EUROPE, RUSSIA, AND CHINA 4 of 5
MONDAY, AUGUST 10. George wakes me at 5:45, bags out at 6:30, he plunges stuck toilet. Long breakfast wait for omelet, to bus at 7:45 to station waiting room at 8, onto train at 8:10 and move out at 8:30. VERY loud loudspeakers in station. "Same seats as to Datong," says Chris, and it's only when someone reminds me it was the RED carriage that I remember Paul and Bob and Werner, but not the salon NUMBER. We get into 4. From transit form last night I find Paul Litvai is 56 (1925). Cliff's legs in shorts are quite nice, but Rene, with her (HA!) his perfect caramel skin, has tiny WRINKLES on the lower thighs and over the knees. Could he have been FAT before? Write LOTS and catch up MANY days at end of Peking and TO Xian and IN Xian. Wrote these notes at 9AM: some HUGE tree trunks about six feet across lying outside plant just east of Xian. BEAUTIFUL terraced fields to north, land sloping away to infinite misty vistas to north. Cliff tells MARVELOUS incident of Medusa (Edith) being told by Bob to pose before an encircling group of watching Chinese. As she advanced toward the inner perimeter, Cliff said, a look of absolute PANIC came across their faces and they all SCATTERED. As train climbs, scenery looks DOWN on terraces to north as well as UP to the southern ones. The RIVER we've crossed around Xian is the WEI. Fields start AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after leaving towns. Bald Werner reads his German train-book by TEARING OUT individual leaves, reading, and throwing them away! GREAT cliff-faces at ends of hanging valleys and waterfalls from train. Lots of picture-material in mists. Also lots of SOOT on arm and cinders in eye from coal-fired steam engines. Passing whistle jolts us all ---- Pauli's heart attack medicine is in his suitcase. At 11 there's an alternation of sheer canyons and STUNNING views over terraced villages, alternating about every 15 seconds as we chug uphill slowly. Lunch announced for 12. Kids playing in FILTHY oily water between TRACKS near station. 11:35 through second tunnel, this one a LONG one (about three kilometers?) with LIGHTS! About SIX more long tunnels before and after noon. Bob asks, "Are they telling me not to read?" I replied, "I'm sure they're doing it against you personally." Continue to write past lovely scenery and lots of railroad workers and vistas over distant Yellow River. Lots of caves drilled into sandstone walls. Have to piss and wash. Call to lunch at 12:25. Rushed eating of mediocre food, good beef and soup and bad beer with the Blums and Tien till 1. Dwellers begin to smooth, arch, embellish, and portico-roof their cave homes. Lovely shapes to cliffs, as fields carved from hills LEAVE dolmens and towers for DECOR. At 1:20, 3:50 arrival in Loyang announced by Chris. Cloudy and cool, but not raining --- yet. Tunnels AFTER lunch and BEFORE lunch, but none DURING lunch. Talk with Tien and Litvais and Cliff about US and China and age and youth. CATTLE cars are old GERMAN make; today's is RUSSIAN. It levels out as I begin to nod about 3. Country flattens out; at 3:30 we begin to pack. With more cows, naked children, mud huts, and mud, the countryside begins to resemble India. Skim Paul's "The Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler while he's out. He says he has only four points that he repeats and repeats. Can't find the points, but the book looks VERY conservative compared with Clarke's "Profiles of the Future" and most sci-fi and ANY mysticism, so I see no use reading it. Warmer with shirt on, had it off all day. Into station 3:48. Rail word: XEIDAIBAOZHAXIRANWEIXIANWUPINSHANGCHEDENGYU SHARENFANGHUO. Bus leaves at 4 to temple! 11th Century BC was capital for 9 dynasties. All cities "liberated" in 1948-50. 900,000 people. 79 km2. Russian memorial taken down. Long lane of over-arching trees to White Horse Temple. Disgust that Red Guards "greatly damaged" it, and it's only reopened last year. Temple 4:35-5:25. Things very dusty; few impressive pieces; 23 monks. Dragon for Emperor; Phoenix for Empress. Kwan-yin WAS male, made female by Buddha because women have soft hearts. GOOD guide and explanations of everything. Pagoda is SMALL, three steles inside, plus broken-down temple pavilion. Not really up to its status. We passed the Huang and Lu mountains. Out at 5:32. Guide passes out a bag of chocolates. Then CANDIES in paper with inner edible rice-paper! JUST wish I knew how to BUY some and MORE are passed out. I save two. Horns for cyclists, crescendos for busses passing each other! Residents don't see us "staring down at them from superior positions on bus." Just laughing and waving and "Here we all ARE!" Lovely: ONLY train crossing by BUS and we have to stop BOTH ways as gates JUST lower. To Canton Restaurant by 6:15. Schedule: breakfast at 7:30, leave 8:30 for caves; luggage out before noon lunch. Toni puts her bag down and spreads out her stuff and leaves. I assume seat next to her is vacant. It was meant for Pauli. She returns to find me in the seat and complains to the table. No on suggests I move. She walks out, but quickly thinks better and demands a separate table. Everyone agrees that at last she will have enough food and won't have to reach for it. Table rapidly gets happy. She asks for her glasses. Gone. She OBVIOUSLY thinks we took them. SHE finds them on the sofa and comes back HIDING them. I boil. "Have you found your glasses?" I shout! "Yes," she says meekly. I say situation to table: Midge leans across and says, "And we didn't even say 'Down, boy.'" I beam! Lovely lively dinner with eggs and chicken and beef and pork and fish and soup (noodle) and wintermelon and nuts and others. Beer and yellow melon. Leave 7:30 and to Friendship Hotel. In to SUITE 107 and George takes living room and I go for walk in park. Sunset over but still park is busy. Bicyclist IMMEDIATELY welcomes me to city and begins talking. Joined by two boys (25!) walking hand in hand --- students. Two more join: talk of youth, divorce, politics, salaries, backgrounds, books, bookstores, schooling, indexing. Later and later and MORE listeners, talking of Mark Twain and O.Henry and John Steinbeck and Alex Haley's "Roots" and "best-sellers" and 1000-character typesetting boards and Pinyin, a NEW language. Finally at 9:30 I poop out and return to hotel to shower and take pills and tea and get to bed at 10:40, TIRED!
