A Chinese proverb says, "One learns more by traveling ten thousand miles than by reading ten thousand books." I had opportunity to test the verity of this aphorism recently when I traveled to Tokyo and San Francisco as the guest of China Airlines.
It was my first time overseas and as enlightening as the proverb promises. The vast territory, broad highways, soaring skyscrapers, far-reaching bridges and vast industrial complexes of the United States convinced me that the New World is still a land of marvels. Japan is a miniature country by comparison with the United States. It has nevertheless attained an amazingly high level of cultural and technological development, attesting that intelligence and diligence can overcome many inherent obstacles. On the dark side, I noted that both countries face such problems as student unrest and social instability.
Before the journey, I worried most about what clothes to wear for the expectable temperatures. Guidebooks say the May range is from 10 to 20 degrees Centigrade in Tokyo, San Francisco and New York, where I was also going. This equates to late March in Taipei. So perspiring profusely, I went to Sungshan International Airport in a winter suit the morning of May 4.
The CAL Boeing 707 was fully occupied. There were some 50 guests—20 from press circles and the rest from the government's communications and overseas Chinese affairs departments. Most of the passengers were going to Tokyo for business and hoped to visit Osaka for Expo 70, the first world fair ever held in the Far East, on the way home.
Our plane took off at 12:55 and arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo at 16:30 local time (Japan is one hour ahead of Taiwan). This meant flying time of just over 2½ hours. During the hour's stop-over, our group looked at books and magazines and windowshopped watches, cameras and electrical appliances at the duty-free shop in the transit lounge.
As a student of languages, I was impressed by a pocketbook entitled How To Be Strong in Chinese Characters. It was written for Japanese businessmen. Before World War II, such a book could not have been sold. Japanese primary school graduates of those times had learned nearly 3,000 Chinese ideographs. As a result of the 1948 educational reform, a primary school pupil of today learns only 881 characters in six years. The average college graduate is familiar with no more than 3,000.
With a dozen new passengers aboard, our luxurious 707 left Haneda for San Francisco at 17:40. We were racing to catch the sun at a speed of 600 miles an hour. Dinner was delicious and efficiently served. Experienced travelers say the CAL cuisine is one of the best in Pacific air service. After brandy and cigarettes, we relaxed to a current movie in color. Passengers listened to the dialogue through earphones. Some airlines charge if you want to hear the sound track. CAL movies are free. Those not interested in the film may listen to Chinese songs or Western music on their earphones.
The sky began to lighten at 22:30 Tokyo time and sunrise came at 23:45. Our big bird settled down to its San Francisco landing at 11 a.m. May 4 (2 a.m. May 5, Taipei time). We were 13 hours out of Taipei but because of the International Date Line arrived nearly two hours before we started. From the air the city by the Golden Gate looked like a big octopus extending its arms to the seashore. The network of highways could have been bunches of seaweed pinned down by the devil fish. It was cloudy and windy. Older San Franciscans were wearing topcoats. Those in our group who had dressed in summer suits shivered as the San Francisco wind bit through them.
At the entrance to customs were signs in French (Les Douanes) and the Chinese characters (Zei Kan). The Chinese characters seemed to reflect intention to inform the ubiquitous Japanese, who are getting around the world again these days. If intended for Chinese, the characters would have been (Hai Kuan).
Customs officials were polite but coldly efficient and no nonsense about "Do you have anything to declare?" They looked for themselves, examining everything, missing nothing. Meats, fresh vegetables and fruits were forbidden. Those who had jewelry in handbags or suitcases were required to make detailed declarations. A few passengers had language barrier trouble. Our group was fortunate to have the assistance of Stanway Cheng, director of the Chinese Information Service at Los Angeles, and Charles Chung of the CIS San Francisco Liaison Office.
We spent two nights at the Hilton Hotel, one of San Francisco's newest and also one of its best. The room was attractive and comfortable. What we missed most was a vacuum bottle of tea or hot water. No floor boys, either, to attend the spoiled and demanding guest. American wage levels do not permit such luxuries.
I ordered pork and noodles for lunch. The charge was US$3.50 compared with US25 to 35 cents in Taiwan. The first afternoon was free of organized activities. Despite flight fatigue, everyone was in high spirits. Some went out for sightseeing; others called on friends or relatives. San Francisco has a Chinese population of 70,000 and is the largest "Chinatown" outside Asia. I took a walk around Union Square with my roommate. The streets nearby were dotted with signboards in Chinese and there were many Oriental faces. We felt as if we were walking past the HSA compound on Taipei's Chungshan North Road. Shops had about a third to a half the number of clerks to be found in a Taipei store of the same size. We bought postcards at a drugstore near Macy's.
