A much delayed China entry...

A few days after India, there was a quote in our Dean’s Memo that stuck with me. I copy and pasted it here, thinking that at some point I would mention it in my blog.  It doesn’t necessarily fit with China, but it speaks to the way we’ve been travelling recently.  The Captain likes to remind us that this is not a cruise and the Dean always reminds us that we are students, not tourists.  So because this applies so thoroughly to my current travel experience, I’ll mention it before China.
The quote is “You don’t travel like this to have a holiday. You travel like this to have a confrontation with yourself.”  - Bert Van Hemingen   I think we’ve all found this to be particularly relevant.

So now on to China.

China is a country still on the rise, which scares me.  The first thing one notices in China is the military. They are everywhere. Formations of soldiers constantly march down sidewalks.  I saw one beggar in Beijing.  I don’t know how long he had been there, but when I walked by I saw a soldier (lightly) kick him and the man immediately rose to his knees as a confrontation of sorts began.  I was afraid to look too long.  Also, the city is bleak.  It feels communist. It is extremely clean and gray is the predominant color. There are huge apartment complexes.  It is quite common to see huge towers – each must house at least a thousand – and there are generally two – three towers all clumped together.  I did see many Mao posters, but more than that, there were hammer and sickles flags.  In the school where I took a calligraphy lesson, there were two huge posters on the wall saying, “Support the nation” next to the flag. 

As cold as the country can feel, the people were the opposite.  They were so excited to see young Western travelers.  They were fascinated with us and loved telling us, “hello!” and “thank you,” after taking a photo with us.  Over the course of four days, I was in at least 50 pictures with random Chinese people.  One of my favorite moments of the trip was when two Chinese students invited my friend and me to drink tea with them.  We sat for an hour, asking them about their families, school, culture, and anything else we could think to ask.  They were as curious about us as we were of them.  Still, there is a limit and they know it- what our guide called the “taboo” subjects.  I don’t know if any citizen ever feels safe.  Students wanting to use the Internet in China were required to turn in their passport unless they were in a hotel.  

Day 1: Although the ship docked in Hong Kong, my trip departed before I saw any more of Hong Kong than the airport. Our flight was direct to Beijing, where my stories begin. We arrived in the immaculately clean Beijing in time to check into our hotel and head straight to Zhengyangmen Quanjude restaurant for a Peking duck dinner.  We departed by bus and were shocked to discover that our restaurant was directly off of Tiananmen Square. We could see the portrait of Chairman Mao from the front windows of the restaurant.  Surprising for the world’s largest public square, it is actually closed at night.  The duck was mediocre, and the only “bad” meal I had in China.

Day 2: The day began with a two-hour drive to the Ju Rong Guan section of the Great Wall, built (I believe) in the fifth century.  One of the smaller lessons of SAS is how to fall asleep anywhere.  I fell asleep while still in Beijing and woke up amongst mountains, the Great Wall following the most prominent ridgeline.  The air was cold as we exited our bus and it was a stark difference from the heat of Vietnam and Cambodia.  We were thrilled to be cold again after being drenched with sweat in Southeast Asia.  Now in China, I wore layers of long sleeves, scarves and my North Face. Those who had no North Face bought fake ones at the wall.  I looked up into the icy air, not wanting to know for how long I’d be climbing stairs.  Our guide, Jonathan (obviously not his real name), gave us two hours to explore this section of the wall.  This section was made up of stones that had curved with age.  It was a tough hike. For people who are generally rather small, these steps were giant and continuous. Luckily, the hike was well broken up by Chinese people who wanted pictures with my friends and me.  This day I hiked with new friends Sarah and Jason.  Sarah is tiny with flowing blond hair.  Jason is one of the best-dressed guys on the ship and is African-American.  We took pictures with at least 20 Chinese on the way to the top of our section.

