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At the station we met with a lady from a travel agency that hand us over our tickets (after we had paid for them of course), and then we went to the airport by bus. When boarding the bus, there was some confusion. Li-Xia was still out when I was standing in the bus wondering what I should do, when the driver wanted to take off, probably under the assumption that Li-Xia was some guide bringing me to the bus.
Around noon we got into the airport after our luggage first had been X-rayed. Check-in for our flight only started at 13:15. We had to pay ¥20 for some kind of insurrance for our suitcases when we checked then in. Then to get into the airport Li-Xia had to pay ¥30, and I had to pay HK$ 40. (Yes, in Guang Zhou foreigners often have to pay with Hong Kong Dollar.) We came through the second hand bagage check with out much problems. The man before me had to turn everything inside out. I could just walk on because of this after they had checked my passport.
In the large waiting room, I saw many abacuses in the small shops all round. Li-Xia bought some sandwidches and a wurst-roll for ¥10. Just before two o'clock we were waiting outside for the buses that would bring us to our plane after they had torn our tickets, when it was announced that the plane was delayed until three o'clock. Just before half past three we got into the plane, an Aeroflot Li-86. We entered the plane trough a stair under the plane. Inside the plane there is another stair leading to where all the seats are. It is a real wide body, nine seats wide. While we were waiting in our seats at the windows on the right side, I though I saw our suitcases stand outside. Then just before four o'clock, it was announced that everybody had to go outside to point out their suitcases. Li-Xia went outside to point out ours, which was not hard, because we indeed already had spotted them. It was after half past four that they announced we were delayed even more. At ten past five we had to fasten our seatbelts, but it was until 17:34 that we finally took off.
We arrived in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region around 20 past 10 in the evening. Our family had been waiting outside the airport for more than four ours. They had arranged a four-wheel drive with driver from the unit1 to get us from the airport. I the dark we drove back to Urumqi. What I remember most were all the tree trunks being painted white, and the many christmas lights that they hung outside the shops as a form of decoration. The main roads are really very wide. The car drove up to the apparment building where our family stays, so we didn't have to carry our suitcase far.
After we came home, we give all the presents to our family members, and showed them the many pictures of our wedding. Li-Xia's mother prepared a meal for all of us. They had prepared a special room for us as our wedding room2. Of course, with new red curtains and bed cover. The bed was a typical Chinese bed: wood covered with several layers of cutton. Rather hard for Western ideas, but I got used to it quickly.
In the morning we were visited by "Grand Mother" Yu Rong Hua3, now 80 years old and a former colleague of Li-Xia's mother. Later on, the cousin of Li-Xia's mother, the only family they have in Urumqi, visited us. He is the one who arranged our tickets for flying from Guang Zhou to Urumqi.
After having slept for some time in the afternoon, we went to the big shop, just outside the unit. It is a rather big shop where you can buy everything ranging from curtains to TV sets, and from jade stones to mountain bikes. There are even tailors that will make clothes on request. A saw a lady with a wide broom walking around. On the broom there was a typical bike bell, which she probably would use to tell people to go out of her way. Outside the shops there were men shouting to be while waving with money4. Outside on the streets you can eat barbequed sheep meat spiced with cummin. Although, Li-Xia had been away for some time many people greeted her when we walked around the unit.
In the evening we were visited by the former neighbours,
with their first daughter5,
and their granddaughter Ni Wie Hua, now 11 years old.
Again we had some visitors:
Sunday, October 17, 1993
Today, we found all the old black and white pictures of Li-Xia. I went through
all of them, and tried to sort them out. Many of the pictures were just contact
prints, and thus very small. I very much enjoyed looking at all those small
pictures. It was if I came to know Li-Xia a lot better.
