I Am the Last Emperor

At last quarter’s ALIVE staff meeting, editor Eric Johnson encouraged us to pitch new article ideas. I jumped up and said, “Chief,” that’s what I call him around the office, “Chief, what about a follow-up piece to my International Pub Crawl article that was so warmly received by the Alive readership family in the summer of 2017?” As you may recall, that popular piece chronicled my adventures traveling through England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, visiting as many pubs as possible, complete with massive beer consumption. Trust me, it was huge! My new idea was a pub and beer tour through Eastern China. Fortunately for me, EJ loved it. He tossed me the company credit card and simply said, “Go for it Ace.” That’s what he calls me around the office, “Ace.”

Unbeknownst to me, or Mr. Johnson apparently, I was soon to discover that China only has about five makers of beer (Tsingtao, Hans, Snow, Sunage and Yanjing) and virtually no neighborhood pubs in a country of approximately 1.4 billion people. Despite the fact that all five beers taste somewhat like a watered down version of Pabst Blue Ribbon, someone (the Chinese government) is missing one heck of a pub franchise money making opportunity, given their nation’s sports spectator preclusion for soccer, basketball and ping-pong.

So instead of a pub tour, I hooked up with a Chamber of Commerce Tour with Citslinc. The good news with a tour is everything is scheduled, the bad news is everything is scheduled. Upon arriving after a 12 hour China Air flight, we stopped for the first of approximately 17 meals of Chinese food over 10 days. Now I love me some tasty Chinese food from China Village in Dublin, but every lunch and dinner had me craving a peanut butter sandwich about half way through the itinerary.

With a C of C tour, we visited a Jade Factory, Pearl Factory, Xi’an Art/Terra-Cotta Warrior Factory, Lacquer Furniture Factory, a Silk Garment Institute, The Mei Family Tea Farm in the Plum Valley and the Silk Embroidery Gallery. We were educated at each stop by charismatic spokesmen and women who all closed with first class sales pitches as part of their presentations. Yes, you read correctly. I’m confident there is a Chinese movie equivalent to Glengarry Glen Ross because if “coffee (or tea in this case) is for closers,” these folks were swimming in coffee/tea swimming pools because they could certainly close a sale. It was hard not to leave with something at each of the places we visited, but when will I actually wear my new silk boxer shorts embroidered with a dragon?

The two biggest cities we visited were Shanghai and Beijing. They are a lot like New York City on New Year’s Eve if the Super Bowl was being played in Times Square during the Consumer Electronics Show. Better yet, imagine the population of the Top 10 U.S. cities: New York City, NY – 8,550,405, Los Angeles, CA. – 3,971,883, Chicago, IL. – 2,720,546, Houston, TX. – 2,296,224, Philadelphia, PA. – 1,567,442, Phoenix, AZ. – 1,563,025, San Antonio – 1,469,845. San Diego, CA. – 1,394,928, Dallas, TX. – 1,300,092, and San Jose, CA – 1,026,908 and that equals China’s most populated city, Chongqing’s 30,000,000 people. An unsubstantiated source (my wife) told me that half of the construction cranes in the world are in China which is not hard to believe given the massive development going on in every city we visited. The elevated freeways, skyscrapers and bridges are straight out of the movie Blade Runner. These cities literally never sleep as construction crews run 24/7. The most staggering product type is the enormous residential condos that are peppering the skylines. These aren’t single stand-alone buildings, but 5 to 25 building campuses that stand between 20 and 40 stories tall.

In addition to Beijing and Shanghai, we also stopped for a cup of tea and a happy house (aka bathroom) break in the cities of Xi’an, Suzhou and Hangzhou. Several memorable sites throughout our tour included: the Temple of Heaven built in 1420 A.D., the Olympic Village, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, the Emperor’s Summer Palace, the Wild Goose Pagoda, Xi’an’s Ancient City Wall, Banpo Museum/Pre-Historical Caveman Site, the West Garden Temple, a cruise on the West Lake Cruise and down a portion of the Grand Canal, the Longjing Green Tea Plantation, the Pagoda of Six Harmony overlooking the Qiantang River, a ride on the Magnetic Levitation train (at 280 mph) and my two favorites, the Terra-Cotta Warriors excavation site at the Tomb of the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty and walking on The Great Wall.

Our tour guides during our trip were Kevin, Melanie and John. Even If I could spell their Chinese names I certainly could never pronounce them. All three were engaging, highly educated and very entertaining. Not only did they tackle English as a second language, they’ve also managed to incorporate humor in their dialog with us yúchǔn dì měiguó rén (simple Americans).

This trip would not have been as fun without the participation of the other members of my tour group including; Julie Copeland, Joan and Richard Means, Randy and Emily Yim, Michael and Emma Wong, Janet and John Silva, Dennis and Rose Richardson, Karen and Dan Towel, Robert and Sally Pettit, Linda Evans and Jim Silvers, Kim Bowers and Nes Albano, Norma McTyer, Jasmen Howe, Amy Anderson, Mary Jo Della Maggiore, Joe Fontes, Judy Rice Rice and Jeanne Rogers. I also want to thank our Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce trip coordinator, the lovely and talented, Miss Kate D’Or.

My only regret, because I was traveling on a group VISA, I did not get a stamp in my passport. Sad face emoticon because, as my new hoodie proclaims, I am the Last Emperor.

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