"Sara Ellyn and Sarah Elizabeth did come back to where I was waiting to change my ticket on Monday to give me a hug and to say thanks for the trip. I kind of feel like Aunt Luana sent them. Oh well! At least they said they enjoyed the trip. I hope they sometime send me a summary of their thoughts about the trip for me to include in a Thoughtlet. By the time I left the airport I was missing them. Oh well!
There were no meetings on Monday. I went back over to the Pearl Market and bought a chess set for Matt for his High School graduation present. I like it a lot and I paid 200 yuan for it. Matt didn't take it to school because he was sure it would be stolen from the dorm room and `Roice, that chess set is worth $300 or $400 dollars or more or less here in the states.' Matt, you are a jewel, and I appreciate your enthusiasm and your spirit. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading The Book of Hopi where it talks about how fire ended Tokpela, the First World, how the world spun through cold and lifeless space and froze into solid ice to end Tokpa, the Second World, how Sotuknang loosed the waters upon the earth and how waves higher than mountains rolled in upon the land to end Kuskurza, the Third World, breaking continents asunder, which sank beneath the seas while the rain fell and the waves rolled in, and how this is Tuwaqachi, the Fourth World (pages 12-22 The Book of Hopi). It was fascinating to read about this peace loving people who avoided bloodshed, and when the Hopi ceremonies were not performed right had people attack them, or disease, or famine. At one point in the afternoon I took a break from reading about the deep mysteries of creation as described in the Hopi legends and was reading from The Book of Mormon, where I came across the following passage:
On page 251 of The Book of Hopi is the following paragraph:
I would love to have time to pursue these studies in much more
depth and to come to a more complete understanding of the
relationships to events and principles taught in The Book of
Mormon. As I read these pages from a history book and a book
of scripture in a hotel room in Beijing, China my heart burned
and I knew, with yet another sure witness, God lives, He called
Joseph Smith to be a prophet and to bring forth The Book of Mormon
as the key book of scripture for our time. And how does one help
those one loves find this same iron rod to hold onto and to guide
them through the gross and the worldly back to Heavenly Father?
This seems to be the challenge of my life, my rides on many
different types of overnight trains. I had pretty much recovered
from our overnight train ride to Da Qing the previous Thursday
night, and the analogy in my notes shows it was still on my mind.
With all of these thoughts crowding for space in my mind, Dave Johnson called and suggested we go find some dinner. So we walked down to the fourth ring, and found a nice looking restaurant to try out. Dave is a very good geophysicist and also an evangelical Christian, and a dinner alone with him like this is always fun. If you smile at the young Chinese waitresses they become very shy and act funny. We tried to teach some of our waitresses English and they tried to teach us Chinese. We had a lot of fun. The food we chose was spicy, and I liked it a lot. It was a fun evening and I didn't share any of the Book of Mormon / Hopi Indian legends which had been collecting in my mind earlier in the day.
Tuesday we drove to Ji Ji city to visit the Hua Bei Oilfield. Ji Ji was the group that Gary Jones and my team at Landmark worked for back in 1988-1990. Dave gave the presentation. There were about 100 professionals in the audience. There are ongoing talks of a big project with this group. There were several e-mails and telephone regarding the Sun workstation from Les Dehnam and Richard Verm. Richard's e-mails were full of put-downs. Oh well! There were also e-mails about the IW-GEO (Interagency Working Group on Earth Observations) meeting in Washington D.C. May 9th and 10th. I discussed it with Dave, and he told me to go ahead and attend this meeting. So I got Maureen, who was out and so it was turned over to Lizabeth, to make plane to and hotel reservations in Washington D.C. She had to call Andrea for credit card information, and Andrea made sure Lizabeth knew she did not think it good business for GDC to force us to use personal credit cards for business expenses. Oh well! I'm sure part of this reaction was the stress of getting all of the kids to Salt Lake for Audrey's wedding. When I got back I noticed that on Saturday April 30th Andrea purchased Sara Ellyn's ticket to Salt Lake.
Wednesday Dave left for Indonesia to help one of the Christian congregations he works with. I finished reading The Book of Hopi. In the afternoon Jialin, Frank, and I headed out west to Urumuchi. This is a long flight, like flying from New York to Los Angeles. When we arrived at the airport, Mr. Ma and Madam Ping from our training class in Houston were waiting for us. It was good to see them, and it was obvious they were also glad to see me. The first hotel we went to was full, and so we ended up staying at the Tarim Hotel, where I listened to Chinese Christmas Carols in December last year.
We met with the geophysicists at Xing Jiang Oilfield on Thursday. Mr. Li, a retired geophysicist, took the center stage. He described a phenomena in great detail to me. It was that companies that succeeded in China provided their software free for the first six months, and then they made sales. I told him this was not a phenomena, rather it was bad business. I was tired, and getting tired of the Chinese way of doing business. They were drilling a well, partly based on our technology. It turned out the well was a dry hole, and there has not been a lot of conversation with them since then. The young people at Xing Jiang Oilfield all took me out to dinner. It was very spicy lamb, and an excellent meal. We had a good time. They each asked for advice on their careers. I do enjoy being the professor. Too bad I never paid the dues to get a Ph.D.. Oh well! Maybe my Grandkids will do better than I have done.
Earlier in the day I had gone to a bank and cashed all of the Travelers checks I brought with me, giving Jialin 24,282.16 RMB, or about US$3,000. in exchange for expense receipts. I did not have enough to cover all of his expenses. Thursday night we took the first of two overnight trains in two days. Jialin, Frank, and I left about midnight from Urumuchi to go to Tuha Oilfield, which is in Hami City about 600 km or 400 miles east of Urumuchi. We arrived about 7:00 AM. I think I'm getting too old for all of this. I was tired and crabby all day. Maybe it was my reaction to Mr. Li.
Friday was spent with Tuha Oilfield. They had an artist paint a banner that said `Geophysical Development Corporation and Tuha Oilfield Cooperation.' Of course it was lost on me because I don't read nor speak Chinese. When I offered to take it back to GDC, they tried to sell it to me. I didn't have any money left and so I declined. I lectured to about 80 geophysicists from 9:00 until noon, and then from 2:00 until 4:00. Then they took me on a tour of their facilities. It was a nice group. However, they had a Mr. Li, and he wanted everything for free, and I was pretty close to fed up with it all. Oh well! They fed me well, and I ate too much (I gained 10 pounds on this trip, which I haven't been able to get rid of since returning). About 11:00 PM we went to the train station, and took another overnight train ride back to Urumuchi. However, I was somewhat rested by the time we got back to Beijing from our 2,632 km 3 hour long flying nap late Saturday evening. I missed both Randy's (Andrea's brother) and Colby's birthdays, which were respectively on Thursday, the 28th of May, and Friday, the 29th of May because I was in far western China riding overnight trains. Oh well! I've never celebrated Randy's birthday anyway. And even though Colby was mad at me for not going to his birthday party, he is young enough he will probably forget about it, unless he ever reads this note.
Sunday was spent going to church, going to the Shakespeare's to share lunch with the new representatives of LDS Charities, packing, and finding a Bank of China which was open on May Day and which would give me a US$2,200. cash advance on a credit card so I could pay Jialin the remainder of the expenses owed. As I look back on this day, I remember how much I enjoy going to church and talking to Todd Staheli's uncle Lin Boswell, how much fun it was to be with the Shakespeare's for lunch again, and how lonely it was when I got back to the hotel. I strive to never turn a television on when I travel, and so there is just my books, my writing, on this trip my genealogy, and my mind. Of course, there was also plenty of incentive to take naps and sleep between meetings because of the plane rides and especially because of the overnight trains."