Want to start reading at the beginning of the trip? Click here.

The New New China
Shanghai, Oct. 25-27

This is the final post in my Internet travel diary. I have been back in the States for more than two weeks, and any pretense that this is a daily account of a trip to China has been exposed as fiction. When I began this project, I thought it might take an hour or two each day along the way—a small price to pay for a subsidized trip to China. But the overwhelming input of information and images that any sort of travel provides made it impossible to keep up in a contemporaneous manner.

Readers who have followed all of these thousands of words and hundreds of pictures deserve a People’s Hero medal. I could have bought some, just off Tianamen Square, two for a dollar. I should have gotten you one.

The December Swarthmore College Bulletin will carry an article on our China adventure. In a few magazine pages, it won’t begin to capture the breadth of our group’s experiences during the past few weeks. I asked travelers to write down their “elevator speeches” about the trip—those one-minute encounters that occur when a friend or colleague asks, “How was China?”—and I’ll include some of those.

Prefer to start reading at the beginning of the blog? Click here.

The last leg of our trip brought us from Xi’an to Shanghai on a very crowded aircraft. Our knees-knocking flight arrived just after dark. The airport looked much like Xi’an’s, much like Chongqing’s—only much, much larger. As in each new city, we were met at the baggage claim by a cheerful guide. And, like ducklings in the famous children’s book about the Boston Common, we followed his flag through the airport. But thankfully, we were not headed for another bus. This time, we were to ride a very fast train—the Shanghai Mag-Lev, which would whisk us into the city (well, almost all the way) in less than 10 minutes. Top speed: 300 km/hour—just under 200 mph. Whoosh!

A Maglev poster.

The train—which has no engineer on board.

Speedo sign. We reached 300 km/h in less than two minutes. Higher speeds are reached in the daytime. Not sure what the difference is at night.

China is on the move. Fast. We saw the biggest dam in the world. We rode the fastest train in the world. If we come back to Shanghai in a few months, we could ascend the tallest building in the world. While we were in country, the Chinese put a satellite in orbit around the Moon. If there is any take-home message, it’s that, although the 20th century might have been the “American Century,” the 21st will belong to China.

This is not a defeatist observation. It is, however, a call to get over it, get used to it, and get ready for it. Those who believe that American leadership of the world’s economy, currency, geopolitics, military power, and culture are permanent conditions—or some sort of natural right—are fooling themselves. What we have seen is but a glimpse of the enormous power and creativity that will surely dominate the world during the next 100 years.

Our China experience was carefully choreographed—not so much by the Chinese themselves (though our guides were perfectly programmed) but by the larger sweep of culture and history—and by the desires of tourists like us—the perceptions of culture and history that shape everyone’s view of what’s important to see in China.

Beautiful old bronzes and ceramics in the art museum in Shanghai are the foundation of a culture that is 4,000 years old. Next door, a city planning exhibit shows the scope of the city, which locals claim is the world’s largest.

Part of the planning exhibit was a huge scale model of the city. All I could think of was where to put the model trains. My old Lionel 027-gauge tracks would look pretty silly in this world.

Shanghai at night—along Nanjing Road, the main shopping street.

Dick and I took a long walk in the late afternoon. The street holds endless opportunities. We took the subway under the river to Pujong, opposite the old colonial district, where we emerged in a sea of high-rise towers.

The Bund—along the river where Western-style buildings give a hint of Paris or London.

Looking across the river to Pujong.

Objects of extraordinary beauty in the museum included this sculpture, which held my gaze for a long time.

This extraordinary Buddha, made of jade, about 1.5 meters tall, is not in a museum but rather in a working Buddhist temple, next door to a restaurant where we had a delicious vegetarian lunch. It glows as if alive. I was mesmerized and did not want to leave the room. (Not my photo.)

Some Final Thoughts

Being in China has presented a complicated dance of expectation and reality. Flying over the pole a couple weeks ago, I had no idea what I would find. All I had was an open-minded excitement—a nervous anticipation and desire to know. Most of us arrived in Beijing with no direct experience of this vast country (only two or three had ever been here—except for Haili Kong, who was born and raised in China), but it wasn’t an entirely blank slate, just a blurry one. There is no such thing as a blank slate. Each of us brought our own ideas of Chinese culture and history, from what the food would be like to how the people act to what we would encounter on the streets.

