Always Move Fast

A Semester at Sea student went out the first night in Hong Kong but didn't come back, ever.

I was in Beijing when the call came, on a SAS orchestrated trip. It was about 3:00 AM. I was rooming with Neil, a SAS staff member, because our last names started with the same letter of the alphabet. We were fast asleep.

We had left for Beijing earlier that day. About a 3 hour flight from Hong Kong, and then a bus ride to Tsingua University, where we were staying. One girl on our trip lost her passport at the airport, so there was a small delay from that, but we were moving along well. The hotel was a sort of tucked away place on the outskirts of campus, the type of place that taxi drivers will shrug out of confusion if you ask to go there because no one has ever heard of it. We ate dinner at the hotel, and by the time we were settling into our rooms it was dark out. My friends and I went out exploring, trying to find a grocery store to get the necessary items to make the night a good one. We find it after being lost for about an hour, and start collecting the things we need. Our goal was to make that university a college for the night, but apparently red SOLO cups aren't that popular in China. I was playing charades trying to explain to the clerks what I wanted before I started drawing pictures of disposable cups. They directed me to an aisle of non disposable cups, but they were so cheap we bought about 20 of them anyway. Ping pong is the national sport in China so balls were a lot easier to find, as was the rest of our supplies.

The walk to the grocery store and then running around shopping for supplies took a lot of energy out of us. The fun started when we tried hailing a taxi to take us back to the hotel so we didn't have to walk back. We stopped 3 taxis who had no idea the place we needed to get to even existed, much less how to get to it. None of the taxi drivers in China actually speak English, so we had the Chinese characters for our hotel written down on a piece of paper that we were showing to the drivers. A fourth driver we showed the paper to looked at it once, and then turned the sheet upside down and examined the characters from the wrong way with a confused face before telling us to get in. That's how we knew it was going to be a good ride. The taxi driver took us all through campus searching for this place. Giving up on the roads, the driver kicked the car up on the side walk and we start heading down some pedestrian paths. We crossed a pedestrian foot bridge and then get to a point on the walkway where huge cement blocks were laying on the blacktop to prevent anything larger than a bike (you know, like a taxi) from going down the path. But no mere creation of man could stop us; our rambunctious driver slid it into park, got out, and started pushing the very large block out of the way. Inside the taxi we were all laughing hysterically at what we were witnessing, and after a minute of no progress with the pushing, I got out and started to help our driver. The block screeched across the blacktop and probably made some irremovable scratch marks on both the ground and the block before we moved it about 5 inches out of the way, a suitable distance for our driver. We got back in the car and squeezed through the little gap we had created. I still have no idea how we managed not to scratch the sides of a car, it was incredibly tight between the cement block on one side and a tree on the other. But we eventually made it back to the hotel, and the group of us had our festivities in Cory's room until about 2AM, after which we all headed back to our own rooms. I tip toed around my room once I got back so I wouldn't wake Neil, who was already sleeping. I hit the pillow like a rock and was in dreamland in no time. And then the phone in our room rang.

Neil woke up to answer it.

"I'm calling you because I knew you'd be up this late," said Cindy, the Dean of Students on the other side. But I didn't know that until the next night when Neil talked about it. I actually had no idea what was going on at the time of the call, I was quite disoriented, and I was sure that the call happened at 6AM instead of 3AM, and was probably about the girl who lost her passport or something. But it was at 3 and was about something else. I fell back asleep without thinking twice.

I woke up the next morning normally, too late for breakfast, and started to get ready for the day. Neil was already out, probably at breakfast. I met up at my bus at 8AM; we were going to the Great Wall that day. We had a group of about 70 students, so there were two buses. Each bus had a SAS bus leader. John, a psychology teacher on the ship, was the leader of my bus, and Neil was the leader to the other bus. That morning Neil boarded my bus, but since I had been rooming with him and was seeing him so much I didn't stop to realize that he shouldn't have been on our bus because he wasn't our bus leader. He stood at the front of the bus, full of 35 students or so, and looked down the aisle.

"I'm sorry, but we have a pretty full itinerary today, so we won't be able to postpone our schedule or anything," he choked out. No one knew what he was talking about. "Here is an e-mail from the Executive Dean, Jack Van de Water." And then he read it:

"Dear Shipboard Community, I am very sorry to inform you that one of our students, Kurt Leswing, was struck by a vehicle early Friday morning in Hong Kong, was fatally injured and died immediately."

