American couple’s tour of China reveals strange sights, stranger foods

Editor’s Note: “Letter from” is a monthly column written by a Mainer, or person with ties to this state, who is living or traveling far from home. Ellsworth resident Richard Dudman, former Washington bureau chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and his wife, Helen, visited China in May. This letter was written to their daughters Martha and Janet.

We are just back from our early morning walk starting with an Egg McMuffin at one of the 55 McDonald’s in China. Quite a bit like home — plenty of calories and cholesterol but temporarily filling. We had fortified ourselves in advance with crackers and some tasty French seedless prunes and a Florida orange, thanks to the global economy.

It was only about 7 a.m., and the big shopping street was almost deserted. Several squads of uniformed men, probably private security guards, were marching about in cadence or practicing lunging and kick-turns in unison to the shouted commands of their leaders.

After breakfast, we walked a long way back to the hotel, passing along a back street with a broad open space along one side. We realized that was the place where on a previous night we had barged our way through an enormous crowd of people selecting food from a long line of tables and eating at a lot of little low tables while sitting on tiny stools. There must have been a thousand or so people crowded together having a great time eating their dinner.

Helen shuddered when I suggested our eating there. I thought that corn on the cob, a favorite snack food here, or some meat on a stick would be safe since they would have been right off the heat. But Ellen had reminded us that the meat might not be beef or mutton or chicken and could be dog or cat instead. That settled it for me. It was already settled for Helen.

You know how she is about ethnic food. And you probably know that she is not at ease with chopsticks. Well, one evening when we were really hungry after exploring another big mall and department store, Helen asked a clerk if there was a place to eat. The clerk held up five fingers and pointed up toward the fifth floor. We expected a fancy tearoom, but it turned out to be an inside version of the outdoor food court we had seen on that back street. We picked out a few items plus a bowl of rice and a big glass of beer for me, got a slip of paper, paid the cashier and returned with a stamped stub to pick up our order.

We sat down with whatever Chinese people were nearby, and Helen tore into the food, as if she had used chopsticks all her life. We assumed there were no cat or dog parts in the food. It has become our favorite restaurant, and the total bill was about $2.

Last night, at the same place, we found seats at a little table with a Chinese family. Without any common language, we used sign language to tell them our ages and nationalities, and they told us that the man was a teacher, 42 years old; his wife, 37, was a medical practitioner of some sort, and their son was 14. We had a fine time together laughing and enjoying the food. We told them that I was a news correspondent and Helen was a broadcaster.

Last night, at dusk, we walked over to Tiananmen Square and followed a crowd to a fence enclosing the main Chinese flagpole in a big square. They were waiting for the flag to come down at sunset. We stood on the outskirts of the crowd. The pollution was so thick that we no longer could see the sun, but the nearly full moon rising in the east told us that sunset could not be far off.

Eventually there was a stirring in the crowd and a squad of soldiers goose-stepped out of Tiananmen Gate, armed with what looked like rifles with bayonets. They marched out to the flagpole, and gradually the big red banner with one big yellow star and four little ones slowly came down. Some show.

This morning, on our early walk, we came upon some life-size sculptures, apparently of bronze. One showed a barber cutting a man’s hair. The best was a bronze pedicab being towed by a straining bronze man. A small crowd watched as one person after another climbed into the seat to be photographed by a friend or family member.

We, of course, were a sensation, being the only Westerners present. Helen felt a general demand that she climb into the seat, and without hesitation she did so. I got a good picture of her there. Afterward she asked, “Did you get a picture of all those people watching me?” Well, I didn’t that time, but I had already gotten plenty of shots of Helen surrounded by Chinese fitting her with a therapeutic eye mask, daubing her with freckle remover and god knows what else.

As you can see, we are having a great time. But this is the last full day, and we are ready to come home.