Dr. Walter S. Bowser,

 Mineral Search Safaris.
 

China


Flying from LA to Beijing direct on China Eastern Airlines was a great experience.   The airline was OK, but the flight was spectacular.  It is the first all daylight flight I had taken over the polar route, or rather, the great circle route to China.  We left in the early afternoon on the second of May, 2000, Jim Kusley and I,   for a smooth and uneventful flight.  After lunch and an in flight movie we opened the shades to stare out on a landscape of the most intense white I have seen in a   long time.  We were just off anchorage, Alaska and the fjords, glaciers and mountains were all covered with snow and ice.  We could see small, muddy roads here and there.

Our direct flight continued over the Bering Sea to the Siberian coast and down to the Kamchatka peninsula, over the sea of Okhotsk, into northern China and finally into Beijing.  It was early spring at this latitude and the trees were still bare, with just a few leaves and blossoms showing here and there.  There was a slight wind as we landed in the New Beijing airport facility.  This part of the airport had just been opened since November, just after my last trip, and was a fantastic improvement over the old facility.   It was newer, of course, but was clean, shiny bright, and above all, UNCROWDED.

We met our escorts outside of the customs gate and went to our hotel.  We stayed at the Days Inn, Tianru Inn, about 15 minutes from Tianamen (SP?) square.  We were about 2 blocks from the Silver Strand shopping district.  This is a sort of mini Ginza, if you are familiar with Tokyo.  It is not as brightly lit, but is a pedestrian mall about 4 blocks long. It has many great stores and shops, with prices which are very good for American dollars.  YES, you can bargain with the clerks in department stores and even get 30 to 40 percent off already low prices.  I suspect that the prices are set a bit high in anticipation of this bargaining. 

We visited the Great Wall, Jim’s first time, My Severalth, Yes severalth, a new word?   Jim was excited about seeing the wall and our guide and interpreter Jenny was her usual enthusiastic self.  She is a delight.  I have never met such a straight forward, honest, joyful and pleasant young lady, with all of the joy of living which she has.  It is a pleasure to meet someone so nice and cheery. 

We were also met later by my friend Wang Fei.  Fei ( Remember the family name is first in China.) is a geophysicist and has spent a lot of time in the U.S.  He went to U.C. Berkeley.  He likes the U.S. and would like to come here and try to work.   He is also a great programmer.  Anybody out there need a good programmer?   Fei knows the local dialects of several provinces and has worked all over the country of China also.  He regaled us with stories of the great outback, the Gobi desert and the Taklamakan mountains areas as well as tales of Manchuria and the cold steppe-like northern climes.  His daughter, one year old and, OF COURSE, smarter than the average 1 year old kid, is now my adopted grand daughter.  What a cutie, and did I mention that she is smarter than the average 1 year old?

Jim walked a portion of the wall which entailed some very steep grades.  He complained of tired and sore legs for days.  He had a right to do so, too.  He was awed by it as most people are when they see it for the first time.  ( Some of us are still in awe of the wall, considering that it is almost 2000 KM long and kept the invading tribes from the north and west out for over 3 thousand years.  There are actually many walls, some built one upon the other.  Some were pounded dirt, faced with stone, wood, or left un faced. Others were made of super hard and strong bricks.   Some were made of well cut, interlocking stones.  Which ever part you see, It is impressive.

At the wall, there were the usual shops selling all sorts of gee gaws and Jim cracks at cheap prices.  I did pick up a Chinese Army winter hat,  genuine issue(?), with fur trim and tie string, just right for southern California, for 5 dollars.  I also   had another “chop” made.  A chop is your signature in a stamp form and is used in China for all sorts of documents, official and otherwise.  These are usually made of stone, with intricately carved “handles”.  I have a collection of these, dating from my first trip to China in 1983.

After we did the usual tourist things, we purchased our tickets for the overnight trip to ChangSha, the capital of Hunan Province.  We purchased our tickets at the West Beijing train station.  This, in itself was an experience.  The station is crowded and bustling, as you might imagine, but there were scalpers trying to get all of the good tickets to resell.  As we were in line, a scalper bullied his way to the front and tried to push in.  People yelled at him and tapped him with hands and umbrellas to get him to leave.  I, like the rest of my companions, Chinese and Americans, was somewhat taken aback by his efforts.  Reacting with instinct, I reached out, grabbed his collar, lilted him to tip toes, and gently led him to the rear of the line.  There was a general round of laughter at this and he did not try to jump the line again.

