Tomorrow morning at daybreak I catch a flight to San Francisco and then non stop to Shanghai for a two week tour of the People’s Republic of China. I know what you’re thinking “you sure travel a lot. Didn’t you just get back from Dallas?” I know, crazy right? But crazy in a good way, right?
“But really”, you say, “what, why, how did this happen?”
Well it seems that another of the many benefits that I have derived from my eldest daughter’s connection with and eventual marriage into the Richman clan is making the acquaintance of their dear family friend Yan Ping and being invited to join Colorful China: From Historical Civilization to Modern Development the exclusive summer tour of her homeland that she’s organizing.
Yan Ping (Dr. Yan Ping Xu) was born and raised in Shanghai and practices Chinese acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine at her clinic in Boca Raton, FL. She and her team at Perfect Union of Mind and Body are known throughout Florida and beyond for healing patients of many emotional and physical conditions through application of these centuries old techniques.
This tour is going to be a gas and I am beyond excited. Of course, two weeks hardly allows one to scratch the surface of a country as vast as China in population geographical reach and history. The most populous country on earth, its 1.4 billion people are spread across 3.7 million square miles, 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing) plus Hong Kong and Macau. And as one of the world’s oldest civilizations its history stretches to the once legendary but now confirmed Xia dynasty in the 21st Century BCE.
But even just scratching the surface we are going to see, learn and experience a lot. In addition to all the sights of Shanghai and Beijing, our tour takes us to the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an the Pandas in Chengdu and the Stone Forest in Kunming.
But I’m most excited about the Great Wall. Not that I’m counting but I’ve seen 3 of the World’s Seven Wonders (Petra, Taj Mahal and Machu Pichu). So the Great Wall of China will be my 4th Wonder of the World! Crazy, right? But crazy in a good way, right?
I think there are only about 10 of us on the tour and as far as I know the only other young men, besides me, are Yan Ping’s son Justin Wang and my SIL’s brother Mason Richman. I didn’t know either Justin or Mason growing up, we went to different schools together. But post college we’ve become fast friends, having cemented our bonds of friendship over hard fought battles between our Settlers in Catan played out late into the night in the game room of the Richman family lake house.
Interestingly, as a matter of pure arithmetic, I am about the same age as Justin and Mason. It’s true, really, my age is about the same as the age of Justin and Mason. Simple arithmetic really.
So naturally the 3 of us get along quite naturally and we are going to have a great time painting the towns of China red! Well actually I guess the whole country is already red?
I’m going to blog the whole trip taking pictures and writing about where we go, what we see and learn, who we meet and the food we eat. I’m going to try to throw in some interesting historical and cultural tidbits and perhaps a few reflections on life, love, family, friendship and fate and whatever else may occur to me along the way.
I don’t expect to see or experience anything that will cause me to need or want to wax nostalgically about my dearly departed. China didn’t play much of a role in our 30 years together although now that I think about it, our rehearsal dinner on Friday evening July 5, 1985 was held at the, now closed, Golden Wok Chinese restaurant on Fredericksburg Rd. in San Antonio. It was buffet style, so there’s that.
And for many years like many other less than strictly observant American Jewish families we often celebrated the sabbath with take out Chinese food on Friday evenings, so there’s that too!
I welcome friends and family to come along on the journey. Its going to be a lot of fun. As with my earlier blogs, I’ll share it on the FaceBook news feed each time I post a new episode but as I understand it FB is mostly blocked in China which means you might miss it.
Accordingly if you want to be sure to not miss an episode, it’d be best to follow me on Word Press and provide your email and then you’ll get a notification to your email address each time I make a new blog post. And you will also be able to comment directly on my post with questions, thoughts or suggestions which might make the whole thing a bit more interactive and fun.
So if you have any interest please follow along, I really like to know people are reading me. I mean, I don’t write these blogs for my health, you know, although actually I guess I kind of do, mental health that is!
Next stop Pudong airport Shanghai!!!!