We got to Nanjing airport just in time for a three hour wait! We spent it drinking every last drop of a pot of exhorbitantly priced lemon tea (I think I'm sick of it now!), plus free refills of water. My BBB weighs less after a thorough purge of summer clothes, and I pray for frosts. Well, I couldn't leave behind the 12 metre long painting in its scroll and box, could I? It was a bargain! And it came with a free fan. I shall look at it, metre by metre, on quiet days at home where it'll live in its box due to short walls!
The 2 hour flight was uneventful to Beijing, but I was totally unprepared for the difficulty in getting a taxi to Tianjin, which I'd decided on as a treat as I was very weary and teary and trying not to show it. I thought we were too late for an evening meal. Anyway we got one eventually and we drove there in the dark. It was a registered taxi, but I still get just the merest flicker of a "what if..?" thought on occasion, but the car was newish and far cleaner than others and he was Buddhist, judging by the dangling tassel from the rear view mirror.
Sophia's parents insisted we stay for a few days and welcomed us warmly. They were glad to see their daughter in one piece and we smiled and nodded at each other. It was lovely to see them again after our day out in Petworth last May and they lost no time in giving me (another packing dilemma) a beautiful teaset to drink green tea from. The real green tea, as opposed to the bagged stuff I've been trying to like, is heaven. Pale, fragrant, with just a hint of flavour drunk from 2-sip cups, and poured with due ceremony from the family heirloom pottery teapot. It's very expensive.
Unfortunately, as much as I try to like Chinese food, it doesn't like me, and now I'm wondering if I can like it. Soup is made out of every available, edible source and is slow-cooked overnight to have for breakfast. Anything not eaten is put into the next pot on the go. It makes for interesting mealtimes! And there are no rules; all food is eaten at any time of day. I was offered A Certain Gold Wrapped Chocolate usually served by Their Excellencies when they're Spoiling People, for breakfast on my first day. Odd, I suppose, but I wouldn't dream of eating chocolate before the evening.
Jenny from the Suzhou art gallery gave us a contact in Tianjin and Sophia rings him. He (Gung Gung) phones back to say he has arranged a meeting with a Mr Feng who is advisor to the local government on historical buildings. He is trying to save the old foreign concession buildings from further destruction, with some success. We are to meet him for dinner on Wednesday at the old German Club, now headquarters of the Tianjin Historical Society.
So we walk into Germany; all wooden panelling and very grand, and acres of newly installed marble flooring, which I can now skate across with elan. We are greeted by Gung Gung who leads us miles to a private dining room where Mr Feng and his friend Mr Song are seated at the round, elegantly laid table. Flowered curtains hang down into puddles on the floor and waiters and waitresses glide around, twiddling things into place and I notice a knife, fork and spoon have been arranged at my place. We smile and nod. Granny wrote a lot about doing that, and now I see what she meant. It's the universal language for every cordial greeting you can think of.
Mr Feng has great feeling for Tianjin's history and appears on radio and tv to speak about it. He also attends conventions and conferences as speaker and is the only real authority in Tianjin on the foreign concessions and their legacy. There were nine countries represented in this city!
The "lazy butler" was groaning with sumptuous looking dishes which reminded me of the Chinese restaurants in the UK. This can't be right, I thought! I left the "squirrel fish" with its insides a rather violent shade of orange, and the melon-something-unexplained which lay in aspic? I didn't trust it, whatever it was, but the beansprouts in rice and the duck in a dark sauce, sizzling vegetables on a trivet, and the little sugary pumpkin sweet, oh and the sort of Chinese Apfel Strudel, were too good to miss ... with unsurprising results. Oh dear. Blown it.
The talk went on around me for about four hours, but without great success. Mr Feng had been looking into the facts about the White Russian refugees when they arrived in Tianjin, having fled the Revolution. He said most of them were wealthy businessmen, but when I showed him the photos I had of the wooden folder and accompanying letter of thanks to my grandmother from a Father Victor on behalf of the destitute Russians, he said I must treasue it. I will, of course. I couldn't see a way round this. He explained that there was no record of these people due to the enmity between the two countries at that time. This I already knew, which was why I was here, really! Someone must know something, surely.
Now what?
He offered to take us round the old British concession on Friday morning in his official car with driver. We met at 9 in hot sunshine outside the old German Club and sat in the marbled lobby's leather sofas, which were three Hagrids wide. He gave me a brown envelope. Inside was a letter in Chinese describing the career of Father Victor. I was speechless. I wrote down everything it said, to make sure the translation was correct between him and Sophia. Father Victor was a White Russian refugee himself and arrived in China in 1920. He showed me an old photo of a Russian church, no longer there. Could this have been his church? As it turned out, no, it was far too big. The one Father Victor built only held 20 people. His career was meteoric and he ended up being (prelate is it called in the Orthodox Church?). Anyway, at the very top. He was a determined man when Granny knew him, for as we purred along the wide roads and eventually came to the British concession, there was my grandparents' official residence, just opposite All Saints' Church (now scaffolded), behind which the area where the poorest refugees were given shelter. I bet he knocked on Granny's door and her "kind heart could not look with indifference". Tears threatened again, but one look from Mr Feng and his driver corked them immediately!
Sorry, got so carried away I forgot all this; inside the brown envelope was a gift. Mr Feng had painted, in beautiful calligraphy, a poem from the Sung period about a Mongolian horse separated from his herd. The imaginary picture is of the wide, Mongolian steppe at twilight with the horse, looking. It's on thick, tissuey paper and folded in the envelope until I can frame it. First, the car parked in an improbable place and we got out into the middle of The City of London. Huge, stone-built banks with giant porticos and columns stood either side of the narrow street. A photo I had shown him at our meal believed to have been taken on Armistice Day in 1919, and with my grandfather in splendid Consul General plumed hat, standing feet away from Pu Yi, the last and "Little" Emperor, was actually taken in 1926 on another occasion entirely. The Pu Yi Museum had it on their wall! Next we went by the river where the British Consulate once stood. Granny would be appalled to see that their splendid consulate has been replaced by a very tall tower block. And it's pink!
Then he took us out to lunch! This time to a renowned Tianjin-style one where Mr Song joined us again, and Mr Feng's driver, too. I had leant my tummy-lesson and only ate tiny amounts (excuse me, but ..boohoo!), it smelt delicious.
