CHINA - DEJA VU ON THE JIN JIANG

My tutors on board the Jin Jiang

By now you’ve probably guessed that given a choice between the well trodden and the largely unknown I will inevitably choose the latter.

I was in Hong Kong simply because I love the city; I could never tire of its many nooks and crannies, sights and mostly delightful smells.  On this occasion I had wandered down to the overseas terminal where passenger carrying ships departed for Japan and coastal mainland China.  I thumbed down the departure lists for the next few days and saw an entry for a liner called the Jin Jiang leaving next morning for Shanghai and beyond to Kobe in Japan. 

The fare was exceptionally reasonable, I had never been to Shanghai and thought, what the hell!  I booked a cabin quickly before I had time to think twice and raced back to the hotel to pack and touch base with the Reluctant Traveller back home in Brisbane.  He did like to know where I thought I might be at any given time.

A small launch took passengers out to the Jin Jiang anchored some way out from the terminal.  The sun was shining brightly, and for a moment as we approached closer to the vessel I thought it looked somehow familiar.

Once aboard I found I had a delightful single cabin to myself and glancing around again I thought, goodness these big ships must all be the same. The decor kept ringing bells deep down in my memory.  Then exploring the cabin’s drawers I found the shipping company’s information pamphlet and in an instant dawn broke.  

I had sailed on this ship before; many years before with my mother when the vessel was the extremely luxurious and frightfully expensive American liner the S.S. Mariposa. A Chinese shipping entrepreneur had snapped up the aging vessel  in a bargain sale and it was now plying the lucrative China Japan route.

I immediately set out to explore.  Yep, the main staircase and the lifts were as I remembered, so too the pursers desk, though now I was told I would take my meals in the foreign passengers section which I suspected had once been the officers mess. 


Then down to the lounge and the amazing discovery that nothing, I repeat nothing had been changed.  The huge mosaic motif behind the stage area was as it had been since the first day the ship was commissioned: the carpet, the lounge seats, the curtains were all purely vintage Mariposa and reeked of Yankee opulence.  Only the passengers and crew were so very different.

JIN JIANG OF THE 90'S

MARIPOSA OF THE 60'S

Where formerly wealthy Americans and their expensively gowned partners had dined or been entertained in the first class saloons were now Chinese from all walks of life; some ladies were adorned with curling rollers, one gentleman looked comfortable strolling through the public rooms in his striped bedroom pyjamas.  Where once we chose reading material from an extensive library was now a bank of one armed bandits.


Where I paraded in impromptu fancy dress as a tramp, I was now entertained by a Chinese pianist of note and a Hong Kong comedian.  Piano and mural were the same.

My dining companions in the foreign passengers restaurant were three others, all American.   Four westerners amid a passenger list of Chinese Americans, Japanese, and mainland Chinese. I badly wanted to join the latter in their vast noisy dining room.
 

A large number of those aboard were soon caught up in the frenzy of Mah Jong and I was fascinated.  Like Bridge and Chess this was a game I had never mastered.  It looked fun and I asked a man who seemed friendly if I could join in and possibly learn what the game was all about.

He was an American Chinese heading to Shanghai to visit his ancestors, all long dead and in the family crypt.   Well, he said, Maj Jong is a full on game and I doubt any of the older players would welcome a newcomer; perhaps though we could find a younger passenger to teach you the basics. 

 

I met my tutors later that afternoon; they turned out to be two small polite youngsters sporting broad Yankee accents and absolute whiz kids at the game.  No more than nine or ten years, all they lacked was patience, or maybe I just wasn’t a very bright student.

 After a morning and night of tuition I still couldn’t make head or tail of the game.

 On board the Mariposa before it became the Jin Jiang

Circa 1968

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SHANGHAI: The highlight of that 1990's cruise through the China Sea was the Jin Jiang’s eventual entry into the Yellow River delta.  Along with a handful of passengers I was up and dressed well before first light. 

 

The Jin Jiang arrived at its waiting position some time after midnight, kept at anchor in a holding pattern along with countless other vessels; ships navigation lights showing dimly through the gloom, all awaiting the first light of dawn and their turn to begin the slow journey up river.

A sinking moon was doing its best to shine through low cloud.  In the dark hours before the dawn the sky gradually began to change to a murky red, all was calm and deathly quiet. We few observers talked in whispers.

Then as if by divine intervention a gentle fog wafted in a faint zephyr of breeze, muffling the clanging noise as numerous anchor chains were cranked from the depths, and engines,  one by one began throbbing with life.  The Jin Jiang’s turn finally came and we slowly edged up the wide delta reach of the Yellow River; an odd procession of vessels, tramp steamers, cargo ships, old work horses begrimed and bowed, and us.  Ahead a large masted junk,wooden bows high above the water, red sails afurl, made way; ashore rusting hulks at permanent anchor loomed like the ghost ships they were. 

The smells and chatter of China pervaded the air, garlic, earthy loam, musk and the aroma of herbs and of life itself.  The Jin Jiang made steady but slow progress, bare river banks gave way to old wooden house boats left rocking in our wake; then to shacks and low buildings, until the city itself began to emerge through a haze and with it came the clamour and complexity of urban life.
 

