And then, back to Taiyuan Normal University for the closing plenary. Workgroup reports, keynote speeches, conference summaries; not too bad. I even got to make a brief(!) speech on the occasion of my promotion to workgroup leader.
And then to the closing banquet, which started late (because the closing plenary ran late), and felt a bit rushed because Laurel and I had a plane to Xi'an to catch. The conference provided us a car and driver to get to the airport, as well as an interpreter to make sure we negotiated the airport successfully. Of course, they wanted to leave the banquet very early to make sure we got away on time; we were able to negotiate a brief stay, but still, we left just as the vigor with which people were toasting each other was starting to crest. And we had an hour to cool our heels in the airport...
The flight left early, actually -- once everyone was on, we left. Near as I could tell, there were only two English-speakers on board, but they still issued all announcement in both Chinese and English. We were served Nescafe and a packet of interesting peanuts by flight attendants wearing royal blue shirts with filigree that made them strangely evocative of Hawaiian patterns.
The flight was short, but the taxi ride into town was long, probably about 45 minutes. We had some accommodation fun, too. Laurel and Mike and Ashley had booked two rooms for us online at the City Hotel that afternoon, and then called the hotel to confirm the reservation. When we got to the hotel around midnight, there was a mob of teenage tourists (Japanese?) and some very harried desk clerks. It took a long time for them to acknowledge us. Finally, we were able to explain that we had an online reservation, etc., and they took our passports... and then got frenzied and silent again. About 10 minutes later, "Uh, sorry, but we don't have any rooms for you." Oho! "But you can go across street to Botai Hotel for same price." Indeed, there was a nondescript doorway across the street that turned out to open into a hotel lobby. They duly started processing us, then asked for our passports. Which we'd left across the street -- boy, the panic on the harried guy's face when I asked for our passports was almost worth the hassle! Then back to the Botai (= "Bow Tie?"). Then it turns out they don't take credit cards (but the City Hotel did). We don't have enough Chinese cash. So I go back across the street with US$100 and get it changed. And then back. Long story short, we each have a double room with free breakfast for $21 a night.
We were a little wound up from this experience, so we decided to go see what Friday night looked like in Xi'an. There were certainly some discos/clubs near the hotel that seemed to be doing thriving business, and lots of young people out patronizing snack vendors. Near the center of town, we found a bar with outdoor seating that was showing World Cup, and sat down to split a beer. Not too long after, some guy came out and asked us to come into the bar. Hard to know exactly what was going on, but it seemed that the manager of the bar had a friend in town, a gentleman from (I think he said) the Ningxia Autonomous Region, not far to the west. He wanted to talk to us in English, so the manager set us up with free-flowing beer, and at one point microwaved a plate of pastries. He explained that people from Ningxia were mostly Muslim -- when we asked if he was Muslim, he said, "No! No!" As I recall, most of the conversation was about the Chinese language, dialects thereof, etc., although the hour and the bottomless glass did nothing for the sharpness of my analysis. A surreal, yet signature, welcome to Xi'an.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|