There are so many interesting things to reflect on. I'll start with
the most frequently occuring event. I was called a "guilo" numerous
times again this year. Guilo means foreign devil or white ghost,
and is commonly used to describe fair skinned/fair haired westerners
like me. It was fun to look at the local Chinese people going
about their business, suddenly see me and stop what they were doing
just to stair. Often the local Chinese would look at me like they
had seen a ghost. It was only when I replied with a friendly
"neehow" (hello) or "Josahn" (good morning) that they realized that
I was real, and not a figment of their imagination. Once I broke
the silence the reply was nearly always a warm smile and a repeat of
my greeting. Farmers readily invited us (total strangers)in for tea
or a meal. I found the Chinese people as a whole to be very
friendly and hospitable!We biked nearly 200 km through all sorts of conditions - the scorching hot sun, fog, drizzle, thunder and lightning storms complete with driving rain. In fact one day we rode our bikes about five km east of Duhu into a storm. Once on the bus the storm suddenly intensified complete with thunder, lightning and strong winds forcing the rain to move at times horizontally. The wind blew trees over the road and we were stalled in traffic for 25 minutes in the driving rain. After 10 minutes of no movement we ventured out of the bus into the driving rain to see what was the cause of the delay. Large trees had fallen across the road and nobody was attempting to remove them they all sat in their cars and waited.. In a communist society someone was probably hired to clear the roads. The only problem was that you would probably be there hours or maybe days waiting for them to arrive. Nobody seemed in a hurry, as all locals waited in their vehicles. The adult men in our group, Steve Wong, Bikeman John and I(Phil Koester) worked for another ten minutes to finally clear a lane for busses and trucks to pass. Interestingly enough, even after watching us work, the local people made no attempt to help us clear the road. That night in our Taishan hotel we found out on the television that it was a freak tornado - first one ever in the area. At least one local person died and numerous others were injured.
There are many very poor people in China, and a typical tourist will be approached by beggars numerous times. Not so much on this trip because we didn't travel the tourist track. Nevertheless, there were a few that approached us. I think one of the most emotionally moving events was outside our hotel in Taishan when a peasant farmer in tattered clothes and no shoes bowed down before me and tried to kiss my feet. I wish I could've sat with him to hear his story and somehow better his life. It was another one of those poignant reminders of how life just isn't fair - why him instead of me?
Only a few times I worried. While we were riding our bikes through Kaiping to the Sanbu Holiday Inn Hotel. A local lady was riding her bike at a right angle into our line of bikers and one of our students clipped her back tire and they both fell to the ground. Fortunately both got right up and no-one was hurt. I had a small bit of trepidation as we heard thunder in the distance and then again suddenly near us as we were biking near XinXing (pronounced Sun Hing). Riding through it proved to be the best decision as it then cleared for us within minutes. The only other time I experienced fear on the trip was when, under serious peer pressure, I took a bite of a "thousand year old egg", after seeing the factory that processed them - without a doubt the dirtiest factory I had ever seen.
We visited a cookie factory. It was a perfect example of full
employment in a communist society. There were hundreds of employees
performing manual labor tasks that could easily be done by
automation, and in the future, probably will be.
Of course, no trip is complete without corporate singing. It has a
way of breaking down barriers and bonding people together. Our
entire group found several opportunities to join together in song,
almost always on the bus as we "portaged" to our next location. It
was great fun!
Phil Koester
Bike leader - 7th grade biking trip
School Counselor
Hong Kong International School - Middle School
April 19, 1997
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Hong Kong Int'l School (M.S. Div.)
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