July 28, 2005
JS took me out for a farewell dinner. The restaurant was one of the fanciest in town but the food was not to her liking. She preferred more spicy food. But we had a good time nonetheless.
After dinner, we walked into a super market thinking to buy something for my trip tomorrow. We decided not to go in because the guard asked her to deposit her carry on bag. On our way out, we saw a lot of people on a near by square. Then we heard music. We realized that people were ballroom dancing. They were divided into three groups, each of which danced to different music and styles. One of the groups was actually doing (ballroom) tango. It was too bad that JS did not know how to dance. Otherwise we could have done a small Argentine tango demo.
It was a really hot night (35 C). Simply walking made one sweat. And yet those people were dancing and having a good time. I admired them for that.
Before dinner I went swimming for a little while to make myself hungry. The water was cold. When we got back to my room after the dinner, I started to act up and sneezed non-stop. So after seeing JS off, I went straight to bed.
7/22/2005
This couple of days was nothing but meeting friends and classmates. The day before I went my alma mater Wuhan University and met one of my classmates GZA. Since now it was in the summer break, most of the professors were gone. I also wanted to visit Professor Feng, who guided my Master’s thesis but couldn’t find him. In the afternoon, I met JJ another new friend via my sister. She was a middle school chemistry teacher. In the evening I met one of my high school classmates DSH, who moved here from Shiyan ten years ago.
Today JS, her cousin and I went swimming. The pool was really nice and water was clean. It was here where many world diving champions were trained. Although there were more than 5 people in each lane, everyone was courteous and careful. There were no any serious collisions. I did 1000m.
7/20/2005
I met JS via my sister. JS just returned from Australia. She obtained her Master’s degree in Marketing there. Since she was born and grew up in Wuhan, she would be a nice guide for me. Wuhan had changed a great deal from just a year ago. For example, I would not have known there was a light rail service if not being told. JS and I tried it and the ride was really nice. Then we went a “pedestrian street” (no cars allowed) along which many shops were lined up on both sides. We just simply did window shopping. Soon we ran into a problem. The shoes she wore were not for running and her feet started to hurt. We had to stop and walked into a bar along the Yangtze River. We spent a couple of hours there before she could walk again.
There was an incident worth mentioning. While walking along the river, I was stopped by a little girl who wanted me to buy a stem of rose for JS. I declined politely. You would think she might just walk away. It was not that simple. She fell to the ground and held one of my legs and would not let go. I demanded that she release my leg immediately but she would not budge. I was rather embarrassed by the whole situation and had to give up. I paid her 4 Yuan (instead of the asking price 5). The price was nothing but the tactic was rather disgusting. Next time I don’t think I would submit myself to the pressure.
7/19/2005
ZQJ introduced me to a friend of his who was a director of an executive training program associated with Hua Zong University of Science and Technology. In addition, he also ran a consulting firm. He was a nice and sharp guy. We were interested to know whether there were any opportunities for collaboration. We talked about three options. First, I could teach for him if my expertise was needed. I needed to send him my portfolio. Second, I could work for his consulting firm when there was a suitable project. Third, we could set up a joint venture if I found money and technology from the US. We discussed a possible project involving IT applications in hospitals. One of our classmates in the States talked to me before my trip with regard to this type of project. There seemed to be a match here.
At the end, he summarized our conversations and assigned priorities to the list so that we could forget the unimportant and remember the important. Since he was a math major in college, his logic was clear and impressive. I enjoyed his style.
7/18/2005
I arrived in Wuhan in late afternoon. My brother-in-law picked me up at the train station. We met my sister for dinner. Yet another dinner! I had been growing tired of food. But here it was part of culture. I did not know how they could ever feel hungry by the way they eat. I knew I would regret not wanting to eat all that good food soon after I went back to the States but I just had enough of it NOW.
Over the dinner, I debriefed them my trips to Shiyan and Xiongfan. They were happy to know that I had a good time and also accomplished some missions such as preliminary arrangement of mother’s move and meeting classmates and cousins.
After they left my hotel, I called ZQJ, a classmate from Wuhan University. He just returned from GongZhu a couple of days ago. His company went under after in operation for five years. Now he joked that he was one of the XiaGang (laid off). He was now enrolled in an EMBA program to retrain himself. For sure the effort paid off. His talking was involved many impressive professional terminologies. We spent nearly 4 hours together before I became really tired and said goodnight.
