VIEW FROM THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
Monday 26th September 2005 We leave the Tours Direct tour group this morning at the Beijing Grand View Garden Hotel for our own 6 days extra in China. We have to be ready in the hotel foyer at 7am to meet our guide, Jessica, who takes us to Hejian south of Beijing.
Jessica is right on time. She is a young woman who has worked only 3 months for CITS. She has a car and driver who is experienced. First we went to the city of Baoding where we met Ma Baoru who is employed as the second in charge of the City Tourism Department. She met us on the city outskirts and helped us get to Hejian.
What a surprise at Hejian. We were driven in to the Administrative Centre of Hejian where we were met by city officials including the Vice Mayor (VM), (Ms Wang Xiaoling), the City Historian and Cultural Bureau CEO, (Mr Tian Guo Fu), and others. We were taken to morning tea for an official meet and greet. After this, we had an official tour of the central city, (population now 780,000), with the Vice Mayor in charge.
WITH CIVIC OFFICIALS OF HEJIAN
We went to the street where the former hospital "St Andrew's" that Hilary’s relative Eunice Preece established a training school for (Chinese) nurses. Eunice worked in China from 1923 to 1950 after having trained at Auckland Hospital. She and Kathleen Hall were recruited at the same time and worked in similar areas in China. Hilary had hoped to see the area where the old hospital had existed, and also the Anglican Mission, School annd Church. which had been quite near by. In the event, all that happened was that I took some photos and we were shortly moved on.
NUMBER ONE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Next to Number One Senior High School which looked to be quite modern. The VM beckoned 2 girls over to speak to me. One was too shy to speak, but the other told me that she was 18, and in her second of three years at the school. The school had 8000 pupils and was a 5 day boarding establishment. This was interesting as education is free in China until senior high, (which this school was), after which parents pay at this level and for tertiary education.
TIAN GUOFU INSCRIBING A MESSAGE ON EUNICE PREECE'S PORTRAIT
We then had a quick look at the city centre open space and back to the hotel for lunch. Hilary was quite taken that each time we passed through the hotel entrance we were saluted, (or more probably the VM was saluted). We had a major lunch of about 14 dishes but only chop sticks. We found the crab rather hard to manage with chop sticks! We also had Peking duck and other local delicacies with plenty of beer and other drinks.
LUNCHEON IN HEJIAN
After lunch a 3 car convoy was established. We were in the last car but had no idea where we were going. We drove for nearly an hour along roads that got poorer and poorer. On a mud road that was being upgraded a digger was parked across so that no vehicles could pass. Someone got out of the lead car and that digger was off the road in no time flat.
ROADWORKS ON THE WAY TO TUNZHUANG VILLAGE
About 2 or 3 km away there was a steam roller doing the same job as the digger, and again it took only a moment after the official spoke to the driver and it was out of the way. (We had the reverse procedure on our return.) We soon entered a small village and turned into a Buddhist temple. There was a white statue in the courtyard, and this we learned was of Dr Norman Bethune.
DR NORMAN BETHEUNE BUST AT THE BETHEUNE MEMORIAL HALL
Here I must digress about the larger Bull family. I have a second cousin in Canada, Tony Bull, with whom we keep in contact. Tony now at about 78 is a widower. His wife Gillian was a niece of Dr Norman Bethune [she was later known to have been a very distant niece]. The relationship to Dr Bethune was only known to me immediately prior to going to China when I told Tony about our trip and that we were going to spend a few days trying to establish just where Eunice Preece had worked. Tony then said that Jill was a niece of Norman Bethune, whom I had read about, but did not really understand his place in Chinese history. Henry Norman Bethune 1890 to 1939 can be researched on the internet. One family historian says of a Bethune forebear that he had ferocious energy and I think this must also have been true of Norman Bethune.
THE SMALL ZHENWU TEMPLE WHICH BECAME PART OF
BETHEUNE'S HOSPITAL IN TUNZHUANG VILLAGE. IT IS LOCALLY KNOWN AS WARFIELD
TEMPORARY HOSPITAL.
