After receiving the embroidered silk ball and Zhuang brocade bag which represent friendship and love in Zhuang Nationality of China, Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek started to give a lecture on "Conformational Diseases" (Diseases caused by conformational change of protein) in the auditorium of Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities. Protein conformation refers to the characteristic 3-dimensional shape of a protein.

Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek, graduated at Rochester University in 1943 with the diploma of Bachelor of Science (in biophysics), graduated at Harvard Medical School in 1946 with Master's degree(in medicine), graduated at California Institute of Technology in 1948 with postdoctorate (in biochemistry). He used to be the head of laboratories for virological and neurological research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and in Human Subject Committee of the Harvard School of Public Health in America from 1948 to 1997. He also carried out studies on hemorrhagic fever, polio vaccine, senile dementia(dementia is defined as a global impairment of intellect, personality and memory without impairment of consciousness, specific areas of the brain start to degenerate in a specific order), mycotoxin, HIV/AIDS, etc., during the same period of time. He retired in February 1997 from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.  Since 1998, he has been a visiting professor and/or researcher of many world-renowned universities in Europe, Asia and the world as a whole. And, he also has had part-time jobs in Federation of American Scientists(FAS) and in other 50 plus international federations/associations and committees. He had been employed as a foreign member by the Virological Group of Chinese Medical Association since 1986. Now, Mr. Gajdusek is the Chairman of the Board of Science Committee of Sino-US International Scientific Research Center.

Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek can speak in 14 languages, incl. English, German, French, Spainish, Russian, Dutch, Indonesian, Papuan, Micronesian, etc., for his special growing-up  environment,  his life experiences and his indigenous language talent. His father, Karl Gajdusek, was a Slovak farm boy from a small village near Senica, who had left home as an adolescent youth to emigrate to America before World War I, alone and without speaking English, to become a butcher in the immigrant communities of Yonkers, where he met and married Gajdusek's mother, Ottilia Dobroczki. Gajdusek's maternal parents had also come, each alone, as youthful immigrants from Debrecen, Hungary to America. In this way, you can also see the US is really a melting pot of races, cultures, customs, etc., of the world. This lecture is given in American-English. 

http://www.omnimag.com/archives/interviews/gajdusek.html

After around one hour's interpretation for Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek's lecture, Mr. Gajdusek entered the second part of his lecture. In this part of his lecture, I got a block in my mind just like I had a "cerebral embolism" or I was infected by mind-destroying virus-----a lot of microbiological, biological and medical terms and expertise were mentioned and involved, and, around one-third of them I had never heard of before! If to say that the terms like gene, cell, plasmid, nucleation, molecule, bacteria, protein, pathogen, prion, amyloidosis, amino acid, nucleotide, polypeptide, chromosome, dyeing tissue, infectious tissue, DNA and RNA (genetic material) I still could make do with for a while, then, the further explanation on the pathologies of some diseases involving these terms, concerned enlarged photos taken through electronic microscope and concerned lab experimental data and charts just completely made me blue. This had exerted great negative impact on my interpretation. Even worse, as a simultaneous  interpreter, I had no chance to ask any questions at all (later I found out it was a non-stop lectuer)! Standing on the platform, for the first time in my interpretation career, I felt so embarrassed and guilty to the audience with eager eyes.  And, for the first time in my life, how I wish I were a medical staff myself!

What a relief! The harangue finished after 3 hours' running! After the lecture, the audience presented their respect to Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek in different ways, either asking for his signatures, or taking photos with him, or asking questions they didn't understand well while listening to his lecture; futhermore, some doctors and researchers expressed their cordial admiration to his arduous and persevering research work in Papua New Guinea and other countries and regions of the world.

Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek was listening to the questions posed by the medical staff, teachers and students after giving the lecture. He started his lecture with: look at the window glass, the wood made of this desk, etc., all these will become powder-like material after 50 years or longer. We human being also, when one is 55 to 60 years old, some people are even earlier, say, 50, the protein in his body which is one of the principal components of cell will begin to become starch-like material. The older we are, the more that starch-like material we have. The disease caused by the deposits of the starch-like material (amyloid protein/tangles) is called amyloidosis. In definition, amyloidosis is: a group of diseases in which one or more organ systems in the body accumulate deposits of abnormal proteins. Conformational disease is a new concept which embraces all of the amyloidosis as well as a large number of other chronic disorders caused by a related B-pleating [protein structure is the sequence of amino acids that bond to form the initial chain. Each amino acid is bonded to the next one in the chain by a covalent bond specifically called a peptide bond. In general, a long chain of amino acids is called a polypeptide.The secondary level of structure is the folding (beta pleating) or coiling(alpha helices) of amino acids bonding together.] and fibrilization of host proteins to form inert deposits within or outside the cells, the older we are, the more amyloid deposits we have...

The infectious amyloid nucleants causing Kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease(CJD) and its GSS and variant-CJD and FFI variants and the animal diseases scrapie of sheep and goats, bovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE) in cattle and exotic zoo bovines... All these are called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies(TSEs), they have caused huge economic losses in Europe and America in the past two decades and pose a real threat to our food and biotech industry though we have been continuing to combat against its spread. Take an example, in England, cows have gotten it in epidemic numbers. Farmers there have had to destroy more than a million cows affected with or suspected of having BSE, with devastating effects on the beef industry since 1986. The total loss of it accumulates to over 40 million USD. Thus, we have both a new way of looking at old diseases and new diseases to confront, even the senile dementia and the huge threat of Alzheimer's disease (a progressive senile dementia) before us, particularly here in China, are cerebral amyloidosis, or conformational diseases. 

The part of his lecture on introducing his research work in Papua New Guinea Irlands (nowadays, it  is a country near Australia) in 1950s and 1960s on how he had discovered the Slow Virus (Prion/Infectious Protein/Protein Virus) #1 "Kuru" which was at last identified as the origin of Kuru disease had attracted great attention of the audience. He said, the Kuru disease was akin to the Mad Cow Disease(BSE), it was an infectious disease but was different from conventional infectious diseases cause there was no symptoms like inflammation, fever, etc. at its onset while these symptoms manifested in other conventional infectious diseases, but Kuru was fatal cause the brain tissue of the patient was "eaten out" bit by bit by the disease and the contracted person would die after months. it was originated from an indigenous funeral ritual  "cannibalism"  in those isolated islands. People living there ate the dead bodies of their relatives and some of them (esp. women and children) contracted the disease by doing that, that is to say, Kuru was caused by a virus-like organism conveyed by mouth from dead persons to live persons. In the highlands where the Fore (a cannibal tribe of the Highlands in Neolithic/New Stone Age)  lived, water boiled at only 95 degrees, the meat was undercooked, in another word, the cooking process hadn't destroyed the virus-like agent. He said, "Now it is known that the infectious amyloid nucleants causes kuru disease, and, different from conventional viruses, kuru slow virus doesn't contain DNA and RNA and it is more heat-resistant than conventional viruses. Besides, it can have a very prolonged incubation period though most of the patients will die within one year after the first symptom appears. Kuru disease causes a chronic progressive degeneration of the central nervous system."  Kuru occurred in the Papua New Guinea Highlands and first observed in the early 20^th century, the peak of incidence rate and mortality rate of kuru was in 1957 and the rates declined gradually since the early of 1960s after the cannibalism ritual was abolished. He said, in 1959, some resemblance between Kuru and a disease called scrapie in sheep (the sheep is extremely itching and scrapes off its wool after developing this disease) was found. There were many similarities in the pathologies of affected sheep brain tissue and Kuru affected brain tissue. Therefore, he took frozen brain samples from deceased Kuru victims to the States. He prepared suspensions from the brain tissue and injected them into chimpanzees. It took nearly three years, but the chimps began to develop a disease which was extraordinarily Kuru-like. It had to be a virus, he thought, but not just any virus ----- Prof. Gajdusek called it a 'slow virus', because it took so long for the symptoms to develop, in another word, years will elapse from the infection to the onset of the disease, the virus can affect the body as slowly as cancer does. Besides, he introduced that, when he was in Papua New Guinea for research, New Guinea was still a raw land, remarkably untamed, the people there lived on fishing and hunting. There was no poultry, no dog and cat but wild animals like boar(there was a photo projected by an overhead to a big screen showing that people were massaging the breast of a boar and discharging its blood). It was him who brought there the first piece of metal and built up the first simple hospital with the help of local people. The children there were born polyglots cause they lived in the islands with many ethnic groups living together. Since 1960s, he had adopted a lot of sons and daughters there and supported them to schools(another photo was illustrated that some children shown in it had been adopted by him who eventually became professional persons in different fields) and, one of his sons had obtained the degree of Ph.D and later became the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. Cannibalism ritual among the Fore people was put to a stop as a sequel to his discovering on the origin of kuru. The disease died out and kuru is now a history. At last, he said, still around 400 similar isolated places were needed to be investigated in the world at present. Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for his work on kuru (according to available official data) though he told us in the first symposium that he won the Prize for discovering the mechanism of the origin and dissemination of measles. He said, kuru is only #1 slow virus among the series of slow viruses he discovered. Hearing this, I talked to myself: No wonder he was crowned as "a virus hunter" , "the grandfather of 'slow virus' " and "the founder of pre-senile dementia" , etc. by people. He had done so much work on those areas that the Prize just might not be awarded for only single one of his discoveries!  Anyhow, in my impression, Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek is a doctor(physician) and a medical scientist with rich knowledge, rigorous thinking, excellent eloquence, strong character and a sense of humour.

