At the beginning of my first venture- and before setting off from the Emerald City of Seattle- I had received a series of handwritten letters with a formal invitation to be a guest at the Palace of China’s Former First Lady, Soong Mei Ling, in Nanjing China which was under the direction of Professor He Shan and Dr. Gu Ying, and home to the granddaughter of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. It is with their hospitality I would be able to meet high-ranking botanical directors, wine and dine official cadres and schmooze with relatives of the venerable Dr. Sun Yat-Sen and other high-ranking communist party dignitaries.
After some time in Hong Kong, then by sea to the mosquito plagued islands between Hong Kong and Macau (collecting blueberry flavored guavas, Rhodomyrtus tomentosa, an evergreen stunner that can be found wild there) I entered the frenetic mainland of China through what was then a bucolic gambling and vice-ridden backwater of Portuguese-controlled Macau. From Macau, I would spend a month backpacking the verdant coastal ranges through Guangdong to Fujian, and finally to Shanghai’s old Bund, then onto Nanjing the following weeks.
At that time, China had an elaborate system of financial control over tourists which was formed by creating a two-tier currency system. It was in fact forbidden for tourists to possess the local currency, called RMB, or the “People’s money” which was reserved only for use by the Chinese. Instead, foreigners were forced to exchange American dollars at a bank for a tiny paper note called Foreign Exchange Certificate (FEC). These weird little bills were needed to buy imported goods from special stores called “Friendship Stores” and for tourists to buy tickets for transportation or lodging only at “approved hotels”. These hotels and stores were often full of spies who would report on foreigners’ activities. Thus, hotel check-ins frequently resulted in an hour-long shakedown from humorless chain-smoking police Cadres who might arrive unannounced to your room, sometimes drunk, at all hours of the night.