October 24, 2009

Letter 5: One week to go; Shanghai

We are more than halfway through the trip now. We spoke to 50 master and Ph.D. students at the College of Humanities at East China University on Friday.  The presentations were well received.  Questions are usually a good indication as to how well they understood the material; when they challenge our views, both we and the professors are delighted. The primary purpose of such guest professor programs is to stimulate thought and provoke discussion around new ideas. The Chinese are hungry for new ideas and very much appreciate having greater personal access to foreigners.  We have been photographed in next to signs and banners, and were given some of the posters created to honor and promote our visits to take home.  I sometimes feel like a rock star.

On Saturday we saw some of the sights in Shanghai with one of the Dean’s Ph.D. students. We ate dumplings at a restaurant made (even more famous) by a visit from Bill Clinton.  4 stories tall, it is part of a beautiful 400 year old compound of Ming dynasty buildings.  It is now a major tourist attraction, it’s ground floors crammed with stalls for souvenirs and food.  A line for takeaway dumplings stretched across the center courtyard for 100 yards.  I can’t imagine how the Secret Service managed security for a presidential lunch there.  Then we strolled through the Yu Gardens, an intimate collection of rockeries and ponds, galleries and verandas.

You’ll need this piece of trivia to understand my next observation.  The largest recent study of Chinese males and femailes compared to US for heght and weight showed that women in both countries average 5’4”.  Men in China average 5’8” compared to US men at 5’9”.  The reason this may not be obvious is that there may be more disparity in the US – more very short people balanced out by very tall people – while Chinese are closer to the average overall.  So we see lots of tall people in the US, which may distort our sense of what the average is.  Yet there is a clear disparity regarding weight: women average 125 lbs in Chine, 145 lbs in the US; men average 145 lbs in China, 191 lbs in the US.  So people in the US may be more imposing in size based upon girth than height. Again, there may be a greater range in the US population, so that very tall or very corpulent people are more common in the US than in China.  While humans tend to prefer leaders who are larger than average, there may be less prejudice against being short in China if being particularly tall is unusual. It is possible that in the US, our intuitive preferences may result in managers, professionals and leaders being significantly above average in height because there are simply more tall people to choose from.

A group of Chinese students seemed to be giving their visiting Western professor throught the gardens.  The girls were probably shorter than average because they were in their early teens; the professor was in his ‘50s or ‘60s, over 6 feet tall and about 250+ lbs.  With white hair and a ruddy complexion, he looked like Santa Claus surrounded by giggling elves. It was a starkly stereotypical sight, partly because of the childlike quality of the girls’ playfulness towards him.

At 5’ tall, I have felt very comfortable with the Chinese physically, so I was surprised when I looked up the figures on average height comparisons. It doesn’t help that I stopped growing when I was 12.  That year, all my classmates went into growth spurts so that I went from being average to being one of the shortest girls in my class.  It seemed as if everyone grew up but me, which exaggerates my sense of being height-handicapped. Yet here in China, I feel like an adult and am able to greet people eye-to-eye without cranking my neck backwards.

David’s wife has rejoined us, after a 4 day holiday with Zhine’s wife in Hunan Province. Sunday the three of us will be driven to Suzhou, 1 ½ hours south of Shanghai, for three more presentations to various colleges.  Suzhou is the silk capitol of China, and it will be my first full-on shopping experience, as I intend to complete my Christmas shopping there!  Saturday I came down with a cold, and I was as concerned about losing the Sunday shopping opportunity as I was about it impacting my ability to lecture on Monday!  I’d brought a homeopathic emergency kit with me, and by the next morning the fever was broken.  Armed with a supply of Hall’s throat lozenges from the convenience store across from the hotel I should be over it by the time we arrive in Suzhou.

Starting in Suzhou, I will be making presentations to groups more interested in psychology than enlightened or ethical  business practices so will give two lectures on my own there.  One will be to a college of comparative religious studies, another to students of special-needs education services.  I’m still not able to fully verbalize how I sense Pathwork concepts have been received, perhaps I need to complete the entire series of lectures before I can do my favorite thing (and what I am teaching them to do): take a step back and get a wider perspective.

Regards, Jan

Letter 4: Tianjin, Overwhelm, and Friendship

I completed 8 pages and barely got to 4pm on my first day.  So I am skipping ahead in order to come into real time.  I may go back and try to fill in some of the earlier experiences later on.

