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Hohhot
8:40 a.m., Breakfast
A
typical scene in Inner Mongolia.
Propellors harness the constant
wind to produce electricity as
kashmir goats graze below.
Gabe: Professor
Zhao, what is that?
Zhao: That milk tea. You like
to try? It Mongolian.
Me, Dave and Andy nod enthusiastically.
Andy: Milk tea. I’ve had that
before – it’s kind of sweet and
spicy.
Dave: It’s chai, right? Milk tea?
Three frothy
glasses with a light brown liquid
appear.
Gabe: It’s
salty.
Dave: What?
Gabe: It’s salty.
Andy: It’s salty.
Zhao: That Mongolian. Traditional
milk tea.
Andy puts
in a sugar cube. I put in two.
Dave drinks the tea as is. Zhao
laughs.
Dave: (the
first to finish) There’s a sludge
at the bottom.
Gabe: A salty sludge?
Dave: A salty, milky sludge.
Our Chinese
hosts and fellow team members
are laid back, friendly and eager
to show us all of what China –
and especially Chinese food –
has to offer.
Our number
one host is the indomitable Professor
Zhao Xijin,
from the Institute of Vertebrate
Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
in Beijing. At 66 years of age,
he has conducted fieldwork on
three continents and many countries,
including Tibet and Australia.
His round face and smiling eyes
greet us every-morning – always
ankle biting for us to get the
day started – or ended. He is
bossy, detailed and jovial: “You
drink. Drink to bottom.” “You
go breakfast now.” “You leave,
come back 20 minutes.” “Why Paul
slow? Paul slowly in morning.”
Our favorite
instruction to date is, “You go
rooms. Wait. Talk about something.”
Zhao’s love
for life, food and drink, and
fieldwork, his spry sense of humor
– and his ever-present reminding
of American expedition member
Andy Gray, “Andy - I 66 – you
22. I old man; you young,” has
made him a popular character.
As an invited
Professor, Zhao helped to establish
the cooperative agreement between
Paul at the University of Chicago
and the Long Hao Geologic Paleontological
Research Center in Hohhot, Inner
Mongolia. Paul’s relationship
with Professor Zhao and Inner
Mongolia dates back to 1984, when
he worked with Zhao on several
papers on Chinese dinosaurs and
traveled to Hohhot to see the
dinosaurs of Inner Mongolia.
The present cooperative agreement
was hammered out in two preliminary
trips to Hohhot last year. The
“Chinese-American
Dinosaur Expeditions”
to Inner Mongolia, or CADE, is
the first cooperative expedition
between Americans and a team from
Inner Mongolia. The agreement
outlines a series of expeditions---2001
being the first.
Dave
spends some time in the collection
at the Paleontological Center
in Hohhot surrounded by fossils
found in Inner Mongolia. A clutch
of dinosaur eggs has been taken
off the shelf for closer study.
Two key members
of the Chinese team are from the
Long Hao Research Center. Tan
Lin is the Director
and Senior Engineer at the Center
and is co-leading the expedition
with Paul and Zhao. Tan has been
responsible for all the expedition
logistics – supplies, vehicles,
and food. Tan led the advance
party with the big truck to oversee
the establishment of base camp.
Zhang
Xiao-hong, Engineer
and Researcher at the Long Hao
Center, is Zhao’s student, and
right hand of the expedition.
She is an experienced fieldworker
and participant in the 1997 Sino-Japanese-Mongolian
Expedition that discovered ornithomimid
skeletons not far from our base
camp.
Zhao speaks
the most English, with one of
our drivers, Chen-wei (Tan’s son)
- in second. Luckily for us, though,
both Tan and Zhang speak some
English, and we are able to stumble
through conversations – or at
least questions and answers.
The proximity
of Hohhot (the capitol of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region),
to the field areas is a great
advantage – not only for logistics,
but also because the Chinese team
knows the field areas well. In
fact, Tan Lin helped to create
the geological maps we will use
in the field.
Andy
takes the opportunity to explore
Hohhot's night life
and play a few rounds of pool.
In addition
to the American/French contingent
– Paul Sereno, David Varricchio,
myself, Andy Gray, and Mike Hettwer
and Fabrice Moreau, the three
Chinese team members, four drivers
and five Chinese support crew
make this expedition one of the
most luxurious we have ever been
on.
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