TUESDAY, AUGUST 11. Wake at night to piss, then at 5:30 and get up at 6:30, George already in other room. Out at 6:50 and watch Tai Chi around park --- more watchers than doers, less variety than at Xian. Wander side road that has no turning, so at 7:10 I retrace steps. Breakfast of good omelet and bad sausage to 8:10, finding that Edith went to two apartments with 8 people in two rooms, dirty and hot and crowded. Brush teeth and get to bus at 8:30, still a circle of watchers. Guide says that THIRD famous grotto is Dween Hwong Grotto in Kansu, near provincial capital of Lan-Jo. From Edith's talk: students CANNOT marry, SECOND child MUST be aborted and parents sterilized, PREMARITAL child a PERMANENT shame to family, since sex absolutely forbidden before marriage. People stare at different FACES, HAIR, and CLOTHES, since they in China are so ALIKE. Longman started 494AD, FIRST. GREAT balance by one-legged propellers of double-tiered balanced carts, at BICYCLE speeds. Yung-gang (Datong) is sandstone, Longmen (Loyang) is limestone, SOFTER and more eroded, carved over 100 years. Longman 9:10 to 11AM, bus 854. Much ROUGHER, not stucco-covered, not in round, not in detail, though some COLOR still remains. CROWDS of people in main caves. LOVELY sun-reflecting ripples off wet shaded water-Buddha in small pathway cave. All very IRREGULAR and cave-FOLLOWING, rather than systematic cave-HOLLOWING of Yunggang. Tramp up ONE stairs expecting a CAVE and find only a mass of people taking pictures against temple background. Buy two books for 15.45 (no WONDER my suitcase snaps opens), the one a MODEL by showing EVERYTHING, which it should, since reported MONTHLY salaries run from 40Y to 80Y/month, and I paid ABOUT a week's SALARY for it, though for ME it's about 20 MINUTES. To bus at 10:55, leave at 11, back to hotel at 11:30, lunch 12:30. So I leave hotel at 11:35 bound for People's Park, hot in sun, nice pavilion, scroungy zoo with a somnolent lesser panda and monkeys who couldn't compete with ME as objects of stares, and nice footpaths over the river. Dash back by 12:40, piss in room and wash, eat with Litvais joined by Paul (37.2ΕC), Bob (38.9ΕC) and Werner, who'd gone to hotel doctor for 4.60 (Bob) to 8 (Paul) for an ass shot SQUEEZED for about three seconds, and three kinds of pills. Chris says it's NOT possible to fly from Shanghai to Canton, so today is SECOND last trip: 2:57PM to 5 something AM. Back to room at 1:40 and shower and take penultimate dose of 12 cough pills with jasmine tea (took penultimate Hold capsule this AM in walk through park) and wake George and leave room at 2:20. Leave at 2:25 --- which happens to be this page number --- to station at 2:35. Very warm and sunny. Into air-conditioned waiting room at 2:40. Same partners as last time (sick Paul and Bob!). Onto HOT platform at 2:54. I'm on BACK at 3:02, others on FRONT at 3:06, off at 3:07! Pass Pagoda, LOVELY troglodyte dwellings and tunnels everywhere. Werner and I wrest screen from window and enjoy breeze. Bob sleeps and Paul sweats. Beautiful green corn and cotton and trees and empty riverbeds. Flat past Changchow at 5:45. Kid with huge leaf sunhat carrying a crying kid in his arms. Some land FLOODED, roads vanishing under water, as well as crops drowned. Tien announces that we must walk OUTSIDE the train at Kaifeng stop at 7. We stop at 6:49. Leap out of car, Mrs. Blum sans wig, hair up in a Kewpee Doll teepee, flowered muumuu at least NOT stuck up her ass in back, all loping along the platform! To say people ogle is to understate. Dinner is GREAT, interestingly, a crowding at the tables for 3. Lots of beer and cheer, back THROUGH the Chinese cars at 8:45, and EVERYONE stares, smiles, nods or grimaces at us. They should charge extra for us. Use the soap in the bathroom to freshen. Bob REALLY has an ugly cough, and Werner insists on the TOP bunk for quiet, so I get the breezeway. Paul brushes his teeth and I catch up by 8:30, Chris saying that Tien will probably call us at 4:30. I suggest he tell her she use SOMETHING other than "I'm sorry but" to introduce her wakeup call. Paul wants me to share his Bartlett Pears, the top of which CLICKS. Eat that and go to bed at 8:40. Up at 11:20 and have a crouch-shit that ends in diarrhea. Back to bed and cover up with blanket.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12. Wake at 4 and have a wet shit again, but not very copious. Tien wakes us at 4:55, but as we sit in Chunguang Station we hear we may arrive in Nanking at 7AM. At 6:30 everyone's waiting for the Yangtze. Cross at 6:55, bridge and SIZE not good for picture. Into station at 7 and out at 7:03 into a temperature so near 72ΕF as makes no difference. Meet guide and into bus at 7:08, stomach working up to another shit. Got to get pills. My 2PM shower seems VERY long ago. People seem lighter-skinned, not so impressed by tourists. Guide is Wong (spelled Wang). Ding Shan Hotel. Nanking is "medium large" at 3.3 million, 4500 KM2 including suburbs. Began 2400 years ago. Eight dynasties' capitals here. Plane-tree lined streets "characteristic," plus lakes and parks. Breakfast at 8PM. Non air-conditioned dining room but air- conditioned room with color TV and refrigerator. Applause. Room 262, building 8. Leave station at 7:15. To Hotel at 7:35, another WET shit, wetter when toilet DOUCHES. Unpack partway and laundry out and breakfast in Building 10; good. Copy schedule at 8:30: Wednesday: 10AM Xuan Wu lake, 2:45 Purple Mountain Observatory and Zhong Hun Gate. Thursday, Buddhist temple in AM, Yangtze River Lodge and Mucho Lake in PM. Evening performance. Friday Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum in AM, Nanking Museum in PM. NO pharmacy in hotel. Chris in 263. First no HOT water; then no COLD Water but HOT water, then at 9:35 BOTH. I shit again, beginning to fee a chill, and heat in bus at 10 is a comfort. LOTS of shorts on workers, now, and many shirtless. City is much CLEANER. Paddy last; leave at 10:03. Into zoo at 10:17, out at 10:42. Zoo MOSTLY well-kept. We don't get TOTAL attention, but SOME. Crafts closed. Yeah!! Feeling sicker and sicker. Second stop for "flowers" 10:48-11:22. Back to Hotel 11:40. Lunch 12:15. I copy information for the doctor on temperature. Shit at 23:15 on 11/8, 4:15 on 12/8, then at 4, at 9, at 10, at which point temperature starts up. No more Lomotil. If STILL high (38.3) after PM tour, I go to hospital. Lunch 12:10-12:30. To room to take three pills in body-heat water. Go to bed. At 1:15 my temperature is 39.5ΕC, at 2 40.2ΕC. Phone at 2:30 and Tien orders taxi to take me to the hospital: my temperature is 40.5ΕC (104.9ΕF). I had "fantasies" that the higher my temperature the closer I might get to "white light," so I covered and SWEATED. Fear the hospital will be awful so I just close my eyes and breathe deeply. Up three flights of stairs into a chair in a waiting room, then onto a VERY hard (bamboo flat on BOARDS) bed. I keep clothes on and sweat. They take blood samples from finger, causing pain, and other places, and I'm aware of a CONSTANT twinge on my left wrist and I see I'm getting intravenous FLUID. Just CAN'T get comfortable on bones on bamboo, particularly keeping hand in one position. I doze on and off, they give me sweet gruel to sip slowly; Chris comes, saying he had no IDEA where I'd gone, but he came to the biggest hospital by chance. Mr. Kwa, who had been an administrator for this hospital but is now "in patient with low-grade fever in for a complete physical examination." He jabbers and I TRY to be kind, but told Tien that I'm uncomfortable and would just like to be left ALONE. Every time I have shit I have to ring bell to get someone to carry my bottle and HOLD it outside the door while I hold my hand down and wipe with the other. When the tube goes pink with my blood they have to pinch the tube to force the fluid back into the vein. I get told that I'm dehydrated, but since any time I drink I shit, I shouldn't drink! Thanks to that I don't shit much that night. But I keep shifting positions to stop my BONES being sore.