Question1(a medical student): If there aren't similar symptoms appearing on a kuru patient like those appearing in patients with conventional infectious diseases, how can people find out they have contracted kuru?

Answer(Gajdusek): A child in Papua New Guinea knew he had contracted kuru faster than his parents cause he felt his capability in doing things is reducing. For example, he can cut down 1000 trees a day before, now he can only cut down 100.(No specific/unambiguous symptoms which could avoid misdiagnosis in clinical situation were described. I think it is all because of the characteristics of the lecture.)

Question2(a medical student): Could you tell me how to achieve the success as what you have achieved?

Answer(Gajdusek): Persevering in what you are persuing.

Question3(a biochemical Prof.): Just now in the lecture you said kuru slow virus doesn't carry DNA and RNA. If kuru slow virus doesn't carry DNA and RNA, how does it make self-copy(reproduction)? Does the virus attack the spinal liquid/cord?

Answer(Gajdusek): Yes, Kuru doesn't carry DNA and RNA, while other conventional viruses carry very beautiful DNA and RNA. Kuru slow virus makes self-copy by nucleation. The virus normally infests the brain and, to the brain stem furthest, it little attacks the spinal liquid.

Answer(Gajdusek): In the US, no discrimination. The HIV infected persons can continue to do what they used to do or what they like to do. How the people there treated the virus carriers? you can find the answer in details by reading the book titled "being positive" . The propagation of the knowledge concerning preventing and controlling AIDS, the ways of its transmission and how to treat HIV infected persons, etc., is neither done by doctors nor by the government, but by communities.  A living community normally prints brochures and distributes them to the residents. The HIV can't be transmitted by kiss, spit, sleeping together with infected person in the same bed, wrestling with infected schoolboy (without scratched wound in both skins), etc., it can only be transmitted by blood, sex and pregnant woman or breast-feeding mother to the fetus or baby. Like blood transfusion by using contaminated blood from a blood bank, vein injection with polluted syringe, sex intercourse with infected person, etc., those are all liable to be transmitted. But for transmitting from skin wound, the white blood cell of a HIV carrier can only survive for half a minute when blood was splashed on your skin. Your intact and healthy skin can protect you from being infected. Now the transmission rate of mother-child is reducing by mother taking certain anti-HIV drugs during pregnancy and after delivering the baby, and, the newly-born baby should also be offered a certain anti-HIV drug. It means most of the babies will be healthy after being delivered by the infected mothers. 

