Blue Penguin Report

By Red Sox Steve
VagabondGuru.com

Chongqing

China (a/k/a the "People's Republic of China" or "PRC") controls 22 provinces. Each province has a capital, and the 22 provinces together don't make up the entire country - included in the PRC are separate entities called "autonomous regions", "special administrative regions", and "municipalities". There are 5 autonomous regions (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Ningxia, and Guangxi), 2 special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and 4 municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing). To add further fuel to the bureaucratic fire, in 2005, the government via the "Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China" initiated urban reforms, one of which was to promote the concept of five "National Central Cities": Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Chongqing.

I knew before I left America that I would go to Beijing and Shanghai, I thought it likely that I would go to Guangzhou, and unlikely that I would go to Tianjin. I didn't find Chongqing as interesting, but knew I could get on a Yangtze River cruise from there, and - for some reason - the Lonely Planet talked up this strange dish called "hotpot", so I figured it was worth spending a couple of days there.

I reached Chongqing by overnight train from Xi'an on a damp and overcast morning. I did my best to decipher the Lonely Planet map, but foolishly did not stay at a hostel recommended in its pages. I boarded a public bus from the train station to get to the hostel, but because of the city's layout and misty darkness, I had no idea where I was going. I thought it wise to get off the bus and resorted to an old trick I used a bunch of times already - after I got in a taxi, I called the hostel and asked them to speak directly to the cab driver. Chinese-Chinese discussion would solve the problem more quickly than me serving as a translator. The taxi driver seemed to understand the directions, and as we started down the massive, windy highway, it quickly became apparent that I had lost all sense of orientation; this was the first city I'd visited that wasn't flat!

After I got settled in to my hotel, which was in the central district of Yuzhong and overlooked the Yangtze River, I immediately headed to the nearest bus stop - I wanted to get to the Three Gorges Dam museum. I made a short climb up a long hill, and did my best to decipher the signage at the bus stop - numerous busses stop there, with arabic numerals clearly indicating the bus route above the windshield. I wanted to see how many stops I needed to pass before I got close to the museum, but my bus arrived too quickly, so I just hopped aboard. Of course, though, I couldn't tell when my stop was coming up. I looked in my Lonely Planet, and found the pinyin pronunciation for the museum ("sanxia bowuguan") and asked a woman sitting next to me. When my stop came up, this very kind woman grabbed me by the arm and led me up a long curved hill toward the impressively designed museum's facade. I would experience hospitality and the kindness of strangers again and again.

I spent some time exploring the museum, eagerly anticipating my upcoming trip to the Three Gorges Dam. I spent the rest of that day searching for good restaurants, wandering around the city, and exploring the main shopping area, near what is known as the Liberation Monument. The area surrounding the monument is one of the main tourist centers in Chongqing - there are huge hotels like the Marriott and the Intercontinental within walking distance, the subway/tram system stops here, and massive construction projects are going on nearby. This is the part of Chongqing that says to foreigners: "open for business."

The next morning, I got on the subway right by my hotel - I was headed to the other side of the downtown area, and this was the easiest way to get around; I could avoid the windy roads and hills that were so confusing the day before. I was headed to the Stilwell Museum. General Joseph Stilwell, the museum's namesake, was the commander of US forces in the China-Burma-India theater and Chang Kaishek's chief of staff in 1942. The museum is his former home and guest house for VIPs of the Kuomintang.

The Stilwell Museum was tough to find (again, winding hilly streets and passageways made the journey from the subway confusing), but it was a hidden gem. Photos and storyboards inside trace over the history from 1940s China to the present, and US involvement in the area during that time. There are also photos that tell the story of commercial transactions that have taken place in China since then - companies like Coca-Cola signed major deals in Chongqing decades after the end of WWII. Stilwell's family lived there with him for a time, and in many photos, Stilwell is the only westerner posing with local Chinese. He studied Chinese, and immersed himself in Chinese culture as best he could while commanding a US fighting force with influence all the way to Delhi. The place had special meaning for me because my paternal grandfather fought with the US Army in Burma during WWII; he certainly would have recognized Stilwell's name, if he didn't serve under him directly. Stilwell's presence there and his desire to learn Chinese was memorialized after his death - five decades after Stilwell departed Chongqing, the Chongqing Stilwell Foreign Language School was founded in the city.

(to be continued...)