A new direction - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 308

1,500 miles—half the width of North America, a fact that I found mind-
boggling.
The massiveness of the wall—twenty feet thick at the base and about
twenty-five-feet high—is impressive. Steps lead to the top, and from
there you can walk for miles, seeing the wall as it stretches over the
hills and mountains in the distance. The sight of the massive stones
brought to mind the terrible su¤ering that must have gone into its con-
struction. From what I've read, almost all of the workers were forced
labor. People were captured, or “Shanghaied,” and forced to work on
the wall until they died.
The next day we flew from Beijing to Dalian to begin our aquar-
ium business. We were met by an interpreter and a representative from
the Dalian Museum of Natural History, who escorted us to our ho-
tel and told us we would be guests at a formal Chinese banquet to
be held that evening in our honor with the mayor and city o‹cials
of Dalian. It was quite an event, complete with toasts to friendship
and success of the aquarium, accompanied by lots of smiling and nod-
ding. I'm not an adventurous eater, and I found most of the food
strange and unappetizing. The most memorable dish was the jellyfish
salad, an assortment of lettuce with thin strips of jellyfish on top.
The jellyfish had a firm, crunchy texture and, surprisingly, was quite
good.
Early the next morning, Dave Pittinger and I were taken by car to
the museum, while Betty and Twig Pittinger went sightseeing with an
interpreter. The museum, which had distinctive Russian architecture,
had been built during the Russian occupation of northeast China
(1898-1904). Our meetings were held in the director's o‹ce, the only
room in the entire museum, we noticed, that was heated. When school-
children, couples, and families came into the icy cold museum, they
were bundled in thick down jackets and fur or wool hats.
The meeting began, and it quickly became apparent that we weren't
there to help plan their aquarium. They'd already done that: they had
complete drawings and a scale model of an aquarium designed by a
Japanese firm. Rather, we were there to give our opinion of the Japa-
nese proposal. I'm sure the Japanese company wasn't aware that the Chi-
nese had brought us Americans in to critique their design. We felt that