Norman was always for the underdog. He joined the Communist Party, fought in the Spanish Civil War, and went to help the Chinese Communist Army in their fight against the Japanese. He divorced his wife, had no family, and was reputed to be fond of the bottle. The Chinese told me he had quite a temper. Above all, he was a driven man and an excellent surgeon who wrote a number of papers including a very important one about the establishment of war time field hospitals. From Beijing we contacted Ma Baoru and asked would she like to come with us to Hejian, and in the course of this conversation I had mentioned that a cousin was married to a niece of Norman Bethune, after which I thought nothing about the matter.
INSIDE THE BETHEUNE MEMORIAL HALL WITH ITS MORE
THAN 100 PICTURES. IT HOUSES DISPLAYS OF BATTLES AND AND RELICS OF BETHEUNE AND HIS MEDICAL WORK FOR THE EIGHTH ROUTE ARMY.
It turns out that this small Buddhist temple was used by Norman Bethune as a field hospital in 1939 during the course of a very fierce battle between the Japanese and Communist Chinese armies. We were told that the Japanese committed 800 troops to this battle and 700 were killed. Dr Bethune worked for 3 days without sleep, did (I think) 169 operations, and had an 80% survival rate. I think it must have happened here that Dr Bethune cut himself with a scalpel and subsequently developed blood poisoning, (the Chinese said it was tetanus), from which he died. Norman Bethune is a Chinese hero. Chairman Mao even wrote a poem about him. We were also shown through an on site museum devoted solely to Norman Bethune’s time in China which we were told was only 22 months' duration. There was an interesting light animated display about the battle and many photos and paintings.
From here we went back to Hejian, where we parted from the city officials who had been so kind to us. Then on to Baoding where we left Ma Baoru. She presented us with a moon cake in a nice presentation dish, and we were driven back to Beijing where we arrived at 9pm.
Some facts about the day. We drove along a toll road to Baoding. Tolls cost our driver 200 yuan. It is most difficult to know what to pay as there do not seem to be any set fees for these types of services. We were told that taxi drivers, and car drivers such as ours, make a poor living.
Back in the Beijing Garden Hotel our key did not open our room door. While I was talking to the assistant manager Alice in the lobby someone started making a plasticene head and shoulders portrait bust of me. Alice said I could buy for 50 yuan. It was to be ready in 5 minutes. When I went down later to buy some soft drinks the first model had been discarded and the chap wanted to start again. It was finished in just under ½ an hour in front of me and quite an audience, some of whom who made many comments as to the likeness. Hilary and I were very ready for bed.
Tuesday 27th September 2005
Fortunately we were not in such a rush this morning. Guide Jessica came to take us to the Western Beijing railway station at about 9am. We had arranged to leave our heavy luggage at the hotel as we were coming back after 2 nights in Datong. Jessica had brought a better car than yesterday merely to take our light luggage and ourselves to the railway station. It is a very large station where Jessica took us to the VIP lounge while we waited until time to board. The electric train left promptly on time at 10.10am and we arrived on time at 4.45pm. We were in a sleeper compartment with 4 bunks. We had one up and one down. We both took advantage of the trip to rest and even sleep some of the time after yesterday’s heavy schedule.
Our new guide Lilly met us at Datong station and took us by car to Datong Hotel at the opposite end of the city, (8 million). During this trip we explained to Lilly that the main reason we had come to Datong was to find the Mosse Memorial Hospital or the site where it had been located in the Mission Compound.
There were a lot of police and some army staff around the hotel and we later found that the Communist Party Disciplinary Committee (probably at provincial level), was meeting at this hotel.
We reviewed our program in Datong with Lilly. It seems that we can go to both the Buddhist Yungang Grottos and the Hanging Temple in one day although they are on opposite sides of the city. We arranged to visit these places tomorrow.
We found ordering dinner from the menu to be quite a challenge. The menu had photos but we really had no idea what we were looking at. Finally a woman from another table who could speak English came to help. In the end we had a top class meal of roasted lamb, boiled rice, chok soy and mushrooms. There was an expert tea pourer in residence. He had a kettle with a 1 metre thin spout with which he very accurately filled our cups. We find we have come to enjoy green tea without milk.
