We meet for breakfast around 8:30 the next morning. Same place – Floor 25. As we approach the room, Steve smells seafood. Ahhh, we must be in China. There is a very extensive breakfast with every kind of Chinese dish you can imagine. Cathy is delighted. Steve is in search of western offerings and is rewarded. Everybody gets what they want. We chat about how hot the rooms were and how it was impossible to turn down the thermostat. Barbara says she is planning to complain.
Now what to do next? Checkout isn’t until noon, and Brian intends to work out at the hotel fitness center. Steve wanted to go to the Forest Zoo to take photos of giant pandas because there was a specific request from grandchildren. Before we left the ship, however, he checks with the Dalian tour guide who is there to offer information. It is so cold right now that the pandas are kept behind glass to keep them warm, so photo opportunities are not possible. So the zoo is out as a destination. Very disappointing, as I had so hoped to fulfill their wish.
So believe it or not, we decide to go to the Friendship Shopping Center. It’s freezing but the sun is out, so the walk is refreshing. Upon arrival, we are greeted by these same adorable young ladies we saw the day before. They could not be more welcoming, and give us some directions to various floors. We are on the hunt for various things, none of which are terribly important. Essentially, we go from floor to floor browsing. The place is too upscale for our needs, so we do not really find what we are looking for.
Steve is attempting to buy replacement brushes for his Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush, but the clerk that is very eager to help speaks no English and they do not have the correct model on display (my toothbrush is probably too old). In the meantime, Cathy has to go to the bathroom. [I asked a clerk where is the bathroom? Nothing, she did not speak English, I asked “Rest room?” Nothing. “Ladies’ room?” Still nothing. So I remembered that Peter Croyle has told us that you can communicate almost anything with gestures and a smile. So I squatted. She said, “Ahhh! WC!” And led me straight to the Ladies’ room. Another triumph for Chinese- American relations.]
After that, we all decide that there is nothing for us here. We go back on to the street and head toward the hotel. On the way, we deviate on to a side street we saw on our way to the shopping center. It is a small narrow street that has a wonderful local market on it with many stalls selling all kinds of delicious fruits and vegetables. Cathy the foodie is very enthusiastic, but frustrated at the same time. Even our guides in China have warned us that our tummies will not be able to handle the food found in the markets, so all she can do is admire what she sees. [The biggest, ripest cherries I have ever seen. Gorgeous.] It is a very nice experience and a quick glimpse of local life in the middle of this city of skyscrapers.
Walking through several blocks away from Rem Nin Road, we eventually find our way back. It is 10:30am. We want to catch the shuttle leaving the Friendship Shopping Center at noon, so we agree to meet in – where else – the Floor 25 concierge area and head out at 11:30.
Steve and Cathy are packed in five minutes and go downstairs to wait for Brian and Barbara. Soon after our arrival, Barbara joins us and we chat while we wait for Brian. Steve checks us out of the hotel. We are sitting around and two members of the hotel staff approach our table [Barbara had indeed complained about the hot room. They apparently had been forced to call reception at midnight because it was too hot to sleep in their room. The maintenance people came up and opened the window (with Allen wrenches), which helped a bit. One of the staff people introduced herself as the hotel manager. She apologized profusely and explained that they could not turn on the AC until later in April. She was very professional and classy. She gave Barbara and me each a little bag of fancy toiletries. It was an interesting experience in good customer service. And they were so polite and classy. It was very impressive.]
We exit the hotel and walk to the Friendship Shopping Center with plenty of time to spare. On the way, Brian poses with a person dressed as a we-don’t-exactly-know-what in front of a restaurant.
It’s a mob scene in front of the shopping center. There are at least four Oceania tour buses that have stopped here, as well as the shuttle. Eventually, we do find the shuttle, board (with help with our luggage from another ATW guest) and are at the cruise terminal by 12:30pm. (The picture at the beginning of this post is what we see in the port from our ship)
Because it is only a few more hours until the ship departs, and it is freezing cold, we really have no interest in exploring Dalian further, but if there had been any wavering as to whether or not to do so, the next fifteen minutes erases any doubts. We enter the cruise terminal, and are ushered into a line to be inspected one more time. As we all wait for our turn in front of the immigration official, we are watched by police and soldiers. Eventually we step forward and hand over our stamped passport copy. Our paperwork is inspected and our identity is wordlessly confirmed by the official. With nary so much as a grunt, we are told to go.
But … before leaving her stall, we are asked to vote on our experience in front of the official by pushing a button. Was it Excellent? Very Good? Satisfactory? or Not Satisfactory? Now given his prior difficulties with Chinese Immigration bureaucracy, do you think Steve is going to answer in any other way than Excellent? In his mind, to answer otherwise is to invite the authorities to ask why. No thanks. He presses the Excellent button and gets the hell out of there.
We proceed through the rest of the terminal, then on to the dock and finally to the Insignia gangway. Every thirty feet or so, there is either someone watching us or someone asking to check our ship card. As we reach the gangway, there are eight – count ‘em, eight – soldiers plus several civilians, three of which are clicking counters as we board. Nobody – either any of them or us, says a word. They must make sure that all these foreigners get back on their ship! Later on, while discussing the wonderful hospitality to which we have just been treated, a couple of guests remark: “Like we want to permanently stay here?”
This is our sendoff from China. From the standpoint of official, governmental China, we cannot get away from this place fast enough. The nation is schizophrenic. For the most part, the non-official people that we met or saw could not be nicer. But anyone that we encountered that was connected with the government had apparently had personality lobotomies. They never spoke. They never smiled. They did nothing more than look at each of us suspiciously.
Well, we arrived in Sanya, China on March 26th and we leave less than two weeks later. We cannot say that now we know China. We leave having been given a brief look at this vast, important nation. We have seen the economic miracle at work, and we now have phenomenal respect for their energy and abilities. We have been given a look at a few of the legacies of three thousand plus years of written history, and we now have a more complete understanding of world history than we once had. We have had superficial but genuine interaction with many citizens of this country, and we now are curious to know them better.
But as far as being anxious to spend more time within the confines of the People’s Republic of China? Not so much. The respect for the individual human being and his/her right at self-determination that was, from birth, ingrained in us as citizens of the United States of America is too much at odds with the Chinese Communist ideology that the state is supreme and the individual is ultimately only a tool to be used to maintain that supremacy. Our visit has awakened our interest in China, to be sure, but it did nothing to extinguish our apprehension of how precarious freedom is for the 1.4 billion people that live here.
