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ate at one of her favorite new restaurants, where she chose a feast for us of spicy river fish
and dumplings with sweet bean curds from a menu the size of a small cookbook.
As she described her young life—graduation with honors from a Chinese university,
study abroad in Great Britain and then home to Shanghai, where she teaches Eng-
lish—Pan said the city had lost its unique flavor and that she is wary of the surge in tourism
and the Chinese workers attracted from the countryside.
“None of these people you see on the street are from Shanghai. It doesn't matter any-
more if you are fourth-generation Shanghai like I am or well educated. Shanghai now be-
longs to outsiders.”
Initially, I wanted to travel on one of China's new fast trains for a segment of our trip,
but a series of fatal accidents frightened me. The government has invested billions of dol-
lars in new high-speed rail links, the longest one between Beijing and Shanghai. These
bullet trains will eventually connect major cities around the country, a commendable at-
tempt to reduce carbon emissions by offering an alternative to airplanes and cars. It was a
huge leap from China's earlier rail system, built more than a hundred years ago to carry
freight around the vast country.
But the Chinese rushed the construction of the system, ignoring complaints from for-
eign and Chinese experts about safety issues. Then in July 2011, a few months before our
trip, a new Chinese fast train had a spectacular collision with another train that killed 39
people. By comparison, Japan's high-speed rail has been operating since 1964 and has nev-
er had a fatality. Eventually, China will repair the damage done by taking shortcuts but I
wasn't prepared to take a chance. We stuck to airplanes.
We flew to Xian, an old imperial capital of little modern significance until 1974, when
some farmers hit a strange object while digging a well. They alerted the local government,
and soon the world knew that they had discovered one of the great archeological treasures
of China—an army of terra-cotta soldiers, horses and chariots buried in a necropolis, not
unlike an Egyptian pyramid, to accompany an emperor after his death. Xian was Bill's fo-
cus on the trip. A retired army officer, he was enthralled with the idea of seeing a replica
of a third century B.C . Chinese army.
On landing we were once again struck by the enormity of China. The air terminal of
Xian was larger than Dulles, our home airport in Washington, D.C., yet it was too small
for the city of 9 million. A second terminal was under construction.
Waiting for us was a middle-aged Chinese woman who introduced herself as “Linda.”
With her pleasant, no-nonsense manner, her hair barely combed and her clothes thrown
together, she gave the impression of an intellectual who was badly cast as a tour guide.
A travel agent back home had organized this part of our trip, following proper procedure
by using a Chinese government tour group to book our hotel, guide and car. We asked
“Linda” what her real name was. “Lin Xi,” she answered, adding that all the guides are
required to use foreign names with tourists. “Chinese names are difficult,” she said.
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