18 August 1998 8AM

On the bus again, starting another day of tours.

Last night, after the Peking Duck banquet, a few of us visited the Hard Rock Cafe, which just happened to be on the first floor of our hotel. Had a great time dancing for about 45 minutes. Especially enjoyed drawing others, especially young chinese, onto the dance floor. Soon, the floor was crowded with people from all over the world, dancing and having a great time together.

We drive downtown to see Tienamen Square. It's raining, and the traffic is heavy, and we can't park the bus anywhere near the square, so we never get out. We drive two loops around the square, take a few pictures, and move on. The guide warns us that we wouldn't want to walk around the square anyway - there are secret police everywhere, just listening to what anyone might say. Sounds really uncomfortable, yet the square is full of people, and we are told that the children are taught from an early age how wonderful tienamen square is. In fact, the first song they are taught in kindergarten is a patriotic song about the square.

A prominent feature of the square is the tomb of Chairman Mao. Mao had left specific instructions that his body be cremated, yet the people revered him so, that they embalmed him, and interred him in a public tomb in Tianamen square. Notice the length of the lines of people waiting to simply walk past his body - this is just the beginning. The line snakes out to the middle of the square, then back into the other side of the building. All these people are waiting in the rain.

At the north end of the square, dividing the square from the south side of the Forbidden city, is a large reviewing stand bearing a picture of chairnam Mao, which is replaced with a newly-painted one each year. This is a lousy picture, but it gives an idea of the magnitude of the square. this is the open area north of Mao's tomb - there is more space to the south of the tomb.

On to the summer palace. On the way there, the guide told us a tale if intrigue and treachery. It concerned a woman, who was advisor to a boy emperor. It seemed that she had the boy killed before he was old enough to wield the power himself. She then made sure another young boy was made Emperor. In this way, she assured herself of continued power. All this time, she never married, but instead, was assisted by two eunuchs. The summer palace seemed to be her place of power, and the tour of the summer palace was in essence, a telling of her story. Adjacent to the summer palace (or maybe it's entirely within it's grounds) is lake Kunming, a man-made lake of 273 Hectares built originally for training the Navy. It was never used for that purpose, however. Then, as now, it seems to be there for pleasure only.

When we arrived at the summer palace, there seemed to be an interminable delay, as we milled about the first courtyard waiting for the tour to begin. We were in the company of several hundred Chinese tourists as well, so this gave me a chance to observe. The Chinese people don't seem any different from us. They were behaving in basically similar ways to us - Taking pictures, milling about, watching people, conversing, playing. We were sitting ducks for the vendors. I was real disappointed by the aggressiveness of the vendors. We came to China to learn more from the people, and the whole time I was there, I found myself desiring more contact with the Chinese people, yet to fend off the ever-present vendors, we found ourselves 'circling the wagons' and conversing amongst ourselves, trying to ignore the persistent voices of the vendors. We were also shutting ourselves off from the people we came to be with. I never did figure a way around that.

Some kids began playing on a large bronze statue in the courtyard. In the course of a few minutes, a small crowd of kids had made this animal their pet. Soon, they were told to stop, and they went back to their parents without a fuss. Eventually our guide called us together, as it was our turn to go through the palace. John Pokowski took one last picture of the main building, and we were off.

Within the palace, we saw many displays of the opulence that this treacherous woman lived in. One building featured an open first story, configured so that it served as a stage for Opera performances. After all, this was before TV, so you have to bring live actors into your home for entertainment, right? The palace also features the worlds longest hallway, which in this case is like a covered sidewalk, with each archway on the ceiling individually and uniquely decorated. Overlooking the lake is the main building, with a very splendid tower for enjoying the view.

After the palace tour, we were treated to a boat ride on lake Kunming. Our tour boat had quite a fierce figurehead, but it didn't scare us away. Despite the heat and humidity, our spirits were high, and we enjoyed the short ride immensely. I amused nyself trying to catch some candid photos of my fellow passengers. Obviously, some were enjoying themselves! We waved and exchanged greetings with the passengers on other boats plying the same waters.

After lunch, it was time to fly to our next stop - Xi'an. Once we were checked in to our hotel, it was off to dinner. This dinner proved to be not only delicious, but entertaining. At a ststion in the middle of the dining room, a chef was making fresh noodles to order. This proved to be quite a show, and several of us attempted to document the process whith photos. First, he rolled out the dough into a rope-like strand. Then , he would take a bundle of 6 or 7 ropes, lay them parallel, grabbing the ends, and swing them overhead to stretch them further. With each swing, he would slap the noodles against the table. Then, he would double the strands over, and repeat the swinging and slapping process, until they were long and thin enough for the pot. When I had fininshed taking this series of photos, I noticed the frustration on the face of Michael, standing next to me. He had borrowed a video camera to record it, and had spent the entire time trying to figure out how to turn it on. I pointed out to him, that he was looking into the wrong end of it, and the flashing red light told me that indeed, it was already recording. The expression of surprise and angst was duly recorded for posterity. (I wonder if I can get a quicktime dub of that?) The real entertainment came back at the table, where we played back the video. The result was so hilarious that the cook called the rest of the kitchen staff out to see it!