Subject: The Road To Shanghai

The Road To Shanghai, Summer 1981

When studying Sinology/China Studies most of our class decided to go to China for a three-month summer course in Mandarin Chinese. It was going to be held at Fudan University in Shanghai and it was going to be a first. To make things a bit more interesting (and a whole lot less expensive), my classmates decided that they wouldn't fly over there, but take the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Berlin, via Moscow, Siberia, Mongolia and Peking to get there.

I had no intention to go, as I am not a fan of group tours and have always valued my privacy when traveling. My girlfriend, Sabrina, was going though, and we decided to maybe spend a little bit of time at a beach somewhere after the course was over. So off she went by train while I hitchhiked to London to get a flight to Asia.

That was my first time in the UK and my English wasn't all that great, either. Still, I managed to get to Heathrow Airport without any problems and when I'd found the BA counter, I asked the woman there for the cheapest flight to Asia.

"Where in Asia?" she wanted to know.
"I don't really care, " I said, " as long as it doesn't cost much."
"But you have to tell me where you want to go! Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, ...."
"It really doesn't matter," I replied, getting slightly irritated. It probably didn't help much that I was still lugging a fairly heavy rucksack around on my back while all this was going on.
"Well," she said after checking her terminal for a bit, "we do have the 'Bargain Hunter Fare' to Hong Kong for 129 pounds one-way. But you'll have to wait until Thursday for the next flight."
I wasn't sure whether I qualified as a hunter, but the price sounded pretty good.
"That the cheapest one? In that case, I'll take it." Amazingly, she didn't ask for any kind of hunting permit whatsoever, took my cash and handed me the ticket right away. The wonders of modern travel, I thought.

I spent the next few days in a place called Maidenhead sleeping in a field in my sleeping bag. A fox came by once in a while, I read some good books and in the evening I went to the local pub, where I was looked upon with suspicion or amusement. Since I was hungry, I ordered a bag of potato chips which I could see on a shelf behind the bartender.

"Chips?" he asked. "We don't sell any chips."
I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. They evidently didn't like 'Krauts' here, I thought. Or maybe foreigners. Or perhaps strangers. I felt slightly annoyed. But I was still hungry and I was damned if I let that bloody bartender treat me that way. So I tried another tack.

"Could you please give me a bag of those, please?" I asked while pointing to the potato chips.
"Ah, CRISPS you want, alright. Here you are, then. That's seventy-five pee."
Musing about the strange foreign language where chips weren't called chips but crisps and where money was counted in 'pee', I handed over one of the heavy coins that had me walking lop-sided since I had changed money. The chips tasted delicious, though, especially the vinegar-flavored ones. There were other ones which were flavored with an ominous substance called haggis.......

If you eat plenty of chips you will also get fairly thirsty and although I was definitely a budget traveler those days, I figured that one beer would not do my finances too much harm. So I ordered. When the bartender asked me which one, I just pointed to the same kind of beer everybody else was drinking and I got one very promptly, which kind of surprised me. (In Germany you usually have to wait at least five minutes, because the glass has to be filled in several steps and the beer has to settle every time.)

I took a sip - and almost spewed it all over the bar.
"Now I know that foreigners' joke about you lot here drinking warm beer, but that's no reason to play a practical joke on me!" I exclaimed, more than a little pissed off.
"But you ordered a bitter, not a lager," said the bartender, this time without a smile on his face. He shook his head, too.

This is how I got introduced to English beers. After the rocky start we all became great friends in that little pub and I had not a little difficulty making my way back to the fields, my sleeping bag and my fox.

The days passed in a hurry and when I hitchhiked back towards the airport, I got picked up by an old Jaguar. I was very much impressed. Leather seats, everything else some expensive kind of wood. I had the distinct feeling that a guy driving a Jag would not have picked me up in my own country. I was beginning to positively like the place, not the least because I had acquired a taste for English bitter.

The flight was uneventful, but never boring. I had a Rubik's Cube which kept me busy. I was getting so absorbed by the damn thing that I had no time for anything else. Suddenly we were going to land in Hong Kong. Next to me an Indian guy was sitting, but so far we hadn't talked much.

It looked pretty amazing with all those tall buildings, the water all over the place and the green hills. I only felt slightly uncomfortable when the plane seemed to head straight for those buildings. My discomfort changed to alarm when I saw those same buildings whizzing by outside my window. I winced and sucked in my breath.

