"Sarah Nemec, when you see this, the title is not not meant to say anything about how short or how long your college career was. The title is tied to a comment by Mr. Yan Dun Shi, my friend and the father of my companies agent in China, Mr. Yan Jia Lin, when I hosted them at a dinner on Tuesday night, the 14th of December. In referring to the trip, which Jialin and I had completed the previous week (0450.html), Mr. Yan said, `You did the long march!' He is very high in the communist party, and when Mao and his communist friends took over the Chinese government, they did so by what is known as `The Long March.' This long march to get away from Chiang Kai-shek and the westerners is the most famous part of Chinese communism's history. So when Mr. Yan said, `You did the long march!', it was interesting to me. Then, after the dinner on Tuesday evening, I had the flight from Beijing to Chicago to Houston, arriving on Wednesday night, and then before I knew it, Saturday morning arrived and Andrea and I drove to San Marcos, and your graduation from Texas State University. In fact, I was still so jet lagged, that Andrea had to drive most of the way over because I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was the long march for me, not for you. But I get ahead of myself in regards to this week.
It is actually the 9th of January of 2005, and I am just now writing this Thoughtlet about the week of December 12th to 19th. Following this one will be a Thoughtlet titled `Cedar City, Utah' (0452.html), then one titled `Tsunami' (../0501.html), then one titled `Perfection and Truth' (../0502.html) for this week, and I anticipate next week's Thoughtlet to be `Peckham Park Fishing' (../0503.html), followed by `Andrea's 50th Birthday Party' (../0504.html), followed by `NAPE 2005' (../0505.html, followed by `Xing Jiang Oilfield Training' (../0506.html), followed by ..., opps, I am striving to remember too far into the future. Oh well! Onward to the past.
Monday, 13 December 2004, was slow. I spent a lot of time working on `An Open Mind.' By the time I left China I had about 20 pages put together, including the first draft of the complicated html Science-Religion Matrix. My goal is to post the first chapter by the end of January. It will be interesting to see if I make that goal. Jialin had been so focused on the long march that he did not have meetings set up for Monday. So after writing for a few hours, I took a cab and went shopping for Christmas gifts. The taxi driver dropped me off at a place I had never been before. I walked through it, and then sort of recognized the district, and so I walked down the street and found the Pearl Market Shops, which I knew. As I went in, I called Andrea to talk about what I was going to be spending money on. There was a beggar with no legs outside. I did not give him anything. I'm a long way from what the Savior showed us to be like. Oh well!
The first booth I went to had ties. She started out at 100 yuan each. I asked how much of a discount I would get if I bought several. She said 50 yuan each. Then I said what if I buy 20. She said 25 yuan each. Then I said what if I buy 25, and she said 12 yuan each. So I bought 25 nice Chinese silk ties for 300 yuan, or US$40, which I gave to my boys and to my High Priest Quorum for Christmas. I needed a couple of more scarfs to go with the ones I bought in Urumchi, and I paid 50 yuan or US$6 for these. Then I bought a Buddha for Rachel, two Chinese Lions for Audrey, and a chess set for Roice and a chess set for Rob for their Christmas presents. I'm sorry it is not fair and everyone doesn't get as nice of presents as everyone else. As I was paying for the chess sets Jialin called and said he had set up a lunch meeting with me and Wang Xuejun in Zhuo Zhou, and so I left the store in a hurry and headed back to the hotel with too many boxes of stuff. In fact, they were so heavy they broke my suitcase. And the airport screeners opened up my suitcase and taped it back up really poorly. Oh well! I have digital photos!
We first went to a meeting with Mr. Sun at CNPC, who is Jialin's best friend inside CNPC. Mr. Sun is one of the folks who funds BGP's Research Center in Houston, and it was interesting to get his perspective. They really don't seem to have a good plan for the Houston operation, but there is a definite plan to put a big operation in place. I guess the concept of `build it and they will come' works in Chinese thought too. He is willing to host a seminar by Fred Hilterman next spring, and he gave me a notebook, which I will use for 2005. Then Jialin and I headed of for Zhuo Zhou and the planned lunch with Wang Xuejun. However, there were two bad traffic jams, and finally Mr. Wang called and we had to postpone the lunch meeting. Oh well! We turned around at a U-Turn on the Freeway, where we had been stuck for an hour, and where they were selling beautiful pheasants, and headed back into Beijing.
Jialin dropped me off close to the Great Wall Sheraton, where I stayed when I brought Grandma Hafen to China. I went to The Beijing Hard Rock Cafe next door and bought Matt a new shirt. Then I walked back over to the Hilton. On the way I stopped at a little Chinese Restaurant and ate some sweet and sour pork. It was really good. I smiled at the waitress and she blushed and went and hid in the back room. I took her picture. It was a interesting.