7/17/2005
I spent a couple of days in XiongFan, a city about one hour and half away from Shiyan by car on a newly built highway. It was my mother’s hometown and she wishes to return here for her remaining years. She has a brother and a sister living in the city. Another reason is that there are many conflicts with my younger sister’s family by living together with them in Shiyan. So we came here to do some investigation. Plus I had not seen my uncle, aunt and their families for 10 years. But there was a complication. My uncle (and his family) did not speak with my aunt (and her family). I did not want to get into details as to why but it was a silly thing no matter what. For example, when both of them learnt that we were coming, my aunt insisted that we come to her place first or she wouldn’t see us at all.
Although it was a conflict between the old generations, I didn’t think it should affect the younger ones. So I invited all the children and their families for lunch the next day and gave them a chance to get to know each other. They had not seen or talked to each other for a long time as well in spite of living in the same (not so big a) city. For example, my cousin (uncle’s son) never met another’s (aunt’s daughter) husband let alone their children. It was unimaginable, and sort of funny, to see how the cousins had transformed from playful and sometimes stubborn children to parents. We really had a good time visiting each other so we decided to continue by having dinner together. It was my sincere hope that they could keep this contact up in the future.
Two things are for sure: I’ve been eating too much and we all have changed a lot in 10 years
7/15/2005
We had another banquet party among our high school classmates. This time it was for another person who just arrived on vacation from the US. Many of us had not seen her since the graduation. We all agreed that she had changed quite a bit. For one thing, she was now a mother of two. I called her from time to time in the States, but never had a chance to meet. Now it was nice to see her in our hometown.
The dinner was as usual: plenty of food and drinks going around. After dinner we decided to go to a night club to sing karaoke. One of us performed before nearly as a professional. Her voice was still strikingly beautiful after all these years. Everyone, even Teacher Zhou who was in his 60s, had a good time.
Around 0:30 we said goodbye and hoped to see each other next year.
7/14/2005
We had a scheduling conflict. Both ZL, my high school classmate, and my niece’s English teachers wanted to invite me out for dinner. At the end, we comprised to combine both invitations and ZL would pay. ZL was one of my best buddies in high school. He was really warm and caring. He wanted to see my whole family. He still remembered that he was having dinner at my home when we were little boys.
A general observation. Many people now use solar panels to get hot water to homes. I saw them all over people’s roofs. My home had one as well. This was definitely a good sign in terms of environment protection.
July 23, 2005
In the morning DSH introduced me to a friend of his who worked in a bank in charge of investments in pharmaceuticals. In the afternoon we met another high school classmate YY who had his own software company. We discussed possibilities of working together. It was exciting to see how people wheel and deal here.
It has been exactly two months since I left Salisbury. It has been productive and emotional. Honestly speaking, I have accomplished a lot in that time. I have felt the vigor and vibration of the Chinese economy and the pace of change of the society. Overall, the country is changing for better. For example, Wuhan looks much better within merely a year since I was here last. People have more time to enjoy themselves. They talk about taking vacations, eating out, getting pampered… Of course, the people I have contacts with are mainly the middle class. It is hard to image how much better those newly riches live. On the other hand, people in the bottom may have to worry about making ends meet on a daily basis.
Although happy here, I’ve grown a little homesick. I like both here and the US, but it is impossible for me to be in both places at the same time. It has been a constant struggle for me as to where I should call home. I just have to try to be as happy as I can wherever I am.
July 11, 2005
I’m on way home by train. Finally I’ll get some time to relax. The train ride is about six hours. This gives me an opportunity to reflect on some interesting things I encountered during the tours in the last few days.
Sitting next to me on the bus was my old friend RC. He was an MIS professor in a university in California. Being a ABC (American born Chinese), he did not speak much Chinese. I was quite impressed by his knowledge about Chinese history and current affairs. Our conversations were all over the map. We discussed issues such as China’s WTO struggle, Sino-US relations, the anti-Japanese sentiment, Taiwan issue, Chairman Mao’s historical position and the future of China. In addition to his knowledge, he was a sincere and truly nice man.
While on the bus, I met a few professors and students from Taiwan. Taiwan issue was an obvious topic. Most of them were in the moderate camp that preferred to maintain the status quo. I had some deep exchanges with CXY. He was proud of the progress the mainland was making and fond of a great China concept that encompassed Hong Kong, Macau, the Mainland and Taiwan. He pointed out that the future of Taiwan was tied to the mainland. One of his radical thoughts was that Taiwanese political parties should open offices in the mainland and compete for offices with the communist party. This would serve as pressure to push the mainland government to carry out political reforms. Another was that Chinese’s anti-Japanese war during the WWII was a mistake. Japanese should have been let in. After a while, they would have been absorbed by the Chinese culture which had been traditionally proved powerful enough to do so. As a result, today Japan might have been part of China already. I was with him on his first point and not so convinced of his second.