Wednesday 28th September 2005
At about 8.15am I left the hotel to go to the Bank of China a short distance away, to cash travellers’ cheque as our hotel did not have this facility, - quite unusual. It took at least half an hour to cash the 2 cheques.
Lilly and driver arrived at 9am and we started out for the Yungang Grotto at Mt Wuzhou on the western outskirts of Datong City.
APPROACHING THE KILOMETRE LONG YUNGANG BUDDHIST CAVES
These grottos are all man made and are said to contain 50,000 statues of Buddha, varying in size from 15m to 20mm. We saw the middle section which is all level walking. Work started in 453AD and took 40 years to complete. After going through the grottos I took a very short camel ride on the way out, and also bought Hilary a carved tortoise made from coal. Datong is a very rich coal district which is used largely to make electricity that is supplied to Beijing.
SOME OF THE 53 CAVES DEDICATED TO BUDDHA
Back at Datong we hosted Lilly and the driver for lunch at a restaurant often frequented by Lilly and her family. After lunch we drove 1 ½ hours to visit the famous hanging temple at Mt Hengshan. This mountain is the most northerly of 5 sacred mountains near Datong, and at this point we are quite close to the border of Inner Mongolia.
The Hanging Temple is attached to the side of a cliff about 40 m above a ravine which has been dammed just upstream of the temple. Lilly and I climbed to the temple but Hilary stayed with the car as she was slightly out of sorts. We had to walk up a number of steps and once in the building traffic could only go one way.
VIEWED FROM A DISTANCE THE HANGING TEMPLES LOOK LIKE MATCHSTICK TOYS. THEY CLING IMPROBABLY TO THE SIDE OF THE RAVINE.
The rooms were normal in height and width, but were very shallow from front to rear, - probably 1 ½m to 1 ¾ m. Some of the rooms had a balcony with a low rail that would not meet our safety standards. I felt quite uncomfortable in places where the rail was little more than knee height. The place is very picturesque and an interesting tourist destination. The temple respects three religions, - Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
While There I bought another bull - this one brass and complete with all accoutrements.
INSIDE XUANKONG SI - THE HANGING TEMPLE
And so, back to Datong Hotel. Once again we emphasised to Lilly the reason for coming to Datong. Could she please find out where the Mosse Memorial Hospital had been? Lilly had a brain wave. Using her cell phone she photographed the photos in Hilary’s album and said she would ask the old people, starting with her grandmother.
Thursday 29th September 2005
A much cooler day with very light rain in the morning. Lilly met us at 9am with a great smile. The old people all knew the hospital we were looking for from its photos. It is still a working hospital and now part of Datong City Number 2 Hospital. We drove straight to the hospital and would never have found it on our own as a new wing had been built right on the road edge, which we had to drive through to find the buildings of the former Mosse Memorial Hospital. We drove in to a courtyard and there was the old building right in front. We parked and Hilary got out her album to compare photos with the building.
ON THE STEPS OF THE OLD HOSPITAL. LILLY EXPLAINS TO HILARY WHAT THE STAFF ARE SAYING ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Soon she had quite an audience of very excited people all trying to tell her which parts were still in place and just from where the photo was taken. Someone said there was a Church at the back, so we went round the building to have a look. There stood the Chapel, its front door locked, and all encased with scaffolding. We were told that it was closed for repairs. I asked for permission to go inside but was told it was dangerous.
THE CHAPEL, SURROUNDED BY SACFFOLDING, WAS BEING REPAIRED.
We took a number of photos, including one of the foundation stone upon which was written,
“THIS CHAPEL, ERECTED BY THE GIFTS OF FRIENDS, IN MEMORY OF MRS E.H.MOSSE, WAS DEDICATED TO THE GLORY OF GOD, IN THE NAME OF ST EDWARD, SEPTEMBER 18th 1938.”
Edward Mosse had been an English medical missionary in China from early in the 20th century. He had gone back to London during WW 1 and was unfortunately killed there by a German bomb. [His son was also a missionary.]
