Los Angeles—Beijing—Xian—
Los Angeles—2005 to 2007
The Journey Continues
My sister Stephanie married her high school sweetheart, Gene Arnold, and their love for each other has endured to this day. In fact, theirs is the only marriage in my immediate family that has stood the test of time. Their life together has been an eventful and fascinating one. And they would be instrumental in taking me through the next step in my own journey through life.
Gene was born in the Eastern New Mexico town of Clovis in 1949. In 1952, his family moved to Bolivia, where his father was the superintendent of a maintenance camp for the Pan American highway project. Gene received his early education there in a four-room missionary school. After returning to New Mexico in 1959, his family moved to Aztec, where he would meet my sister.
They were married on September 3, 1966, before they both enrolled at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Their son Chris was born in 1967 and another son, Eric, followed in 1970. Gene attended MIT for a year of graduate work in Structural Dynamics before becoming an engineer for Chevron in 1971. His family then grew with the birth of his daughter Kari in El Paso, Texas, in 1974.
In 1980, his family moved to the Netherlands, where Gene was project engineer and project manager at Perris Refinery. In 1982, he became a staff analyst at the London office of Chevron Oil Europe. After returning to the United States, he worked as a project engineer in Santa Barbara and an operations supervisor at the Richmond, California refinery, and as a staff analyst and various managerial positions before spending three years as the site manager for technology transfer in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2000, he retired from Chevron after working there for over twenty-eight years to become an independent project manager.
He was working in that capacity and living with my sister Stephanie in Beijing, China, in April of 2005, when I got a surprise phone call from him.
“Hey Rob,” he said. “It’s Gene.”
“Gene! Are you guys in town?”
“No, we’re in Beijing.”
“Wow! You’re coming through so clear sounds like you’re right next door.”
“Modern technology,” he reminded me. “Hey, Rob, the reason I’m calling is that we recently moved from Nanjing to Beijing because I’m going to be working on a project up north, and we were wondering if you wanted to come visit us.”
Two years ago, I’d been to Southern China on that trip with the Sun family, but I’d never been to Northern China or Beijing. “I’d love to, Gene, but I really can’t afford to right now.”
“Not a problem at all. We’re buying your plane ticket.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“You’ve got a birthday coming up. Consider it a birthday present. Steph and I really want to do this for you.”
What could I say? Beijing was near Tientsin, where my grandmother originally came from. Once again, I would be returning to the land of my ancestors.
Early in May of 2005, I boarded an All Nippon Airways Flight. The plane stopped at Tokyo Narita Airport, and then flew over Korea and Taiwan before landing in Beijing. I was greeted at the airport by Stephanie and Gene, and their driver ferried us across the city to their luxurious high-rise condo in the center of Beijing. I looked out the window of their condo at the exotic city I had only read about in books, a place that I had always wanted to see and experience. And here I finally was. This was the country my family had come from and where my ancestors were buried. My life was now coming around full circle.
Beijing was truly a city of remarkable contrasts. Aside from being the truly modern metropolis perpetually under construction that one might expect of a nation’s capital, there were still remanants of the old city once known as Peking that throughout time had been a destination for the trading caravans travelling across the Gobi desert.
In an ever-progressing city, the old rested uneasily alongside the new. New skyscrapers and high-rises geared to an increasing population were going up in a huge building boom, anticipating the coming Olympic games.
Nestled in their shadows were the narrow alleyways and twisted streets of the hutongs that had been there for centuries, although many of these were now in danger of vanishing because of the inevitable march of time.
In one such hutong was Mr. Li’s Imperial Diner, serving the same delectable dishes that had been served to the imperial family in the bygone days of the Chinese empire. It was one of the most expensive places to eat in a city where most food is remarkably cheap, but of course Gene and Stephanie had made arrangements for me to have a once-in-a-lifetime birthday dinner there.
The food was every bit as good as I had expected, but it was the love of family that made it a truly unforgettable experience.
Beijing was a gourmet paradise that featured not only the whole gamut of Northern Chinese food but food from various other provinces as well as Japanese food, Korean food, and even Western fast food from all-too-familliar Western franchises.
