A lot has changed on my perception of China in just 12 hours. Chengdu and Beijing are polar opposites, at least in my experiences. First, Chengdu is green. Grass, trees, flowers, everything has color. Beijing was very brown. When we landed the differences were even more obvious. There is no such thing as a line. And I don’t just mean people waiting in lines. Any line anywhere has no meaning. At all. Especially on the streets! Cars do what they want, when they want! We were met by Jesse at the airport. He loves golf, and was wearing a Titleist hat and a Ping jacket, as well as carrying clubs. Extremely nice guy. Which is a very good thing, since we will be seeing him very often over the next 28 days. Jesse works for Witt & Associates and plays a big part of why we are here. He speaks both Mandarin and English, which is helpful. He had a driver and a van for us. We now finally got to experience what driving is China is really like. Everything from Beijing was multiplied by 10. More honking, more cutting off, more more more. It is a wonder there isn’t an accident every 5 seconds here. It is something you have to experience to understand. We also saw some oddities on the 45 minute drive to our hotel. A flatbed truck full of caged pigs. Pigs on top of eachother wedged into a cage barely big enough for them to stand kind of full. I don’t know what a sad pig looks like, but I’d bet it looks something like these pigs did.
The city alternates between thriving mecca and barren wasteland. On one block there is a massive high rise with another next to it under construction and the next block has rubble. Piles and piles of rubble. It’s like a war just ended here. It goes on for miles and miles like that. Then we arrive at our hotel. Wow. This is ridiculous. Probably the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Massive, too. I’ll get some pictures up soon so you can be almost as impressed as we are. We had a very quick lunch, but it was delicious. Jesse ordered for us, and we had no idea what it was. It was all so good! For the first time I had duck. Good. Then had some eggplant, also a first. Good. A pork and pepper dish that was pretty spicy. Good. Some odd spinach and cheese filled dumpling. Very good. We all hoped this was what it would always be like! The flavor and spiciness is quite amazing. It definitely is spicier than anything I have had before. We had to get this down quickly as it was off for another 45 minute crazy car ride to the 120 center for a meeting with our hosts. By the way, intersections are uncontrolled here, and cars just go when they feel like it. Nobody waits their turn. They just go, and not only try to avoid other cars, but scooters as well. It’s like a massive game of Frogger and everyone is playing. Lots of scooters, and several cars and trucks also find it necessary to take oncoming for miles at a time. Again, I don’t understand how there isn’t an accident every 5 seconds. It’s mind bottling.
At the 120 center we met our translators and the head of the center, Dr. Ho. Great experience. Two of our interpreters are female professors at the university. They speak English better than ¾ of Americans! Quick tour of the facilities, ensured that all our equipment was there and then had a meeting with almost everyone taking part in this collaboration. Our schedule changed. Instead of doing M-F then having weekends off, we are going to do 10 STRAIGHT days of instruction. Yes, 10 straight. On the good side of that, we will have a real extended weekend in between groups of participants. That is when we will become tourists.
Dinner was also fantastic. Dave, Paula and I went to the buffet in the hotel. Had many more interesting dishes. Almost all were spicy. Fried cauliflower, some amazing beef, and the traditional hot-pot. Yes, the name is exactly what it is. So far the hottest food ever put in my mouth. Also very good. I took a shower later and the water running on my lips brought all the hotness again, as if I needed a reminder. Dave had a grilled yellowfish. And they grill the whole fish. He ate it, scales and all. He liked it. The desserts were not as good. They do spicy and flavor well, but not desserts. At least not that we have seen.
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