A Suitcase of Presents

A SUITCASE OF PRESENTS

Dimitri Vouliouris

In 1987 I decided to change my look from dishevelled revolutionary to mature intellectual.  This mainly involved remodelling my facial hair... in effect leaving only a goatee.  an arrangement intended to convey intellectual finesse, a certain sense of nobility, and all-round  reliability..  A trusted look... a look that says "hey.. observe the oozing of greatness ?"  This change, I must admit was neither random or arbitrary.  I was going to China on a mission, a mission that I felt had the potential to be life-changing. It was only fitting that my looks were adjusted appropriately.

You see, a year ago the love of my life (no doubt aided by my cavalier attitude towards spousal obligations ) had left me and gone to find her roots in China.  She ended up teaching English in Handan city. The God-forsaken centre of Mining Universities in the province of Handan. Two weeks by camelback SouthWest of Beijing.

At the time, the arrangement was not entirely unpalatable. Now... aided by one of the worst winters in the Eastern Townships, plus the unappetizing prospect of dying alone, I had come to my senses. I had to convince her to come back to me or die in the attempt. My cunning plan was to give two lectures at her Bauxite-dust covered University and gain her favours by a blitz of self-advertisement.

"Business or pleasure, sir ?"  asked the border-guard. I've never really figured out which one pleases them most.  "Er.. regaining the love of my life" I answered in the hope of gaining some sympathy. She looked at me with a mixture of sadness and "are-you-joking-ness" making sure that I understood she didn't believe one bit of my tall tale and reluctantly stamped my passport.
She seriously doubted that a Chinese woman would ever go back to one of those "white devil" types but, anyway, she would not stand in the way of true love. Knock yourself out.. !

The entire trip was a series of misfortunes, misunderstandings and misalignments, but all was not in vain.  I came back with a suitcase and a story to go with it.

So, it came to pass that the dust-laden Mining University always held a lavish New Year's party for it's faculty.  Given that it had more professors than my University had students, there was no one big hall in which to hold this in, so the festivities were done in shifts... morning shift, afternoon and night shift.  We, of course were invited to the night shift as guests of honor.

This was 1987 and the directive was "Open the gates to foreigners", however, in the entire province of Handan we were the only foreigners. This was awkward since his Amplitude, the General Secretary of the Provincial Communist Party was to attend the party and they wanted to show him diligence in collecting foreigners. We didn't even count as two since my beloved was of Taiwanese origin. A grand sum of one and a half foreigners.. max !

They did however pull all the stops, sending the University limo to get us ( an old but sparkling, chrome and  black DeSoto lookalike from the thirties... complete with curtains on the back windows ) and having us sit at the University President's table across from the Secretary's table... !

Things were progressing in a satisfactory manner. The Chinese fondue at our huge revolving table was exemplary, the sweet wine with deadly-high alcohol content was flowing, the 852 professors were all excited to meet us and the speeches were getting slurred. We had been introduced to the Secretary, a likeable round man seemingly more into good food than furthering the communist ideal and it seemed that the new year had been ushered in impeccably.
Suddenly there was a hush, everybody stood up and all eyes turned to his rotund Amplitude,  the  Secretary.  To my horror, he turned towards me, raised his glass and launched on a fervent speech with the hapless interpreter barely keeping up. The upshot was that he was delivering greetings to the people of Lennoxville, all 4000 of them, on behalf of the peace-loving  democratic people of Handan ( all 9 million of them ). That makes a ratio of 2000 Handanians for every Lennoxvillian.  Upon finishing his speech he raised his glass once again and toasted me... and now I realized that the 852 pairs of eyes plus the special secretarial pair were now firmly focused on me. Oh my God...  they expected me to respond in kind.  The fate of the known world or at least of  Sino-Lennoxvillian relations hung in the balance.

The wine must have helped because I was stunned at the words coming out of my mouth seemingly on auto-pilot. I calmly assured him that the peace-loving people of Lennoxville were also pleased to send their greetings, were eager to partake of cultural exchanges, salute Handan's newly-built statue of a Napa Cabbage and, here is where I think I went too far, would never attack China unprovoked. I honestly don't know from which remnant of cold-war movie I got all this from. When I finished, the audience broke into scattered non-commital applause not knowing what to make of it all.  However, I could see the hearts in my beloved's eyes

But it is often during the dying hours of a banquet that the important events happen... those that have lasting impact on world affairs.  After about an hour  when people had fully digested my message of friendship, an attachè asks me if I would join the Secretary in a last drink. I drag myself to his table and am cordially introduced to the Mayor of the city and some officials. After some small-talk about the lifelikeness of the cabbage statue they finally let the cat out of the bag... and I am stunned !   The secretary, upon my repatriation, wants me to negotiate Lennoxville becoming the "sister city" of Handan.
My mind boggled... and I appraised him of the fact that there are about 2500  Handanians to every Lennoxvillian.... " Ah.. no problem"  he said   "You much richer..."
"It's like a mosquito marries a Hippopotamus.."  I said, mentally congratulating myself on the power of the example
"Ah.. no problem.. mosquito can ride on Hippopotamus"  he deftly countered

It went on like this until, worn down, I finally agreed to carry the request to my local authorities.

One of his entourage leaves briefly and returns carrying a suitcase.

"Ah.. token of esteem to Lenoxvillian comrades... er.. CITIZENS " he quickly corrects.
"two thousand leaflets of Handan's beauty... encourage tourism"

After all was said and done, I lean towards the secretary and ask him.. "Why me ? Why not you go through the official channels ? "

He smiled leaned closer ( by now we were buddies..! ) and said
"Simple... I trust you more than the other foreign devils"

"but why ?" I asked
To this he smiled, a bit more more mischievously and said " Ah.. goatee... yes.. goatee !  Big sign of good character