Hilary’s cousin Eunice Preece had worked at Datong from after the end of WW 2, possibly 1946, until 1950 when foreigners were told to leave China. We understand that Eunice had been unable to get permission to go back to her old hospital in Hejian after WW 2.
MUCH OF THE OLD HOSPITAL HAD BEEN PULLED DOWN. HOWEVER SOME BUILDINGS WERE TO BE REPAIRED. NEW BUILDINGS WERE BEING PLANNED INCORPORATING THE STYLE OF THE OLD.
At this stage an important official arrived. When we had finished taking photos he escorted us back to the front of the old hospital, bade us enter and follow him up a stairway, and wait on the landing. He went off and came back with some keys with which he opened a door almost right in front of us. We were taken in to what was obviously a Board Room with old but very comfortable furniture. We were told that the important man was the Hospital Secretary.
We learned that the old hospital had now become the Administration Block. Both the Chapel and the old hospital were to be rebuilt. Initially a decision had been made to build in a modern Chinese style, but this had been re-thought, so that current plans were to rebuild as close to the original style as possible. Our arrival out of the blue, with Hilary’s photos was something of a miracle. All the information and photos that Hilary had brought were taken away and copied. We promised that if at all possible we would try to find out more about the original buildings and send this back to the hospital.
STAFF LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS FROM EUNICE PREECE'S ALBUM AND ALSO IMAGES OF THE HOSPITAL DATED 1926
As a token of their appreciation the Hospital Secretary obtained an artist’s or architect’s drawing of the renovated hospital building. Rather than give to us to put in a tube, he put it on a hard back and then carefully wrapped it up for our travels. After close on 2 hours I said that we would have to leave and go to the railway station to catch our train to Beijing.
No sooner had I said this than an older man came in to the room. He was obviously very important. He went up to Hilary and held her arms saying that we must have lunch with him. We learned that he was the Hospital Chairman. I again said that much as we would appreciate having lunch with him we had to go to the station to catch our train. He cast his eye around the room, saw some stainless steel vacuum flasks, and presented one to Hilary. He looked further and found a number of presentation food packs, and thereupon gave us six. In all the time we were in the Boardroom the only English speakers were Lilly and one female staff member [the nurse in the above photograph]. However the level of communication was amazing.
We left the Hospital with much goodwill on both sides, and headed to the Datong Railway Station in time to catch our train at 12.27pm. We had to walk a fair distance from the car to the station as repairs and re building work were being done. We had just crossed an area ready for a concrete pour when some tremendous bangs took place behind us. A major fireworks function had begun. Was it to get rid of the foreign devils in their midst? The crackers were very loud, - quite like a mini artillery barrage. Lilly stayed with us until we were safely on the train. It left on time, but was ½ an hour late arriving in Beijing some 6 ½ hours later. Guide Jessica and her driver met us at the Beijing Station and took us back to the Beijing Grand View Garden Hotel. We went to our room but were overpowered by cigarette fumes. I went down to the lobby where my friend Alice was again on duty and explained the problem to her. She was interested as the 3rd floor was a non smoking area. She suggested that we have dinner and after this we would have a new room allocated.
Friday 30 September 2005
I woke up with an odd feeling in my tummy. Hilary had developed quite a cold so we were not really on top of things. I had only fruit juice for breakfast, then the runs developed and shortly after I was vomiting up the fruit juice. I rested for a while and during the morning Hilary asked Assistant Manager Alice about medical help. Initially she wanted to get an ambulance to take me to hospital, but we persuaded her that a taxi would be OK. Delays meant that it was about noon before we got to the hospital. They wanted a stool sample but the loo had no paper, - a defect that Hilary always had in mind, so this was easily overcome [loud yelling from John for me to come to the rescue]. Following pathology I was given a number of prescriptions the chief of which appeared to be electrolytes. I was told not to eat for 3 days.
We extended our hotel room until 5pm, (200 yuan), so I was able to rest and even sleep. Up at 3.30pm to repack our bags. There had been no vomiting or runs since being at the hospital, and in fact that is where the troubles in those departments ended. Jessica was waiting for us in the lobby, having been there for an hour without contacting us in our room. She had brought a decent size van to take all our luggage to the railway station.