I hit overwhelm yesterday afternoon.  David and I were having coffee with the president of Tianjin University of Commerce.  We had been told that he was not only an extremely important figure within the academic and university community, but also extremely busy: he would shake hands with us and go on to an appointment.  Instead, he sat with us for over 45 minutes, listening to a report from the Dean of the college about our presentations.  Then he chatted with us about China, calligraphy, tea, and friendship.

Tianjin is the third largest city in China, but relatively new – it was founded only 600 years ago.  It’s focus is business and commerce, so tourists do not drive 1 ½ hours south from Beijing to see its magnificent museums and architecture. We had been invited to give two presentations, to the Tianjin University of Commerce and the Tianjin Normal University (‘Normal’ in this context seems to mean not focused upon or featuring a single discipline). TUC has 15,000 students; TNU has 30,000.  Some universities in China have over 100,000 students.

Tianjin is more conservative than Beijing, and our presentation that afternoon was given in a more formal setting than the last 4.  There were about 120 students, and David indicated that their questions tended to be well thought out and hard to answer.  This was his third invitation to Tianjin since 2001, and while I have gotten used to being met and escorted by deans and full professors (along with a half dozen Ph.D. students as assistants) this time the level of respect, admiration and genuine affection shown towards David by teams of senior staff seemed almost over the top.  All it took to send me into overwhelm was 1) for me to make a single, whopping mistake during the presentation and then 2) sit in a high-ranking official’s boardroom hearing how 3) a single American may be responsible for major changes in Chinese business philosophy and outlook (and thank heaven that’s David this time, not the fool writing this).

David Schwerin is a shy, humble, deeply spiritual man. He has said over and over that he has trouble believing the level of success he has had with the Chinese. I believe that his success in advancing ideas about Socially Responsible Business (SRB) is directly related to his utter lack of ego-based agenda.  The Chinese seem to trust and value him precisely because he doesn’t ask them to. 

This paradox has to do with the delicacy around some of the changes going on in China.  It is probable that forcing currents from a foreigner on these topics could stir things up too much, and old-style philosophies and resistances could become re-activated.  China is opening up, it is exploring new ideas, and there is a resurgence of interest in spiritual, ethical and moral values.  Yet 60 years of government controls has created systems and thought patterns which will not change overnight.  Tact and diplomacy are crucial. 

Today we presented to students at Tianjin Normal University whose studies were more in line with psychology.   It was more my kind of crowd than David’s usual business and technology groups have been.  I had fun, they had fun, and the faculty was very complementary to both of us.

Almost every day, we are invited for both lunch and dinner by the faculty.  This evening we were joined by the school dean, who had surprised everyone by attending the afternoon presentation, and the university president, who came home early from Beijing to meet her old friends David and Zhihe. The meals are served in private rooms of restaurants, ornately decorated and staffed by 2-4 waitresses.  There is a glass 4 foot diameter glass lazy in the center of the round table. Dish after dish is placed upon it, and as soon as one item is consumed another takes it’s place.  I am not referring to 6 or 7 dishes for the evening; that would describe only the  appetizers!  Then there are 4-6 meat dishes, 3-4 vegetable dishes, 4-5 noodlie, rice or steamed dumpling dishes and at least 2 desserts.  Two different types of soup are served, and toasts are given all evening long so that everyone at the table is recognized for their contributions, their friendship, or simply their presence within the group.  Two hours later, if we are lucky, we are allowed to sneak off to our hotel.  But often there is nighttime sightseeing. Last night we took a ferry boat tour on the Mother River of Tianjin.  This does give us a chance to talk with other members of the faculty and some of the assistants.  And we finish the day exhausted, with instructions on when to be down in the lobby to be picked up and transported to the next location.  Tomorrow, we fly to Shanghai ( a1 ½ hour flight to the south) so bags have to be packed and ready to go by 7am.  And packing the bags has become an adventure as well!  The Chinese love giving gifts to their guests, and the universities uphold their reputations with generous and creative presents regarding Chinese culture.  I have more luggage than David, since I will be extending my trip with an additional 10 days in Japan.  Yet after only 4 gifts (and no shopping yet!) my luggage is bulging.

I have not said anything yet about the presentations.  The PowerPoint files are mounted on my website and after trying out a few approaches we have decided upon a basic introductory presentation on the The Circles of Perception, aka the 50/50 teachings on Spheres of Consciousness.  I have some more thinking to do about what may be going on here, and am not quite ready to verbalize.  Overall, my sense is that there will not be a Chinese Pathwork Transformation Program anytime soon.  Yet I have already been asked if I would consider doing some counseling with groups of students, and such willingness to explore emotional territory not only amazes me, but David and Zhihe as well.

