On the Road to Beijing

Culture Shock 101

It is a little distressing to land in a country where you simply do not "get" any facet of the language. There is no "oh, that looks a little like the word 'customs' " because everything is written in very neat, orderly, incomprehensible characters that bear no resemblance to anything you can parse.  Ditto the loudspeaker announcement, which is allegedly in English, but sounds as if it is uttered from deep within a well by a speaker with a hugely untreated lisp.  We stare at each other and blunder on.  We are rescued by our guide, Yuan, upon whom we will be frighteningly dependent for the next seventeen days.  It turns out that our tour group consists of only ten people which is terrific.  Once again we luck out and they are normal(ish) although three of the 10 are named John which is a little confusing.

Day 1 - On Our Own in Beijing

We were the first to arrive and had an afternoon to "explore" while Yuan sequentially picked up the rest of the gang at the airport.  Driving into Beijing we noted several things: 1) no one was exaggerating about the smog; 2) traffic crawls at 11AM like peak rush hour in LA; 3) there are more high rises (and cranes) than we have ever seen in our lives.  Once installed in our hotel, we confront our free time with some trepidation.  Venturing out on our own will involve taking taxis on streets whose names we can't figure out  and being thrust into millions of people we can't communicate very well with. Oh, what the heck...sure.  Our concierge takes us in hand and locates a taxi.  He instructs the cab to take us to the Temple of Heaven and exhorts us not to pay a yuan more than 40 no matter what.  The cabbie is surly but deposits us at the appropriate point.

We are pretty tired.  Now for the taxi ride back.  First cabbie spots us and licks his lips in delight. 100 yuan. I haggle. Nope, on to taxi 2.  70 yuan. Haggle. Nope. Taxi 3, 50 yuan -- about to haggle when Michael muzzles me and hops into the air-conditioned taxi.  Cabbie is surly but deposits us at hotel.  We congratulate ourselves on our success and collapse.  OK, time for some photos.

One of the buildings in the Temple of Heaven complex.

The Temple of Heaven buildings & grounds are a gathering place to play cards and to take your bird out for some fresh (?) air.

Greeters in traditional costumes at the Temple of Heaven. However the shoes look rather contemporary.

The Temple of Heaven.

The detailed paint work definitely was eye-catching.

Day 2 -May Day

As luck would have it, we arrive in Tiananmen Square on May Day.  Yes, that big Communist holiday.  We reach the Square as do approximately half the 1.5 billion people who inhabit China. Our group forms a flying wedge and negotiates the Square while Yuan briefs us on what all has gone on there-- which is a lot.  Time for a little background on Yuan.  He is around 50.  He was a college professor teaching English when the demonstrations at Tiananmen were going on.  The college was closed and he would go and visit with his students who were protesting in the Square.  On that fateful day (flashback to tank, protester, bad result) Yuan had bicycled in early and was on the fringe of the Square when the tank started rolling.  He points out where he was hidden behind a tree when it all went down.  He is incredibly frank in his discussion of the whole situation.  We are surprised. Normalcy returned and he went back to teaching.  When he applied to study abroad he was told that he was on "the list" and would be denied. Forever.  He is amazingly sanguine about all this and says only that he decided a career change was in order.  We found this time and again when we encountered people who had endured the Cultural Revolution, the massive famine etc.  It was sort of like "well that was then, and this is now, and let's get on with it".  We think this attitude has made China the formidable power it is today.  Much more on that later.

With 1.5 billion people, you need large public toilets, even if they are not always up to "Western" standards.

The People's Congress building in Tiananmen Square (before all of the crowds showed up).

This photo will give you an idea of the level of smog in Beijing.

The colorful flowers and shrubs in Tiananmen Square.

Mao's mausoleum in Tiananmen...

and the large crowds of people queued up to visit Mao's tomb.

The Forbidden City

We won't make this a travel guide so just google Forbidden City if you want the background.  Suffice it to say that it was the residence of Chinese Emperors from the Ming through the Qing dynasties and is vast (800 buildings, 9000 rooms).  For fun, watch The Last Emperor to get the feel.  If you don't have time for that here are some pictures:

The crowds gather at the entrance to the Forbidden City.

The winding canal in the Forbidden City.

The moon bridge over the canal.

The number of figures determined the rank of the residence. These nine figures meant someone very important...

while these seven figures denoted someone of a slightly lower rank.

The crowds stream up to one of the temples.

Examples of the detailed painted woodwork abounded throughout the city.

This child was not enjoying the tour. The downside to the one child policy is that Chinese children who are themselves the offspring of "one-child" parents tend to be indulged and spoiled. (See below: " Chinese Kids are a Train Wreck".)