The trip to Changsha was in a “first class” coach with sleepers.  This meant that there were 4 bunks to a compartment as opposed to 6 in the usual “second class” sleeper.  There was no sitting room other than the bunks, but the rooms did have a door which would give some privacy.  There was also a dining car 4 cars up toward the front of the train.  The train was a rather modern electric train and was 42 cars long.  The food was simple, tasty, and one can hope nutritious.  It was served on clean dinnerware, but the table cloths left something to be desired. 
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I must say that the food in China was generally very good and included some of the freshest fish I have ever eaten.  It came from an aquarium right in the restaurant.

We arrived in Chang Sha at  3 in the morning.  We took a cab to our hotel and were led to nice, somewhat small by western standards, rooms.  The beds were HARD.   My friend Miao Yang had made reservations for us.  After some adjusting to our new surroundings we fell fast asleep.  Early the next morning Miao and Bao, her sister, came to the hotel to take us out to see some dealers.

The prices were not as cheap as I had thought they would be.  I was surprised at the prices and general unwillingness to bargain very much.  We did purchase some beautiful deep apple green fluorites on Calcite's which were very good specimens. 

I had about 10 thousand dollars cash in my pocket during this time and a lot more in travelers checks.  I was walking into darkened alleyways, back streets, and places where I knew absolutely no one, with perfect strangers, and felt perfectly safe.  I don’t do that here in the US at any time.  There are places, near where I teach, that I simply would not walk even with empty pockets.  I have always felt safe in the orient.  I have no idea why, but the orient has never been a threatening place to me.   I feel much the same way in Mexico, except for Mexico Cit y.

The next morning we were awakened by knocks on the door and by the ringing phone.   Word was out.  The GRINGOS were here to buy minerals.  WOW! what a response.  We were deluged at all hours of the day and even until 11 at night by buyers.  We, of course, had to see everything we could. We also bought everything we could.  It was just too good to pass up.  It was like being a kid in a candy store with a 5 dollar bill.  OK, so it isn't’t much now, but it was a lot when I was a kid and candy was 4 or 5 pieces for a penny. 

We saw some brilliant green pyromorphite, wonderful stibnite's, some with crystals up to a 30 centimeters, Hematite roses around clear quartz crystals, fluorite on Calcite, Calcite, tungsten ore and much more.  We did not see much in the way of cinnabar in this trip.  

We left for a couple of days down at the mines near Chang Zhou, about 500 KM (300 miles) south of Changsha.  We took the train for 5 hours to get there.  We were unable, at first, to secure first or second class tickets.  We did get tickets for seats in the third class car.  That meant that we were guaranteed seats, but they were hard and the car was crowded with strap hangers and there were no straps.  I got up to go and there was a mad rush for my seat.  It seems that the railway will sell tickets, just before the train leaves, to anyone wishing to board, but they  have no seating assignment.  If there is a seat available, they scramble for it.   If not, they stand for as long as their journey takes.

We traveled down along a river for most of the way.  The broad coastal plain which goes from the north above Beijing, to the very south of the country and for several hundred kilometers inland.  Look at a map of China and see what I mean.  This is rice growing country.  The north grows a lot of corn and wheat, but the south is the rice bowl of the nation.  We passed kilometer after kilometer of rice paddies, all terraced into very level fields.  Sometimes the difference in elevation was almost nothing and others would be a few feet apart. Rarely was there more than 5 feet of difference between the paddy levels.

There were curious mounds, somewhat conical, about 1 to 1 and a half meters high with white paper flags  and red paper on them.  I asked and was told they were the graves of the locals.  The Chinese equivalent to the “Day of the Dead”, had just passed and the flags were there to honor the spirits of the dead and to keep away the bad spirits.  The red was paper money made just for the dead.  There were also the remains of meals and fruit  left for the spirits to enjoy.   The trip was pleasant and let us view some of the less crowded areas of China.  It was an education, for sure.

