Harold Stephens

More than fifty years ago, right after the war in the Pacific ended, US Marines landed in China. Among the two divisions that landed was the 29th Marines, and I was with them, an ammo carrier in Fox Company machine gun platoon. We were told we were going to China to repatriate the Japanese forces that had occupied China for the past 18 years, to send them packing for home. Four years later, the Japanese were gone but the Marines were still there. We may have been there longer still had not General Chang Kai Chek and his Nationalist Army been defeated by Mao Tse-tung and his communist Red Army that came sweeping across China.

It was at the port of Tsingtao, or what is Qingdao today, that the 29th landed. How vivid those memories for me remain. I can recall with detail how after the battle of Okinawa we were on Guam, loading ships for the invasion of Japan, and then, suddenly, the war ended. The A-bomb did it. Of course, we all expected to be shipped home but instead we were ordered to China. For many of us it wasn't disappointment; it was excitement, and what excitement -- it was China. We knew little if anything about China but that would soon change. While our pals back home were enjoying football games and Saturday night parties, many of us were growing up in China.

I remember so well that ship that carried us to Tsingtao, right through the middle of a terrifying typhoon. Our fleet of destroyers, APs carrying troops and LSTs with supplies all managed to survive with little damage but many thousands of Chinese junks didn't. After the storm we sailed through a sea of debris and carnage. A few days later we arrived in Tsingtao. Our arrival is still there, etched in my mind -- our going ashore; the masses of happy Chinese waving tiny American flags; our regiment moving into the Shantung University where we were billeted; and, later, our move to the Strand Hotel along the beach north of town. I remember the streets of Tsingtao with the twin towered Catholic Church in the very heart of town, the long pier at the waterfront, the Chinese temples and pagodas and the wonderful beaches. The memories have never left.

But China has changed. What would be left of Tsingtao that we all knew so well? How much of it has remained, if any? I had to go back to find out for myself.

For my return journey I teamed up with photographer Robert Stedman, who also happens to be my nephew. It was only appropriate that Robert went with me for, after all, he had been listening to my China tales for thirty years while growing up. The only stipulation I made was that he didn't call me Uncle Harold.

As travel correspondent for Thai Airways I had been back to China several times, to Shanghai and Beijing and other cities like Xi-an and Chengdu, but not to Tsingtao. We caught a flight to Hangzhou, took a two-hour train journey to Shanghai and boarded a train there for Tsingtao. I wanted to go by sea from Shanghai but I couldn't arrange the right connections.

Hangzhou came as a complete surprise. Travel brochures and guidebooks bill Hangzhou as the "most beautiful city in China." Actually it was Marco Polo who coined the phrase eight centuries ago when he wrote in his Book of Travels "the world's most beautiful and magnificent city is Hangzhou." He also mentioned Hangzhou was one of China's six ancient capitals.

All a traveler needs do is to arrive at the airport in Hangzhou to realize that China has leaped unequivocally into the modern world. The Hangzhou airport is magnificent. And, when the traveler makes the drive into town, Marco Polo's words ring true after 800 years -- Hangzhou is a beautiful city. After entering the city, attention immediately focuses on the celebrated Xi Hu, West Lake. It dominates the city and surrounding area. I wanted to spend more time but I had no time to linger. Shanghai was waiting and then Tsingtao. We caught an early morning train to Shanghai, a two-hour journey.

We hear so much about Shanghai today. It's growing; it's expanding; its economy is booming; it's leaping ahead at an unprecedented growth. It's all true. Shanghai is unlike the city where we landed in 1945. On the surface it's not even remotely the same. Those Marines who had been there will remember well the Bund, Nanking Road and the Huangpu River. No longer were there signs on the Bund that read: No Dogs and Chinese allowed. Here, on the promenade along the river front, all the foreigners from the legations gathered. I found the Park Hotel on Nanking Road. It is still there, a bit seedy and gloomy and unlike the new luxurious and fashionable Shangri-la Hotel across the river in an area they call Pudong where Robert and I bunked. The Shangri-la sits side-by-side with the Space Needle and with a view (we had a room on the 14th floor) that overlooks the whole city.

In my book, Take China, the Last of the China Marines, I wrote about my arriving in Shanghai over 50 years ago. I arrived by US destroyer. "With pomp, pride and a display of showmanship, the helmsman brought our whaleboat -- packed with sailors from the destroyer, going ashore on liberty -- up the congested Huangpu River, past ships flying the ensigns of a dozen nations -- United States, Britain, France, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Panama, Nationalist China, and many more I couldn't recognize. Pulling at their anchors midstream were war ships and gunboats, river scows, costal steamers, oil tankers, rusted freighters, smart cruise liners, huge sea-going junks and even an African dhow. There were still more, Chinese lighters with painted eyes, white-hulled government launches with shiny brass rails and hundreds of more vessels. And sculling back and forth, from ship to shore, was a sea of tiny sampans and bumboats carrying passengers and cargo. Some bumboats were so heavy-laden with cargo their freeboard was but inches above waterline and it appeared that the slightest wave might swamp them and send them to the bottom. The entire waterfront was pulsating with vigor. We continued smartly, our own ensign flying from the stern, up the Huangpu headed for the US Navy Fleet Landing a couple blocks north on Soucho Creek. It was a proud feeling.

"All along the waterfront, cargo vessels moored to the docks loaded and unloaded their wares, while whizzing cranes swung their booms back and forth overhead, and sweating coolies tottered up and down narrow gangplanks with loads heavy enough to break the backs of ordinary men."

The scene, of course, has changed. Smart young Chinese in Nike shoes and brand-labeled clothes sauntered up and down the Bund, while out in the river smart cruise boats and tourist ferries scurried up and down the river.

One place I wanted to see was Blood Alley. I remembered about where it was and we began walking. Avenue Rue Chu Pao-san was the official name for Blood Alley. In Take China I describe the street as it was when I first saw it. "Customers were in every stage of drunkenness, from "feeling good" to staggering blindness. Each bar was like a time bomb, ready to explode at a slight side glance." I even remembered the names of many of the bars -- Monk's Brass Rail, George's Bar, Palais Cabaret, Crystal, the New Ritz and Mums.

Today Blood Alley is a street of posh shops and department stores. I found no one who even remembered the place, as if it never really existed.

Perhaps the Old City was still intact. I wasn't disappointed. It's still there in stark contrast to the new Shanghai. Before 1949, the Old City remained under Chinese law and administration while the rest of central Shanghai was carved up by foreign powers. Most of the residents in these old back alleys were Chinese. In the old days we were warned not to go there but we did anyway. Back then the Old City was a notorious gangster-and-opium slum. Today, the vices are gone but the tiny lanes and crowded but quaint neighborhoods and small houses still exist.

At the heart of the Old City is Chenghuang Miao, Temple of the Town God. I was pleased to find that the tiny lanes still hustle with people but minus the rickshaws. I imagine some of the same stuff that Marines didn't buy then is still there on sale -- collections of antiques, old maps of Shanghai, baskets and boxes, porcelain and old watches, plus some scattered modern goods and Mao paraphernalia.

We were hoping to find a boat that would carry us northward to Tsingtao but reservations were needed and it would take days to arrange the voyage. Instead, we boarded an overnight train. We would arrive 0730 the next morning. Finally, Tsingtao where I first arrived 60 years before. What was waiting? What if anything that I once knew would still be there that I remembered. Would I be able to show Robert some of the things that I had told him about over the years?