He kept on talking but I stopped hearing the words coming out. Before coming on this trip I had heard of students dying on Semester at Sea. When we went to India we were warned about the traffic, which had taken another student some years ago. Again in Viet Nam for the same reason. But I never imagined that something like that would happen on our voyage. During the pre port to Hong Kong, I remember the topic of traffic being brought up. "After surviving Viet Nam traffic, I don't think you have much to worry about," was what the on board physicians said during their presentation.

Neil finished reading with tears in his eyes. "Okay, I'm gonna go tell the other bus," he said before exiting. Everyone on my bus glanced through the windows to the students on the other bus, who had no idea what they were about to be told. It was hard to watch knowing what was going to happen. Everyone on my bus was still quiet, afraid to talk. It was still quite early, and frigidly cold. I gazed aimlessly out the window, not quite knowing to think or feel. The engines started up, the heat was turned on, and we drove off for the Great Wall.

The landscape on the ride to the Great Wall was surreal, but it was hard to tell if we were thinking or even seeing straight at that time. We got off the bus and the temperature couldn't have been much higher than freezing. I was a little unprepared for such coldness so the first thing I did was head to the gift shop in pursuit of warm things. 50 Yuan for a pair of gloves and a fuzzy communist hat. I was then prepared to ascend the wall. The section of the wall we went to was a tremendously steep climb. Series after series of upward stairs going up a hill with watch towers littered here and there. At some points the top of the hill seemed out of reach, but amazing views along the way provided the necessary motivation to reach the successively higher points. On the way up we met quite a bit of Chinese soldiers, who were also climbing the wall that day for some sort of team building exercise. Upon seeing my commie hat, many of them would chuckle and then ask for a picture, which I gladly granted as long as I could get one with my camera as well. The highest lookout point offered a breathtaking sight- rolling hills wrapped by an endless snake that was the wall. It looked as if the wall was sort of just placed on top of the mountains like a string rather than something that was built on top of the mountains. Wherever the mountains went, up or down, so did the wall. In other words, there was no noticeable excavation. The wall zigs and zags as far as the smog will let you see. It's really something worth seeing sometime throughout your life because pictures do not do it justice.

We walked back down the wall, taking a different path than we took up. Along the way we met a French man who was traveling alone. We got to talking a little bit, and upon finding that we were American he congratulated us. He didn't specify, but I instantly knew what he was talking about. And it was at that moment that I realized how proud I was to say I was an American.

The next day was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square was in the early morning, and it was also quite cold. We couldn't get a peep out of our tour guides about the history of the place because there are guidelines on what the Chinese can say about their government. The square has great political significance. It was the sight for the declaration of the PCR in 1949 and as well as the location for a number of political protests. Perhaps the most prominent was the 1989 protests that ended in the massacre of many pro-democratic demonstrators. At the head of the square is Mao's Mausoleum, decorated with grand portrait of the chairman himself and all his former glory. Even though China today is pretty different from how it was under Mao, he is still a huge icon for nationalism. And hence, his face is everywhere. Street vendors will try to sell you Chairman Mao quote books (very entertaining) and Mao watches that have Mao's arm oscillating as the ticker (even more entertaining). But our tour guides were completely tight lipped the entire time. Apparently there are secret police in the area that are hired to eavesdrop on tour groups to make sure the guides don't say anything treasonous about the country. Who knows if that's true or not.

The Forbidden City is an ancient palace adjacent to Tiananmen Square. It was completed in 1420 and was used as the Chinese Imperial Palace from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. It is quite expansive and has the traditional architecture that you always envision in your mind when you think of ancient Chinese buildings. All the structures look almost exactly the same, except they carry in size. The place goes on forever, and I could only see so much of it before I felt like I was seeing the same thing over and over again. But just being in these historical sites is a little mesmerizing at times, especially since the theme of our entire voyage has been about the rise of China. In the core global studies course that everyone on the ship has to take we talked about several of these sights and places, so actually being there was like taking a walk back through time.

When the Chinese Emperor was tired of seeing the same square red buildings with yellow rooks in the Forbidden City he would hitch it up to his lake house, the Summer Palace. We visited there the next day. I thought of it as like the Walker Ranch for the Chinese Bush. It is built up a mountain and has a grand lake waterfront. The history is about the same of Forbidden City, maybe with one more hostile takeover at one point or another in history. Unlike the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace has diverse building structures and has lakes and waterways running through it. I would rather spend my time there than the Forbidden City too. AND it's the sight for some hilarious Chinese recreational activities. People come to the Palace to do their line dancing classes, their singing rehearsals, play cards, sing, etc. We definitely joined in a couple dance classes and watched some singing comedy acts before we left for the Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas and other great sights.

