That vague intent became solid reality mostly because when I mentioned the idea to my wife she responded with a curt, cheerful sound bite: "Yes, let's do it!" If my fragile, handle-with-care girl wife who in my opinion prefers 5-star hotel rooms and fine dining when we travel thinks she can handle a trip to a potentially hazardous foreign land with ease, who am I to second think it?
The Tibet destination got annulled at the last minute due to some unforeseen event (the Chinese government was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet in July therefore forbade all foreign visitors from entering that region), but the trip was on: We'll start from southern Guangdong (廣東), to Beijing up north, then Inner Mongolia (內蒙古) to the west, then further west to Xi'an (西安) and Gansu (甘肅), for a total of two weeks, of visiting hospitals, government officials, local churches, etc. Some sight seeing along the way, too.
When my wife and I arrived at Dongguan (東莞) in southern Guangdong on July 10, Joyce (and Gary) and Julia, another great sister member of the team who planned and did all the nitty-gritty work for the trip, were already there to welcome us. It's good to see brother Gary again, handsome and healthy as ever (forgive him for not having a hot cappuccino at hand for me as I dreamed he would:), who took us to a suburban place for a delicious barbecue dove (烤乳鴿) feast, then a local beauty parlor for a soothing head-to-toe massage, before we settled into their newly furnished condominium in a gated lakeside community near their factory, and took a comfy sleep as the night fell.
The next day, July 11, a Monday, kicked off our PEACE trip. The plan for the day was to first meet up with Alex--a Hong Kongese Christian who's been doing quite some philanthropic work in Guangdong and also has a factory in Dongguan--and his group, then go on to meet some city officials, visit some hospital, etc.
China is a vast place, with wide roads/highways and tall buildings swishing and scattering all over southern Guangdong. From where we stayed, a district of Dongguan southeast of Guangzhou (廣州), to the district of another city southwest of Guangzhou, it took about a couple hours straight driving. We actually met Alex and his team, a group of 7, midway through the drive, at a rest stop, introduced ourselves, and sat back in our separate minivans and continued on to our common destination city.
It's already noon time when we arrived at our destination, the Gaoming district (高明區) of Foshan city (佛山市), hence a customary, somehow-luxurious lunch was in order. As the first meal I ever had with Chinese government officials, I was impressed not only by those big plush plates of food, but the self-propelling lazy-Susan turn-table and the luscious flower bouquet at the center of the grand round table. Settings like these, however, as we found out later in our trip, are pretty standard at banquet dinners wherever we go in China.
The government officials introduced themselves and their city affairs in friendly atmosphere as we lunched along. Afterwards, we were led to another government building to hear presentation of a brand new community they are planning on developing, and discussed the possibility of setting up healthcare facilities at designated sites. We then actually toured the planned community, a rural site with grassy fields and bumpy dirt roads and a little dam which they think could be a scenic background for future nursing homes.
As the dusk fell, we made our final trip of the day, visiting a local hospital Alex's group is considering buying for their own purpose. It's a pretty banged-up multi-purpose community healthcare facility, with housing for leprosy patients that were spotted by some of our team members.
Tuesday was an even bigger road traveling day for us. We first made a 4+ hour trip to Lianzhou (連州), a historical old town bordering Hunan (湖南) province where there is a prime property built by the early Western missionaries over 110 years ago as a hospital and missionary center and is now occupied by a vocational high school that Alex had been talking to the city officials of repossessing and converting back to a modern day hospital/missionary center again. We also visited another government planned industrial/residential community for potential healthcare/hospital sites. In this case, the planned development is aimed at bringing up the living standard of the Zhuang minority (壯族) in this mountainous, poor region between Guangdong and Hunan provinces. We then traveled back 2 hours to stop by the city of Qingyuan (清遠), where we visited a hospital that was quite new and had some vacant rooms Alex and his group were considering setting up eye care center for local kids so they don't have to go all the way to Guangzhou for glaucoma exam, for example. We then visited a local "3-Self" church (三自教會) and had dinner with their pastor, a humble, middle-aged lady, who then took us to an empty landfill nearby a major city road that they said they had purchased and will be building a new church to accommodate their ever growing congregation in the city.
Before the day ended, we visited Alex's factory in this remote town northwest of Guangzhou. This is his satellite factory from the one he owns in Dongguan. He bought the land and set up the factory about 4 years ago, before the highway was even built and making a trip here was quite a venture. He did the expansion not purely for business reason, but so that he can set up operation here for more humanitarian/Christian work: For years, he had been arranging and sending out mobile medical units to rural areas where volunteer doctors from Hong Kong and other parts of the world can do health checkup and eye exam and surgeries for poor villagers for free; he also organizes an annual biking event where volunteers from Hong Kong and other countries will bring their bikes and gather at his factory to start biking in this beautiful, rough terrain to villages everywhere and then leave their bikes there for the villagers to use as their main transportation means.
We visited Alex's main factory in Dongguan the next day. It is one making medical supplies, with neat office cubicles, assembly lines, clean rooms, etc. But again, one main thing he uses his factory for is to spread the good words and do the good work for the Lord: his factory offers employees after-work bible study/fellowship groups, provides accommodation for mission workers from overseas (we happened to meet a couple of young men from a seminary, as well as a youth group from Hong Kong that were there for summer mission), etc. And Alex himself is such a pleasant and loving person we all enjoyed his presence during our short acquaintance with him of two days.
By the end of that day, Julia's husband, David, and their two teen-age kids, daughter Melody and son Ryan, had arrived from the States to join us. We now had all our team members together. We had a happy reunion dinner at one nice restaurant Joyce took us to--they say "Eat in Guangdong" (吃在廣東) for a reason, all foods are delicious here--before we returned again to Gary and Joyce's condo and fell sound asleep, ready for travel to our next stop, Beijing, the next day.
* A picture is worth a thousand words, and here are a bunch of them, in chronological order, for what's described above:
Day 0 (July 10):
Day 1 (July 11):
Day 2 (July 12):
Day 3 (July 13):
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