6 May 2016 Friday Hangzhou, China
So it did not rain after all. All day, beautiful and sunny and not that hot as far as I was concerned. I was inside in this perfectly controlled manmade climate of beautiful space and high ceilings. Coming down in the early morning into the great hall that is the reception area of Zhejiang Hotel is awe-inspiring. Great beams arch high overhead against the glass ceiling and blue sky and behind the glass vertical walls on one side are terraces of rocks and greenery, and green in in the entries and burnished wood surrounding the reception desk. So much light and air. Somehow, in this beautiful building, with the space contained as it is, you are aware of space in a way that you are not aware of when you are outside in real space.
And it still did not rain My raincoat sitting in the backseat of Lori’s car is still not needed – if I have to go outside, which I will not, for the conference is fairly fierce. Seven o’clock breakfast. Eight o’clock presentations. Tea and lunch breaks, but it all goes barreling forward until supper at six in the eventing and then the same thing happens on Sunday, which is fine, but it will – with the exception of me – all be in Mandarin. Oh dear. At least there will or should be lots of pictures.
Frday was about siting at the computer, waiting on the computer, working on the computer when the waiting was finally over, and answering the door as maids and various other people came and knocked at the door. Oh, the language barrier! And I only made it worse. But I figured it out before it got worser. For when, in the middle of my brilliant great thought being passed into the computer was interrupted by the maid wanting to change the bed, I forgot – not just my great thought, but my real place in the world outside me.. But really, a double king-size bed with all those double king-size sheets and four pillows and a duvet to boot, and I shower before I go to bed and I am not that big, and she comes to change the sheets! Unbelievable.
Naturally, being an environmentally conscious, uptight penny-pinching WASP, I had a fit. Oh no, you don’t have to change the bed. There is a rush to find an English-speaking Chinese person I attempted to explain the uselessness of changing the bed. Another maybe better English-speaking person was called upon. A furor erupted. And as the turmoil increased. I got it. I said, “Never mind,” and I left it all. And I came to my senses. Here is the beautifully functioning organization, which gives work to a lot of people, people who put in their time putting clean sheets on clean beds, people who put i their time washing clean sheets and ironing them, people who put in their time picking up delivering and delivering by now very, very clean sheets, and I, Western practical me, wants to change all that. It’s the Missionary story all over – the bad parts of the Missionary story. Well, good for me. I got it. I said saijian and took a walk – not outside, too hot – but better yet, went to lunch.
And oh, the food, At dinner, at the buffet – endless buffet – they had oysters on the shell. And crabs’ legs, shell intact, and everything else you can imagine and can’t imagine as a Western person. The variety is endless and all delicious. A very nice place to hold a conference, even if it is all in Mandarin.
