Chengdu was not on our list of “Gotta’ Visit Someday” but we saw a full-page advertisement in Air Asia airline encouraging people to visit Chengdu to see the Panda Breeding and Research Center.

So we included it on our itinerary.

the beautiful Millennium Hotel

We stayed at the beautiful Millennium Hotel which was across the street from one of the many city parks.

Walking in a park is a great way to get a feel for a city.

Along with people exercising, flying kites, and just strolling along there was a man playing a traditional Chinese string instrument.

Just a few short steps from the Millennium there is a wide, modern pedestrian walk with shops and restaurants.

We spent one morning at the Panda Research Center.

We have seen pandas before but these Giant Pandas seemed much bigger.

It was great fun watching them.

The center helps to ensure the survival of the species.

The babies are basically born prematurely and can not survive on their own until they are several months old so their survival in the wild is difficult.

Panda Research Center

Pandas are rather solitary creatures and first-time mothers do not always know how to care for the newborn right away.

In fact, they said the new mother may be frightened by the mouse-size, hairless baby and bat it away from them.

Chengdu is a very new, clean and green city of 9.2 million.

There is a lot of building going on with many trees both large and small being planted.

We took a 13-hour day trip to the Dujangyan Irrigation Project.

In the United States if something is 200 years old we think it is old.

The Dujangyan Irrigation Project is 2,200 years old. The project eliminated seasonal flooding in the area and is still used to irrigate the land.

Once again we were impressed with the flowers and trees.

The site also has several temples, a hanging bridge to cross the river, and, thankfully, a tram ride for a short portion of the tour.

We also stopped at a temple complex and a scenic mountain Taoist complex, but the most surprising stop was at a factory for what turned out to be an infomercial for veggie peelers and water purifiers.

The last stop was an Ancient Village but it was really a large but beautifully built village that replicated the ancient village that use to be there.

There is so much building going on in China that I think some of the old has been destroyed and this is a way to restore the past.

There were many shops with people making items in the traditional manner.

We spent a wonderfully relaxing afternoon in Jinli Street, an ancient city street with shops and restaurants.

We had tea at a teashop while listening to music, watched artisans create traditional handicrafts, and watch the end of a classical Sichuan performance.

In the evening we went to the Sichuan Opera.

I loved the variety.

It started with drum and gong music, followed by a stick an puppet show, a comedy routine, hand shadow show, and traditional opera.

Changing Faces

But the most amazing was the Sichuan specialty – Changing Faces whereby the actors change their facemasks so quickly that is impossible to see them do it.

Chengdu was a wonderful place to start our month in China.

The weather was warm, the people friendly, and the city was very comfortable.

Chengdu is best known as the starting point for visiting Tibet.

Mexico resident Sandra Scott and her husband, John, enjoy traveling and sharing that experience with others. She also writes everyday for Examiner.com (rotating on editions … Syracuse Travel, National Destination and Culinary Travel).

Taipei, March 31 (CNA) A program allowing independent Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, currently restricted to residents of Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen, will soon be opened to residents of 10 other Chinese cities, a source said Saturday.

The source, who is familiar with negotiations on the issue, said officials will open the program to the 10 Chinese cities in two stages and that dialogue between the two sides has moved to the final confirmation stage.

Tianjin, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Xian, Jinan, Chengdu, Fuzhou, and Shenzhen are likely to be the cities that will become eligible for the program, the source said.

“It was not possible to announce the list in March. The earliest will be in April,” according to the source.

Liu Te-shun, the deputy chief of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), said Thursday the opening may come in different stages and that “whichever Chinese city is ready, it will be given priority.”

Hsu Kuo-ching, secretary-general of Taiwan’s Travel Agent Association, said his association’s members have been told to prepare for the program’s expansion in May.

“It is likely (officials) will announce the opening in April,” Hsu said, noting that it normally takes a month for travel agents in China to familiarize themselves with the application procedures.

Taiwan began the independent travel program in June 2011, allowing up to 500 Chinese nationals from Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen to visit Taiwan per day without having to be part of a tour group.

A total of 38,549 Chinese nationals had been granted permits for independent travel to Taiwan as of the end of 2011, with 29,187 of them actually completing their trips, according to MAC statistics.

The program represented only a small fraction of the 1.78 million people who visited Taiwan from China in 2011, but the government and tourism businesses are hoping the program’s expansion will increase its economic impact on Taiwan’s tourism sector.

(By Chen Shun-hsieh and Ann Chen)
enditem/ls

In the days before my departure to China, I read about former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s travel to a federal prison in Colorado. As a young reporter, I had covered him and previous Governor George Ryan, who also went to prison. So, as a lifelong Midwesterner, I am no stranger to odd political circumstances. In China, a public political spectacle of another sort is unfolding ahead of the upcoming leadership change. The Guardian reports that “a colourful political contender” and major city head was ousted.