Monday, October 18, 1993
In the morning we were visited by Mrs. Zhao, also a former colleague
of Li-Xia's mother, who helped her after Li-Xia was born. After she
left, Li-Xia, her mother, Xuan Xuan
(the son of Li-Xia's
sister), and I, went for a walk. We walked in the direction of
the science museum but ended up in a park. Along the road, I
noticed some ticket corners, which on closer inspection appeared
to be phone boots. The people inside the ticket corner were just
there to collect the money. Close to the park there were
huge hand
painted billboards along the road. Just inside the park there
was a man sitting behind a wooden desk. We had to pay ¥0.50
per person. The man tore of four tickets, then tore the tickets
in pieces, and dropped the torn tickets in the drawer of the
desk. The park was very quiet. We did not encounter any other people
except the people standing with some children rides. We let Xuan Xuan
take two of these rides.
After the park, Li-Xia and I continues, while the others returned. The science museum was empty, but in the entrance there was a company selling hard- and software for the typesetting of Chinese text. The whole system costed about ¥3000.
On the way back, we saw how a new shop was opened with a lot of very loud fire crackers. I had to keep my fingers in my ears, to shield all the loud soundes. We also looked at the water fountains of a famouse hotel. Again something you would see more, these kind of fountains which operation a certain pattern of switching on and off all the different nozzles.
Just before dinner, the neighbours from upstairs came to ask for my size, because they wanted to give some wollen clothes as a present to me. In the evening and old colleague of Li-Xia's late father, came to visit us. Before they had already gave us some chinese tea and a silk shirt. Li-Xia talked with them for a long time.
Li-Xia's sister had arrange a car to take us, together with Li-Xia's mother, to the Heavenly Lake, also called Lake Tianchi. The driver was a lady, but she turned out to be good at zigzagging between the many big trucks on the road. Just outside Urumqi, I started to feel worse. And close to the next city, I felt very terrible. I decided to take a pill with some softdrink. That helped a lot. By the time we arrived at the Heavenly Lake around eleven, I felt much better.
Even before we got out of the car there was already an Uygur man shouting "Ride horse?" in English to us. Probably the only English phrase he knew. We would hear that phrase again, each time we met some on their horses that day. When we got out the car we looked over the Heaven Lake, which is at 1910 meters above sea level, covers an area of 5 square Km. At some places the lake is more than 100 meters deep.
The first thing we did, was to take a boat trip over the lake. Then we walked along the lake to the east. Li-Xia took a picture of me before the lake. Leaving Li-Xia's mother behind we climed down to a waterfall from where the water flows out of the lake. The lake is filled with melting water from the peaks surrounding it. Near the waterfall there was a nice concrete path leading further along the creek flowing from the waterfall. We climbed up, and together with Li-Xia's mother we walked back. Then about half way, we noticed the start of the official path leading to the waterfall. Li-Xia's mother took a picture of us, sitting on a rock.
The lady driving the car was waiting at some art/souvernir shop. We looked around, had some tea and food. Then in the afternoon, Li-Xia and I went on. We first walked uphill the mountain on the rightside. The area had visible signs of the many camping places of the Uygur people that stay here during the summer. After we went down we walked further along the right side of the lake. Then we searched for a proper toilet, which was hard to find. I also found a sign with some English text on it. It was clear that the person who painted the text, copied it from a piece of paper, as it had something like "|V" where there should have been an "N".
I would have liked to walk to the east where there is a very steep and small path leading to a century old tinny monastery; just a single building. Or to cross the lake to the otherside where there are paths leading up onto the mountains, including the Bogda Feng the highest peak in the Tian Shan range, towering some 5445 metres above sea level. Although, I would have liked to stay some more days, we had to return. We were lucky to be able to go to the lake. If it would not have been warm for the time of the year, the lake could already have become unaccessible due to snow and frost.
When we came home, Xiao-Zhong, Li-Xia's brother was waiting near the gate of the compound7, where they were unloading a truck with Chinese cabbage. The cabbage is simply stored outside during the winter. He had just arrived from Alma Ata where he studies Russian, in order to become a translator for the many Russians that visit Urumqi for business.
I did not eat much at dinner, and started to feel worse again. During the evening and night my bowels emptied themselves completely. And after that I felt much better.
(The funny thing is that I got
ill again when
we visited the Heaven Lake again in
1996.)
There was a notice outside saying that we might be without water for the coming two days. As a preventive action, we will fill our bath tube with water. When wanted to take a shower, the water heater didn't want to work because the water pressure was too low. Obviously, we are not the only one filling their bath tube with water.
