Around the World in 1980s Days - Part 4

In the fourth part of her world trip in 1980, Josephine Parmeter travels from Guam to China.

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Tuesday. Guam. 8 am. Arrive two miles off Guam. Captain announces the weather is too bad to enter the harbour. While we wait there is a break in the clouds and the Canberra makes a dash for the harbour through the channel. Ashore 2.30 pm. Buses arrive at 3 pm and taker us to shopping centre for GI base. A. found nice shirts. Nought for me and Ann. Guam is dreary rather dirty, scruffy base, but Filipino type people are nice and friendly. Gave us each shell necklace. Some poufs in crew of wearing them! Weather clears, first sun after five days rain. This is their dry season. No local architecture -- some US type homes -- smaller cars -- Datsun, Volkswagen.
 
A Swedish man is taken ashore to an ambulance. He had a heart attack yesterday. He is taken to the US base Hospital which probably has good facilities. He is a lucky man -- next stop would have been Tokyo in two days and may have been too late.
 
Wednesday. Volcanic islands smoking a ¼ mile to port. Saw boobi birds and flying fish. Saw ugly Japanese immigration officers -- no charm or courtesy.
 
Thursday. Last swim in topics. Mukoshima Islands to port. They are volcanic. The wind is in the north-west and the sea is very rough. There are beautiful waves like a painting by Hokusai. Pack for China. Temperature 67°F. There is a force 7 to 8 gale - but we still we played deck tennis in the afternoon.
 
Friday. 6 am. Landfall Japan. Steam up channel of Yokohama  with an escort of three destroyers and one gunboat. The shipping lanes are crammed with container ships -- one of which must be the largest in the world. See Mount Fuji through the mist with sun on snow at its summit. There is a helicopter circling as immigration officials are put on board from a launch. The temperature is 40°F but the sun is bright and warm.
 
The shoreline is built up from miles. There is shipping seen everywhere to the horizon. It is the busiest port in the world.
 
Ruth and Ellen came down to the dining room to say farewell. I shan't see them again as they go to Kyoto today and stay overnight and I go to China tomorrow. I see fabulous Japanese tugs -- the biggest and best equipped so far. We have a barbecue lunch and then a planned tour of Tokyo - traffic, shrines, shops!
 
Tokyo. Drive from Yokohama to Tokyo via overhead road. See monorail. Industry as far as the eye can see - solid for the 18 mile trip. All factories like Sony, Nissan, Japanese Beer, Sanyo etc. There is not a square inch of spare land. It ranges from high-rise high-density to wood framed tiny box houses with bright blue tiles roofs.
 
We see large wreathes of white plastic chrysanthemums outside a house where a funeral is to be held. Pink plastic cherry blossom are tied to bare trees and lampposts to signal spring work here.
 
Arrive Narita airport -- beautiful, clean, new, efficient. Shops, bars, restaurants -- beautiful. Have a Japanese beer which is very good. Pay in US dollars. We board a Chinese Airline plane. It's pouring with rain. We leave 35 minutes late. The plane is a third full of inscrutable oriental gentlemen and two thirds full of P&O ferries very scrutable passengers! Chat to a French girl, Mlle Bertin from Paris while waiting in the airports and discover that meeting her at Southampton is an old friend from Jersey Miss Coudourier - Anne's old bête noire from Beaulieu Convent! She comes to Jersey for holidays. We hope to share a room in Peking with her. At 6 pm supper is served by Chinese stewardesses wearing blue trousers and coat and white apron. Very Chinese food. Taiwan wine which tastes like cough mixture. The beer is very good however. There is green tea which is pleasant. A little wet scented flannel is handed with tongs to all passengers. I sit with a German chap and a young American girl. Think we must be flying over the Sea of Japan then down round the bottom of Formosa and up again to Peking.
 
Peking. Land at 10:30 pm. The airport is very clean and has been kept open for us. Telecameras are dotted around for security. There is a bus ride to town. It is one hour to the Friendship Hotel, Peking. We drive along straight and narrow bare tree-lined "grandes allees". It is cold - there is ice on the water puddles of the roadside. The first impression is that this is like a French provincial countryside.
 
