my bro in china

Travel dispatches. I didn't know it until I got the first email, but elder brother is in China. He has been writing via a wireless device. Here are the results:

Friday, April 4, 2008.
This is cool! I am standing on the Great Wall of China, built over a thousand and more years up through the 1600s. In a break from meetings in Beijing, Frank and I have escaped the city for a couple of hours to come see the part of the Wall at Badaling. It is amazingly steep, with steps that vary between an inch and twenty inches in height; I have no idea how I am going to get back down.

We arrived yesterday afternoon at the new international terminal built for the 2008 Olympics; it just opened last week. Once you get through immigration, you have to take a train to reach baggage claim, which seems like it is 2 or 3 miles away. Otherwise it was easy to navigate. Our taxi driver did not know how to get to the hotel; fortunately, I had the telephone number and he called to find out we were literally a block away.

After a short rest at the hotel, we met one of our contacts and were taken to dinner at a restaurant serving Szechuan food. It was VERY spicy. Frank had to order rice to cool his mouth down. I drank LOTS of beer. But the food was incredibly delicious. We started with a tea-smoked deep fried fish, woodear mushrooms stewed with Szechuan chilis and a silken poached chicken with a burning hot chili sauce. The others were impressed with my ability to use chopsticks (being the only "foreigner" at the table).

After the "cold" (actually, they were room temperature) dishes, we moved on to a crispy shredded beef dish with shredded chilis and scallions, a thinly sliced beef and chili dish cooked in a chili oil by dropping heated stones into the oil and a fish dish cooked the same way with Szechuan peppercorns. We also had a superb dish of tofu in a minced pork and chili sauce. We topped it all off with a bowl of dan dan noodles, noodles served in a chili and sesame sauce. I don't know how Frank managed to eat rice with all that. Ricardo and & Celeste will remember the extra spicy minced chicken dish we had at Telephone Thai a couple of weeks ago and understand when I say that none of the dishes we had were less spicy than that chicken dish at Telephone Thai. My mouth was burning last night, but all I can think of today is how I would like to repeat that dinner tonight.

Well, more to come later. I've got to figure out how to climb back down steps that are 20 inches high, without falling down the mountainside. If you'd rather not hear about my wandering about, let me know and I'll leave you off further emails.

Best regards,
Mark

Saturday, April 5, 2008
And the whole story at the Great Wall involves a camel: Should Have Been Obvious principle #1 - riding a camel is not a good idea. SHBO principle #2 - even a two-humped camel (and possibly, especially a two-humped camel). SHBO principle #3 - especially if you don't really fit between the humps. SHBO principle #4 - and don't even think how you're going to get off the creature. Well, at least I gathered a small crowd and they all thought it was pretty funny, even if I was having a pretty hard time seeing the humor of it. Facts to pay attention to: camels are taller than they seem; humps are not solid; a stepladder is an unwieldy and somewhat impractical means to get on and off a camel. I thought they knelt down for you, but apparently not this fellow. Pictures were taken but whether I'll show them to anybody has yet to be decided. At least I made it down those steep steps of the Great Wall before tackling the Camel and the Stepladder.

Later that day:
Well, one of them, at least (there are a number of them). I made it down those steps at the Great Wall in good enough time that we had time to stop at the Yongle emperor's tomb on our way back to Beijing.

On a side note, I am not sure I will survive the traffic here. I have yet to see any rules being followed. You just creep your way across an intersection with traffic coming at you from all directions. Everybody honks and nobody stops for anything. Thank God we have a driver or I would have been dead long ago. I see police everywhere but they don't seem to have much impact. It's exciting and frightening at the same time to see a huge bus come within an inch of your window, honking continuously, trying to force your driver to give him the right of way.

Back to the tomb of the Yongle emperor. The buildings are magnificent and situated in quiet parkland at the foot of a mountain. All quiet, no honking, no exhaust fumes. The smog is unbelievable here; the only difference I remember in Mexico City where it was awful is that it was blackish brown there, while it is a ghostly gray here. But it is everywhere like a smelly fog; it will be hard to complain about Houston.

But now, back to Beijing and more business, with another dinner tonight. Blair, you gave me your cold AGAIN. I will remember this! Thank goodness I brought cold medication with me.

Best regards,
Mark

Another fantastic dinner, this one of small dishes in a restaurant with the menu entirely and only in Chinese, even the numbers. Thank goodness it was on neither my shoulders nor Frank's either to order or to decipher the payment required.

We went with a charming gentleman and his beautiful wife, who speaks good English and is head of the technical division of a state-owned company that sells drilling rigs all over the world. They were a delight to be with and decided to take us to a small restaurant on Houhai lake in the Yangfang hutong district where the Chinese leadership lives. Hutongs are the walled courtyard homes of old Beijing where the princes and other relatives of the emperor lived along winding alleyways and of course this district on the lakeside is one of the more popular, with courtyard homes selling in the tens of millions of dollars.

The taxi let us out at the opposite end of the lake so we had an interesting walk along the lakeside, which is fronted by one neonlit bar after another, each with its touts standing I'm front making every effort to get you to stop at their establishment. One even had a sign out front that began in English, "Hey, handsome boy and beautiful girl . . . ". That was all I could read as we passed by. It was a beautiful night with all of the lights around the lake, and the walk was pleasant, but I had definitely worked up an appetite by the time we finally reached the restaurant 45 minutes after the cab dropped us off.

Well, I must prepare for my next engagement, so will continue later.

Best regards,
Mark