Down to Shanxi

Fenyang is a small town by Chinese standards, that is 300,000 people or so, located deep within the Shanxi province, population 30,000,000. There are an estimated 800 foreigners in Shanxi, zero of them in Fenyang. Truth be told, Fenyang is still a 'closed city' as opposed to open cities. If a city is closed, it requires special permission and permits to get in, and there is a whole department devoted to watching foreign activity within the city. A man, some director with a fancy title, hangs around and observes or directs the foreigners to certain areas. Although in Fenyang, finding out where us visitors were was no real effort, simply look for the crowds of people or maybe the stopped traffic.

Carleton has a deep connection with this particular city. During the late 1800's, the first real OCS program sent young Carls to China that culminated in the creation of a school in 1906. Dr. Watson, for whom Watson Hall is named, established a hospital while in residence. Both the school and hospital still exist, but all official contacts between Carleton and Fenyang ended during the Communist Revolution when all non-Chinese were forced to leave China. That is, until 40 Carleton students showed up to this dusty thoroughfare. We were the first official delegation sent by the school and were received with no small amount of celebration. The school and the city held banquets in our honor, people danced and sang, and everyone managed to find some reason to hang out near our hotel the week we were in residence.

Chinese banquets are as unique a ceremony here as dragon dances and Chinese opera. Everyone sits at a large round table, students mixed with various city and school officials. The first person to give a toast is the host. The second, third, and fourth toasts are also given by members of the hosting group. Subsequent toasts are given by the guests, thanking the hosts for the banquet. The eating can then commence while groups of people wander from table to table, toasting and (in our case) posing for pictures. Fenyang has an official drink of something called Fenjiu (fun-joe) distilled from rice and 90 proof. It's clear, thin, and vile. Any real toast should be toasted with Fenjiu and usually one shouts 'Gambei', a terrible phrase that calls for the entire glass to be emptied... then refilled for the next toast. In short order, the plan for any Chinese banquet, is to drink a lot or get others to drink a lot. Our first banquet, with Fenyang Senior Middle School (high school by American standards) was jovial, sort of nice, and left most people in a mild state of drunkenness. The second banquet, hosted by the city government, was run by professionals who, somewhat maliciously, drank with a purpose: plaster these students.

Eating adventures aside, Fenyang was filled with curious people who made us into celebrities. Walking down the street attracted an enormous amount of attention with people shouting long 'Hello!'s or whispers of 'liaowai' or 'waiguoren', phrases used to indicate foreigners. For many people in town, we were the first non-Han person they had ever set their eyes on. The feeling of being the first foreigner anyone ever sees is a strange one. It was easy for me to catch the whispers and pointed fingers, but most remarkable to see were the facial expressions of someone consciously registering a different face, skin, eyes, hair. Where had I come from? Why was I here? Did I have American money? How did I get so tall? What's the world like from those eyes? Americans must be a great people to be so creative and have so much money. Are we all rich?

Some questions were easy to answer, others less so, but the differences were greater than cultural. The most difficult part of Fenyang to accept were its environmental aspects. Gray and black are the predominant colors of the city. Gray sky without sunrise or sunset, just a particulated diffusion that covered with world in grit and dust. Black dirt and black roads and black coal lining the street in great mounds. Seeing vendors sell fruit on the side of the road was confusing. Where was this fruit growing? Fenyang, at least, had no green. The grass had long ago died, as had all the insect and bird life. Fields were bumby and brown, plain dirt for the most part, but where was the vegetation invading the cracks in the concrete? Smothered, I should guess, long ago. As I say this, a few things should be kept in mind. Beijing is similar, gray of sky and horizon. That said, the air quality is hundreds of times better than a decade or two ago.

For my part, I became devastatingly ill. At first I thought little of it, headaches and body aches. Before too long this became a fever and confined me to bed in the hotel. At lunch on the third day, I passed out. Nearly the entirety of the next few days were spent in bed at the hotel which I grew to despise. Across the street was an open air dance arena that started playing music at 6:00 a.m. for the pre-work-ballroom-dancer-crowd. The music played all day, broken only at times by the pounding of construction somewhere else in the hotel. Those days were dark and dim, defined not by sleep and rest but simple misery. I am well now and back in Beijing, clean and vibrant by comparison. Home sweet home.