An acquaintance returned from a trip to China recently. "How were your flights?" I asked. "Smooth as silk," he said, and I was reminded of how my flights to the land of the Great Wall in 1995 were anything but smooth. Let's check my travel journal for proof.My first plane landed in Denver. And it sat, and it sat, and it sat. Mechanical problems. By the time we departed for Los Angeles five hours late, it was obvious I would miss the following leg to Japan. However, I was told not to concern myself, that the airline would do all the worrying, that I wouldn't miss my flight. But I did the math and since we were taking off from Denver one hour before my LA-Tokyo flight was due to leave, well ... My real concern was that my host in China, Mr. Hu Zong Feng (Hoover), would be waiting for me at the Beijing airport at our originally scheduled time. I had no way to contact Hoover. He was taking the slow train from his home in Xian to Beijing, a 20-hour ride. Poor guy. He was going to be as lost as I was. I demanded that United Airlines help me contact Hoover. They were reluctant. I demanded in LA that they FAX Beijing. "Can't do that, sir!" I demanded they call Beijing. "Can't do that, sir!" Eventually, a supervisor sent an electronic message to Beijing airport with no assurance it would ever arrive.After the unscheduled overnight, I learned the electronic message was never acknowledged. So, I did not know if Hoover would be at the airport in Beijing to great me. If not, I'd be arriving at 10 p.m. in a country whose language I didn't read or speak, without knowing which hotel Hoover had booked, and not knowing another living soul there. So the question was: Is it possible to get lost in a country of 1.25 billion people? This was a big trip for me, considering I had received a kidney transplant just three years earlier. This story is a mere token of the unusual number of stresses I encountered on the trip. Yet, my philosophy is that I'd rather be challenged by the disruptions of travel than to remain forever in the safety of a routine life.The leg to Japan was tolerable because a sympathetic attendant found a place in first class for me. Leg room. The best food. Attention to my self-pity. However, another two-hour delay awaited me for the final leg to Beijing. By then, I couldn't imagine where Hoover was or what he would be thinking. I was going to need to use my survival skills, big time!From my journal: "Touchdown at 22:30, 50 hours from Sioux Falls. Smooth through customs and immigration. Military personnel checking us never asked for any of the papers I was required to bring. But where's Hoover? Searched the entire facility, not knowing what Hoover looks like. But I'm a tall American. He can spot me, right?"I'm soon outside the exit doors where there are 100 or so people waiting behind a low fence. They all have hand-printed signs with the name of the person they are meeting. With no choice but to join the ritual, I begin the search for my name on one of the signs, bending over to read each carefully. None were in English. Some of the people suppressed laughs."I was nearly at the end of my hunt when two lines of lettering on a 5x7-inch piece of worn paper caught my eye. One line read: "Frederic Manfred". And below my misspelled name was the word "Welcome". I had found Hoover. Big smiles and a big hug between an extremely thankful American and his new Chinese friend."