April-June 1982 Beijing-Shanghai-Hong Kong

Related Post: Working at Bei Jing-Washington, Inc.

Related Post: February 1982 Beijing-Shanghai

April 1982, Beijing 

My second trip to China, about six weeks after the first trip, was longer and eventually afforded some more time for sightseeing. It was my second time to Beijing and Shanghai, so I had a little bit better sense of my bearings, and we had clients with us so we had to be tour guides and look like we knew what we were doing.

For the first ten days we participated in another trade show in Beijing, Internepcom. Like the first trip, there was a scheduled day of touring the Ming Tombs and Great Wall. It was springtime and both sites were more crowded than they’d been in February. I was a little less in awe of the sites and more mindful of entertaining our clients, but it was still fun to be there. Other than that one day, however, we were mostly consumed with the trade show and meetings and had little time for touristing.

May 1982, Shanghai

After roughly two weeks in Beijing, Neal and I headed to Shanghai. The photos below were mostly taken from our rooms at the Jinjiang Hotel. Again, there was little tourist time in these few days.

May 1982, Beijing

We bounced back up to Beijing for more meetings, and found time to actually tour Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

This was my first chance to actually walk inside the Forbidden City (what a great name to have stuck, as opposed to, say, Imperial Palace). It was overwhelming in its scale. You seemed to walk forever between pavilions, and there always seemed to be more pavilions. I wasn’t with a guide, just wandering on my own or possibly with Neal. We could look into the various pavilions at the dusty artifacts. There was very little signage or explanation of what we were seeing. I didn’t know too much of the palace’s history at that point, mainly just marveled at the enormity of it. And the relative emptiness.

There was a display of a couple of the terra cotta warriors from Xi’an (possibly reproductions) which had been unearthed in 1974. It was the first I’d seen them other than in photos. There were also a group of modern soldiers or police using one of the courtyards of the Forbidden City for target practice. It’s a little hard to see in the photo, but there are two ranks of soldiers on the ground taking rifle shots toward targets across the courtyard. I daresay they don’t do that anymore.

There was still quite a lot to Beijing that I didn’t see on these two trips. It wasn’t for a lack of interest but mostly just a lack of time. Plus it was difficult to just up and go places. You often needed a guide or permission to visit a site. I would have to wait until years later, as a proper tourist, to see more.

May-June 1982, Shanghai

I returned to Shanghai and set up shop again at the Jinjiang Hotel for an extended stay on my own of about three weeks. I stayed busy with work but had a few Sundays and some evenings to explore Shanghai a bit more. The hotel itself was a complex of art deco buildings, originally apartments built by the French in 1929-1934, surrounding some green lawns and gardens (which were a complete rarity — I hardly recall seeing any other green grass in Beijing or Shanghai). The rooms were bigger than most hotel rooms, with high ceilings and it seemed like some of the original furniture. It was a treat to stay there compared to the Soviet-style utilitarian blocks we had in Beijing.

Across the street from the Jinjiang Hotel was the Jing Jiang Club, a beautiful art deco building that had been built in the 1920’s by the French and originally operated as the Cercle Sportif Francais or French Club. In 1982 the club was strictly for foreigners; I was amazed it was open at all and survived the Cultural Revolution. It never seemed busy, but there was a restaurant and a skeleton staff that watched over the club. I was there many evenings for dinner, snooker and simply to commune with the ghosts you could almost feel wandering the halls (look closely at the postcard photo below and you can see them). The club had a swimming pool, tennis courts, bowling alley and a gorgeous ballroom with springing dance floor, each of which were in a magical state of disrepair and hardly used, but also seemed hardly touched since the 1930s. The billiards lounge was fantastic, with two pool tables and two full-size snooker tables, all in beautiful shape. I rarely had anyone to play with but spent many evenings honing my snooker skills. The brochure below shows a room with pinball and video games that I can’t recall ever seeing; if that was there at all while I was it was off-limits.

One of the other great evening treats of my time in Shanghai was going down to the Peace Hotel to listen to the jazz band. This was a group of very elderly gents who learned to love jazz and swing music in the 1930s-40s, had to put it away after the revolution and had been allowed to play again starting in late 1980. They’ve become famous and are still playing at the Peace Hotel, now a fancy Fairmont hotel (see articles from South China Morning Post and Time Out Shanghai; here’s a profile of the founder, Zhou Wanrong; here’s a nice appreciation by John Robert Brown rightfully pegging them as a nostalgic dance band rather than a jazz band). There was even a recent documentary made, “As Time Goes By”, though so far I’ve only found the full film in German (here’s an English trailer and a longer 13-minute clip which may be all you really need). They were a delight to see, especially when they broke into their favorite, “In the Mood”. The photo below is a more recent vintage, but it looks similar (though more upscale) to what I remember.