Detail of one of the roof ornaments depicting the emperor watched over by a dragon.

Turtles play an important part in Chinese folklore...

as do the phoenix and the crane.

The yellow basket weave pattern on this wall was very striking.

This couple had to take a break from the rigors of touring the Forbidden City.

Heading to the Hutong

Yes.  It is still Day 2.  There was no dawdling on this trip.  We find ourselves in rickshaws taking a tour of a hutong.  This is one of the old communities of small houses on alleyways tucked into the megalopolis of Beijing.  They are being torn down at a ferocious rate which is a shame-- kind of.  I mean I wouldn't want to live in one but well, they are a snapshot of the old China.  But New China doesn't appear to be in love with the "Old China" so down they come.  Most houses in the hutong lack indoor plumbing so they have built community bathrooms on every block which, of course, offend my Western sensibilities.  Which brings us to the broader topic of bathrooms or, as they are euphemistically called in China, "happy rooms".  They are anything but.  Yuan explains early on that we women will have to "make the accommodation" to squat toilets (phobia #17).  My "accommodation" involves never utilizing a happy room from the time I leave the hotel until we return at night.  Others are more flexible.  While in the hutong we have lunch with a local family.  I always dread these because I'm never sure what to say to complete strangers whose homes we have invaded.  This proves not to be an issue because they speak no English and we no Chinese.  Everyone nods and smiles.  Easy.  Food is delicious.

This rickshaw driver looks none too lively. Fortunately this was not the group of rickshaw drivers we used.

Views of the hutong as we rode in our rickshaw.

And another view as the couple walks their dog.

The dining room of the house where we had lunch. Our guide Yuan is at the far right.

How Great is the Great Wall? -- Pretty Damn Great

It's Day 3 and we drive and drive and drive to The Great Wall.  I am modestly interested but, you know, I've seen a bazillion pictures and how great can it be.  Staggeringly great!  Yuan, or someone, has paid off the officials by offering to plant trees so the bus is allowed to haul the geriatrics almost to the base of the wall.  Everyone else has to walk about 2 mile to get there -- uphill.  We have avoided my phobia #3 (touristaphobia) by driving a million miles from town but phobia #1 (acrophobia) is in full bloom.  That wall is tall! Really tall!  With a million uneven, badly spaced, unhandrailed steps leading to the far horizon. I foolhardily tell Michael not to mind my slow, haltering steps toward the sky and to go at his own pace.  He zooms off into the distance with nary a backward glance. With Sue and John as my companions, we tackle the Wall and somehow make it to one of the lookout posts.  The views are astounding. As I turn to survey from whence we came my old friend vertigo kicks in. Thank God for Portland John (they each had to be geographically designated) who, while I have been panicky and near retching, has astutely noted that Yuan has found a different descent that minimizes the possibility of death somewhat.  Hot on his footsteps we descend and live to face another day (and yet more daunting steps -- wait until Tibet!)  You'll love the photos.  Spring was just coming into full bloom.  Fall would be super too because they have a lot of Maples.

Before going to the Great Wall we had to make an obligatory stop at a Jade factory.

There were numerous objet d'arte,.....

but we were able to restrain ourselves from buying any of them.

Just prior to arriving at the Great Wall we stopped to plant trees.

We think this was the price to allow our bus to be able to drive all the way up to the Great Wall.

After the tree planting Deirdre stopped to admire the lilacs which were just coming into bloom.

These people had to walk over a mile from the main parking lot just to get to the Great Wall. Planting trees was well worth it.

Most of the group hiked up to the first tower of this section of the Wall.

There was quite a view from this tower, although the smog is still evident.

Two of the group hiked from the first tower up two more sections of the Wall to the top of the ridge.  Oh c'mon Michael, you can say it was you and San Antonio John. Credit where credit is due -- Deirdre

This was the second tower before the top of the ridge.

The Ming Tombs

Lest you think that I am just going to go on and on gushing about how extraordinary and fascinating and unique each site we visited was, let me disabuse you of that notion right now.  I considered the Ming Tombs a big bust.  Why you ask?  Let me count the ways.  After climbing approximately 500 steps at the Great Wall, Yuan assures us that afternoon that the Ming Tomb has maybe 60 steps. Pshaw! Nothing! We begin the descent simultaneously with about 4,000 other people.  The Chinese have a different concept of personal space what with 1.5 billion of them scrunched into one country. They also tend to push and squeeze a bit.  Somewhere around downward step 125 I tip to the fact that Yuan has either duped us, or counts poorly, or has forgotten what Tomb he is at.  Phobia #1 and 1/2 (reverse acrophobia) kicks in as I realize we are descending to the bowels of the earth.  Upon leaving the stairwell we are incorporated in a human mix master which inexorably, and extremely slowly, is wending its way to the famed Ming Tombs.  The tomb itself looks like a Quonset hut constructed of concrete and it is vast.  It seems improbable that phobia #2 (claustrophobia) can occur but it does -- there are THAT many people.  Finally, finally we reach the actual tombs only to discover that they are not actually the tombs but cheesy wooden replicas.  For this we descended?  We move forward as a giant human amoeba to the thrones of the Emperor and Empress which may or may not be real - - who cares by now.  There is money tossed everywhere near the thrones to ensure good luck or perhaps as a bribe so that we may emerge from this subterranean mosh pit in one piece.  Strangely there are only 78 steps to reach the surface. A virtual cake walk.

