In Nanjing, we visited the Third Yangtze River Bridge. It is so cool how, no matter where you are in the world and whatever the language barrier, engineers just love showing you around their projects. It’s like seeing photos of their newborns. After that, a whole group of us went into a banquet room for dinner. I (really, ENR) was the guest of honor. Dish after dish passed by me on the lazy Susan. I had to ask my interpreter what they were.

“Goose feet….duck throat…duck gizzard…” All the parts of an animal I have never wanted to eat.

“Where’s the rice?” I whispered in desperation. “Oh no, that’s for common meals. This is a special banquet,” she replied.

While everyone sucked down the guts of hairy crabs straight from the carapaces, I made do with some unidentified greens. Unfortunately, I realized that every time I caught an engineer’s eye, he would raise his glass and say, “Ms. Cho, sheh sheh (a Chinese greeting/toast). And courtesy dictated that I down the contents of mine simultaneously with him. Unfortunately, I had finally met a type of booze I didn’t like. This “wine” was akin to hydrogen peroxide. I would rather have poured it on an open wound than drink it. And it was strong.

Guest of honor unable to eat almost everything, while having to down a foul liquor into a nearly empty stomach. It was the most excruciating thing ever done in my honor.

We visited Chongqing, the “Pittsburgh” of China with its many, many bridges. I pointed at a bridge under construction to the young engineer escorting me, and he asked if I wanted to take a closer look. Of course! When we got there, I saw many workers sitting on the deck, slippered feet dangling over the edge, smoking cigarettes. No hard hats, no boots, no harnesses. It would have given an OSHA inspector apoplexy.

The engineer spoke very little English, but did what any good engineer did when I indicated “How long? How high? How wide?” He took a piece of paper and drew a diagram of the bridge, with numbers.

Cho [center] with the project team on the Champlain Bridge in Montreal.
Photo courtesy Aileen Cho

Russia, 2003

In the good old days when engineering firms were flush with cash and eager to publicize their work. Halcrow hosted a press junket to St. Petersburg, Russia, to show off a flood protection wall that operated somewhat like the levers of a pinball machine.

Over two days, we encountered the wonders of Russian bureaucracy. We were supposed to meet some VIP “minister” one afternoon, only to wait for hours and then be told that he would show up later. Then we were told that we had to fax questions that night.

Halcrow had three young Russian engineers, two men and a woman, in the office. Every morning we journalists would say hello and they would respond with icy silence. It was a very cool project, though. The Russian engineers took lessons learned from Dutch projects.

On the last night, we had a big dinner. A round of vodka shots, and suddenly the three sullen Russian engineers came alive. “We’re so glad you were here to write about our wonderful project!” they cried. After another shot, I mustered up the courage to say, “I’m so glad! We thought you were annoyed with us!” One of them replied, “Well, we’re Russian. We cheer up after a couple of shots of vodka.”

Germany, China 2000s

In the early 2000s, I was part of a delegation to ride the maglev test track in Bremen, Germany. Transrapid was a collaboration between German and Chinese engineers – although, to hear the latter tell it, they had somehow adopted maglev technology and made it their own (the Germans seethed quietly and politely).

It was a 20-mile test track. After a few minutes, the train reached 100 kph, then promptly began to decelerate, since it was such a short distance. But an amazing smooth ride. It was also fascinating during the trip to see all these little German cobblestoned hamlets, each with their own special beer.

We also attended information sessions in Berlin. By the end of the Germany trip, my guts could not face another schnitzel or any other authentic heavy German food. It was also white asparagus season, so we’d eaten that for what seemed every meal as well. The word for white asparagus in German is “spargel.” I had heard the word so much that at one point I got into a cab and asked, “Spargel ze English?” instead of “Sprecken ze English?” The cab driver did not look amused. But then, it was hard to tell with the Germans.

We then went to Pudong [in Shanghai], which was still very much not modern then. They were planning to build an initial (it would eventually be the only) leg of maglev there. Kevin, the media relations guy who arranged the trip, had booked a room at the Holiday Inn. At that time and place, it was akin to a five-star hotel. I was supposed to stay in some other hotel, which I had thought I’d booked weeks in advance (these were the days before booking apps of any sort). When I got to the hotel, however, the young woman at the front desk maintained stoutly that my name was not to be found anywhere and that there were no rooms (the hotel looked pretty deserted).

In despair, I called Kevin and asked to crash with him. I took a cab to the Holiday Inn, where he met me at the bar. I excused myself to go to the restroom. When I returned, he had a quizzical look on his face. It turns out that the minute I’d left, many young Chinese woman came flocking up to him. I guess they were hoping a Western man could get them out of the country and that they could “steal” him from me.

A cover band began playing on the stage of the “Irish” bar. It consisted of all young Chinese women either lip-syncing or otherwise eerily and perfectly imitating American performers of pop songs. A couple of them descended to dance among the tables of tourists. I suppose they were trying to be seductive, but the looks on their faces as they gyrated and shimmied were of pure boredom, resignation or grimness.

Everywhere I went, walking with the men of the delegation, I received suspicious, disapproving, hostile or jealous stares from the locals. They would sometimes approach me and yell at me in Mandarin. I tried to learn the phrase for “I’m American,” but my pronunciation was so atrocious that they thought I was merely slow-witted, and would yell at me even slower and louder.

However, it was exciting to see the seeds of what would be a comprehensive high-speed rail system criss-crossing China, albeit most of the rest was NOT maglev.

Cho [right] on the Rion-Antirion Bridge in Greece.
Photo courtesy Aileen Cho

United Arab Emirates, 2000s

Traveling in the Middle East during the early 2000s was an interesting experience for an Asian American female ENR editor. The United Arab Emirates was still transitioning from an oil-dependent economy into a new built environment emphasizing tourism and international business. While it was fascinating to see and report on new tracks, bridges and buildings rising out of the bleak desert, I was painfully self-conscious of every move. Don’t cross my legs during an interview, because showing the bottoms of the feet was a faux pas. Don’t wear anything too “revealing.” Bite your tongue when a native just pushes ahead of you in line or otherwise is totally rude.

I toured the massive Abu Dhabi airport project that was just starting—a huge forest of piles rising out of the ground. A whole group of American airport construction talent had been recruited by Ginger Evans [ENR’s first female Award of Excellence winner], then of Parsons, to temporarily relocate their families to the UAE.

Ginger and I split a hotel room to save money. It also saved me in other ways, because one evening I sat at the small hotel bar to have a drink. Interestingly, all the servers and bartenders were Asian women. They were educated, well-spoken, multilingual women who were just there to make a lot of money, then go back to China, the Philippines, etc.

I was chatting happily with them when a native dude, clad in the traditional white robe and sandals, sauntered up to the bar. My newfound friends cast me warning looks. The dude, cigarette hanging from his mouth, imperiously told them to buy me a drink. Cue increased alarm on their faces. I thanked him, emphatically stated that I was just there on business to write about the UAE’s amazing construction activity.

Impatiently, he interrupted: “I want to go to your room. How much?”

I—conservatively clad, by the way—had to remind myself that I was in HIS world and he could probably get me thrown in jail.

I forced a smile and told him I was flattered, but that I wasn’t there for that. He repeated his command. I finally said, truthfully, that I was sharing the room with another woman, a VIP from an engineering firm, and that she was probably there or would be there.

Close call.