U. S. Soldiers Home Mac: during a century of travel (well 78 years!)
both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count
both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted
signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder
why). So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.
Beijing, China. The Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing
has 9,000 rooms. We agree that if we got lost and separated from each
other we would meet in the Hall of Heavenly Purity (if they would let
us in) At the time I was there the military did no wear rank on their
uniforms (don’t know if this still applies or not) You could kind
of get an idea of who outranked who by the number of pockets they had
on their blouse of uniform. Someone with four pockets would have their
baggage carried by someone with one pocket or no pockets.
In the hotels the orchestras (In the Peace Hotel in Shanghai I think
they had some of the members or orchestra from the 30s) would play songs
they thought we would like. Oh Susannah from a couple of decades ago seems
to be making a comeback as well as Turkey in the Straw and Auld Lang Sang.
At the end of each number the players would put down their instruments
and applaud us in the audience. We could hardly wait for the Tuba player
to unwind from his Tuba to applaud us. Everyone in our tour group caught
colds (from the dust) except those that had taken Vitamin C for a couple
of weeks before arriving in China. Mr Wu our guide referred to the Royal
Bank of Canada (George from Canada wanted to get some money) as the Loyal
Bank of Canada. One of the military said that when he was in China years
before he took a piece of the wall and had a name plate put on it and
sent it to movie actress Carole Lombard as he had read that she collected
rocks. She threw it back. No she wrote and thanked him.
Our Chinese guide in Wuxi kind of had a high opinion of himself (unusual
for Chinese) and though he was hip in Western ways. He liked to show off
and showed us how he was proficient in Tai Chi (shadow boxing). Blonde
vivacious Liza asked him to dance with her. He said No that he could not
dance with a client but that he would arm-wrestle her Ha. He told long
involved stories about the Kingdom of Wu and Dragons and such. George
whispered: I wonder what he would say if we told him we didn’t want
to hear any more dragon stories? If I were going to China today I would
probably take my own plastic chopsticks. In Japan they have disposable
chopsticks but in China they have plastic ones that you hope they wash
after several others have used them. If going to China start a walking
program at home. Walk around the block then next day further as in China
even on escorted tours you are going to be doing more walking than you
possibly do at home. Build up you let muscles before leaving home. I put
as many Chinese stamps on letters sent home as possible for stamp collectors
back home as their stamps are so colourful and unusual. While there their
coffee was not very good so taking instant coffee along helped. The hotels
had thermos bottle of hot water for tea in your room, which they replenished
every morning and this was handy to make coffee with.
Kneehow (phonetic) in Chinese means hello. In China Carol who was from
England and had a beautiful voice would sing slightly risqué Cockney
songs and George would sing “My old lady and the lady next door went
down the river on a barnyard door singing Ki Yi Yippie Yi ” and nonsensical
songs. Miss Cha who was trying to learn English (she had taught herself)
wanted to learn some of these songs so she could sing them to her next
tour group. As some were risqué Carol said. “My dear I don’t
think you really need to learn these songs” Les would give his excellent
imitation of Peter Sellers imitating an Indian and his accent was hilariously
correct. We should have been a USO troop. We laughed all the way across
China. If you are in high altitude eating onions will help combat altitude
sickness.
Next month, Mac discusses his travels through India. If you would like
to contact Mac, he can be e-mailed on: macsan400@yahoo.com