We were met by an officer of the official state police, plain clothes, wearing an expensive European cut suit, taken to our hotel in a mini van, and made comfortable.   The hotel was nice, comfortable, and issued no keys.  There was an attendant on each floor, 24 hours a day, to open the door for you.  They also did not want to accept tips.  I was informed that we would receive a 40 percent discount.  That made the hotel about 25 dollars per night per room.  NOT too bad at all.

The next day we went to the office of the government Economic Development Council for the Province of Hunan.  Here we were met by the head of the council who wanted to know about our desires for minerals and our wish to buy them and visit mines in the area.   It was an interesting conversation, as he did not know there was a flourishing mineral trade going on in the province.  He suggested that he might want to get together with me to discuss the possibility of having a “mineral trade show”.   I don’t think it would go over well with the local dealers, because it would bring recognition and competition. 

The dealers here were unreasonable in their demands for minerals.  They wanted prices higher than the dealers in Changsha and would not budge.  They also wanted everything sold by lot and no cherry picking allowed.  That meant a lot of bad with some good.   We actually bought nothing here.  That afternoon we were taken to a zinc mine near the town.  It was late in the afternoon when we arrived and was a bit rainy. We were told by the mine superintendent that we could go in the main haulage adit to see some areas of mineralization, could take no photos, and were not to tell anyone that he let us in. 

We went in the adit, which was flowing with a steady stream of water, walked on the rails, to an area of skarn where there was garnet, calcite, and epidote.  Nothing spectacular, and nothing to shout about.  They did not seem to use the head lamps nor even hard hats, as in Mexico and other areas.  They miners all carried flashlights and there were light bulbs strung at intervals of thirty meters or so down the tunnels and adits.   When we were coming out the guide, through our interpreter, warned us not to touch the overhead wire.  It was the trolley wire and was charged with 440 volts of electricity.  NOW, he tells us.  We survived as you can see.  My attempts at digital photography inside the tunnel were to no avail.  The light was too poor.

We were taken to dinner at the restaurant of the sister of the policeman.  She was a very pretty woman who spoke English rather well and wanted very much to come to America.   Jim and I both had ideas about bringing her back.  After an excellent meal of many things which grow wild in the mountains around Cheng Zhou we were entertained by the kids of the restaurant owner and the kitchen staff coming in to say hi and practicing their English.  They were cute and funny.  As we left the daughter of the owner came out and asked for my autograph.  I signed her school notebook.  The taxi driver asked my interpreter why a foreigner was signing autographs.  She said, “shhhhh, he is really a very famous Chinese actor in costume, practicing for an  up coming movie in which he plays a westerner.  He was awed and tried to converse with me all the way back to the hotel.  I, of course, could not answer.  Jenny and Miao kept telling him, that I would not say anything in Chinese, because I was practicing to be in character.   He was amazed at my devotion to the craft.  We all had a good laugh at that after we got to our hotel.

The next day we took a four and a half hour trip into the country to visit a tin mine.   It was located out in the country over a VERY bad road and the minibus we rented was bouncing all over the place.  ( The van and driver cost about 600 ren min be ( YUAN ) per day.  That translates to about 72 dollars. )  He was a very good driver.  Remind me if I ever see you in person,  to tell you about driving in China. 

We stopped first at the offices of the mining company to get permission to enter the mine.   It took a few minutes and we got out and stretched our legs.  It was the time for school to let out.  The kids wandered by, looking at the two strange foreigners.   They eventually wandered closer, where I heard shouts of “haloo” coming from them.  I replied, “HELLO” and the fun was on.  They mobbed me and Jim.  We were taking pictures of them, Jim with regular 35 mm and I with the digital camera.  Since I could replay instantly, I showed them some of the pictures.   The fun intensified.  I was surrounded by youngsters from about 6 to 13.   Again, they wanted autographs.  We signed notebooks, school books, scraps of paper and,  for those who had none of those, their hands.  They had no illusions of me being a movie star, they had NEVER seen a westerner before.  They wanted to shake hands, get an autograph and say hello.  It was great.  Jim was probably the tallest person they had ever seen and I guess I was the oddest looking one.

We traveled for another hour and a half through valleys which were green and full of flowers.  The fields were just showing green shoots above the brown earth.  This was rural China, appearing untouched by time.  Except for the occasional TV antenna and the electric lines, it could have been 50 or 100 years ago.  The fields were still tilled with water buffalo and by hand.  The planting was all by hand and a lot of this was going on.  I could not imagine being up to my knees in water on this somewhat rainy, chilly, spring day. Their feet must have been frozen.

