Night bus to Kobe

[Another in the series of blog posts written but not posted. this one from Jan. 30]

Night train to Kobe

It sounded like a great idea:  save a night's lodging and sleep on the bus.  Have the whole day in Tokyo and then arrive in Kobe in time for my field trip to Kyoto.  What could possibly go wrong?

Kaji booked the ticket for me on a bus that I knew several Semester at Sea folks were taking.  He printed out 6 pages of information for me:  the ticket confirmation, detailed instructions on how to get to the terminal, and instructions on arrival.  I could use a locker in the subway station to stow my pack while I enjoyed the last day in Tokyo.  Yoshiko and Kaji went through the instructions (with pictures!) with me and plotted out my day, dividing activities into "must see" and "optional."  I was off!

My first stop was Shinjuku, about 40 miutes from Umejima, my home station.  I confidently bought a ticket for Kita-Senju, where I would buy my day pass for the JR Jyoban line.  I'm getting good at this!

First problem, I can't figure out how to buy the pass.  The JR line is the main train line, so the ticket machines can sell you a ticket to anywhere in Japan, as well as to the stations in Tokyo.  Unlike the DC Metro, the system I use most often at home, you don't just buy a $5 pass and use it till it's gone.  You figure your fare to the station you are going to and buy that amount.  This causes problems when you think the fare is going to be one thing and that number is not available.  On my way from Yokohama, the lady helping me told me to buy a 760 ticket, but the closest I could find was 740.  The station I wanted wasn't listed.  So I bought a ticket to a station I could find, exited the train there, and got back on with a new ticket.  On the JR line, I couldn't see an option to buy a day pass, so I went to the information desk.

I have not had good luck with Information in Japan.  It seems to me that if you have a big sign in English that says "Information" there is some presumption that SOMEBODY will in fact speak a word of English.  If you are only providing information to Japanese speakers, why not make the sign in Japanese?  I have yet to find an information desk staffed by someone who speaks English.

(Of course there are lots of odd English signs in Japan.  Today I saw a store called "Apogee."  Even among English speakers, who knows what an apogee is?)

My pack is heavy, so I was glad to stuff it into a locker.  I found one with no trouble at all.  I took careful note of my surroundings, even took pictures, so that I could find it again.  I decided to do a trial run to the bus station, so I was sure of the route when I came back.

I studied the printout that Kaji gave me.  The pictures were small, but they didn't look like what I was seeing.  The station has many levels, and I figured I was on the wrong one.  The instructions said to head for the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, so I followed those signs.  I was looking for the Shinjuku building, and I soon found it.  But when I went up to street level, it wasn't the right building.  Consulting the instructions again, I realized I should be looking for the Shinjuku Sumitomo building.  It's Shinjuku station.  Everything is named Shinjuku.

Now the fun began.  I walked back to the station to try again.  I couldn't find a way back down to the level I had been on.  Where were my zebras?  Would I ever see my pack again?  More maps, more pointing and gesturing to people who wanted to help but couldn't speak English.  Anxiety building! 

Shinjuku is a huge station, with lots and lots of train lines and lots and lots of exits.  It has several large department stores and probably hundreds of small ones.  Think of a giant American shopping mall, but one where your way is impeded by gates placed randomly.  Without a train ticket, you cannot pass the gates.  Without the right train ticket, you cannot pass.  Although I had noted the department store my lockers were near, that store is several levels high, with many exits to the station.

It took about half an hour to find my locker again.  I had to go through the gates as if I were getting on the train, then come out on the other side.  Finally, something I recognized.  Now I knew I could find my pack again, and I was pretty sure the building I was looking for was just down the street a little further.  I was ready to head back out for some shopping.

After two days of rush hour, I heeded Yashiko's warning and got back to the station early.  Really early.  I was there by five o'clock, and my bus didn't leave until after nine.  I decided to strike out with my pack, figuring I would find something along the way.  I hadn't yet been anywhere in Japan that there weren't shops and restaurants.

I just wanted to find a place to sit down for a bit.  When you travel, you realize that there are not a lot of places to sit down.  You can buy food anywhere, but finding a place to eat it can be difficult.  Just finding a place to quietly look at a map without giving the message, "Rich American tourist, come rob me!" is difficult.  I had eaten on the train, which is okay, but finding a trashcan is nearly impossible. 