Then I walked the rest of the way back to the Hilton, took my stuff upstairs, and came back down with the new digital camera to take photos of the musicians playing in the lobby. I also went to the hotel store where they had two very interesting 19th century Chinese compasses. They looked a lot like Mayan Calendars. I wanted to buy them, but I ended up not doing so. Oh well! I was also picked out by a lady who had set up an art exhibit. I walked through her art exhibit and was particularly struck by a painting of a large Chinese `Apartment building.' She showed me other paintings the artist had done of these buildings. They were built by a southwest Chinese Minority in Fujian Province. The houses are circle houses, called mushroom mud buildings. They date back to the Chen Dynasty, and are built by a group called the Tu Jia Minority. They reminded me of the forts and common eating areas of both Orderville and Bunkerville, and I immediately wanted to get on a plane and go visit them. Oh well! My contact is Emily Li, emilyni12@sina.com.cn or 13691193021. Maybe someday I will make it to see these fascinating communal houses.
I did buy a package of postcards, and wrote them on Monday night. I sent them Tuesday morning and paid 115 yuan for stamps for 23 post cards. However, I just realized, I've never seen the post cards arrive which I sent to Matt and Andrea. Oh well! Jialin and I spent a lot of time at banks and talking to different groups on Tuesday about getting money out of China once you have closed a deal. The government closely controls all money exports, and so this is going to be one of the biggest issues to work through. As we were driving around Jialin called Xu Da-Kun, who it turns out was in Taiwan. I expressed surprise that a Chinese National would be in the country of Taiwan. Jialin's response was immediate: `Taiwan is not a country, it is a territory of China.' I also learned that Jialin and his fiancee, Hao Qing Yuan, are expecting. Her parents are going to move to Beijing and will take care of the baby for the first two years of its life. Jialin's parents are `too old.'
Tuesday evening I hosted a dinner for Jialin, his fiancee, his parents, and our friends from Cedar City, Stan and Barbara Shakespeares. This was at the same restaurant Xu Da-Kun hosted me at 9 days earlier (0450.html). It was a very nice evening. I learned that the instrument I purchased in Uramuchi is called a Rewaf. It is played like a violin, but is plucked. I also got a wonderful video of Yan Dunshi playing the drum which I purchased in Urumchi, the smaller of which I gave to Brian for Christmas. Mr. Yan asked me if I was going to get in trouble with the U.S. government for purchasing instruments from terrorists groups, like the Islam minority in Urumchi. He is always coming up with these zingers. He liked my anser. Sister Shakespeare brought her ukulele, and once I learned how she fingers G and C chords, I was able to follow along on the guitar. We sang a bunch of old time songs I have not sung for years. Then I showed Mr. Yan and his son the data Christian Singfield had sent me from Australia on digital core and cuttings. Mrs. Yan demonstrated Tia Chi, and I have a nice video of this. Mr. Yan said he wants the Shakespeares to come over to his apartment and teach him about Mormonism so Jialin can stop smoking. We explained that we can not teach the gospel in China. All in all it was one of the nicest evenings I have had in China. The only issue was that my credit card had exceeded it's max and I had to use a different credit card to pay for dinner. Oh well!
Wednesday I checked out of the Hilton, put my stuff in Jialin's car, and we went on the road again to see if we could break the code on how to get money out of China. We didn't really solve the issue. We had a nice meeting with the Landmark accountant. She is a very aggressive young lady. After about 5 minutes she asked me if she could have a job with GDC. The other thing that happened was that Todd Staheli's Uncle, Lin Bothwell, called to get the web site to the Thoughtlets, so he could review my comments about Todd and Michelle, as he could not read my writing when I wrote down the web site on Sunday. Oh well!
Most of Wednesday was spent sitting in an airplane. It is 6569 miles from Beijing up over Siberia and down to Chicago. We left Beijing at 3:42 AM Chicago time and arrived at 3:44 PM Chicago time. Then it was 925 miles or 2 hours and 45 minutes from Chicago to IAH. However, the flight was about 2 hours late, and so I was really tired by the time I finally got home.
I am getting old, because I was not worth much at the office
on either Thursday nor Friday. The meeting with Mr. Guo,
President of BGP International, which I came back from China
to attend, happened on Friday afternoon. It was an
interesting meeting, and it does not look to me like BGP is
very interested in pursuing a joint venture with GDC. Oh
well! It has been a long march, and it is not over yet.
Time will tell what happens. GDC had a company Christmas
Party at Dave & Buster's at lunch on Friday. I really do
not care much for these places. However, I'm sure Matt
would really like it, so I guess I need to bite the bullet
and take him down there sometime before he leaves.
Saturday morning we got up early and drove to San Marcos to finish the long march to Sarah Nemec's graduation. The ceremony reminded me of SUU more than UT or BYU. It was nice. It was the first time I have met Sarah's parents. They are nice. They and Sarah's siblings do not know about the word of wisdom, and I'm sure this is the main reason I have not cared for their second hand influence on Sara Ellyn. Oh well! I did capture Sarah's beautiful side in one of the digital photos. She really is a pretty girl, and I can certainly understand why Roice is attracted to her. After the graduation ceremony we drove to Roice's new house in Austin. On the way we watched a silver Corvette spin out of control and do a 360 degree spin right in front of us. They hit another car, and took out a light pole, but I think everyone was OK. Roice's house is at 81012 Falmouth, close to where I used to work when I was consulting at The Bureau of Economic Geology. Sarah and Roice have done a very nice job of putting the house together. And I was glad to have made the long march to Sarah Nemec's graduation."