While in Lijiang, we were introduced to the only living language in the world. It is called Dongba that uses shapes and pictures to describe meanings. For example, a tree shape is drawn to convey meaning of a tree. A pregnant woman is described by a picture with a small person within another person. There are in total about a couple of thousands of such characters. The people who live in this area are mainly LaXi minority. They regard fatness as beautiful. This would be a heaven for those in America who could not lose weight. J Their skin mostly looks dark due to exposure to abundant sunshine. Before marriage a man has to spend three years in his lover’s family as hard labor to prove his worthiness. Once passing the test, he would then become the master of the household. From then on he does not have to work any more. All he does the whole day is to eat, drink, play cards, OR study. That is why in general women are the main labor in this area.
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Dongba language is very difficult. A man who is able to write and read it is called Dongba, which means professor. This title is inherited within family and only men can be called so. Due to its difficulty, not too many men choose to become Dongba. There are only hundreds of them left in the world. I hope the language and the culture would be able to survive as more and more influences come from the Han culture, the majority. Young people there are increasingly look and speak like Han.
A similar phenomenon here to in the US was a housing boom. Our guide indicated that some people from WenZhou, an affluent city in eastern China, had come in and started to flip houses. This inflated the housing price. The same group of people was also charged for inflating the artificially high real estate price in Shanghai. But by the American standard the price here was still cheap. Russell and I jokingly said that we would buy some houses here and hire the tour guide as our property manager.
On our way to Shangri-la, we saw many satellite dishes erected on those old farm houses. Information acquisition was deemed very important. The majority of the people in this area are Tibetans. Interesting enough during a pit stop, I met a young LaXi girl who worked in a roadside restaurant. As usual she was dark but pretty. I asked her why she did not wear Laxi costume. She said she did not wear them, period, even during their festivals. How could others know she was Laxi? Her dialect, she told me. I also wondered how she could meet someone for marriage. She said mostly the same as any other places. If a young man found a girl interesting, he would ask her out. She also said that she did not have to marry a Laxi. But her children would be Laxi no matter whom she married. When I asked to take a picture of her, she refused because she did not think she was pretty enough. As a goodbye I told her that I thought she was beautiful.
Our local tour guide was a Tibetan. She was really nice, warm and soft spoken. She was not that kind of girls that were stunningly beautiful. But she attracted people with her sincerity and warmth. She wore a typical Tibetan costume. She introduced us to a Tibetan greeting ZiaXiDeLe which reminded me of the time when I was in Tibet. The population here wax 33,000, of which 33% was Tibetan. There were 9 other minorities and Han people were the minority. I was happy to hear this because it was good for the local people to maintain their identities.
The guide at one pointer mentioned that she was the only one among the five children who graduated from high school. The father was Hui and mother was Tibetan. The first child was a son and the next four were girls. The mother wanted to have another son to accompany the oldest but failed. As minority they could have up to 2 children. For each additional child, the family had to pay a 24 Yuan/month (about $3) fine. Although a small sum, it was rather burdensome for the locals. When the mother was pregnant with the six, government officials came by and threatened to take away their cows and sheep if they could not afford the fine. They had to give up the idea to have the child born.
Education was another problem for the family. At one point only one child could continue their schooling. After many difficult deliberations, the family decided that our tour guide should continue with her high school while the others had to abandon. Due to this fact she managed to find this job which paid much better than other jobs. I was really happy for her. She got married last December and planed to have their first child next year. She said she would want to have two. Many people volunteered to have only two because having too many was a too expensive proposition.
The main business here used to be logging. Not until 1996 when the central government realized the server consequences as the downstream of the Yangtze River became more and more muddy. Logging was banned completely. Now the business focus had shifted to tourism. From what I have seen and experienced thus far in China, I have felt the progress of environment protection. I have seen blue skies, sunshine, trees and greens all over the countries. The government at all levels starts to pay attention to the balance between economic development and environment protect.
Another tour guide spoke perfect English. He spent four years in India studying Buddhism. I asked him whether he met Dalai Lama while there. He became defensive because this was a sensitive topic. The entire Tibetan people here or in Tibet believe in Tibetan Buddhism and regard Dali Lama as one of their spiritual leaders. We joked with the guide that we would shake his hand that was blessed by Dalai Lama.
