The Lights of Chongqing
Nigel Sizer files a final post on his tour of Chinese universities.
Chengdu to Chongqing
Up at 6 a.m. to get the early flight, and as soon we’re off the plane, thinking we would have a couple of hours of down time, we instead enter an almost Kafkaesque experience where not a second is our own, and we never quite know what will happen next!
We’re wearing our T-shirts and casuals, hot, sticky and bleary-eyed from the packed flight (no domestic flight in China ever has any empty seats on it!) and met by the charming Ms. Hwang from the Department for International Partnerships at Southwest University. “We will now go to have photo with the President!” she instructs us. Paul’s interpersonal skills were stretched to the limit to negotiate a fifteen-minute stop at the hotel first to drop out bags, put on presentable clothes and have a quick shower. We got five minutes, no time for a shower! Then it was gladhanding with the University President, photos on the steps and off he was whisked for meetings in Korea. This is a busy place!
After that it was nonstop meetings with vce presidents of Southwest University (I lost track of how many), a banquet lunch, presentations, a two-hour drive into Chongqing for another banquet dinner on the banks of the Yangtze, another drive back and …. total collapse! But couldn’t sleep with the awful racket of a karaoke bar booming up from the hotel basement.
The university and its faculty were impressive; we’ll have to find a way to work with them too.
But I was also deeply troubled by the evening’s foray into the center of this metropolis. Have you ever heard of Chongqing? Well, I hadn’t, but it’s bigger than Greater London and New York combined, with 32 million souls! And it looks to double in size soon from the number of skyscrapers and apartment buildings rising from the farmland amidst the existing sprawl.
Just down the Yangtze from the city is the Three Gorges Dam. Every skyscraper in the city, especially along the river’s once verdant banks, is covered, and I mean totally crammed, with flashing neon lights, no advertising opportunity going unmissed. I just couldn’t help thinking that if they turned off some of those damn ugly lights they could conserve enough energy to not need the dam, but of course it ain’t that simple (or is it?)! Of course, we Americans don’t set a great example either.
This was, though, a good day for culinary highlights:
An entire pig’s stomach that had been boiled, was then cut open before us to reveal inside a glass bowl filled with stewed pork and other unidentifiable ingredients – the taste reminded me of Scottish haggis. No one knows what’s in haggis either. This one we couldn’t avoid since it was heralded as an invention of the university’s first president, who was also clearly a great gourmand!
A quite delicious giant tofu dish served with an array of 32 different sauces. This was quite welcome after all the meat and pork fat. As the lazy susan rotated on the table, bringing the sauces and dressings past me, the charming Ms. Hwang (below, with Paul) carefully informed us of the makeup of each. She proudly noted that all were local and natural. Including the crystals of monosodium glutamate.
Sliced fried cow’s stomach. “Don’t eat that!” Said Angela. I didn’t need to be told twice. (Note from Rare blog Editor: that’s enough culinary highlights!).
Paul, gregarious and eager to please as ever, ate everything that was put in front of him, to our hosts’ delight. I was flagging, I must admit, and I am sure they thought I was a dreadful bore. The next morning Paul was looking for Imodium – none of us had thought to bring any.
Back to Beijing
After a debriefing of the team, I left Paul, Angela, and our Chinese collaborators behind to head back to the capital for meetings and one more night before flying home to Bali. Paul and Angela were whisked off to a nature reserve and, he told me later, meetings with four more vice presidents of the university!
I met two Chinese superstars in Beijing. Rose Niu, who heads The Nature Conservancy’s China program, Rare’s close partner on our endeavor here. TNC gets at least half the credit for anything we manage to do in China! Rose promised ongoing help in a big way – and thoughtfully took me to an innocuous lunch of tofu, vegetables and chicken.
And Edward Tien. One of China’s foremost entrepreneurs, boyish in his round Harry Potter spectacles. It’s not often that I meet one of this ilk that is also a fanatic botanist and uses part of his fortune to fund an online database of images of the Chinese flora! Edward promised to help and provided sage advice on how to work with Chinese universities.
I went to Pizza Hut for dinner. I never do that!
The next day I flew home to my very pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter. They loved the panda pics!
