Well, it's been an eventful past few days. The guts have decided to behave themselves again, and I just managed to stomach a whole sandwich and a handful of fries. That's important. It's tough to make a recovery when you can't eat enough to maintain your strength. It's also sort of a crap way to spend my birthday weekend, though everyone around me was really kind and made it as fun as possible. On Saturday, I re-visited the English training center where I went last week and had another chat with their students. The best question this time was "Do you believe in UFOs and life on other planets?" That continued on to "How big is the universe and is it shrinking or expanding?" and "What's beyond the edge of the universe?" They were also very sweet and arranged a cake for my birthday, and several of them sang songs. In English and terribly off key. Is was an incredibly sweet gesture, but something more traditional would have been nice. Then my friend Nigar danced a Ughyur dance for us. That was really special. I got it on video, so I'll have that memory for years to come. Unfortunately my stomach didn't cooperate and started to cramp again, so after grimacing through a round of photos I managed to get back to my hotel and crash for the night.
The day of my actualy birthday, Sunday, all I wanted was to go to the Fubar and chill with some good Western comfort food and relaxed company. I didn't want to have to smile and show my happiness. I didn't want to have to make or receive speeches about how much we're all appreciated for the hard work we've put into this project. But that's Chinese custom, and therefore I had to seeing as my birthday was also happened to be my last night in Urumqi with our colleagues. So I pre-arranged an "out" with my friend Hiroshi that would let me escape the banquet early while allowing my colleagues to maintain face. I told them that a party had been planned for my farewell and birthday weeks earlier by a college classmate who lives in Urumqi (true, Hiroshi and I did go to Cornell at the same time but didn't know each other). I then informed the professor that I asked my friends to wait for me since I had a very important banquet to attend with my colleagues. That made him feel important, it made me look good for keeping my appointments, and it got me out of dinner after only about an hour and no baiju. I was particularly happy about that last bit. I've been hugging the sink a little too much lately to want any Chinese rotgut in my stomach at the moment.
At dinner, I made my best attempt at a good show to keep up the honor and happiness. It was my farewell dinner, but it was also a welcoming dinner for a professor visiting from Shanghai. He seemed to be a nice guy. He spent 7 years at Rutgers as a postdoc. He name dropped someone at Rutgers, and I didn't clearly understand the name with his accent. He gently scolded me in that "you should know him because he's done blah blah blah" sort of way. Okay, fine, maybe. So later we were talking about his work, and he said he worked on genomics as a postdoc and is now working on plant and algal genetics and is interested in alternative fuels. I said "Then you must know George Church who is at Harvard and works on blah blah blah" - all stuff that is directly relevant to his field. He stumbled just a little and said "I'm not always so good with names." I just smiled and said "I understand. I'm the same way sometimes." And with all of the pretention off the table we had a nice coversation about crop-based energy production and energy input versus crop yield for rice versus corn - his plant of choice. I think I did well for my host professor. He is establishing a collaboration with this guy to work on plant engineering, and having a bright young researcher from Harvard make a good impression on his guest was important to make him look good. I think it also went a long way toward strengthening our working relationship since he suddenly seems to be a bit perkier and more enthusiastic when speaking with me.
The escape to the bar was a little tricky. One of the students was tasked with getting me into a cab except that she flagged one in a turning lane in heavy traffic and had to jump in with me. She kept dropping hints on the way to the bar that she would like to be invited in to my "party", but I just kept playing clueless and said "I'll pay for this cab so that you have enough money to get home." I hated to send her off that way, since she's a really sweet gal, but it would have looked *horrible* for her to find out that the "party" was me, Hiroshi, the other surly Irish owner Manus, an aged and decrepit old cat, and the resident drunk who laughs at all the wrong moments and keeps falling of his bar stool. But all of that sounded like heaven to me, because I could belly up to the bar, toast myself with a weak vodka and soda, and enjoy the specially requested tomato soup that Hiroshi so thoughtfully had his kitchen staff prepare for me. Not a bad 31. And no harm, no foul. Everyone is happy and feels honored and respected. It's one thing to "know" the customs. It's another to be able to manipulate them...