Question5(NNTV): Could you tell us what are most effective drugs for treating HIV infected persons at present in the world?

Answer(Gajdusek): There are thousands of anti-HIV drugs under testing in laboratories at persent, but only several are put into market which are considered suitable and effective for reducing the amount of HIV virus in the infected person's blood.  Actually I don't think using the word "treatment" is appropriate. I have seen the word used in some Chinese newspapers in English version. No HIV infected person has been cured till now by any treatment. AIDS had been observed in 1980s by some American doctors on a patient in whom the infections could never be cured completely, once one infection in one part of his/her body was cured, another infection would appeared in another part of the body.  At last, most of the AIDS patients would die of Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia {Prof. explained to me: Pneumocystis Carinii is a kind of protozoa (single-cell parasite), like our hair lice}. Speaking of anti-HIV drugs and therapy, cocktail therapy is the most popular one at present, it is a combination of 3-4 drugs. I don't tell you the names of the drugs, cause (there is) always the translation problem(look at me, laugh), it may has one name in Japan but the other name in China, or in another country of the world. The drugs can reduce the amount of HIV rivus in an infected person, therefore it can prolong the incubation period of a HIV virus carrier who has no AIDS symptom, just like a normal person and, can prolong the lifetime of an AIDS patient whose first symptom has appeared.

Note: 1) Above answers narrated by Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek are summarized by me according to my memory. Some of them maybe not the original words or phrases, but the key words like "capability reducing, nucleation, brain stem, etc." sure are. 2) By the way, as most of us know, the ex-US president Ronald Reagan has Alzheimer's disease. He can no longer remember that he used to be the President and is incapable of caring for himself or conducting a coherent conversation. 3) Actually, the amount of HIV infected persons in Guangxi reached 4000 plus up to Nov. 2002 according to available data from media.

Above shows that Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek was having an informal discussion with the doctors in Pediatrics Section of the Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities. Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek was explaining the origin and dissemination of Cerebral Cysticercosis (measles) and Cysticercosis Cellulosae (also called taeniasis).

He said, the person who got the taeniasis, normally had a 2m- long parasitic taenia(tape worm) lodging in his intestine. He explained that Cysticercosis is the most common parasitic disease in the world affecting the central nervous system. It is caused by the larval stage of taenia solium, the pork tape worm. Man is normally the definitive host of taenia solium and becomes infected by eating inadequately cooked(unwell-done/undercooked) pork containing embryos. These embryos develop into the adult tape worm in the intestine. The gravid proglottids(of  taenia) are passed in the stool liberating viable eggs which are usually eaten by pigs as the intermediate host. The ova develop into embryos or oncospheres in the pig's stomach and penetrate the intestinal mucosa to lodge in muscle, brain, eye and other tissues. The cycle is complete when man eats pork containing the embryos. "One of the common symptoms of measles is Migraine and Streptomycin is used popularly in treating measles, in combination with another drug."  He added.

The above sketch was drawn by Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek to explain the above-mentioned cycle----the origin and dissemination of Cysticercosis(measles)-----from pig to man, and then from man to pig, and...

Cerebral cysticercosis is prevalent throughout the world. Epilepsy, encephalopathy and hydrocephalus are the main clinical manifestations of it. Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek said, "We needed surgical treatment for it before, but now it can be well-controlled by drugs. The CT scan was considered to be positive for the diagnosis of cerebral cysticercosis." " In the US, 10%-20% medical professors and students have this parasite in their brain, but not develop into a disease yet." He added.

