Lushun

Saturday, January 30, 2010

At 9:00 a.m., Sheri’s mother and her driver pick us up for a morning of sightseeing followed by lunch. We’ll drive into the main part of Dalian and then continue on to Lushun, about 30 minutes from the center of Dalian.

Gail wants us to see the hospital where she works. It’s a modern hospital with 800 beds. On the floor where she works there are private and two-bed wards, unlike most of the other areas of the hospital where the wards are larger. Here, former top Chinese government officials receive treatment, she tells us. We peek into a couple of rooms. They are nicely furnished, comfortable looking with windows and plenty of light. It’s a short visit, but we’ve seen something we’d never have seen without Gail.

The drive to Lushun is pleasant, along the ocean road. Our first stop is White Jade Mountain, topped by Baiyu Tower. Erected by the Japanese who ruled this area in 1904, it was built as a memorial to the Japanese who died in the battle here. Today it’s a reminder of the thousands of Chinese who lost their lives during the cruel Japanese occupation.

The tower is built so that it looks like a candle on one side, in memoriam. On the other side, it looks like a bullet, symbol of Japan’s military might. For its building, 20,000 Chinese coolies were rounded up and used as forced labor. During the two-and-one-half years it took to build the tower, many of them died.

We’re looking out over Port Arthur. It’s easy to see why this was such a strategic military site. From here the view to the entrance of the harbor is clear, and even to the sea beyond.

The Chinese do not look favorably upon the Japanese. Given the history of the two nations, it’s understandable. As in Korea, the native people suffered greatly under Japanese occupation.

We drive back down the mountain toward central Lushun. We’re going to the old Russia-Japanese Prison. Built by the Russians in 1902 (we are reminded that Russia was then Tsarist Imperialist Russia), it was expanded later by the Japanese.

This must be the perfect day to get a feeling for the place. It’s cold. The prison is unheated, just as it was when Chinese and Korean prisoners were housed here. The cell walls are concrete, about 8 x 10 feet, with a container for water and a toilet bucket. Six to eight prisoners occupied each cell. We saw the thin, ragged clothing the prisoners wore when we entered the prison. There were no blankets. I’m wearing long underwear and a winter coat and I’m cold. I don’t think I’d last a day in this place.

Workshops on the prison grounds included a glove factory and a print shop.
The prisoners were beaten and often their wounds sent them to the hospital. They were given no medicine, and prisoners usually died within a day or two of infection.

Political prisoners were housed here, a leader of the movement to free Korea of Japanese rule, and a Chinese political activist whose goal was freedom of assembly. Both were executed.

The hanging room is behind the prison. Apparently it was a secret during the time the prison was in active use. There is a hole in the upper floor below the gallows through which the hanged person drops into a barrel waiting on the floor below. A lid was placed on the barrel and the corpse was rolled out for burial.

Misery hangs over the old prison like a dirty fog.

We’re glad to be back out in the sunshine. Our driver is waiting. We’ll return to Dalian for lunch.

On the drive back, Gail and I talk quietly in the back seat. As a doctor, especially one working with older people, she is familiar with death. She does not believe that life ends with death, but that it continues beyond.

“I am a member of the Communist Party,” she says, “but I believe in God. I want Sheri to know God.”

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. If I had written this scene in a piece of fiction, I know I’d have been asked to edit it out because it’s just not believable.

Lunch is again in a private dining room at a restaurant. This time the menu is live. We enter a room lined on three sides with dishes of food that we can select. Gail helps us and we agree on a couple of things we would not have tried on our own: sea cucumber and a type of seafood unappetizingly named sea intestine. Actually when we first meet it, it’s gawping at us with its mouth, which is just the end of its tube-like body.

In a few minutes the food starts coming and keeps coming. We have mushroom soup, three kinds of vegetables including broccoli, a mixture of mushrooms, peppers, what looks like bamboo shoots but larger, and some greens which Bernie thinks is spinach.
It’s impossible to eat everything. Bernie asks what is polite-should we try to eat everything or what? Gail answers, “There is no polite. Eat what you want. Act like I am your little sister.” She’s a very warm and likeable person.

Since Gail is going to her mother’s for dinner-she visits her every weekend, partly just to visit but also to check her mother’s health, including her blood pressure-she insists that we take home the leftover food. We’ll be able to eat this for at least two days.

The driver takes us back to our apartment and we say goodbye to Gail.

We are stuffed. No dinner for us. A few household chores and we settle down to some more episodes of Lost.