Next day we visited the Pu Yi Museum, which had been his ancestral temple before 45 families were installed and nearly wrecked it. It has been renovated and restored and its monastic/Deco interior is one of the saddest places I've seen. His bedroom was particularly poignant in its simplicity and brownness. I suppose the last of his treasures have gone and the furniture might not even be his; it does have that air of uneality, a superimposed idea of what his life was like. Still, I found it moving, imagining what it must have been like to be so reviled, and forcibly moved from your opulent home (oh dear, that hardly describes the Forbidden City, does it, get a grip, Girl!).
Next day. oh dear, I remembered my memory stick but it's taken 2 hours to put my photos on it and now I don't have time to finish this. Off to Beidehe in a minute.
I shall send the dessert (Tiramisu) in a few days ...
Wednesday 28 October 2009
Monday 26 October 2009
Train In To Nanjing (17th Oct)
It took a couple of hours from WuHu. We got to the station on Sophia-time; we only had an hour and a half to kill, which I spent people-watching or trying to but being outwitted by people watching me. I'm getting used to it, and most of the time accept it with good grace. I have had a couple of incidents when someone deliberately stared me down with a truly beligerent glare, and one of them cut across my path 3 times in 20 minutes (on that tour to the traditional village) when I yielded T'ai Chi-style twice, and stood my ground at the third attempt. I think I learnt something from that. He didn't try again! But one very old lady on the arm of her daughter spotted me in the street and stared, open mouthed, as her daughter nudged her. As we overtook them I gave her a smile and little wave and she beamed a huge toothless beam, eyes crinkling with delight. It doesn't take much to make someone's day sometimes.
There was ample opportunity to get a glimpse into people's lives at the station. Sophia explained that the huge plastic drums, the even bigger plaid plastic bags stuffed with God-knows-what and so heavy that the tiny women carrying them had to drag them on the ground, and the smartly-dressed woman taping several standard lamps into bubble wrap were all going back to the countryside. The buyers were probably small restaurant owners and in the smart woman's case, maybe a wedding arranger or photographic studio owner.
We were coralled on the concourse in long rows of metal seating, each aisle for a given train, and when it was due to arrive we were shouted at to get up and get going. I got up immediately and went nowhere for about half an hour, but we were shouted at some more and we all shuffled towards the narrow gate onto the platform. The train came; one of those ones like in the USA -- not so much Mind The Gap as Mind The Ascent. I heaved my Big Bag (Blinking thing) up the first and second steps, tried and failed up the next one and fell backwards, hitting my arm on the metal rail; another bruise I shall wear with aplomb. There was a collective gasp from behind me and a smoking man in the corridor way up above me felt duty bound to help. When we reached our seats the BBB was lifted gracefully up onto the overhead rack by a lovely army officer, and down, 2 hours later, by 4 lesser mortals.
Nanjing has roads 16 lanes wide. I know -- it's unbelievable. Crossing said roads on foot takes about 20 minutes and half a sandwich and you have to have eyes with 360 degree swivel attachments to avoid a regiment of bikes, scooters and mopeds careering round the corner (your corner). No one looks each other in the eye, but gently swerves or veers towards their intended goal. Oh, add rickshaws and bikes with long trailers piled high with allsorts. You're in the middle of the crossroads now and you might as well be halfway across the Gobi desert, so far away is The Other Side. You're pretty sure you remember starting out on a pedestrian crossing but it was so long ago, and now, somehow, with all these cars coming towards you with the same intention as yours, it matters less and less. They come at you 8-wide, sometimes 6, but will that make any difference to your Maker? I think not. Decisions are out of the question, no time, just go with the flow. Aim for the nearest, tiniest space, everyone else is! The Pedestrians streaming towards you and behind you do a sort of dance with the Pedallists. The cars oversee the melee and put it in its place, parting the crowd with no malice, just a volley of tooting to let you know they are about to run over your toes or their bumper is going to meet up with the backs of your knees. The 40 second clock on the gantry ticks down to a terrifying 6-5-4 .. will you make it? Will it matter? No one seems to take a blind bit of notice except me. Pedestrians saunter, chatting, dawdling, cars and bikes continue to take aim at their exits whether the lights are red or green. When you're in a car it's a whole different thing. By the time you get to the middle of the crossroads the turning you want is so vast it scrambles the brain and people forget how to indicate or perhaps lose the will to actually go to where they want to get to. It's possible, and if anyone admitted as much to me I would believe them.
At night, the gently polluted air forms a fine mist, and out of the gloom appear lightless bikes, scooters, mopeds and rickshaws, and a lot of cars have optional lights as well as the more common optional indicators. And the pedestrians are mostly in dark clothing, it being misty and everything.
We were walking along a main street in Nanjing, where our hotel was, in the old French concession (they went in for splendid trees that line the streets and give cool shade in the hottest mist). My ankle ricked into a crack or a gulley and I looked round to see which, and Sophia said, "Oh it's for the blind people"! This sent me into helpless giggles as I imagined people pitching into the purpose-built gulley one by one. In fact it's foot-wide paving with raised lines on it which can be felt underfoot, the only trouble being that it separates from the rest of the pavement at intervals, and as the pavement is cracked and sometimes completely disappears at random, I could imagine blind people deciding to stay at home.
The pavements aren't safe for other reasons; cars are often allowed to park there, and bikes of all kinds are parked and double-parked on them so that there's no room to walk. Bikes come up behind you on the clear stretches and shopfront stalls and street vendors fill up the rest. So you walk in the road and on the bike lanes where life expectancy can be very short indeed.
At WuHu I'd known about my grandparents' consular residence, separate from the consulate, but here there was no mention of it. The internet said the old consulate building was now a museum, but it was a hotel, on a main road. It was of British Colonial vintage; white, imposing, with large windows, now double-glazed, and with double doors under a grand portico. A brass plaque mentioned its history. We peeked through the glass to a long hall, but no reception area, so I went in, rather tentatively, and the first thing I saw was an enormous picture hung on my left. It was a bad copy of the Constable with big tree and sheepdog.
Brass wall lamps were lit, but no one in sight so we walked round the garden and took pictures. It was made up of formal flowers standing in serried ranks of orange and maroon. The car park bordered it and I don't think Granny would have been too pleased about the huge coach backing into her flowering shrubs! I swear I could feel her bristling! Round the back had been rather lovely at one time, with shady trees and pools leading to a fountain and a long one leading to a lion's head fountain in a wall. Everything was dry and dead leaves lay in drifts at the bottom. When I turned round to look at the house from this angle there was another portico; this one with properly fierce Chinese lions on either side. This was grander than the other and I could see a narrower corridor leading to the hall with Victorian bannisters running down the now marble stairs. (And that's another thing -- I've never seen so much marble in my life -- its on shopping mall floors, hotel floors, bathrooms, stairs. It's all Chinese, which is a good thing, or they'd have dug up the whole of Italy until it disappeared by now! It's also lethal, of course, when wet.)
