China Trips: Northwest (11)

Another place I had to pay cash was the airplane ticket. Well, that was the same almost anywhere in China. But one big difference in Yulin versus other bigger cities was this: Say if I was traveling between Xi'an and Yulin by air, in Xi'an I bought the ticket from Xi'an to Yulin, but I couldn't buy the return ticket! I had to buy the air ticket from Yulin to Xi'an in Yulin. That was due to of course a very underdeveloped computer system.

So typically the very first thing after I arrived in Yulin was to buy the airplane ticket back to Xi'an. Usually the flight was not fully booked yet if I took such an initiative. And if you ever saw the airplane they used between Xi'an and Yulin, you understood why I had to move fast. It couldn't hold many people. 48 assigned seats, to be exact.

See, Yulin was so small - rather, so underdeveloped - that there was not even a train station in Yulin. Oweing to the fact that it was historically a military base, it did have a military airport. The airport didn't have a runway of much length, so jets couldn't fly here. Instead, the aircraft they used was a propeller driven model, named Y-7.

I have a good friend who lives in Cleveland, and he used to travel in China as much if not more than I did during those years. He told me that he flew Y-7 once, and that was "enough" for him. He wanted no more Y-7 flights. I understood that sentiment fully. You see, a Y-7 couldn't fly very high, and it couldn't escape the high winds in the sky. If you were in a jet on a long trip, occasionally the aircraft ran into air turbulence. That was when the flight captain warned everyone to buckle up their seat belts. On a Y-7, occasionally you did not have air turbulence.

In fact, many people threw up toward the end of the flight. I have to confess that I was lucky in the sense that I didn't know that people were throwing up in my first dozen or so such flights. Only the last couple of flights, I actually saw people puking into the paper bags. That sight stirred me; had I had such a knowledge from the very beginning, I could very well end up being one of them.

The word in Chinese for air-sick is "Yun Ji" ("Yun" means dizziness, and "Ji" means airplane), and the word in Chinese for Y-7 is "Yun Qi" ("Yun" means transportation, and "Qi" is the number 7). What do you know, the two words sound awfully close in Chinese.

But that was what I needed to go through to go to Yulin. Other than the first trip when I took that unforgettable ride from Yinchuan to Yulin, all the other times I flew between Yulin and Xi'an on a Y-7. Also a couple of other times between Xi'an and Yinchuan, I took Y-7 as well. In all, I took Y-7 a total of 14 times.

If there was anything that I ever bragged about my China trips, it was this: I took Y-7 a total of 14 times.

China Trips: Northwest (12)

Since I have mentioned the city Xi'an a few times, I'd like to say a few words about this biggest city in China's Northwest.

Xi'an is the capital city of Shann Xi province, and historically it was the capital city of all China a number of times. Other famous ancient capitals include Beijing, the current capital of China, and Nanjing, my hometown city. There were so many dynasties in Chinese history, you could almost talk about how many times a city had been a capital as if you talk about how many Super Bowls an American city has won in the NFL.

In that sense, Xi'an is the overall champion. Since this is written in English, allow me to point out that Beijing literally means "northern capital," Nanjing literally means "southern capital," and Xi'an could be rightly called "Xijing," which would mean "western captial," although traditionally it was called Chang'an. It was the capital city of such famed dynasties as the Han Dynasty (where the majority of Chinese people, the Han people, get their name) and the Tang Dynasty (where the overseas Chinese people get their name, as in Tang Ren Jie, or Chinatown).

But the single historical significance of Xi'an (Chang'an) that attracted me the most was that it was the starting point of the Silk Road, the ancient commerical and cultural route from Asia to Europe, acrossing the vast land, and desert, in between. It was my dream to travel along the entire Silk Road one day. In fact, when I often had the temptation to tell my business trips in the northern to northwestern cities in China, I would like to entitle my stories "The Fiber Road," as in optical fibers. Well, my journey didn't cover exact the same route, but you could tell how much inspiration I had drawn from the Silk Road.

