Being able to actually see in person how people live and conduct their lives in other parts of the world gives an entirely different perspective. Granted, I have not seen anywhere near all the countries of the world. Those I have seen, however, attest to the fact that people are people wherever we go, spurred on by the same hopes, ambitions and drives of all humans everywhere.

China is a country with an ancient history and as such is a study in contrast. From Shanghai to Xian to Beijing, we saw modern skyscrapers, freeways and traffic of all kinds. On the streets we also saw bicycles with loads attached, the size that would be in the back of a pickup truck in our country. I could only imagine the strength of the cyclist to maneuver those loads through traffic on muscle power alone!

The Chinese people are extremely enterprising and industrious. Hustle and bustle preceded us wherever we went. They are also friendly and most polite. Our guide told us that the people are as curious about us as we were about them. We were approached on the streets any number of times with smiling faces wanting to have our picture taken with them. Of course we obliged and reciprocated with our arms around each other.

In Wuhan there was a celebration going on that is apparently the equivalent of our 4th of July except that it goes on for a week. One early evening after dinner we were strolling down the street in the midst of a festive atmosphere when a boy of about ten came up to me with his little chest proudly pushed out and said, "Hello!" most emphatically. I put out my hand and said, "Hello!" He shook it and said, "My name is Johnny, what's yours?" I told him and then asked him how old he was and complimented him on his English. He replied that he was learning it in school. We had a dandy conversation while all of his relatives, mother, father, grandparents, aunts and uncles stood nearby in a semi-circle, beaming proudly as their young charge talked to the nice American lady. In a few minutes we attracted quite a crowd! All of us were enjoying ourselves immensely. When we got on the bus to leave, we were all waving out the windows and the people were smiling and waving back. One woman had a little dog and she held up its paw waving to us. It was great fun. Such warm and friendly people.

This happened throughout the country in cities and villages, from college students wanting to practice their English, to people of all ages. Sometimes they spoke no English and we, of course, no Chinese. All of us understood the international language of smiles, handshakes, nods, gestures and laughter.

The spoken Chinese language has several interesting characteristics. One of them is their use of "tones". It has a number of different "tones" best described as similar to that of singing. Different "tones" can relay different meanings of words with the same basic sound. If you have heard Chinese spoken, it does sound "sing-song".

For example, the sound of "A" is pronounced "Ah" in a flat tone with no inflection. Sometimes "Ah" is drawn out ending with the intonation going up as in an English question. Other times the inflection drops down as at the end of a sentence with a period.

Try it. Now it gets complicated! "Ah" drawn out, inflecting down means, "curse". Further, "Ah" inflecting down then rising back up means "horse". The wrong "tone" can convey and an entirely dissimilar meaning! Now you know two words in Chinese.

Getting into Chinese characters of writing is mind-boggling to Western thought. The 40,000 characters of pictorial script represent, not sounds but ideas. It would probably take up to fifty years to learn all 40,000. The average Chinese gets along nicely with 3,000-4,000. Most of the characters have been unchanged since time immemorial. That is quite an advantage, because manuscripts that are centuries old, can be read by scholars today the same way they were read when they were written. (Have you ever tried to read Shakespeare in the original old English?)

Another advantage is that the written language is not affected by the myriad dialects in that huge country. People may speak differently, even not be able to understand each other at all. Yet they can easily read the same written passages. In fact, Chinese is an Oriental international written language in that Japanese and Koreans are able to read Chinese as easily as any literate Chinese.

This is an interesting example: There is a character for "house". Superimpose another character of "mother-in-law" and you have the word, "discord". Insightful, the Chinese!

Two of the most remarkable feats of human achievement are in China. The Great Wall and the Terra Cotta Figures unearthed in the tomb of Shih Huang-ti, the first emperor to unify China. The Great Wall is one of the few manmade structures visible on earth from space. It is massive, capping the ridges of the mountains for more than 1,500 miles! It was not always effective in keeping would be invaders out. Still, during the fifth century, it diverted Attila and his hoard of Mongolian Huns, out of the north, from attacking China. Instead, they turned west on to the Near East and Europe. Attila looted, sacked and leveled many Italian cities and towns and was well on his way to Rome when he died a somewhat natural death. It can be said, because the Chinese built the Great Wall, the Roman Empire crumbled and fell to the Huns with the help of the Vandals.

What ever is going on in one corner of the world can have far reaching ramifications in many other places on earth.