We went inside and braved the stairs. I went first to face the expected volley of outrage (easier in a foreign language I feel!) but none came. The first staff we met defrosted enough to allow us entry into the rooms that had their doors ajar. There were only 2 rooms, both used for private dining now. Bedecked in draped flowery curtains and busy wallpaper with a chandelier over the table I tried to imagine it as perhaps my grandfather's dressing room. Next door was much larger and had a quiet view of the back garden. Could this have been their bedroom? I suppose it doesn't matter. Oh, but it does.
The Foreign Office blurb says my grandfather was made Consul at WuHu in 1902 and was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1903, so presumably they both returned to London for a year or so before going back to WuHu when my father was born in 1904. Then my grandfather was "transferred" to Nanjing, I assume as Consul again, in 1905. They were there for 3 years.
At the moment I feel so overwhelmed by the size of the buildings, the constant noise and travelling that I'm finding it hard to connect with this place. Perhaps I'm at Halfway Point in my mind, and I've just had photos emailed to me of my golden retriever, Arlo, having fun on his hols in Richmond Park. I'm so glad he's having a ball but I never thought homesickness for me would be a problem, not for just a few weeks. But even that thought is useful. How did they manage that? "Get on with it," roars the reply! But privately, Granny must have had her moments of despair and I can understand now why the foreigners needed their home comforts and even, dare I say it, their life of privilege. They couldn't integrate into Chinese society in any real sense; only with a few people, their other friends had to be Brits and Americans for the common language (and how I love listening to Jeeves and Wooster, and Mr S Fry, and Dickens on my iPod, thanks Sheilagh and Richard) and the foreign, tight little community would have had its own cliques. I think Granny would have been in the thick of it as the wives had a lonely life if they weren't gregarious. Their husbands were working and playing hard, and from May to September the women and children escaped to the cooler hills, lakes and, for some, the seaside. The men would visit when they could.
A lovely tale my grandmother told was of Mr Bax-Ironside (universally known as Iron-Backside), a batchelor of mature years, who lent them his villa outside Beijing for the summer, and he would visit when work allowed. And what would he require for meals when he arrived, asked Granny. "Oh anything for breakfast -- eggs, bacon etc. For lunch, keep it simple; quail, pheasant, fish, green vegetables, and for dinner? Oh anything but pork, one tires of it so easily, perhaps some good red wine and cheese if you have any, and some of those little pastries I like ..." She rather wisely doesn't record her thoughts at that moment.
Change of plan.
Tianjin next.
There was ample opportunity to get a glimpse into people's lives at the station. Sophia explained that the huge plastic drums, the even bigger plaid plastic bags stuffed with God-knows-what and so heavy that the tiny women carrying them had to drag them on the ground, and the smartly-dressed woman taping several standard lamps into bubble wrap were all going back to the countryside. The buyers were probably small restaurant owners and in the smart woman's case, maybe a wedding arranger or photographic studio owner.
We were coralled on the concourse in long rows of metal seating, each aisle for a given train, and when it was due to arrive we were shouted at to get up and get going. I got up immediately and went nowhere for about half an hour, but we were shouted at some more and we all shuffled towards the narrow gate onto the platform. The train came; one of those ones like in the USA -- not so much Mind The Gap as Mind The Ascent. I heaved my Big Bag (Blinking thing) up the first and second steps, tried and failed up the next one and fell backwards, hitting my arm on the metal rail; another bruise I shall wear with aplomb. There was a collective gasp from behind me and a smoking man in the corridor way up above me felt duty bound to help. When we reached our seats the BBB was lifted gracefully up onto the overhead rack by a lovely army officer, and down, 2 hours later, by 4 lesser mortals.
Nanjing has roads 16 lanes wide. I know -- it's unbelievable. Crossing said roads on foot takes about 20 minutes and half a sandwich and you have to have eyes with 360 degree swivel attachments to avoid a regiment of bikes, scooters and mopeds careering round the corner (your corner). No one looks each other in the eye, but gently swerves or veers towards their intended goal. Oh, add rickshaws and bikes with long trailers piled high with allsorts. You're in the middle of the crossroads now and you might as well be halfway across the Gobi desert, so far away is The Other Side. You're pretty sure you remember starting out on a pedestrian crossing but it was so long ago, and now, somehow, with all these cars coming towards you with the same intention as yours, it matters less and less. They come at you 8-wide, sometimes 6, but will that make any difference to your Maker? I think not. Decisions are out of the question, no time, just go with the flow. Aim for the nearest, tiniest space, everyone else is! The Pedestrians streaming towards you and behind you do a sort of dance with the Pedallists. The cars oversee the melee and put it in its place, parting the crowd with no malice, just a volley of tooting to let you know they are about to run over your toes or their bumper is going to meet up with the backs of your knees. The 40 second clock on the gantry ticks down to a terrifying 6-5-4 .. will you make it? Will it matter? No one seems to take a blind bit of notice except me. Pedestrians saunter, chatting, dawdling, cars and bikes continue to take aim at their exits whether the lights are red or green. When you're in a car it's a whole different thing. By the time you get to the middle of the crossroads the turning you want is so vast it scrambles the brain and people forget how to indicate or perhaps lose the will to actually go to where they want to get to. It's possible, and if anyone admitted as much to me I would believe them.
At night, the gently polluted air forms a fine mist, and out of the gloom appear lightless bikes, scooters, mopeds and rickshaws, and a lot of cars have optional lights as well as the more common optional indicators. And the pedestrians are mostly in dark clothing, it being misty and everything.
We were walking along a main street in Nanjing, where our hotel was, in the old French concession (they went in for splendid trees that line the streets and give cool shade in the hottest mist). My ankle ricked into a crack or a gulley and I looked round to see which, and Sophia said, "Oh it's for the blind people"! This sent me into helpless giggles as I imagined people pitching into the purpose-built gulley one by one. In fact it's foot-wide paving with raised lines on it which can be felt underfoot, the only trouble being that it separates from the rest of the pavement at intervals, and as the pavement is cracked and sometimes completely disappears at random, I could imagine blind people deciding to stay at home.
The pavements aren't safe for other reasons; cars are often allowed to park there, and bikes of all kinds are parked and double-parked on them so that there's no room to walk. Bikes come up behind you on the clear stretches and shopfront stalls and street vendors fill up the rest. So you walk in the road and on the bike lanes where life expectancy can be very short indeed.