The hotel is like a University complex - we are in Block 2, built in Chinese style with blocks round a central large square courtyard. Block 2 is like a Convent school with polished red tile floor on the basement, wood floor upstairs, and a vast communal dining area. Have sandwiches and green jasmine mint tea at midnight. Yvette and self  share a suite of one large two-bed room, sitting room with writing desk and Shangxun telephone, own bathroom, hot and cold water in large thermals jugs and green tea, cups etc on the table. Very comfortable beds. Central heating is welcome as it is freezing outside. The air is very clear and the whole place and people are very sweet and friendly.
 
Up at 6 am. At 9 am we visit to zoom to see Peking fete - "happy dumpling day" -- and also see pandas. There are people here from Mongolia in costume. Spend an hour in Tiananmen Square -- the biggest in the world -- with Palace of Culture and picture of Mao on front. Soldiers on leave with girlfriends take pictures with very ancient folding box cameras. Much interest in the Yvette and self. We take pictures of babies in bamboo prams and colourful clothes. Everyone over five years wears blue trousers and Mao coats and the chaps wear caps or fur lined hats.
 
Lunch at Hangzuchaye Restaurant -- typical Chinese food. Very good beer.
 
Afternoon trip to Imperial Palace. Fantastic arrangement of 3000 rooms. Yvette and self go on ahead and see it all by ourselves -- Treasury , Royal apartments, costumes. We hear Chinese music and talk Chinese with guides. There is ice on the moat around the outside walls.
 
Evening. Yvette and self and No 2 girl take a walk to Block 4 to see Chinese clinic and the American expert who teaches English at Peking University. Entertains us with chocolate rice cookies. Tells us of local shopping centre which we set off to find. Everything shuts at 9:30 pm.
 
Monday. Update 6 am ready to trip to Ming Tombs and Great Wall. The bus journey takes two hours to Tombs - travel through countryside farmed by communes with go-kart tractors, wooden ploughs and wheelbarrows. The Tombs are a lovely setting rather like Agamemnon at Mycenae. Buy a Jade Turtle for five pounds. Take many pictures from where we are looking at the foothills of mountains. They rise very suddenly and sharply -- golden coloured stone, some with snow on top. On another hour's drive up the mountain to a strategic point of the Great Wall. Lunch at cafe. Very good beer -- take apple with us. Yvette and self leave meal early and climb Wall number one to top. We meet girls at the top who are bartering to rings, coins and Jade. As we come down, some of group 3 are slowly climbing to the halfway point. We go down to the bottom and up the other side. Yvette makes it to the top where two little boys try to barter of pieces of jade found locally. I get to within 50 yards -- shoe trouble! We take fabulous pictures and there is bright light sunshine, snow, a frozen river. It's a lovely atmosphere. From the top we can see a lake in the distance. Down to Bus 3 and back to Peking and the Friendship. 10 minutes for a quick whisky best accompanied by hot green jasmine tea -- lovely.
 
Banquet at upstairs restaurant. Speeches by Madam President of China Friendship Tours. Drink Mao Tai toasts ad lib and 10 people at our table get rather merry. A party of Spaniards Mrs Dixon, the Swiss, an American couple and Yvette and self all speaking French after many more toasts!
 
Tuesday. Yvette and self up at 5 am to see soldiers drilling in courtyard. They are not very good. And we go and join the Chinese foggers(?) for FLITING. Do our exercises which astound the Chinese who all stop and watch and copy us. Such fun!
 
Breakfast 7.30 am  then on to the Peking Air Raid Shelter which the peasants are building themselves. Floor opens in each shop in the town centre. It slides back like in a James Bond film to reveal steps descending to 15 feet and more.  There are air-conditioned and ancient machines throughout. They look as though they came from 1860 Great Britain! There are dormitories, medical stalls, hospital, washing areas etc. Have green tea in dining room lit with standard lamps! We see control panels that opening the entrances and exits.
 
