1 - Are you going to China?

Sometime in May, Mary Bendyna, who heads up CARA where I work 3 days a week, asked me: Are you going to China? No, Wisconsin, maybe, but not China, I told her. She had dreamed I was. I forgot all about it.

So I was emailing my cousin this-and-that in late June when he wrote: Want to come over to Beijing? Bob works there, moved in May.

The first thing I did was check my passport. Yup, good til 2015. Then I checked at work: Could you do without me? Not a problem.

Ok, sure! I wrote Bob back.

With his advice and that of his assistant in Beijing, Lin Yawen (Lin her surname, Yawen her given name), I hotfooted over to the Chinese Embassy visa office (conveniently across from CARA, which I had not known), got a two-day expedited process going, bought some summer clothes (made in China, of course), and got some advice from friends who've been to China.

My neighbor Marti had been to the Olympics in 2008. Her tips: kleenex, handiwipes, carry an umbrella for rain or sun. She lent me Beijing guides by lonely planet and Mobil. An adapter not needed; all chargers worked.

Marti took over power bars in case they were hungry and didn't want to leave an event. I took over baggies of oatmeal, dried cranberries, and a carton of almonds -- perfect for breakfast and a nosh. Otherwise -- food is a feast in China for travelers.

Irene and I dropped into Barnes & Noble and looked at a lot of the travel books about China -- incredibly beautiful. She described her trips there in 2004 when there were virtually no signs in English, and 2007 when there were many. If you can, get to Xian, she said.

I checked a map. It looked like the distance from New York to Chicago. Not too likely, I thought. It sounded like a Beijing-based journey. Bob was going to be working. His wife Jolanta and I would be touring and he'd join us when he could.

No one could know less about China than I did. I read the paper; that's it. With a week to go, I started to read Chinese history -- the dynasties; the long millenial view on things; the Confucian goals of social harmony; the colonial interloping by European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries; the revolutionary change in the 20th; Communism; the Long March; and the remarkable economic growth underway now for many, but by no means all. Remember the '08 Olympics -- the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony. 1.3 billion people. Where does everybody live?

Bought a book, Chinese in 10 minutes a day. Gave me some security. So American. Presto!

 

I really had 2 big questions. How can you relate to people who speak a language so foreign to your ear and eye that the very consonants and vowels don't follow your sound conventions since the womb but a wholly different teacher? Are you doomed to wandering their streets, speaking with and understanding only people who look western?

And the streets were my second question. Marti had terrified me. With Beijing's wild traffic, how in the world do you get across any of them?

I packed and left on July 8, flying through Chicago where I met Jolanta and we boarded the same United flight for Beijing.