CHINA HOLIDAY
	“CHINA?  Dreadful regime!  Straight-faced people!  And I don’t like rice!!  Why do we have to go to China?” John doesn’t exactly ooze enthusiasm about the travel plans I make.  But he comes along, grudgingly, “just to carry your cases”.  Once there, whatever place we visit I can’t drag him (or his camera) away.  And afterwards, when we’re home again, he just never stops talking about it... I must agree with him that our trip to China was not much of a holiday - more an education, covering a lot of ground, including five internal flights.  It is, after all, a BIG country.  Here are a few of the things we experienced:

The vast expanse of Tiananmen Square crawling with people (no, not a tank in sight, though one can’t completely dismiss them from mind of course). The awesome bulk and solidity of historic buildings - in the Forbidden City, home to generations of Emperors, and the Ming Tombs, homes for their afterlife. And speaking of bulk and solidity - the Great Wall, its cobbles wet and shiny and in places unbelievably steep, appearing and disappearing behind curtains of low rain clouds.  A drier day revealed a long ribbon of wall marching across the hilltops -nearly 6,000 kms long, it makes Hadrian’s look like child’s play.

Trains.  We travelled ‘soft class’.  And was it soft!  We sank into velvet and brocade seats and looked out through lace curtains.  The view was more extensive from the top seats of the double-decker train, and there were potted plants on the intermediate landings!  Bicycles.  No, we didn’t travel on those; but thousands of Chinese did.  We saw cycle lanes as wide as the car lanes.  Men with red flags officiated at intersections.  There was much flag-waving, shouting and whistle-blowing to reinforce - or over-ride -the traffic lights, with the purpose of restraining the eager populace from immolating themselves under lorry wheels.  (Still no tanks).  But when John, keen to photograph this mayhem, tripped backwards over a mini-bollard, everyone - including the flag-wavers - curled up with laughter.  So even greater mayhem ensued. Flag-wavers on the Grand Canal looked very vulnerable, standing at the front of barges so heavily laden as to be nearly awash.  They frantically tried to ward off oncoming boats, including ours, though their flags looked rather fragile for the purpose.  Some of the helmsmen thought so too, poking their heads out of their wheelhouse to let fly a string of what sounded like invective, but may have been just a polite request to please move over.

Language.  Or rather, languages. Many of them, all with numerous dialects.  What interesting sounds; not just vowels and consonants, but pitch and tones as well.  Yet people from different parts can understand each other through writing.  Their pictogram characters can be readily understood by people who speak them differently!  And what a time it must take children to learn to write.  We watched some as they practised their brush strokes - a task demanding concentrated application.  This must be where the Chinese people develop their work ethic.

Shanghai.  Brash modernity, feverish activity, new high-rise constructions plus a host of old colonial buildings from the days of China’s first tentative dealings with the West.  The view at night from the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower was spectacular.  And most of this modern development has occurred within the last decade or two. In fact all the towns we visited were sprouting new, glass-clad buildings, and our hotels were all, to our surprise, of very high standard.  (Also, alongside the usual bathroom toiletries, they provided toothbrushes, combs, sometimes razors.)  The food was consistently good, too - provided one likes Chinese food -although the rice was often more glutinous than we would serve it, and soup came towards the end of the meal!  Water-melon was the invariable dessert. However, we particularly enjoyed visiting the old parts of town, in Nanjing, Suzhou or Wuxi, for example.  Here small houses crowd into alleyways along river and canal banks and the cheerful, friendly locals with their ready sense of humour go about their daily lives, as intrigued by us as we by them. We found it amusing that we westerners are known to them as “big-noses” - also sometimes, depending on the size of the paunch, as “little Buddhas”!  (John qualified for that illustrious title). At 6.30 a.m. out in the parks we could watch or join the locals at their Tai Chi.  With taped music, there are groups doing semi-balletic dancing using scarves or hats, while others do line - or ballroom-dancing.  There is a tremendous sense of community and anyone, even a big-nose, is welcomed into any group.  It’s an invigorating way to start the day. Terracotta Warriors?  Yes, from 200 BC, just amazing.  And signing his book for visitors, one of the two peasants who discovered them when digging a well in 1974.  But try to take his photo without buying a book, and you get a look more ferocious than on any of those clay figures! Yes, there were some peasants bent double in paddy-fields, wearing those hats.  But not all the paddies were for rice.  Many grew lotus, for their edible roots rather than flowers, we were told, though no doubt many blooms find their way to the feet of a Buddha. There seems to be a great appreciation of China’s past history and pride in its development - with a willingness to accept what a disaster the ‘cultural revolution’ was.  So Mao is acknowledged to have made some mistakes!  Cultural activities still seem to play an important role in people’s lives, with much respect shown for poetry, art, music. We attended a number of evening functions.  Charming ‘classical’ music played on ancient instruments, dance, acrobatics, mime-and-dance-with-acrobatics, all were delightful.  Only the caterwauling opera singers failed to please us. Finally we took a boat along the Yangtze River to enjoy the landscapes of the Three Gorges, and the exciting trip by motorised sampan through the Lesser Three Gorges.  The huge new dam now nearing completion is awesome.  Over a million people are being moved - to higher ground, or to cities.  Some, especially the elderly, must be unhappy, having farmed on terraces created and tended by their ancestors for centuries and where these same ancestors are buried.  But the perceived welfare of the majority rules the day, and it is planned to begin flooding next year.  The waters should reach their final height by 2009.  So if you haven’t yet seen the Three Gorges and would like to, you need to get moving.  It’s a trip we can heartily recommend - even John!  Now I just need to stop him talking about it for long enough so that we can get his slide photographs sorted out!  Then perhaps I can start to organise our next travels... Joan Wrigley But before he does stop, John has written down for you his most memorable quote: When we complimented one of the charming young lady guides on her command of English and clarity of speech, she replied to the effect that she’d spent her honeymoon a year ago in London, which helped.  So, I asked, what impressed her most about things English? “Oh, I love Peckham”, she answered. “But Peckham is not reckoned to be an attractive suburb of London”, I countered in surprise. “Not London’s superb Peckham.  Manchester United’s superb Peckham, captain of England.  We girls in China all love him, he so handsome!”