I enjoyed many unusual Chinese dishes that I had never eaten before, but of course one simply cannot go to Beijing without experiencing their famous Beijing duck.
Half-hidden in a dark, narrow alleyway of another old hutong is the famous Liquin Roasted Duck Restaurant. The ducks are cooked in an ancient wood-fired brick oven, which imparts its unique flavor. I noticed that the waiter who carved it left a lot of meat on the duck carcass, which he took back to the kitchen after serving us. A Westerner who was a regular there said, “Order the duck bones.” We’d never heard of such a thing, but we took his advice. The crunchy edible duck bones had been deep-fried with all that meat on them and were served on a huge platter. I’ll have to admit that the Beijing duck I had there was the best that I have ever eaten. But the duck bones were the best part.
The first trip we took outside of Beijing was to see the monumental wonder known as The Great Wall of China. The wall, which spans over thirteen thousand miles, was initially built between 220 and 206 BC as a barrier to keep out the Northern invaders by the great Emperor Chin Shih-Huang, who is called The First Emperor because he unified China, which at that time was composed of warring independent kingdoms.
As I walked along the great wall with my sister and brother-in-law, I could sense the thousands upon thousands of years of Chinese history. Stephanie had packed an impromptu picnic lunch for us, and we enjoyed it sitting there on the wall as we looked out over the northern countryside and the misty mountains beyond.
Back in Beijing, Gene and I enjoyed a glass of whiskey in their condo as I looked out the window over the city at night. I thought about how fortunate I was to be able to have this wonderful experience.
“I’m having a great time,” I told Gene.
“Well it’s going to be even better,” he said. “We’re going to take you to Xian.”
This was a part of China that I had only dreamt about seeing. The city of Xian is significant as one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China and the home of the mausoleum of Chin Shih-Huang, who had been interred there with his famous Terracotta Army. It is now the capital of Shanxi province in Northwestern China in the center of the Guangzhong Plain.
After arriving at Xian Xianyang International Airport, we took a taxi to the Chin Shi-Huang Mausoleum outside of the city itself to view his Terracotta Army. There are a number of ancient ruins, tombs and ongoing archaeological projects in the area, since Xian had been home to the Zhou, Han, Sui, Tang, and Chin Dynasties.
Like Beijing, Xian boasts an uneasy combination of the ancient and the modern. It is Northwestern China’s largest city, with a population of over eight million, of which eighty-two thousand are ethnic minorities. There is a large Muslim population in Xian, as there is in most western Chinese cities. Gene had booked rooms for us at the Bell & Drum Tower Hotel at 1 She Hui Road in the city’s central axis, a great location from which to see the historic city. The city itself is surrounded by an ancient wall, reconstructed in the fourteenth century during the early Ming Dynasty.
Walking through the streets of the older section of Xian, properly dubbed the Muslim quarter, was truly an experience of sights, sounds, and smells. Virtually every culinary need was made available, from freshly butchered cuts of halal meat—mostly mutton, goat, and beef—to poultry and produce of all varieties. Alongside them stood small shops selling spices, herbs, and other dried condiments.
Xian’s large population of Chinese Muslims becomes very evident in the available food. Chinese-Islamic cuisine relies heavily on mutton and beef soups with hand-rolled noodles frequently sliced directly into the steaming broth. Aside from their soups is nang, or a circular unleavened flatbread frequently baked and topped with green onion, chives, or sesame seeds. Their other dishes are similar to Beijing or Northern Chinese cuisine, with the primary difference being the way the animals have been slaughtered. Pork, of course, is forbidden to Muslims, so there are no dishes cooked with pork in their diet.
Being a passionate lover of food, I found this regional aspect of Chinese cuisine particularly fascinating. There are Chinese-Islamic restaurants in Los Angeles, but here in Xian I could finally experience the real thing.
Progressing down the main street of the quarter, we came across a large shopping mall. Their goods ranged from clothing to real and false antiques, along with just about everything in between.
