Hello from China
Date: 1/22/00 2:20:17 PM Eastern Standard Time

I am sending this from LA as I could not find an convenient
Internet cafe in China.

1. Mother, Trips. Mother too wanted to see China and so she
accompanied me on this trip, also climbing some 1,000 steps
to a fortress on the Great Wall at Juyong Pass north of
Beijing. (I will send some of the scanned photos from China
with the next email.) Since I inherited my gypsy genes from
my mother, after father's death, I have been allocating to
her 4 joint trips per year, each trip lasting a week or 2.
This is in addition to mothers trawls to and stays with my
sisters in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, and with me in
Miami, thus covering 3 comers of the USA. In addition to
Hawaii and Alaska, I have taken her thru all but 5 states
in the USA, 3 of which we will cross on our return trip to
Miami. My own expeditions consumed 4 months in 1998, 6
months in 1999; 1 might trawl about 4 months this year,
starting next year, I might be gone for 10 months, possibly
also living in different parts. Things like applying as an
instructor (say of computer classes, web design, Internet
programming) to China are also possible.

By all means, do visit China. The kind of (3-city) trip
Mother and I took may be expensive. However, China is
presently promoting Beijing for tourism. You can take a
5-day (or less) all-inclusive (round-trip flight, hotel, 2
local tours) trawl for $693 thru Northwest Airlines. Check
their web site-or ask me. And as I usually do after a trip,
I composed a report about China, not all about sightseeing.

1. Our trip. China is a fascinating country with wonderful
and very friendly people. At 7 to 10 percent per annum, it
presently enjoys one of the highest growth rates in the
world. We visited Beijing (northeast), Xian (south), and
Shanghai (east central) this time; I probably will go back
to cover the Silk Route, Mongolia, and Tibet some other
time.

Beijing is an immense city dissected (like Moscow) by vary
wide streets. So unlike the quaint old towns of European
cities, where walking and sightseeing is much fun, Beijing
is not fun to walk and too austere for sightseeing, except
for the historical sites and other selected parts. This may
have been partly due to the weather. The temperature was
-30 degrees, the coldest winter in Beijing in 20 years. But
many streets and certainly historical sites were well
attended. The view at night was much more warmer, colorful
and likely in that the streets, walls, trees, buildings,
etc. are all lit in decorative and festive lighting, like
Christmas in USA.

Our tour, the next day, began at 8:30 in the morning.
First, we visited the Badaling section of the Great Wall,
built over very steep mountains at that section. We spent
the morning on and around the wall. After a wonderful and
multi-course Chinese lunch, we came to the Ming Tombs also
in that area. Of the 19 or so tombs (of Ming emperors)
there, only one has been opened up. We walked about an hour
to get there, visited a museum, walked some more, and then
took the steps down to the tomb. We returned at 5:30 in the
eve. It was already dark at 4 in the afternoon or so.

The next day, again at 8:30 in the mom, we were taken to
the Tian An'Men Sq. adjoining the Forbidden City. The
Square is huge. In the Middle is the Mao Mausoleum, on one
side the History Museum, on the other People's Hall. The
entrance to the Forbidden City is at the northern end. (If
you are not likely to travel to China, you can still see
the Forbidden City in the movie The Last Emperor, which was
shot on situs and is true to history.) But even the move
does not do justice to the huge size of the place. It has
more than 9,000 buildings-like where the emperor dressed,
slept, the dwellings for the many concubines, etc-connected
by squares and alleys, with the Imperial Gardens at
northwestern end. We walked thru the entire city.

The same afternoon, we took a plane to Man, to visit the
site of the (100s of life-size) Terra Cotta soldiers the
next day. It was an overwhelming \hew. The following day,
we took the plane to Shanghai, China's largest city and
financial and commercial center, and joined a city tour
there. We flew back to Beijing for a day of walking around,
also of the old Beijing, and shopping. That night, we were
taken to a Chinese restaurant specializing in Beijing Duck,
and then came to a Chinese theater to marvel Chinese
acrobats.

