D Bouchette on sun 21 jan 01
How can I tell you all how great this upcoming China tour will be? After
all, almost all of you don't know me. I'm just some 47-year-old
wife/mom/sister/daughter living in Oregon and calling myself an artist of
sorts.
Would it help for you to know what questions I had as I signed up for the
trip last year?
* Will I really get to see a lot of Chinese ceramics, or will this just be
another whirlwind packaged tour?
* Is this tour legitimate? Do people really spend thousands of dollars and
come away satisfied? Is it worth it?
* Will the accommodations be OK or will I wish I'd never come?
* Will the language be a problem? What if I get left on my own
somewhere? (It happened to me in Tokyo...)
* I need a roommate...will she be hard to get along with?
And now, some answers...
I almost got overloaded on Chinese ceramics! There is SO much clay
history, ancient and living, happening in China. I hadn't read much in
literature about what is going on China; not like I'd read about Japan,
Australia, Mexico, and Europe. I hadn't a clue. Once I got there, I
bought lots of books with great pictures to remind me of all I saw (even
though the text is in Chinese), and brought 3 precious pieces home. More
than that, we got to meet many, many Chinese clay artists with very
different styles. They were so gracious! They shared their homes,
factories, studios, and tea with us. This tour is DEFINITELY for the
active clay artist. We were scheduled to see some of the standard historic
sites (palaces, tombs, special factories, etc.), which excited me, never
having been to China before. I'll admit that that part of China is out to
win the tourist's dollar (lots of Australians seem to vacation in China),
and it got to be a bit of a drag going through the inevitable "gift
shop." But it's a BIG country and I'm grateful to say sometimes "hey-I've
been there." I came away with a much deeper understanding of the people,
their history, their needs, their wants, and even understook the Joy Luck
Club movie much, much better.
I signed up very late last spring as the necessary 10th person, and dealt
directly with a travel agency in San Francisco. I was VERY nervous about
committing a couple thousand dollars on my credit card over the phone to a
group of people whose accent was rather heavy and I wasn't always sure I
understood what was going on. But I realized later that having the tour
arranged by a Chinese-speaking agency was really beneficial, because travel
in China is still a bit different...still influenced by when there was one
(governmentally-run) travel agency in all of China, then three, now many
(and rife with the possibility of fraud). Po Zhou, last year's tour leader
and this year one of the U.S. organizers, is native-born Chinese and knows
the ins and outs of his mother country. Po makes everything as right as it
can be.
Some of the hotels we stayed in were absolutely first class, but some were
not. And although I love trains, the Chinese first-class trains weren't
what I expected. It's not that there was anything better available, it's
just that China is still coming into the 20th century. So, go with your
eyes open and don't expect luxury (that way, when you get it, it will be a
pleasant surprise). The food was generally great...better in the smaller
towns, in my opinion! Being able to use chopsticks was a big plus. Food
is served family-style on a big lazy-susan in the middle of the
table. Occasionally (especially at breakfast), there is a buffet. The
food on the trains was my least favorite, but I was tired enough that it
didn't matter much. I will admit, I do love lots of kinds of food...and
I'm brave enough to try a lot of stuff if it's been cooked all the way
through. The beer was quite watery...tough on a northwesterner used to
microbrews.
Language was much less a problem than I'd thought. It's amazing how the
whole world seems to know more English than I know of most other
languages. I bought a phrase book and the niceties were really
helpful. The guides speak English very well, and Po is an excellent
translator. I made it a point to stick with the group because I wasn't
comfortable finding my way across towns, but others went out in taxis and
took in sights without much complication at all.
I can't promise you as great a roommate as I got. I was paired with
Annette Corcoran, and if you've never seen her teapots, well, you've missed
something. What a gracious lady, and what incredible skill. Actually,
there wasn't a rotten egg on our whole tour. We had a mix of students,
teachers, beginners, professionals, and world-famous artists. Being in a
small group (10 plus guides) was GREAT because we could get into places
that big tours couldn't...both with our bus and with all of us being
invited into people's homes.
So, if you have any inclination at all, GO!!! It's worth it!!!
Deb Bouchette
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