The Rest of the Story

Well.  The scanning is all done, or as much as I intend to do.  Herewith the final installments of my Beijing posts.

―:☺:―

A Lengthy Reminiscence: Part Three

I have a lot of memories about the Beijing trip, but the one that stands out most is this: it was cold. From the Wikipedia entry on Beijing:

The city's climate is harsh, characterized by hot, humid summers due to the East Asian monsoon, and cold, windy, dry winters that reflect the influence of the vast Siberian anticyclone. Average temperatures in January are at around -7 to -4 °C, while average temperatures in July are at 25 to 26 °C. Annual precipitation is over 600 mm, with 75% of that in summer.

Minus 7 Celsius is 20 degrees Fahrenheit. And keep in mind, those are averages. We were at least that cold the whole time I was there, if not colder. I’m not stupid…I knew it would be cold. Both The Second Mrs. Pennington (ed: "PK" in the photo titles) and I brought clothes appropriate for the weather, as we anticipated we’d be doing more than a bit of outdoor sightseeing. I assumed the Ministry of Rails (MOR) offices would be comfortable (read that: heated) but I was wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To pick up the tale…

I scheduled our trip so TSMP and I would have one full day to adjust and work off the jet lag after arriving in Beijing and before I began work. The evening we arrived in Beijing was a low-level affair. We checked in, went up to our room, cleaned up and went back downstairs to have a couple of Tsingtaos in the Lobby Lounge, followed by dinner in one of the four hotel restaurants. We turned in after dinner and slept late the following morning.

Our first full day in Beijing was overcast, slightly breezy, and cold. TSMP and I bundled up after breakfast, went downstairs to the lobby and asked the concierge to call a taxi for us. Keep in mind: this is 1991 and as such was a bit before the economic boom that swept China in the late ‘90s. Taxis, among other things, were a pretty rare commodity in Beijing at the time. If one was smart one made arrangements for a taxi, including a time and place for the taxi driver to meet you and return you to your point of origin. I learned this from the Shangri-La concierge our first day and we made our arrangements accordingly.

TSMP and I spent our first day hanging around Tiananmen Square and environs. The square is huge, reputedly the largest open air square in the world. I believe it. We spent the entire day there, doing things like watching the changing of the guard at Mao’s tomb, walking along the moat of the Imperial Palace, scoping out the Peoples Architecture, and wandering around the shopping areas adjacent to the square. We were struck by how friendly the people were and by the large numbers of men in uniform…seemingly every third male we saw was in a uniform of one sort or another. English signage, as may be expected, was in short supply. This wasn’t as big a problem as you might think, because TSMP discovered in very short order that she could read Chinese ideograms quite easily and that those ideograms were roughly equivalent in meaning to the same or similar Japanese kanji. We were also equipped with a copy of Fodor’s Beijing guidebook so we got around very well. (I’ve mentioned this elsewhere on the blog, but just for the record: TSMP speaks, reads, and writes fluent Japanese. Or at least she used to.)

The day was punctuated with quite a few encounters with English-speaking Chinese and every single one of our encounters was pleasant and very friendly. With one exception. TSMP attempted to strike up a conversation with a very young, very tall (well over six feet) PLA soldier during the changing of the guard ceremony at Mao’s tomb. He simply glared at her the whole time, acknowledging her presence but refusing her attempts to talk to him. I was decidedly uncomfortable during the whole exchange, which only lasted a couple of minutes. But, hey…that’s her and that’s her style. She’s a button-pusher from the word Go.

We returned to the hotel in the late afternoon, took a nap, and then went downstairs for dinner. I noticed the type of restaurants have changed at the Shangri-La over the last 15 years. We had dinner our first full night at the Shangri-La in a wonderful French restaurant that’s no longer there. And the cuisine was remarkable, what with a resident French chef overseeing the whole affair. The food was every bit as good as that served in any restaurant in France I ever ate in and that’s saying a lot. We turned in early that evening as I wanted to be well-rested for my first day on the job.

I had been given a contact number to call upon my arrival in Beijing to verify I had indeed arrived and was ready to go to work. I made that call our first day “on the ground” and was told I would be picked up the following morning at 0900 and driven to MOR’s offices. I was downstairs at the appointed time when the car—an old, clunky, wheezy Russian Lada—arrived with the driver, an interpreter, and a young female engineer inside. They got out of the car, we introduced ourselves and then piled back into the car for the drive to MOR’s offices.