Spurred by the history of the Jinjiang hotel and club, the jazz band and the Bund, I became very interested in learning more about Shanghai before the war and revolution. I scoured various tourist shops and bookstores for more information but there was very little to be found. One of the most useful books was a small Guide to Shanghai published in English in 1980. It included a little bit of history but also left nuggets of clues to locations with pre-war history, including the Long Bar at the Shanghai Club which by 1982 had become a dusty fixture in the lobby of the Dongfeng Hotel (now it’s been completely refurbished as part of the Waldorf Astoria. Times change.) Searching for old Shanghai’s art deco buildings. Here is a good article about Shanghai’s art deco buildings (and another) — I would have loved to have it there at the time.

The old British Consulate had become the main Friendship Store where foreigners could buy Chinese and a few foreign things at marked up prices, but you could at least be reasonably sure items including antiques and jewelry were genuine. I enjoyed visiting the many floors of displays in the No. 1 and No. 10 Department Stores (the original Wing On) on Nanjing Road. It felt kind of like walking through a 1950 Sears catalog. I never did figure out what happened to Department Stores 2 thru 9. The People’s Park stood on the former British horse racing ground at the top of Nanjing Road.

I was able to take a boat ride on the Huangpu River that runs through Shanghai. The traffic consisted of a few ratty looking freighters, a couple of small Navy vessels, and lots of small barges and low river craft. The river itself was brown and not very appealing. Hong Kong harbor it was not, and it remains a bit of a mystery to me how this particular bend in the river, quite a long way from the sea, became China’s most important port city. But then I guess the same can be said about London.

The same Sunday I got the river cruise I was able to spend some time in the waterfront park along the Bund. It was refreshing, and unusual, to be able to wander among a throng of regular Chinese folks enjoying a spring day. Shanghai was more accustomed to foreigners than most Chinese cities and it was great to be able to see folks simply going about their lives, enjoying themselves and doting on their kids.

I’ll eventually do posts about the astonishing changes that have taken place in Shanghai (see Part 9 and Part 10 of our 2009 trip to China). For the time being, here are a few good articles and photos from others.

On my last Sunday in Shanghai (June 6), I was invited by some acquaintances I’d made at the US consulate (which opened in 1980) to join them for a softball game. We went to a soccer field at one of the local universities and had a fun, loose afternoon. Many beers were consumed and we had a good time; I believe someone even grilled hot dogs procured by the marines. Afterward, I was invited to join the group at one of their apartments and we spent a few more hours playing guitars and singing, mostly Grateful Dead songs that I didn’t know. They let me plunk around on a bass guitar until we got to Uncle John’s Band and it became clear that I didn’t know the song and couldn’t find the rhythm. After that I was demoted to beer bottle. I never have developed a taste for the Dead, but I do remember that day very fondly. I remember what a bare-bones existence the consulate folks had in Shanghai, how homesick some of them were, and what a tight little community it was. I can also remember how ready I was to leave, get out to Hong Kong and eventually home.

Throughout this trip, I communicated with Barb through letters. We had to number each of our letters so we could tell when we missed correspondence. I think those letters are still in my trunk in the attic but I’ve been afraid to look for fear of what else might drag me down memory lane. In any case, during this trip I became convinced that I wanted to marry Barb, sooner than later. One of my missions in Hong Kong became finding an engagement ring.

June 1982, Hong Kong

I flew from Hong Kong to Shanghai and was ever so delighted to check myself into the Regent Hotel (now the Intercontinental and soon to be Regent again) for a few days of luxury and recuperation. I treated myself to a harborfront room, several nice meals and more than a few gin and tonics in the lobby lounge with the wall-to-ceiling view of the harbor. I could have easily spent a week or two simply watching the boat traffic on the harbor and the lights of Hong Kong.

On the engagement ring front, I was delighted to be able to track down the shop of Philip and Helen Chu at 51 Hankow Road. This had been Louise Fisher’s favorite jewelry shop and longtime family friends. I was able to sit with Helen and her designer to come up with a special design and select a diamond, all within the few days I was in town. All I had to do was smuggle it into Singapore and the US without paying duties (I’m hoping that the statute of limitations has now expired). 

June 1982, Singapore

From Hong Kong, I headed to Singapore to participate in GenRad’s Far East Sales Conference for several days. It’s an indicator of my state of mind at that point that I don’t have any pictures or real recollections of that meeting or time in Singapore other than notes of the airfare so I could get reimbursed.

No wait, I do have one very specific memory from this time in Singapore. One evening I went out on my own and ended up in a food market. I ordered some Indian food which came as a variety of soupy vegetarian items on a large metal tray with no utensils other than a big chunk of naan bread. I started eating as best as I could and was quickly admonished by a neighbor not to eat with my left hand. Evidently in Indian, as well as Muslim/Middle Eastern societies, one eats with the right hand only; the left hand is reserved for toilet duties. I was ashamed to have offended anyone. The food was tasty and very spicy — at the limits of my tolerance. My right hand was not nearly as efficient as my left at eating but I powered through, though it took me a while to figure out how to tear off a piece of naan one-handed.

Otherwise, after a few days of meetings on GenRad’s dime, I finally headed back to Dulles and home. Before too long, my time at Bei Jing-Washington came to an end and my eventual returns to China, Hong Kong and Singapore would have to be self-financed.

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