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13. Tien leaves about 1AM and is replaced by young Mr. Tsi, the local guide for Lynn's group, so he'll have to leave when the group arrives at 6AM. He helps me shit twice. Then Mr. Kwa back to help interpret before Miss Tien comes back about 10. I doze off and wake about 9:30 to find Chris AND Tien waiting for me. We chat, Chris mentions that Nanking is famous for being RELAXING and BEAUTIFUL and it is. They say I have to stay 3-5 days, so will PROBABLY meet group by flying to Shanghai. They even say there's A CHANCE I might be able to see some of Nanking. Famous for fried food, for breakfast I have boiled milk, boiled rice soup with lots of sugar, and PART of very salty tasty scrambled-fried eggs. At first they say I should eat lots, then not much. Kwa says I SHOULD drink water and not be THIRSTY. Then my new interpreter Mr. Jo comes in and says nurses give me GOOD food that they think I'd LIKE, but there seems to be no CROSSTALK between the staff and the kitchen. (I note Carriage 2, seat 29 for next trip). There are usually five or six people around, maybe two doctors and four nurses, though everyone is so young and so BEAUTIFUL that it's hard to tell the difference. When they wash me they don't use soap, saying "Not necessary" even when I ASK, which results in my sweat and oils being more or less smeared evenly over my body. This may be good for the tiny-pored smooth-skinned Chinese, but it's not good for large-pored me. I DO grab soap for washing my hands and face in one intravenous-free interval, but when I ask to wash my HAIR, Mr. Jo says there's no hot water in the morning (and no cold in the afternoon sometimes, since a lot of time the toilet isn't flushing at all). The nurses are uniformly smiling at first, but when I start needing more needles, one of the nurses seems to get stern and complain about me to another nurse --- is it my imagination that she seems to HURT more? They seem NOT to know what's wrong, but treat symptoms: CHILLS OK but not FIERCE SHIVERING from lowering fever. They finally wrap me in a blanket to sleep last night. First bottle does from 4 to 11, and I can't even sleep unimpeded, they plug in a second. Toward end, about 6, Tsi says, "You'll have 4, but best not to think about it." I insist on left arm because I need my right to wipe myself. About 3, when the third bottle is going VERY slowly into a left arm that's beginning to feel bloated, they decide to try an increase in the rate. It goes fine until I LOOK at the rate, picked up from about 15-20 drops/minute to about 100 drops/ minute and begin to THINK it won't work. Mr. Jo tells me later I must have moved hand, which must be kept PERFECTLY still or the VERY sharp LARGE needle will move OUT of the vein into the skin. I stared at the safety bulb, imagining such a bulb in my tissues, then a pain starts and builds quickly. I call Jo just as quickly and then start to squirm in pain, trying to stop my left thumb from trembling, and finally she stops the flow and withdraws the needle. I feel despair. The hairless Chinese weren't used to my hairy arm, so when the first two needles came off there were winces and tsks from me and the nurses, repeatedly. For the LARGE one, they'd SHAVED me first, letting me go to the john first, so it would come off quickly. Also, though today the ABDOMINAL pains got worse, acute 30-40 seconds every hour or two, usually just before and during a shit. When they search for another vein, Jo suggests my foot, saying "I'll take care of our wastes." Having had, first, my clothes removed because I was sweating in them the first day, and second, my shirt removed for damp mopping by the nurses, though legs only just above the knees, and having had Miss Tien bumble through the bathroom door when I was only half-wiped (Midge said she heard Tien say in a park, "Ah, so good to breathe fresh air after two days in the hospital. Everyone had diarrhea."), who cares WHAT he does with my stools. Lunch came copiously at 11:15, rather soon after finishing breakfast at 7:45, and after I manage to push MOST of it down --- DELICIOUS breaded fried pork, more eggs, chicken and lotus root, rice soup --- Jo says "Maybe it's better, Doctor says, not to eat too much." What can I do but shrug? Jo has to tend me twice, before and after dinner, and I can FEEL semi-solid stools brushing my buttocks as the small bedpan fills. At least with board mattress there's no danger of tipping unless I do it. I wipe as he insists on handing me more paper, and I grit teeth and accept it, then roll off to hopefully finish the job completely. Least pleasant part aside from needle-pain and needle-miss. But then NO MORE bowel movements till 9PM Friday! As they finish the FIFTH bottle in my foot in about 4 hours at about 60 drops/second, they take it away! Blessed freedom! I curl up and twist about and Jo says he'll turn the light off at 9:30. What a relief! All day, regardless of my feelings, he'd say "Excuse me, in generous [general], how you --- " and we'd talk of custody and custodian of my shit and excrement and piss and urine and job and income and expenses compared with China and how he couldn't follow Chris and me, thought me and Edith better (oh yes, Edith bustles in about 4, me lying on my face with my foot plugged in, having visited the hospital and gynecological ward and pronounced them "excellent" (Midge said she told HER it was appalling!). She asks about my care, says I'm lucky to have got sick HERE rather than earlier, and leaves quickly. Dr. Litvai bustles through with Mr. Kwa and again there's a riot of 6-7 people in the room. They seem to say NO salmonella but maybe enterocolitis. Chris says Bob IS flying back to LA, Ben is very bad with sinuses, and Joe is feeling poorly. Consensus seemed that I have to stay 3-5 days. I sit up in AM to eat just to rest my abraded backbones, but it DOES tire me. Everyone asks how I feel and the answer is a cheerful "much better, " only weak with pain in abdomen. Really looking FORWARD to a good night's sleep: night before awake on train with shits, last night with tubes.