Time is not money in China. The concept of “Person hours” is not a major consideration for projects in China it seems. I think the concept is not a matter of consideration but rather economy. I was recently treated to a wonderful excursion and experience of a scientific conference in China. This was a trip to Chongqing where the meeting started. Then the whole of the conference participants moved to a river cruise ship for the subsequent three days of cruise and conference on the three gorges dam project. As a personal and professional experience this is second to none. I learned a lot of science, medicine and culture and will try to share it here. My hope for this blog is to present a balanced summary of the events that occurred. While a few western readers may think that some of what I talk about may appear less than pleasant that is a personal opinion left to the reader. I personally love adventure and relished this adventure.

At dinner the first night we had hot pot. It is like the Japanese ShaboShabo with a pot of boiling spicy stock in the center of the table and a collection of things to boil in it. So no raw food is eaten, but the food comes to the table raw. If you do not want to read what we ate stop reading now. They served and I tried in the stock pot, cow aorta, pig and cow stomach, intestine, chicken gizzard, stomach, heart, pig brain, cow tendon, pig and cow kidney, cow tongue, fish head, whole catfish – not gutted, squid, eel and jelly fish. There was also seaweed, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and cauliflower.

One of the meat items served was identified as artery. I looked at it and absentmindedly said that it was a section of the thoracic aorta. Everyone at the table is medically trained, but I’m especially geeky even amongst other geeks. I say that I am a geek amongst geeks with pride. With my research I have seen a lot of aorta and I know the thoracic aorta when I see it. It is easily identified by the regularly spaced pairs of intercostal arteries branching off of it and they were clear as day on the morsel I was about to eat. Its flavor and texture reminded me of calamari and I had seconds. Wow I’m stuffed! I tried a bit of everything and aorta was the best!!!

This was a scientific conference of medical, surgical and scientific types. The conference started in a hotel where we had some of the scientific sessions and the opening ceremonies, then moved to a cruise ship. So it was effectively two conferences; one on land and one on the river. The river cruise was unique and highly memorable. Interestingly we were well scripted on the boat with the whole boat having the same wake up call to start a day that looked to be scheduled down to the minute. Or so we thought things were scheduled that way as the reality was that times and things changed as the days went by.

Scheduled departure times and rendezvous times for meetings and excursions are highly variable. It would be very common that a scheduled excursion be delayed by 45 minutes or more and often delayed in 15 minute increments.

In the scientific sessions speakers would spend much too much time talking past their allotted time slot. I know it is hard to believe that an academic would ramble on endlessly but it happens. Personally I have been known to wax lyrical on the different colors of spinal fluid. :-) The result was that one entire session was cancelled at the end of the day and re-scheduled for the next day. Paradoxically, the time for a keynote lecture was moved up by several hours. I’m not sure how this happened because I did not know of the schedule change and missed the lecture. These things are not a matter of being inconsiderate. It seems to be more a matter of time is not money and things get done when they can be done. Schedules are estimates used for guidance. All of us from multiple different cultures need to get used to these differences and the conference attendees seemed to get it.

By the way the science and medicine was great on all levels.

For our conference there would often be 3 or 4 people working as projectionists to ensure that slide shows and power point presentations were managed. There were no traditional slides, but the name still applies.

Several people I talked too from western countries stated that during the boat cruise that they were experiencing allergic reactions in the cabins. We concluded that with a boat built over 20 years ago that the cabins must have had mold and mildew buildup and that this is the source of the allergic reactions. I’m included in this list. After sneezing and a runny nose all the first night I spent the next two nights sleeping with a bandanna over my mouth and nose. It worked pretty well I’m happy to say.

After my constant sneezing, headache, and runny nose was controlled by a bandanna my next concern in the room was the water for drinking and showering. In my cabin I was supplied with a carafe of water and a thermos of water. This was declared to be clean potable water and it is what I used for brushing my teeth and drinking in the cabin. However, over the 3 days it was never replaced or replenished. So, I made sure it lasted. I am sure that I could have had them refilled but it was never clear who to ask to get such things like that done.

Speaking of showering the shower was the size of a closet 2 by 4 ft. In this tiny room was the shower, toilet and sink. The toilet and door to the bathroom could be partitioned off by a curtain. The shower never dried out between showers. The smell was more than just musty. It was more a musty smell mixed with sewer gas kind of smell, so I kept the bathroom door shut.

One time when I was brushing my teeth I used the sink’s water to rinse the toothbrush and immediately re-rinsed it with the ‘clean’ carafe water. Then sprayed it with hand sanitizer, rinsed it again and let it dry completely. Thus far no untoward effects from that transgression. I must admit that I missed my shower at home.

I brought my water purification stuff for camping on this trip. My system was to fill a bottle of water and add the iodine tablets to kill harmful organisms. Then I would filter the water through a standard camping filter which gets rid of chemical toxins and improves the taste from the iodine. I was happy I had that with me and used it multiple times and had no intestinal issues.