Meanwhile, in my hometown of Omaha, there had been a buzzing with videographers, sports reporters and other visitors for the NCAA regional play that featured nearby Kansas and Missouri. It seems thousands of miles away from my destination, and it is.

I prepared for weeks to make good on an invitation to travel to Asia for the first time. Last year, my campus hosted a visiting scholar from China. I enjoyed taking Dr. Jiankang Zhang to the Omaha Symphony, a Kansas City Royals baseball game, a long weekend in Chicago and other adventures. He joined our students in an annual visit with Omaha billionaire investor and capitalist Warren Buffett, and their photo together appeared in a newspaper back in China.

On board a Megabus outside of Des Moines, Iowa Dr. Zhang accessed one of China’s internal social media sites. There are many sites that mirror Facebook, messaging and social gaming.

Since protests in 2009, China has attempted to block Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress and dozens of other U.S. sites that might harbor dissent. Recent visitors to China had told me to expect Internet restrictions. As a First Amendment researcher, I would see the access restrictions as a bit of a one-way street.

ZheJiang University City College in Hangzhou invited me to visit China. I flew into Shanghai, a city with a metropolitan area of more than 20 million — about twice the size of what we Midwesterners find in the Chicago area.

I was also scheduled to visit Yiwu, a city about twice the size of Omaha. It is difficult for a Midwesterner to imagine the dozens of Chinese cities populated by millions of people. A Chinese student on my campus hoped I would not be disappointed by China because of its population the density. “There is no privacy,” the student said.

I’ve been reading about China since my elementary school days. I remember being mesmerized by Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth — a story that seemed to bring together the two cultures around the commonality of life’s struggles. It’s about a poor farmer, his diligent wife and children, as they struggle against flood, crop failure and life’s challenges. Now in my mid-50s, the story reminds me of my road traveled — often across the fields of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

Preparations for travel to China included a visit to my asthma doctor. I had been repeatedly told by recent visitors to expect that the air in Shanghai would not be as clean as Omaha. I had updated my immunizations and was advised by the travel clinic to take a typhoid shot. I agreed. I would be drinking bottled water and eating a lot of chicken and rice, though I hoped to enjoy some new foods, such as Chinese dessert pudding.

I expected to be confirming and disconfirming what is written, presented and said about the world’s fastest growing economy. The world may be flat, but China is about both change and history. I am fully aware that media constructions are not always accurate. Many years ago on a family summer vacation to Yellowstone, we had been warned about the huge crowds and traffic attributed to Japanese tourists. We ignored the warnings and enjoyed a relaxing pre-July 4 visit that felt nothing like the media stories.

Japan, of course, once rose in America to the mythical level of jobs stealer. In the Midwest during the early 1980s, people even smashed old Toyotas in defiance of this invasion. Today, there is a Toyota plant in southern Indiana that generates jobs for the locals. Built in 1996, the $3.6 billion investment currently employs nearly 4,000 in Princeton. So, I entered this trip naturally skeptical of those who worry about the impact of China and its more than one billion people on America. The global economy clearly has winners and losers, but the resilient Midwest has rebounded in many cities from the title of “rust belt.” Here in Omaha, the Stockyards closed in the mid-1980s, but the jobs have been replaced by a diverse and eclectic set of options — from insurance, to IT and even the music scene that now places us among the top ten in the nation.

I would not have been surprised to see in China a more diverse country than media stereotypes portray. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Chinese academics since my days in the late 1980s as a doctoral student in the very international journalism program at Southern Illinois University. More often than not, we thought alike.

During Dr. Zhang’s visit last year, I re-learned over many months that the human condition shares a common desire to live a good life, provide for family, and aspire for a better life in the next generations. As a Midwesterner traveling to Asia for the first time, I expected to strengthen the bonds that come from development of real relationships and partnerships. Nebraska’s first wave of Chinese students from Hangzhou in recent years wants the same benefits as U.S. students preparing for careers: They want the university to help them feel comfortable, as they navigate through curriculum and any academic issues. Given our unique places in the world, we should be motivated to sponsor educational exchanges and economic development that advance both great nations.

High Road to China Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by Michael Reuben, March 31, 2012

In the years immediately following the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark (as it was then
called), a spate of similarly themed pictures appeared, made for less money and of varying quality. One
of the best was High Road to China, starring the actor who almost was Indiana Jones,
Tom Selleck. According to show business lore, Selleck was prevented from taking what became one
of cinema’s most iconic roles because of his commitment to the TV series Magnum, P.I. (Not
that Magnum isn’t iconic; I recently saw Selleck walking in a New York City neighborhood, and
as people stopped to look, I heard more than one person say to a companion, “That’s Magnum!”)