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14. Waked at 6 for temperature (normal AGAIN in AM, as yesterday, but it went UP to 38.9 in PM) and blood pressure. I unwrap to let sweat dry, breakfast is VERY full, after which AGAIN Jo says Doctor says maybe I can't digest, after being told yesterday PM that I could INCREASE intake for strength. Chris back, having lost Tien, happy my tubes are gone. I'd suggested going with group to Nanking Museum that PM to Jo. Impossible. Delicious lunch at the desk at 11:30, snail-like [shit-like] black pickled vegetables ("All that's missing are the flies" --- someone said it was SORGHUM), shrimp and okra-like greens in brown sauce, a meat patty with hardish beans, rice soup that they bring me sugar for, and four slices of bread, of which I have one. With pills. Feeling great. Jo suggests a walk around the hospital. Down three flights, around compound, back up, read in sitting room till nurse says "Return to rest." About 3 there's talk of possible leaving: today! Chris brings suitcase and I repack, getting into fresh shorts and shirt and we chat. Pills come for three days. Nurse suggests bill may be 200Y. Gulp, but what can I say? $110 for two FULL days not bad. I have only 50Y and they can't touch US money or checks. Later they talk of 89Y but though Chris and I ask "What for?" they never make it clear. Second batch of pills come, WITH Gentamicin injections for three days, as I'd gotten twice in hip today. Chris can't watch. Also I sign a release, after smiling Mrs. Mao-type ASSURES me it's not "dangerous" for me to leave. Miss Tien ends up with a paper saying "1) Much fluids; 2) light food, 3) pills and injections, 4) Abdominal infection. 5) RELAX." But I MUST pay by 6. Give Tien 10Y for taxi TO hospital. Taxi with bags (I carry them!) to hotel at 5:30 to find no exchange till 6:30. All panic. I relax. At 6, it's to room and GEORGE asks "How much IS the hospital bill?" "89, close to 90, with 15 to taxi for receipt: 105Y!" George loans me his total 100 (he didn't have 150 when I asked him for it before) and they'll mail me a receipt (Ann says Blue Cross WILL cover it). Shower with GREAT relief, cash two $50's, pay George back (gave Chris the 1.80 for laundry for George EARLIER) and get in to dinner after Midge and Polly come OVER to welcome me back. I sit at smokers' table at 7 and get an "honorary" pack of cigarettes as my entry. Mrs. Blum joined them for lunch, when Polly asked if she could sit next to her she heard Ann say "Joe's seat," (though Naomi whispers to me "She misunderstood, Ann said, "Joe's SICK.") and Polly exploded "I paid the same person as everyone else, I demand the same space --- I'm tired of smoking in alleys and bushes." Dinner poor, they say: I have good sesame shrimp, dried beef, and lots of bowls of soup. Leave 7:45 to room, George has TV on, watch for a bit and bed at 9PM. Hard to fall asleep, so I jerk off at 10 and sleep after George comes in at 11PM.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15. Wake at 2 and 4 to piss, feeling sweaty and chilly at the same time. Incredible dreams: first of a kind of psychedelic amusement-park pinball-machie color-ride of bright Chinese reds, greens, and blues, with some awareness of traveling through Oriental countries and completing a pattern of colors and shapes. I wake thinking of sex, then fall asleep to a sex-and-violence-laden fantasy: There's some sort of S&M funhouse in which people sit in little cars and watch people attack others or watch themselves being attacked. At the entrance, what seemed to be a tree turned around to be a huge Afro-headed Chinese muscleman of wood-hewn gigantic proportions. The mere THOUGHT of watching this epitome of masculinity shoot his orgasm might be enough to make me come. In that Super-Karate funhouse, engine hoods flew out as shields and spears, wheels came off as slicers, bodies hurtled through the air by the stuntmen, but they were careful not to SERIOUSLY injure the participants, though there was some sort of understanding that only the INDIVIDUAL was responsible for his won safety. Wild EXCITING dream, and I calculate that I'm just 2/3 through the trip now: 20 days to go. Wake again at 6 when George gets up to shower, and JUST as I start, the cold water goes off, so I have to find the finest scalding spray that can cool somewhat by its own dispersion and fall. My watch off, so no clinic at 6:45. Everyone again glad to see me well. Breakfast is coffee and toast and eggs, and Dr. Litvai says HE doesn't eat butter or eggs and I shrug and say I do. I said I ate EVERYTHING in India for six weeks and didn't get sick, while HE took EVERY care in Mexico and GOT sick. Nurse comes to clinic at DOT of 7:30 and as she opens door a FLOOD of 4-5 patients follow. She gives me shot for 50fen and hurts more than the others in the GIVING, though still no pain on initial entry. Down to bus at 7:40 and leave 7:50, guide last on bus, and through coolish city to station by 8:10, train in 8:20, I'm across from BLUMS, and before we're off at 8:30 she switches forward-going window for my back-going window because of SUN in her eyes (though she reads or complains or sleeps the whole trip). Nice hills in south and water-filled lakes to north, stopping in Chinkiang, and lots of villages. I drink tea and fend off Mrs. Blum's elbow when she droops to sleeping, having traded with Joe when she realizes she's riding BACKWARD. I rehearse various barbs to return if she dares say a WORD to me. Rene, unhappy fourth, reads amiably. I write my hospital stay in the comfortably AC cars in which Ann DID manage to get the radio shut off in. We pass, Tien says, black pods of SILKWORMS beneath a ferny tree --- mulberry? Edith talks INCESSANTLY. Ann moves to her OWN four seats. Pass canal FULL of boats, three deep its visible length! Pass FIELDS of cotton and rice. Into Wuxi 11:15 to 11:23. Mrs. Blum sits in the FOURTH of our four seats. Finish to date as we pull into Shanghai at 1:10. Told everyone that IF we didn't have anything scheduled tonight, I'd give a description of my hospital stay after dinner in my room. Lunch from 12-12:45 not bad: ham salad, mushroom-milk soup, sausage, spring chicken, cake, Chinese cherries. Werner Heikl (give him and Edith my card, her for her Christmas fruitcake --- see if she remembers!) says Nanking was pleasant, but I didn't miss much. Sen's mausoleum closed. Into smallish station 1:20. Off with guide 1:23, into AC bus 1:26. Large information packet. Guide Yang, for two DAYS? Off at 1:30 to Heng Shang Guest-House --- WAY out from city-center. Shanghai 11 million people, 6 million in city PROPER. Guide says almost NOTHING during trip through city. To hotel by 1:53. 