The cruise ship had an interesting rule of no drinks of any kind to be brought on board. This formed a kind of monopoly for them to sell refreshments. Of note, is that this restriction appeared to apply to all drinks; alcohol and soft drinks.

To the best of my knowledge there was no internet service or wifi on the ship. Most of us just did without for a few days. I had no phone service, but could send and receive text messages. We shall see what the cost of the texts are on my next bill. Some people did have phone service so I was able to follow local football scores.

We went on several excursions from the boat. These were well organized tours by bus and boat to various sites along the river. We got to see the hanging coffins and the huge three gorges dam as well as some other sights. Unfortunately on the excursion to the ghost city it rained. The tour people supplied all of us with umbrellas – for free and to keep. I also had packed a fold up rain coat, so everything but my feet kept dry. In our cabins on the boat were complimentary slippers which came in handy after getting back with wet shoes and socks.

Some facts that I picked up concerning the 3 gorges dam project. There were 1.5 million displaced people by the project. The project costs 27 billion dollars and 13 billion for the displaced people. This comes out to less than $10,000 per displaced person. Some people when displaced got homes 2 to 3 times their old size homes. None of the people I talked to would comment about the environmental impact of the project. Nor was there any mention of personal hardship caused by the flooding of the gorges. We frequently saw people washing clothes in the river. But it also appeared that the river was very dirty. It seemed like there was a lot of debris including clothes and shoes in the river.

Some of the things I am most happy that I packed for the trip to China are: handiwipes, hand sanitizers, extra business cards, my bandanna, water cleaning stuff, and my pocket rain coat. What I wish I brought was Benadryl, a spare battery for my camera and the chip reader. The chip reader would put my camera pictures on my computer. Unfortunately I forgot that and there were multiple gorgeous shots I missed and had to supplement with postcards. I do wish that I had set up my cell phone to be able to call home, but I am somewhat torn because my concern would be that I might have used it too much. I also wish I had email access but have the same misgivings here as with my cell phone. It was kind of nice to be able to stay focused on the work of the scientific conference. Did I mention that the conference contained excellent science?

The biggest thing I guess I wish I brought was copies of my book; My Ambulance Education. Several people talked about it. One friend brought the copy he was reading with him so he showed it to many people. I just did not think to bring even one copy. I gave out some business cards and copies of the advertisement for the book, so maybe some people will get home to buy it. It was nice to hear flattering feedback from friends and colleagues whom I respect greatly.

When boarding and debarking the boat it was necessary for all the passengers to carry their luggage down and up a substantial number of steps. There were fee for service porters around to facilitate that process but it was doubly difficult because on both occasions for us it was raining and the granite steps and metal planks were treacherously slippery. In the middle of the steps, I estimate about 60 steps up, there was a ramp that allowed people to roll/drag their bags up the incline. Unfortunately a heavy chain cut across this ramp and indeed the steps as a whole which made the climb more onerous. There was actually a shortage of porters and several winded individuals paused to rest at the half way point where there was a brief plateau. As I was dragging my bag up the ramp I looked back down and realized that if I let go of the bag it would roll all the way down and could slide right into the river. So I hung on tightly. My rate of assent was rather slow, not because I was winded or over burdened, but because the couple in front of me were setting the pace.

At the conclusion of the conference I got to my hotel at the airport at about 1:00 PM the day before my flight. I had something to eat and tried to work on the computer. To be frank, I started writing this piece. However, I was not very productive and lay down for a nap at 2:00 PM. I woke up at 3:30 AM the next day in the middle of the night. I felt frustrated because I thought it unlikely that I would be able to sleep until morning but tried again and woke up at 6:00 AM to a new day. Yeah jet lag can do that to you.

Some miscellaneous observations about personal space and body perspectives. On the plane and different public places, people were very prone to squeezing past other people. The ‘my space’ area around individuals is much shorter than in western cultures. It was very common for people to be talking on the phone, to each other etc, at restaurants, on busses, planes and in the conference. My interpretation is that in a more densely populated society cacophony is equivalent to white noise. So… get used to it. On buses and the boat tours the seats very close to each other. This, I think is a reflection of personal space and body size. Westerners are much bigger than Chinese and it is expected to squeeze more people into smaller spaces. Similarly, the beds were very narrow and short on the cruise ship. About 20 inches wide by about 6 feet long. At numerous locations the railings and tables very low often about 24 inches high. Again, this is likely a reflection of the stature of Chinese compared to Westerners.

It was obvious to me that the conference organizers and cruise ship personnel wanted to and tried hard to please. A western audience is used to certain standards and those were often met. As I said above some things may appear unusual by the standards of us from the West, but to me that is a form of variety that we need to get past and see the opportunities we are given and enjoy.

To the conference organizers and cruise staff – thank you for a truly memorable experience. My opinion is you deserve to be congratulated on an excellent job. I understand that some might consider my words as criticism but that is not my intent. What I have said here is meant to be informative for people who may be lucky enough to be able to go on a similar adventure. It is said that “to be forewarned is to be forearmed” and my information might provide first time travelers to China with useful tools for a future visit. I encourage people to put a trip to China on their bucket list.