By the way, the first name of the manager of our trip, Zhihe Wang (or in the Chinese style, Wang Zhihe) is pronounced ‘Shee Who’.  Being a visual person, I keep stumbling over the pronunciation because I spent 3 months emailing him, and I can’t get the literal spelling and the pronunciations I assumed out of my head.  I have come up with a mnemonic for this feisty ball of energy who seems to know everyone in China and gives us suggestions and pointers every 5 minutes which are inevitable perfect and helpful.  In the British TV series Rumpole of the Bailey, Horace Rumpole would refer to his wife as ‘She who must be obeyed’.  She-Who doesn’t yet know that’s how I managed to remember to pronounce his name.

Regards, Jan

So what did I do that was so awful?  I pushed a point too far that included the word government.  I had been warned not to mention either politics or the government and had been careful.  Yet when the topic seemed to be broached by the college dean, I found myself irresistibly drawn into a faux pas response, stating that governments are made up of people (the topic of my part of the presentation had been self-responsibility and the Three Spheres of Consciousness) and that ‘we’ (meant as a global reference) could change government (meant as governments worldwide).  Argh! I don’t know what interpretation could have been worse – the boasting of an arrogant American, the rantings of a naïve visitor.  It’s not the first time I’ve said something stupidly, knew instantly what had happened, and had to accept the reactions of others as something I deserved.  Both David and our tour manager assured me that it was a minor gaff that the Chinese had shrugged it off (their reaction was instant laughter, which perhaps indicates that I was not taken seriously and which only increased my feelings of acute embarrassment).  It certainly didn’t negate the overwhelmingly positive responses and feedback we have received for every single presentation so far.

October 20

Letter 3

Day 1: Birthdays, dumplings, and history lessons. 

(Short note regarding the last letter – the young woman who helped me purchase the SIM card change the machine back to Chinese characters in order to complete the transaction.  She didn’t speak a word of English, but was simply familiar with both buying a SIM card and recognizing someone in distress).

It was 5:30 am.  I’d flown 12 hours from Los Angeles to Beijing, I had a mobile phone that worked, and a lovely professor of Ethics from Beijing University was helping me into his car so that we could drive to my hotel.  Life was good.

Then it got much better.

First impressions imprint themselves and are hard to overcome or erase.  Good or bad, our initial feelings about something have a big vote in how we perceive things from that point forward.

I turned 60 on September 21st.  I prepared for this birthday 6 months in advance, with a sense of enthusiasm and wonder.  I gave myself presents, and spent a lot of time considering what I wanted to do with the next (and possibly last) 20 years of my life.  I had done research on China and its history in preparation for the trip, and had noticed that China had celebrated its 60th anniversary on October 1st.  Those kinds of co-incidences are interesting on a mental level.  But when we drove past a very grand landscaped display of topiary, at least 30 feet tall, with a banner that obviously spelled out something akin to ‘HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY’ , I suddenly felt contact with China on a heart and gut level.

Variations of these gigantic Happy Birthday signs are still present throughout the city, as banners, billboards, and displays.  It’s almost mind-numbing for me.  I cannot help but take such congratulations personally.  An entire country – 1/5th of the population of the planet – was celebrating my birthday.  I was suddenly able to imagine what it must feel like to be an Empress, or Queen Victoria, or a superstar.  The cerebral aspects of my visit were blown away and replaced by a sense of destiny or fate.  China had been expecting me.  We were going to have an adventure together.

Then Dr. Chen said that he wanted to take me to breakfast, and asked what I liked to eat for breakfast.  He obviously understood that westerners could have odd ideas about food and wanted to make certain I would be pleased with my meal.  But I like to dive in to a country and a culture, so I asked him what he ate for breakfast.  His answer was dumplings and soup.  I would never have guessed that this was a traditional Chinese breakfast, especially for city people rushing to work, and was glad I hadn’t volunteered anything as boring and normal as eggs or pastries had suddenly become. One of my greatest pleasures while traveling is to have my expectations and habits blown away by finding new ways to do things and new things to do them with.