Today's Xi'an remained much of the city structure of the ancient Chang'an. The two main roads crossed the entire city, one horizontally, one vertically. At the end of each main road, there was a magnificant city gate - so there were altogether four main city gates acting as the city's entrances and exits. There were a few other main gates along the high and tall city walls, which were rebuilt in recent era. I liked the way they had kept that city, as opposed what they had done to my hometown city of Nanjing, another ancient capital. Nanjing didn't look like an ancient capital to me anymore. Well, it didn't look like one when I was growing up, but at least there was a chance. Today they tried to modernize it, and result so far was that it didn't look like anything.

As for the houses and building inside the city of Xi'an, I couldn't say that they remained the same as the ancient times. Most of them were modern houses now, although you could still spot a few "flying roofs" here and there. If you were interested in the details of the ancient Chang'an houses, there was another place you might want to visit. This was not from my personal experience because I had never been there myself, but it was said that the Japanese city of Kyoto was built as a copy of the ancient Chang'an. (The name Kyoto literally means "capital city.")

Xi'an had argubly some of the best historical museums in China. Once I went to Yulin with a Japanese engineer named Suzuki. I called him Suzuki-san, and he called me Jim-san. (Usually, in Japanese style, a person's family name went along with that "san," but somehow the Japanese engineers understood that the Americans preferred to call each other by first names. So I was Jim-san to them, and Sam, who actually was a Japanese born in the U.S., was Sam-san to them.) Suzuki-san was one of the quietest people I had ever known. He just did his work. He hardly ate anything during our stay in Yulin; he probably couldn't get used to the food anyway. All he had was a bottle of wine a night, which he could buy very cheaply in Yulin, like less than one U.S. dollar a bottle, and he smoked a lot. With all that maybe one could eliminate food, but I didn't know for sure.

Suzuki-san didn't smile much either, except this one time during our stop in Xi'an, we went to a historical museum. The museum wasn't a gigantic one, but it had everything, covering all different eras of Chinese history. The arrangement of the exhibition items was in such a fluence and elegance, it was one of my best museum experience. I looked at Suzuki-san, and he was all smiles, even though he didn't understand a word of Chinese.

Or perhaps after Yulin, anything could make him smile.

China Trips: Northwest (13)

People in Yulin were simple and straight, and one almost never had to guess what they meant when they said things. That was different from some people I had met in the big cities. If one had enough experience, perhaps such a generalization could be expanded to small town people versus big city people.

But my experience in Yulin led me to gradually think somewhat differently. It was true that most small town people were simple and straight, but to say that they were relatively "good" - that is, to put on a judgment - was probably hasty. In the same token, to say that big city people were complicated and twisted, and thus relatively "bad," would be also a rush in judgment. This much I could say, certain elements of human weakness were universal; sometimes they just didn' t have the opportunities to be exposed. The same thing could be said about human strength. In other words, the small town people were indeed simple and straight in general, but that was probably because they hadn't been tested enough - through interactions with other people - like the big city residents. Certainly some of the small town people would keep their simple and straight ways even after they lived in the big cities for many years, but only those - along with the ones who grew up in the big cities and kept their own simple and straight ways - could claim to be truly simple and straight. It was the same as saying that one found true peacefulness in the middle of turbulence.

Well, that probably sounded too philosophical in a story-telling. The famed writer Lin Yutang once said, "Every Chinese person is a philosopher." As a big fan of his, I am entitled to sound philosophical once or twice a year, wouldn't you say?

In Yulin, I met some of the least ambitious people I had ever known. Most of the men were very good at drinking. The liquor they consumed was usually very strong - unlike the bottles of wine Suzuki-san bought - and they used very small cups to compete against each other. I heard that in China's Northeast, where men also drank obsessively, they used big bowls, but I could see why men here in the Northwest used small cups. This way, they could easily drink up a whole cup with one sip, and on with the next cup. Thus the "drinking competition" could be more heated and more long lasting. I often heard them bragging the next day how many cups (usually in the 30s or 40s) or how many liters they had last night.

I didn't ever hide my disgust against such a drinking habit. When they bragged about their drinking, I never showed sign of admiration. When they at the beginning tried to invite me for a cup or two, I refused rather firmly. A couple of times one of them, usually already drunk by then, would say, "Hey, aren't you Chinese?" My answer typically was like this, "In America, I drive a lot, and drinking and driving don't go too well together, so I never developed a drinking habit." I guess that was my way of saying I was actually American (at least, at that moment), although of course American men developed drinking problems too. Luckily usually there were others at the dinner table who were not as hot headed, and they would try to take away that man. After some struggles, that drunk man would escape and say to me, "Mr. Yu, it's okay that you don't drink. I know you come to do good work for us, and in your heart, you are still a Chinese." That was what I meant when I said they were simple and straight.