We also saw the office where Li-Xia did her first project after she got her bachelor degree in mathematics. We also went to the office of Xiao-Xia, Li-Xia's sister. While walking around we met several people who recognized Li-Xia and talked a little with her. On the way back we went to the big store. There are several people there who can make clothes from fabrics.
This afternoon on the market we met Mr. Ma and his wife. We showed him the stamp-stones8 that we got from Li-Xia's mother. He said that they look nice, but that it would be hard to cut them. We asked around on the market. There was a man who could do it for ¥70. There was another who said he could do it for ¥50 per character. Li-Xia's mother said she would ask around to see if she knew someone who could do it cheaper.
This evening we visited the opposing neighbours.
We gave them some small gifts and showed them the
pictures. The woman had been the head of the primary
school of the unit, and knew some English words. While
we were there the former head of the deparment for
which Li-Xia worked during her first project and
his wife came to our flat, so we had to go back to
see them. They did not stay for long.
In the evening, we went together with Li-Xia's mother and Xuan-Xuan to the apparment of Mr. Ma to celebrate the birthday of his wife. We had dinner together with them, and afterwards we cut the cake that Li-Xia's mother had bought. I looked at the many pictures of Mr. Ma, and even found a picture of us.
When we arrived home, some two former colleagues of Li-Xia's mother were waiting for us. One of them had been Li-Xia's kindergarten teacher. Her daughter is now Xuan-Xuan's kindergarten teacher. Yes, a unit is really a close community in which everybody knows everybody.
A little later, Li-Xia's former neighbour girl with her husband and her daughter visited us. Then we gathered all the things we wanted to send away by packet mail. We can send about 10 kilo for ¥150. Although it might take up to two months before it will arrive in the Enschede, it is the only way to get it there, as we cannot carry it with us.
From the church we took bus number 3 to the house of Li-Xia's uncle, which was not so far as I had expected. He and his wife were home. She immediately started preparing the dinner while we watched some TV and rested a little. The dinner was nice. I tried all the dishes, and liked about half of them. I did have some problems with a fish bone. The fish was baked alive, atleast, that is what I assume, because I had seen it swim in the kitchen just after we arrived. They did not have any water from the tap. So far, we did not have problems with the water supply at our place, probably because our house is in a lower area. After dinner we watched the video of our marriage. They were especially interested in the church service. (A picture of us and our family.)
On the way back we went to some shops. Some things are really funny about the shops. There are always so many people serving. They all have their own counter, or their own rack of clothes that they have to watch. Then if you buy something, they give you three tickets. With this tickets you go to some small counter surrounded by glass windows, where you have to pay. When you pay, the tickets are stamped, and you receive two of them back. With these you go back to the person who served you. In return of one of the tickets they hand you the things you bought, which they in the meantime have packed in a bag or some paper.
One of the girls that served us was eating watermelon seeds9, which she got from the pocket of the coat that she was showing. She just dropped the empty shells on the ground, to be swept by someone else.
The bus ride home from the center of the city only costed ¥0.30.
In the afternoon, Li-Xia's mother prepared
a special kind of dumplings for dinner. Then
after dinner, Li-Xia helped me with washing
my hair. And then it started to
snow and he
went outside for a short walk. When we went
in there was about an inch of snow. We took
some snow upstairs for Xuan-Xuan.
After lunch we decided to go to the Red Mountain, a mountain in the middle of the city and for which Urumqi is famous. Xiao-Xia and Xiao-Zhong went with us. But before we went there, we first got the pictures. At the red mountain it appeared that the batteries of the video camera were empty. We took about ten pictures on and around the Red Mountain.
After this we went to some kind of building, five floor high, consisting of corridors with rooms on both sides. There rooms were rented by people selling clothes and other things. They say it is the cheapest place for buying clothes. I did not feel very interested because all the trousers were made of 100% polyester, which made them look very cheap. We also visited the bookshop, were I bought a map and two school books for learning how to write Chinese characters.
In the evening we thought about all the people
we had to visit in Beijing and all the other
things we had to do.
