China…. there’s almost no way to prepare for it, and then almost no way to convey the experience after returning. Though I kept a journal and took many photos, supplemented by postcards that approximately what I was seeing, at the end of the  journey, my mind reels with specific images that are cast on a canvas like stars in space. And just about that scale. Vast. Enormous. Super-sized.

The hosting tour company had provided wonderful pre-trip materials, timelines, suggested readings, even a quick language study, but I arrived at JFK to meet the group blissfully ignorant. I planned to simply experience the country as it unfolded in our seven-city blitz of highlights and history: Beijing, Xi’an, Jinan, Qufu, Tai’an, Suzhou, Shanghai.

A second goal was to see it all through my mother’s eyes. Without any formal introduction the culture, Jessie was attracted to it all (food, music, paintings, garden designs, architecture, couture, mannerisms) and her touches of Chinoiserie have accented her homes throughout her life. She had kept her notes from Dr. James Farsolas’ History of China class (which I’d offered in extended learning several years earlier) and shared them with me just before I left.

Superlatives and hyperboles became commonplace as we visited the requisite wonders of Beijing:

• The vast, open Tiananmen Square with its circling lines of country peasants waiting to visit the cryo-preserved Mao while their urban cousins circled the “Big Noses” (accepted label for westerners) with “Mao Rolexes”
• The expansive Forbidden City where mental scenes of “The Last Emperor” would not be denied as we wandered its palaces, pavilions, waiting chambers and intrigues to a final exit sigh which stated, “The more you care for the palace the more it shows its splendor”
• The Temple of Heaven, a perfection of Ming architecture loaded with symbolic significance (shapes, colors, numbers, animals, directions), where the emperor came in spring to pray for a good season and in autumn to pray for a good harvest
• The remarkable engineering feat of the Great Wall (a 3,000 mile dragon curving along the mountain spine of China’s northern frontier), now choked like Gatlinburg with “made in China” vendors, through which we climbed straight up for a single panting, marveling mile
• The rickshaw-navigate labyrinth of ancient brick housing (“hutongs”), that are on the 2008 Olympics’ chopping block to make way for modern high rise apartment

And that was just the first two days!

From Beijing (China’s present capitol), we flew to Xi’an (China’s past), where the Big Wild Goose Pagoda graced a city center garden and created a peaceful touchstone from every direction because its final tier established the height limitation for the entire town. The next marvel was the archaeological excavation site of the life-size terracotta army constructed by thousands of workers to create thousands of warriors who stand in silent sentry protecting the burial mound of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. A local farmer discovered this “8^th Wonder of the World” only three decades ago while digging a well; we watched as he was rushed in the museum gift shop, like a rock-star, by scores of squealing autograph seekers.

After strolling along the City Wall and the banks of the Yellow River in Jinan, we visited Qufu, Confucius’ birthplace. With one-fifth of the population claiming Confucius in their family tree, the small (by Chinese standards) town is steeped in historic significance. Although Confucius never lived in the Kong Mansion with its maze of 450 halls, rooms and building, he does occupy a burial mound in the Forest of the Sage (also known as Kong Lin and the Confucian Forest), along with 100,000 of his male descendants. In the late afternoon sun, golden light played on the light blue phlox blooming over the little hillocks and the stone sculpture guardians of Confucius tomb. There in front of his mound, a 20-year-old descendant was whipping out paintings in five-minute increments of bamboo, goldfish and peonies complete with calligraphy wishes for longevity and the artist’s “chop”, while his mother collected 50 yuan each (about $6), scrolling and boxing the treasures in a blur of commercial activity.

Then off to Mount Taishan, the most revered of the five sacred mountains of China. From our cable car, which bypassed about 4 hours of steep zigzag climbing, we viewed the mountain scenery so prevalent in Chinese silk paintings with rock formations, surprising waterfalls, wild forsythia and cherry blossoms dotting the mountainside. Once at “base camp” we hiked the final 1780 (we counted!) irregular stone steps to the Dai Temple, where Qin Shi Huang held sacrificial ceremonies. From the top of the world, we surveyed the Shangdong Province, as had China’s first emperor, Confucius, and Mao Zedong in their day, while enormous incense burners received the pilgrims’ wishes for good health, prosperity and long life.

An overnight train and morning bus ride brought us to Suzhou, the Venice of the East. The combination of 187 private gardens (20 of which are now open to the public and nine listed by Unesco as World Cultural Heritage sites) and the canal system constructed more than 2,000 years ago as China’s main north-south artery, create an unforgettable ambiance. Visits to the Fisherman’s Net Garden and Lingering Garden brought clarity to the concepts of fen shui, yin and yang, and the Taoist principle of merging humanity into nature.

Shanghai's Changing skyline