Dear Cha-Wel-Dor-Sue,

Pat and I had a great time in July visiting the People's Republic of China and were fortunate in getting on a tour that included Canton, Shanghai, Soochow, Sian, and Peking. Were we to select the cities ourselves, we wouldn't have changed a single thing!

Canton is included in virtually all tours to China and is the principle gateway to China via Hong Kong. Hotel accommodations there are adequate and have been available previously in order to take care of the huge influx of businessmen that visit China twice a year in the spring and fall to attend the Canton "Trade Fair". We stayed at the Dong Fang Hotel, and it was a very large place. The only deficiency that it had was that it was not air conditioned! It was the only hotel on our entire trip that was equipped with only fans. July is not the time of the year to see China as the latitude of Canton is that of Miami Beach, and Peking that of Philadelphia. The temperature during our entire trip ranged from 95 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit!! It was hot, but the sites and tours were so interesting that the weather was tolerable. While in Canton, we visited an ancestral temple in Foshon City and a porcelain and art crafts factory.

Peking was undoubtedly the high point of the trip as it is the capitol and certainly offers the most interesting sites, i.e., The Great Wall, The Imperial Palace (Forbidden City), The Heavenly Temple, The Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, and the Tien an Amen Square including Mao's Mausoleum. There are so many other interesting places that remain to be seen that Pat and I would like to revisit China at our first opportunity.

Sian is the site of the remarkable archaeological discovery that was made in 1974 and reported in the July issue of the "National Geographic Magazine" for 1978. Can you imagine 8400 terra cotta statues, life-size of warriors with their chariots and armament arranged in perfect formation to guard the tomb of Chin Shi Huang Ti, the first emperor to unite all of China. It is an utterly fantastic sight and our tour included this unique experience; most of them do not visit Sian. Sian, incidentally was also the capital of China under several dynasties and was the starting point of the so called "Silk Road" by which the treasures and art-crafts of China were carried to India, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean area.

Shanghai is the largest city in China (11,000,000) and its major port. It lies along the Whampoa River which joins the Yangtse 16 miles downstream to flow into the China Sea. While there, we visited the Yu Garden the Long March Communes, and one of its hospitals. We stayed at the Chin Chaing Hotel which incidentally is where Nixon stayed in 1972 and from which his "Shanghai Communique" was issued.

Soochow is the Venice of China and has several of the most beautiful gardens in all of China, i.e., Lingering Garden, Garden of the Humble Administrator, and the Master of Nets Garden. Soochow is reached easily by train from Shanghai in two hours and its People's Hotel was very adequate and satisfactory. While there we saw a jade and ivory carving factory as well as a carpet factory and an embroidery factory.

Old China, especially during the Yuan, Ming, and Manchu dynasties, was beautiful and it was a great thrill to see its magnificence as reflected in the Forbidden City and Heavenly Temple. New China is a dynamic society and to the superficial eye seems to be going places. Unfortunately, the cultural revolution however well intentioned, proved to be a disaster for China and it is now trying to catch up with the rest of the world by a speedy program of modernization. This is the reason for its opening its gates to the technological world and tourism for the "hard cash" that such an industry provides.

The high point of the trip for me was to spend an evening with Dr. George Hatem and his beautiful wife, Su Fei at their home in a suburb of Peking. Dr. Ma Hai-Teh "Virtue from Overseas" served as a physician to Mao Tse-tung and Chou en Lai and used his expertise in infectious diseases to rid China of venereal disease, prostitution, as well as to introduce modern methods of vaccination and inoculation. He is revered by the Chinese and respected by medical men the world over. Not one physician in a thousand in visiting China will have this opportunity to meet this unique human being! My way to meet him was paved by a close friend of his, John Roots, author of Chou en Lai, and by his brother, Joe, who lives in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.

En route to China we spent a night in Japan and then two days in Hong Kong prior to entering China and two days in Hong Kong after departing from China. Hong Kong is to me one of the most exciting cities in the world, and Pat and I have been there on three previous visits to the Orient.

While in China both of us kept our cameras busy and we have a nice photographic record of our visit to remind us in the years to come of our good fortune in seeing this remarkable country and its wonderful people.

During the past several years Pat and I have traveled the equivalent of several trips around the world and have seen many different countries and cultures but no trip has surpassed this visit of ours to the People's Republic of China.

With best wishes,

DAD

CEJ/dm