Ten minutes or so later we arrived. The MOR’s offices were in a low, two-story concrete block building surrounded by a high masonry wall with a steel sliding gate, attended by an armed guard. The offices appeared to be in a residential neighborhood and had no identifying signs (or anything else) to indicate what the building might be. The interpreter, a young man by the name of Mr. Wen, explained that the offices were MOR’s engineering facility. We went into the building, walked down a long, dimly-lit corridor, up a staircase to the second floor, down another corridor, and into a medium-sized conference room, where there were about five people waiting. We made our introductions, passed out business cards, and I made the ceremonial gift presentations (small boxes of Godiva chocolates), part of the ritual of doing business in China. An attendant brought tea, we sat down at a conference table, and we began to go over the schedule for the week.

 At Work

It was then I noticed that everyone in the room was dressed in parkas and were wearing those fingerless gloves one sees here and there. And that it was cold, very cold, in the room. When I say “cold,” I mean it was 40 degrees F inside, while the outside temperature was in the 20s. You could almost, but not quite, see your breath as you breathed in and out. I had taken off my overcoat when I arrived and it wasn’t too very long before I put it back on, to many smiles around the table. That morning was the first and last time I went to the office in “appropriate business attire,” to wit: suit and tie. My MOR counterparts were dressed in heavy sweaters and parkas, and although I didn’t bring a parka, I had several sweaters and warm wool casual pants. I dressed accordingly for the remainder of the week. But I was still cold the whole time. I drank a lot of tea over the course of the next week, using my teacup as an impromptu sort of hand warmer.

 MOR Staff - Male Engineer, Two Female Engineers, the Chief Engineer and Wen, My Translator

I’ll not go into detail about the business. Suffice to say that my days were spent doing a tedious, but necessary, line-by-line edit of the Request for Proposal. We edited the RFP as a group and my primary interactions were with the previously mentioned mid-30s female engineer, an older male engineer, and our interpreter. We were joined occasionally (at least once a day) by the Chief Engineer, a man in his mid- to late 60s, who was obviously idolized by his subordinates. I’ve never seen another senior manager given such deference and obvious admiration by his or her subordinates, ever. I’m sure there’s some sort of back-story there but I never learned what it was. At any rate, I’d arrive at the MOR offices every day just after 0900, work until 1230 or so, return to the hotel for a two-hour lunch break, go back to the office and work until 1800 or so. Nights were spent incorporating the day’s edits into the master document, which I had on my laptop. Rinse, repeat…until we were done.

 Wen and Me in Tiananmen Square

Wen (“Please. Just call me Wen, not Mister Wen”) and I developed a close and friendly relationship over the course of the week, primarily because there was not much of a language barrier and also due to the fact that we spent a lot of time together. Wen would arrive at the hotel by bicycle every morning about a half-hour before the car. I discovered this the second day when I saw him waiting outside the hotel in the cold. He refused to come into the hotel even after much pleading and persuading on the part of TSMP and myself. But we finally convinced him to join us inside, and on the third day we talked him into having breakfast with us in the hotel restaurant. That may or may not have been a smart move, as Wen was mildly embarrassed because he had never used a knife and fork before. We solved that situation by asking the waiter for chopsticks which were delivered with a mild look of disapproval on the part of the waiter. Wen explained to us that “ordinary” Chinese were heavily discouraged from mixing with foreigners and were generally prohibited from entering the western hotels except on business. We convinced him that it was indeed business when he joined us in the hotel and he finally but reluctantly agreed. TSMP and I would pick up quite a few tidbits of information like that from Wen as he became more comfortable with us.

We learned that Wen was from a small village in the south of China and went to university in Beijing. The government assigned him his job as an MOR interpreter following his graduation from university. Wen had absolutely no choice in the matter at all. He lived in an MOR dormitory with other young males. One evening after work, TSMP, Wen, and I were sitting in the lobby lounge having a beer and TSMP, in her inimitable style, asked if Wen had a girlfriend. Wen said no, but he used to have one. “What happened?”, asked TSMP. “She wanted too much,” replied Wen. TSMP: “Too much?” Wen: “Yes. She wanted a car! Can you believe that? She actually wanted a car!” TSMP changed the subject…

My, but I do go on, eh? There’s a lot to say about this trip, but I don’t want to write the Not-So-Great American Novel while doing so. One more installment and I think I’m done. More tomorrow.

―:☺:―

A Lengthy Reminiscence: Part Four (and Final)

TSMP in the Forbidden City.  She did touristy stuff while I froze my ass off at work.

