020 1986 January-Marchop
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NORTHWEST CHINA COUNCIL NEWSLETT'ER #20, January - March, 1986 CHINA OLD AND CHINA NOW: A TRA VEL JOURNAL Patrick Maveety, China Council board who come to the city daily and It.""~ member from Gleneden Beach, is also filed past the remains of Mao curator of Asian art at the Stanford Zedong in his crystal sarcophagus University Art Museum. As China inside his mausoleum. The midday scholar escort on the 1985 tour, meal that day was a banquet at a he gave lectures on each city we Beijing duck restaurant hosted by visited and his illuminating tours You Xie Vice-President Liu Gengyin through museum and historic sites and several of his colleagues from gave tour members many interesting the Department of American and O- insights into Chinese culture. Be- ceanian Affairs. We did not real- low is but a sample of the sights ize it at the time, but it was to we saw: be just the first of a dozen or more huge and delicious banquets that we would have over the next It was a rainy Saturday, October 26, three weeks! 1985, when 16 members of the North- west China Council left Portland To update us on happenings in con- for the Council's first tour of temporary China, You Xie Deputy China. We arrived in Beijing on Director Zhang Xueling gave us a October 28, for six days in the briefing in the Association's capital, and were met by Mr. Guo office, housed in the former Ital- Zepei and Miss Sun Xiujie, who ian Embassy. would escort us throughout China on behalf of the Chinese People's As- At the Summer Palace the next day sociation for Friendship with For- we witnessed the establishment of a eign Countries, You Xie. refurbished Grand Theater with at- tendants in the costumes of 19th Our first visit was to the valley century Manchu courtiers. Later, of the tombs of the Ming dynasty we visited the Yuan Ming Yuan, an emperors and then on to Badaling 18th century pleasure dome of west- where the Great Wall has been re~ ern style palaces and fountains to- stored and is being developed as a tally destroyed by the British and - major tourist attraction with lots French forces when they attacked of tee-shirt stalls and soft drink the capital in 1860. The romantic stands. In Tiananmen Square we ruins are evidence of 18th-century observed the many Chinese tourists China's interest in European civi- 1 lization. We heard that it may For a short two days, we visited soon be restored to its former glo- Portland's potential sister, ry! Another example of historic Suzhou, the garden city of China. preservation in today's China is the In addition to visitcing-some of street of antique shops, Liulichang, the famous gardens, most of which which has been brought back to its had their origins 400--500 years 19th-century appearance. We also ago, we were surprised by a new visited the freshly-painted Temple garden of bonsai trees (pencai in of Heaven with its hall containing Chinese), some of which were hun- wooden ~olumns brought from Oregon dreds of ye~rs ~ld. It was prob- 100 years ago. ably the best _collection that most of us had ever seen. Our time in Xian was devoted mainly to an outing to Lintong county We spent one day touring the town- where the tomb of China's first em- ship of Dongting in the countryside peror, Qin Shihuangdi, is located near Suzhou on a peninsula that with its more than 6,000 life-sized juts into Lake Tai. The landscape terracotta soldiers [Patrick noted wasooverefr.wifuh,tangerine trees a new bus parking lot, built in the about to be harvested, fishponds m6nth between his two visits to and tea bushes. The lake itself is Xian, in October and November 1985.] one of China's largest and a SOUDce Th~re were hundreds of free-market of the fancy rocks that are an im- sellers at the tourist spots, with portant part of most Chinese gar- their goods, mostly persimmons and dens. the appliqu~ and patchwork red vests which are characteristic of Our visit to Shanghai was tightly the area. scheduled by our enthusiastic You Xie host, Mr. Fu Fenghao, who ar- The weather in Xian was the coldest ranged for visits -to the renowned »->: we exper1enced on our r1p, part1c- Sang a1 Museum, the large antique ularly one foggy morning at the shop nearby, the Bund, and an af- Great Mosque. However, the cold ternoon excursion down the Huangpu was dissipated by the warm recep- River to its confluence with the tion given us by the mosque's Imam Yangzi. Our hotel in Shanghai in hls study where he read verses was an example of how China is rap- to us in Arabic from his century- idly developing its facilities for old illuminated Koran. The foreign tourists; the western mosque was being restored by hand dining room at the New Garden Hotel using-traditional Chinese build- was equipped with a charming host- ing techniques. A visit to the ess who stood at the entrance in a Shaanxi Provincial Museum was ruffly Scarlett O'Hara costume. followed by a memorable dumpling dim sum lunch of twelve courses. On November 10, we flew from Shanghai