body. Most are from Asia; only 300 are Western. They study Japanese law, read Japanese textbooks, and take their tests in Japanese. Annamarie said Japan attracted her with the best financial aid for international students.
With the lowest birth rate of any industrialized country, Japan is worried about who will support those aging women. Immigration to Japan? Walking the crowded and interesting streets of Kobe, I felt as though two siblings locked in a closet had developed this culture. They eventually passed their fascinating language and rituals on to 127 million descendants, but outsiders have a hard time decoding them. The Japanese take in Western concepts, but they don’t give up much in return.
For an American living in Europe, it’s hard to imagine a country loosening its immigration laws to attract workers. Attracting foreigners to study at university sounds like a good strategy.
After Annamarie gave us a campus tour, partly in Spanish, we got back onto our bus to wind down the steep streets, back to our ship for the last time, in the last port, on our last day.
Last night Tony’s first grandson was born. Dallan Brian Dixon Cusack came into the world in Ireland, not at war with anyone. His immediate family, including his eight-year-old sister, Erin, have all visited America and can legally live, work, and study in all 25 European countries. His grandfather is on a ship, under a bright full moon, sailing home from Japan.
Welcome to this world, Dallan.
Where will you go?
Watch this space.
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