Quick business trip to China

I traveled to China recently for work to visit two study sites to see how they were starting up their work. Because of visa problems which I will describe later, I had to leave for a meeting in DC without knowing for sure if I was going to be going on to China. This made my packing rather difficult. Given that I needed a lot more clothing for 10 days in China, than just 2 nights in DC. However, my years of packing for traveling with my Dad, helped me to pack somewhat appropriately. The major oversights were 1. a camera 2. tissues and 3. socks. Therefore, unless I'm sent photos by my fellow travelers, I will have none to show from this trip.

I left on a Friday from DC and flew to JFK. Then from JFK to Seoul. Then from Seoul to Guangzhou. Then from Guangzhou to Nanning in the Guangxi Province of China. I don't think I need to tell you that I really didn't smell very good after that many hours of travel on that many planes. I arrived in Nanning to our fancy hotel (one of the benefits of work travel) wanting only a shower. Nanning was shockingly nice. I don't know what I expected out of a big industrial city like this, but it certainly wasn't so many green spaces and well manicured parks. The traffic was (of course) chaotic. The people looked busy and stressed like any other big city. But there was something small town and park like about Nanning that felt almost out of place in my expectations. From my room on the 14th floor, I could view the lake and a bridge that they lite up at night with a sort of waterfall running along the railing. The effect created a pleasant river walk that lovers walked down at night and was filled with exercising seniors by 8am the next morning. I was able to get out of the continuous meetings, long dinners and hotel chats for only about two hours one morning. I walked down and around the lake with my colleague and then up a busy street to a fruit market. I love fruit markets and this one didn't disappoint. All the fruits I know and love from my previous visits to Asia were lined up in neat little rows. Mushroom varieties (some of them new to me) were stacked five deep on tables.

For one quick overnight, we then headed out to Heng County. I expected that to be the name of the county, not the city, but the city itself is called by the same name. I had heard this was a rural place without many amenities, but what I found instead was a big city. Without any amenities. The hotel was a bit questionable. Instead of a fancy hotel that took credit cards and had fascinating sculptures in the room (I'm just going to pretend that man and woman were dancing), I found a creepy bathroom with an unenclosed shower "area" and a drain that didn't work leaving me to wade through 3 inches of water after my shower and for the few hours I was there after I took it. The place also lacked heat. The lack of heat was a bit harder to endure than I expected. The weather was sort of like Thailand in the winter, but a little bit chillier. And with no heat and a room that was designed to deal with steamy summer temperature, we were all freezing. The bed was also missing that critical mattress component of the mattress and box springs set. So I rolled my duvet into a bit cocoon and climbed inside. Except for waking up several times dreaming that I was a big silk worm, I was very cozy. I was never able to get outside and walk around at this spot. Which was a shame since the city looked quite interesting.

Before I go on to the next leg of my trip, I need to describe Chinese business dinners. Most fancy restaurants (and I do use the term "fancy" rather loosely) are a series of long hallways filled with private rooms. You and your group of 12-50 people go into your own private space complete with a TV, a very large round table and your very own staff of about three to five women to bring you dishes. All dishes are brought in to the room and placed on a "lazy Susan" that is spun around so you can take directly from the plate. Serving spoons are rather rare but possible. The food is about what you would expect from eating at any US-based Chinese restaurant. With the addition of a few things that wouldn't be found on the average US table, such as deep fried crocodile, little birds eggs, chicken knee caps (at least that's what they looked like) and horse meat. But what really sets these dinners apart are the drinking. They pour a little bit of wine, beer or other liquor (depending on where you are) into your glass and you're expected to toast rather than sip on your own. The formality is very clear. You must first toast the most important person in the room and then move down. Toasting each and every person as you sip.

This gets a bit crazier in Xinjiang Province where they drink a sort of moonshine out of a shot glass and you're expected to drain the whole glass for each important toast. I took about 2 sips out of that glass and I quickly discovered that this moonshine and I weren't meant for each other. Luckily I'm a woman, since the men I was traveling with could not get off the hook merely for not liking the taste. By the end of the night, when I got up and walked around the table to toast one of our Chinese staff who had been particularly helpful to me, I was discovering that he was nearing falling under the table with every sip. From what I understand, during previous trips my colleagues have found themselves and others falling under the table, passing out and generally behaving in a manner not fitting in with my idea of the usual business trip. This is just part of doing business in China.

