A trip to Jinan

Monday:
Today we traveled to Jinan, We will remain in the Shandang Province throughout our stay. It will take about 4-5 hours to get to Jinan by car. We will be traveling in a van with our translator and our driver that has been with us since the airport arrival. His name is translated as “car” so Linda enjoyed telling us we can just call him Mr. Car.

The trip was a good way to see the countryside and get a feel for the layout of the land. Shandong Province is the breadbasket of China located on the Yellow River, the second largest river in China. Everywhere we looked there were rows of corn, hanging squash and row after row of cottonwood and weeping willows lining the highways. There was no spot untouched by human hand.

Highway travel was a bit more peaceful than city travel. I guess I haven’t said anything about the driving yet. Well, if you can imagine every driver in downtown New York City playing “chicken”, that is a very mild description. It is amazing that there are hardly ever any wrecks, no one on a bicycle is killed or pedestrians aren’t‚t run down. I guess the best way to say it is everyone has the right of way and no one has the right of way but somehow, it all works with relatively little crankiness and absolute no road rage. It is very common in the midst of what we think is chaos and danger, to see mothers and fathers with very small children pedaling along as if they are riding down the Katy trail.

We stopped at a Chinese truck stop. I don’t know what was more entertaining, the fact that we were at one --or the bathrooms. More on that later.

The trip was a good down time for the band to rest, plan, reflect and again just process our thoughts.

The hotel in Qingdao is owned by the Chinese Navy and was until we came to town was only utilized by Navy officers and their families. It was modest. In Jinan, the hotel was quite extravagant. Everyone had lavish rooms a large king-size bed, an “office” and living room with a television -- except for me, I had two televisions. Alan called me the Queen Bean.

We stayed downtown which made it interesting and culturally tangible. It was really hard for me to look through my linen curtains at the people on the streets. There are such extreme lifestyles of comfort and poverty.

The food in Qingdao was great but we were ready for a change from the extreme abundance of seafood. Everything was very spicy or very bland. The food in Jinan was a daily endless buffet representing Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Western food. All of us were ready for a taste of the West. I had my photograph taken with the chef for my son, Matthia, and all of the other chefs at the Alumni Center. The chef could speak a little English and was interested in my son also being a chef. He treated me special after he found this out and would bring large platters of fruit to my table and follow me throughout the buffet giving me a “tour” of the cuisine.

After our trip to Jinan and dinner, Jake, Dierik and I slipped out to walk the streets of the square around the hotel. It was about 10:00 at night, but vendors were up and down the sidewalks in endless rows. We found the park across the street and were thrilled to have some green space in the midst of a very busy city. There were portrait artists in the park painting under lampposts. The biggest thrill was stumbling onto a group of traditional musicians and opera singers. They had a large gathering but we weaseled our way into the front and started taking pictures.

The singing was fascinating with sounds coming from the human face that challenged my vocal study. The singing is all done in the upper frontal cavity of the face almost above the nose line. No chest or lower voice is used. It wasn’t done with what I would describe as nasal application but higher in the facial structure. Their voices were a colorful blend of beauty, humor and rich culture.

Tuesday:
Our schedule for today is two warm-ups and technical checks for Qilu Television. It was really great having Al with his expertise in television. KOMU sent some t-shirts, hats, etc. which they loved. Once again, the banjo and Dierik were the center of attention. We took the mandolin in with us and taught one of the crew guys, Bile Them Cabbage Down. Dierik played guitar with him and I sang it. We then got out our photos of Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. Great lesson time.

In the evening we performed on a teen pop music show.if you can only imagine. It was amusing and fun amidst the pop singers. They still think we are some kind of rock stars. It will be interesting to find out if the banjo will find it‚s way into Chinese pop music.
When we ripped into Foggy Mountain Breakdown for the opening of the show, we were deafened by the screaming and cheering of our young pop audience to the point where we could hardly hear ourselves play. The station has promised to send us a DVD so hopefully we will be able to share our pop stardom with all of you. The show was broadcast all over Shandong Province.

We had met a manager of the biggest nightclub in Jinan when we were back at the beer festival. She said she would try to set up a stage spot for us so after the television show we went to the club to perform.
It had three parts to it, a disco room, a room with dancers and then a room for bands. There was a great band from Beijing -- a pop-rock band that fuses traditional Chinese opera into their songs. They were a really tight, fun band and very gracious to give us their middle set. So, here we are in a club in China sharing the stage with a pop band and playing bluegrass music. We had a really good response, confused but entertained looks came at us. The band and the manager were especially fascinated. The manager said “your music is very good and has really impressed me.” These may seem like simple words but they are weighty words coming from someone in her position.

Wednesday:
We are off to a city by the name of Liaocheng located one hour west of Jinan. The city is one of my favorites so far. It is sprawling with beautiful gardens and a canal running through the city. After we checked into our hotel and had lunch with the Director of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, with media folks in tow, we were sent with a great troupe of folks to tour the city.

They took us to a watchtower that was over 600 years old in the center part of the town surrounded by a lake. The wood carvings and architecture was indescribable. My moment of breathlessness came when I was peering up through the ancient carvings and through the spaces, I saw colorful kites soaring above.

At one point, when we were going into the watchtower, Dierik had been across the street getting some photo shots and to catch up with us he came running up the sidewalk with his hair flying wildly. The walls of the sidewalk were lined with older Chinese men who proceeded to fall into hysterical laughter, pointing at Dierik and repeatedly say something in their native tongue. Linda, our interpreter said they were calling him Einstein.

We were scheduled at another hotel for an invitation only performance. We were invited to dine with the owner of the hotel, his staff and the Director of Cultural affairs. It was our favorite Chinese meal so far. Lots of fruits and vegetables.

They had done an elaborate job of preparing and decorating the stage for us. You could see that this was a well-planned event. I finished dinner, threw on some stage clothes and joined the boys on stage.

Linda had translated the names/meanings of our songs to the stage host. I had great fun explaining the deep, profound meanings of the songs as I meandered through Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Rollin‚ In My Sweet Baby‚s arms, Bile them Cabbage Down and Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down.

The performance was awesome, I taught them how to yell yeee-ha (with a little Chinese accent thrown in) as they clapped and stomped with the music. We told them they sounded like our audiences at home, which made us, feel very welcomed. We had the director‚s son play the washboard with us.

Thursday:
Our day was planned for touring. We traveled to Yanggu, a smaller, agricultural city located on the far western side of Shandong Province. The heart of this 800-year-old ancient city was wonderfully restored and quite picturesque. It was filled with temples and teahouses with stories of romance, arranged marriages and lost love. Across the street, Dierik discovered a German church built in 1924. The streets beyond the church were storybook Chinese. What a wonderful city.

We also visited a place of reverence for the local hero, Wu Song. We were the first Westerners to ever see this great shrine. The legend is, Wu Song and many others had tried to kill a very vicious, fierce tiger without any success. Many had been killed and wounded in the process. One night Wu Song drank eighteen bowls of rice wine. Normally it takes only three bowls to get a Chinese man quite drunk (we tasted this same type of wine while at the shrine and it tastes exactly like moonshine or „white lightening.". One small cup went straight to Alan‚s head so we knew it had some punch to it.) After Alan, no I mean Wu Song, drank this enormous amount of alcohol, he walked up the hill and fell asleep on a large slab of rock. A harsh wind blew and awoke him just as the tiger was approaching. He was filled with great power and courage from the alcohol and stabbed the tiger with a spear that broke so he finished killing him with his bare hands.

We are now back in Jinan -- more tomorrow.