He found a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place that was barely 8 feet wide by 20 feet long.  All they served was dumplings and soup to people on their way to work.  Yet those dumplings are still the most exquisite things I have tasted here, despite my hosts extensive efforts to show us the best cuisine in Bejing. It is a joy to watch food being prepared by someone who does it well; the bits of dough and pork filling seemed to come alive in his hands, becoming sets of intricately twisted balls in bamboo steaming baskets set over a cauldron of boiling water. They were moist and light and chewy with a dark center of spicy sauced pork, as elegant as a piece of ripe fruit.  $2.60 for a basket of 10 dumplings and a bowl of steaming broth with greens and onions.

The hotel had a room ready for me, even thought it was only 7 am.  I’d been in Beijing for only 2 ½ hours, and somehow I knew that the rest of my life was going to be different.

I had 3 days on my own before David and his wife arrived and we started our presentations.  Jet lag would hit early that afternoon, so I knew I needed some exercise and something to keep me occupied for the rest of the day.  The Forbidden City seemed like a good choice, so I hopped into a taxi (with the name of Beijing’s foremost tourist center written down in Chinese characters by the hotel concierge).

I have no enthusiasm for trying to do a better job describing world-famous attractions than travel books.  If you visit Beijing, don’t skip the Forbidden City – it’s an incredible experience.  It feels like going back in time, and perhaps the enormous crowds don’t detract as much from the experience as they might at other sites, since the City was usually crowded with soldiers and courtiers on the south / public plazas, empresses and concubines, servants and royal children in the smaller north buildings and courtyards.  I enjoyed being on my own instead of part of a tour group, and the audio guide gave me enough information to get a sense of the history and culture.  The real adventure was getting back to the hotel during rush hour in Beijing.

Regards, Jan

October 19, 2009

Letter 2: The Magic Begins – Or Tries To

My trip to China began when I realized that my Qantas Club privileges were, literally and figuratively, over.  My first flight to Australia (will not dis the airline) felt uncomfortable and shabby; my second, on Qantas, made me feel like a first class passenger in economy seating.  I gifted myself a 4-year membership in 2000 for my first flight on my (temporary) 4-year resident visa.  It allowed me to arrive at the airport late, stand in shorter queues, wait in a comfortable lounge where I was served coffee and snacks and could surf the internet (dial-up access was still the norm, so being able to play with a broadband connection was deliciously speedy).  Most of all, the membership gave me a sense of belonging somewhere during almost a hundred trans-continental and trans-pacific flights.  Qantas was impressed with my activities (and my loyalty) as well, and kept extending my membership at no charge.  After taking on only two flights in two years, the ‘free ride’ membership came to an end after my last trip to Oz in July 2009.  Since Australia is my second home now (literally and figuratively, as I have not sold my house in Nambucca), I no longer feel the need to buy a membership.

Flying Air China to Beijing re-introduced me to long checkin queues and noisy waiting areas, providing my own sleep mask and toiletries (Qantas would even provide a pair of socks for the flight!), as well as central screen movies (no individual seat monitors or controls), and my first experience of what it would be like to not understand anything that was going on, as the movies were in Chinese – with Chinese subtitles.

China is a multi-language country orally, but all Chinese write with the same characters. Chinese characters are read as syllables; full literacy requires knowing only 3-4,000 of the entire 47,000 character library.  Yet each character can have 4 different meanings orally, depending upon the tone given to it when spoken.  This is how dialects can use the same written language and different oral tones.  And it magnifies the meanings of the individual characters, to 12-16,000 meanings for full literacy and 200,000 for all the characters.

There are 12 distinct Chinese dialects.  Speakers of Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Huanese cannot understand one another except for basic numbers and some shared root words.  Yet they can all read the same text.  Mandarin Chinese, the dialect spoken in the political capitol of Beijing and throughout the largest number of provinces, is the official Chinese language.  Chinese and foreigners who want to do business with the government, travel between large cities, or international contacts learn Mandarin.

These characters must be used in more and more creative ways to support communication, describe new technologies and philosophies, and especially to phonically enable the Chinese to read Roman character-based proper names and places.  German also attempts to use German words to describe new technologies, which can result in longer words and phrases as smaller words are strung together to describe a new process or thought.

By comparison, the English Oxford dictionary lists 500,000 words that can be constructed with our 26 letter roman alphabet, and we tend to invent new words in English rather than hyphenate or string existing words together.  English speakers also feel free to incorporate words from other languages rather than create an English-based word, giving us access to other philosophies and ideas without having to invent new words.