3PM City tour. VERY western, busy city. In Nanking at bus-front you watch bicyclists and trees --- here, storefronts, animated 3-D neon displays and stores. Tour said to be city, harbor, Friendship Store, Arts and Crafts shop. That better be LAST SHOPPING! BIG OLD room. Mr. Fu built it in 1936 for FAMILY (obviously phony story!). Pay 5Y for all five shots. Trees in shapes of CUPS in Nanking and Shanghai were SYCAMORE. Better-sounding than plane. Only four consulates: US, France, Japan, and POLAND. WORST and most RISKY traffic! Arts and Crafts 3:25 to 4:04. First floor for NATIVE crafts starts with 4" boxwood scenes for 4.80Y and foot-round ones for 17Y and all prices and sizes between. Bird feathers, too. Second floor cloissoné more expensive than Xian. Third floor has large stuff EXCEPT for glass-enclosed boxwood: but if it's so cheap here could it be more than TWICE as expensive in NYC without the problem of LUGGING it without BREAKING it? Talk to Yang and she agrees to let me have microphone for "lecture announcement" and that I can get taxi to museum and return taxi for nearby Peace Hotel, taxi to Zoo and public bus back. Fine. Bund from 4:12 to 4:40: fascinating crowd of gapers and sellers and fellows pounding nails into their nose and pulling them out in a VERY short span fronting a VERY busy harbor --- sadly at water LEVEL (so no good shots of it). Cliff said there was a viewing platform BEYOND the tour-boat station (my stopping point) three flights up for a good view of the whole thing. I'm starting to feel a BIT tired. Few people stop to say "Hello," some even touch arm, but I'm looking and not talking. Some old sellers of paltry brass items have the same honest hopelessness of the old woman selling corn in New Delhi. JAM of people around the magicians, but a MONEY game had to fold up; someone probably called the cops. Chris said it was a start: in a few years it would probably be as open and rugged as it ONCE was. To the park from 4:45 to 5:15 while the others shop the Friendship Store --- the BOARD game is Xianggi --- Shangi? FIND Cliff's platform, not THAT high. Others look over my shoulder as I scribble. Lots of kids going for "cutsy" shots for doting parents. She gives schedule: Dinner at 6:30, my talk at 7:30, tomorrow breakfast at 7:30, 8:30 to Yu Gardens and Jade Temple. Lunch out (vaccine in evening), afternoon on river cruise, hotel for dinner, then acrobats in evening. Back to hotel at 5:45, only Polly and Midge want to hear talk, so room's OK, not lecture hall. Buy map for 60, no bus lines. How QUICKLY I get the idea this is NOT a city I'd like to RETURN to! No notebooks around, anywhere. Dinner at 6:30 with Paul's red wine, and brush teeth before Polly and Midge arrive at 7:25 (and Ann at 7:45). Talk till 8, then re-do luggage, get new earplugs, replace batteries and pills, and reorganize. Bed at 10:15, not to sleep till 11:30.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 16. Wake at 3:15 to piss and shit, then at 6. Shower and to breakfast LATE at 7:30 and get shot at 8:05 and onto bus at 8:30. Arrive at Jade Buddha temple at 8:50 and leave 9:30. Reclining Buddha VERY much smaller and poorer than Sitting Buddha. Memorial ceremony going on with hand instruments. Lots of other items in small spaces, mostly new, but pleasant. Yu Gardens 9:50 to 11:30, but we walk such a zigzag path to the gate of the garden ITSELF I despair EVER finding the bus with tag 62. The teahouse is wrapped in scaffolding for remodeling, and being Sunday the park is packed (though I think here, too, they give everyone a different day off, so EVERY day is Sunday for some people). We push through the first two buildings and I take off to the top of the Rockery and take a picture for me and one for Edith, then suggest she climb the tree behind me to snap me against the background in exchange for HER shot. I leave group and wander through several winding ways --- the overall impression is of LOCAL SMALLNESSES strung out along tortuous ways, interrupted by complicated main pavilions. I mark some of the major characteristics on the map in the Shanghai book, which I'm glad to have, if only to see the irony of WARFARE displays in "Treasury Corner" and the Hall of Mildness filled with REVOLUTIONARY objects. Think I've seen it all and then start following the map and find I'd missed the whole Summer Garden, much of which is closed off. Walk around MORE, shop for neat notebook for 45f, and back to bus to catch up by 11:15, Cliff last to arrive and off at 11:28. Drive along Bund and I fantasize we'll eat at the 8th floor Peace Hotel Restaurant, but it's the Seaman's Club for EXCELLENT cucumber-tomato salad, soup, river shrimp and tiny FRESH peas, sweet and sour pork, beef with peppers, squid, and rennet custard for dessert. The "International Seaman's Club of Shanghai" glasses are irresistible and as I hold mine up and point to it, I hear Paddy ask "May I BUY one of these?" Waiter smiles and presents us with two clean ones JUST as the chef comes in. I put them in my bag, separated by cigarette pack. Fortune! Out to hot garden, rocks, and roses, and back to look at CORK carvings upstairs. Catch up by 1:10, Tien not feeling well: dizzy and tired. To boat by 1:20, front row center of top deck. Almost nice kitch music, table of "Golden Fish toffee and nuts and tea"; Edith takes my picture; Lynn's group to the side, ready for a perfectly lovely day. Which turns out be hot and uncomfortable and essentially a lot of ships, ships, and a little ship goes a long long way! The Yangtze was BIG, the nearest large island to the north looking like Long Island from Port Jefferson --- which would make Long Island Sound SOME RIVER! West it stretched brown to infinity, glistening like golden brown moiré with sediment through my sunglasses. There at 3 and back by 4:40, impressed by four huge spouts filling the enormous grain- tanker Chang Hai and the solidly loaded Chung Waterever I took a picture of. Some nice bodies on boat --- HE knew it and I knew it so why did he seem to MIND --- and on boats ---- they knew it too. To AC bus with relief, get shot, and to room to binox in bag for performance tonight. Shanghai: What a trio of lovely-sounding duds (?): Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore! What a load of uninteresting big cities: Tokyo, Shanghai, Osaka, Nanking, LA. Since no one says Canton is the center of China, I guess Peking and Moscow are the only real discoveries on the trip, though the other museums or the island in Berlin would be nice to see, as well as Cracow and other towns in Poland in my "small-scale phase" of travel. Starting to be conscious of the number of days left on trip. Just LET IT BE! ((Start of book 4, page 259)) Start newest book (4) at 5:45. Dinner at 6, leave 6:45, show at 7:15. Monday schedule: lunch at 12, depart at 2 for Arts and Crafts Center and Museum, dinner at 6 out. Tuesday breakfast at 7:30, leave at 8:30, 9:20 train. Good soup of chicken AND fish, bony fish, sweet and sour gristle, cabbage and mushrooms, beef and peppers COLD, and other stuff. To bus to large theater, halfway back and way on side of BALCONY! Much like Datong except NO comedians PLUS no "slant-cylinder" juggle, though they had tight-wire artists doing handless forward and backward somersaults. Birdcalls, "man and girl in moon," strongman lifting 90 kilos and 12 people on board on chest. Rather a bore. Out at 9:20 and to hotel at 9:50 and jerk off on bathroom floor and to bed at 10:55, tired enough to fall asleep.