As I was addressing cards at the hotel, my roommate told me not to get my stamps from the vending machine beside the elevator. "You'll be cheated," he said. "The cost is 20 per cent more than at the post office." Automation has a price, even in the most highly mechanized country.
At 6:15 that evening, I called my sister and parents in New York to tell them when I would be arriving. It was like a local call and the operator was the kindest I had ever heard on a telephone.
We were the guests of CAL for dinner at a Chinatown restaurant described as one of most expensive in the city. The building looked like an old temple. Wooden entry doors were carved with images of legendary gods and war heroes. The paint had faded. Walls and ceiling of our sixth-floor dining room appeared to have been dirtied by the smoke of joss-sticks; maybe they were painted that way to put the diner in a contemplative Oriental mood. The chandelier seemed to be based on an image of Buddha or the Goddess of Mercy. An attendant told me the restaurant had been in business for four years and that some of the seafood came from Taiwan. More than half of the patrons were Caucasian.
San Francisco is beautiful by night. Buildings are illuminated in a golden yellow light and the whole city has the look of Chin Shan (Gold Mountain). The name Chin Shan was given California by the first Chinese immigrants, who were lured to San Francisco by the discovery of gold in 1849.
Located near Nob Hill, Chinatown is a fascinating place for visiting Americans and interesting to us, too, with its up-and-down streets. Crossing an inter section was like sneaking across a mine field. We feared the cars coming down might bowl us all the way into the bay.
Walking back to the hotel, I saw a few shops manned by old women with infants in their arms—a scene so familiar at Taiwan groceries. The family system of China is not dead in San Francisco's Chinatown. Elders are honored with filial piety but also earn their keep by taking care of the grandchildren. I was told crime in Chinatown is less than in other Bay Area communities. Maybe the multi-generation family is one reason.
In 10 minutes I had lost my way. When I stopped to ask directions of three women, they gave me a frightened look and hurried to the other side of the street. It reminded me of a friend's advice: "After dark, don't walk alone on such and such streets."
Sightseeing filled the next day, Starting from Union Square, we passed the War Memorial Opera House—where delegates of the Allied Powers met on April 25, 1945, to discuss formation of the United Nations—and then the Japanese Cultural Center. The koi nobori (carp streamers) reminded me it was May 5 and Boys' Day in Japan. The carp symbolizes the dashing spirit of the young male.
The southern side of the Golden Gate Bridge is a good place for snapshots. The bridge has become a symbol of the city, even more so than the Golden Gate (entrance to San Francisco Bay) itself. The bridge engineer, Joseph B. Strauss, stands for the can-do spirit of the American people. From the dedication in 1937 until the 1964 opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York, San Francisco had the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world. The length is 1.7 miles.
On the northern shore is Sausalito with a picturesque waterfront often compared to Riviera towns of Italy and France. Our guide said Sausalito was a center for hippies, but we saw only a few playing the guitar in a garden. Before lunch, many of us rushed to a nearby post office for stamps. There was a vending machine at the entrance. We wondered how many people would pay more to the machine than to a clerk. Possibly the machine does most of its business after hours.
The Berkeley campus of the University of California gave us two views of American youth. Some students were on strike. Signs opposing the war and the government fluttered in classroom windows. Near the University Hospital a police car was surrounded by a group of youngsters. The area swarmed with all varieties of hippies. Academic had really become an ivory tower of nonlearning.
Back across the Oakland Bay Bridge, we stopped at Fisherman's Wharf. An arcade of seafood booths resembled Taiwan's snack stands. A cup of "crab cocktail" and a couple of crackers cost 75 cents. Booth hawkers mistook us for Japanese and solicited business with shouts of "Kani, kani!"—the Japanese word for crab.
I bade goodbye to our group and walked to the airlines bus terminal. The fare was $1.10 for a 40-minute ride to the airport. No ticket was issued. I paid and walked through a gate. Time and labor were saved but I wondered about cheating.
The United Airlines jetliner took off for New York at 8 a.m. I was the only Oriental aboard and at last I really felt like a foreigner. There was a movie but those who wanted to hear the dialogue paid $2 for use of the earphones. We came into John F. Kennedy International Airport at 4:30 New York time, 5½ hours after take-off. It was exciting to have a family reunion in a foreign country. My sister Florence had been away from Taiwan for six years and my parents for six months. I met my brother-in-law Cheng-hwa, whom I had never seen.
