Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

I happened to be browsing in the China section of travel books at my local library when I came across Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven (#155) by Susan Jane Gilman.  It's a memoir, and for me it wasn't so much a travel book about China as it was a re-telling of the post graduation backpacking trip gone wrong back in 1986, just after China was first opened for tourism.  Susie has saved all through college by waitressing in order to be able to travel before settling down in the working world.  Her college friend Claire proposes that they take off for the newly opened China and see it all and Susie somewhat reluctantly agrees.  Since the book dealt heavily with the young women's relationship (eek!  and I thought I had problems on my college trip to Europe with three friends!!) I did not pass this book along to my husband, but I certainly could relate to a lot of the problems Susie encountered on her trip.

Of course when I traveled, I had the distinct advantage of being able to read the signs and guess at their meanings when I didn't speak the language.  And American tourists in Europe in the 70s were hardly a novelty.  Susie and her friend Claire stood out as curiousities in China at that time, attracting crowds who watched their every move, adding to the stress of travel in a foreign country.  Not for them the "tourist" hotels or restaurants.  So beyond the strange language and food, they were dealing with coackroaches and ants in their shared dormitories and bathrooms.  Susie wasn't nearly as intrepid as Claire, but ultimately it's Susie who manages to extract them from a very difficult and delicate situation.

As Susie says in her Afterword, life changed for both Claire and Susie during that trip to China.  Susie wouldn't be where she is today if Claire hadn't forced her to go to China.  Nor is the China that she and Claire visited the same today.  Many of the places that she visited on that first trip have roared into the twenty first century and are barely recognizable as the same places.

Although I think the title Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a bit sensational, the story of how this working class New York girl went off with her wealthy Brown University friend to conquer an unknown world, and learns thereby to stand on her own two feet is a satisfying read.