This last August I devoted about a month of my life watching the Olympics. I watched the more obscure events all day long and was glued to my couch for the prime time events at night. I don't know why, but I just think the idea of a global meeting to showcase the best of the best athletes (except for baseball) is so fascinating. So actually going to the Olympic stadiums in Beijing was a pretty big deal for me, especially since they all seemed so far away at the time I was watching them on TV.

The area where the Olympic Green is probably the most landscaped area of the city, but the pollution is horrendous. Before the Olympics, the Chinese shut down nearly every coal fired power plant in the area and kicked half of the cars off the road in efforts to clean the air. Locals I talked to said the air that August was noticeably cleaner, but that there was a different story goin' on while I was there. Straight above the sky was blue but the horizon would stay a permanent and daunting shade of gray. Anytime after 2 o clock the sun was at that angle that made it look as if the sun was setting even though it was just early afternoon. Anyhow, despite the smog, I was very excited as my bus parked in the lot of the National Indoor Stadium (where the gymnastics events where held). Across the street was the Water Cube and just next to that, as you all know, was the Bird's Nest. As we were arriving there were window washers repelling down the sides of the water cube cleaning its bubbly walls. It was the oddest sight, because their feet weren't stopped by walls of the building, rather the bubbles squished in as the washers rested against them. I always thought that even though the building looked like it was made out of rubber, it was actually still firm. But this was clearly not the case, as I saw some clear indentation action happening. Squishy walls. Awesome.

We went into the water cube first. Inside was pretty much how you'd expect- a very ethereal and aquatic vibe. Water fell from the walls of the main plaza, most of which was consumed with a fairly large fountain covering the ground. The main pool stadium is smaller than it looks on TV, but most things are. The lap pool where Phelps and others swam was drained for some reason but the diving pool that bordered it was full, with all diving platforms intact. Just outside the main stadium was a hallway with glass walls that looked down onto the warm-up pool, which was full, and actually seemed a lot bigger than the main pool. Throughout the whole building natural lighting came in through the bubble walls, it all felt like I was in some sort of futuristic space building. The Bird's Nest was similarly impressive, and was quite monstrous compared to any baseball or football stadium I've been to in the US. As you walk up to the building the elaborate steel weaving engulfs your vision. The structure is massive. Inside you can walk through the rows of seating and down onto the field and track where all the events took place. There was some type of costume showcase activity going down on the field, but I had no idea what was really happening. Being in the center of the field just turning around and looking at all the stands was mesmerizing. I took my time before walking back up through the bleachers and to the bus. This was our 4^th and last day in Beijing. The bus took us to the airport, and our feet took us to the plane, which took us to Shanghai, where our floating home was to meet up with us.

A thought that I've mulled over for quite some time while on this trip has been the idea of home and where that is for me. As long as I've known, the only place I've ever considered warm enough to call home is that blue house in Aptos. San Diego was never home for me. It probably never will be. It never felt like it, something was always slightly off. I knew my apartment on campus was just a place I stayed temporarily until I could get back home when school broke. But I don't feel the same way about the MV Explorer. When I return from a 4 day trip in any of these countries and turn the corner to see the ship I become elated. I know I have a room aboard where I can unwind and process everything I've just seen. And that's what I've come to realize a home is: a place where everything is safe again, a place that calms your stresses and senses. One of the best things about going on these multi day trips is coming back and feeling like I'm home again, because it's usually a feeling I only get about 4 times a year since I've started college. And here I get it every 2 weeks. And I love it. I have found another place where my heart is. I wonder what the withdraws will be like.

The first couple of days on the ship after port was very emotional for everybody. There was just a feeling in the air where you knew something just wasn't right, that something that was once there is now gone. I did not know Kurt that well, but the accident had touched everyone on board. What's more is that his death brought back a lot of the things I was feeling when Rachel died a little more than a year ago. I saw Kurt's closest friends on the ship going through some of the same things that my friends and I went through when Rachel had her accident. Seeing that is probably what hit closest to home for me. No one on this ship knows everyone else, but everyone's friend networks overlap to the point where everyone is connected. So even though a good portion of the ship, myself included, didn't know Kurt that well, we were all brought together by his death. Traveling the world like this and coming into poverty stricken countries as the rich westerners sometimes has you feeling invincible. The feeling that somehow all the afflictions of the world that impinge on all the people we've seen so far somehow don't extend to you. And then something like this happens, and for better or for worse, it brings us all back down to earth. The fragility of life is a paramount realization. It's something we should all be aware of. That's not to say that you should limit yourself. But that we should be aware. Informed decisions are better than ignorant ones. So we should all keep that in mind while we still can.

Love the ones you love.

Spenser