At WuHu I'd known about my grandparents' consular residence, separate from the consulate, but here there was no mention of it. The internet said the old consulate building was now a museum, but it was a hotel, on a main road. It was of British Colonial vintage; white, imposing, with large windows, now double-glazed, and with double doors under a grand portico. A brass plaque mentioned its history. We peeked through the glass to a long hall, but no reception area, so I went in, rather tentatively, and the first thing I saw was an enormous picture hung on my left. It was a bad copy of the Constable with big tree and sheepdog.
Brass wall lamps were lit, but no one in sight so we walked round the garden and took pictures. It was made up of formal flowers standing in serried ranks of orange and maroon. The car park bordered it and I don't think Granny would have been too pleased about the huge coach backing into her flowering shrubs! I swear I could feel her bristling! Round the back had been rather lovely at one time, with shady trees and pools leading to a fountain and a long one leading to a lion's head fountain in a wall. Everything was dry and dead leaves lay in drifts at the bottom. When I turned round to look at the house from this angle there was another portico; this one with properly fierce Chinese lions on either side. This was grander than the other and I could see a narrower corridor leading to the hall with Victorian bannisters running down the now marble stairs. (And that's another thing -- I've never seen so much marble in my life -- its on shopping mall floors, hotel floors, bathrooms, stairs. It's all Chinese, which is a good thing, or they'd have dug up the whole of Italy until it disappeared by now! It's also lethal, of course, when wet.)
We went inside and braved the stairs. I went first to face the expected volley of outrage (easier in a foreign language I feel!) but none came. The first staff we met defrosted enough to allow us entry into the rooms that had their doors ajar. There were only 2 rooms, both used for private dining now. Bedecked in draped flowery curtains and busy wallpaper with a chandelier over the table I tried to imagine it as perhaps my grandfather's dressing room. Next door was much larger and had a quiet view of the back garden. Could this have been their bedroom? I suppose it doesn't matter. Oh, but it does.
The Foreign Office blurb says my grandfather was made Consul at WuHu in 1902 and was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1903, so presumably they both returned to London for a year or so before going back to WuHu when my father was born in 1904. Then my grandfather was "transferred" to Nanjing, I assume as Consul again, in 1905. They were there for 3 years.
At the moment I feel so overwhelmed by the size of the buildings, the constant noise and travelling that I'm finding it hard to connect with this place. Perhaps I'm at Halfway Point in my mind, and I've just had photos emailed to me of my golden retriever, Arlo, having fun on his hols in Richmond Park. I'm so glad he's having a ball but I never thought homesickness for me would be a problem, not for just a few weeks. But even that thought is useful. How did they manage that? "Get on with it," roars the reply! But privately, Granny must have had her moments of despair and I can understand now why the foreigners needed their home comforts and even, dare I say it, their life of privilege. They couldn't integrate into Chinese society in any real sense; only with a few people, their other friends had to be Brits and Americans for the common language (and how I love listening to Jeeves and Wooster, and Mr S Fry, and Dickens on my iPod, thanks Sheilagh and Richard) and the foreign, tight little community would have had its own cliques. I think Granny would have been in the thick of it as the wives had a lonely life if they weren't gregarious. Their husbands were working and playing hard, and from May to September the women and children escaped to the cooler hills, lakes and, for some, the seaside. The men would visit when they could.
A lovely tale my grandmother told was of Mr Bax-Ironside (universally known as Iron-Backside), a batchelor of mature years, who lent them his villa outside Beijing for the summer, and he would visit when work allowed. And what would he require for meals when he arrived, asked Granny. "Oh anything for breakfast -- eggs, bacon etc. For lunch, keep it simple; quail, pheasant, fish, green vegetables, and for dinner? Oh anything but pork, one tires of it so easily, perhaps some good red wine and cheese if you have any, and some of those little pastries I like ..." She rather wisely doesn't record her thoughts at that moment.
Change of plan.
Tianjin next.
Thursday 22 October 2009
Nearly Whooping It Up In Wuhu
But before I go there, I haven't told you about the tour I took to a traditional Chinese village an hour's drive from Suzhou (on the 14th). A people carrier pulled up at the hotel and as soon as I'd sat down I knew, Piglet-like, that this was a Bad Idea. The window had to be opened immediately and alcohol gel rubbed on the hands to sniff. You get my drift. More people climbed in at 2 more stops and then we hit the motorway, almost literally. There were 11 of us on board and no room to breathe (fortunately).
We arrived unscathed and drove through a grand entrance with clipped grass, flowers and banners and tiny new houses; all a bit Stepford, where was the tradition? I had my tour ID photo taken along with the hundreds of others who'd arrived in coaches and we trooped into another world. This was the real thing, even though I knew that the residents made their living from up to 40,000 tourists every day, and I would too, given the tourists' close proximity to the houses. I could hardly look into most of them, even though it was encouraged.
We walked behind our guide holding a blue flag aloft, giving us a detailed description of every corner, plaque, urn, stone and bridge, but giving us no time to stop and waste money, so we got separated. Sophia had his number on her mobile and got a signal. Amazing, that! How come I can't get one in Surrey?
Then he gave us our ID photos and told us the meeting place and time. It was a hot day with that Milk of Magnesia sky (hmm, no, no more Imodium stories) that the sun only manages to burn through when its very hot, and then only for a while. It was cool by the canals and lovely if I could have sat on one of the tiny, perfectly curved bridges, for longer than 5 seconds before someone else wanted it. So on we went, walking past women washing clothes on stones, men fishing or dozing, I'm not sure which, and one or 2 dopey dogs sprawled in the shade of overhanging trees. Skinny cats slept on vacant seats and stallholders called out to me "Herro, herro. Lookee, lookee." And the same wonky little houses held up by imaginary foundations lined the water's edge as in Suzhou. The people living here do so under strict state laws and are not allowed to sell to incomers. Apparently many live elsewhere and let their relatives do the work, just coming back at weekends.
I try to imagine the whole of China like this, a nation of villages and small towns. Now it's in a big hurry to build high. I've never seen anything like it; it's overwhelming. Something might have been pulled down, looking at all the rubble, but equally it might be going up, looking at all the rubble!
