The rolling Pacific!

Tuesday January 19th

Today has been the first day of classes and so there has been an air of efficiency and business around the ship; students and those of us who are not teaching clutching pens and exercise books and searching for classrooms. First sessions are a little boring for those of us auditing classes because they are all about expectations and grades, tests and final exams.

The day was going quite swimmingly (pardon the pun) when the old Pacific started to show us what it could do. Well it can roll with the best of them....way over to port and then let's do even better over to starboard.....woops, watch it, oh there go the glasses, the cups , the plates....hang on....there goes George in his chair in the faculty lounge, slowly, gently, tumbling on to the floor! There goes Liz to the loo hanging on to chair backs, there goes the bar steward balancing expertly a tray full of glasses over his head...he's done this before. The sun is shining brightly, the sea is blue and a litte ruffled but the swells are HUGE!

Liz and Audrey have two wonderful stewards who accompany then in the line ups for food, holding their arms all the way to their chairs; Allan and Ishmael. Tonight they excelled themselves and guided them both in and out of the dining room. The rest of us stagger around the best we can like drunkards making our way home.

We have a world expert in China on board, a charming Englishman, Jonathan Spence, I think I mentioned him before. I managed to introduce him to Liz this evening in the lounge and he spoke to her for nearly 45 minutes on Shanghai and the French Concession where she lived as a child. He then introduced her to a Chinese prof we have on board who actually lives in Shanghai so hopefully between them they will get Liz organised to get to the area she knew best when we're there.

George and I attended a lecture on Sino/Amerian relations. It was fascinating. it was given jointly by the Chinese professor and by John Israel an American historian specialising in China. They each separately spoke about how their countrymen view the other's country...negatively! They didn't warn us beforehand and as I sat there listening to John being utterly scathing about China I felt acutely embarrassed as I knew there were also about 5 or 6 students from university in Beijing sitting in the Union listening. However when he had finished this diatribe he explained what they were doing and I heaved a sigh of relief. The Chinese prof then stood up and started off... "America, a democracy? We don't think so!' and went from there. It was really interesting to watch the faces of the American students. It's not often that any of us are exposed to such criticism of the States face to face by China! He talked about the homeless on the American streets, the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the violence, lack of adequte medical care, disastrous and questionable voting system....oh it was quite a lambasting! At the next session Jonathon Spence is to be the moderator between the two opposing views. That's tomorrow..

George and I watched the BBC version of Noel Coward's Vortex tonight with a magnificent performance of Florence by Margaret Leighton, so it must have been made in the 70's I think. I saw her on the stage in TS Elliot's Cocktail Party at the Edinburgh festival years ago, she was brilliant.

Well we are rocking again ridiculously so I think I shall weave my way to bed where I feel a bit more secure. Oh by the way for the 4th night in a row...George is sound asleep. The time? 9.55 pm! Isn't it fortunate he never reads my blog!!