Few of these preconceptions turned out to be accurate. This is the whole reason to travel in this world: to replace preconceptions with reality—or at least as much reality as can be obtained on a superficial tour such as this. Which is to say that not everything we saw was “real.”

Our tour was scripted by many authors, not the least of which were our own preconceptions of what we ought to see in China. We followed a well-trod tourist track, seeing many of the same things that almost every visitor to China gets to see. Yet, had the Alumni College itinerary not promised those sights, few would have desired to spend thousands of dollars on this trip. Or any trip.

The genteel and urbane Howard Smith, our tour operator, is a 30-year China veteran specializing in custom trips for educational groups such as ours. With few exceptions, his choices of destinations, guides, accommodations, transport, and restaurants were masterful and delightful. But—and this is a criticism of tourism itself, not Howard—they merely reinforced a familiar story. With his long experience of contemporary China and many friends here, Howard could surely have told us a somewhat different story. But could he design a two-week tour to illustrate it? Doubtful. Could you impart the story of your last 30 years (not to mention your entire country’s) in a 14-day travel experience for 40 people?

I love travel, and in each place I visit, I hear a series of little stories that build like chapters in a book. But, I wonder, are they truth or fiction? Can any person know China’s whole story? Or America’s? It’s like meeting a friendly stranger on the street; you can talk for an hour (about as long as it seems we were in any one place in China), yet nothing is certain when you are done. You cannot be sure.

So it’s like any other place: You know what you think you know. Over a lifetime, you watch, read, listen, think, see, absorb, accept, believe, reject, and ultimately form a story—a few lines to repeat when someone asks you about your experience. How was your vacation? How was Christmas? How was China? are the questions you must answer when you see family, friends, and co-workers. How indeed?

Better to ask, “How are you after your two weeks in China? How has it changed you and your perception of the world?” It may seem like an easier question to answer, but it’s not. Travel enhances self-awareness—especially in a culture so different from ours as that of China. What you bring home is not new knowledge about the place you have seen but about the mind that has seen it.

I took 1,600 pictures on this trip. Some of them are quite beautiful as photographs; others document what we saw along the way; but none of them captures the changes that occur in the traveler. Travel is about change—in latitude, longitude, and attitude. After two short weeks in China, I have a new and different understanding of that country—yet one that may or may not correspond to reality there. The only truly new and different understanding that I can trust is the one I have brought home about myself.

How was China? Better to ask me, “How’s life?”

Thanks for reading.

Xi’an to Shanghai

Oct. 25

The next day, just before leaving for the airport, it was time for another undergound experience: the mausoleum of LiuQi (188-141 BCE), the fourth emperor of the Western Han dynasty and his empress, Wang. Construction of two large funeral mounds began in 153 BCE near present-day Yangling.

One of the Han Dynasty burial mounds near Yangling. (Not my picture—the sky was never this clear while we were there.)

What it really looks like in late October.

Excavations around the edges of the mounds have revealed another huge underground collection of terra cotta figures—ranks upon ranks of them, representing not just warriors but ordinary men and women (complete with their genitals and other bodily orifices). They were painted and equipped with movable wooden arms, which have rotted away. They were even clothed for their journey—probably with items labeled “Made in China!”

Work at this site is even more recent than those at Bingmayong, beginning in the early 1990s. Another magnificent museum has been built around these excavations—which represent a fraction of the size of the entire complex. Underground imaging has revealed that the mound itself is like a palace inside—the perfect combination of palace and tomb, and therefore the perfect tourist site—but it is not clear whether archeologists will ever excavate it, because to do so might destroy it.

According to one Chinese Web site,

From a site which accounts for only one thirteenth of the total area of the sacrificial burial pits, about 600 color-painted pottery figurines and 4,000 pieces of various cultural relics were unearthed. The figurines included warriors escorting the imperial chariot, attendants watching over boxes and cases, cattle drovers and clerks. There were also animal models produced in different styles.

