Port of Qingdao Is No Longer China’s ‘Sin City’
The article on Qingdao brought back memories of the liberty days I had spent there in 1945 when it was known as Tsingtao.
The people were very friendly, and the surprise was the quality of the beer, which still is ranked very highly. My ship, the USS Hydrus, had been in the Philippines just prior, and there was hardly any diversity in the entertainment due to the war damages.
We also visited Tianjian, then known as Tientsin, but due to the lack of port facilities had to limit liberty to 10% of the Port Watch, I being one of the lucky ones to go.
By comparison, Tianjian was a tremendous city, with people from many countries, somehow living then through the war. In 1945, one could hear the sound of remote firing of weapons, which were attributed to fighting between the Nationalists and the Bandits (an expression used in Tianjian for the Communist troops).
Please keep up your interesting articles on the Pacific Rim.
DANIEL J. LOVE
Hacienda Heights
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