2. Impressions. The next time the news on American TV talks
about Chinese "communism," smile and take it as
misinformation, by inadequately informed people informing
the public. The centralized system there now has nothing of
the images of communism that remain from the Cold War and
Mao eras. Despite the cold, Beijing was inundated with
people having fun leisurely, just like Washington, DC on a
Sunday. We also met some Westerners living in China, and
many more visiting various parts. In other words, China is
an open and friendly country. We did not have to look over
our shoulders to see if the Chinese version of the KGB
might be following us. Moreover, the English paper, China
Daily, had an article about China's economic progress,
pointing out, item by item, areas of deficiency, also as
compared to the industrialized world, its achievements, and
things that needed to be done. One ambitious goal
especially stuck to mind: the plan to include 70 percent of
the Chinese people in the country's health care and social
security programs. This by a country that still has less
than $1,000 per capita income and 1.5 billion people. In
contrast, the vary rich USA with some $25,000 per capita
income still can care less about the 44 million Americans
without medical insurance, many also without social
security. Our guide gave a more down-to-earth description
of what is happening in China, aspirations of its people,
etc. He invited questions by us and fully answered them.

As for freedom, often the USA pushes its definition of the
First Amendment on other countries and judges freedom by
that yardstick. So, for example, if the Chinese young
people cannot watch the gory details of our "Friday the
13th" moves, they are supposedly not quite free. I suggest
that the centralized government in China is not there to
adhere to communist dogma but to oversee Chinese transition
from communism to a free society, in reasonable measured
steps. The Chinese leaders probably observed the chaos that
accompanied the transition in Russia and decided that it
would be foolish for them to adopt democracy and capitalism
overnight, without a blueprint, when their country has had
no prior experience with such a system. (How sensible, I
would say.)

Moreover, Chinese leaders probably also observed the very
undesirable side effects of unchecked freedom that are
pervasive in the USA, Japan, and Western Europe, like drug
addiction, crime, youth problems, and general decline in
morals, and decided that they would rather inject a sense
of responsibility and a pattern of productive behavior in
their youth before releasing the genie out of the bottle.
(Again, how sensible, I would say. By the way, one of my
favorite photos from this trip, though I look terrible in
it--blame the cold and the wind-is the one that was taken
of me at Tian An'Men Sq., after I grabbed the arms of 2
Chinese woman soldiers-mere girls really-nearby and before
they could say anything had a picture taken of us. I hugged
and thanked both after the photo session. Now compare the
warm and spontaneous response by these supposedly cold
communist girls to the case where a male Chinese tourist
would likely experience, EVEN with my disarming charm, if
he grabbed 2 American female soldiers for a photo in front
of the Pentagon. Communist? Forget it; they were purely
nice universal people, as good as our best. I will send the
photo with the next email.)

There are other benefits to a centralized system we might
not like to admit. Churchill used to maintain that
democracy is the worst possible system, but for all the
others. Perhaps the Chinese want to test this theory, by
having a cadre of leaders decide on the people who have the
responsibility of overseeing progress in various sectors.
Indeed, this may be an improvement over the kind of
democracy we practice, where too often un- or ill-informed
people, single-issue voters, etc. elect leaders, often
based upon vacant smiles and appearances, that should at
best lead their own lives, NOT the country. So the Chinese
system is less likely to produce a Tom DeLay or Jesse
Helms, whose Un-American Cuban policy is an embarrassment
to the USA worldwide; it is also less likely to become a
puppet of another country, like, for example, the
relationship between Israel and the USA, where our Mid-East
policy, for all practical purposes, is seemingly decided by
the Israelis in Jerusalem and Jewish/Israeli-first
Americans in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, less by
USA-first Americans in Washington, DC.

This said, it is true that China has been heavy-handed in
Tibet, may have dubious plans for Taiwan. But, I believe,
the former situation will improve, though probably not by
independence for Tibet, and, under American guidance, the
latter situation will NOT result in an invasion. Perhaps
with an economically much improved China, say by mid-21st
century, Taiwan will not mind joining a Chinese union,
possibly like the relationship between the USA and Puerto
Rico, or even Hawaii. For this to happen, how China behaves
in Hong Kong, and what becomes of the latter, and Macau
too, will be guideline for Taiwan and for the observers.