Five Days in Beijing - Part One
I'm going to start out by saying that I think everyone should try to travel internationally at least once in their lives. One of the things I really noticed on this trip was how much being in a foreign place makes you question your assumptions. Everyone knows assumptions are bad mmmkay, but that doesn't stop us from making them. But when you're someplace so far from home and so far from the culture you were raised in, the obvious doesn't seem so obvious. And questioning things keeps us alert and young and...I don't know...alive in a way?
We (my boss, her husband and another co-worker) had a guide/translator and a driver. We paid $340 plus about $100 in tips for six days worth of driving and sight-seeing, as well as our lunch and dinner meals. Beijing is working on adding a lot of English signage at tourist sites and in common areas for the impending Olympics in 2008, but it's pretty much impossible to get around if you don't speak Mandarin. So, this was a good deal and well worth it. But who knew what we were getting into? I, for one, didn't have a clue. Probably better that way, come to think of it.
My boss had used this guide last year when she visited Beijing with other co-workers so she knew what to expect to a certain extent. She corresponded with "Jack" the guide (his real name was Xiu Min I believe) ahead of time to tell him what "we"wanted to see. I had no input in this process, but was happy to see anything as old and historical as Beijing had to offer.
We started out on Thursday at Tiananmen Square - the largest such square in the world and the site of the infamous student massacre in 1989. The Party line is that the students were trying to take over the government. And that's what our guide told us. Without passing judgment, what can I say to that? Who knows how history reveals itself? Maybe it's how we say it happened or maybe it's how they say it happened, or maybe it's a bit of both. Only the people that were there really know.
From the building in Tiananmen Square that holds the crystal-encased body of Mao, we went to the Forbidden City. It is so named because "ordinary" people were not allowed in until all the emporers died and they turned it into a tourist attraction. This led me to a realization of one of the main dichotomy's of China - they revere Mao and his principles and yet embrace capitalism now in a way that would make Mao furious. From what I hear, Mao despised capitalism, but capitalistic endeavors are prominent.
The Forbidden City made me a little sad. Walking through and peering into glass-covered windows of ancient rooms that held emporer's and empresses and their golden offspring rotting away with dis-use. Dust everywhere - the silk linens are disintegrating. I know this stuff is O.L.D., but seeing it from afar and knowing that no one walks there anymore is disheartening in a way since you know there are so many many people living in impossibly tiny places...I just wished for more parity I guess. The place oozed with opulence.
Directly after lunch consisting of more plates of food than 14 people could eat (and this would be the norm for all lunches and dinners thereafter - a fact that made me cringe each time) we went to the Hutong area of Beijing. Picture tiny little "houses" arranged in neighborhoods of five to six families that shared toilet facilities. This part of Beijing has been saved from the rampant bulldozing to make room for super-tall apartment blocks and office buildings. We rode in rickshaws around the little neighborhoods.
After a trip to Coal Hill Gardens, where we saw a tree upon which an emporer hung himself because surrender was imminent, we had a "Steamed Pot" dinner. The guide kept saying it like "steamed PUT". We each had our own little boiling pan of broth into which we added any of the 33 raw options on the lazy susan. Five kinds of mushrooms, raw fish, spinach, cabbage, fish balls, crab, and some unidentifiable meat substances were the choices. And yes, I ate fish balls.
The whirlwind evening concluded with a trip to the Red Theatre where we saw a Shaolin Monk reenactment of the Kung Fu story of Li Chen (or something close to that, I didn't write it down). There was ample amounts of kicking and swatting away with swords and a guy balancing on a spear in his stomach and laying on a bed of nails and breaking steel rods over his shaved head. I'll just say that I'm a really skeptical person and was with some very skeptical people and thus, we can't be sure what was real and what was an act. For entertainment's sake, let's say I thought the whole thing was authentic.
Day one was crazy long and tiring. It rained most of the day and I didn't have an umbrella and in conjunction with the traumatizing reality of the Bathroom Situation coupled with being wet most of the day, by the time I got back to the hotel, I crashed hard. And proceeded to have crazy dreams. The Bathroom Situation was mainly an annoyance for me. Others with me found it deeply disturbing. Basically, there was a porcelain hole in the ground and you had to supply your own toilet paper, which was not to be flushed down the hole, but put into a bin next to the hole. The smell was less than pleasant and there was inevitably some nasty stuff in the bin. It took some getting used to, I can tell you that.