On board the ship was springing to life, the bark of command, sounds of crew and passengers and excited children, footsteps clattering; the expectant thrill of arrival. And suddenly we were there, a wharf with a huddle of sheds and offices, behind them tall buildings.

 I stepped ashore breathing in the atmosphere and history and immediately felt  myself caught up in the ever changing legend of old Shanghai.

oOo

Robyn Mortimer 

GROWING FASCINATION WITH CHINA

A market in China

 My employers, opened an office in Hong Kong and it didn’t take very long at all to wangle a trip to the island.

I’d been fascinated with China and all things Chinese since school days when my closest friend was the inscrutable Pearlie Sou San.  We had each gone our separate ways over the years but like the Cheshire cat whose smile remained when the moggie disappeared, so too did my deep and abiding interest in all things Oriental.

These were the days of closed borders, of Mao’s little Red Book.  Trade missions and politicians seemed the only people gaining entry.  There I was in Hong Kong with China looming in the distance, a sleeping giant I couldn’t wait to explore.

In your dreams said my Boss.   Betcha I confidently replied.

Lone travellers were getting into China at that time but they had to have a darn good reason for going there.  I filled in a visa application, entered aspiring writer as an occupation and sat back to see what happened next.

Maybe Australians were flavour of the month, or perhaps  I filled their entry quota for the day because I was duly granted the visa and found myself next morning boarding a train for old Canton, now to be known as Guangzhou.

Two other westerners were on board, an Italian priest in mufti who didn’t want authorities to know he was a priest, and an English Television researcher who didn’t want anyone in China to know he was working on a documentary...about mainland China.

I felt I was in excellent company, after all  in my case I wasn’t the aspiring writer the Chinese had been led to believe I was.  

Any thoughts we each of us held that we were indeed travelling alone and independently were shattered when the train arrived at Guangzhou and we three, among the many hundreds of Chinese passengers spilling onto the platform, were neatly plucked from the throng and shunted off to a large white van.  From the station we were taken to a foreign visitor’s hotel and placed in the care of the China Travel Service.

That night at dinner we exchanged notes.  The tourist people had offered two tours, one to a pig farming commune the other to a porcelain factory.  I signed up for the commune as did the English TV man.  The Italian Priest said he was moving out of the visitor’s hotel next morning and planned to disappear somewhere down by the river into a more suitable hostel more in tune with his limited finances. Mind you he did speak the language fluently.

I never saw him again.   Next morning the Englishman caught me at breakfast to say he was ditching the commune; he had certain people to meet and other mysterious places to go and hoped I’d enjoy the farm.

I did. I met pigs, lots of pigs and even more little piglets; The people were genuine and interesting and the lunch commune workers put on for me really was embarrassingly generous and very tasty.  The whole outing was an exercise in official propaganda. Trouble is I didn’t fancy controlled tours and organised hours, so I took a leaf out of my former companion’s book and set off alone to explore old Canton.

China, for me, would never be quite the same as it was on that first visit.  Sans map and supervision I wandered the streets, an object of curiosity to everyone I passed.  Some would stand in my path peering into my eyes, minutely examining my nose, my face, and of course my clothes.  Others would stop as I wandered past; I could read their minds, ‘what is that big nose creature doing in our street?’

I was waved into eating establishments too utilitarian and large to classify as a western cafe or restaurant and offered tea and food. One ancient gentleman seeing my difficulty with chopsticks even rushed into the kitchen and returned with a tablespoon and a very old and battered fork. On another occasion they even refused money, just clasped my hands and smiled huge wide grins.

Maybe I looked hungry, in need of a feed.

Wandering into a music store an assistant asked where I was from, then picked up a flute and played a pretty good rendition of Waltzing Matilda.  How could I not fall in love with China and the Chinese people?

Only one grey cloud marred that first visit.  Across from the Hotel was the Guangzhou Trade Fair.  A huge hall displaying China’s exports, somewhat like Brisbane’s sample bag hall at the Exhibition but without the sample bags.

I found it interesting though not particularly exciting, but as I wandered up and down the aisles I soon realised a young woman was following closely and persistently behind me.

She finally introduced herself in a whisper as a Burmese national trapped in China and unable to leave.  Lowering her voice even further she begged my help to contact relations in Burma.  For all I knew she could have been Burmese but this wasn’t something I wanted to be part of.  China’s track record with dissidents was well known even back then.

I told her I would see her outside at the entrance when I left, and then I looked around for another exit.  The only one led out into a dingy service bay where workers looked at me in astonishment.  I just kept moving down an alley, into a side street, back tracking until I found my hotel.

A genuine dissident or a Government stooge?  I will never know.  China however has never refused me an entry visa for any of my subsequent visits.  On one occasion China Travel Service even asked me to babysit four non speaking Chinese tourists from Hong Kong to Guilin. The request came with an astonishing discount on my air fare. Of course I said yes.

They didn’t seem concerned that I spoke no Mandarin or Cantonese and the two couples supposedly in my short time care spoke only French Canadian and Japanese.

                                                                      Ladies of China 

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NEXT - SQUEAKY CLEAN SINGAPORE

©Robyn Mortimer 2010