More Forbidden City

Still More Forbidden City

The tale continues…earlier installments are just below. (ed: still sorta true - see below for Parts One and Two)

After about five days of work, we (the client and I) finished editing the RFP, producing a final document which was ready to be put “on the street” for prospective bidders. One of the final activities was to wrap up some administrative details which necessitated a visit to the Chinese government contracting authority who handled the business end of the deal. The contracting authority was an entity separate and apart from the Ministry of Rails and was responsible for oversight of the project. The purpose of my visit with these guys was to verify that the consulting contract had been completed to the MOR’s satisfaction; all items on the Statement of Work, including the deliverables (the RFP), were done; and EDS could submit our bill for services rendered. I delivered a written statement from MOR saying the work had been completed to their satisfaction and from my point of view that should have been the end of it. But first I had to complete an interview with a contracting officer.

The contracting officer was a middle-aged bilingual bureaucrat who spoke excellent English and my visit with him was anything but pleasant. I suppose the guy had to justify his existence, because I was subjected to a half-hour’s worth of what could only be called an interrogation…in the worst sense of the word. While I wasn’t waterboarded or anything, it was close. 

A clerk or some sort of minor functionary ushered me into a small bare office where the interview took place. The office was furnished only with a desk, two metal chairs, and was lit by a single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The office resembled the set of a bad spy movie, which is one of the reasons I characterize this interview as an interrogation.

As I entered the room the officer, sitting behind the desk, pointed to a chair in front of the desk and instructed me to “sit.” He gave me his name, took a few minutes to read the MOR documents and then began to pepper me with rapid-fire questions about the nature of the work, why it took so many hours to complete, who were my principal counterparts at MOR, did they express any dissatisfaction with my work or the deliverables, were there any loose ends, did I give MOR my very best efforts and so on. The officer asked many of the questions over and over, some were repeated several times. He abruptly concluded the interview by handing me some documents and dismissing me, literally, with a “Very well. You may go.” 

And that was it. He didn’t rise from behind the desk and there was no parting handshake. Just a curt “You may go.” I walked out of the office, and the building, more than a little angry. This encounter had been completely different than the sum total of my other experiences the past week, and I was mildly shocked. Maybe the guy was having a bad day or maybe this was just the way they did business. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t pleasant, as I said. But it was over.

I returned to MOR’s offices and gave them their copies of the documents given to me by the contracting officer. I was then led to the same conference room where the week’s activities had begun, and was surprised to see all my project counterparts... the Chief Engineer, Wen, and several other people gathered there. What followed were several speeches (in Chinese) by the Chief Engineer and the junior engineers, many smiles, thank-yous, and handshakes all around. I, in turn, made a brief speech thanking them for their hospitality, cooperation, and hard work. All very formal!

The Chief Engineer presented with me with a parting gift, followed by a brief period of informal socializing with tea and sweet cakes. The Chief Engineer asked (through Wen) when I was leaving Beijing (day after tomorrow), and what were my plans for the following day? I replied TSMP and I were going to do more sightseeing, after which the Chief Engineer had a brief exchange with one of his subordinates. Wen then told me the Chief Engineer was giving me the car and a driver for the day tomorrow and we were going to go to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. Wen told me the car and the trip were rewards for a job well-done. And then it was time to go. It goes without saying that those two experiences, back-to-back, were as different as night and day…a true “good cop, bad cop” kinda thing!

PLA Soldiers on the Wall

Wen, car, and driver arrived at the Shangri-La early the following morning and we were off to the Great Wall which was about an hour’s drive outside of the city. Once again, it was cold. Bone chilling cold, and if that Lada had any heat, it only got to the occupants of the front seat. TSMP and I shivered in the back. We arrived at the Great Wall and spent about two hours there, clambering all around, taking lots of photos, and just generally having a marvelous time. TSMP and I were impressed with the scale and scope of the Wall, its skillful restoration, and the sheer numbers of people that were there. There were literally thousands of people; the crowds were amazing. The majority of the people were Chinese, including quite a few PLA soldiers and officers. There were also many tourists of every conceivable nationality. The people-watching opportunities were unlimited and fascinating.

Wen gave us a running commentary of the history of the Wall all throughout our visit and included lots of trivia, including the fact that I was now a “real man.” Say what? Wen explained there’s an old Chinese proverb that says a man isn’t truly a man until he’s stood upon the Great Wall. Well, Allll-RIGHT!!! I’m a man, spelled M-A-N… da, da, da-DAH! (Apologies to Muddy Waters.)  (pic: Wen and TSMP on the Wall)

We had lunch and did some shopping at an artists’ mall (for lack of a better word), where we picked up a beautiful large watercolor painting of blooming cherry blossoms done in the classic Chinese motif. As an aside of no purpose whatsoever, that painting was one of the few items TSMP decided to keep when we ended.