The Chinese guide explains that the network goes outside to the city and takes three hours to walk to the suburbs. Hundreds of thousands of people could live here for a week and then go out to the suburbs outside the radiation zone. The steel door opens and shuts like magic to prevent panic. There is a telephone system throughout. They are anticipating some sort of attack and the people themselves build their shelter in their spare time stop
 
On to the Chinese Friendship Store where only foreigners may shop. Lovely silks, blouses, jade, furs, pullovers, cashmeres, furniture and food. Back to hotel for lunch.
 
Yvette and self mend the  plumbing.
 
Afternoon. We have a visit by bus to a Commune. We drive out of Peking past the University (where our guides Chan and Foo studied). The countryside is bare as the earth is now being prepared for wheat and vegetables -- tomatoes, cucumbers, flat-stemmed spinach. Country shops sell Chinese cabbage which is like lettuce, sweets, shoes, blue clothes and wheelbarrows, baskets and a few sheepskins. The men sit at the roadside and mend shoes -- others have a glue pot for general mending.
 
Visit paper factory -- all home-made machinery and buckets of water etc
 
Visit farm with where there are 500 Friesian milking herds. The cows are in a lovely condition. They are kept inside eating silage and the smell is potent! Some of the women in our group wearing mink coats complain that the smell stays in the fur and are very cross.
 
Visit home of Chow and family. It is a little peasant hut with old-fashioned stove -- kettle on! They build houses themselves from mud bricks. Each house has two rooms. The rest of the family have houses next door on each side. A little garden produces vegetables and pears. The surplus of this they sell and they keep the money and put it in the bank. The average bank balance of the peasants is US$6.40. Lovely old camphor wood chest in corner of room with Victorian period style Chinese vases on top. I admire this and Chow is very pleased. When we leave she collects all the family from next door and they come to see us off. Yvette and self wave to them from the back of the bus and they to us until we are out of sight.
 
Evening. We had a quick dinner at the hotel then on to the Heavenly Gates Theatre for an incredible evening of entertainment. A provincial ballet performs the Dying Swan which is quite good. The dancer of the 4 cygnets is very good. Rest of programme -- electric organ, small orchestra -- musicians very keen and jumped up and down while drummer sat absolutely still. They played Jingle Bells which the Chinese audience loved. They actually clapped when it was announced! They don't clap after each act -- only those they really like -- dead silence otherwise. Then a sort of camped-up version of Bizet's Carmen with four Chinese chaps dressed as matadors, swirling cloaks and shouting "ore". Their hair is curled and eyes made up to look rounds. It was hilarious! Not meant to be!
 
The snake dance was super. The music for the ballet was recorded -- and rather scratchy! The people love the outing and in the intermission of half an hour out of a three-hour performance, they walked about looking at our group as though we'd come from the moon. Some of our women wore long dresses, gold shoes, mink stoles etc and looked absurd. The Chinese wore their uniform blue and kept their caps on! There were very few Chinese women.
 
Back to Block 2 -- Talk to chaps from Rolls-Royce in Peking, over for a couple of weeks to oversee the installation and maintenance plants in Tibet. Hawker Siddeley have Chinese airlines based here with - Trident, 747s. We retire after a couple of beers! The slippers incident  causes Yvette and self  to giggles until quite late.
 
Wednesday. Up at 5 am. Yvette removes slippers, creeping along corridor in nightie!
 
Bus to Summer Palace. Yvette and self go ahead with map. See ice on the Lake. There is a beautiful covered walk, richly decorated. The Pavilions are newly restored. See marble boat, have lunch at restaurant. Yvette is naughty and asks in French for the menu. After, a trip on the lake in three barges drawn by small motorised craft.
 
See group of Japanese tourists dressed in expensive Western-style sheepskin coats taking photographs of Chinese peasant family with baby! Should have taken a picture of this! Bus to Peking airport. It is new, (but a copy of French system). Plane is a Trident which has a late takeoff for Kwangchow.