MONDAY, AUGUST 17. Wake at 6, up at 7, finish collecting 81Y for Tien and give to Werner. Call for cab for Zoo from the desk at 8:30, leave at 8:45, drive 20-25 kph and get there at 9:05. 10f to enter, watch for taxi 1035. Lovely spacious COMPLETE layout, with FISH the first and outstanding surprise. (Remembered in HOSPITAL they kept asking if I was ALLERGIC to anything or had I been told I had a large LIVER.) Poor peacocks were tail-feather-less, the ducks gregarious and the solitary penguin TERRIBLY lonely! Flamingos refused their shrimp as the panther refused its live DOG. Lovely polar bear cadged food by opening mouth and waving paws upward. The tiny brown panda was cute, but the big one too hot and stupid to take advantage of the ICECAKE. Siberian tiger slithered. No camels I could see, only two seals, lots of extra horses, and three young giraffe nibbling a high tree tea. Lost of deer and kine, two baby kangaroos, the gamut of elephants: big, medium, and little in a concrete paddock. Too late for monkeys hoping to get to cab at 11:05, but he charged me two hours and ten minutes waiting time anyway for a total of 17Y at hotel at 11:25, others back already. To room to cool off and get told George bought a lapis horse and Edith a carpet for her Florida fireplace. I write this till 12. To lunch at 12:05, having to sit at Blums' table, but she's very quiet. Maybe she KNOWS? Sizzling rice with bony fish an uncomfortable combo. Sweet and sour gristle has turned into sweet and sour BONE. Beef again, good chicken soup, more cabbage, and textured pears for dessert. Up at 1 to replace earplugs, sort souvenirs, drink tea, wash face, read China Daily and do puzzle. George leaps awake at 1:47 and I go down for final shot. Bus off at 2:09. Some Chinese DO have bad skin. Rene mentions his DAUGHTER! Museum FABULOUS from 2:27 to 3:30: Sung Dynasty ceramics and paintings are PERFECTION! Bronzes and paintings not so interesting. To Arts and Crafts Research Institute 3:45 to 4:41, watching silk embroidery, jade carving, boxwood carving, stone carving, panel making, dough-figure making, paper-lantern making, and wool portraits being sewn, artificial flowers cut, paper-cutting, lacquer work --- not bamboo nor cork carvings. Most have glass-topped workspaces with foreign stamps and postcards underneath. To shop and easily pass everything by. To bus past Chris photographing a flower while a starving kitten tries desperately to attract his attention. Shanghai International Industrial Exhibit closed Mondays. Children's Palaces closed for summer. Shanghai Arts and Crafts Trade Fair fortunately open 4:50 to 5:20. But it's GRAND: selections of EVERY object in EVERY price range (.05 to 500,000Y) in EVERY quality. Bernice and I BOTH buy pairs of Tang horses for 9Y, probably cheaper than in Loyang! To Park Hotel at 5:30 and I walk toward Creek, finding myself NOT smiling. With EVERYONE hot and shirtless on street, it's hard to avoid concluding that this is THE most densely populated city in the world. And these people lead THEIR WHOLE LIVE this way! But I FORCE a smile and get vague smiles back, but nothing like the phalanx of mothers and children massing outside the bus as we leave. Up to third floor restaurant at 6 for shrimp salad, cream of mushroom soup, and soy-marinated chicken --- back to America! Ice cream makes strong coffee palatable. Lots of beer and then the 1.80 vodka is passed around and suddenly I'm very happy. Tien talks about how much she'd like to see Hong Kong. Edith says she's going shopping so I give her 50Y for 33Y Double Happiness and 1.80 vodka to give to Paul to bring to party. Lobby is high-heaven: Indian quartet exudes sexual availability in all possible permutations. A local hump strolls around in carefully controlled saunter, making other men not QUITE so obvious as the swishing threesome that attracted the disapproving stares of our group in the restaurant. Then we leave at 7:30 and back to hotel to pack, horses fitting smoothly and neatly into my nearly-full luggage. To Midge and Polly's at 8:30 for "porter's party" with two bottles of Remy Martin, which I drink (not all of it) with ice water. Edith shocks on entry, saying she hadn't got my pin yet. She leaves quickly. Paul and Cliff enter later, getting half the party present: Midge, Polly, Olga, Chris, Paul, Cliff, George, Werner, Rene, me, and Paddy. Other half are five couples and bald Werner. Warm nice party, I leave about 11 tired and happy. Into bed packed and ready for final journey.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18. Wake at 3:30 to piss and 5:30. Both up to shower at 6:10, final packing, and I start first version of TRAIN-TIME. Breakfast of four fried eggs 7:30-8 and claim my bottle of vodka from room 207F. Brush teeth and downstairs at 8:15, bus leaves 8:35, to station at 9, on train 9:10, non-airconditioned cars of older vintage with bamboo matting, sharing with Cliff and the Litvais. Toni says there'll be lice. We deshirt. Shanghai stretches MUCH more to south than it does to west along rail lines. Then to countryside by 10. Long ride ahead. Stop in Hangchou 11-11:15, GREAT lunch 1-1:30 with applause for chef: GREAT wok-fried green beans and button mushrooms, sweet and sour pork, pork and lotus root in white sauce with tree fungus, egg-drop soup, diced chicken and other dish, and beer. Buy two beers for 2.40. Drink tea. Drink beer. Midge passes out with heat prostration. Up to 100ΕF in cabins. Tien gets ice. Stop 4-4:15 in IWU. Rice paddies, lots of rivers and canals, misty mountains, and lots of workmen with submerged water buffalo. Hot as hell but sitting at windows keeps one cool. And good food is a real PLUS. Talked to Mark Day on China: he says there's no hope. I give him card if he ever gets to NYC. Gay? Werner collects $20 from me. DID I pay him before or only WANTED to??? RED, RED earth! Slight heartburn, but NOT as bad as yesterday on bus. VERY sooty and (?) only very slowly. Yushan about 7. What must be Shanjjua from 7:20-7:35, getting HUNGRY, putting stuff away for dinner and BED. By 7:45 it's quite dark and I just want the day to be OVER. Eat ANOTHER good meal 8-8:30 --- sweet and sour FISH goes by me as PORK until Cliff shows BONES. Noted JOSS-LIKE WHIFFS of smoke or steam rising thinly vertically from cultivated fields. Big Werner and Pauli don't eat, so Cliff and I have most of chicken soup, celery-broccoli and tree fungus, beef and wood mushrooms, pork and butter mushrooms, and one more. Bed with silk pillows, dirty and tired.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19. Wake at 5:30, clear and dim out, but at 6:30 there's thick fog. Up before 7 for rails along HSIANG River, huge and not very busy in early morning. Wash arms past armpits and face and ears and neck, trying to clear bumps of soreness around eyeglass frames. Scream at Mrs. Blum for throwing her tea right out next window into my face. Edith waits five minutes outside empty washroom she didn't try hard enough to open. Everyone asks about breakfast. 8:30PM temperature "went down 10Ε to 92Ε", down to 85Ε for AM low. Low red-purple earth, green terraced fields, yellow-orange brick buildings with orange tile or tan thatched roofs, fields dotted with colorful people, sometimes with bright red umbrellas in greenery! Catch up at 8:15AM. Edith complains that none of the homes are architecturally interesting or beautiful, merely practical. Sorry for her --- and for her need to fill the air with talk. Square bales of hay often piled into huge, pitch-roofed HOUSE shapes, complete with MISSING bales to indicate WINDOWS. Stop in Hengshan 7:45-8AM --- Tien telling everyone (her job at last?) we're in Hunan Province. Up to 90Ε at 9AM, 93Ε at 9:40, 96Ε at 10:40. Breakfast of eggs, sweet hot milk, toast, and VERY strong coffee 8:15-8:45. 