In the afternoon, Li-Xia wanted to go shoping together with her sister in the city center. Xiao-Zhong and I decided to walk around a little. We took bus number one to the end, and walked around the park behind the hill and then we decided to walked home from there. By the side of the road there were some people selling large posters for about ¥8 each. We also went into a building, which used to be a museum before. We walked around it, and looked at a large meteorite which was put there on display. Then we went inside the building to discover that it was one big furniture shop. I saw some nice pieces of furniture, and the prices seemed to be reasonable. We also went into some other small shops where they sold silk shirts for ¥178 and silk coats for ¥360. Finally, we went to the gem-stone shop right on the corner of the road (on the right hand side of this picture). I saw some chopsticks for ¥15, which looked like a nice kind of present for someone in Holland.
When we came home, there was no electricity.
A little later, Xiao-Zhong and I went to catch
Xuan-Xuan from kindergarten. When we came back
they electricity was still gone. When it became
dark, Xiao-Zhong lit some candles. Li-Xia and
Xiao-Xia were delayed because all the buses
were full. After they had come back, the
electricity came back to normal.
For lunch we went to family Sun living. The had prepared a nice lunch for us. Mr. Sun prepared the sheep meat according to the local tradition, by frying them on wooden sticks above a charcoal fire outside on the balcony. They had prepared many other dishes, including potato in melted sugar. We also got some presents from them, including to bags of nice tea.
In the afternoon, Li-Xia and I went into the city
and we bought our tickets for flying to Beijing.
Li-Xia's tickets including airport tax and
insurance costed ¥900 altogether. I had to
pay 1455 FEC for the same ticket. We also went
to the post office and bought a box for ¥8,
which we want to use to send some of Li-Xia
things back home.
We drove past several lakes. One was a salt water
lack with a salt factory on its shore. After the
lakes we drove though a pass along a river, with
high mountains on both sides. There were the river
was wider there were many trees in the river with
yellow and brown leaves. This made me think about
some of the picture books by Shinzo Maeda. This was about half way the trip
to Turpan. From the pass till Turpan we only drove
through an empty and plain without any vegitation.
Although we were only driving about 60 km per hour
in the FWD car, we were bounching on our seats most
of the time.
The first thing we saw, when we came close to Turpan
were the building used for drying the grapes. We
went to look at a underground canal, the so-called
Karez, which are dug by man. There
are many of these kinds of canals, which provide the
city with the water needed to grow all the grapes.
The next thing on our trip was an ancient and
deserted city. Around the year 100, the generals
of the Han dynasty build a strong fortress on a
plateau surrounded by the gorges of the Jiahe
river. You can still see the remains of the buildings
made by mud, because there is almost no rainfall in
the Turpan depression, which at its lowest point
is about 150 meter below sea level. I guess that the
plateau is about twenty meters above the rivers.
Because I was a foreigner, I had to pay almost as
much as the three others together.
From there we drove through to the otherside of
Turpan, to the famouse tower of the mosk. The tower
is almost 37 meters high. After taking some pictures
we went back to the city and had lunch in a local
restaurant. The food was quite spicy. The extra
dish of meat we ordered was much nicer. We paid
¥55 for the five of us (including the driver).
I took some pictures of the road outside the restaurant.
During the summer time, this road is covered with
grapevines overhead. They alread had took done
the vines, and only the empty bars and strings were
left. As there was not so much to be seen of the
grapes, we decided to drive back home. On the
way home we twice met with other people from the
unit. Both times the driver stopped to talk a
little with the people we met. After we passed
the mountain range, we stopped at Dabancheng, were
we bought some special kinds of nuts. They are
called Dadou, which means big bean. These nuts/beans
are grown around this city, which is known in whole
China because of a song that tells how beautiful its
girls are. We also brought a visit to the toilets,
which consisted of a room with some holes in the
ground. They made us pay ¥0.10 per person.
On the last part of the trip, we all felt tired.
The rest of the morning we looked around some shops.
After dinner, Li-Xia and her mother went to the bank and
did some shopping. I stayed home and slept a little.
Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Sun, her daughter and
granddaughter came for a visit. Also two old colleagues
of Li-Xia's mother visited us. One of them is 75, the
other around 65. They are both Christians, baptised only
last year.
At dinner time, the Xu family visited us. Li-Xia's mother
had made the special food again. We all helped making it.
Mr. Xu is a professor in geology at the technical university
here in Urumqi.
At lunch time, I got some birthday presents. I got a medal
with an ox on it from Xiao-Zhong. Xiao-Xia gave me a dark
red sweat-shirt. Li-Xia gave me a small wooden ox as a present.
I am born in year of the ox according to the Chinese calender,
which consist of a cycle of 12 years each with there own animal.
This year is also the year of the ox. I became 36 today. For
the Chinese the multiple of 12 birthdays are considered special.
Today, Xiao-Zhong went to get the pictures from the shop we
went to yesterday. They all turned out very ugly, as if we
did not feel at ease when they were taken.
In the afternoon, Mr. Ma and his wife visited us. I got from
them a kitten in needle work on a piece of silk in a frame.
The special thing is that you see the kitten on both sides.
Of course, we had a special dinner with the whole family and
our guest. Afterwards we also had some cake afterwards to
celebrate my birthday. During the dinner and the evening,
Mr. Ma took many pictures of us, hoping to take some nice
ones for our wedding album.
When in bed, Li-Xia and I talked a long time about my birthday
party last year. That day, she was the second one that I asked
which cake she liked best. I told her about my mothers apple cake,
which had not arrived yet. She answered: "I wait for the best".
But she also thought about something else when she said this,
namely, I wait for the husband God will give me. She felt very
peaceful that day.
Before we could go into the building, we first had to pay the guard
for the keeping. It was different than I had expected. The rooms
were filled with almost square cabinets, each of them filled
with an urn, some private items and little cards. Li-Xia placed
the card she had send some time ago to her mother. We also looked
at some of the others. I have to admit that in way this is nicer
than what we do in Holland.
On the way back, we were dropped off in the city. We went
to a special shop, but there was a power cut, and because of
this there were candles burning everywhere in the shop. Very romantic.
Mr. Ma and his wife visited us again around dinner time. After
dinner, he again took many pictures of us and the others of the
family.
In the evening we also had a power cut at home. It is funny to
see everybody in the opposing flats starts looking for candles
and lighting them.
In the afternoon we rested, and I spend some time thinking about
my possible research project with respect to diagram recognition.
I wrote some descriptions and also thought about some general
concepts. When Xiao Zhong came back with the developed pictures,
it appeared they were not so nice as we had expected. They were dark,
and printed to light. It looks like the flashlight of the camera is
not very strong. But also the printing was poor. Most of the day
we did not have electicity.
For dinner we made a real Dutch dish: Califlower, potato and meat.
After dinner, Mrs. Wang, and old friend of the family and a former
colleague of Li-Xia's father visited us. Around nine there was a
power failure again.
Then they invited us for lunch. It was a large lunch. Before any
hot dishes were brought in the table (with a typical round
rotating disk in the middle) was already filled with cold dishes.
Of course, they wanted me to try something from each of the dishes.
After some time they started to bring in the hot dishes one-by-one.
When about fifteen dishes had been brought in, piling up on the disk,
they called the cook, to tell it was enough.
Friday, October 29, 1993: Visiting Turpan
Around nine o'clock in the morning, we left with
the four of us, Li-Xia, Xiao-Xia, Xiao-Zhong, and
I, to go to Turpan, which the Chinese pronounce
as Tulufan. Turpan is about three hours driving
by car. We crossed the railroad going between
Urumqi and Xian a number of times and we saw several
trains. I counted one passenger train with 18 carriages
and a cargo train with 56 carriages.
Saturday, October 30, 1993
Today, Li-Xia, Xiao-Zhong and I took many of our gifts to the
post office to send them home. There was nobody for the
customs office, but we could still send our gifts. Altogether
it took us one and a half hour. First we had to put everything
in a bag that we had bought in the post office. After the
bag was sewed it weighted 9.94 Kilo. Li-Xia had to fill in
some forms including a list of all the items in the bag. It
costed ¥150 to send the bag as surface mail to Enschede.
