Welcome to China!
We arrived at Dalian (a large harbor city close to Beijing) on a cruise ship in late one evening in October, 2005. Berthed next to us is a barge unloading scrap metal. A huge claw descends into its hold, pulls out a load and the drops it on a large pile with a horrendous clatter.
Across the dock from us stands a squalid, three story building in desperate need of repair. Weeds sprout from cracks on the trash-strewn roof. Raw brick and mortar stand exposed where the plaster has fallen away. Rust stains weep down the walls.
Below us handful of Chinese soldiers patrol the dock the gangway. They stand alertly despite the late hour, the cold, and the dim lighting.
Somone familiar with mainland China says that our captain must not have properly bribed the inspectors with food, wine and red bags. But who can blame him? To get into Japan or Korea, only three customs inspectors came aboard. Since China has many more people, they apparently also have many more inspectors; they sent thirty. It was a little humorous watching them tour the ship. They looked more like tourists than the passengers. So they had to eat at the buffet line, and didn't get any free hootch, and to show their displeasure we had to dock at this garden spot instead of the much nicer berth at another pier. Maybe the captain would have hospitably received a small delegation; hosting a busload would be off-putting.
As I watched the guards mill about and the barge being unloaded, a shiny white car raced down the dock and close to the gangway. "Ooh, someone important has arrived."
No one got out for a while, then the driver emerged. He was here to pick up someone important, not drop them off. He paced the length of the ship. He didn't see the passengers watching him from above (cruise ships are pretty tall). As he drew closer to the ship, he boosted up on tippy toe and tried to peek in through the lower portholes. "What's the pervert looking at?" I asked, sotto voce. My fellow passengers laughed. The driver noticed us and wandered away from our ship.
Another passenger asked why they needed soldiers on the dock. "They are concerned that we may try to sneak off the ship and illegally migrate to this Worker's Paradise."
Before disembarking I had to fill out a health questionnare (have you ever been treated for psychosis? Have you ever been diagnosed with a venereal disease?), and when I handed the form over to those kind and caring Chinese officials, they demonstrated their concern for my health by taking my temperature.
To take our temperatures, they used a little thermal scanner waved over the right thumb. I'm left handed, and was corrected when I offered the wrong thumb. Maybe these scanners are more accurate with right thumbs than left? I wondered what would happen if I clutched a bit of ice in my hand before getting scanned. "This fellow can't go ashore. He's dead!"
Of course, once you get past the officials and the ugly dockside architecture, the city is quite nice. And I have to say, all the passengers I saw and talked to took the whole thing very much in stride. It's almost as if they felt sorry for these poor benighted Chinese officials, stooping to such silly behavior.