The fortified walls of the Great Wall are from twenty to fifty feet high and fifteen to twenty-five feet thick at the base, rising to twelve feet thick at the top. It is about seventeen feet wide at the top. Every two hundred yards or so along the length of the wall stands a sentry or signal tower that could accommodate fifty or more people easily. Of course all along the sides of the Wall are battlements and garrison stations.

Over centuries of time, much of the Wall has crumbled while some stretches have been preserved. We saw a small portion of the Wall from Badaling Pass about 45 miles northwest of Beijing. Considering the times in which it was built and without any mechanized tools, it is astonishing to think of the untold thousands of people who toiled together in the effort with such precision. It is truly an awesome experience to climb and tread the path of antiquity.

The architect of the Wall calculated the number of bricks needed for construction with absolute accuracy. According to history, he was chided for not requisitioning more. So he ordered one extra. When the Wall was completed, there was one left over. That brick is prominently displayed on top of the Wall at Badaling.

Xian was the first capital of China some 550 miles southwest of Beijing. There we visited the lovely Wild Goose Pagoda. It was built in 650AD. There is an ancient legend about this particular pagoda. A Buddhist Monk was praying for a sign of a special favor when a flock of geese flew overhead and one of them dropped dead at his feet. The monk took this to be the sign he was hoping for so he couldn't bring himself to eat it. It is believed that this is the origin of vegetarianism in China.

Also at Xian, the emperor's tomb has revealed so far 6,000, that is six thousand!, life sized soldiers and horses made of terra cotta. They are continuing to excavate under the careful supervision of archeologists. They expect to ultimately find 8,000.

The figures are unbelievable in detail of features and uniforms. No two of them are alike so they must have been sculpted from living models. Genuine weapons and several bronze chariots were also buried with the "army" to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

Three football field sized "domes" have been built to house the excavation sites where the figures are being unearthed. They call them "pits". It is the most amazing thing I have ever seen; row after row of clay figures that almost seem to be marching together.

These two ancient marvels of China have been challenged in scope by the Chinese latest project of monumental proportions. The Yangtze River has been notorious since time immemorial for flooding. Untold lives and property have been lost. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River will provide desperately needed electric power for almost the entire country as well as control the flooding. The dam too will be visible from space.

Although the actual source of the Yangtze River is disputed, generally the people attribute it to "Murmuring Springs" from the Himalayan Mountains. Some say it begins in Tibet, others claim all of it is in China. The Yangtze is something of a dividing line between North and South China. Northern Chinese are described as taller, stronger and "noodle-eaters", whereas Southern Chinese are supposedly shorter, weaker and "rice-eaters". People invariably love to categorize other groups of people. Just how accurate those generalizations are, I couldn't say.

In contrast to all the heavy modern equipment at the dam site, we took a sampan up the length of one of the gorges. It did have a rickety smoking little outboard motor, but three men guided it away from the banks with long poles.

When the dam was completed, and the resulting reservoir filled up, one and a half million people were displaced! There were several sizable cities that are now under water.

Along the sides of the Gorges were coolie trails once used for coolies to drag boats up the river by ropes. Signs of "135 and 175 meters" along those banks now denote where the top of the reservoir water will be. That is very high from where the surface of the river was at the time of our tour! A number of buildings and roads will be submerged.

The Chinese government is moving historical pagodas and other sites to preserve them. Many people have already been moved to higher ground. From the deck of our cruising vessel up the Yangtze we saw two men with a pole stretched between their shoulders. At each end of the pole was a large basket filled with pieces of concrete debris. Mechanized methods are now being used, but the people still rely heavily on good old-fashioned muscle power.

The Three Gorges Dam has created worldwide controversy. Having seen it in progress as well as the infinite patience of the Chinese people in carrying out gigantic undertakings, I for one, am convinced it is doable.

After we disembarked at Chongqing, formerly Chungking, we visited an exhibit of the overall comprehensive depiction of the Three Gorges Dam project. I went to a uni-sex restroom at the end of a lengthy deserted corridor. Inside was a typical Chinese toilet, a porcelain fixture flush with the floor. Except this one was bright red instead of the traditional white. I couldn't resist taping it on the video camera as proof when I talked about it back home with friends. I had to stand out in the corridor with the door open to tape it because the room was very small. It only took a few minutes and I didn't realize I was being observed. When I turned to leave, a Chinese man was leaned against the wall further down the corridor, dying laughing. He no doubt though, "Crazy American tourist, tape recording the rest room!"