Loosely based on a novel of the same name by popular Australian author John Cleary, High Road
was an atypical production made outside the Hollywood system with Asian financing. Two
screenwriters are credited: Sandra Weintraub, for whom it was the first script to get made, and S.
Lee Pogostin, for whom it was the last. Pogostin came from the world of early TV drama, when
writing standards were demanding, because scenes had to be well structured and dialogue
concise. Weintraub would go on to write for The Young and the Restless. Somehow, this
combination of the dramatic and the popularly romantic produced exactly the right mix.

The director was former actor Brian G. Hutton, veteran helmer of Kelly’s Heroes and Where
Eagles Dare. Hutton had learned his craft in the old studio system that no longer existed in
America, and he brought to High Road a kind of four-square style that was quickly falling out
of fashion. In this case, though, Hutton’s approach was ideal for the kind of throwback adventure
tale set in the Thirties that the script envisioned. But High Road would be Hutton’s last
picture. Over the next few years, emerging media conglomerates assembled a new model based on
tentpoles, youthful stars and expensive marketing campaigns. Hutton’s style had no place in this
world.

High Road to China has not been available on DVD until now. It is being released
simultaneously on DVD and Blu-ray by Hen’s Tooth Video, a specialty distributor that has
performed a service to fans of this unique and entertaining reminder of an era now past (and, let
it be noted, one that did respectable box office). Unfortunately, Hen’s Tooth did not have control
over the source materials or the transfer to video, and the result on Blu-ray is less than it should
be.

It begins with an heiress, Eve Tozer (Bess Armstrong), living the high life in Thirties Istanbul,
dancing and partying with military officers, mostly British. But there’s more to Eve than the
frivolous flapper she seems on the surface. In the lingo of the era, she’s “plucky”, a quality that
emerges with the arrival of her father’s business manager, Charlie Shane, an unassuming man
with unexpectedly lethal talents. (The actor, Michael Sheard, was frequently hired to play Hitler,
including for the Fhrer’s brief appearance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
Charlie brings bad news. Eve’s father, Bradley Tozer (Wilford Brimley), has been absent for so long on
his wanderings in the Far East that his partner, the odious Bentik (Robert Morley), is about to
have him declared legally dead so that he can seize Tozer’s half of their company. Eve has just
twelve days to find her errant dad and get him into a British courtroom.

The last report placed Bradley Tozer in Afghanistan, which means that Eve needs to charter a
plane. This brings her to former World War I flyer (and reputed war hero) Patrick O’Malley
(Selleck), who runs a sort of flying school outside of town. Eve is referred to O’Malley by Lina,
the wife of a British officer who asks that Eve be discreet because her “lessons” never involved
leaving the ground in an airplane. (Trivia note: Lina is played by Lynda La Plante, who would go
on to create Prime Suspect for Helen Mirren.) O’Malley turns out to be a boozer and a
loaferalmost a caricature of one of Hemingway’s “lost generation” typesbut he does have
two working biplanes and an ace mechanic called “Struts” (Jack Weston). After much haggling
over price, he agrees to help Eve find her father.

Bentik has not been idle, though. Back in England, he keeps ordering his chief underling,
Wedgeworth (Timothy Bateson), to dispatch “agents” to thwart Eve. They almost prevent Eve
from leaving with O’Malley, but the self-absorbed pilot thinks the thugs with guns were sent by
some jealous husband that he offended. They’ll be halfway through their adventure before
O’Malley figures out who’s the real target of all the violence they keep attracting.

Since the title is High Road to China, it’s no spoiler to reveal that Bradley
Tozer isn’t in Afghanistan. That’s just the first stop on a trip that covers India, Nepal and, eventually, a tiny
Chinese province. Memorable encounters await, including with the Afghan warlord Suleman
Khan (Brian Blessed, deliciously over the top), who’s like a parody of the Afghan fighters with
whom we’ve become all too familiar in the present day, especially in his neanderthal approach to
women.

But the real story of High Road is the endless sparring match (or should we call it what it is
and say “foreplay”?) between Eve and O’Malley. Both contemporary in its idiom and old-fashioned
in the attention devoted to it (at the expense of chase scenes and effects, for which the budget
was small by Hollywood standards), the constant bickering between these two is what makes the
film worth watching (and re-watching). Selleck and Armstrong have wonderful onscreen
chemistry, and it’s a shame no one ever thought to pair them again. If you’re looking for a
swashbuckling adventure story, you can do better, but if you’re interested in a brightly
entertaining comedy with a touch of romance and a streak of adventure (and, near the end, a good
set of real explosions with no CG enhancements), you can’t do much better.