So, is this too much information? Should I just get to the good stuff? I added a lot of commentary to the picture set on Flickr. If you want to avoid further long-winded ramblings of the trip, just go here and check out the pictures.
We (my boss, her husband and another co-worker) had a guide/translator and a driver. We paid $340 plus about $100 in tips for six days worth of driving and sight-seeing, as well as our lunch and dinner meals. Beijing is working on adding a lot of English signage at tourist sites and in common areas for the impending Olympics in 2008, but it's pretty much impossible to get around if you don't speak Mandarin. So, this was a good deal and well worth it. But who knew what we were getting into? I, for one, didn't have a clue. Probably better that way, come to think of it.
My boss had used this guide last year when she visited Beijing with other co-workers so she knew what to expect to a certain extent. She corresponded with "Jack" the guide (his real name was Xiu Min I believe) ahead of time to tell him what "we"wanted to see. I had no input in this process, but was happy to see anything as old and historical as Beijing had to offer.
We started out on Thursday at Tiananmen Square - the largest such square in the world and the site of the infamous student massacre in 1989. The Party line is that the students were trying to take over the government. And that's what our guide told us. Without passing judgment, what can I say to that? Who knows how history reveals itself? Maybe it's how we say it happened or maybe it's how they say it happened, or maybe it's a bit of both. Only the people that were there really know.
From the building in Tiananmen Square that holds the crystal-encased body of Mao, we went to the Forbidden City. It is so named because "ordinary" people were not allowed in until all the emporers died and they turned it into a tourist attraction. This led me to a realization of one of the main dichotomy's of China - they revere Mao and his principles and yet embrace capitalism now in a way that would make Mao furious. From what I hear, Mao despised capitalism, but capitalistic endeavors are prominent.
The Forbidden City made me a little sad. Walking through and peering into glass-covered windows of ancient rooms that held emporer's and empresses and their golden offspring rotting away with dis-use. Dust everywhere - the silk linens are disintegrating. I know this stuff is O.L.D., but seeing it from afar and knowing that no one walks there anymore is disheartening in a way since you know there are so many many people living in impossibly tiny places...I just wished for more parity I guess. The place oozed with opulence.
Directly after lunch consisting of more plates of food than 14 people could eat (and this would be the norm for all lunches and dinners thereafter - a fact that made me cringe each time) we went to the Hutong area of Beijing. Picture tiny little "houses" arranged in neighborhoods of five to six families that shared toilet facilities. This part of Beijing has been saved from the rampant bulldozing to make room for super-tall apartment blocks and office buildings. We rode in rickshaws around the little neighborhoods.
After a trip to Coal Hill Gardens, where we saw a tree upon which an emporer hung himself because surrender was imminent, we had a "Steamed Pot" dinner. The guide kept saying it like "steamed PUT". We each had our own little boiling pan of broth into which we added any of the 33 raw options on the lazy susan. Five kinds of mushrooms, raw fish, spinach, cabbage, fish balls, crab, and some unidentifiable meat substances were the choices. And yes, I ate fish balls.
The whirlwind evening concluded with a trip to the Red Theatre where we saw a Shaolin Monk reenactment of the Kung Fu story of Li Chen (or something close to that, I didn't write it down). There was ample amounts of kicking and swatting away with swords and a guy balancing on a spear in his stomach and laying on a bed of nails and breaking steel rods over his shaved head. I'll just say that I'm a really skeptical person and was with some very skeptical people and thus, we can't be sure what was real and what was an act. For entertainment's sake, let's say I thought the whole thing was authentic.
Day one was crazy long and tiring. It rained most of the day and I didn't have an umbrella and in conjunction with the traumatizing reality of the Bathroom Situation coupled with being wet most of the day, by the time I got back to the hotel, I crashed hard. And proceeded to have crazy dreams. The Bathroom Situation was mainly an annoyance for me. Others with me found it deeply disturbing. Basically, there was a porcelain hole in the ground and you had to supply your own toilet paper, which was not to be flushed down the hole, but put into a bin next to the hole. The smell was less than pleasant and there was inevitably some nasty stuff in the bin. It took some getting used to, I can tell you that.
So, is this too much information? Should I just get to the good stuff? I added a lot of commentary to the picture set on Flickr. If you want to avoid further long-winded ramblings of the trip, just go here and check out the pictures.
Comments
I really hope that one day I get to travel internationally a lot more than I have. I think it will happen.