Taking dream trek through China
Bridget Lindquist
I was fortunate enough to be able to join the Newport Beach
Chamber of Commerce on a trip to China from Nov. 8 to 16. It has been
a dream of mine to visit China since I lived in Japan in the early
1980s. Back then, we made it to Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand, but
China remained a dream.
It became a reality when the chamber offered a China trip for
members and their friends and family. The price was a bargain. It
included airfare, hotel stays in four-star hotels, all meals,
sightseeing tours, admissions and transfers for $1,099. The tour
itinerary covered four cities and the major sights and, since this
was my first time, it seemed a great way to see as much as possible
and get a good overview of the country. I have traveled extensively
and lived overseas twice, but I had never gone on a group tour. So
this was to be a trip full of new experiences on many levels.
I signed up with my friend Joanna, a friend since junior high
school. It was interesting to later learn that many people who signed
up to travel together were traveling with childhood friends. It was
almost as if this experience was something we wanted to share with
someone with whom we had a long and meaningful history. We joined the
group of 126 people from Newport Beach who then joined with other
chambers to make one large group of close to 600 people. This concept
of the “group” became very important as the trip progressed.
Beijing was our first stop. We arrived in the evening and stopped
at a massive banquet hall for dinner. This was to be the first of
many such dinners. After the fourth or fifth lunch or dinner, they
all started to blur together and the menu was basically the same each
time.
I was amazed how big everything was -- the hotel was massive, the
streets and squares, parks the Forbidden City, everything seemed so
vast.
It was an interesting time to be in China because it seemed to be
the center of the universe that week. The 16th National Congress of
the Communist Party was in session at the Great Hall of the People to
elect its Central Committee and a new Central Commission. It was a
historic moment as they went through a smooth transition from the old
to the new.
Because of these events, extra security precautions were being
taken. We had to adjust our itinerary because places that were
supposed to be open suddenly closed.
But I thought it seemed more open and relaxed than I thought it
would be. While visiting Tiananmen Square, I took a picture of a
group of soldiers and no one flinched. I had heard that people had
done this before and had their film confiscated.
I was thrilled to visit the Great Wall. Its sheer size and length
(more than 2,000 miles long and the only man-made structure visible
from space, we were told) is something you have to see in person to
get the full impact. It was very cold and windy on our way up, but we
couldn’t come all that way without making it to the very top.
According to Mao, anyone who wanted to be a “hero” had to first climb
the Great Wall, so we all left as “heroes.”
That same day, we visited a pearl factory. The thing I remember
most isn’t the bracelets they strung as I waited. It is the image in
my mind of the back of the bus as it pulled away while Joanna and I
ran after it as fast as we could. It was about to pull onto an
expressway when someone looked out of the back window and saw us just
in time to get the bus to pull over. With the confusion of who was
supposed to be on which bus, no one realized we were missing. At that
point, we realized we had to look out for each other. Six of us
decided that we would stick together, look out for each other and
make sure everyone was accounted for. We became officially known as
“The China Chicks” and by the end of trip, we realized that a special
friendship had developed.
Oh, and I was never late again.
We rode in rickshaws and visited the oldest part of the city, the
Hutong. A group of us had lunch with a family in their home. Though
it was arranged as part of the tour, it was as close as we would get
to meeting any of the local people besides our guides. It was
interesting to see people still living as their ancestors had, in a
three-room house lined up in a U shape with a central courtyard and a
communal toilet. Our hosts were very warm and friendly and I think
they appreciated my small gift of a miniature watercolor of Newport
Harbor. It was also the best meal I had while we were there.
We also visited a Chinese herbal clinic and pharmacy. There, the
doctors diagnosed us by looking at our tongues and taking our pulse.
Then they recommended herbal treatments that we could take on a
regular basis as preventive measures to insure good health. It seemed
to make sense. But downstairs, there were all kinds of strange
looking things in the pharmacy cabinets. I couldn’t read what they
were except for the Tiger Balm, or what they were for, but I saw
snakes, dried seahorses, antlers, animal and insect parts and other
things that I didn’t even want to know what they were. Though I think
there are a lot of good things that come from Chinese herbal
remedies, I don’t think I am ready to make the switch.