Here are a few pictures. It was, as you will see, very dark down there.

We were issued little blue booties before we entered the museum, which takes you underground by a series of ramps to stand on glass floors above the excavated burial chambers.

A model shows the sacrificial burial pits radiating out from the four sides of the mound.

Ashes to ashes, all fall down.

The wooden arms of the figures, which are about 60 cm tall, have rotted away over the centuries.

A chariot wheel—about a meter in diameter.

Livestock. The piggies are really cute.

 Back outside, pots of chrysanthemums—just like fall at home. 

The tombs near Xi’an are one of the top attractions in China, and I’m glad we got to see them. But I suspect that one reason we like to tour the world’s tombs and palaces is that, after all this packing for the afterlife, the aancient kings left it all behind. They are gone and their stuff remains. There’s a certain satisfaction in knowledge that they couldn’t take it with them after all. And, of course, there’s a lesson there for the rest of us: Pack light. A robe and a rice bowl may be all you need in this life—and you won’t even be able to take those simple things to the next.

We headed for the airport, where lunch was served in a large dining room set aside for tour groups. The modern air terminal will be taxed to its limits next year, during the Olympic, because every potential visitor to China has seen pictures or heard of the terra cotta army. They will all flock here, and the locals will house and feed and transport them, then cram them back on airplanes to the next stop. Our next (and last) stop: Shanghai. For those about to go to China, what you really should pack is a smaller set of legs, because there isn’t room for your current pair on Chinese airplanes. Be my witness:

This was before the person in front of me reclined his seat. 

Xi’an, Oct. 24-25

Packing is a challenge for most folks—knowing what and how much to take for your journey. Regrettably, I’m of the packing school that figures, if there’s a 50-pound limit, see how close you can get without incurring excess-baggage charges. Sure, I can go on a two-day business trip with a bare minimum of gear—but packing to go to China? I might as well be packing to go to the Moon, though I suspect that has a stricter weight limit than United Airlines.

A few days before we left, I laid it all out on the bed in one of the kids’ rooms. (Our grown-up “kids” are no longer in residence.) I congratulated myself on being a smart packer when I decided I didn’t need a quantity of socks and underwear equal to the number of days I would be gone. I would do some laundry about halfway through China.

As I packed my Chinese-made suitcase, I observed that many of my toiletries, all of my shoes, and most of my clothing bore the “Made in China” label. I came to an important realization: The true purpose of going to China was to take my belongings home for a visit.

It was in this spirit that I approached the Qin emperor (221 BCE to 206 BCE) and his famous terra cotta warriors. As I had packed to the limit to go to China, so this long-dead emperor had packed for the afterlife—and there was no 50-pound limit for the emperor.

On the way…

Think how many of the places that tourists throng to are either palaces or tombs. The biggest attractions around the world are either places that great rulers built for themselves to live in—or places they built for themselves to be dead in. Of course, there are many great religious sites and, during the past couple of centuries, a few great museums. But nothing beats a palace, pyramid, or mausoleum as venue in which to marvel at how enormous wealth and power—especially combined with belief in the supernatural and a dash of hubris—has created a view of history that is all about these few men. (Face it, it’s all about the men.) The palace perspective is one with the human condition.

The museums that modern China has built to preserve and display its cultural patrimony are beautifully planned and executed. At the site of the terra cotta warrior excavations, huge pavilions have been constructed over three sites.

The Qin Emperor—the first warrior to unify all of China under a centralized feudal state—appears to have outdone all of the world’s former leaders with his recently discovered tomb complex at Bingmayong, near Xi’an. With the possible exception of the Great Pyramids, there’s nothing like it.

People had long been aware of the large funeral mounds in the foothills of the Lishang Hills outside the ancient walled city of Xi’an. But it wasn’t until 1974, after a farmer digging a well nearby unearthed some interesting pottery, that the world became aware of just how big the Qin tomb really was. You probably know that story—the subject of endless Discovery Channel programs: This funeral mound and underground mausoleum are the largest ever discovered.