98Ε at 1:30. 99.5Ε was highest recorded by me. Lovely Peh Kiang river before Pangkhou. Some BEAUTIFUL workers outside Yinghi --- hope I GOT them! It's MISERABLE walking along tracks --- not only do passengers throw out tea and junk but CONDUCTOR threw out broken CUPS and GLASSES in a shower of shards for them to WALK on. Again, though noticed LATE, the Chinese plants rows of obstructing trees along the railroads TOO, and there are ALWAYS wires and ditches and stations that aren't found along ROADS. (Note that she pronounces her name: "Tyen Hway".) Also, some kids (and young adults?) tried throwing ROCKS and SOIL at the train! Shape of things to come? Of course, when we DO stop along a scenic river, the tourists are parked RIGHT behind a two-car-long obstructing ROCK. Men should be GLAD to wear pants if only to AVOID having creases stuck up their asses from dresses like Ann and Edith and Midge have all the time on trains! Sublime, almost Kweilin-like beauty of SCENERY plus CAKED AND ITCHY DIRT all over body. At 5:30 the attendant starts throwing off all the bedding. Ann wets Cliff two windows away and HE screams at her. She simply doesn't UNDERSTAND. Leave Yuantan at 6. Strange slimmer gray eucalyptus trees that don't peel. Glorious clouds at sunset, as near to 7 as no matter. Train pulls into Canton 7:03 and off at 7:05. Am I getting horny or are the Chinese bodies (including one GLORIOUS view of pale curved buttocks of a naked man bathing with a group of males on some steps) IMPROVING as we go south? FLOOR-level station platform for the first time in AGES. Start off platform at 7:10 and there's a RUSH of people down the corridor that turns to a FLOOD of people at a gate, trying to push through, and there's really a CRUSH as they're held at a doorway and then push through again. Hwang, the guide, says they're rushing for the best seats in the unreserved-seat train. Bus leaves 7:25, through QUITE DARK streets. Told we're at 32-floor Bai Yun Hotel; tomorrow breakfast on second floor, leave for People's Commune at 8:30, lunch there, afternoon tour of city. To large hotel at 7:35, modernity at last. Music and tea party on 30th floor at 8:30-11:30 PM. Into room 7:40, out of shower 7:55, get a call that dinner is at 8:10. No bags. Redress in awful clothes and to second floor restaurant for good fish and various dishes with the Millers and Olga and George. Lots of food left over, lots of beer drunk. Upstairs at 9 and get luggage and put laundry out and chat and have some vodka with ice and get to sleep at 10PM.
THURDAY, AUGUST 20. Wake at 5 to shit and then up at 6:45 to pull hair from ears and trim beard. Down at 7:30 for hard-boiled egg breakfast and Polly asks us to remember which hotel it was that the bathroom was so scanty that Cliff hollered to his roommate to phone the desk and tell them that someone stole the bathroom. Up at 8 to brush teeth and take pills. Down to bus at 8:30; it leaves at 8:38, only 17 of us. To Chu Liao People's Commune. 27 provinces in China, Kwantum southernmost. 50 million in province. About 300 People's communes in area, 1600 in province. Han people. Sun Yat Sen's 1911 revolution came BEFORE 1919 Revolution that overthrew Ching Dynasty. Shirtless men here have VERY CLEAR abdominal definition! Founding of New China in 1949, when land taken FROM landlords. Most communes set up in 1958. Cultural Revolution 1966-1976. "From each according to his skill, to each according to his WORK. More work, more pay." City members CAN join commune. Build and RUN own houses. Arrive in upstairs cool room at 9:38, but for THEM a host and tea seems OK. 54,000 population in 12,000 households, 22 production brigades and 237 production teams; 80,000 hectares of area (2.2 acres to hectare) and 3,500 hectares of farmland. Rice and peanuts. 13,000 students in schools. In this commune, 200 people TOOK test for university, only 3 got in. College GRADUATES get job from state according to needs of state. About 400 "retired" people: men at 60, women at 55. CHILDREN supply parents; if no children, COMMUNE pays. 5% of annual production goes to state. Medical and teachers paid by STATE. Prodigies ARE found and sent to special state schools in city. Average age of death is 63. Good questions and answers. Income based on TEAM work. Still murder, rape, and robbery. Henin goes overboard by 12:30 with questions. Out at 10:25. Sixty-bed clinic, nothing real bad, 10:30-10:55. Wards, x-ray, operating, lab (identifies "Chinese chess" as "Changsi," Xianggi), acupuncture (where the cock on the chart is CUT), and pharmacy. Bus to farmhouse, staying 11-11:30. Large, clean, electric-fanned crowded rooms; pigs, ducks, chickens abounding. Smiling people on display. We SAW the guy donning his shirt as we neared. Stop for lunch 11:35. Eat 12-12:45, GREAT meal of meat dumplings on soy, sweet potato fritters, beef and noodles, watercress greenery, peanuts, fish dumplings, and sliced duck and a few OTHER dishes, with orange drink and ending with longyu, dragon's eyes, some of which I take on a branch "for George," small bit-nutted version of lychee. Back onto hot bus, AC running, as heat builds up at 12:50. Drop Ben at hotel at 1:37. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial seats 4000, in at 1:45. I climb 500 steps to monument at top of hill, getting back at 2:05. Hot and tired. Canton five million. "What's that pagoda?" "A pagoda." Thanks. Embassy Islands is PRECISELY the Chinese among the Western mansions like the Italian peasant among the ruins of Ancient Rome. Schedule: 5:30 AM call, 6AM baggage out, 6:15 breakfast. Cameras and binoculars and forms in handbag. Leave at 7:15. Contretemps when the bus stops where IT can, not very good for PEOPLE, however, at a grassy nothing park near a Pearl River Bridge. People get out to take photos while Cliff and I argue with guides. He finally comes up with a map for each of us and says it's easy to find taxis back to the hotel. Cliff gets out RIGHT there (in a snit that he later apologizes to me for), while Werner and I are driven to a busy street and let out at a hotel entrance (legal stop) and told the island is "that-a-way." VERY hot and crowded on street, which has to be used since many sidewalks are completely obstructed by parked bicycles. Find the island, walk along the quay looking at small boats filled with produce (from the country?) being hawked independently, mostly green bananas. Take a few pictures, get stared at, and cross the island and through to the other side where, our guide says, they're building the Wild Goose Hotel TALLER than our 32-story Bai Yun (White Cloud Hotel). Great combinations of lovely old mansions and utter squalor --- but at least without many cars it's QUIET. Wander through and onto