(I later found out that after terrorists placed bombs in trashcans, the decision was made to remove them from the streets.  So you find recycling cans by every vending machine, but it is rare to find a trash can anywhere.  Since the bathrooms don't have paper towels, they also don't need trashcans.)

After a couple more wrong turns, I found the building with the bus terminal.  The instructions say to go up the escalator and await further directions.  A smiling employee wearing a bus company uniform was waiting and waved me up the escalator.  Another stood at the top to wave me into the waiting area.  Three more employees were in the lobby, and two more at the travel convenience store inside the lobby.  There was one other customer. (So:  three employees per customer.  Four if you count the two outside.)

Japan is full of guards and gatekeepers and just generally people whose job it is to wave you towards your destination.   Every building with a driveway has a uniformed greeter, every construction area has a couple of people to keep traffic flowing.  Every shrine or temple has people posted everywhere to gently direct you away from places that are off limits.  Unlike museum guards in the States, these people always make eye contact and gesture with the open palm wave.

Which, of course, does not mean they speak English. 

I am not a person who believes that foreigners should speak English.  I am humbled by the number of people who speak my language, when I speak nothing of theirs.  I am grateful for the people  who try so hard to help me when they are not comfortable speaking English.  But I confess to being surprised that a company that takes such pains to market to English-speaking customers has no English-speaking employees.

I got to the bus station early enough I thought there might be an earlier bus I could take to Kobe.  Much pointing to watches, saying "Kobe," nodding about the time the bus was due, looking questioningly .  No luck.  No bus except mine.  Okay, then can I stow my pack?  More pointing and charades.  Yes, over there.  "Over there" was not promising.  It was a corner that had four computers, all of which said "out of order" and a sign promising internet.  No one to give the bag to, no place to stow it.  Who knows what the guy was thinking, but it wasn't "baggage check." 

I tried the internet.  One open site promising free internet for a day to anyone with a credit card outside of Japan.  Something about the site made me decide that being on internet was not worth the possibility of credit card fraud. 

I found a plug near the seats, so I plugged in my computer and started writing a blog post, figuring I could add pictures and upload later.  The room was very empty, but announcements kept coming.  Two TC monitors showed schedules, but no words in English to let me know where the buses were going.    People in uniforms moved about officiously.  I tried for English with a couple of other people.  No luck.

I found an information booklet with schedules.  No English.  Found a brochure about the building in English.  It was like greeting a long lost friend!  Restaurants in the building.  Bars.  Come and relax!  An observation deck on the 51^st floor open until 10 PM.  I decided to shoulder my pack and go.  As soon as I got out of the waiting area, an employee came up to direct me downstairs to the bathroom.  No, upstairs, I gestured.  "Restaurant?"  No restaurant.  Observation deck.  No restaurant, no toilet?  I was clearly out of bounds and beyond the limits of his English.  I gestured up.  I gestured see.  I pointed to the sky.  He let me go.

What kind of scum do the building owners think the bus company caters to?  Everyone I could see looked pretty normal, everyone was very quiet.  Occasionally a bunch of them would get up and go, presumably to a bus.  I heard "Kobe Express" about an hour before my bus was due to leave, which tells me there WAS an earlier bus.  Whether I could have changed my reservation or not, I don't know.  By this point, I was just hoping that I hadn't missed the only bus.

The instructions said to come at 8:45 for a 9:10 bus.  We will not call your name, for privacy reasons.  Don't miss the bus.

I expected to see some SAS people, since I'd heard the overnight bus was so popular one of the nights had already sold out.  No Western faces, no English spoken here.  Fine, I have a reservation, I've checked in.  I've said, "Kobe Bus" a million times.  The guy wrote my time down on a slip of paper, which I'm treating as a boarding pass.  And I know, despite all this, that if something goes wrong, there is no one in the building who speaks English to hear my complaint.