It was amazing that the minority people we met so far all had beautiful voice. When they sang, you were easily taken by their voice, range, and spirituality. Our guide told us that there were two preconditions for a man to find a better mate: singing and horseback riding abilities. Since I know I couldn’t sing, I had to give up the idea of finding a Tibetan girl here.
July 13, 2005
Eat, drink and sleep. That has been pretty much what I do nowadays. Last night, about 15 my high school classmates got together and had a banquet. It was so nice to see everyone again. I saw all but one last year when I was here.
Our class master Teacher Zhou looked better than last year. He told me that he had an operation done since then. Now he did not drink as aggressively as before. Among the classmates, there were a successful enterpreneur, head nurse, general manager, teachers, and engineers. They all seemed happy. While eating and drinking, we talked about many funny stories and who (boy/girl) was interested in whom (girl/boy) while in high school. We all agreed that it was unfortunate that not even a single pair existed among us. Last year they had tried hard to set me up with TQ, still single like me, to make up for the regret. This year they did not seem as enthusiastic. Maybe they finally got the message. J
After the dinner, six of us went to a coffee shop to continue the conversation. I felt much more comfortable with this setting, and was more engaged, than among many people sitting around a dinning table. Around 00:30 the party was over. They on purpose arranged TQ to give me a ride. It turned out that it was my first time to drive in my hometown. While in the driver’s seat, I saw differently from a passenger’s point of view. To survive, drivers in China have to be both daring and cautious at the same time. It looked to me that cars entering main roads from side ways had right of way (daring part) and cars on main roads had to yield (cautious part). Do you think drivers in the US would survive here?
The driving reminded me of an incident when I was a little boy. The house we lived in then was on top of a hill. On day a friend and I saw a tractor parked at atop. I just came back from a farm and was told how to drive a tractor, and more importantly, how to brake (you will see why soon). Boasting the skill, I jumped onto the tractor, released the brake and asked my friend to push. It started to move downhill gradually. I got scared and jumped off. It kept moving and gaining speed. My friend and I tried to run away, but senses came back to me. I ran toward the moving object, jumped on and applied the brake. Thanks heavens, the tractor stopped. Now looking back, I can’t even image what consequences it might have had if the tractor made its way down uncontrolled.
July 12, 2005
Home, sweet home! The train pulled in around 2:00pm yesterday afternoon. Since this was the termination station, there were so many people. Interesting enough, there was a final check point to make sure everyone had a ticket. As a result, a huge queue was formed at the exit. This must have been the third or fourth time when tickets were checked during the entire trip. I couldn’t comprehend why so many times. It seemed to me this was a gross waste of everyone’s time. Apparently, a trust system had yet to be established.
My brother-in-law (YB) and two nieces were at the train station to pick me up. Last time I saw them was a year ago. He and her daughter (the younger girl) did not change much but the older one (my older sister’s daughter in Wuhan) had changed greatly. She looked stunningly pretty. There was a Chinese saying that goes like “a girl when reaching 18 year old starts to change, and will look prettier and prettier.” This was so true, at least for her. She just passed the college entrance exam and now came back home from Wuhan to spend her worry free vacation before going to college in the fall.
Mother had already prepared my favorite dumplings. I did not want to eat anything on the train so that I had some room for such a delicious food. I had at least 30 of them. This made her happy.
In the evening the entire family but YB went to an open roof restaurant to have dinner. Surprisingly enough here they serve beers with kegs. Was I in America, I wonder?
July 10.2005
For t the last a few days I had been on the run. The field trips took us to Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-la. Since there were over 100 of us and three buses, the coordination sometimes became a nightmare. We had to get up early in the morning and went to bed late in the evening. It looked much like living in a military camp. One of the positive outcomes coming out of this was that I got to know some other scholars and made some new friends. Some potential research and exchange projects were discussed.
Last night was the last night of the conference. Some of us went out to celebrate. A professor from Taiwan and I became a good friend. We invited one professor from Shanghai University of Economics and Finance (SHUFE, sounds familiar?) and her mother, a student from Taiwan, and three tour guides to a local KTV to sing karaoke. We stayed there until 1am. This morning we had to get up at 6 to go to the airport. After saying goodbye to some friends in Kunming airport, I took my flight to Wuhan. My sister and brother in law met me in the airport and took me to a hotel related to his company. I just came back from having dinner with them. It is time to rest to compensate all the lost sleeps during last week. I will take train to my hometown tomorrow morning.