Question:(neurosurgeon): Do you know the pathogenesis/cause/origin of primary epilepsy? (not secondary epilepsy, the asker stressed)

Answer(Gajdusek): No one knows it yet. The most common symptom of epilepsy is convulsion. Convulsion often occurs in young children as a result of a childhood disease. Often an infant or a young child, experiences the convulsion as it is for the caregiver who observes it, but it doesn't represent that he has got eiplepsy.

In TCM Section, the doctors were displaying traditional Chinese medical therapy--- "eyes acupuncture" in treating a hemiplegia patient  to Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek (altogether about 30 needles were inserted in different acupuncture points in various angles around both eyes of the patient). The patient had a stroke around 20 days ago and his blood pressure/tension was 190 over 100 when he was sent to the hospital. The left side of his body was completely paralytic. After days of being acupunctured, he could move his left leg within a certain range. At the day we were there, the patient could even raise his left leg to a certain height. 

While walking out towards the gate of the Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities, after several discussions with the doctors in Pediatrics Section, Neurology Section, Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) Section, Infectious Diseases Building, etc., I talked to myself: No wonder Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek had 5 secretaries and all of them have obtained postdoctorates! The terminologies like kuru, measles, convulsions (fits/seizures), epilepsy, thalassemia, hemophilia, pre-senile dementia, stroke, paralysis, hemiplegia, paraplegia, hysteria, pathology, retrovirus, neurosurgery, neuroanatomy, migraine, streptomycin, iodine, alcohol, formalin, etc. were jamming in my mind, while others like some western medicines written in English but from Latin or Greek language, I'm still not sure what their Chinese names are until today.  Have all of his secretaries graduated from medical school or medical Dept. of a university? I wonder.

Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek was listening to a brief introduction to traditional Chinese herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medical therapies¡¡like acupuncture, heated medical ramie thread moxibustion, massage and so on which were adopted in clinical treatment and/or developed by Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities in a symposium. The traditional Chinese medicine "Haierfu Oral Liquids" which was developed through scientific research and produced by this college was specially recommended by a professor-ranked researcher for its distinguished treating effect on alleviating the suffering or relieving the discomfort caused by heavy metal poisoning like haematuria, albuminuria, etc. and on reducing the content of fluorine in the blood of a fluorine poisoning (fluorosis) person by promoting the excretion of heavy metal elements like mercury(Hg),arsenic(As), etc. and the element of fluorine2(F2) from a person, in other words, It can rectify the metabolic disorders of Ca, P and Mg of a body, therefore can protect one's liver and kidney, stimulate the circulation of one's blood and cause the relax of one's muscles and joints. In a word, it is an enviromental protection product for the prevention and  treatment of heavy metal poisoning and fluorine poisoning. It esp. benefits the mineral industrial workers who work in the areas with excessive/high contents of these elements in ores, coal, clay and water and benefits the citizens who live in an environment polluted by these poisonous elements for quite a long time. Heavy metal poisoning and fluorine poisoning are endemics in Guangxi, Guizhou and other provinces of southwest China. The Oral Liquids is prepared in accordance with a certain traditional Chinese prescription (incl. honeysuckle vine, etc.) but is purified and refined by modern biochemical methods.

Haierfu Oral Liquids is the first product of this kind in China and there is no import and/or export of similar products in this line in China. It was invited to be introduced and displayed in the 20th International Fluorine Academic Research Conference held in 1994 in Beijing, China,  the 21th International Fluorine Academic Research Conference held in 1996 in Budapest, Hungary and the 5th International Arsenic Poisoning Academic Research Conference held in 2002 in San Diego, USA. Overall, it has attracted great attention of medical and pharmaceutical experts from both home and abroad.

