1983 CHINA TOUR

Sunday, June 12, 1983 (cont.):

We boarded rather late for the ten hour flight via Alaska to Tokyo in pursuit of daylight .
I watched the Chinese movie with horses, a young hero and pouty heroine, and ate a good dinner. Although I did get some hours of sleep, I talked a lot with Lee about what we were about to experience. He explained the lack of privacy and sex in Mainland China, where one is limited to one child or else infanticide or loss of bonus. Hongkong would be our last chance, he surmised.

Crossing the International Dateline, it suddenly became:
Monday, June 13, 1983: when we got to meet - in stages - our remaining fellow tour-ists:

two sturdy ladies, Elizabeth von Rohr, the mother, and Jo Ann Day, the daughter, from Alaska, both wearing glasses, a bare midriff and two heavy bosoms, one each, above pairs of tight slacks. an elderly couple from Sarasota, Abel and Kathryn Brown; Abel spoke Dutch to my great surprise and was an excellent raconteur.

(This meeting only occurred after we landed at Tokyo Airport and went through a panic since their plane from Honolulu had been delayed)
six Chinese-Americans, the father a medical doctor, who spoke hardly any Chinese;
the mother, who did, and four out of their five daughters: Karen, Paula, Madeleine and Sonya, of which only the latter, some 14 years old and featuring a mouthful of braces, spoke some Chinese and gained the epitath of "dragon-lady" later on the tour from the Chinese unfamiliar with her brand of dental artwork.
That completes the crew description: one leader, one solitarian, two ladies, two couples, and six of one family, for a total of 14.

After a short delay, we made the 4 hour hop from Tokyo past the spectacular Mount Fuji which I climbed in 1961 to Hongkong where we landed at 21:00 in the humid dark. BLO fecit 20030608

Quite a difference from my first landing in Hongkong in 1955 just before Christmas, when it was quite cold and I was dressed for Bangkok... CHINA Index next page (5)