other bank and decide to walk up Wangshaw to Liwan Garden. They're digging up the street so there's lots of dust to add to the awful black smoke some trucks pour out. Sweepers wear nose-masks but not ALL of them. Almost passing out with heat and sweat and noise and dust and fatigue, so I cross to the shade (dug up before) and stop for two somewhat cool orange drinks for 50f. Lost of people gather to watch, some testing their English vocabulary: "Yes, no, hello, bye bye." Walk refreshed to constructing wall and through FETID waters of once-beautiful park. STRONG smell of diarrheal shit in places. Kids swimming and shouting at me, couples strolling and cuddling under bushes, beautiful flowers, floating restaurants, some good views and photos. Out to bus stand, but where do they go? No cabs. Decide to walk to Zongshan, but get turned around and find myself walking north. Turn west at 4:30 quitting time, streets THRONGED with people and bicycles and trucks, with some LOVELY bodies --- maybe they're better fed in the south and so can build muscular BULK that's so appealing. Lots of shops and narrow alleys, but some of the streets seem to go on FOREVER without a crossroads. Getting tired and a bit fearful: will I have to walk ALL the way to the hotel? WHERE are taxis? Will I pass a hotel and FIND a taxi? Will I collapse or make myself sick? Walk and walk, distracting myself with photos and views and bodies, and see a distant busy street. Taxis moving past on other side (full, it's true). Cross, see one at a corner. Is he waiting for someone? Up and wave. He motions me in: he's only recording his last fare. AC and LOVELY to relax. I rehearse speeches to get him to accept "regular" money and he does take the 3Y without a word. To Friendshop Shop and get turned off, try to buy a cold Coke outside but they only take exchange certificates. I argue, almost to pass time, and French guide from Paris Wagon Lits takes up my case, to no avail. Back to hotel at 6, see Olga in the hall who says we meet for dinner at 7, take lovely shower and sit transcribing my poetry at 6:30 when it starts POURING rain outside. Transcribe only HALF by 7, dress in tie to prove I hate it, and downstairs to entreat vodka bottle to Werner and continue writing until bus leaves at 7:15. Long way through DARK town (bicycles have NO lights) to garish restaurant at 7:45, in to semi-private room to two CROWDED tables (Midge asks, "Are you comfortable, Toni?" sarcastically when she spreads the Litvais out in THREE spaces for TWO people. I fortify myself with vodka in orange, sharing with Paddy and Chris and Werner, and finish just before meal's over, Midge generously serving me and jokingly trying to read my writing. Cliff reads Ann's awful "haiku" on each and I state, "I must counter that honey with some vinegar." Making sure I enunciate clearly (the others say I do), I get through with no major hitch and everyone SEEMS to laugh a lot during it and MANY compliment me personally afterwards. Present gifts to Tien, and Edith burbles that I said it PERfectly. Ann sits next to me on bus and blabs about her continuation to Bangkok, Indonesia, and Bali. So SHE'S not offended. To hotel at 9:30 and Bernice invites George (and me) to a party. Go an drink brandy and chat and laugh and bid farewell at 10:45. Bed to sleep instantly.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21. Wake at 4:30, again at 5:30. Have a good shit, wash face and teeth and down to 6:15 breakfast after putting out suitcase at 6. Long wait for hard-boiled egg. Onto bus at 7:35 and Chris announces I have 337.70 HK$ in my Lee Garden account to be used for anything: food, booze, laundry, etc. About $70, perfect for Chris, who accepts it "for debts real and personal," with thanks. I get Tien to translate the hospital bill, bald Werner borrows my book for HIS poem, I give rest to Midge to copy ALL. To station at 7:30, passports taken in visa order quickly, money changed: 39170Y to 129.10HK. To hot waiting room till 8:05, tearing out poem for Midge, catching up. Onto GREAT cool swivel-seat train at 8:10, write more. Leave at 8:32 to televised Chinese and English announcements. Group VERY comfortable at last. Last few hours with tour. Up to date at 8:50, farmland outside windows. Pleasant trip, chat with Chris about British authors and glance at his "Book of Lists." Enter Western World again at 10:45AM. Move very slowly after 11. New Territories VERY built up, lots of bays and towers and islands along the train route. Then at 11:25 we're into a terminal for four minutes and again there's lovely shirtless male bronze bodies. Into station 11:35. Out into a MOB scene at Passport Control at 11:45, having gotten Cliff and Paddy's addresses on the train. Very humid, tours speaking French and German. Very little Chinese. Out of line at last at 12:05, say goodbye to everyone and get George's address, into cab to airport at 12:15. To counter: no record of flight (Oh, forgot to pick up suitcase in train station --- guide had to remind me. SWITCH GEARS!). To information desk: since they hadn't heard from me since June 26, they cancelled my flight reservation! BUT there's room. See sign that film WILL be affected by x-rays. Unpack five rolls from suitcases and rest of 18 THANKFULLY on top of Four Winds bag. Grab a cart from skylarking boys and then to PISS at 1PM. No meal on 1:55 flight. Check BACK with Cathay Pacific: Yes, I should check with Pan Am to see if I've been taken off THEIR computer (only 48 hours before THAT flight! Less than the "required" 72 hours.) Get to Pan Am at 1.10. At 1:30 hear "You're confirmed on Pan Am flight. All is OK." Phew! Now I'm HUNGRY. Eat soup, chicken sandwich and large beer for $30HK from 1:30-2, then check in seat 8A at 2:15 and buy seven postcards. Write and mail them and buy liter of Harvey's Bristol Cream for $42 and have only $6.30 left. Feel warm and headachy and tired and hope it's only flight-nerves. Annoyed with people-noise by 3:10. In departure area and then onto HOT bus. Good seat, fly out past Kowloon at 4:10, said to be 1:45 flight. Lovely cloudscapes, one grand light-green atoll passes slowly, and clouds close in during dinner of free white wine, sweet and sour pork (after they said NO meal served), rice, green beans, cookies, and tea, and nice MENU. Then into clouds, seat-belt sign on and I do lightwork furiously. Down through clouds for Philippines river and fields, some REALLY spectacular, and city is on RIGHT as we circle it. Flooded fields and land at 5:50. Out in warmth and see Philippine Village Hotel, so wait for a long time after waiting long time for luggage, and get on wagon for hotel, getting told by hustlers it's $45 US /night PLUS 10% service and 10% tax to $54/night, plus 50P key deposit! Cash $200 and pay for two nights and carry bags to luxurious 747. It's now 7 and I'm exhausted. Take mirror off wall and jerk off VERY nicely, and get to sleep at 8 after telling operator "Don't call me." Tour guys calls for $100+ trip tomorrow and I say no, but I'm in BED. Fall back to sleep.