Some quick facts:

• The entire complex covers a total of 2.18 million square meters—just under a square mile—with the tomb mound itself covering 220,000 square meters.

• The mausoleum originally consisted of inner and outer sections. The outer section had a circumference of 6,294 meters—almost 4 miles.

• Some 8,000 life-sized terra cotta warriors have been unearthed, mostly in the outer section.

• According to Records of the Historian, written over 2,000 years ago by Sima Qian, construction involved 700,000 laborers and took 36 years to complete.

Another fact: the Qin emperor was probably dead for quite a few years before he was entirely fixed up with his terra cotta army, which was to protect him in the afterlife. But, I wondered, what if his soul took off for the underworld before the whole thing was finished?

Outside the first pavilion—an enormous shed that probably could have docked the Graf Zeppelin.

Inside the first pavilion—breathtaking. These displays artfully blend “working” archeology and reconstructed artifacts. Most of the clay figures were broken or damaged by the collapse of the wooden roofs of the underground chambers where they were buried 2,200 years ago. Some can be seen as they were found, in pieces, and others have been painstakingly restored.

Fragments of statues show the condition of the warriors in areas still being excavated.

The stripes indicate where the timbered roofs of underground rooms collapsed. This site is part of the terra cotta warriors museum, where the army assembled for the imperial journey into the beyond.

Three soldiers in sepia. They were in glass cases in one of the pavilions, so you could see them up close.

These magnificent bronze horses and chariot—about a quarter of life size— are one of two sets uncovered with the clay figures.

As we sat on a curb waiting for the Swarthmore group to coalesce at the end of our visit to the terra cotta warriors, I asked Shao Yan, the national guide who had been with us since Beijing, whether she is a religious person. It seemed like the right place to have such a conversation—here, where an emperor had prepared for a life beyond this one.

She said that she didn’t belong to any particular movement, but that if her sympathies lay anywhere, it was with Buddhism. I told her a little about my own religious journey—and my spiritual experiences in China. (See “A Prayer for Peace.”)

Then I observed (as I had in that posting), that although there seemed to be a fair bit of religious freedom in China, the government definition of religion was narrow enough to exclude Falun Gong, which we had been told was a “cult.” I said the difference seemed to be that Falun Gong had crossed some sort of line, straying into politics. “They just tried to move too fast,” Shao Yan said. I had heard the same thing said of the 1988 pro-democracy movement when we were standing in Tianamen. “Too fast,” she repeated, a little ruefully perhaps.

Of course, the Dalai Lama, who is seen outside China as a major spiritual leader, is reviled by the Chinese government and press. While we were in China, President Bush invited him to the White House, and the press here (we read the official English-language China Daily almost every day, taking it with more than a grain if salt) was attacking both Bush and the exiled Tibetan Buddhist, who not only represents the Tibetan independence movement, but will be succeeded by own reincarnation.

The Peoples Reoublic has devised a perfect solution to the succession problem in Tibet—in August, they passed a law that makes it illegal to be reincarnated without the permission of the central government. Now, isn’t that laughable?

The object of this law is to enforce government control over the choosing of “soul boys,” the potential successors to the great lamas of Tibetan Buddhism, including the famously exiled supreme lama. Here’s how a PRC “white paper” on religious freedom explains the situation. Follow the logic carefully (italics are mine)…

The reincarnation of holy men, or “Living Buddhas,” is a unique form of succession in Tibetan Buddhism which has long been recognized and respected by the State. In 1992 the Religious Affairs Bureau of the State Council approved the succession of the 17th Karmapa Living Buddha. In 1995 China successfully concluded the search for and identification of the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama and the title-conferring and enthronement of the 11th Panchen Lama after lot-drawing from a golden urn according to the established religious rituals and historical conventions of Tibetan Buddhism, and with the approval of the State Council. These actions highlight the fact that the Tibetan people’s right to religious freedom is respected and protected, thus winning endorsement and support from the converts of Tibet.

Huh? This absurd document goes on to argue that the regulation of reincarnation has long historical precedent in Ming and Qing times—and is therefore historically legitimate. Of course, so was foot binding, but they don’t do that anymore!