to Fuzhou to begin our visit to Oregon's sister state, the province of Fujian. Liu Yisheng, Secretary General of You Xie's Northwest China Council Newsletter Fujian Branch, was our host during -Published by the Northwest Regional our eight days in Fujian. We stay- China Council, sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Oregon and The ed in Fuzhou, the provincial cap- Asia Society China Council. ital, for three days, enjoying our 1912 S.W. Sixth, #252 "hotel, the West Lake Guest House, Portland, Oregon 97201 probably more than any other on the (503) 229-3049 entire trip. It featured such a- . Acting Editor: Steve Kosokoff menties as a stocked refrigerator ~ Published quarterly. in each room, excellent plumbing, extension phone in the bathroom, _ and an air pump thermos bottle! 2 Our program in Fuzhou included a the nearby mountains. A highlight visit to a Children's Palace where of our visit to Quanzhou was a su- youngsters studied calligraphy, perb performance by the local pup- computers, violin, etc.,.illnafter~ pet troupe, using marionettes school programs; a banquet hosted with as many as 30 strings, as wel~ by Deputy Secretary General of the as stick and hand puppets. Provincial People's Government, Zhang Nanfang, and Vice-Mayor Lin After two days in Quanzhou, we Qin, both of whom had visited drove south to Xiamen, formerly Oregon; and a tour of the Nike shoe known as Amoy, where we stayed in factory. Stopping on the way to anoth~r newly-remodeled hotel, see the very large Buddhist temple the Lujiang, right on the harbor on Drum Mountain, we took a trip facing the island of Gulangyu. to Mawei, a newly developed port Xiamen is currently being develop- area down river from the city. ed as one of the four Special Eco- nomic Zones in China, and we were The director of the Fuj±an provin- given a tour of the new port with cial museum gave us a tour of his its docks and new office buildings collections which included many and warehouses, as well as space examples of t~e ceramics produced. for factories. in the province for more than 1,000 years. We also visited a thriving One warm afternoon was spent walk- Christian church and met with a ing about Gulangyu where tne for- downtown neighborhood committee to eign community established its discuss family planning. We were residences after Amoy became a treated to a performance by a treaty port in 1842. It is a very trained panda at the Fuzhou Zoo, picturesque place, full of mid- and,one evening, had an interesting 19th century brick architecture. discussion with Oregonians Jim Motor vehicles and even bicycles Meiser and his family, who are are banned. teaching English at Fujian Medical College. Offshore of Fujian are many small islands. Several of these are From Fuzhou, we took a four-hour governed by the Guomindang and the bus trip down the coast to Nationalist Chinese flag,with sol- Quanzhou, perhaps the largest port diers standing below,are visible in the world in the 13th and 14th from the mainland for 10 fen centuri~s. The landscape was through a telescope owned by a beautiful and the changing styles young "free marketeer." of the farm houses, many of which were new and very large, were fas- We also visited the Nanputuo temple cinating. Th~ vegetation included which was undergoing restoration many litchi trees, pines, palms, and witnessed the Buddhist monks and bananas. chanting at their evening w0rship. It was next door to the restaurant In Quanzhou, we visited the twin where we were guests of the Friend- stone pagodas at the Kai Yuan ~hip Association for our farewell Temple, landmarks of the city and banquet. In this case it was a built in the 13th century. The 12-course vegetarian meal and eaten well-maintained temple grounds in part by candlelight, when the contain a building housing a Song electricity failed during dinner. dynasty merchant ship that sank in From Xiamen, we flew directly to the harbor on its return with a Hong Kong and the conclusion of our cargo of pepper and sandalwood. memorable trip. One afternoon, the group visited a factory making stone lanterns Patrick Maveety and other carvings of granite from the immense sources of granite in -3 SPECIAL EVENTS BEIJINGACROBATS BUS TOUR TO SALEM "OREGON'S CHINA JANUARY25 CONNECTION: FUJIAN PROVINCE" IN PORTLAND, Saturday, January 25 ROSEBURG 4 PM - Midnight $30, China Council Associates What do high school students in $35, non-members Fujian learn about the U.S.? $20, children under 12 (Includes deluxe bus travel, Chi- Are most Chinese in favor of the nese banquet, wine reception, and economic changes introduced by performance tickets) Deng Xiaoping? See registration form this issue How big is the timber industry in Fujian? To herald the approaching Chinese Isn't it a matter of time before New Year (February 9, Year of the Oregon and Fujian will be at each Tiger), join an escorted China other's throats competing in the Council bus tour to Salem for an ~nternational markets? evening of festivities and tradi- tional Chinese entertainment.