And now I'm in Beijing. It was kind of funny to get on a flight full of Ughyurs in the western frontier excited for what is probably their first trip to the big city. I think they were all part of one big group, since the whole plane seemed to know each other. I seemed to be the in-flight entertainment. I kept getting funny looks and big smiles and heard "hello" and "thank you" from random directions once in awhile. But all I wanted to do was sleep since I had woken up with stomach pain the night before and hadn't slept well. My seat mate had other ideas. I requested a window, but when I got to my row there were two men sitting in the window and middle seats. No way, dude. That's *my* seat. So I politely pointed at his seat and handed him my boarding pass. He pointed at the aisle seat, and I smiled but shook my head. So they moved. And then he tried to chat me up for awhile. Not in any verbal language that either of us understand, but in a combination of fractured english, attempts at chinese, and lots and lots of hand gestures. "Where am I from? How long have I been here? Where am I going? Am I married? Do I have kids?" Standard questions. And then he indicated that he's married with two kids. Very nice man. With very sharp elbows that he proceeded to jab into my protruding ribs every time he wanted to get my attention. As I said before, all I wanted to do was sleep, but he made it his duty to be sure I woke up for the drink cart and meal. He got agitated with the flight attendant when he thought she was overlooking my empty water glass. He gave me all of his cherry tomatoes as well as his travel companion's when he realized that's all I was eating from the dinner tray. And at one point in the flight when he got up, he put his flight blanket over my lap. But then I didn't see him again. He must have disappeared to sit next to some one else, because we landed and he never came back. It made me a little sad that I didn't get to say bye to Mr. Sharp Elbow Man.
I am now in the lap of luxury and loving every moment of it. I decided that after "roughing it" for two months and my slow recovery from food poisoning, I deserve a little extra care. So "Harvard" booked me a room for two nights at the Crowne Plaza by the Beijing airport. I've seen enough of Beijing in the past that I don't care to do any touristy things and should reserve and increase my strength. And I'm only about 10 minutes from the airport which makes catching my flight tomorrow a piece of cake. The room is fabulous by any standards and especially compared to my adequate but meager accomodations recently. A real king sized mattress. That is the number one most exciting thing. I've been sleeping on an inch thick cotton pad set atop a particle board frame (twin sized) that leaves me less than rested and with an aching back and hips every morning. International cable TV with limited channels, but there's HBO and Cinemax which far surpass the CSPN (Chinese knockoff of ESPN) and the English language government run station that only plays Chinese language lessons and fluff news pieces. Though I may still have to flip back to CSPN for the World's Strongest Man competitions and the Snooker World Championship. I would love for the interior designers of the Crowne Plaza to come design my bathroom someday. It's all sandstone marble with a dark brown granite countertop and an in-set deep white procelain sink. Very modern Asian and very cool. But my two favorite bathroom features are the enormous deep bathtub that would only be better if it had jets and the proper shower stall (separate from the tub) with two shower heads. There are few places in this part of the world where you can find a bathtub, and even if there is a tub it is rare that you'd want to get in it. Usually there isn't enough hot water to fill it, or more often the water there is to fill it smells so badly that soaking is not appealing. And it's nice to be able to shower in a stall without getting the whole room wet. Most places have a shower head mounted on the wall and a drain that is often at the highest point of the bathroom floor. Add to that the fact that the sink, floor drain, and toilet often share the same piping system, and it makes for a rather odiferous experience.
The next time you hear from me, I will be back on US soil. My flight is tomorrow afternoon to Newark, straight over the North Pole, and then I'll be connecting to Boston by Wednesday night. It will be soooooo good to be home. Darren and I have spent 5 weeks together since the first of January, so this travel blog is going to come to a screeching halt for awhile so that I can stay home and get back to my normal life. It's been fun though. I'm glad to have you guys out there reading along with me. It makes the world seem a little smaller...
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