The biggest issue for casual travelers is there is almost no correlation between the two languages (and from this point on, I am only referring to one Chinese language, Mandarin).  On a spoken level, there are some borrowed words; modern slang, brand names, proper names and technical terminology.  Yet when written into Chinese characters, even these fragments of familiarity disappear completely.  Unlike many European languages, there are no shared word roots or origins between English and Chinese.  That leaves rote memorization, on both a spoken and written level, is the only way to learn the language.  And the tones are more complex for some people to learn than, for instance, masculine and feminine noun genders in French or other romance languages. And not only can mispronunciation can create misunderstandings, using the wrong tone completely changes the meaning of the word!

There are some very slight advantages.  Chinese does not use past, present or future tenses for verbs; other descriptors provide time frames.  They also do not use male and female pronouns, which can create some confusion if you are trying to meet a stranger and attention was not paid to the proper English pronoun required.  Yet this assumes that you are already able to read or speak the verbs and names themselves.

Ah, you suggest, but gestures are universal!  No, they are not. American Sign Language (ASL) is based upon US customs, attitudes about ideas, and slang.  It is as different from British Sign Language as English is from French.  Gestures are based upon cultures, and the more different the culture, the more different the gestures.

And there is one more detail that rounds all of this out.  Many Chinese have never met or interacted with a foreigner, and are not used to gestures or sign language or even trying to communicate with someone who does not speak their language.  While this is less prevalent in Shanghai or Beijing, once you wander a few blocks away from the areas frequented by tourists, it can feel as if you are hundreds of miles into the center of the country. 

The result of all of this was that I was cautioned to have the name of my hotel in Chinese characters if I tried to take a taxi from the airport, because it was unlikely that the driver would speak a word of English or understand the hotel name if spelled out in roman alphabet.  I was effectively rendered illiterate, deaf and dumb without a translator or the assistance of someone who knows a few words of English.

While traveling in Europe, if I could not speak the language of a country I could fall back upon my passable French, the German I learned as a small child, or the Spanish I picked up while living in Southern California.  When faced with Italian, I just changed the accent of my Spanish and guessed what words might be common between the two.  Sometimes, I just spoke the language closest to what I was hearing, and there were often enough common words to handle a situation. A passing stranger was often bi-lingual and help out. And at least I could read the street signs and the name of the hotel!  None of this works in China.

Is that all?  Nope.  There’s one more wrinkle in communication.

I had brought my Australian mobile phone with me, because it is unlocked and will accept pre-paid SIM cards, plus it works in other countries.  Arrangements were made to pick me up at the airport, but he seemed to be running late and I needed to call his mobile phone.  So I needed a SIM card or a phone card (their pay phones don’t take cash, and  require a purchased card).  There was a machine next to the newsstand that sold both.  I stood in front of it for several minutes, while everything that I have been writing about flooded over me.  There was a button for English, but while I could read the words on the screen they made no sense to me. 

I had a similar reaction when living in Australia.  The Aussies use verbs as nouns, nouns as verbs, and are lively and creative in their slang expressions.  You can find lots of these examples on the Internet.  But sometimes my brain just came to a screeching halt when someone would speak to me in English and I had no idea what they were talking about.

All my life I had laughed about and made fun of Japanese and Chinese ‘attempts’ to write instructions and manuals in English. A common comment is, ‘can’t they afford to hire competent translators?’

In 2002, I stopped over in Singapore for 3 days en route from Melbourne to Rome.  The official language in Singapore is English, yet all the official government signs and documents read like toy manuals.  That’s when I found out that Asian English presumes the same status and rights as American, British and Australian English.  Spelling and grammarical rules are adjusted to fit the speech patterns and customs of those who use it.  The instructions and manuals that I have laughed at all my life are grammarically correct under the rules of Asian English. And, like the other forms of English, they allow lots of exceptions.

The SIM card machine was telling me things I didn’t understand, in my own language.

Miracles do happen.  A young woman stepped forward and, without saying a word, motioned for me to give her a bill from my wallet.  She inserted the bill, pressed some buttons, and handed me the SIM card package.  I installed it in my phone – and the screen lit up.  In Chinese characters.  She took the phone, navigated through the menus until finding the ‘language’ option, and Voila!  The screen was back to normal! Immediately the phone rang – it was the professor who had been sent to pick me up, calling to find out where I was – but I missed the call by fumbling with the phone.  Then he voice message option spoke to me.  In Chinese.  The young woman held up 2 fingers; I pressed 2, and the voice changed to English.  Two minutes later, Dr. Chen walked up to me.  A delightful man with a giant smile, he spoke in Asian English with a thick Chinese accent, but they were the first words I had understood since arriving.  Now the adventure could really begin.

