Adjusting to Beijing time, customs and food - Part 4 of 4

Professional meetings on this day included meetings with representatives of the Chinese Ministry of Justice and the All China Lawyers Association. In my mind, the specific topics of those meetings got lost in all the details and my lack of legal knowledge. For example, I kept hearing terms such as “Rule of Law” and the view of Rule of Law in the United States as compared to China. According to Wikipedia.org, “The rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure.” Another web site puts it in simpler terms, stating that “The principle that every member of a society, even a ruler, must follow the law.” I did learn a bit about the law from attending these meetings, though, even if my focus was to assist Rodney so that he could learn from and participate in these meetings.

Some meetings were more memorable than others. To me, the notable meeting for this day was one that took place at the National Judges College. There were a couple of meetings at this facility, but Rodney was only able to participate in the more important meeting where judges in our group would answer questions for an auditorium of students at the college. This was an older facility without elevators. The first meeting was upstairs, and we did not have the help to carry Rodney upstairs, but that was no problem, as we were taken to the more important meeting early, where students had already assembled in the auditorium. When we got there, the lady who guided us to the auditorium apparently announced to the students in Chinese that Rodney was a member of the delegation, and for that, he received applause. It didn’t make sense to Rodney, though, as he was wondering what all the fuss was about, he didn’t consider himself that important. Then the rest of the delegation arrived at the auditorium and the meeting was started. Since we were at a judges college, a panel of 3 judges from our group participated in a question and answer session with the college students. The 3 judges were Frank Gordon, former Arizona Supreme Court justice, Willis Wichard, former Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and Beatrice Shainswit, former New York State Supreme Court Justice. Although these judges served in these capacities, these words cannot even begin to describe their years of varied legal experience and their experience as judges. So they were well qualified to explain the judicial system in the US to these students. Before the question and answer session, this is what the judges did, each in their own individual ways. They brought out how the courts are different from state to state. They brought out how justices in the US are lawyers that can be either elected or appointed, depending on the state, contrasting that to China, where students go to college to become judges. They also shared a bit of their personal stories, bring a human aspect to the discussion. The stories I heard on this trip could fill a book. My story of this trip is going on long enough, so I won’t go in to much of them in this narrative. But Justice Shainswit’s personal story hit a personal chord with me. She brought out how years ago she was elected to be judge. This required a bit of a campaign, and she did not feel all that confident in going out on the streets to talk to people. But she did do this and learned that she could talk to people, at least to the extent that they did elect her, resulting in a term of 29 years as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court. My own writing and publishing require that I go out in public and interact with people, which I am not all that confident about. Her story gives me more hope that I can do similar to further my own aspirations. After explaining the US justice system to the students in 3 individual ways, the 3 judges answered students’ questions, which ranged from the simple to the provocative and actually tended to be some combination of the two. One question asked was how judges were paid in the US. The 3 judges had a few different answers, and then there was some vocal disagreement from the audience of the lawyers and judges that were traveling with us. It was almost comical, and a remark was made to that effect, how such a question can have different answers in the US, depending on which state the lawyer or judge lives in, and also the individual experiences and thoughts of each lawyer or judge. The Chinese students also seemed to have a good laugh out of it, too. One could tell that the students were educated and put much thought in to their questions, and the question and answer session could have gone on for a long time, but after short of an hour or so, it was time to move on.

Yet another day of constant activity had passed. By the time we got to the motel, we were ready to rest and sleep. We would need this rest to prepare us for yet another busy day exploring the sights and culture of Beijing and surrounding areas.