Experiencing China again
WILLIS P. WHICHARD, Special to the Sentinel

EDITOR'S NOTE: Willis (Bill) Whichard is a former member of the North Carolina State Senate, a former Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and has recently retired as Dean of the Law School at Campbell University. He and his wife Leona are part-time residents of Clay County. A report of his trip to China is being published as a 12-part series in the Sentinel.

Part XII - Coming Home

The New York Bar Association was meeting in Shanghai, and in the evening most of our group attended its reception. Lawyers from many parts of the world were present.

The following day, our last in China for this trip, was a Cultural Day. We passed the morning wandering through the Yu Garden and the Old Town. After lunch we visited the Silk Carpet Factory and the Shanghai Museum. Our farewell dinner in the evening was excellent, but the occasion was one of mixed emotions. We were celebrating a very successful exchange on the Rule of Law with our Chinese counterparts and eagerly anticipating the return home to tell others about the venture. At the same time, we had all made many new friends and were sad that our time together was about to end.

Willis Whichard and his wife tour China. The following day was among the longest in our lives. We were awakened at 4:45 a.m. (4:45 p.m. the day before by Eastern Standard Time) and left for the airport at 5:30. Our flights took us from Shanghai to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. As Leona and I walked to the terminal in Los Angeles to another where we would get a flight to San Francisco, I spotted a man wearing a University of North Carolina sweatshirt. Knowing that Carolina had been scheduled to play Virginia in football the night before, I said to him, "I just got off a plan from China. Can you tell me what happened in the game last night." He just shook his head and responded, "23-0. Carolina doesn't have a football program, it just has a basketball program."

The next week U.N.C. officials took actions designed to change that. It remains to be seen whether the changes made will prove successful.

There can be no doubt, though, about change in China. It has changed dramatically in the last three decades, and the change both continues and accelerates. Despite the fact that this was my third trip to China, it had changed so much since my other two trips that in many respects it was indeed a new experience. The change will almost certainly continue at such a pace that, if I should go again in a few years, it will once more be like experiencing the country "again for the first time."

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