We stayed with, Florence on East 33rd Street near the New York University Hospital. Miss V. Carolyn Hendricks, an architect who had shared the apartment with Florence for a couple of years, was a good cook and charming hostess. She prepared dinner. I liked the celery salad best. That vegetable was much bigger, crisper and sweeter than the Taiwan variety.
Florence accompanied me to Rockefeller Center and then to the Chinese Information Service office near Gimbel Bros. Department Store the next morning. Most of the dozen employees at CIS had been my colleagues in Taipei. They invited me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. There we were joined by other former fellow-workers. That afternoon Cheng-hwa guided Father and me to the United Nations and the Empire State Building. The world's tallest (102-stories) skyscraper soon will take second place to New York's 110-story World Trade Center Building.
In some ways, I liked New York less than San Francisco. The New York air was thick and suffocating. Streets were littered. San Francisco was cleaner and smelled better. S.F., in fact, has a soap-clean fragrance, maybe from something used by the sanitation department. Anyway, it's more like Camay than Lysol.
We all drove south to Washington on Friday, May 8, arriving 2: 30 in the afternoon, too late to see the inside of the White House, for which the hours are 10 a.m. to noon. Streets were crowded with college students, many of them wearing Red Guard-style armbands inscribed with their school's name. They had come from all over the United States to demonstrate against the shooting of four Kent State University students by Ohio National Guardmen during campus riots.
Fearing traffic might be blocked, we hurried to the Capitol, Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, then spent the night at a motel near Baltimore. With 20 rooms, there was only one clerk. This would be inconceivable in Taiwan.
Interior of Independence Hall at Philadelphia, where the American Declaration of Independence was drafted (File photo)
Next day we visited the Longwood Gardens at Kennett Square in Pennsylvania, saw Independence Hall in Philadelphia and returned to New York. While driving through the countryside, we could see several police cars enforcing the law against littering. Sign-boards along the highways said offenders might be subjected to fines of up to US$100. Probably that's why rural America looked so much cleaner than the cities. The rural roads were flanked with mailboxes looking not unlike Chinese lanterns at festival time.
While strolling through New York's Chinatown after dinner, I met K. Y. Lu, who served with me in the Chinese Navy 16 years ago. Old-timers told me: "If you want to see any Chinese friends whose addresses you don't have, just go for a walk in Chinatown."
Brother Bob came on Sunday morning while we were packing for the journey to Taiwan. He has been in the United States for 13 years and found it hard to stick to Mandarin or Hakka, our own dialect. Bob and three of my friends from the Chinese Information Service took me to Wall Street, then to Columbia University and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Contrary to my expectation, the world's financial center was cramped and the buildings old and grimy. Walls on the Columbia campus were painted with red clenched fists and anti-war slogans.
The next morning, Cheng-hwa and Florence took my parents and me to the JFK Airport for a 9 a.m. flight. This time we were airborne six hours because of adverse winds. After a two-hour stopover, we boarded CAL for the 707 flight to Tokyo via Anchorage, Alaska. Nearly half of the passengers were Caucasian. A retired American professor said he chose CAL because he considers the food and service superior to those of other airlines.
Mountains in Canada and Alaska were snow-capped and the green of trees could scarcely be seen. Surprisingly, the temperature at Anchorage was warmer than that at San Francisco the week before. Half of the saleswomen at the airport duty-free shop were Japanese, but we didn't see any Japanese shoppers.
We arrived at Haneda the evening of May 12 without having seen a sunset in nearly a day of flight. Two of Father's former students took us to an inn near Tokyo University. It was fun, if embarrassing, to be clad in the yukata (bath gown) on the zabuton (cushion) and attended by a solicitous maid. My previous experience with this Japanese custom was at a Taihoku (now called Taipei) hotel a few years be fore the end of World War II.
At 9 the next morning, Huang Lao-sheng, press attache of the Chinese Embassy, came to the inn and took us to his office. He suggested we try a bird's-eye view of the world's largest city from the 35-story Kasumigaseki Building. But New York and jet flight had robbed us of interest in anything altitudinal. We dined at a Chinese restaurant near the embassy and felt the mood was more Chinese than in New York or San Francisco.
Compared with other districts of Tokyo, the buildings around our inn were old and squatty. A maid said residents were reluctant to rebuild because they had survived the earthquake of 1923 and Allied bombings of the Pacific War. Why invite disaster by changing things?