Some interesting signs I saw on the road:
By a lake: Take care, fall into the water carefully. (intended meaning: take care, don’t fall into the water)
On a lawn: Please don’t step on me, I am very painful.
Happy July 4th!
Happy July 4!
What amazed me the most about the service sector in China. The quality level and amount of services received for the money paid were incredible. Many bank branches were opened on Sundays. For sure China can afford it because of inexpensive and abundant labor. To receive the comparable level of service in the US, one has to pay arms and legs.
The presentation part of the conference had ended. Followed were the volunteer field trips. The first stop was Dali. There were three buses and the ride was about 5 hours. I noticed the tour guides were all different from whom we had on the first day. This made me remember an incident on the bus that day where the organizer of the conference scolded in public one of the tour guides. He reprimanded her for not being able to stick to the schedule, not competent in translation, and not obedient enough, etc. He indicated that the down payment was only half of total payment. The relationship between him and the tour guide was some sort of employer-employee relationship. If he was not satisfied he would forgo the rest. Tears could be seen in the guide’s eyes and her voice was trembling. I could not believe my ears that those insulting words could come from a Ph.D. and professor at one of the most prestigious universities in China. If a highly educated couldn’t show some basic respect for others, one can image how a common person treats another in China. Although the economic development speed in China is neck breaking, the quality of people in general is still lagging far behind. Also, universities professors have become part of the common society rather than above it.
July 3, 2005
2nd GMS (Greater Mekong Summit) is being held at the same time as our conference. The summit includes the six countries along the Mekong River. One of the delegations from Cambodia actually stayed in the same hotel as ours. The security details were nothing short of being visible. Each guest had to pass a mental detector to get in the hotel. Police-men and –women lined up streets every 20 meters in front of the hotel. All down businesses were closed to reduce traffic.
We visited Stone Forest in the afternoon after whole morning presentations. This was similar to the one we saw in Dalian but at a much larger scale. The area used to be bottom of ocean many million years ago. Now it consists of many strange shapes stones looking like a sword, cat, rat, elephant, etc. Sometimes they were obvious and sometimes one needed to use imaginations.
July 2, 2005
The conference formally got underway today. During one of the morning plenary talks, Grace asked me if I could do the introduction and first two sections for our presentation scheduled in the afternoon. I was a little surprised because I did not have time to prepare. I did PowerPoint slides a couple of weeks ago thinking that she would do the presentation. But now she said she had a fever and did not feel like to do the whole thing. I could not say anything else. I rushed to prepare the slides and talk during the lunch break. Fortunately the presentation went well. It was a great relief that it was over.
In the same session as mine I met three people from Indonesia. They were really nice. Ruth King from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was also there. His son David a consultant for Deloitte Consulting presented their paper and did a good job. I knew of her but never met her personally. Now I had pleasure to talk with her. We also sat next to each other at the dinner table. Afterward we decided to walk a little in the city. She told that she was to move to UNC at Greensboro for their newly established Ph.D. program in the fall. We were nicely surprised to find out that not only our research interests but our friends were overlapping. In addition she was a ballroom dancer. We just hit it off. I think she would be a good mentor for me.
July 1, 2005
Students did presentation this morning. I asked them to read and review two articles “IT Doesn’t Matter” by Carr and “IT is not for Everyone in China” by Quan, Hu and Wang at the beginning of the semester. I was impressed by their works and presentations. One person in particular was really good. His name was Mr. Zhang. His research was meticulous and his English was near perfect. He would definitely be good Ph.D. candidate to study in any US university. I would recommend him highly. On the end of the spectrum, a student, under a forceful persuasion from his partner, reluctantly presented. He spoke with a heavy accent. Some of words coming out his mouth were so funny that I could not help but wanting to laugh. I had to resist the urge so hard not to embarrass him by looking away or biting my fingers. But I really admired his courage nevertheless.
After the presentations, I had two hours to grade them before heading to the airport for my next stop Kunming. I managed to finish at the last minute and handed in the grades. The flight was about two hours and uneventful. Grace, my co-author for one of the conference papers was waiting for me at the airport. She arrived from ChengDu an hour earlier. We shared cab to the hotel. After finishing the registration, we were rushed to one of the most famous restaurants in Kunming with a spectacular performance that was supposedly for empires in ancient China. After dinner, I went swimming in the hotel pool for twenty minutes before it closed at 22:00. When I got back to my room, I was just too tired to do anything else but to crash. My illness was still not 100% recovered, yet.
