"Shanghai-ed" with the President

by Jeanne Decker Griffiths

No matter where you are posted with the Foreign Service, some things remain constant: the embassy-provided furniture, the bureaucratic red tape, and summer vacations. Yes, there is always a mass exodus each summer when the expatriates return to their home countries. Just as birds fly south for the winter, expats fly home for the summer. (This natural cycle of life is sometimes thwarted by the U.S. Government who may consider some foreign countries not challenging enough to warrant R. & R.) We have always managed to stay out of such countries, ensuring our ability to stay in harmony with the annual rhythms.)

We presently live in Shanghai, the largest city in China, in the largest country in the world. Shanghai is the economic and financial center of the country, with 16 million people and a horizon full of skyscrapers. I guess you could call it the New York City of China. In this city, the expat community is in full harmony with the annual migration home. This past summer, all the expats immediately left Shanghai when the summer rolled around. Yes sir. As soon as school was out it was like, "Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200, just get on that plane and head back to the good old U.S. of A"—or wherever home might be. Some didn't even wait for the school year to end. They were so anxious to start summer vacation that they just pulled their kids out of school and left. Just like that.

Those of us who couldn't leave quite that soon were here for President Clinton's state visit to China. It's not often the President of the United States comes to visit the city where you are living. At least, it's never happened to me. After almost 15 years of overseas living, this is the first time I've ever encountered the President. But, let's face it, no president would want to visit most of the places where we've lived!

The opportunity to be volunteers at some of the President's events became available for those Americans who were still in town—our best qualification being, well, that we were still in town. I was assigned to work at the President's first day event at the Shanghai library. This new state of the art facility is one of the 10 largest libraries in the world with over 40 million books and documents. I didn't know that. I had to wait for the President to come to town in order to find out. I did know about the library's English section provided by Shanghai's sister city, San Francisco. When I explored the library last year, I was disappointed not to be allowed to check out any English books. But during the training for the volunteers, I learned this is only temporarily in force until all the books can be computerized.

At the library, a round table discussion had been arranged for the President and First Lady to discuss the future of China with some of the leading Chinese experts in various fields of endeavor. (The organizers were hoping to get a real round table—this being the land of round tables and all—but they had to settle for long tables pushed together to form a square.)

As a volunteer, I was given the proper credentials—one little pin, the size of a small button, to pin onto the lapel of my jacket. This tiny pin looked so insignificant that I was concerned that it wouldn't even get me into the library to do my job. Ha! That little pin was almost the equivalent of having the ability to part the Red Sea! I could now walk right through all the security, as if I were important or something. When I got thirsty and asked a library worker where I could get a drink of water, he brought out a whole box of bottled water. I was assuming he would just point me in the direction of the water fountain, but he assumed I was some important official. I could even act like I was buddy-buddy with the President's secret service men. These guys are all wired up and actually talk to each other through the microphones in their sleeves, just like in the movies! As we were setting up the translation equipment for the 300 members of the press, who were beginning to pour in, one of the reporters approached me and asked if I had an official comment to make! What power with just one little pin! What prestige was mine, simply because this past summer, I hadn't taken the first plane back to America!

When Madeline Albright, other cabinet members, and six congressmen finally arrived, my job was to accompany them around on their short tour of the library. This was to make sure they would be in their seats half an hour before President Clinton's entrance. With all the help hovering around, they would have gotten to their seats just fine without my assistance. Without a doubt, my greatest contribution to the event was being able to use my Chinese, limited as it is.

Behind where the President would be sitting was a walkway. It was part of our job to keep people out of the walkway once Clinton arrived. Since none of the other volunteers spoke any Chinese, I was the one who asked the Chinese library staff for a rope to cordon off the walkway. Well, let's just be grateful they were red ropes. I don't know how to say "rope" in Chinese, but I was very good at saying, "We need those red things, like the one over there." They appeared in no time flat.

Since my husband works at the Consulate, I knew that weeks and months of preparation had gone into this three-day presidential visit, including this one-hour event at the library. Although every detail had supposedly been accounted for, right before the President and Mrs. Clinton were to make their grand entrance, it was noticed that directly behind the walkway, where the President would be sitting, in full view of all the cameras, was the library's state-of-the-art automatic book retrieval system. Those little electric carts were still chugging along their tracks, carrying books up from the closed racks in the bowels of the building. This, along with a bevy of attending librarians happy to share the spotlight with the President, was a terrible distraction for our illustrious leader's entrance.

"Quick!" exclaimed my White House boss, "Does someone speak Chinese?"

"Yes!" I responded. "I speak some Chinese."

"Tell those librarians to stop those machines immediately and get out of the camera's view!" she bellowed.

Well, there are a lot of people around who speak much better Chinese than I ever will. But they weren't there. So I had to save the day. (Finally! Pay back time for all those awful hours of studying Chinese!) I turned to speak to the librarians. In the rush of the moment, I managed to garble what I was hoping to say. This was not the time to let down the U. S. Government! Fortunately despite my imperfect Chinese, the librarians understood me and responded to my requests. Then as I turned back around, much to my surprise, there I was, just little old me, facing a full battalion of live TV cameras, with President Clinton and The First Lady directly in front of me. This was my moment of glory: just me with the First Couple on all the TVs of the world! ...but don't worry. I didn't let this go to my head even when my maid, the next day, told me she had seen me on Chinese TV, "Right next to the President!"

Both Bill and Hillary (now that we've had such an intimate association, I guess I can call them by their first names) are the consummate politicians. I can't speak to the Monica mess they are in right now, but they both make a great appearance and are very smooth. As one friend commented, they seem like Barbie and Ken, they look so perfect. I was impressed that Hillary could talk extemporaneously without once saying "um." I guess law school pays off. Hillary commented how trying it is to always be in the spotlight, and worse to have the press always implicating motives for simple acts that had no ulterior motives. I guess life can be tough at the top.

But for those of us at the bottom, sometimes it pays to not start summer vacation in a hurry!

© 1998 Jeanne Decker Griffiths. All Rights Reserved.