Near our hotel, there was a famous and fabulous dumpling restaurant, but its dumplings were unlike any I had ever encountered before. In the United States, there is no shortage of restaurants serving dim sum, the delicious Chinese traditional yum cha, or tea time food comprised of delicacies served from steamer baskets. But the exquisite dumplings served in Xian are a tradition dating back to the T’ang Dynasty, and they are in a class all thir own. They are small, dainty meat- or seafood-filled steamed dumplings skillfully hand-formed into birds, animals, or even walnuts.
The trip to Xian had added another unforgettable experience to my store of memories, and after returning to Beijing I came to the realization that my brief Chinese odyssey would soon be over. Since they only cost about one US dollar apiece in China, I had amassed a collection of well over a hundred DVDs of movies that I had always wanted to see. But there was still one more shopping expedition yet to come: the Panjiayan Antique Market in the Chaoyang District, a huge place with over four hundred shops and ten thousand dealer’s stalls. I bought a few souvenirs and a handmade Uighur tribal dagger. We lunched on beef noodles at the Peoples’ commissary, and Gene and I shared a big bottle of beer that we had to drink in rice bowls because there were no glasses.
It was my last night in Beijing. Stephanie, Gene, and I were having a drink and talking about our experiences that day when my sister asked me, “So how’s everything with you, Rob? Are you doing what you want with life?”
“I suppose I am, Steph,” I answered. “I got tired of making videos, so I’ve stopped doing that. What I really want to do is write.”
“Well that’s just what you should do, then,” she said.
As I boarded the plane for the sixteen-hour flight back to Los Angeles, I could not help but realize how fortunate I was to have been blessed by such a caring, wonderful, and loving family. If it hadn’t been for my sister and brother-in-law, I probably would have never made this trip. I couldn’t consider myself a world traveler yet, but at least I had been a few places and done a few things. The trip had inspired me—it made me realize I wanted to do something different with my life.
A year and a half passed and I was still helping Timmy Sun at DTS Karaoke. Things didn’t seem to be progressing all that swiftly for me, but Gene Arnold had completed his job in China, and he and Stephanie had moved to Austin, Texas, where they now owned a large house in an affluent area, and, since they were both avid golfers, there was a golf course just off their backyard. Jenilee lived with her husband Bill Woodward in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Valerie still lived in El Segundo.
Of late, Valerie’s memory had been going, and it had become evident that she was in the early stages of dementia. My stepfather had spent his last years in the grip of Alzheimer’s disease, and we all feared that this would be Valerie’s fate as well. When she began getting worse, the family decided she should move to Albuquerque to be closer to her sisters, her son Jeff, and her grandchildren. It was around this time that I got a phone call from Stephanie. “How’s the writing coming along?” she asked.
“It’s not,” I had to reply. “I don’t seem to be able to find time to do any.”
“I was talking to Jenilee and Val, and we were all wondering if you’d like to move to Albuquerque with her. Val’s getting a big house and you could stay there until you find something.” Then she added, “There’s only four of us left, you know, since Bryan died. It would be good if we could be closer to each other.”
There must have been a long silence because I was thinking about what she said, so she broke it by saying, “Anyway, Rob. Give it some thought.”
“I don’t have to, Steph,” I replied. “Yeah, I’d be happy to move to Albuquerque.”
My family had always been so good to me that I welcomed the opportunity to be close to them once again. There was certainly nothing to keep me here in Los Angeles. Kerima and Preston were now grown up and established in their respective careers. Perhaps I could repay at least some of Val’s kindness to me in the past by helping to care for her.
Another thought also crossed my mind. Freed from work obligations and big-city distractions, I would certainly find the opportunity to write. After all, that’s what I wanted to do more than anything. Timmy Sun could easily find someone to replace me in the karaoke business, so when I informed him of my plans he asked me, “You going to write, like book?”
“Yeah, I’m going to write books,” I told him.
He said that he hated to see me go before shaking my hand and putting $1,000 in cash in it. “You remember come back if you ever need to. You still have job here.”
So in the summer of 2007, with my final obligation in Los Angeles discharged, I packed my belongings and began a new life in New Mexico.