Tokyo University is Japan's most prestigious institution of higher learning. It has turned out more than half the nation's prime ministers. The front entrance is narrow, possibly suggesting that only the elite of high school graduates can get through. In June of 1962 the university announced that 500 of 2,500 freshmen enrolled that spring were suffering from mental disorders, presumably the result of stress and strain to get in. Now the entrance was smeared with posters opposing the U.S. military presence in Indochina and extension of the U.S.-Japanese security pact.
Across the street were some 20 bookstores, most of them larger than those of Taipei but with only one clerk. Western books were rare except in secondhand bookshops.
Prices of consumer goods were higher than in Taiwan. But the politeness of salesgirls was irresistible. When they received payment, they recited, "We received so much yen from Okyaku-sama (Mr./Mrs./Miss Customer)" and then brought the change with a bow, a smile and a "Thank you very much for your patronage!"
On the afternoon of May 14, Father's students accompanied me to the Tokyo Railroad Station to book tickets to Osaka on the "bullet train." I stood in a queue for 40 minutes. Although reservation of seats is computerized, I was kept waiting at the window half an hour while the punch cards sought three neighboring places in the same car.
Outside the station, a gray-haired man atop a truck was making a speech in favor of the U.S.-Japanese security pact. Pointing his finger at a map, he told his audience that Japan is surrounded by Red powers—the Soviet Union in the north, North Korea in the northwest and the Chinese Communists in the west. If the United States should withdraw from Japan, he said, "We soon will be communized and the result will be more disastrous than our defeat in the Pacific War."
On an electric pole near the parking lot, I saw a peaceful coexistence of posters put up by both leftists and rightists. Appropriately, the anti-security pact message was on the left side and that favoring U.S. alliance was on the right.
That evening Father's students took us to a geisha restaurant. We didn't see a single male except for the guests. Most of the waitresses were middleaged. In this age of speed, a geisha said, young girls are attracted by get-rich-quick jobs and not interested in those that require a long period of learning and apprenticeship. Guests in the next room were singing the Japanese Navy March and other military songs popular during the war. Asked why we didn't hear any modern songs, a geisha replied: "Ours is an expensive restaurant. Young people can't afford to come here. Our customers are mostly of the managerial class who were in the fighting forces in their youth. After achieving success, it is human that they should recollect past hardships. Singing of military songs doesn't necessarily mean they are in favor of rearmament."
We were off to Osaka aboard the "bullet train" Friday morning. The run of 3 hours and 10 minutes covers a distance of 552 kilometers and is the fastest in the world. In terms of service, however, Taiwan's Bien Venue and Chu Kuang express trains are much superior. They serve free sterilized hot or cold towels, tea or hot water, and distribute newspapers and magazines. There is nothing of the sort on the "bullet train." You merely get there faster while enjoying it less.
Michael Chang, press attache of the Chinese Embassy detailed to the Expo Press Center, was waiting on the platform. He sent us to a hotel near the Shinzaibashi Station and advised us that if we visited Expo by night it would be less crowded.
We went to the fairgrounds by subway. Trains run at intervals of about two minutes. The crowd was still large. To see the U.S. Pavilion would ordinarily require a wait in line of at least 1½ hours. Michael's assistant obtained a reporter's pass for me and we entered through a back door. The most interesting displays were moon rocks and replica of the Apollo 11 lunar lander.
Then to the Canadian Pavilion. Under the main theme of "discovery," the Canadians have used computerized audiovisual devices to show how their country was discovered by explorers, how Canadians developed new ways of life to cope with the harsh environment and how they built their land into a modern state.
The China Pavilion is relatively small, accommodating only about 100 persons at a time. Yet it has averaged 20,000 visitors daily and is among the six pavilions with the longest queues. Attractions are displays highlighting a 4,000-year-old cultural heritage that includes the invention of paper, printing, chinaware and silk as well as the development of ideographic calligraphy and a unique style of painting.
We were back at the hotel at 9:30. Near the Shinzaibashi station, we saw for the first time a sidewalk noodle stand surrounded by a tent. There were three benches but no table. The cheapest dish was 100 yen (US28 cents), about three times the comparable Taiwan charge.
Heianjingu at Kyoto was once an imperial palace. The white "leaves" on trees to the left of the two women were tied by pilgrims as gestures of good fortune. Kyoto is old capital and a sacred city (File photo)
Kyoto, the ancient capital and city of temples, was on the itinerary for the next morning. The Buddhist buildings of Kyoto are older and less showy than those of Taiwan. Those of Japan are in the North China style of the T'ang dynasty (618-906), while Taiwan's are copied from temples of South China in the Ch'ing (1644-1911). Japanese Buddhism gone mad is on view at the Nishi Honganji Temple. Young men in black gowns, presumably student monks, wear their hair as long as hippies.