Afterward while we were walking down the street of Chongqing, we spotted a toddler of about two years old strolling along with his well groomed parents. The toddler wore pants that are open from the crotch down to several inches from the bottom hem.  We had seen others in different towns and cities similarly dressed.  When the little ones need to "go" they just squat and do it through the open trousers. I don't know if this is before or after potty training, but they do not wear diapers or underpants. Their little bottoms are winking through the open pants as they toddle along. Adorable! Practical, if not necessarily sanitary for the city streets.

Throughout the tour of the country, we stayed in American chain elegant hotels, Sheratons and Hiltons. Our breakfasts were sumptuous buffets with every imaginable Western fare, but also Chinese and Japanese Cuisine. Our lunches and dinners were at various local restaurants served in the traditional style. We were seated ten to a group at a round table. In the center of the table was invariably a slightly raised platform that revolved like a "lazy susan". I immediately dubbed it the "roulette table." The waiters or waitresses brought out platter after platter of dishes and placed them on the "roulette table" which we slowly revolved and then helped ourselves. (We learned early on not to give the "roulette table" a swift push or it could whirl platters off, knocking over glasses and such!) Half the time I had no idea exactly what I was eating, but each dish was presented in an appetizing way and for the most part, delicious. Contrary to what we in the West are used to, a big tureen of soup was one of the last courses. Desserts were platters of fresh fruits and cookies.

As we traveled more and more toward the Szechwan Province area of the country, the more spicy hot the food became. I can only handle mildly spiced food but my husband loves it. The spicier the better! So he became my official food taster. One day our guide announced that we were going to a special restaurant for twenty-one dumplings. For lunch?

I was somewhat skeptical because the only dumplings I was familiar with were Southern chicken and dumplings. The center piece platter on the "roulette table" had a design of a fish made out of thin slices of a "1000-year-old" egg (???), a rare Chinese delicacy.

None of us ate any of it however. We just admired the artistry of the arrangement.

Sure enough, out came a platter with ten delectable, little bite-sized morsels, one for each of us, followed by twenty more platters, one at a time. Each one was obviously made by hand of paper-thin rice dough and stuffed with various tidbits of meat, fish and/or vegetables. On one platter, the dumpling was shaped like a chicken. Of course it was stuffed with chicken. Another platter was on a bed of beaten egg whites to look like snow. On top were darling little dumplings in the shape of penguins, obviously stuffed with some kind of fish. They were tiny little works of culinary art! I could visualize someone sitting in the kitchen by the hour, laboriously but lovingly fashioning those dainty delights. We popped each one in our mouths to savor before it was gone in a flash. All that labor intensive preparation for one short moment of gustatory pleasure!

Later, I began thinking about Marco Polo, if indeed it was Marco Polo. Apparently is it somewhat disputed whether he actually made it all the way to China. But somebody did!

It occurred to me that along with spaghetti and noodles, perhaps Chinese dumplings were brought to Europe and eventually evolved into ravioli and tortolini in Italy and then possibly to Poland as pierogi. The same could be said of European medieval walled cities and castles with moats around them. Food and urban historians would know more about that than I. But it is also possible that humans come up with similar notions irrespective of time or geographic links.

The ancient parts of some Chinese cities have similar walls and moats but usually on a much larger scale than their European counterparts. The huge Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City in Beijing are examples. Most of the European cities we have visited, at least the old medieval parts, were built around a square with walls and moats. Did people exchange ideas and then pattern their own food and cities around those concepts? Or do human ideas just happen in different parts of the world by trial and error on parallel paths? I don't know.

After a busy day one early evening we arrived back at our hotel to freshen up for dinner. The next day was shaping up to be a busy one also. I, for one, just could not face the "roulette table" again that night. We went down to the lobby to tell our Chinese guide we were jumping ship for dinner and were going to stay in the hotel. He was quite upset, afraid that we were not having a good time, or worse, offended by something. Not the case at all! We were just plain tuckered out.

We went back to our room and ordered up room service. We had a club sandwich, a piece of apple pie a lá mode and a tall glass of ice cold milk! It tasted heavenly. Hardly gourmet American food. We stretched out in the familiar surroundings of an American hotel and watched CNN on TV in English. It was the comfortable taste and feel of HOME.

After that evening's respite, we were raring to go the next morning on to the next adventure. The night before we said farewell to China we had a rousing party in a lovely restaurant off by ourselves in a private dining room. The evening's menu was the celebrated Peking Duck. The ducks are raised under carefully controlled conditions, force-fed, and injected with water under the skin. Before baking, the ducks are covered with honey. Then they are carefully baked on a spit under specific conditions, not electric or gas heat. The ovens use aromatic woods from peach, pear or Chinese sage trees.

