Happy Chinese Holidays To China
Let me count the ways I miss you, China:
The exuberant hospitality of friends and acquaintances at this special time of the year - one January
in Shenzhen, I had 25 dinner and lunch invitations in a three week period!
And even more touching, five beautiful bouquets of flowers from Sabrina, Mr. Gao, the Matriarch, and
others. One young Chinese teen working at his family's flower stall impulsively gifted me with a two foot tall globe
of white jasmine flowers.
"Young Chinese men," said Mr. Gao, rather cynically, when he saw me trooping home with this
magnificent floral gift.
The healthiness of cheap snack foods, plentiful and nutritious. These street stalls serve up pumpkin,
chicken, pork, turnips, peas, cucumber, and while the cuisine is not gourmet, somewhere in an overheated kitchen, real old-fashioned
cooks are shelling nuts, plucking feathers off chickens, and hulling corn niblet by niblet.
The exotic adventure of the impeccably managed China National Rail System. I recall the worst
trip which was an entire night sitting in hard seat low class seating with a Chinese millionaire friend (or the equivalent
there of, over there) who kept trying to upgrade our seats, yet even money could not get us out of that hell.
The seats were made at right angles, with no allowance for the spinal curature of a human back.
I slept as they do, with my face falling over into my lap, when it slid off the chilly October window pane.
Don't travel at major China Holiday Times!
We all forget to do that, because the rest of the time, it's a wonderment of fun, friendship, and helpful
train station staff. The food too is good, fresh fruits from every area, roasted chestnuts, lychees and longans, iced
tea, hot water, coffees, beers from every region, and in the restaurants, delicious local and national specialties.
All over this great and welcoming land, people will walk you down the street till you find the bus or
train station you urgently require, sit with you and commiserate if you miss your connection, and ask you to their homes for
a hot-cooked dinner.
And the friends you make, the friends of a lifetime:
I miss Shelley, in Yang Shuo, who first introduced me to gracious Chinese hospitality, by asking me
to her home which was half a retreat hotel, with real water buffalo stepping on large flat stones, yards from where we sat
on the patio facing the river. She told me I was her first Canadian friend, and refused all payment.
I miss Candy, my next friend, an opera singer, entrusted by the government of Nanning to organize
massive concerts in the public parks throughout that leafy and peaceful provincial capital. Every day we were happy,just
singing in the parks, though for the Chinese performers, it was also a professional dedication of discipline and love.
I miss my friend, Jack, whose sparkling wit and unrelenting ambition led him to become CEO of his own
international telecommunications start-up, though I met him just as SARS began its hysterical sweep through that region. We'd
buy Western rock and roll hits, and amuse ourselves singing off-key to all the great classics, or go for dinner in upscale
coffee bars.
And I miss the Matriarch and her family, who cooked me dinners and lunches through-out the week, and
who I did not communicate with too well, due to both our clumsy and non-existent language skills. Her military father
had three wives, and fled China by horseback and small aircraft, fleeing to Taiwan, as the Communists took over in 1949.
And I miss the gentle, refined, cultured, and overwhelmingly competent Cecilia, entrusted by the government
of China to travel to Venezuela on financial affairs, so knowledgable is she about banking matters.
She was a special friend who said, Don't worry about anything, when I fell ill in China.
China, I love you!
PS. To all the readers here, I will be getting back to you soon, am going thru a lot with family illnesses
- and good news, a wonderful book about many happy times in China - and some mishaps! - is coming soon!
