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.