Finally, the smiling, nodding man puts on a vest and says, "Kobe bus" and I gather my things to follow him.  It takes maybe 15 seconds.  He has completely disappeared.  I look for the nearest employee.  There are more employees than passengers.  "Kobe bus?"  I say.  He directs me downstairs.  I see no buses.  He walks into a convenience store.  Is this like "exit through the gift shop"?  You have to go through the convenience store to get to the bus?  No doors in sight to the outside.  The guy starts talking to the clerk. He picks up merchandise.  What does he think, that my name is Kobe Bus?

I'm starting to get anxious. I switch to a first name basis.  Kobe?  Kobe?  I gesture driving.  I point to my watch.  Where is the bus?  I look around.  I point.  The employee confers with the convenience store employee.  They finally get that I am in the wrong place, on the wrong floor, and about to miss my bus after three hours in the terminal waiting for it. 

He leads me, casually, up the escalator.  The bus leader guy has reappeared.  He leads me out to the bus as if I am the Number 1 Honorable Passenger.  There are four more guys on the way to the bus.  Each of them is grandly gesturing to the bus, which is clearly in evidence, the only bus in the parking lot.  All of them have donned coats, which are of some material that shines brightly.  It is like a parade of fireflies in white coat and tails.  The bus driver checks my name, the only one in Roman letters on the manifest.  He tells me my assigned seat.  Then he checks to make sure I am in it.  6D.  We each repeat 6-D.  The easy things said over and over, the complicated things never explained at all. 

The bus is not crowded, and I am lucky enough to have a seat to myself.  It leaves at 9 :15 and by 9:30 all the lights are out.  There is a long recorded announcement in Japanese, which I'm pretty sure starts with the invention of the wheel.  It is followed by one in English which tells me I am required to wear my seat belt, and that the bus will stop three times, the second time at the Shinko Ferry Terminal.  It will stop for three breaks, but the Kobe passengers will only get two breaks.  The breaks will be announced.  The driver will tell us how long the break is.  The breaks might be moved or shortened or canceled depending on the traffic and the whether.  We should refer to the bus etiquette card in our seat backs. 

The bus etiquette card says not to move your seatback without telling the person in back of you.  It says not to email after lights out.  By the time I finish reading it, the lights are out.  The bus has blackout curtains.  It is 9:30 and we have an 8-hour ride. 

I am a bus criminal.  My screen is turned down as low as it can go, and I'm shielding it from view using the hood over my head and the blanket.  I figure no one's going to complain in any language I can understand.

It takes me a while to figure out that the bus is actually not going to Kobe.  It is going to the Shinko Ferry Terminal, which is the ferry terminal in Kobe.  But none of the announcements say "Kobe," adding anxiety. 

We finally arrive at the terminal, and I am the only one getting off.  It is 4:30 AM, completely dark.  I see trucks, but no water, no ships.  Without water, I cannot orient myself to the map I am holding.  More pointing, more sorrowful shaking of heads.  The ferry terminal night employee is undone that he cannot help me.  He consults an English cheat sheet, which is of no help to him. We smile and bow to each other.

I show my postcard of the ship.  I point to the map.  I hold the map and turn myself in all four directions.  Which way does the map go? How do I get out of here? I cannot fathom that I am asking difficult questions.  I think my question is so simple the employee cannot see why I am asking it. 

The answer turns out to be right, left, left, right, right, over the highway, right, left.  That wasn't so hard, was it?

Shanghai songs

Before every port, we have a mandatory logistical preport, where we hear practical information and dire warnings.  So, the weather forecast, followed by don't go into bars, don't lose your passport, don't eat food from street vendors, don't drink the water.  Be wary of people who might pick your pocket, don't give money to beggars, if it seems too good to be true, it is.

Yes, this is important.  One of our students was mugged in Tokyo, and one will have to undo over $8000 to credit card fraud.  A couple reported their drinks were spiked.

However, I find it also increases the distance I feel from the people I meet.   Someone told me a story of a Vietnam encounter where a traveler met a local and struck up a friendship.  Come to my house, meet my family, let me cook you a real Vietnamese meal, none of this tourist stuff.  It turned out to be a con, and the traveler lost several thousand dollars.  As my son said to me before I left, "You don't feel rich, Mom, but to the people you will meet on your trip, you are very rich."