And then it was on to the Ming Tombs (there are great photos and external links at this reference), which weren’t nearly as interesting (to me) as the Great Wall. Whereas the Great Wall was over-run with tourists we were virtually alone at the Ming Tombs, a fact I found rather strange. The architecture was great as was the extensive collection of statuary, but the cold was really beginning to get to me by the time we arrived at the Tombs. And, as I mentioned previously, the lack of heat in the car meant that warming up was a virtual impossibility. (pic: At the Ming Tombs)

We capped off the day with a tremendous meal in a roadside restaurant on the way back into the city. The meal and the restaurant seemed pre-arranged. Our driver pulled right into the restaurant’s “parking lot” with no prompting from anyone and we all got out of the car and went inside. An unusual aspect of this experience is the restaurant’s proprietors wouldn’t let us eat in the main dining room; we were ushered upstairs to a small room where the four of us ate alone. I though that rather odd. But that’s a small point. The meal, as I said, was tremendous. The four of us shared what had to be 15 main course dishes, all delicious, and all served up with great flair. There was meat, chicken, a huge baked fish (bass, I think), and numerous vegetables, some spicy hot, and some not. Each dish was deposited on one of those large lazy-susans one finds in Chinese restaurants all over the world, and we ate Chinese style. That meal was the best meal I had while in China.

We got back to the hotel in the early evening. TSMP, Wen, and I got out of the car and said our good-byes. Wen blushed, very visibly, when TSMP ignored his outstretched hand and gave him a hug and a big kiss on his cheek instead. The good-byes were quite poignant as TSMP and I had become quite attached to Wen during the week. And it all went by SO fast…

And so we left for Tokyo the following day. Our arrival at Narita and the subsequent bus ride into Tokyo was something of a relief. TSMP and I both arrived at that particular conclusion simultaneously, remarking on that fact to each other nearly at the same time. We agreed that it was largely because we were now in familiar surroundings, the known versus the unknown. It was good to see lots of cars, lots of traffic, and above all, lots of light. Beijing was unbelievably dark. (pic: back in familiar territory - Tokyo)

Bedtime in Japan - at one of TSMP's host family's house

Why I love Japan - Beer Machines!

TSMP and her best friend Junko

We spent a week in Tokyo and the surrounding vicinity (including Christmas Day), staying and visiting with friends and TSMP’s host families from her Rotary exchange student days. The week in Tokyo is worth a story all its own so I won’t go into detail, except to say it was something of a sentimental journey. TSMP and I met in Tokyo in 1975 when she was an exchange student at Sofia University. Yeah, she milked that exchange student thing for all it was worth, and then some!

Some final observations I was unable to work into the foregoing narrative(s)…

Besides being dark and cold, Beijing was also the most polluted city I’ve ever visited, bar none. There was a fine layer of soot all over everything in our hotel room by the end of the day, despite the Herculean efforts of the housekeeping staff.

Each city I’ve ever visited outside the US has a characteristic and unique…uh…aroma. Beijing smelled old to me. It was a musty sort of smell, a combination of coal smoke, diesel exhaust, natural dust, and construction dust plus an indeterminate “other.” As I said: unique.

The elevators at the Shangri-La had carpets inside with the day of the week lavishly embroidered on them, i.e., “Monday,” “Tuesday,” etc.. TSMP and I never figured out when, or how, the carpets were changed. We made a game of trying to catch the staff changing out the carpets, hanging out in and around the elevators at midnight but we never saw them do it. And the “day of the week” changed precisely at midnight!

While I'm on about the hotel, I have to mention the servers in the Lobby Lounge, who were all beautiful, tall young women dressed in qipaos... the silky, clingy, traditional female Chinese dress. The one with the slits up the side…all the way to mid-thigh. And the servers were quite friendly, too, bordering on flirtatious. I got several hard looks from TSMP on account of that fact. Well, that and my trying-not-to-be-obvious leering.

We thought our driver was a member of the Chinese KGB (or equivalent thereof). We always had the same driver, he never said a word, and he was always observing us in his rear-view mirror. We were sure he spoke English, even though Wen said he didn’t. TSMP and I devised several “tests” that convinced us the guy did indeed understand English. That aspect of the trip was kinda strange, yet fun and interesting.

And finally…I replaced that dishrag, the one that started this series of incredibly long posts with an English tea towel. That tea towel was, up until now, used for the sole purpose of drying my glasses after I wash them. And I’ve had it nearly as long as the dishrag it replaced. Don’t get me started on how I came to acquire that rag. Or where. ‘Tis a whole nuther story, as they say…