Before arriving in the Kansai (Osaka and Kyoto) area, we had wondered if would be nonplussed by the jabbering of quick-tempered Osaka businessmen or the deliberate use of honorifics by Kyoto women. We had such an experience only once. At a restaurant opposite the Kyoto Railroad Station, a waitress thanked us by saying "Ohkini" instead of using the more common "Arigato gozaimashita."
Back in Osaka, we were too tired to move from the railroad station. We sat there nearly six hours and counted 40 tour groups coming and going—students, farmers, business workers and women pilgrims. Students wore black or navy blue uniforms. Members of adult groups sported unique hats, badges or armbands for easy identification. Finally it was time for the Kyushu express at 8:28 p.m. We spent the night aboard. Dawn was breaking as the train plunged into the tube connecting Honshu and Kyushu.
It was 6:50 a.m. when we got to Omuta, the southernmost station in Fukuoka prefecture. Streets, buildings, trees and people looked much like those of our native place in northern Taiwan. There were half a dozen restaurants in front of the station but none was open. We bought bread and coke from a food stand, then took a taxi to Arao, the northernmost city of Kumamoto prefecture, to see Itaru Yamakawa, a classmate of mine in Taiwan middle school. He lived near my house during the war. One day in the fall of 1944, both of us were nearly killed by the machine gun of a U.S. fighter plane while walking along an embankment. Recalling the days after his repatriation from Taiwan, Yamakawa said:
"The situation in Japan was worse than I had imagined. Even rice paddies had been damaged by the bombing and our living was more difficult than those last years in Taiwan. I changed my job several times and finally settled down as a tofu (bean curd) maker."
Yamakawa has two cars, one for himself and the other for his wife. He complained that he couldn't find good assistants because young people prefer the higher pay of large corporations. That afternoon he drove us to the home of Sakuichi Ikeda at Takada in Fukuoka prefecture. Ikeda, still a schoolmaster, taught me and my brother in primary school. Mrs. Ikeda was the teacher of my sister and still speaks quite a lot of the Amoy and Hakka dialects. They live with their two daughters and also have two cars. At 5, Ikeda and Yamakawa guided Father and me to Arao to see the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (see picture story in the July issue of Free China Review).
Sake at the Ikedas' reunion dinner was sweet. After too many toasts, I went to sleep and stayed the night. Fearful I would have a mammoth hangover, my old teacher summoned the best doctor in town.
At 11 in the morning, we left Takada for Fukuoka en route to Osaka. As in the United States, the highways were dotted with motels and "Used Car" pennants. Compared with Taiwan, sedans seemed smaller and trucks larger. Few foreign cars were to be seen. Footpaths between rice paddies are narrower than in Taiwan. Most workers seemed to be middle-aged women.
At a Fukuoka department store, I met two other schoolmates, Junichi Sakurai and Shigeji Ito. Sakurai was a would-be Kamikaze pilot and now runs a curio shop. Ito is the accountant at the airport gift shop. Without Ito's help, we would have been unable to fly back to Osaka that evening. Such domestic flights are fully booked two weeks in advance.
CAL features its cuisine in ads and rightly so. Western passengers praise the Chinese food and excellent service (File photo)
When we arrived at Osaka Airport the afternoon of May 19, CAL personnel apologetically told us the 6 o'clock plane was fully occupied by two tour groups. They put us up at the Airport Hotel and we returned to Taipei the morning of May 20.
CAL has reason to be proud of its success story as one of the fastest growing aviation enterprises in the Far East. Established December 10, 1959, by a handful of retired Chinese Air Force personnel, the airline started service to the offshore island of Matsu in two PBY amphibious aircraft. Personnel totaled 26.
In December of 1966, CAL's first scheduled international flights were begun between Taipei and Saigon. Routes soon were extended to Tokyo, Osaka and Hongkong, and then to Seoul, Manila, Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Okinawa was added in January of 1969.
CAL bought two Boeing 707s late last year and began flying the Pacific on February 2. There are six transpacific flights weekly each way between Hongkong, Taipei, Tokyo and San Francisco. Hawaii and Los Angeles will be added to the route map next year.
The CAL fleet has 31 planes, including two Boeing 707s and three Boeing 727s. YS-11s turboprops are phasing out older prop planes in domestic service. Personnel exceed 2,500. Pilots have a minimum of 10,000 flying hours. Eleven Japanese stewardesses have been employed to serve Japanese passengers on the Hawaii-Los Angeles route.
If I'm prejudiced in favor of CAL I have good reason. I tried it.