So on to the next part of the trip. We flew from Guangxi to the Xinjiang Province via Guanzhou again. Xinjiang is made up predominately of ethnic Uyghurs who would very much like having their own country, thank you very much, and therefore aren't getting along with the Chinese government very well. They speak a language closer to Arabic than Chinese and many of them are Muslim. It was for this reason that I had so much trouble getting my visa. In order to apply for the visa, I had to submit a trip itinerary. Despite the fact that we're working with the Chinese government on our study, the visa was denied until we removed this piece from our itinerary and then the visa came through the day before I flew out. It was a bit crazy really. The city was not as pretty to look at, in part because it was freezing (think Chicago in winter) so the green was all dead and in part because it was a coal burning city and the air was awful. As we flew out the last day over the smog, I caught a glimpse of the gorgeous mountains that surround the city and wish I could have seen them better while I was there. It was a simply lovely environment, except that you couldn't really see anything while you were there.

Here I was able to play tourist only a few times as well. First, we took a walk to the main square where they had set up an ice playground for kids. There was an ice rink. An ice castle. And the highlight was a slide made out of ice for the kids to soar down in an inner tube. The stairs that took you to the top of the ice slide were also ice, thankfully they put down a carpet on the stairs so the kids didn't kill themselves trying to reach the top. The second time was to go to the Uigur markets. I bought a few "Pashminas" (this area is known for their cashmere) as gifts and a silver box. They also had very lovely decorated mirrors, tons of dried fruit and rugs. Buying a rug nearly caused problems for us all. One of our party decided to go rug shopping but wasn't sure what he would find so figured he would just take cash out at the ATM if he found anything he liked. He did and agreed on a price with a Uyghur rug merchant, who followed him (rug rolled up nice and snug) to the ATM only to find that the ATM would not dispense any cash to him. He naturally figured that the deal would cancel, but this is apparently not the case. In Uyghur culture, if you agree to a price then you buy it. The fact that the ATM wouldn't dispense cash wasn't his problem. After a lot of yelling. Some serious diplomacy on the part of our Chinese hosts. And several of our party pooling currency of all kinds together, we managed to pay off the rug seller and get out of there safely. I don't recommend that others take this risk in the future. I hear that if things hadn't gone so well, knives would have been involved. I hope our Chinese hosts were just joking.

My last excursion was on my last morning in China. One of our hosts had to go to this cashmere sweater tailor to pick up some orders made by her friends. We wandered through the streets of the market near our hotel (which was very well heated, by the way) to a little shop run by two women. The sweaters were really amazing. I didn't feel comfortable leaving without buying one. In part because I found one that fit that I really liked (after living so long amongst the tiny people in Thailand, I'm always impressed when I find something that fits my
American body---I'm a size M in the US, a size XXL in Thailand). In part because it only cost $50 and I know a sweater of this quality (never mind that it was hand made and one of a kind) would have cost at least twice that much in the US. And in part because my Chinese colleague knew the lady who ran the store and I would have felt like I was offending her if I'd left without buying anything.

Urumqi had none of the park-like quality of Nanning and the smog was horrible. But I found it a fascinating place that seemed more in keeping with my picture of what Russia looks like than China. Another interesting thing is that Urumqi and Nanning are all in the same time zone. Beijing has determined that all of China will be on "Beijing standard time" meaning that the sun doesn't rise in Urumqi until after 9am and sets after 8pm even in the winter. For a frame of reference, imagine if DC and Denver were on the same time zone.

So that was the end of my trip. I'm now completing the longest leg of my journey home. Urumqi to Beijing, Beijing to Seoul (overnight in the transit hotel), Seoul to Atlanta and then Atlanta back to my newly established hometown. Which, for the sake of my privacy, I'll let remain a mystery on this blog just like the rest of my identifying information. My apologies that there are no photos. These really were lovely places and I look forward to my next trip.