Our guided tours were conducted by young, well-educated guides who
were eager to answer all our questions and were proud to share the
history and culture of their city with us. They were all surprisingly
outspoken in their political beliefs, though not when we were out in
public
We had tours of the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace on Kunming
Lake, and the Ming Tombs. We visited a jade factory and a friendship
store, which is a government store selling everything from silk to
jade, pearls and embroidery to cloisonne. I am quite sure they had to
restock the shelves when Mary Ann was done shopping.
At each stop, whenever possible, our group had to buy something.
Shopping was high on everyone’s list and we were all searching for
something unique and special to bring home. I thought I found the
most unique tea cups in a charming little teahouse outside the Temple
of Heaven. I managed to sneak away from the group and get in right
before they closed. When filled with hot tea, the painted scene on
the teacups changed from a red and black dragon to a full color
painting of a Chinese garden. I quickly bought six of them as gifts,
thinking how special these were. When I examined one closely, I had
to laugh when I saw the printing on the bottom of the cup “Made for
Pier 1 Imports.” Unique indeed.
We flew to Shanghai and took several long bus rides as we visited
the cities of Hangzhou and Suzhou. I am sure that everyone on this
trip could tell a story or two about the long waits at the airport,
and the long bus rides. What could have been the worst part of the
trip turned out in hindsight to be one of the best. We spent those
hours talking and sharing stories in a way people don’t normally have
time to do as we go about our daily lives. And we laugh now at the
some of the tour missteps, like the way Janice and Barbara never had
a room at each hotel we went to, the fiasco with the boarding passes,
the three-hour wait in the parking lot for the rest of the group to
show up, etc.
Among the highlights in Hangzhou was a visit to a tea farm. Along
the way, we drove past the lush, green terraced hillsides. We came
upon what looked like a small parade -- a group dressed in black
wearing headbands, carrying large brightly colored paper wheels and
wreaths. Our guide informed us it was a village funeral procession.
We took a boat ride on the West Lake, with weeping willows and
teahouses lining the shore. It looked like something out of an old
Chinese painting.
We visited the Lingyin Temple and saw the 64-foot camphor Buddha.
The misty rain mixed with the incense gave an other worldly haze to
this ancient temple.
In Suzhou, we visited an embroidery factory and a silk factory. We
were all amazed at what an excellent bargainer one of the gals in our
group, Aileen, turned out to be. The Chinese are tough negotiators,
but they met their match with her when she went home with a huge,
framed hand-embroidered piece of art.
I was so impressed by the silk floss quilts that we watched them
make at the No. 1 silk factory; I bought one for each bed in the
house and shipped them home. They keep the thermal body heat in and
are lightweight and perfect to use year-round in California.
Our last stop was Shanghai and we were all amazed at how modern
the city was. It looked to me liked something out of “The Jetsons,”
very space age-style architecture. The contrasts between the new and
old parts of the city were striking. We went from one extreme to the
other when we had cocktails on the 96th floor of the ultra modern
Grand Hyatt, to dinner at the Peace Hotel. The Peace Hotel was built
in 1906 and, from the looks of the jazz group playing in the bar,
they have been there almost as long.
The next day, Kathy and Joanna and I had our fill of Chinese food
and we went over to the Four Seasons Hotel. It was just as beautiful
as the one here. It was like a sea of calm in a very frantic place. I
wanted to say hello to the front desk manager who used to work at the
Four Seasons in Newport Beach. We missed Andy, but we had the best
club sandwiches.
While all of these sights and experiences were wonderful, the best
part of my whole trip was the friends I made. And I was not alone.
Entire bus groups got to be friends. By the end of our trip, people
everywhere were talking about reunions and keeping in touch. We heard
that one of the bus groups all went to brunch together the day after
we got home.
Because of this visit, I have become interested in learning more
about China, and I now have a very special group of friends, “The
China Chicks,” that share this interest. We had our first reunion a
week after the trip -- Barbara, Janice, Kathy, Joanna, Mary Ann,
Aileen and me -- to share our photos and talk about how much fun we
had. We get together for Chinese takeout and rent movies like “The
Last Emperor” and “Xui Xui.” We also plan to visit the Bowers Museum
to see the Lost Treasures of the Forbidden City. We are talking about
a trip to San Francisco where, of course, we would stop first in
Chinatown. And, of course, we talk about our next trip to China.
* BRIDGET LINDQUIST is the deputy director of the Newport Beach
Conference and Visitors Bureau.
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