Sunday, October 31, 1993: Taking pictures
It was decided that we would have some pictures taken.
Almost the whole morning was needed to select the clothes,
get dressed and get everything ready. When we arrived at
the shop we wanted to go, it appeared to be closed. So we
looked around for another shop and found one. The person
taking the pictures did not look very professional and
was using a simple 35mm camera. There was also a problem
of a black background curtain being too small. In the
front of the shop there was one of these automatic
film development and photo printing machine. I was afraid
that was the only tools they had for printing the pictures.
Monday, November 1, 1993
This morning, my stomach started to act wierd again. I went
to the toilet for four times in a row. We decided that I
would take an Inmobudan pill. After this, I slept the rest
of the morning.
Tuesday, November 2, 1993
This morning, we went to visit the "grave" of Li-Xia's father
on the state graveyard of the city. (One of Mao's brothers
also has his grave on this graveyard.) Because Li-Xia's father
served the government, he earned the right to have his asses
being kept here.
Wednesday, November 3, 1993
This morning, before we got up, two old colleagues of Li-Xia's
mother came to bring a visit. One of them was very interested in
the Dutch money and studied the bills with great intensity. Later
on the morning, another 78 year old lady came to visit us. She
left before lunch because she had to look after her grandgranddaughter.
Thursday, November 4, 1993
In the morning, some people from the institute came to visited us.
They told us of some problems the had with the computer attached
to one of their ARL spectrometers. We decided to have a look, and
visited the office where Li-Xia did her first project after she
got her Bachelor degree in mathematics. The computer was a 22 bits
PDP-11 running RSX-11m-Plus as the operating system. They thought that
something was wrong with the disk. I discovered that the start-up
procedure did not work properly for some unknown reason. It also had
an TK-50 tape drive of the model that we also used to have in our office
(with my company in Enschede). Luckily RSX has the same kind of command
structure as VAX/VMS, so I could do something with it. In the end
I managed to modify the start-up procedure such that it would print out
some diagnostic information. We made a printout and promised to send
it to the main offices of ARL in the Swiss. They already had contacted
some ARL offices in Hong Kong, but had not received any reply.
Friday, November 5, 1993: Saying fairwell to many
Because tomorrow early, we will fly to Beijing this was going to be
a busy day with many people coming to see us for a last time.
We first went to the nearby shop. We looked at some camera, but did
not feel they were very good. We did buy a magnetic Go game and some caligraphy brushes, ink and so on.
In the afternoon we went there again to collect some clothes that were made for us. We had to wait sometime, and when we came back, there were many people waiting for us. People kept on coming and going the rest of the day. By the end of the day, Li-Xia and I both felt a little tired and confused. I played a some game of Go with Xiao Zhong and lost it with 60 points according to the Chinese way of counting. Xiao Zhong labeled me as a beginner, which is true of course.
In the past Chinese names would consist of three or
four chinese characters. The first character would be
the family name. The second character the so called
generation name. All the people of the same generation
use the same generations name. Each family has list
of usually twelve generation names. According to your
generation name, far family members would address you
in the proper manner. So it could happen that some girl
of Li-Xia's age, would call her grandmother, because
the girls generation name was two further than Li-Xia's.
Usually, generations follow each other slower in the
richer branches of the family. Nowadays the generation
name is no longer used as a result of communism. However
the older people still know it.
Then the third and fourth character would make up your
official given name. In the far past these names where picked
on forhand. While in the West it is a tradition to
name people after their grandparents, in China it is
considered very bad to share a name with any of your
ancestors. A child was not always given a name at
birth immediately because of the fear that the child
might die early.
In China people address each other with their surname.
Within families and friends they use their given name.
In case a given name consists of a single character it
is sometimes repeated when used to call someone. That
is why my nephew is called Xuan-Xuan. People also feel
free to pick another name for themselves, or use a
special name to be used inside the family. For example,
Xiao-Zhong, which literaly means "Little Chinese", is
often used for the smallest child in the family, both
boys and girls.
