Hong KongMarch 1976 reading Newspaper in my hotel

South China Morning Post says that tommorow is the last day of Guangzhou International Fair

I have a sudden urge to change my plan and go and look what is it like to be in China the country of Mao and to see how far they are on their Long March.

Grabbed my passport and go downstairs and meet James , Concierge
-Homme a tout faire- in my hotel.I say James this is my passport make sure tomorrow I go to Guangzhou and see how the Fair look like.
He says: Sir, express visa needs at least 24 hours, assuming I solve this problem all trains and flights are over booked already.
I answer I did not ask you to tell me the reason I ask you to fulfill a mission.
Your mission is to get a visa and to send me to Guangzhou.
If you can do that I will give you a good tip.
I leave my passport and go to my room.

30 minutes later the phone rings.
James asked me to go to lobby.
He says Sir I booked you on the morning flight to Canton(as it was called at that time) with a group as individual flights are not allowed to China.
At the evening you will meet a Guide in a lobby of a hotel and you will pay the money to the
guide and follow the group to train station to come back to Hong Kong.'
That night was a sleepless night for me.
The morning we took off from Hong Kong, I had a feeling it was not a pilot who was flying this plane, It was a US GI flying this Ilyushin as if it was a Jeep.
Landing the Baiyun Airport that looked like a Military Airbase.
The eyes of passport checking officer is saying we do not like foreigners capitalist but we need your dollars so I let you pass.That was the cold feeling in my back made me thinking maybe wrongfully.
A smooth trip to the Fair Ground by Taxi, and I was there and see the first sight of ingeniousity of the Chinese people.
Many colorful handcrafted gift and decoration items made from things who are valueless things that are thrown away here becoming beautiful objects.
I just think Oh! these people can do something out of nothing.
And I meet some Iranian merchants who said we wait the last day to buy hand made silk carpet
because in that day we can write the price we like in the sales contract.
I just think in that way every customer will become a sales agent for CHINA INC., that will come later into being.If that will happens one day I decided to be there and to see that with my own eyes by staying here.

I will receive the last lesson of the trip after passing the deserted station in the group and boarded the steam train to Hong Kong.
A lady in Wagon Restaurant sold us the ticket and asked us to go to the buffet were there was 4 different dishes.
Not knowing what to eat I decided to sample those dishes after tasting them at my table there was other 4 dishes.
You could see a Telephone Booth sized kitchen and flames ,smoke and steam making the cook a ghost like creature.
He after 30 minutes cooked 16 different dishes.
I was received a last slap like lesson and thinking that the Chinese people are very talented people despite a very modest look, they have a very rich knowledge and superior ethic of work
that just consider the work as a mirror of their personality.

I was full of admiration for China that stayed with me till today 29 years later today.
and promised my self to learn to the best of my ability their history their culture and to enrich my self with a missing link of being an enlightened human being in me.
I had to wait till March 1998 22 more years for that chance to come to my way.
That will be in another posting