Years ago, on my honeymoon in Haiti, I spent a memorable day with one Monsieur Pierre Odena, an employee of the state tourist bureau.  In those days, the tourist bureau employees attached themselves to a tourist, provided a personal tour, and hoped for a tip at the end.  Essentially, they worked on commission.  M. Odena took us around the city, and then he took us out to a nearby fortress, and then our taxi broke down (repeatedly) and he finally arranged a ride back to our ship with someone whose car was capable of the trip.  This was followed by months of letters from M. Odena, all of which followed the same general plan:

Hello, I am Pierre Odena and I met you when you and your husband were visiting Haiti and can you please send $100 for glasses?

At the time, I was operating on a hotdog and beans diet and couldn't have afforded to buy my own glasses, but, when you are living on less than 25 cents a day, a stamp may be the best investment you can make.

Fast forward to Shanghai, where I am traveling the city wrapped in a tourist cocoon.  I'm on a bus with 30 other Americans, with a guide named Susie who speaks perfect English.  Our third stop is the Shanghai Museum, where we have a pre-recorded audio tour, in case we need more information than is provided by the captions, which are also in English.   Much like an American museum, it is hushed, dark, and beautifully arranged, with a four-story light-filled atrium.  Susie has advised us to start on the top floor, so I am taking a moment to admire the view.  It is at this moment a man nearby asks, "What country?"

"United States," I reply, and he says, "America!  I love American music!  All kinds.  I sing all kinds.  My favorite is 'America the Beautiful' and 'Yarmixianxin.'"  This throws me for a moment, until he starts singing,

You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine…

He says, "But I do not know the history of this song.  Can you tell me the history?"  Um, no. 

He sings me a few more songs.  He loves Elvis Presley and Steven Foster and John Denver.  Most of all John Denver.  But also Andrew Lloyd Weber. 

He loves "White Christmas."  I try to teach him Elvis' "I'll have a blue Christmas without you," but he is more interested in showing off his knowledge.  He is very famous in Shanghai, almost a star.  He's been on TV many times singing and playing his violin.  He teaches English to people from 2 years to 92 years old.  Do I have any US money?

Huh?  That one comes out of the blue.  My antennae shoot up.  Why does he need American currency?  (More to the point, why would I give him American currency?)  He is professor of business, very important professor.  He needs to teach his students about the money. 

I am carrying American bills, but all my coins are back on the ship.  Except for one Mississippi quarter I found on the street earlier in the day.  I dig it out and give it to him, but now I am wary. 

He chatters on, oblivious.  He wants very much to travel to the US. He wants to see Hollywood especially.  Hollywood and New York City.  He is not impressed that I live near West Virginia, although he has been singing of its charm (West Virginia, Mountain Mama, take me home, take me home). 

He wants to show me Shanghai.  We could go for a drink!  He could show me the city.  What's my phone number?  I could move here, I could teach English with him.  I sing very well.

Now, we are clearly over the top.  I am a very nice person, but I do not sing very well.  I haven't been on the same key in any of our duets, and I'm not even singing the same tune most of the time.  All I know of Jeannie with the light brown hair is the title of the song. 

It's time to end the conversation.  I need a picture for the blog post, and then I'm outta here.  A friend from the ship has been hovering nearby and I grab her to take the picture and make a polite but firm exit.  He has given me his mobile phone and his email address, but I can't read his writing. 

We close the concert out with "Edelweis," the national anthem of Hollywood Austria.  He goes high at the end, I go low, and we part company.

Asian wedding

All over Tokyo, there are billboards with brides.  Sometimes with grooms, but always with a bride in a fairy tale princess wedding dress.  You see them outside of parks, hotels, temples, shrines, and all the major landmarks. They smile at you from the subway, the cleanest and brightest thing there.  The first one I saw was within sight of Japanese immigration at the port in Yokohama.  Have Your wedding here!

Yoshiko told me there is a crisis of sorts in Japan.  Young people are ot getting married.  It's very expensive to buy an apartment, and it's expensive to raise children, and young people are not getting married.  I asked if that means they are living together without benefit of the legal protection of marriage and she said no, they are simply staying in their family homes.