Sarah and I were the first girls to make it up and were once again laughing hysterically when a group of at least thirty Chinese people in matching hats wanted group pictures with us.  I still need to get the picture from Sarah, but there is a photograph of our three smiling faces in the middle of thirty Chinese people, most of whom were throwing up peace signs.  Once the photo shoot was over, we had a moment to breathe and to notice that it was snowing.  Of the three World Wonders that I have now seen, this one was by far the most fun.  I got to see mountains, breathe in cool fresh air, and be alone in ancient Chinese watchtowers.  It was a perfect morning.

After lunch, we toured the Summer Palace, which was lovely but disappointing, as we were not allowed inside the parts that looked the coolest.  After the Great Wall, it just seemed okay. Still looking back, it was a great example of Chinese art and architecture.  The coolest part of the Summer Palace was actually outside of it.  There is a park where old Chinese people congregate to do Tai Chi, dance, play cards and chess, and take movement classes.  Their exercises are so cool. I have a fabulous video of a man with a tennis racket spinning quickly enough that the ball never fell.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for a brief photo op at the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube.  I was unaware that this was all one complex.  All of the Olympic structures were within easy walking distance of each other.  The Olympics is also the reason that Beijing was still so clean. I know I was breathing in toxins, but it was not nearly as bad as I’d imagined.  Also, the subway system was redone to make it more navigable for those used to Western letters. 

That night, Sarah and I went out alone in search of a market and dumplings.  Our guide had written something in Chinese for us to give to a cab driver, and we ended up at the silk market, which was not what we wanted.  We were walking towards a Starbucks when two Chinese people, a man and a woman who looked about our age (but better dressed), stopped us and said, “hello! How are you!”  Despite that English is required in the Chinese school systems very few know more than basic words. We responded, “hello,” expecting they’d keep walking, but instead they started talking to us. “Where are you from,” the man asked us.  “How long are you here for,” the woman wanted to know.  After a few minutes of chat we learned that their (English) names were Jeremy and May.  Jeremy had recently graduated and had an interview for a job that day.  May was still in school and majoring in Chinese and American Culture.  They asked us if we would join them for tea.  We agreed enthusiastically and followed them into an office building, where we took an elevator to the fourth floor and entered a small tearoom. The woman working offered to do a tea ceremony for us, as we were obviously non-native.  Jeremy translated as she explained the ceremony in Chinese. We each picked a tea to try as she heated up the tiny teacups.  We were told to rub the warm teacup in our hands, to increase circulation. Then we rubbed them on our temples, to stimulate our minds.  Finally, we put the cups to our eyes, to improve our vision.  We then passed the tea from person to person, symbolizing the giving of a friendship.  We were taught how to hold the teacups and instructed to drink each tea in two sips. 

Throughout all of this, we conversed with Jeremy and May about our very different lives.  Sarah told them about our photo shoot that morning.  Our new friends were surprised to learn that we had friends of other races in the United States.  In China, which is 95% Han, this was highly unusual. We asked them about their families and learned that each of them had siblings.  They explained that the one child law went into effect after their births. 

Interesting side note: the one child policy only applies to the Han race.  Minorities in China have different standards for the amount of children they may have.  Also, the five stars on the Chinese flag supposedly represent the five races in China.

I asked them (cautiously) about their government.  Our new friends explained that they did “vote.”  A Chinese citizen is permitted to vote for a local official, which votes for the station above them, etc.  Of course, there’s effectively one political party in China, so the choices are limited.  May wanted to know about marriage ages in the United States. I told her that although many do marry in their very early 20’s, it is also not unusual to wait until 30’s.  That people could marry at 22 (or Sarah’s friend who married at 18) shocked May.  In China, women may not marry until 22 and men may not marry until 24.  They tend to marry later.  At the end of our hour with them we exchanged emails and they wrote our names in Chinese characters.  I was so excited when May wrote my name and told me, “Taylor.  This means mountain happy in Chinese.”  It was simply too perfect.

