When I got out of the airport, my first impression was that it was freezing and foggy. My second impression was that it was that in fact it wasn't foggy, it was just polluted; the sky was a yellow gray haze.
Beijing, a city of almost 20 million people, is sprawling, with wide avenues, stifling traffic, hutongs (quaint albeit dirty alleys lined with small houses and inner courtyards), remnants of an imperial past, reminders of a Communist present, and ubiquitous construction sites part of the Olympic preparation fervor.
Going in chronological order, it makes sense to talk about the famous beacons of the imperial past. On my first full day, I booked a "Secret Great Wall" tour, ie a tour to a part of the wall that on a positive note is not crawling with tourists, but on a more negative note, is quite delapidated and not as impressive. I spent about 1.5 hours hiking up the mountain with my friends form Hong Kong and a friend from Shanghai who is a fellow Penn alum, following our guide who was SEVENTY TWO years old! He was laughing at our amateur hiking skills. We got to the wall, walked along it in the frigid cold for about 2 hours and then hiked back down. I feel like I made a pilgrimage, but it was totally worth it!
The Great Trek...
Great Views
Great Wall Graffiti
On the following day, we walked through Tiananmen Square, which, by the way, is such a juxtaposition of old and new: the ancient square is flanked by Sino-Soviet Style architecture such as the People's Congress. The Forbidden City is as imposing as it seems, with 980 surviving buildings, 8,707 bays of rooms covering 720,000 square metres. Actually, I was most impressed with the Imperial Garden in the back, and I loved the Chinglish signs! We rewarded ourselves after the days of walking with a delicious dose of Beijing Duck for dinner.
The classic Tiananmen Sq image
In case you need a place to gather your thoughts in the Forbidden City...
Pictures just don't do it justice but I tried...
Speaking of anachronisms--I spotted a cute girl sporting a traditional Chinese hat
Beijing Duck *Homer style drool*
We needed a rest after all of that sightseeing, so the following day we just hit up the Temple of Heaven, which is quite a masterpiece of Chinese architecture, where the Emperor went to pray and make sacrifices. We did a bit of shopping and ended the night with a Mongolian hot pot dinner.
Temple of Heaven
Hot pot galore
Fast forward to present day Beijing happenings and culture: on Tuesday, we ventured into the 798 Art District, an industrial zone that has been converted into a series of art galleries displaying much of China's up and coming art. I was fascinated to find that a lot of the art was quite subversive and anti-Communist--a friend who lives in Beijing told me that Chinese art is becoming quite an industry and source of revenue, so the government probably turns a blind eye.
You want to talk about the pending Olympics? I could not walk for five minutes without a) seeing posters and billboards either displaying electronic countdowns to the Olympics down to the second or showing the cutesy multicolored panda-like mascots of the Olympics, affectionately named Fuwa, or b) get accosted by a local trying to sell my paraphenalia with Fuwa images. Granted, my hostel was right next to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, so I should have expected it to be a bit of a tourist trap.
Then again, there are so few foreigners in Beijing, that the locals always assume you are a tourist. Despite this fact, and although the authorities constantly proclaim that they are ready for the games, I did not see any English signs or speak any English to local people besides at the tourist sites and at my hostel. My Western eyes were shocked to see children with slits in the back of their pants that serve the purpose of allowing them to do their business on the streets whenever they please. Unlike Hong Kong, where the authorities compulsively put up signs to prevent spitting, in Beijing, you have to watch where you are walking to avoid incoming incidents. The airport terminals are miles apart, and it took a bit of maneouvering to even find where to catch a bus from one point to the next. I hate to say it, and my teachers in Hong Kong were loath to hear it, but Beijing is not ready for the games.
From Tuesday to Thursday one friend from HK and I traveled to Xian before returning to Beijing on Friday. See the next blog entry for details on that side trip. We came back to Beijing for one last hurrah, and what a hurrah it was! My friend who lives in Beijing, who also went to Penn (I swear Penn is taking over the world!) took me to an unforgettable place for dinner. The restaurant was called the "Cultural Revolution Restaurant" and wow was it an eye opener! I walked in to see waiters clad in farm boy outfits, women clad in red guard outfits and pleated hair, and some of both genders dressed in green uniforms complete with the green hat and red star! As if that wasn't shocking enough, some of them were performing Communist era dances and songs before a backdrop of a huge Mao propaganda poster! When I sat down at the table (the only table of white people in the sea of red flag waving Beijingers) I asked someone if this was a joke, and she replied she really didn't think so...
Overall, it was an imposing city with an imposing past, present, and future...I'll reserve judgement on that until I see the games in August 2008...
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