Summary of Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek's response: Firstly, speaking of herbal medicine, one should learn botany at first, make sure what are the exact names and which species they belong to, for the concerned plants. Once I was in a village of a foreign country, a woman told me the names of several plants, while in another village, I was told that they were in other names. Secondly, when you find 3 kinds of herbs which are effective in treating a certain disease, you should make comparison, take more herbs which belong to those 3 species of herbs respectively to compare their effects of treatment with the three original herbs, at last, you'll find out which ones are most effective. I know there are 843 kinds of mosquitoes in the high mountains of Yunnan province of China, only 9 of them are responsible for the transmission of malaria (a disease caused by a tiny parasite carried by mosquitoes).  Whereas, as far as I know, some Chinese doctors don't know how many species of mosquitoes are living in Yunnan high mountains, let alone telling out how many species of them are responsible for a certain disease, though they are working in the field of epidemiology ! Last but not least, you should do concerned tests in animals and make close observation both on the symptoms of the animals and on the analysis data in laboratory, to see whether the poisoning content in the blood is reduced or not after aperiod of time. If you want to do a business with American companies, presenting the lab data is very important. Till now, I haven't seen a patient in the US who died of fluorosis.  In the States, the utilities add fluoride (fluorine compound) into water supplies to prevent dental cavities, therefore the fluorine intaking and containing amount of an average American must be higher than an average Chinese. If you want to do business with American companies, you have to convince them that your medicine has a market in the States. (I reminded him whisperily that the total average intake of the mineral workers in some areas of Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and other southwest China provinces is much higher than that added in their drinking water, therefore it has caused endemic here.) If the mineral workers in this province and nearby provinces have intaked excessive fluorine and resulted in fluorosis, the medicine may have a local market here. He added.

(right: Mr. Li, the principal of Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities)

During our stay in Baise city, we had visited the Baise Uprising Monument, the site of the Headquarter of the Seventh Red Army, the site of the Youjiang Workers' and Peasants' Democratic Government (All these are historical sites under top national protection), Baise Nationalities Museum, Baise Water Conservancy Center (Cheng Bi Reservoir/Lake) and had a glimpse at the night life of local people. Above shows that the local Zhuang people were singing Zhuang songs together or in antiphonal style between groups in a central square of Baise city at night. According to my observation, most of them were mid-age or retired people. Baise is around 230km northwest of Nanning, around 3.5 hours' drive. The Nanning-Baise Grade 2 Highway and the Tianyang Airport (in Tianyang county of Baise Prefecture) are under construction at present. According to statistics, only in 1999, more than 400,000 tourists had visited Baise, on tours of "Following in Deng Xiaoping's Footsteps."

While visiting Cheng Bi Reservoir, we were told that the project for building another bigger water control hub was undergoing. Baise Water Control Project was 22 km away from Baise city at the upper reach of Youjiang River. It is a comprehensive project mainly for flood-control along with other benefits such as power generation, shipping, and water supply. The reservoir will have a storage capacity of 5.6 billion cubic meters with 1.64 billion cubic meters of flood-control capacity. Its dam/dyke will be 130 meters high. Following its completion, flood-control ability in Nanning city, the capital of Guangxi, will be improved to resist 50-year flood.

(right: Mr. Wei, the director of Foreign Affairs Office of Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities)

In front of Baise Millennium Belfry. Standing there, I could imagine the city was resounding with tolls of the bell at the moment of the coming of 2000. 

Baise prefecture has rich resources of bauxite, respectively distributed in Pingguo, Tiandong, Tianyang, Debao, Jingxi and Napo counties etc., indicating reliable supply of raw materials. As the central city on the edge of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces as well as the political, economic and cultural center of Baise Prefecture, Baise City, located in the west of Guangxi, situated along the Youjiang river, is a materials distributing center for the prefecture and surrounding areas.

Alumina Oxide Project of Baise Yinhai Aluminium Co. Ltd. £¨Baise Yinhai Aluminium Co. Ltd.)