I may have gone overboard on this topic, but until I experienced the helplessness of not being able to communicate anything more than Yes, No, go away and come here I would not have believed what I have written so far.

Regards, Jan

Letter number 1: Why, When, Where?
 
I write this note from Beijing, where David Schwerin and I have completed 3 presentations on Socially Responsible Business and Personal Transformation to graduate students of Beijing University.  Tomorrow we speak to students of the Central Finance University before moving on to Tianjin, Shanghai, Suzhou and Fuzhou.  By the end of October we will have made a dozen presentations to as many universities.
 
It’s already been an extraordinary trip, surprising even for David (this is his 5th tour in China).  He keeps telling me ‘It’s not normally like this!’ but because it is my first trip to China. I have no frame of reference.  It is simply extraordinary.
 
We were encouraged to share some of the trip events and details over the Leadership Circle ‘live, reporting from China!’  Yet it just didn’t feel right to launch into the fun bits without offering some context.  So I decided to share the Who, What, When, Where, and Why stuff first. The How (of preparation) was truly not much fun, but the results (in the form of PowerPoint presentations in both English and Chinese) can be downloaded from my website www.pathworktexas.org , where you can also see the beautiful cover which was designed for the Chinese edition.

David has left the reporting up to me, and so I may get some facts wrong as I have chosen to hit 'send' while the information and memories are fresh,  rather than spend a week doing research and verifying details.
 
David Schwerin has been involved with New York and Philadelphia Pathwork for decades and served as the director of Pathwork Press for several years.  His first book, Conscious Capitalism (1998), was translated into Chinese in 2001.  The book sales far exceeded expectations, and David was invited to give presentations to the most reputable universities in China.  On his 3rd expedition in 2005, after the publication (and translation) of Conscious Globalism, Donna Strauss was invited to join the tour, present Pathwork concepts, and meet with small groups of students who were interested in learning more about Pathwork.  Donna generously shared some of her experiences (and traveling tips) with me.
 
It is a delicate process to introduce a spiritual practice such as Pathwork into China.  The universities are given much more latitude than the general public, but all publications must still be reviewed by a government agency.  On his last tour David was met by a government official who was assigned to review his first presentation; while nothing was said afterwards, this exemplifies how working within China can be extremely complex.
 
This year, Peking University Press agreed to publish the Chinese translation of Susan Thesenga’s The Undefended Self.  This trip was planned to promote sales of the book by incorporating a talk on Pathwork concepts in David’s business presentations.  English copies of the book were sent to deans and department heads to gauge the level of interest and secure presentation commitments. Chinese networking was even more effective in generating interest and speaking dates - but more about that in another letter!
 
A calling forth was made on the Leadership Circle for Helpers who would be able to develop presentations and commit to an October journey.  That’s how I became involved.  Being supported by a team would allow me to see China from the inside, and working with local people is my favorite way of learning about other cultures.  Living and working as a Helper in Australia for seven years made me hungry for even more adventures, and I have a talent for translating concepts into every-day examples that helps me communicate with different cultures and life perspectives.  I also had the time and resources to donate, as there are no salaries for these presentations and we paid all our own expenses for the 12 days plus international airfares.  (Donations collected by the Pathwork Foundation were generously gifted to me to help with expenses.  I am deeply grateful for this support).
 
There is so much to tell that I hardly knew where to begin.  Spelling out the context of the journey feels somewhat dull, but perhaps this simulates how the trip unfolded for me – and why the actuality seemed so like a fairy-tale in comparison.  Months of preparation and teleconferencing, trying to second-guess how to communicate with the Chinese and determining what concepts might be most relevant for them, followed by all the trip-planning details and itineraries...  Even getting my visa was a new adventure, because it had to be applied for in person (by driving to Houston and staying over for a day or two while it was being processed) or arranged through a registered third-party agency.  I wondered -- what kind of country wouldn't allow you to mail in your passport for a visa?  The answer?  The 3rd largest country on the planet, with one fifth of the world's population (1.3 Billion, with estimates as high as 1.6 Billion). China is extremely conservative when it comes to changing established policies and procedures for the sake of a few visitors.
 
I will write more tomorrow, as the day has been very long (and so is this first letter) and this Magical Mystery Tour deserves my best efforts to share it with you.
 
Best regards from David and Jan