We came to a wide river plain, about 3 KM, and observed many shanty-like buildings strewn over the area.  There was absolutely no vegetation on the sandy bed of the plain.   As we drew nearer to the buildings, I was able to see that they were using shaker tables, not unlike those used to recover placer gold.  However, the mineral this time was tin.  There were several large and small tin mines above this settlement. The runoff from these mines contained a significant quantity  of tin.  These small operators were “Panning” the effluent discharge from the mines above for the tin content.  I guess they were able to make a living and there was enough to go around, as there were probably one hundred of these structures along various channels of the river.

We drove steadily upward for another hour toward the mine, which was our goal.  The drizzle increased until it was a light rain.  We then started down into another valley.  The mountains on either side of the valley were scarred by the mining activities which had taken place there. This was in another watershed, different from the locale mentioned above.  The stream here was also dotted, here and there, with the same kind of set up that we had seen earlier.  The foliage, which was not jungle like. but more like the northern parts of the US, was green and dripping water. 

We entered the tired looking mining village and drive to the “office”.  The mine manager came to greet us and invited us into the “office”.  This was a room which had some chairs, a couple of sofas, and a table.   We were quickly the center of attention and people from all over camp came to look at us.  Many of these had never seen westerners before.  It was nicely handled, though.    The miners and the camp kitchen workers alike were friendly and respectful.   It was a pleasant experience. 

We were given a quick introduction to the mine and taken out to see the facilities.    The office was near an adit which went into the mountain behind us.   This then dropped to several lower levels and rose to several upper levels before connecting with another adit which was located across the small valley. 

We walked to the other adit entrance and were greeted by the production foreman.  He showed us how the ore was processed.  A mine car, hand pushed, came out of the adit, was pushed past the switch in the tracks.  The miner then pushed the switch track into place with his foot, pushed the car back to the winch line and it was hauled up the hill to be dumped into the crusher.

We could hear the bang of small charges being set off underground as we were walking and talking in front of the adits.  It seemed that there was no problem dynamiting underground when there were people in the mine.  Most of the time, the mines are cleared before any charges are set off.

The ore, after crushing went through a series of screens, with the coarser material being sent to another crusher.  The material was then sent down to the washer and the long rocker tables collected the tin.  The mine had two main tin veins and one vein of zinc ore located near to the tin.  The zinc minerals were collected by gravity sorting, as in gold panning.  The tin, being very heavy in relationship to its size, that is dense or having a high specific gravity, was caught by the riffles in the rocker tables.  The camp was a dismal looking place, gray and black in the mists of the mountains but the smiles of the people lit it up like the sunshine.  The cooks took great pride in preparing for us what we were having for lunch.  We ate with chop sticks, of course.  We used forks only on the last night, when we went to dinner and had Italian food.  It was not too bad, at all.  When we were done and it was all gone, they cleaned up the table with big smiles on their faces.
After lunch we crossed the stream again, using 2 parallel 8 CM pipes and a wire which we were told afterward carried a live charge of 220 volts.  The wire WAS heavily insulated, but, AWWWW geeeeze guys.  We went into the adit closest to the mill and proceeded to a decline. Down we went, following a passage which was obviously chasing the vein. There were several large stopes which were higher than our lights could reach.  

While we were having lunch, the crew came down and opened up an old passage into a part of the mine which had been closed since 1975.  This was done as a favor to us.  It involved a small blast and a lot of  rubble moving.  After wandering around the mine for about 2 hours seeing some great sights which were just out of reach, we went into the part which was freshly opened.  The smell of dynamite was still in the air as we entered the room.  Here we found an old water course lined with calcite, quartz, and fluorite. 

We had collected some specimens in other parts of the mine, nothing great, but here was the “mother lode” for us.  We were carefully pecking away at some specimens when the miners came, gently moved us aside, took a large pick and shattered the specimen, causing others to rain down to the bottom of the hole.  Needless to say, there is a lesson to be learned here.  Don’t let a miner do it.  The average miner has no concept of specimens.  Many of the specimens which we saw were slightly dinged to badly fractured.  These were at dealers.

