My own China trip, 2004

As everyone knows, the Olympics has started in Beijing, amid much controversy. But everyone, their mom, and their dog, both professionals and non-professionals, have written about this and will continue to write about this a million times over, so I’m not even going to pretend to have anything to add to that discussion.

But I’m self-indulgent (is there any other kind of blog?) so I’ll just talk about the things I saw with my own eyes.

I took a 10-day trip to China in 2004 (and if you read my post about Hiroshima: yes, that was 2 round-trips to Asia I took that summer!). I don’t think I’d ever want to live there, but it’s an amazing and unique experience to visit. Two things made this an especially unique trip for me, though:
1) I went as a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band.
2 (though really a result of (1)) I was one of a few Asian people traveling with over 80 band members and another 40 or so donors/alumni/parents (read: mostly affluent, white people)

I remember enough to have an entry for every day I was there, but I’ll get tired and you’ll get bored, so here’s some select, interesting memories/observations:

- A real highlight of the trip was a visit to an elementary school in Beijing specializing in traditional Chinese music. We were absolutely blown away by how talented these kids were. They were playing instruments I’d never seen before, and the music was beautiful yet highly energetic.

- Now, I’ve been to Japan lots of times and know about white people getting sidelong stares a bit there, but that’s nothing compared to China. I’d just be out walking around during free time with a small group of fellow band members, and people would not only really stare, they’d come up — often nervously giggling — and ask to take pictures. And the lighter-haired, lighter-skinned you are, the more interesting. Several times during the trip, I had a Chinese person shove a camera in my hands (me = Asian = not interesting), go pose next to the blond, white person in the group, and mime at me to take a picture. I’d mentally roll my eyes and comply.

- As always, we’d change out of uniforms in our charter buses after performances. Some people actually followed us to the buses and try to watch us (or rather, “them” I should say) through the bus windows. Good thing these buses had curtains.

- We had our share of annoying white people in our group. We were at the Summer Palace in this neat dragon-shaped boat. Since the whole boat was filled with SC people, an older man in our group (non-band member) decided it was a great idea to do…a SoCal Spellout. I’m usually all for spontaneous Spellouts when I’m with SC folk, but sitting on this dragon boat in the serene Summer Palace in China, I just felt embarrassed for him, me, and everyone else on the boat.

- One of our performances was on the Great Wall. We played both down in a plaza area and on the Wall itself. It was all very cool and surreal but…you know, there’s something slightly ironic, weird, and uncomfortable about us playing “Conquest” on the Great Wall. Take that as you will…

- In the touristy areas of China, there’s people trying to sell you cheap stuff everywhere. Especially with a huge American group like ours, people were constantly shouting “ONE DOLLAR! ONE DOLLAR!” holding out everything from postcards to Chairman Mao watches. Many in my group went up to them to use the art of bargaining and milk them for all they could, but I tried my best to ignore them. I went to the flea market in Shanghai for the experience, but I decided to break off and wander by myself because I got tired of being with the target-Americans. I didn’t look like a typical Japanese tourist either, so I was able to mostly blend in and be left alone.

- A lot of us, including me, enjoyed Xi’an the most. There’s the famous terra-cotta warriors of course, we had amazing dumplings at De Fa Chang restaurant, and we even got a Welcoming Ceremony at the City Gate.

I generally don’t like traveling with big tour groups (…100+ white Americans in China!), and as you can tell there was plenty I had to “put up with,” but it was worth it on this one; it gave me such a unique experience and I got to do things I wouldn’t have been able to do anyway else.

Welcoming Ceremony at Xi'an

I'm second from the front there.

*Photos: None of these photos are mine. I didn’t have my digital camera then, and I couldn’t have taken a lot of these for obvious reasons anyway. I believe these were taken by our photographer for the trip, and I downloaded ones I liked onto my computer years ago. I don’t remember who you are; sorry!*