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I didn't think that women in Yulin drank as much as the men. Some of them probably could drink too, but since it appeared that men often used drinking as a "proof" of their manhood, women probably didn't want to be a part of it.

Some of the ladies at the Yulin office told me some things that I appreciated very much at the time. They told me about their families and lives, and occasionally they would express their frustration that "Yulin could be a better place." Yulin produced some of the brightest high school students in the nation every year, and they went on to attend famous universities in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an. They didn't return to Yulin, if ever. My observation was that this was certainly not a healthy environment if a young man or woman wished to continue to grow personally. If those young people decided that their talent could be better recognized and utilized elsewhere, they were probaby right and they earned their trips.

I would never forget the ladies' comments that "Yulin could be a better place," though. But how? I don't pretend that I could answer that question, so I wouldn't.

Sometimes I tried to help the operators, men and women, at the Yulin office more technically. One funny thing about customer support was this, usually the difficult problems arose when the customer tried to too much with the product. Of course, since they bought it, say the software, they had all the right in the world to make the software work the way they wanted it - they wanted it "customized," so to speak. On the other end of the spectrum, a customer didn't want to touch anything. They bought the software as is and they used it as is. Needless to say, they would be easy to support technically. You would never encounter such a customer in the U.S., but in Yulin, it was almost exactly the case.

Of course, in China, things were often not what it appeared to be. First of all, the local offices didn't have enough power to do things their own way. The Yulin customer might not be able to make a change in the software without the approval from the central office, say in Beijing, even if they wanted to. And of course as I have described, the Yulin customer were simply not technically equipped to come up with any ideas anyway. I was mildly shocked when I discovered that there was another reason that they didn't want to touch the software.

I discovered it when I was trying to be helpful. I said to one of the ladies, "I could teach you more on this. I will try to make it easy for you to understand. It can't be harmful." She refused and smiled, saying, "If I learn it, I will have to be responsible for this part of the operation."

I was of course speechless. What a thought! But I bet many people in that industry in China thought the same way. They would be paid the same no matter how much they did at work. There was no incentive to learn or do more. But only this lady in Yulin could tell me without hiding what she really thought.

Sometimes people, especially people with a complicated city life, would envy the simple lifestyle other people enjoyed in the countryside or in the underdeveloped nations. The kind of life with no ambition was almost admirable. But perhaps this was just another "grass is greener on the other side" story. I personally believe that a simple lifestyle would be a worthwhile goal, but there is a difference between people who, after going through many years of complicated life, pursued simple life and got it, and people who were born and grew up with a simple life and never knew anything else.

Oh, did I sound philosophical again? That's twice this year already. I have just used up my quota.

China Trips: Northwest (15)

During the third or fourth trip to Yulin, I was able to do some sightseeing around that area. The whole place was greener than I anticipated. On the flight from Xi'an to Yulin, I could see from the window of the Y-7 aircraft the vast desert underneath. The locals told me that people planted many trees in Yulin in recent years as an effort to control the fast growth desert in northern China.

As far as sightseeing went, there were only one or two places in Yulin worth going, the locals told me. One was a cliff wall full of ancient inscriptions - Chinese characters engraved on the rock. These were typical praising phrases of the Heaven, the Earth, the emperor and the empire. They were engraved in different years, and they were some of the best calligraphy in display. The place was called Hong Shi Xia ("Red Rock Gorge"). Actually the rock was not red, but the characters were often in red.

I was more interested in another place, a gigantic beacon tower built 400 years ago in the Ming Dynasty. The name of the tower was Zhen Bei Tai, literally means "Pacify the North Tower." It was not very far north from Yulin.

Beacon towers were usually built along China's ancient border against the north. They were used to send signals to the inland in case the northern invaders were in sight. Naturally many such beacon towers were built along the Great Wall, such as this one. But the history of beacon towers was longer than that of the Great Wall. In fact, a famous story occurred before the Great Wall was ever built.