It was now after work on the eve of the week-long China National Day holiday. The Beijing Railway Station was packed to capacity. Jessica told us there were announcements that all railway seats had been sold out to all destinations, and this included standing room as well. Those without tickets were asked to leave the station. We were able to board the train after 45 minutes with help from Jessica and her driver. The train left on time at 7.35pm for the 12 hour trip to Shanghai. We were in a sleeper berth with 2 lower bunks. A Chinese man and an (unrelated) woman had the upper berths. I slept and drank electrolytes throughout the night. On the train we found that my cheap red bag bought when we went to the Great Wall had split badly and was no longer useful. Before arriving at Shanghai I repacked using my backpack for the heaviest items, and abandoned the torn bag to the train.
Saturday 1st October 2005
Today is China’s National Day. My throat had been damaged through vomiting so Hilary had to be our spokesperson. The train arrived a few minutes late and people quickly disembarked at Shanghai Station. We waited near our carriage for a guide to take us to our hotel. We waited and waited. Then people started to get on the train. We thought it time to move and were able to engage 2 men to help with our luggage. They charged on ahead. I went as slowly as possible being on the lookout for someone with a banner or paper bearing our names. At street level the porters charged ahead across a road and left us near where taxis were waiting. I paid them off, but they wanted more than I gave so they got a 50% increase. No one seemed to speak English.
I asked Hilary to stay where she was and went back to the station to have a good look for someone carrying a placard with our name. I also asked at almost every booth for someone who spoke English. I was out of luck in both departments, and possibly the fact that I could barely whisper must have contributed to our woes. I got back to Hilary and shortly afterwards a policeman drove up on a motorbike and parked alongside. I managed to let him know our problem and that we needed to phone our hotel. He took me to a nearby booth and asked the owner to use the phone. I showed the man our hotel number on the itinerary. He dialed it, and I asked to be put on. I established that we were booked in to the hotel and then asked the person in the hotel to ask the booth owner to write their address in Chinese characters on our itinerary page. This was done, and from then it was (relatively) easy to get a taxi, although the first one which approached would not take us.
It turned out that the drive to Shanghai Mansions Hotel was quite short. I couldn’t believe that we had arrived at the right place, so asked Hilary to stay with the taxi until I could ensure we were booked in at this hotel. All was in order, so we went to our room and showered and waited for someone from the Tourist Agency CITS to contact us. We also found that one of our problems was the hotel name had changed to Broadway Mansions, so this made it more difficult trying to talk to Chinese people.
After a while we phoned our Group Tour local guide Hardy, who was already taking another group of tourists around China. Hardy said that we should not have left the railway station, but having done so, we should wait at our hotel until someone from CITS made contact. Nothing happened.
About midday we went through our cards and found one from Lilly at Datong, so phoned her [hundreds of miles away], and explained the situation and requested that she contact the CITS officer in Beijing who had arranged our tour, to see if he could locate our guide. Lilly gave us the home phone number of the person to call in Beijing which we did promptly. Mr Young, (Jung/Zhan?) was very nice. He said that as we had managed so far, and it being the public holiday period, would we mind continuing on our own with local taxis etc. He would arrange a refund.
It was now early afternoon so we went to the hotel lobby and explained that we wanted to see the area, and hopefully the buildings, used by the Japanese during WW 2 to house Internees. The maps of Shanghai were all in Chinese, and many of the street names had changed, but after a while there was a consensus as to where we should go.
[Hilary points out that she had previously forwarded to the tourist office in China the names and addresses by which to identify the Internee camps in Shanghai. She did not have the details with her.] We arranged for a taxi, but were told that we must be back at the hotel before 4pm as the roads would then be closed to vehicles. We could not find the American Country Club, but found an empty site which was possibly the site, so took some photos. We went to the other side of the city to Yangpu Road along the waterfront of the Huangpoo River and saw some buildings which were old enough and would have been capable of housing the internees, so we took some more photos. We were not at all confident that we had found the correct places for the internment locations. However it was good to have a look around. We got back to the hotel in nice time, saw the streets closed and people walking up and down to mark the public holiday.