And so to WuHu, a 5 hour train journey that takes nearly eight. I eat melon chunks and a small moon cake proffered by a retired metallagist who's company made these train wheels. We've got bunks, but they're a cruel trick; 3 tiers and metal hard. They come with lumpy pillows and duvet. I simply have to rest and am only woken by three bites on my arm that weren't there half an hour before. I sit up to find a pregnant woman gazing at me wistfully. Oh dear. She stays like this for hours, so in the end I smile in a Helpful Sort Of Way. She beams back and says to Sophia, "She is so pretty, she has a big nose and big eyes. And her beautiful golden hair." What a lovely lady! My friend for life, obviously. Actually, it won't be long before the bags under my eyes will exceed the plane allowance and I'll be glad to get a good night's sleep.
Our hotel room has other ideas. Again, our cheap deal has bought us a room at the top end of an enormous hole in the ground. I can just see tiny dots wearing hard hats and as it gets dark the swarm of diggers put their lights on and ... eight ear-plugged hours later ... have dug about 6 inches down. This is the 3 star hotel's new 5 star foundations.
I avoid the duck's blood soup for breakfast and we giggle at "Chinken Soup" and "Face Rolls". How Spring turned into Face Sophia doesn't know.
WuHu is on my father's passport. I knew the consulate building was still there, used by the Chinese local government. It was known by everyone and we found it easily. Another hot and humid day was left far below as we chatted to 2 security guards, asking permission and telling them why I was there. We were under huge trees lining the small road winding up the hill. There was the consulate, unmistakeably colonial, at the top. Its windows were large with semi-circular tops and it was grand. As we walked round to one side I looked up to see a flight of stone steps leading to a red brick building I could just make out through the trees. It was underneath one of those those, oh what's it called; not an arbour, a ... (please fill in the blank), made of stone. I could imagine it covered in wisteria and clematis. We climbed the steps, rather daringly, and were surrounded by a pretty, old garden with paths amongst the shrubs and stone seats. Granny had her hand in this, I'm sure; there were shades of her rose garden in East Horsley. This was the summit of the hill. It was a rarefied atmosphere in both senses, peaceful, catching a cool breeze through the rustling leaves. The trees were so dense that it was hard to make out the road below. All that noise and bustle were beneath us. Beneath them?
This was an important new treaty place in my grandparents' time. It was small and out of the way, but this building was a promise of more.
My goodness, they should see WuHu today; a forest of skyscrapers and 6 laned roads.
I wasn't allowed to take photos because it was government property and I only took a peek through the open front door to see where they lived. The entrance hall was dark and shiny with a Victorian wooden staircase leading to a barred window on a landing. This was their official residence. They had arrived.
I felt terribly lonely until I pictured Granny or the Amah carrying my father as a baby down those steps to a waiting sedan chair or horse, and my grandfather's sister puffing up the steps when she arrived for her periodic visits form Canada. The heat. The corsets. The staunchness and the stiff upper lip.
This country is getting to me!
We arrived unscathed and drove through a grand entrance with clipped grass, flowers and banners and tiny new houses; all a bit Stepford, where was the tradition? I had my tour ID photo taken along with the hundreds of others who'd arrived in coaches and we trooped into another world. This was the real thing, even though I knew that the residents made their living from up to 40,000 tourists every day, and I would too, given the tourists' close proximity to the houses. I could hardly look into most of them, even though it was encouraged.
We walked behind our guide holding a blue flag aloft, giving us a detailed description of every corner, plaque, urn, stone and bridge, but giving us no time to stop and waste money, so we got separated. Sophia had his number on her mobile and got a signal. Amazing, that! How come I can't get one in Surrey?
Then he gave us our ID photos and told us the meeting place and time. It was a hot day with that Milk of Magnesia sky (hmm, no, no more Imodium stories) that the sun only manages to burn through when its very hot, and then only for a while. It was cool by the canals and lovely if I could have sat on one of the tiny, perfectly curved bridges, for longer than 5 seconds before someone else wanted it. So on we went, walking past women washing clothes on stones, men fishing or dozing, I'm not sure which, and one or 2 dopey dogs sprawled in the shade of overhanging trees. Skinny cats slept on vacant seats and stallholders called out to me "Herro, herro. Lookee, lookee." And the same wonky little houses held up by imaginary foundations lined the water's edge as in Suzhou. The people living here do so under strict state laws and are not allowed to sell to incomers. Apparently many live elsewhere and let their relatives do the work, just coming back at weekends.
I try to imagine the whole of China like this, a nation of villages and small towns. Now it's in a big hurry to build high. I've never seen anything like it; it's overwhelming. Something might have been pulled down, looking at all the rubble, but equally it might be going up, looking at all the rubble!
And so to WuHu, a 5 hour train journey that takes nearly eight. I eat melon chunks and a small moon cake proffered by a retired metallagist who's company made these train wheels. We've got bunks, but they're a cruel trick; 3 tiers and metal hard. They come with lumpy pillows and duvet. I simply have to rest and am only woken by three bites on my arm that weren't there half an hour before. I sit up to find a pregnant woman gazing at me wistfully. Oh dear. She stays like this for hours, so in the end I smile in a Helpful Sort Of Way. She beams back and says to Sophia, "She is so pretty, she has a big nose and big eyes. And her beautiful golden hair." What a lovely lady! My friend for life, obviously. Actually, it won't be long before the bags under my eyes will exceed the plane allowance and I'll be glad to get a good night's sleep.
Our hotel room has other ideas. Again, our cheap deal has bought us a room at the top end of an enormous hole in the ground. I can just see tiny dots wearing hard hats and as it gets dark the swarm of diggers put their lights on and ... eight ear-plugged hours later ... have dug about 6 inches down. This is the 3 star hotel's new 5 star foundations.
I avoid the duck's blood soup for breakfast and we giggle at "Chinken Soup" and "Face Rolls". How Spring turned into Face Sophia doesn't know.
WuHu is on my father's passport. I knew the consulate building was still there, used by the Chinese local government. It was known by everyone and we found it easily. Another hot and humid day was left far below as we chatted to 2 security guards, asking permission and telling them why I was there. We were under huge trees lining the small road winding up the hill. There was the consulate, unmistakeably colonial, at the top. Its windows were large with semi-circular tops and it was grand. As we walked round to one side I looked up to see a flight of stone steps leading to a red brick building I could just make out through the trees. It was underneath one of those those, oh what's it called; not an arbour, a ... (please fill in the blank), made of stone. I could imagine it covered in wisteria and clematis. We climbed the steps, rather daringly, and were surrounded by a pretty, old garden with paths amongst the shrubs and stone seats. Granny had her hand in this, I'm sure; there were shades of her rose garden in East Horsley. This was the summit of the hill. It was a rarefied atmosphere in both senses, peaceful, catching a cool breeze through the rustling leaves. The trees were so dense that it was hard to make out the road below. All that noise and bustle were beneath us. Beneath them?