One week later, in Shangha, our guide Xu (pronounce:  shoe) tells us about weddings in China.  They are a very big deal, very expensive.  Many couples want to get married In the Year of the Snake, because the snake is the little brother of dragon, and dragon is the holder of great happiness.  Earlier in the day, we have eaten at a large restaurant popular for wedding parties, and seen the set up for a wedding banquet for about 500 people.  We ask Xu, do couples get married at the temple?  No, she says, marriage is not religious, it is a commercial affair.  Very big, very expensive, a big drinking party.

At a Chinese wedding, the bride must share a drink with every guest, so even with little sips, she gets drunk very quickly.  Xu is clearly disapproving of this rowdy entrance into marital bliss, but does not present any alternatives.

Next week, we will be in Vietnam, where weddings have taken on an unexpected significance for the Semester at Sea voyagers.  I gather the Vietnamese wedding is also a very large party, usually in a hotel, where liquor flows freely.  Having grasped only the last quality, some of our students are planning fake weddings for the time we are there.  A drinking party with a new twist:  you wake up married.

Yes, there is a group on board that thinks marriage does not count if it's in a foreign country.  They think it would be fun to have a pretend wedding.  Do they suffer from a lack of dress up play?  Barbie never came to play in the bride outfit at their house?

We received an email from an SAS alum who is Vietnamese, explaining carefully that marriage is taken seriously in Vietnam and there are few divorces, even though it is now legal to divorce.  She asks us please, do not make a mockery of my culture.

We are taking these students around the world to learn to be global citizens.  We know it is too much to ask them to stay sober.  For some, it is evidently too much to ask for the tiniest bit of good sense. 

Maybe they will never feel a need to acknowledge their Vietnamese weddings.  Maybe they will never go back to Vietnam.  But I've been married, and I've been divorced, and I know that you never again get to check "single" once you've been married.  The Roman Catholic church is not alone in requiring a divorced woman to get permission to marry a second time. 

Get drunk without a party theme, kids.

Meet me at the cupcake

The Hong Kong terminal was full of surprises, and I was not the only one who never actually made it to Hong Kong.  (The terminal is in Kowloon.)  It is a strange fact of shipboard life that we are kept so busy with classes and lectures and special events that we come to port in need of a rest.  Or with housekeeping items to do: It can take a surprisingly long time to find a post office or an ATM or a bottle of aspirin.  (This is why I am not sending postcards.)  It sometimes feels as if we are traveling around the world and not seeing the world.

Anywhere there is good internet, you see people trying to make arrangements for the next port, since it's so hard to do the simplest thing on ship.  Once the students go over their initial allotment of 120 minutes for the voyage, 30 minutes of internet costs $15.  But what you can do in 30 minutes at home can take 10 times as long here, because the internet is likely to shut off at any moment.  Most students have contacts back home who are doing work and sending email updates.  (Email is free.)

Like malls in the US, Ocean Terminal in Hong Kong has central points where the wings meets and you can go from one floor to the next.  Each of these is an internet hotspot, but each also featured a giant chocolate statue.  There were smaller structures throughout the mall, cupcakes and ice cream sundaes.  Some said "No climbing," but others encouraged interaction, and there were lots of children (and some adults) having their pictures taken there.  One of the designated rest areas, KidsX, was transformed into a chocolate scrabble board, with pillows to spell out "sweet," "chocolate," "eat," and "happy."

All of these were not actual chocolate, of course, although there was plenty of chocolate nearby to purchase.  They were part of "Chocolate Trail 2013," a presumably annual promotion at the mall.  The most interesting part of the event was a chocolate banquet, a tableau made entirely of chocolate.  Everything, including the table and chairs, was chocolate.

Chocolate fruit

Chocolate, the staff of life

Food, centerpiece, candleabra, plates, flatware--all chocolate.

Yes, the chair, too, is made of chocolate.

 I found it a bit overwhelming.  Even with a stuffed-up nose.

Terminal illness

After a lovely time in Xi'an, I arrived in Hong Kong with a miserable cold.  So my time here has been spent doing a little housekeeping and a little sleeping.  A week of using chopsticks and eating from a communal table has left telltale evidence of my ineptitude, so my winter shirts and jacket are hanging in the shower along with my socks and underwear.  