Day 3: The morning began with a walk in Tiananmen Square.  We were given the opportunity to join the long line of Chinese and to see the inside of the Mao Zedong Memorial.  It is here where his body is preserved for viewing.  I joined the line and went through two security checkpoints (and had to leave my camera) in order to get through.  Women were crying as they left flowers in the first room of the Mao memorial.  There must have been hundreds of the same synthetic flower. There was a single government owned flower stand outside of the complex.  Finally, I was hustled through a room that contained a large glass central corridor in which were two Chinese military officials and Mao Zedong.  His body was covered not with a Chinese flag, but instead with the red hammer and sickle flag.  In about thirty seconds I was out of the room and into a gift shop that led back out to Tiananmen Square.

As a somewhat educated American, when I think Tiananmen Square, my first thought is of the student massacre and tank man from 1989.  The guides entirely avoid this topic.  One told us directly, “This subject is taboo. I am not permitted to discuss it. “  What’s comforting is that they do know what happened.  They just also know not to talk of it.  Some SAS trips were followed by a Chinese man while at the square.  Students noticed their guides to be more silent when they were being followed. Some guides were more vocal, saying that they know what happened because their parents or grandparents told them. One told her group that the Western world had exaggerated the massacre – that it wasn’t two to three thousand students killed – it was more like two to three hundred.  One student asked this guide if she liked her government.  She responded that “Yes, I respect our government.”  That’s the thing about China. They are not free to have opinions on government.  They just respect the establishment.

At this point I should probably mention that I’d been hanging out with Sarah for basically the entire China trip.  Last night after our tea we grabbed a quick dinner that unfortunately included a few peppers, to which Sarah is allergic.  She felt fine, and even went out to a bar that night, long after I’d gone to sleep.  The next morning she’d begun to feel ill, and started throwing up. This means that I spent much of my time at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City with Sarah, making sure she stayed hydrated and maybe ate something. 

The Forbidden City was HUGE and packed with tourists.  The complex housed the royal family for centuries.  There’s some statistic about you could live there until you were thirty and never sleep in the same room twice.  We spent an hour going through the key parts, but it was tough to see due to the mass of people. 

After a brief look inside the Temple of Heaven, we flew to Xi’an, home of the terracotta soldiers.  There, we had a delicious dinner of dumplings before checking into our hotel.

Day 4:
The morning was spent at an elementary school that likes to make extra money by giving calligraphy lessons to foreigners.  This is NOT easy. There are five different styles of calligraphy, although most people can only write one or two.  There is an older kind, their version of cursive, where most people can read it but find it too difficult to attempt to write in it. 

From there, we went to see the Terra Cotta soldiers, which are housed in large part, where they were found.  I keep trying to figure out how to describe this “museum” and I have no real way to do it.  It was not typical.  The museum comprises several buildings, containing different sets of soldiers. The tour starts with a video about the discovery and how the warriors were originally made. Next, there are four large enclosed spaces, in which one can view the soldiers.  The coolest of these rooms was one with very few soldiers uncovered.  Apparently they are able to tell that the Emperor’s Tomb is beneath the soil there, but they have yet to figure out how to excavate without destroying the tomb.  They’re afraid to traps, as well as high levels of mercury in the open space beneath the soil.


After the soldiers, we headed to the airport.  We arrived in Shanghai that night around 10pm, where we met the ship.

Day 5: I woke up around 8am to meet my friends for breakfast and decide what to do with our day.  Katie decided that she wanted to go to the zoo.  So Katie, Trish, Andrea, Jana, Ian and I got cabs, and rode over to go see giant pandas.  The zoo was pretty depressing because the animals were kept in what I consider really terrible facilities.  The one good note was that on the way out we passed a bumper car track.  I looked at Ian, who already looked excited by the idea.  We got Katie to agree to it too. So we bought tickets, and rode bumper cars in the Shanghai Zoo. 
Bumper cars would have been the highlight of the day had we not followed that zoo visit with a trip to the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is the world’s second tallest building, and home to the world’s highest observation deck.  The building is only a few years old and feels seriously space age.  It was designed by a young Japanese artist, who created everything from the music and light show in the elevator, to the concept of the partially glass floor within the world’s highest observation deck. 
After this visit, we went back to ground level, where we were thrilled to find a Subway and Cold Stone.  We wondered around aimlessly for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to the ship.