We came back late that evening and settled down for our trip back to Changsha.

The trip to Changsha was uneventful. No problems and we got  to our hotel to find that a lot of dealers had called.    We were tired.  Funny how a long ride, doing nothing but sitting, makes one tired.  We had just settled into our rooms when the knocks came upon the door.  It was the first in a steady stream of dealers.   Of course, we had to go to each shop and see what they had.  Often, it was simply a repeat of what we had seen, maybe better, maybe worse, but usually we bought something.  The pyromorphite which we saw here, was the greenest I have had the pleasure to see.  The stibnite's were lustrous, as bright and shiny as any from Japan or San Martin, Zacatecas.  Some of the single blades were 30 cm long and 2 cm wide.   It was impressive. 

The dealers came all through the evening, even tracking us down at other dealers and putting in their pitch for us to visit them.  One of the best collections was that of an old geologist.  He had some beautiful malachite and azurite stalactites and flowstone formations.  These were impressive.  Their price was also impressive, but, I think, fair.  We bought quite a bit of his material.

We visited the “Changsha Geological Museum” and found a truly impressive compilation of materials.  However, what interested me most were two specimens of native silver. 

The first, a matted, fibrous, mass of black on some soft limestone.  This was about 6 X 8 Cm before trimming.  It had a cluster of silver wires about 4 to 5 Cm across on it.  In trimming it, the matrix crumbled and I have approximately a 6 X 5 piece of material, consisting of a small piece of rock matrix and the silver.

The other specimen was 15 X 9 Cm, before trimming.  The specimen consisted of a limestone matrix, a small bit of calcite, and silver wires  jumbled over the surface. Right near the center of the mass was a group of wires which stood up from the others and trailed out approximately 12 Cm.  It was not as tarnished as the others.  The dealer wanted a fair price for the two of them and they now reside in my collection.   The dealer packed the wire so that it could be transported without fear of damage.   I must say that it was great.  It got home in my suitcase with no damage.   A little cleaning with the ultrasonic cleaner got it looking very good.  The silver is tarnished to a gray coppery color.  One loose piece was taken and placed in ammonia.  This shined brightly and revealed its silver color.

The stream of dealers continued.  We started packing.  Dealers came. We packed. Jim packed. I went to look at more.  We packed more.  Jim, Miao, Bao, Jenny, Ying and anyone else we could round up were packing.  We bought over 200 kilos of soap powder to put the fragile crystals in.  We used more toilet tissue in one packing session than ten Chinese families use in a year.  We made boxes, stapled, taped and strapped them and then these were packed into a larger box.  We had over a cubic meter 
( almost 36 cubic feet) and two other somewhat smaller boxes for 3 larger specimens.
†these left on the first of May and should get to the harbor about the 20th of May.   I am looking forward to the grand opening of this box.  I can hardly wait for it to get here. 

While in Changsha we visited the antique market.  This is a street in which the people come to sell “antiques”.    Some were and some were not.   I  picked up about 50 teapots for my daughter and daughters-in-law.   These were ceramic and brass.  I also picked up some cloisonné teapots too.   These were a real prize.  I paid less than 10 dollars for the cloisonné and less than 5 dollars for the others.  Some of them were lower than that, costing less than one dollar.  We picked up many things, medals from the pre-world- war two era, some from the Kuominting area, and some from the Chinese Communist era.  It was interesting, also, the amount of old money which was circulating in these stalls.   Much of the old iron and brass large coin money was faked.  This still was interesting as an example of what it was like.  The smaller copper coins from dynasties as far back as 200 years, were not faked and these were to be had by the hundreds for a pittance.

We took the train back to Beijing, where we stayed for 3 days before we left.  We saw some more sights, visited a couple of museums, experienced a power failure in an elevator, and then the fun began.  Wang Fei brought his wife and daughter to visit and we all went to dinner at a 5 star hotel.  It was great.  I mean, really great.   The Italian food was pretty good, but the ambiance was fantastic.  The two Gringo guys caused a lot of eyes to be cast in their direction.  We SUFFERED all of this in good spirits, though, being the ambassadors of good will that we are.  We had a great time and hope that some of you will want to go with us in October when we go.

By the way, if you want to see some photos of the last Mexico Safari please go to

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