This was an important new treaty place in my grandparents' time. It was small and out of the way, but this building was a promise of more.
My goodness, they should see WuHu today; a forest of skyscrapers and 6 laned roads.
I wasn't allowed to take photos because it was government property and I only took a peek through the open front door to see where they lived. The entrance hall was dark and shiny with a Victorian wooden staircase leading to a barred window on a landing. This was their official residence. They had arrived.
I felt terribly lonely until I pictured Granny or the Amah carrying my father as a baby down those steps to a waiting sedan chair or horse, and my grandfather's sister puffing up the steps when she arrived for her periodic visits form Canada. The heat. The corsets. The staunchness and the stiff upper lip.
This country is getting to me!
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Blessed Is That Which Is Imodium ... Hmm, enough said.
And so to Suzhou on the 12th by slow queues and fast train from Shanghai. I was quite relieved to leave there; tall place, deep potholes, smelly smells (pong hi in Shanghai) and astonishing pace of rebuilding (you had to mind your head!).
The irate taxi driver in Suzhou couldn't put me off watching out for the canals which I caught tantalising glimpses of through the phalanx of bikes and mopeds whizzing along beside them. The hotel was in a main shopping area and we weaved our way through said phalanx plus hundreds of pedestrians to get, well, almost to the door. The cheapest deal meant the room was opposite a building site, with drilling the wake-up call at 6am.
We woke early (!), I avoided the duck's blood soup for breakfast, and scuttled off to the museum as I hoped to find an old map which might give clues as to where the British consulate was. Granny described it as being near the city wall and a few yards from the canal. She wrote that HM's government had rented 9 rooms in a 500yr old palace belonging to Li Hung Chang (Chinese envoy in the late 1800's). The museum was singularly unhelpful and Sophia was told that there never had been a British consulate in Suzhou. We went round the exhibits anyway, because they were interesting.
I was itching to leave, though, and I couldn't fathom why. Following the exhibits in an exit-only fashion the modern building finished as I stepped over a high doorsill and into a small and ancient courtyard, surrounded on 3 sides by the red/brown wooden latticework of the verandah topped by steep roofs dressed in curved clay tiles. I was amongst hundreds of Chinese tourists with cameras flashing, all jostling for a good position, but they couldn't compete with the silent antiquity of that place. My flash was still off from the museum and I took pictures of nearly every room, courtyard, alleyway and corridor that wasn't full of people (I had to be patient).
It occurred to me that this was the consulate, after all it was opposite the canal. This must be it, this is where they lived. My grandfather was Acting Consul in Suzhou in 1897. I told myself off for being ridiculous, but I went on taking pictures because this might be the only type of place I see that they might have recognised.
I tottered out to the street and 20 yards away we came across stone steps leading down to the canal and boat trips. It was a cross between a punt and a gondola, covered, and the boatman manning the eulow (oar) at the back was 5'2'', wizened and wiry. I nearly drowned, obviously, when the boat slid away from the bank with my right foot in it; dignity apparently not an option on this trip. The canal was just wide enough for passing boats, and the very old whitewashed houses backing on to it had their stone foundations held together with fresh air and green water. The steps leading to each one stuck out in desultory manner, ready to clip the ear of the unwary, and had gaps between each stone step. What on earth was holding them up? The plaster crumbled like pastry into the water and the tiny landing stage doubled as a washing stone. Clean clothes dripped from poles and rusting air exhilarators (no, what do you call them? I'm tired!) hung as a testament to modernity from every house.
The canal was over a thousand years old and remained unchanged except for a couple of new road bridges. So my grandparents would have seen this, travelled on this waterway in the official boat with Mary and Brother at the eulow.
The inevitable question came, and when Sophia answered, the boatman's response was to announce his intention to sing 3 songs dor me, about family, love, and life. He held the collar of his shirt and began as the youngsters up front collapsed into giggles. I was transfixed and although strange to my ears I could tell he was a real singer, and it turned out he had once belonged to a local opera group.
Once I've remembered to buy a memory stick (yes, well..) I shall ask Sophia (sainted, and second only to Imodium) to upload her video clip of his performance for us.Supper beckons (it could be the soup).
The irate taxi driver in Suzhou couldn't put me off watching out for the canals which I caught tantalising glimpses of through the phalanx of bikes and mopeds whizzing along beside them. The hotel was in a main shopping area and we weaved our way through said phalanx plus hundreds of pedestrians to get, well, almost to the door. The cheapest deal meant the room was opposite a building site, with drilling the wake-up call at 6am.
We woke early (!), I avoided the duck's blood soup for breakfast, and scuttled off to the museum as I hoped to find an old map which might give clues as to where the British consulate was. Granny described it as being near the city wall and a few yards from the canal. She wrote that HM's government had rented 9 rooms in a 500yr old palace belonging to Li Hung Chang (Chinese envoy in the late 1800's). The museum was singularly unhelpful and Sophia was told that there never had been a British consulate in Suzhou. We went round the exhibits anyway, because they were interesting.
I was itching to leave, though, and I couldn't fathom why. Following the exhibits in an exit-only fashion the modern building finished as I stepped over a high doorsill and into a small and ancient courtyard, surrounded on 3 sides by the red/brown wooden latticework of the verandah topped by steep roofs dressed in curved clay tiles. I was amongst hundreds of Chinese tourists with cameras flashing, all jostling for a good position, but they couldn't compete with the silent antiquity of that place. My flash was still off from the museum and I took pictures of nearly every room, courtyard, alleyway and corridor that wasn't full of people (I had to be patient).
It occurred to me that this was the consulate, after all it was opposite the canal. This must be it, this is where they lived. My grandfather was Acting Consul in Suzhou in 1897. I told myself off for being ridiculous, but I went on taking pictures because this might be the only type of place I see that they might have recognised.
Half an hour later Sophia and I walked to the little art gallery opposite the museum entrance that we'd already noticed served tea and cake (museums always make me famished, I don't know why). We went down some steps into the cool dim interior and were ushered to a huge table by an open window. Its shutters were folded back and outside, a few feet below, were the green waters of the canal, and 15 feet away was an old man sitting on his tiny landing stage smoking his pipe. His beady eyes met mine without a flicker. I suddenly felt like a big blundering foreigner encroaching on his home and by the time I'd turned away he retreated indoors.
The gallery's owner and manageress served us my favourite lemon tea and little biscuits and we got chatting, Sophia being asked the inevitable question; What is she doing here? She explained as they smiled and nodded at me and I felt able to ask; Was there a British consulate here in the late 1800's?