I managed to lose my power cord for my laptop, which I confirmed by organizing everything in my cabin in hopes I was wrong.  I was using the computer in the Xi'an airport, and I know I unplugged it and wrapped it up when we boarded, but somehow it did not make it home.  I am not enthusiastic about having to use an adaptor every time I recharge it outside of China, so I passed up the opportunity to replace it here.  There are enough macs on board that I should be able to borrow cords without putting undue strains on any friendships.

We are docked at Ocean Terminal in Kowloon, a place where you can get anything but a vasectomy.  (Maybe that, too.  I didn't actually check.)  There's a Toys R Us and a Cartier and everything in between.  If you want shoes, for example, on the sportswear wing you will find separate stores for Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Sketchers, New Balance, Puma, and Timberland (along with other stores selling outdoor and athletic clothing and gear).  And on the shoe wing, Jimmy Choo, Stride Rite, Birkenstock, Nine West, Shoe Box, Hush Puppies, Doc Martens, and ecco.  There is a whole wing devoted to children's clothing stores and another to purses.  Inexplicably, there's a basketball half court in between a coffee shop and an embarkation area for cruise ship passengers.

So it should not be a surprise to find out there are four separate lounges for feeding your baby, complete with bottle warming stations.  (There is, however, no baby formula to be found, according to a newspaper article I read.  The shortage has reached crisis proportions, reportedly because Chinese women believe that breastfeeding puts them at a disadvantage to their husband's mistresses.  Since Chinese formula is contaminated, American formula is in great demand.)

The Chinese New Year (abbreviated locally an CNY) starts tomorrow and stores are full of special foods, decorations, and trinkets.  I saw apples (huge apples!) masked or treated somehow so that Chinese characters appear on the surface, lighter than the rest of the apple.  Almost every store has a potted kumquat or mandarin orange tree.

We are not allowed to bring any of these goodies back on board—no flowers, fresh fruit, or anything that is not sealed.  Sometimes the crew winks at infractions, but you cannot be sure.  I've carried water bottles in with water still in them, but a student would get busted for that.  (Students fill them with vodka.  Students also tape flasks to their legs.)  I would love to have a bag of oranges—you could get rich selling oranges—but it's not worth the risk of having them thrown away.

Still, it was exciting to return to the ship and see all the provisioning going on.  Boxes and boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables!  The next day, there were grapes at lunch, and you would have thought they were caviar. 

The working areas of the ship are strictly off limits to us, and they are quite a mystery.  Somehow, in the unmapped areas, they fit in the crew cabins, lounge, and gym, as well as a water treatment plant, an incinerator, a kitchen to feed thousands, and the area we call "Walmart," where all the provisions come from.  (Food as well as office supplies.)  Intellectually, we are all prepared to "do without," but in fact, there is very little that you can't find on board.  

Even a spare power supply for my computer.

The People Stand Guard, III

Three cities in China, and a half dozen tour guides, is not enough data for conclusions, but it raises some interesting questions. 

In my own home culture and micro-cultures (friendship circle, work environment, hometown, family…), I am pretty comfortable sorting out culture from personality, but this trip has thrown me into a lot of new situations very quickly and discerning the rules is a challenge.  More one day about shipboard culture, perhaps, but today we look at China.

Because we had many warnings about travel in China being difficult in the week before the new year celebrations, I chose to travel with an organized tour all but the last day of my China experience.  While it has many advantages, it is a very different way of experiencing the local culture, a whole new kind of standing guard.

Patrick helpfully comments that I have run into the "Great Firewall of China" in not being able to reach google or blogger from Xi'an.  (They are once again available in Hong Kong.  Or they are available today in Hong Kong.  Or they were last time I tried.) 

On our trip to the airport, leaving Xi'an, Borbor said we could ask him any questions we wanted, but not personal questions.  I said I had noticed a lot of businesses had "Jing" at the beginning of them, and what did syllable mean?  It means it belongs to the government.  So the Hyatt-esque hotel we stayed in is a government hotel.  The tour company he works for is a government company. The government is everywhere.

Oh. 

Someone asked, "Does the government censorship affect your everyday life?"  Borbor had to have "censorship" defined.  He either couldn't hear it or the question didn't compute.  Eventually, the answer was, no, he could say what he wanted. 