The scattered pictures of my different kinds of memory is a treasurable component of my life.  Above are written as follows:

To lisa        In Memory of a fascinating trip from Nanning to Baise and back ---- my first to this part of China.        To visit me in Europe. D. Carleton Gajdusek Nanning, 10 December 2002

I introduced to Prof. D. Carleton Gajdusek that: China has a huge population of 1.3 billion people. This population is a composition of Han Chinese and 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. Han Chinese made up 92% of the population while the 55 ethnic minorities composed 8% of the rest. Each ethnic minority group has his own unique racial, social, culture and econmic background. There are 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities directly under the central government and 2 special administrative regions (HongKong, Macao) in China. Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is located in southern China. It is bordered by Yunnan Province to the west, Guizhou to the north, Hunan to the northeast, and Guangdong to the southeast, and by Vietnam and the Beibu Bay to the southwest. Guangxi is a coastal province, along the Nanning-Beihai Expressway, one can arrive the beautiful coastal city with fascinating beach-----Beihai, in around 2 hours' drive. Guangxi occupies a land of around 236 thousand sq. km, accounting for 2.5% of the nation's total and ranking ninth among all the provinces. The total population in Guangxi is around 47 million, in which, Han people occupies around 62%, Zhuang people occupies around 33%. The Zhuangs in Guangxi accounts for around 91% of the total in China. The earliest human being found in the historical records in Guangxi was called Baiyue, dating back to the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic Age) fifty thousand years ago. As the descendants of Baiyue, the Zhuang nationality was the first nationality inhabited in Guangxi. Guangxi, being called "Gui" for short was named after Guilin Prefecture established in Qin Dynasty. The People's Government of Guangxi Province was founded in 1950 after the liberation, and, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was established in l958, approved by the State Council. There are people from 12 nationalities inhabiting in Guangxi, incl. Zhuang, Han, Yao, Miao, Dong, Yi, etc., and, 11 of the 12 nationalities inhabiting in Baise Prefecture. Guangxi is divided into 7 administrative prefectures. There are many rugged mountains all around Guangxi. In the middle part of it, there are hills and plains. The hilly land occupies 85 percent of the area while the plain only occupies 15 percent. The plains in Youjiang and Hongshui River are much larger than that of the others. Zhujiang (Pearl River, its seaport and delta region is in Guangdong province) flows all the region from the west to the east, and, it has so many minor aspects, Youjiang, Zuojiang(Left River), Yongjiang River and Hongshui River are 4 major minor aspects, and, among them, Youjiang is the longest one. Guangxi is of the moist monsoon climate in subtropics. It abounds in mineral resources, agricultural products and byproducts, fruits and, seafood, etc. Picturesque rocky hills, spires of bizarre proportions, strangely shaped caves, and all manner of stalactites and stalagmites are to be seen in many different parts of this region. The Nanningers speak in Nanning-accent Cantonese and the Baisers speak in Zhuang language besides Mandarin(the official language in China).

China is changing and readjusting itself constantly to keep in step with the constant change and readjustment of the world since the inception of the economic reform in the early 1980s.  We are in the process of reforming ourself, freeing ourself from the rigid planned economy and in the same time establishing and improving a socialist market economy. The reform of the economic system is bound to involve the readjustment in some foreign investment policies, the goal of which is to accelerate links with the usual international practices. And, China is in the process of changing from an industrial society to a service and information society.

On top of above, during our stay in Baise city, we were told by the principal that there were over 200,000 people inhabiting in Baise city and altogether over 3,000,000 people living in Baise Prefecture.

In return, Prof. D.Carleton.Gajdusek introduced me sth. about the Hmong(miao) Nationality in the US. He said, most of the Hmongs came from China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, etc. as refugees and immigrants in the first half of 20th century. They distributed widely in the US. They kept their customs in the early beginning, esp. in marriages and funerals. They buried the body of a deceased relative underneath the ground of their house and cried loudly overnight, disturbing the neighborhood. Later they were told that some of the customs were against the law and those customs were therefore ceased gradually. After decades, some Hmongs had settled down permanently and lived a rather good life, they began to think about looking for other Mhongs in the US. They paid for the radio station for broadcasting the Ads for looking for Mhongs, therefore, an American(non-Mhong) radio listener could hear an announcement in Mhong language which he never understood, in a special channel and a specific time of a day. But the Mhongs got connection bit by bit in this way, and more recently, their offsprings used internet for that purpose, that showed more efficient and at the end, they held a huge get-together party in a certain place of the US.

