My first few days in China …

I landed in Bei­jing Fri­day night around 10:30 after a 14-hour flight. Luck­ily, I ended up with a whole row to myself and could lie down and sleep, which I did for about 1/2 of the trip. My friend and ex-MSU col­league, Bill Eubank and his girl­friend Sun­shine picked me up and we took a bus and a “black taxi” (unli­censed) to their apart­ment in DaX­ing; about 1–1/2 hours south of the air­port. After a light meal of shrimp and soup, I finally got to bed around 2:00 am. At noon Sat­ur­day we had a nice lun­cheon with a group of my for­mer stu­dents from MSU; we were all very happy to see each other. Sun­shine ordered enough food to feed the Chi­nese army so we ate well and sang a few songs together. That evening I played a con­cert for a group of about 40 chil­dren at a pri­vate Eng­lish school. They ranged in ages from 3 — 10 and it was quite the scene. Bill kept say­ing (in a very poor Scotty imi­ta­tion) “Cap­tain, she’s gonna blow!” and things seemed like they were about to get out of hand when I crawled on my knees into the mid­dle of the mob with my uke and started play­ing “Old Mac­Don­ald Had a Farm”. We made a vari­ety of ani­mal sounds, sang “ee-i-ee-i-oh” and had a great time.

Sun­day morn­ing we caught the bul­let train to Jinan and Shan­dong Sports Uni­ver­sity, where Bill teaches Eng­lish. We hit speeds of 311 kph (193 mph) and the ride was smooth and relax­ing. The train was clean and the seats com­fort­able. Why we can’t get it together in our coun­try to invest in this mode of trans­porta­tion is beyond me; it’s so much more enjoy­able than fly­ing. Our for­mer MSU stu­dent Rose picked us up at the train sta­tion in Jinan. Rose was one of my favorite stu­dents at MSU; attrac­tive, smart, and a great sense of humor. She has been Bill’s “right-hand woman” in Jinan: she is very con­nected and helps him nav­i­gate the often con­fus­ing struc­ture of Chi­nese bureau­cracy and cul­ture. I had an amaz­ing peanut dish at a very nice restau­rant which seemed to con­tain peanuts, soy sauce, cilantro, onion, and tomato: I am going to have to try and re-create it when I get home. She dropped us off at Bill’s small dorm room on cam­pus and we set­tled in to get pre­pared for a con­cert in the school audi­to­rium that evening.

We did a sound-check around 3:00, which I insisted on after my expe­ri­ence in Viet­nam with the karaoke-type approach many col­lege Asians have to mix­ing, set it up so it sounded rea­son­able and then headed over to the col­lege radio sta­tion for an inter­view. Sophie, the inter­viewer, was well-prepared and we did the inter­view in Eng­lish and Chi­nese, with a very capa­ble young inter­preter by my side. I sang a few songs and then it was time for the show. We had well over 200 stu­dents in the 300-seat audi­to­rium, so it was rea­son­ably full. Many of the stu­dents were Eng­lish majors, but oth­ers knew lit­tle Eng­lish at all, so I had another inter­preter with me, along with Bill on stage. The stu­dents were engaged most of the time and enjoyed singing along on the songs. I mixed in a few of my orig­i­nals with some folk clas­sics; the big hits were: “This Land is Your Land”, “Erie Canal”, “500 Miles”, and of course “Coun­try Roads” (which I have found to be the favorite Amer­i­can song any­where in the world.) A per­sonal high­light of the evening was get­ting all the stu­dents to sing “Root, root, root for the TIGERS” in “Take Me Out to the Ball­game”; it was a funny moment. I spent at least 30 min­utes after the show get­ting my pic­ture taken with var­i­ous stu­dents and had many nice com­ments from them about the performance.

Bill and I spent Mon­day and Tues­day teach­ing together in his Eng­lish classes and it was like old days back at MSU. We have a good back and forth with each other that the stu­dents really enjoy. Every­where we went on cam­pus, we were greeted with “Hi” or “Hello” from stu­dents who Bill said had never said any­thing to him in Eng­lish before. The ones that were at the show or in the classes came up and told us how much they liked the songs and the singing; it was very heart-warming and reminded me of my trip to Viet­nam two years ago which made me embark on this new career. We had a hot-pot din­ner with Rose and her friend Sherri, choos­ing var­i­ous veg­eta­bles and other addi­tions to the soup from a toy train that would pass our table.

Sophie, the young lady who inter­viewed me on the radio, and her mother (a for­mer colonel in the army) took us to the train sta­tion with a cou­ple of stops at the Black Tiger Spring in Jinan, one of 72 in the city: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tiger_Spring. We also went to a beau­ti­ful lake and stopped at a friend’s music store where I gave Sophie a gui­tar les­son and jammed with the owner on Amer­i­can folk clas­sics. Then it was on to the bul­let train sta­tion for another smooth ride in the coun­try­side, this time to Changzhou. After we arrived, I played my uke and sang “You Are My Sun­shine” with a cab dri­ver, had din­ner with some VIPP alumni and went back to the hotel where we both crashed about 7:30.

I’m up at 1:00 am Thurs­day typ­ing this — so that means its Thanks­giv­ing; a very happy one to you all! I hope to get some pho­tos posted soon, but no video until after I return (no YouTube allowed in China).