With Borbor, you just never know.  Several times, he said to us, "don't tell anyone; I will lose my job," but I think he is smart enough to not put his job into jeopardy for a night with a bunch of college students.  I took that as one of his teasing remarks.  Our second night in Xi'an, he went with the students to a dance club, and the third, they went to a karaoke place.  It seems more likely that he gets a kickback than that he puts his job into jeopardy.  Like Susie in Shanghai, I think Borbor is good at delivering the goods.

However, at our Xi'an art museum stop, the docent showed us some propoganda art from the Cultural Revolution and translated some of the slogans.  She said, "You may think, 'how did this ever work?" and even in China, people of my generation think this is ridiculous." 

You do not get the feeling the government is keeping too close an eye.

On the other hand, everywhere we go, there are people who do nothing but direct traffic.  Since I am an obedient sort (and one who gets lost easily), I do not know what dangers lie outside the designated path.  Dangers for them, or dangers for me?

On the bus, another student asked, "You've told us about religions in China. Do you practice a religion?"  To me, it was clear she was asking a personal question.  Borbor answered by saying, "We are free to believe any religion except a bad religion," which is something he had also said earlier.  This time, he went on to describe how you were not allowed to believe a religion which said you should kill yourself, and gave us some suitably gory details of self-immolation and evisceration, along with more routine kinds of suicide which were frowned upon, and told a story featuring a mother and child.  The mother, having had a hard life, set herself and her daughter on fire.  The daughter survived, horribly scarred, with a ruined future.

Our tour leader (the Semester at Sea person responsible for us) asked if that was Fulan Gong, Borbor was surprised we had heard of it.  Then he said he had heard it originated in America.  It's my dim recollection that we heard in America an opinion that the Chinese government was presenting a carefully managed view of Fulan Gong so that it appeared dangerous when it was not.

Where does the truth lie?

I know our tour guides are hardworking, successful people who have a lot of knowledge about their cities and a lot of experience with Americans.  I am sure that they earn money or other considerations from working with carefully selected vendors and venues.  Like successful service industry people everywhere, they smoothly navigate the shifting boundary areas.  Did Borbor misunderstand the question about his religion or did he dodge it?  We'll never know.

At dinner one evening, our conversation shifted back to the ship and the crew who would be leaving in Hong Kong.  The students talked about their favorite waiters, some of whom slip them extra treats.  A faculty couple mentioned a waiter who immediately recognized them from a trip several years ago and called them by name. Then, a student commented that we were discussing them as if they were children, using words like cute and adorable, and this made her uncomfortable. 

We all have our jobs to do, from the children dancing in the orphanage to the tourists exiting through the gift shop.  The boundaries can be difficult to navigate, given the barriers of culture and language and privilege. 

We carry a lot in our knapsacks.  It felt good to get "home" to the ship and unpack for a bit.  Hong Kong is, quite literally, a breath of fresh air after a smoggy few days in Xi'an, and it marks our transition from winter to summer.  Unpacking the physical backpack took only a few minutes.  Unpacking the cultural one takes a lifetime.

Unidentifiable at sea

Just in time to help me spend my last yuan, Susan Kattwinkel has invited us all to a party for unidentifiable snacks.  (Susan is a drama professor on the ship, and also the daughter of my quilting friend Phyllis.)  The rules are simple.

1. To try new snacks, you must bring some to share.
2. Your snack cannot have any useful English words to tell what it is.

To this, I added one of my own.

     3.  Your snack must cost ¥30

I actually only had ¥29, but I figured I could get a few from someone in the airport.  In addition to our group of 16, most intent on spending their last yuan as well, I had run into a family of 7 from the ship who were traveling independently. 

(The mom is traveling with her 5 children, ages 8 to 15.  Yikes!  The dad, who cannot sail the whole voyage, but is joining the family in several ports, was happy to give me ¥3 (allowing me to keep two souvenir ¥1coins), but he also suggested I simply exchange currency from the old port into currency from the new port.  Efficient, but what is the fun in that?)

Mission accomplished!  Special bonus, they come individually wrapped, in a pretty package.

The party is scheduled for after the ship sails from Hong Kong.  I'll let you know the results.