By the way, during the intensive five-day tour, besides visiting places, participating in informal meetings, symposiums and academic lectures, Prof. D.C.Gajdusek had also told me some stories about his childhood, his adopted children and his adventures in Truk of Micronesia, Southwest of China and all around the world, incl. stories on how he entered China from Tibet in 1947 on a camelback from Kazakhstan/Kazakstan. "I had no language problem with local people cause I spoke the same language with them while other 5 foreign doctors were arrested by Guomindang soldiers, at last they were rescued by Gongchandang soldiers..."  he introduced it with great pride; also, stories on his endeavor in 1980s for helping Chinese talents for their further study abroad by contacting concerned embassies of European developed countries and North America in Beijing. He introduced that, in 1980s, European developed countries and North America only accepted postgraduates from all around the world for further study, many Chinese he and his colleagues thought were qualified in both knowledge and ability hadn't got the proper diploma to certify themselves because the Cultural Revolution(1960s-1970s) in China had deterred not only its economic system but also its educational system. He had to collaborate with some Chinese scientists and/or academists to issue special certificates with their signatures for these talents to facilitate their visa-getting formalities in concerned embassies; stories on his driving a bus voluntarily in southwest China last year for around 2 hours cause the driver had been drunk or terribly sick; stories as to how he found the way by himself and asked the help of local passers-by to get to the destinations while the appointed people missed to pick him up at two of Chinese airports where his fleights landed; stories concerning his childhood as to how he imitated the behavior of Gypsy children who normally runned through the village nakedly and sneaked into the field to break the stem of locally growing opium poppy to suck the liquid inside; introductions to his friends in Chinese Academic Circle, incl.: Ms. Chen, a 92-year-old pediatrician who wrote the first pediatrics textbook in New China; the principal of Fudan University and her husband and, the president of Chinese Academy of Sciences who always complained about "brain drain" in 1980s and 1990s in China while sending all his three children abroad for study and later, he explained that, his children could serve their motherland better after coming back from abroad on completing their advanced study; his friend Mr. Hong, a virologist and academist in Chinese Bio-engineering Research Institute who was in-and-out hospital frequently for suffering from bronchitis while always cared about where and how Prof. Gajdusek was, etc.; stories on how he organized dozens of his adopted children to fly from Papua New Guinea to the US in 1990s and how one of the flights was forced landing in the mid-way by a big snow storm and the layover in the desert lasted for several days; how they had grow up and how they got married later; secrects on how to get original versions of well-known Chinese classical literature works, e.g., The Dream of the Red Chamber, The Romance of the Western Chamber, etc. Besides, he had also presented me a newly-released book titled "Hemingway in His Own Country" written by his younger brother Robert E. Gajdusek for my kind perusal in the spare time. This book is published by University of Notre Dame Press, it is an outstanding collection of essays from Robert E. Gajdusek. These essays provide a remarkable and fresh look at Hemingway's complex and even intellectual artistry.  As most of us know, Ernest Hemingway is the most influential American writer of the last century and one of the world's ultimate literary travelers. Unfortunately, my spare time was too limited to read through the whole book before I returned it to Prof. D.Carleton Gajdusek reluctantly.  Prof. D.Carleton Gajdusek told me that his brother Robert was a well-known and accomplished poet, critic and Hemingway scholar at present and, many college and university students in Bejing had studied or were studying his poems. From his introduction and stories in episodes, I can roughly conclude that Prof. D.Carleton Gajdusek has known China since 1940s, he was unconventional even when he was a child and his distinguish from the ordinary has been going through the past of his life and will go on. In a word, I really think he is a genius among mundane lives.

An inhabitant of the Okapa area of Papua New Guinea -- "Kuru country".  Now Kuru disease is a history. (The photo was taken by an editor during his stay there)