"Oh yes," the owner said, waving her hand in the direction of the museum, "It was over there in Li Hung Chang's palace."
I was right! I knew it, I just knew it! The tears threatened to spill over. We all sat there, stunned, until my hand was patted, more tea was brought and I had myself under control. All those years of waiting. This place was somehow the most precious in my mind, I don't why. And now I'd been walking in the same rooms and the same courtyards. (Thank you WCMT).
The gallery's owner and manageress served us my favourite lemon tea and little biscuits and we got chatting, Sophia being asked the inevitable question; What is she doing here? She explained as they smiled and nodded at me and I felt able to ask; Was there a British consulate here in the late 1800's?
"Oh yes," the owner said, waving her hand in the direction of the museum, "It was over there in Li Hung Chang's palace."
I was right! I knew it, I just knew it! The tears threatened to spill over. We all sat there, stunned, until my hand was patted, more tea was brought and I had myself under control. All those years of waiting. This place was somehow the most precious in my mind, I don't why. And now I'd been walking in the same rooms and the same courtyards. (Thank you WCMT).
I tottered out to the street and 20 yards away we came across stone steps leading down to the canal and boat trips. It was a cross between a punt and a gondola, covered, and the boatman manning the eulow (oar) at the back was 5'2'', wizened and wiry. I nearly drowned, obviously, when the boat slid away from the bank with my right foot in it; dignity apparently not an option on this trip. The canal was just wide enough for passing boats, and the very old whitewashed houses backing on to it had their stone foundations held together with fresh air and green water. The steps leading to each one stuck out in desultory manner, ready to clip the ear of the unwary, and had gaps between each stone step. What on earth was holding them up? The plaster crumbled like pastry into the water and the tiny landing stage doubled as a washing stone. Clean clothes dripped from poles and rusting air exhilarators (no, what do you call them? I'm tired!) hung as a testament to modernity from every house.
The canal was over a thousand years old and remained unchanged except for a couple of new road bridges. So my grandparents would have seen this, travelled on this waterway in the official boat with Mary and Brother at the eulow.
The inevitable question came, and when Sophia answered, the boatman's response was to announce his intention to sing 3 songs dor me, about family, love, and life. He held the collar of his shirt and began as the youngsters up front collapsed into giggles. I was transfixed and although strange to my ears I could tell he was a real singer, and it turned out he had once belonged to a local opera group.
Once I've remembered to buy a memory stick (yes, well..) I shall ask Sophia (sainted, and second only to Imodium) to upload her video clip of his performance for us.Supper beckons (it could be the soup).
Monday 19 October 2009
Shanghai and Sophia
The 12 hour flight was easier than expected with Stephen Fry's mellifluous tones from my iPod, and adding copious notes to my notes. I was also fascinated by a Chinese passenger opposite who could simultaneously watch an action movie on his screen and a Chinese game show on his laptop while shovelling down his lunch! He spilt quite a lot down his front, but, hey, I wasn't sitting next to him!
I was met at the airport by my interpreter Sophia, who is fantastic, steering me across roads while all cyclists career towards us from every angle, no lights, no hands, sometimes. Yesterday we found Tess Johnston's apartment in the old French concession. She worked for the US Embassy and stayed in Shanghai because she loves it. She is an archivist, collecting old books, newpapers etc from the foreign concessions. We spent an hour looking through old directories and books of photographs taken by her colleague Deke Erh. She told us to go to the Old China Hands reading room to read more and have coffee, which we did, listening to Bach on the stereo, and soaking up the quiet ambience.You can contact Tess at Old China Hand Research Service, Donghu Lu 70/30/201, Shanghai 200031, China.
I hope to post some photos of the area, and of Canada in a minute, but don't hold your collective breath as this task might be a technological wonder beyond my grasp.
We wandered around Shanghai in the early evenings until I got Train Legs again.
Today we had an early start, and we are off to Suzhou later for 3 nights and two whole days trying to find the old palace my grandmother said was the consulate, and their first posting as a married couple, with my grandfather becoming Acting Consul there. This is such an adventure because I don't know what we will find, if anything.
My blogs are blocked and so emailing is my only way of keeping in contact. We don't know if I'll be able to from WuHu, the next stopover, as it's so small it might not have internet connections in the hotel. So that's another reason not to hold your breath!After the reading room we were walking down the street and I was admiring the trees forming a tunnel overhead and had just said it reminded me of a French street when we saw a patisserie with a menu for the adjoining restaurant. A Chinese and his Japanese colleague opened it a month ago; their second one in the city. We had an authentic French meal served by the Japanese owner, who was taught useful French phrases by an Englishwoman (me!). He had loved French cooking when he lived in Vancouver and spent 10 years learning about it, baking his own bread and making petit fours and grinding his coffe beans. It was so good to spend time with someone so happy in his work.
I was met at the airport by my interpreter Sophia, who is fantastic, steering me across roads while all cyclists career towards us from every angle, no lights, no hands, sometimes. Yesterday we found Tess Johnston's apartment in the old French concession. She worked for the US Embassy and stayed in Shanghai because she loves it. She is an archivist, collecting old books, newpapers etc from the foreign concessions. We spent an hour looking through old directories and books of photographs taken by her colleague Deke Erh. She told us to go to the Old China Hands reading room to read more and have coffee, which we did, listening to Bach on the stereo, and soaking up the quiet ambience.You can contact Tess at Old China Hand Research Service, Donghu Lu 70/30/201, Shanghai 200031, China.
I hope to post some photos of the area, and of Canada in a minute, but don't hold your collective breath as this task might be a technological wonder beyond my grasp.
We wandered around Shanghai in the early evenings until I got Train Legs again.
Today we had an early start, and we are off to Suzhou later for 3 nights and two whole days trying to find the old palace my grandmother said was the consulate, and their first posting as a married couple, with my grandfather becoming Acting Consul there. This is such an adventure because I don't know what we will find, if anything.
My blogs are blocked and so emailing is my only way of keeping in contact. We don't know if I'll be able to from WuHu, the next stopover, as it's so small it might not have internet connections in the hotel. So that's another reason not to hold your breath!After the reading room we were walking down the street and I was admiring the trees forming a tunnel overhead and had just said it reminded me of a French street when we saw a patisserie with a menu for the adjoining restaurant. A Chinese and his Japanese colleague opened it a month ago; their second one in the city. We had an authentic French meal served by the Japanese owner, who was taught useful French phrases by an Englishwoman (me!). He had loved French cooking when he lived in Vancouver and spent 10 years learning about it, baking his own bread and making petit fours and grinding his coffe beans. It was so good to spend time with someone so happy in his work.
