Jamie Torry Report

May 2008

For the new Rotarians, this letter is from Rotarian Jamie in Dalian, China.

Hi everyone;
I'm counting the weeks till I come home now - will be such a change for me.  Even just getting my car running and me driving might be interesting.  I hope all of you are healthy and doing well.  I continue to overeat, and practice my Chinese and cannot get either under any type of control. 
 
The Chinese Spring Festival was celebrated May 1 to the 3rd - at the school we have worked a number of Saturdays so we could take the whole week off.  I went to Hangzhou, a city near Shanghai, called "heaven on earth".  It lived up to it's name - was lush, green, flowers everywhere, clean, beautiful huge lake, clean air, and interesting.  I did go with another teacher, but she was just wanting to sit, relax and read books - so I went out on my own to see the sights.  No one spoke English - so my phrasebook was again very well-used.  I decided to take a cab to a huge historical temple and flagged down a cab.  Took awhile, as there are not as many cabs in this city as needed...I climbed in a cab that stopped finally and made my best effort describing where I wanted to go and pointing to things in my book...the cabbie smiled and said "sure, but the crowds will be bad right now...do you want to go somewhere else first?"  I nearly cracked up laughing and so did he because he knew I was shocked he could speak English.  Anyway, it ended up he was actually a tour guide as well, and proceeded to spend the next 2 days showing me everything Hangzhou had to offer from picking green tea leaves at a tea farm, visiting the old home of the founder of Chinese herbal medicine, visiting a silk factory, looking for purple fresh water pearls, visiting a very old water village, a massive flower market, a very long silk market, and so on.  I had a wonderful time.  This city also puts on a spectacular show on their lake - West Lake - the stage is a massive structure just under the water so the performers look like they are walking on the water.  The music was wonderful, lights on the trees, it was all quite surreal - I would go back there in a second.  However May 1st came and everyone else in China came to Hangzhou and the place became total bedlam. 
 
China has only 3 main holidays and these are only 3 days at a time, the country simply cannot have holidays because it taxes all their systems to the extreme.  People line up for days to take the trains and buses.  Phenomenally, the airports are extremely well run, handle the crowds and leave on time.  They are extremely strict about how much stuff you take, understandably because i saw some strange things brought onto planes back in January.  There is just so many people that if they are all out, away from their jobs at once, the system cannot cope.  Restaurants are impossible to get into, walking around the lake was not pleasant, shopping impossible even though there were huge sales, and transportation grinds to a halt.  The impact of overpopulation on the land, and country, is just so fundamentally clear at these times - sure drives home the toll overpopulation takes on a country. 
 
Back at school things were a little interesting, if not scary, before the May break.  I don't have access to BBC or CNN now - the Chinese English channel is very biased in what they report much like CNN, so I am not aware of what is actually taking place in the world news.  However I did have reports of a few episodes affecting the torch relay.  Anyway, China took the incident in France with the torch, and the coverage of the problems with Tibet very personally, and many Chinese were extremely upset.  They see the Olympics as their chance to be in the spotlight in the world, and it is all very personal to each Chinese person.  At school this certainly played out one day at school with a riot the night before, and then a flag ceremony in which the Canadian flag was not raised nor the Canadian anthem played - only the Chinese flag and anthem.  The atmosphere in the school became extremely toxic and frightening as the students got it into their heads that the Canadian teachers did not support the Olympics in China, nor that we backed China in the Tibet issue.   It didn't seem to matter what was said, conversations were just totally irrational.  I cannot begin to tell you the absolutely incredible stories that are completely believed here in China about the evil Dali Lama - he is absolutely hated. 
 
After the spring break the student's are back to being wonderful, friendly and working hard and the Chinese staff do not seem to be aware that anything of any concern took place.  We had our flag ceremony yesterday and the Canadian and Chinese flags were raised and both anthems played.   Just all very confusing and worrisome.  This experience has taught me to  keep my mouth shut, that I am a visitor only in this very different and old culture, and that I cannot begin to understand the mindset of these proud and resourceful people.  I do believe that this is a country that will be formidable if crossed.    So, I am keeping my mouth shut on any type of religious, political or questionable issues or practices.  (you know how hard this will be for me don't you!?)  I still have some great Chinese friends, but am not sure I understand their thinking like I thought I did, so am keeping my guard up somewhat.  Life continues to be an adventure!!
 
See you in a few weeks.  take care - get rid of the snow before I come home okay!
Jamie 


Jamie Torry, Instructor
Dalian Maple Leaf International School
Jinshitan National Resort
Dalian, Liaoning Province
Peoples Republic of China, 116650
 

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