Friday, October 25, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Censored?
Alas no. But I did lose a significant part of last night's post due to the vagaries of my email app. If I failed to mention it, Blogger is blocked in China so I have been reduced to posting by email, a feature of Blogger I had almost forgotten existed. Good thing it does.
Anyways....I was trying to tell the story of our last feast in Xi'an and the remarkable fact that we were joined for this one by a member of the CCP. When I was at NENU, I met the vice dean of the school of economics. The dean proper is actually a CCP member and has little active role in the operation of the department but has the gig in case someone's academic freedom needs tweaking. None of the students I spoke to had actually seen the guy.
But here was the CCP rep for the medical school at which C had given her talks. Sitting next to me. Of course, I was wholly fascinated by the guy. He had the easy familiarity of a politician or fraternity brother. And he spoke not a line of English.
At most of these dinners there is red wine and "white wine." You quickly learn that the white is actually mou tai, a 90 proof spirit. Nixon got hammered on the stuff during his visit.
We toast with the stuff at these banquets. And I was several shots in when I saw the party official was going to each person at the banquet and toasting with them individually. That's like eight more shots.
This guy is exactly like a fraternity brother. And this is his career skill.
Feeling the faint stirring of patriotism in my loins, I started making a few toasts myself; their contents were the usual platitudes but in my heart I was toasting rule of law, Facebook, and American football!
Needless to say, I got rocked. And yesterday morning was no picnic. A travel day no less. But we are in Beijing now and had Peking duck in the place it got its name. Not too shabby.
Censored!
Alas no. But I did lose a significant part of last night's post due to the vagaries of my email app. If I failed to mention it, Blogger is blocked in China so I have been reduced to posting by email, a feature of Blogger I had almost forgotten existed. Good thing it does.
Anyways....I was trying to tell the story of our last feast in Xi'an and the remarkable fact that we were joined for this one by a member of the CCP. When I was at NENU, I met the vice dean of the school of economics. The dean proper is actually a CCP member and has little active role in the operation of the department but has the gig in case someone's academic freedom needs tweaking. None of the students I spoke to had actually seen the guy.
But here was the CCP rep for the medical school at which C had given her talks. Sitting next to me. Of course, I was wholly fascinated by the guy. He had the easy familiarity of a politician or fraternity brother. And he spoke not a line of English.
At most of these dinners there is red wine and "white wine." You quickly learn that the white is actually mou tai, a 90 proof spirit. Nixon got hammered on the stuff during his visit.
We toast with the stuff at these banquets. And I was several shots in when I saw the party official was going to each person at the banquet and toasting with them individually. That's like eight more shots.
This guy is exactly like a fraternity brother. And this is his career skill.
Feeling the faint stirring of patriotism in my loins, I started making a few toasts myself; their contents were the usual platitudes but in my heart I was toasting rule of law, Facebook, and American football!
Needless to say, I got rocked. And yesterday morning was no picnic. A travel day no less. But we are in Beijing now and had Peking duck in the place it got its name. Not too shabby.
Ah....Beijing
Changchun and Xi'an are all here including the tree-lined streets and
bustling urban vibe. But Beijing is so much more chill.
And of course, Beijing has the wacky post-modern architecture we have
seen at each of our city stops. Where details of U.S. buildings seem
designed to address the question, "why?," Chinese buildings are all
about "why not?"
More on Beijing tomorrow. I wanted to say a little about yesterday
and the cryptic post from last night.
I gave my sixth and final talk yesterday at XISU. The talk was for
faculty primarily. I presented my RAND paper again. For the first
time this trip, I had an excellent interpreter. So that certainly
improved the experience.
After my talk, I joined Caroline at her final stop in her speaking
tour. She did three talks a day at three different medical
universities around Xi'an. For paying her own way to China, she sure
did a hell of a lot of work.
And boy do they love her. Especially the gaggle of budding female
doctors she seemed to attract at each school.
Reunited and in the company of faculty from our two respective
schools, we headed out for the last our "feasts" for this trip. These
have really been a highlight. The food changes but the setting is
similar each time. We go to a fancy hotel and are escorted into a
plush private room with a large round table. The room often has a
private bathroom for the diners. At times, the room features a glass
booth where multiple servers watch over the group to be sure all their
needs are met.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
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