The duck is carved into 128 precise ritualized pieces by the chef. We watched the procedure. We were served individual "pancakes" made of a very thin rice batter. We were supposed to place pieces of the duck on the pancake, put some soy-type sauce on it and wrap up the pancake. Now we can always say we have had Peking Duck in Beijing!

At that farewell dinner, our guide gave us a copy of the Tourist's Prayer. It sums up the experience with embarrassing accuracy.

THE TOURIST'S PRAYER

"Heavenly Father, look down on us, your humble obedient tourists, who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, mailing postcards, buying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear.

We beseech you, O Lord, to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed.

Protect us from surly and unscrupulous taxi drivers, avaricious porters and unlicensed English speaking guides.

Give us this day divine guidance in the selection of our hotel, that we may have our reservations honored, our rooms made up and hot water running from the faucets and shower (if that is at all possible.)

We pray that the telephone works, that the operators speak our tongue and remember our morning wake-up call for the sake of others on the tour. We pray that there is no mail awaiting us from our children, which would force us to cancel the rest of our trip.

May our train, plane, boat or whatever always await us for departure and deliver us safely and on time to our next destination.

Lead us, dear Lord, to good inexpensive restaurants where the food is superb, the waiters friendly and the wine and the water are included in the price of the meal.

Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Forgive us for under-tipping out of ignorance and over-tipping out of fear. Make the natives love us for who we are and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods.

Grant us the strength to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces and the castles listed as 'must' in the guidebooks.

And if we perchance skip an historic moment to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us for our flesh is weak.

This part of the prayer is for husbands:

Dear God, keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargains they do not need and cannot afford. Lead them not into temptation, for they know not what they do.

This part of the prayer is for wives:

Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and remind them that they are on a 'fixed menu' and not a lá carte. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and nightclubs. Above all, please do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do.

And when our trip is over and we return to our homes, grant us the favor of finding someone who will look at our photographs and videos and listen to our stories so that our lives as tourists will not have been in vain.

Amen."

Somewhere along the tour a couple in our group caught colds and generously shared it with everyone. By the time we were ready to leave Beijing, our colds had gone from mild to full-fledged. The pollution in Beijing didn't help either. From our room in the Hilton on the 24th floor, through all the thick smog we couldn't see the ground or any of the skyline. It was as bad or worse than that in Los Angeles.

We had to get up at 4 AM to catch our early morning flight for home. Because our tour was "all-inclusive", air, room and meals, the Hilton insisted on giving each of us a big box of breakfast and lunch. After checking in at the airport, we had a lot of time to kill so we ate a banana, a sweet roll and some banana bread. We didn't want to lug those big boxes around anymore, so I stuffed the rest of the food into my carry-on.

It was about a six-hour flight from Beijing to Tokyo with a three-hour layover there. We broke out our food and ate a couple of sandwiches. By this time our colds had reached the terminal stage and all we had to tide us over was Tylenol for the nine some-odd hour flight ahead of us. I forgot all about the rest of our food in my carry-on.

When we staggered off the plane in Los Angeles, of course we had to collect our checked baggage to go through customs and immigration. We were undoubtedly a sorry looking pair with our bags and carry-ons in tow. As we stood in a long line with stuffed heads and/or dripping noses waiting our turn, I remembered there were some apples in our "lunch". California is very sticky about smuggling in fruit or other agricultural products. I rummaged through my carry-on and found the apples but fumbled them in handing them to Paul and he dropped them. They went rolling through the terminal under baggage carts. He went down on his hands and knees trying to retrieve those gyrating damn apples! This scene did not make us too popular with other weary travelers behind us in line.

We declared the apples to the customs lady and she wanted to know if we had any other food. I meekly handed over my carry-on. She gingerly picked out squished ham sandwiches, smelly old tuna sandwiches, liquefied yogurt and God knows what else, dropping them in the trash on by one. She gave us back a couple of croissants that apparently she deemed salvageable. We finally schlepped all our belongings out of there!

Despite our final misadventure, our trip to China was one of our most memorable.

We must be careful not to take the provincial attitude that our language and our culture are superior to any other and look down on differences with scorn. Not easy. We have little way of knowing exactly what has shaped our own civilization let alone pass judgment on that of others, of whom we have no knowledge.

We are all related to one another in the human family. Each generation is only a brief instant in that genealogy. History is the name given to units that make up what we call civilization. This is the natural progression of our species. We have the same genetic heritage. Anyone who studies history finds that civilization arose from the ranks of many peoples of different races and creeds. Often they were in conflict but also they worked together to make us who we are today. We owe all of our ancestral families a debt of gratitude.