THE BOWLING ALLEY OF THE COLUMBIA COUNTRY CLUB BECAME A CROWDED DORMITORY FOR INTERNEES
We, or rather Hilary, had dinner in the hotel. Part of the dining room where we were seated was partitioned off for a wedding. I am quite sure that the Chinese equate loud noises with successful events. Although not of the wedding party we were able to follow most of the proceedings. During the course of the evening I found there was another wedding taking place on the main floor, - we were on a mezzanine floor, and I wondered from the noise if there was another wedding taking place elsewhere in the building. It was dusk when we went back to our room and it was interesting to see flags flying from every possible nook and cranny. People were enjoying their walk along what is normally a very busy road.
Sunday 2nd October 2005
Our job for the day is to get to Pudong International Airport and catch our Dragon Air flight at 2.20pm for Hong Kong, and then transfer to Cathay Pacific for Auckland.
We left the hotel at 10am in a taxi which somehow its owner had crammed ourselves and our bags in to a small car. The airport must be quite a distance from Shanghai, perhaps 40 km or 50 km. We were well on our way to the airport when traffic came to a stop in front of us. The driver indicated a road blockage and that we would do a U turn and take another road to our destination. We had not been traveling slowly to this time, but now we were doing about 100 km/hr more or less according to the traffic flows. We must have got nearly back to our hotel when we turned on to another motorway, which after a while had a sign saying Pudong Airport. This made us more comfortable, for at least we had confirmation that we were on the right road. It is quite difficult when one can not communicate. It seemed to take ages to get to the airport. We had asked to be let off at Dragon Air part of the terminal, and our driver had quite an argument with a policeman about getting to that part of the airport. The driver won, and he put us down exactly where we wanted to be. The fare for all this rushing round was 180 yuan, so we paid him 200 yuan.
Inside the terminal we positioned our luggage in a handy place and Hilary stayed with it while I went to Dragon Air to change our flight tickets as we had been advised that our original flight was cancelled on our first day in China. This was surprisingly quick, only about ½ an hour. We then moved on to immigration which took nearly an hour because of the very long queues. Then another good ½ hour to get through security. Do not go to a Chinese Airport just before your plane is due to depart! I was now eating light meals, so we then got some lunch and then I went to the Bank to change our Yuan back to $US. There was only 1 teller and at one stage a couple held everyone up as they hunted for their receipts for purchasing yuan. The body language was remarkable as each blamed the other for the lost receipts. At last they stood aside and let others go through. Then they found the receipts and again held us up for a while. I guess this queue last 40 or more minutes. I went back to Hilary and then heard an announcement that our plane was delayed an hour owing to the co-pilot being ill and having to be replaced. We were given a voucher that bought a cup of coffee which helped with the waiting.
We finally got on board and had an uneventful flight to Hong Kong. There we had quite a wait in the Transit Lounge.
We landed in Auckland and went smoothly through customs, but I ran foul of the Agriculture people. They said they wanted to look at an item in one of my cases. They knew where it was and soon had it out. It was the presentation tin given us with moon cake, but which now housed my plasticene bust. The chap was interested and rushed the offending item off somewhere and shortly afterwards brought it back without comment. I had been asked what the bust was made of, and to be perfectly honest I do not know, but it does seem to be plasticene. Out in to the airport lobby and there was our driver holding a plaque with our name. And soon to State Highway 1 and back to Northland and home at Mangawhai in time for dinner with family.
TWO ANCIENT RELICS IN BEIJING
PS Hilary and I seem to have swapped various complaints and it took all of a month, (Hilary says longer), for us to recover to normal health. Thankfully we are now revitalized.
[PPS. HILARY SAYS: Perhaps we should arrange another visit to China. It was such a pity not to have visited the Cathedral in Beijing, nor have seen those places in Shanghai which had meant so much in Eunice Preece's life. However, we were delighted with our group tour and have so many happy memories of China and the Chinese people.]
John and Hilary Bull September & October 2005
Look at other parts of the Preece story by following the link to the Index page.