Friday 9 October 2009
Tottering Into Cyberspace ... and Vancouver ...
9th Oct '09
... on my Train Legs. After 4 nights and 3 days aboard The Canadian from Toronto, stopping at Winnipeg (cold and sunny), Edmonton (warm and wet), and gorgeous Jasper (bright sun to driving rain in 30 secs) nestling in the snow-capped Rockies. 40 minutes was not long enough there, VIA Rail, are you listening?
Obviously, because this is a trip of a lifetime, we had fog on the first morning, followed by dank dark rain through the dank dark swamp, and the densely packed forest of dark firs, and tall, wonky minarets of the bigger ones trying to pierce the clouds. It was punctuated by murky-looking pools and lakes, which were transformed by occasional bursts of sunshine that lit up the green trees, sprinkled along the forest edges with golden Aspen and reddening Maple. I asked Billie (hi Billie) who makes this journey twice a year (unaccompanied, and 92) if she knew what the forest would have looked like in 1897 when my grandparents made this journey. "Oh, these are the new trees, " she explained, "Back then the old trees would have been fully mature." That made me think; perhaps all they saw was menacing, claustrophobic forest surrounding lifeless-looking swamp. What a gloomy start to their life together, and I stared out of the window (looking for moose, as you do) wondering how she would have felt, knowing she'd left her beloved family back in New Brunswick and her teaching in Halifax. She'd just married a man she hardly knew who was taking her all the way to China, and as a lowly British Consular staff at that time, the government wouldn't pay his passage home on leave for at least 5 years.
While I was in Montreal, before my train trip, with my cousins, 2 more came for a family get-together. These were dedicated amateur genealogists and had so much information about the Murrays; their cleverness, their compassion, their work ethic, I couldn't keep up with who'd married who in 1822, but I did try, like a good Murray should! But failed because of jetlag, you understand.
I made notes on the train, and made death-defying descents down the ladder from my upper berth, scraping my shins in the semi-darkness as the train bumped merrily along at 80-ish mph. And I made friends. And they were really good company. I told them about the WCMT and the opportunity they have given me. My first breakfast companion knew all about the Boxer Rebellion and had read about the siege of Peking in 1900 (this is so unusual; I think it's a first for me, meeting someone who is not an historian) which my grandparents lived through. The next day I met 2 Canadians who loved the UK and especially Cambridge where I grew up (I just happened to have some photos with me!).
A lot of time was spent in the last observation car learning to take pictures through double glazing without internal lights reflecting. I got some good photos, and a lot of big trees, especially when I had the zoom on, which would pop up for a nice close-up in the second it took for the shutter to come down. As soon as I've learnt how to put them on my blog, I shall.
Time is ticking away on my hotel computer. On the last morning as we approached Vancouver my neighbour in the next berth sat down and said something like-- Was your grandfather a Chinese labourer who built the CPR railroad all the way to Vancouver and survived? But you're blonde and don't look Chinese, I thought. When you've been listening to your iPod, looking sadly out of the window, I thought, poor thing, she must be thinking about her grandfather all those years ago working with his pick-axe --. !!
Chinese Whispers relayed down 21 train carriages, and an awful lot of people tottering off the train believing everything they'd heard. I thought I was getting some funny looks!
Next stop, Shanghai. Must fly.
... on my Train Legs. After 4 nights and 3 days aboard The Canadian from Toronto, stopping at Winnipeg (cold and sunny), Edmonton (warm and wet), and gorgeous Jasper (bright sun to driving rain in 30 secs) nestling in the snow-capped Rockies. 40 minutes was not long enough there, VIA Rail, are you listening?
Obviously, because this is a trip of a lifetime, we had fog on the first morning, followed by dank dark rain through the dank dark swamp, and the densely packed forest of dark firs, and tall, wonky minarets of the bigger ones trying to pierce the clouds. It was punctuated by murky-looking pools and lakes, which were transformed by occasional bursts of sunshine that lit up the green trees, sprinkled along the forest edges with golden Aspen and reddening Maple. I asked Billie (hi Billie) who makes this journey twice a year (unaccompanied, and 92) if she knew what the forest would have looked like in 1897 when my grandparents made this journey. "Oh, these are the new trees, " she explained, "Back then the old trees would have been fully mature." That made me think; perhaps all they saw was menacing, claustrophobic forest surrounding lifeless-looking swamp. What a gloomy start to their life together, and I stared out of the window (looking for moose, as you do) wondering how she would have felt, knowing she'd left her beloved family back in New Brunswick and her teaching in Halifax. She'd just married a man she hardly knew who was taking her all the way to China, and as a lowly British Consular staff at that time, the government wouldn't pay his passage home on leave for at least 5 years.
While I was in Montreal, before my train trip, with my cousins, 2 more came for a family get-together. These were dedicated amateur genealogists and had so much information about the Murrays; their cleverness, their compassion, their work ethic, I couldn't keep up with who'd married who in 1822, but I did try, like a good Murray should! But failed because of jetlag, you understand.
I made notes on the train, and made death-defying descents down the ladder from my upper berth, scraping my shins in the semi-darkness as the train bumped merrily along at 80-ish mph. And I made friends. And they were really good company. I told them about the WCMT and the opportunity they have given me. My first breakfast companion knew all about the Boxer Rebellion and had read about the siege of Peking in 1900 (this is so unusual; I think it's a first for me, meeting someone who is not an historian) which my grandparents lived through. The next day I met 2 Canadians who loved the UK and especially Cambridge where I grew up (I just happened to have some photos with me!).
A lot of time was spent in the last observation car learning to take pictures through double glazing without internal lights reflecting. I got some good photos, and a lot of big trees, especially when I had the zoom on, which would pop up for a nice close-up in the second it took for the shutter to come down. As soon as I've learnt how to put them on my blog, I shall.
Time is ticking away on my hotel computer. On the last morning as we approached Vancouver my neighbour in the next berth sat down and said something like-- Was your grandfather a Chinese labourer who built the CPR railroad all the way to Vancouver and survived? But you're blonde and don't look Chinese, I thought. When you've been listening to your iPod, looking sadly out of the window, I thought, poor thing, she must be thinking about her grandfather all those years ago working with his pick-axe --. !!
Chinese Whispers relayed down 21 train carriages, and an awful lot of people tottering off the train believing everything they'd heard. I thought I was getting some funny looks!
Next stop, Shanghai. Must fly.
Thursday 8 October 2009
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