Inner

might say but you'd better not”. From Urumchi back Lanzhou (Lanchow) in central China and then by overnight train to Datong in Mongolia. The first class sections on Chinese trains are quite com- parable to American and Euro- pean having an aisle along one side and compartments for 4 people on the other. I bunked in with 3 other women and took an upper birth for greater privacy. My strength in lifting heavy suitcases up onto the shelf over the door was admired by all but I didn't tell them that my ever present brother had helped me. Dining car service was good too. At each stop I would get out and walk up and down the platform waving at the Chinese riding in the "hardclass" coaches. They are so called because all they provide are hard wooden benches

3 high and 2 beside each other making a tier of 3 bunks. No partitions, privacy or comfort but they are much cheaper. Anyway they would all hang out the windows at the stations and I have learned to say "Tzi- gin" (phoenetic spelling), mean- ing "goodbye." So I would walk along the platform in my bright American clothes and say hello and goodbye in Chinese which brought great smiles and laugh- ter. The Chinese are exceeding- ly friendly and interested in others. Although we couldn't communicate other than than the going, whenever you would stand still, a crowd of 30 or 40 men, women and children would ga- ther around and just stare. You had the choice of feeling like a weird curiosity or a VIP.

In one city after we had visited a large department store and some of us had gotten back on the bus, I was leaning out the window "talking" to the crowd and touching hands with the kids when one man took out a small 1 x 1 picture of a baby. He handed it to me. The interpreter was standing beside me and I told her to tell him it was a beau-

tiful baby, and handed the pic- ture back to the man. But the man refused to take it and put the picture back into my hand, while saying something I could not understand. The interpreter told me that the man said, “you go places - you take my son on trip around the world." That was very touching so I kept the picture in the pocket of my suitcase and indeed the picture has traveled a good deal since, in keeping with his request.

While in Datong, we visited one of the few remaining steam locomotive factories in the whole world. We went all through the plant, which was very well organized. All of the big over- head cranes, running back and forth over the work bays, were run by women. Many women were on the shop floor doing welding, assembly, feeding stock

the machines, etc. They certainly had equality here. It was facinating to follow the pro- cess from the huge sheets of steel and the cast wheels through the fabrication and assembly process until a big 2-8-2 freight train engine emerged. They said that they had made 3400 engines since the plant was opened in 1969. They gave us a ride on old number 3399 and we could see No.3400 sticking its nose out of the paint shop.

We went to another Inner Mongolian town called Huhot and went out into the steppes where the animal herding was done. We visited some herds- mens families, sampled their food, including buttered tea and cakes (quite good) and slept at night in Yurts. These are the native-type circular huts covered with felt, with mattresses, blan- kets, etc., on the floor inside. It was so cold out on the wind- blown plain that we didn't even bother to get undressed, but slept in our clothes which was jjust as well because bunking in a small place with three other women didn't leave much priva- cy for anyone but it was an interesting experience.

We visited the University and went to an English class, where the students attached themselves to us in order to practice their English. At this point I really needed to visit the W.C. or the "LOO" as the British call it and I asked the teacher if there was a ladies room around. He called over a girl student and asked her to show me to it. She did so and it turned out to be just a long raised platform of cement with a series of about 5 x 12 holes every four feet or so along its length. Fortunately there was no one else there so I mounted the step and started to squat over one of the holes but the girl just stood there, in front of me, staring. I told her, "you don't need to wait I think that I can manage this all by myself!" She got the message and de- parted. One gets into some very unusual situations being a male and traveling as a wo- man in countries that don't have the same sort of customs and equipment that we do. Whenever we had a "potty stop', on one of our long bus rides I either had to be the first to make it to the privy or wait until everyone else was done and the place was deserted. But you learn.

After a stop in the city of Taiyuen we again borded a night train for Beijing and by now I was an old hand at upper births and close quar- ters. We did all the usual things in Beijing but I talked one of our national guides into taking me to the National Military Museum on my own. That was very interesting as it showed the whole history of the rev- olution and everything since. They had a slew of different kinds of captured tanks in the back yard including several big Soviet ones and also an American one. But what was the greater surprise was the parts of 3 different U-2 planes that they had shot down. I don't know about the rest of you but I