This explains who was buried in the Ming tomb.

A woman demonstrating the period dress during this time of the Ming dynasty.

The interior of the Ming tomb. With the crowds, the darkness and the fact that we were so far underground, Deirdre needed lots of reassurance.

A recreation of the Ming tombs.

A woman's solid gold headdress removed from the tomb.

From the tombs we went to the Ming Garden. Here Yuan, our guide, points out a feature on the belt of this warrior. 

The statures in the garden were quite something. 

This will give you and idea of the size of these statures. 

Many of them were designed to replace gifts of live animals made to the emperor, which did not survive.

This is a picture of a turtle carrying a tablet with Chinese characters.

The Way We Were

Remember when America had the best railroads in the world?  Was the pioneer in air travel? Remember when we had that incredible interstate system newly minted?  Remember when New York set the standard for sky scrapers? We'd read all about China's astounding growth rate and infrastructure expansion but until you see it you really can't grasp the extent of it.  What inspired this tirade?  Well, a lot of things, but for now we'll discuss our trip on the bullet train from Beijing to Xian. We'll attend to the other issues shortly.

Bright and early we showed up at the station to board the Bullet Train to Xian.  As usual, at the station we were surrounded by enough people to populate a mid-size town in the U.S.  We boarded and everything was on schedule and well organized.  Pretty soon we were cruising at a maximum of 302km (think 200mph) through the Chinese countryside.  And that's not their fastest train.  I mean, other than the speed, there isn't much to say about the train except that the snacks were not very tempting.  However, several other issues were of interest.

There was a display in our train car showing the speed of the train.

Smog: It's Not Just For Beijing

We figured that once we left Beijing things would "clear up".  Nope.  Not very much, if at all.  And this was a five hour train ride.  There were many points where you couldn't see a quarter of a mile over flat farmland.  I may beat up the U.S., but China has some serious work to do and they better get on it.  Everywhere we went with the exception of Tibet and the Yangtze River had very severe smog. Guides said things like: "Oh, the people of Chengdu are not used to seeing the Sun.  They are very happy if they can see it sometimes."  Well, yeah.....

This shows some of the high rise buildings we saw on our way and also shows the smog.  

We Understand You're Growing But.....

Rolling, rolling, rolling. Farms, farms, farms. Farms, farms, WAIT!  Why is there a cluster of eight or ten 30 story buildings in the middle of those soy bean fields?  Why are there no roads leading to it -- oh yes, they are building one now.  But where is the city?  Or a factory?  Who is going to live there?
Yuan points out that development is not really always fully thought out here.  In fact there is such rampant real estate speculation that he is convinced there will be a tremendous crash in the near/mid term future.  He promises to take us to a "ghost city" when we reach Xian.  He's not talking about Caspar.

These building were going up in the middle of nowhere. You can see the construction worker's temporary housing in the foreground.

Chinese Kids are a Train Wreck

On the train is a child (perhaps 3-4) who is behaving abominably.  He is screaming, crying, thrashing, yelling and generally destroying the zen like calm of the speeding train.  His parent's are doing nothing about it. Yuan is on the verge of going up to the parents and reading them the riot act.  He tells us how this came to pass. Imagine an entire country filled with totally indulged only children. Yep.  The One Child Law managed to undo in 50 years what had taken the Chinese centuries if not millennia to create -- the best behaved, most filially compliant children in the world.  For the first 25 years it wasn't too bad because the parents had been raised in the old fashioned way even if they did only have one kid.  But two generations down, when you have indulged only children raising indulged only children -- well, you can guess the result.  So all my Tiger Mom American friends keep it up! Don't give in!  They are now loosening up the One Child Law.  They say it is because of the aging of the country and the disproportionate male/female ratio but I think they just can't take the screaming anymore.

OK.  We're going to have to do at least one more blog or maybe two if you can stand it.  In the next post we'll take you through Xian, Chengdu and Tibet.  Then on to the Yangtze River and Shanghai. Feels great to be back in Ajijic.  Take care.