"Gets me any time," the Indian gentleman next to me said. "I've been flying here for twenty-five years and I still think landing in Hong Kong is plain terrifying. Bad news for somebody working for an airline."
I nodded. I could only agree silently, while trying to swallow some non-existent saliva to get my ears into working order again. I thought of a little gust of wind smashing the plane into one of the skyscrapers and of the runway being so short and of all the air disasters I'd ever heard about.

Well, we made it safely and without anything even resembling a bump. Still, I was very glad when I was standing on solid ground again. Something had been nibbling at the back of my brain ever since I purchased the ticket back in London. What if I walked over to the Chinese embassy and tried to get a visa for China? I'd never heard of such a thing simply being given to somebody who just turned up at the visa office, but earlier experience had taught me that this didn't mean it was impossible to get one.

So off to the visa office I went. I told them my story and that I wanted to study at Fudan University, because by now I was missing Sabrina very badly. To hell with previous plans; I simply had to see the girl. What a surprise that would be! First, surprise was on my side, as they guys at the embassy told me 'no problem'. Huh? Since when could a foreigner simply waltz into here and get into China just like that?

But it was for real. I got issued my visa without further ado, checked out of the 16th Floor, Block A, Chung King Mansions on No. 40 Nathan Road in Kowloon - a whole story in itself, that place, or perhaps several stories - and made for the train station. I was going to go by train all the way. Couldn't be much more difficult than in India, or so I thought. I soon got into a line in front of the ticket counter. In front of me was a Chinese peasant with a bamboo stick across his shoulders. On both ends his luggage was suspended in solid-looking canvas bags and while I was examining this first sign of having reached the Far East the man suddenly turned around. The sticks slammed into my chest. Caught unawares I tumbled over onto my back. Fortunately the fall was cushioned by my rucksack which I was carrying at all times. I lay there like a beetle the wrong side up and it took me quite a while until I regained my footing, by which time said peasant had disappeared. So had my wallet which I had held in my hands in order to pay for the ticket. And I had thought that I was a seasoned traveler! I went to the police who looked rather bored and in the end I concluded that the wallet and all it contained would be gone for good. Fortunately I had all my important documents and travelers' checks in a different place and so the journey could continue.

The train looked as if it had been in use in the time of Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. The locomotive was burning coal, which resulted in a lot of soot coming in through the permanently open windows. I was used to grime and messy traveling, but this particular trip will certainly stick in my memory in that regard. Filthy is not adequate to describe how I felt. It was still pretty interesting, though. Take the 'Tiananmen' Cigarettes, for example. If they were held vertically, all the tobacco would immediately obey the law of gravity and slide to the floor. And if one lit one of the vile things, that end would turn into a kind of mushroom with glowing embers falling off no matter which way one held the cigarette. A whole new aspect of smoking was revealed to me.

Outside of the windows, there were fields of hemp. Huge! I wondered what kind of hemp it was and what the CPC boys were gonna do with all that stuff. It had to be tested, just to make sure what kind it was. A scientific self-experiment to further human knowledge. But that had to wait.

When I finally arrived in Shanghai, I found out that the rest of the gang hadn't arrived yet. Some screw-up had caused them to stay in Beijing longer than originally planned. I was a bit disappointed, but other problems were more pressing. It looked as if the university wasn't going to allow me to take part in the course, since I had not organized the whole thing in advance. They held a meeting, two meetings, many meetings. I drank bucketloads of green tea and waited. They gave me an unoccupied room and I waited for the arrival of my classmates. I was getting *very* impatient to see Sabrina again.

Since I had so much time on my hands, I went out and collected a huge bag full of that hemp right there on the university campus and dried it in my room. Then deposited it in my drawer until I couldn't stuff in any more. By this time I had performed said experiment and to my delight the results were mind-blowingly positive.

Now it so happened that the floor below the German floor was the Japanese floor and the floor above was the American floor. And since the fragrant fumes flew up, it didn't take all that long until there came a gentle knock on my door, which caused one of the worst bouts of paranoia I have ever experienced. But it was only Amy. She said that she had smelled something wonderful and asked whether she could come in. Or course she could. Soon we became best friends. (To my very great sorrow she was later shot down by a Russian missile as a passenger on flight KAL 007)

Finally my classmates arrived and while I anticipated a joyful reunion with my girlfriend, it turned out that it was a bad idea to surprise girlfriends (and probably boyfriends, too) with unannounced visits. Sabrina was not pleased at all and our relationship took a drastic turn for the worse from that moment on and foundered about a year later.

But at least I didn't have to stay in a dormitory, had a single room and a whole drawer full of fragrant herbs to enhance my language learning abilities and tide me over the summer. And a whole bunch of new friends on the floor above us as well.

Cheers!

Holg

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