There was this ancient king of the Zhou Dynasty, which was before the Qin Dynasty of the first Chinese emperor, who ordered the building of the Great Wall. The king had a beautiful wife - naturally he had many - who he absolutely adored. There was one problem with this beauty. She never smiled. The king thought of many ways to make her laugh or smile to no avail. Finally the king came up with an idea which had himself ended up in the history book (maybe that was what he wanted, not the lady's smile).

He invited the woman to the top of a beacon tower near the capital city, and he ordered the torch to be lit, sending the smoky signal to the sky - even when there was actually no invaders in sight. Thousands of loyal troops rushed to the capital to protect the king. But of course when they realized that there were actually no invaders, they retreated with anger and embarrassment. Upon seeing this, the beauty laughed. The king's wish was fulfilled.

You could easily guess what happened later. The real invaders eventually showed up, and this time when the signals were sent to the sky again, nobody came to protect the king (and his beauty). The kingdom was overthrown.

Zhen Bei Tai was such a beacon tower, although when I was there, there was no beauty in sight. There was no invaders in sight, either. In fact, I was the only invader. They charged 5 yuan for admission. They'd be lucky if they could gather 50 yuan a day. I did enjoy the view from the top of the tower, and I could see miles of Great Wall from that angle. In fact, Zhen Bei Tai had a reputation as the "First Tower of the Great Wall."

The second time I went to see the tower, I went along with a Nanjing engineer. Suddenly an idea came to me, and I asked him a question that I already knew the answer.

"You know what they used the beacon tower for in the ancient times, don't you?"

He said yes.

"And do you know what we use today in place of the beacon tower?"

He thought about it and smiled, "The telecommunication equipments. The NEs."

I nodded, "Exactly, the tower builders and us were in the same industry."

China Trips: Northwest (16)

My last visit to Yulin was in December, 1998. After that, I continued to travel to China, but the focus shifted from the Northwest to the Southeast. In fact, Yulin was not my most visited city during my China trips. The city of Zhangzhou in the southeastern province of Fujian would claim that "title." And in my memory, Zhangzhou trips were much more fun - it was more of a city than Yulin, anyway. If I could write here these many lines about my visits to Yulin, I could easily do the same for Zhangzhou, and call it "China Trips: Southeast."

In Zhangzhou, I made friends with a local stationary store owner, who ran the store as an extra income on top of his regular job, and a taxi driver, who invited me to his home for dinner and played ping-pong. Not to mention I could exchange my U.S. dollars with a few trusted old ladies on the street with a much better rate I could get in the bank. Oh, how about eating snakes in Zhangzhou? Not that it was something truly special about me eating snakes. After all, I grew up in China, with Cantonese parents, no less. But I was able to convert those Japanese engineers into snake eaters. Now that was an accomplishment.

In Yulin, I couldn't say I made any friends. As you would probably recall, I found people in Yulin mostly unambitious (the ambitious ones already left) and apparently without much passion or drive for a better life. I would rather stay away from such an association.

But the truth was, I kept going back to Yulin - and the Northwest in general - willingly. It was quite true that I felt more "at home" in Zhangzhou, but that was exactly the point I am trying to make here. If you traveled a long way across the Pacific Ocean, and you came to a place where you felt like home, what was the point of the trip (outside your job)? Among all the fun and pleasure I could enjoy in Zhangzhou, nothing could touch me like the Northwest. But exactly what touched me in the Northwest?

I couldn't quite pin-point. If it was not the people - although conversations with them often opened my eyes in unexpected ways - then what was it? Was it the Yellow Earth, which became stronger in the face of destroying forces? Or was it the Land of the Northwest, the vast and empty land?

I kept saying that I saw "emptiness" in the land and in the people of the Northwest. Perhaps that emptiness allowed me into a different state. Perhaps my mind wouldn't run as busily as usual, for a change. Perhaps I had a chance to look into my heart and my soul even when I was not fully aware of it. Perhaps the Northwest was doing a similar thing to me like the snow mountains did to the Tibetan people, whom visitors often found to be very spiritually oriented. Or perhaps that emptiness was a reflection of the emptiness I felt deep in my heart - and perhaps a desire to fill that emptiness was then inspired?

Apparently I had more questions than answered. In fact, I didn't have any answer. Perhaps the only way to get more clues was to return to the Northwest. That was indeed a land I shall return. Again and again.