Beijing Hotels
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Beijing
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After Xian we traveled to Beijing for 6 days 5 nights. Beijing was my favorite out of the 3 cities.
Read below to get an idea of my experiences in Beijing:
Wednesday January 23, 2008:
9:00am- Arrive in Beijing (flight was only 1.5 hours)
When we arrived my room was not cleaned yet (our tour guides were terrible in Beijing) so while everyone else got to go to there room and put there things away I sat around in the lobby waiting for my room to be ready. I finally just decided to put my stuff in someone else's room because the group was going out to eat. We were all starving so we picked western-Fridays. The restaurant is the same sort of design you would find here. The waiters and waitresses wore silly hats and spoke enough English to understand our orders (I got a quesadilla). However, before we got to the restaurant we met a man named Kevin. Kevin was very peculiar from the start. Our hotel was on the opposite side of the road where Fridays is located so we had to take the subway (the underground road) to get to the other side. As if he anticipated that we would arrive at that moment he was standing right where you emerge from below. Of course we were all talking to one another and he said to me: Hi my name is Kevin I am from San Francisco. This was the first local any of us really met so we were all overly excited. We were throwing questions at him left and right. He spoke decent English. After speaking to him for a couple of minutes we deduced that Kevin lived in Xian if I remember correctly and was in Beijing to go to school (the same reason he came to America). Kevin studies Calligraphy which I guess is taken very seriously- enough for him to get into America. WHICH by the way is not a very easy thing to do? I can not remember the statistics but only a small percentage of Visa applicants actually get accepted. In order to get the Visa you have to pretty much prove that you have a reason to return to your home country and not just stay in America forever. So, Kevin asks what we are up to and we tell him we are going to get some food. He is kind of slow but a very nice guy in like a cute Asian way and he tells us that he knows of a place down the road. Awkward silence among the group... OK, STOP. I quickly recap the entire situation in my head- Kevin, studies hand writing, was waiting for us outside the tunnel- am I about to get scammed!? Yes I know I am very pessimistic but I have heard too many stories of people going with locals and then something happening. One guy went to a strip club one night and they took all of his money! I was not about to be that guy! So I say to Kevin that we can't go with him but he presses on and says, Ok well then can I go wherever you're going? Oh how nice he just wants to hang out... We find no reason to say no (he told us he wanted to come because he would like to practice English- which was obvious so it was a good enough reason). We get into the restaurant and Kevin is blabbering away about Beijing and Politics and everything and anything on his mind. I didn't mind speaking to him because it made me feel very smart. Kevin was interested in the upcoming election so we talked politics. I tried to explain to him that in America everyone who is of age is allowed to Vote for whoever they want to. Kevin couldn't grasp that- he kept asking me if I would ever sell my vote to someone or why I didn't vote the way my parents or local representative told me to. Pretty interesting debate but the only thing on my mind was what is a calligraphy major do!? I made Kevin prove it and asked him to write some stuff for us. He asked everyone at the table what our names were and just wrote them out in Chinese and told us what they meant. I snapped at pictures of his work. Not to impressive if you ask me but the conversation made it worth for the Pepsi he ordered and "forgot to pay for it" when the check came. I didn't make a big deal about it though. Later that day I overheard one of the guys on the trip talking about this creepy guy posing as an American trying to take them up to his studio and sell them his artwork. They actually went up to his place but weren't impressed. I leaned over and asked if the guys name was Kevin and bingo- we had him all figured out. He would play nice with us Americans; try to talk to us because he wanted us to buy his art. Oh, Kevin...
4:00pm- Guest Lecture by Professor Brian Chang. School of Architecture
Professor Chang gave a presentation on the different types of architecture we would encounter throughout China. He compared buildings that were designed to embrace modernity (where the building is all that sticks out in your mind- communist style) vs. democracy (the building that blends into its surroundings). He is actually much acclaimed and was chosen to design something for the World Expo which is to be held in Beijing in 2010.
6:00pm- Depart Hotel for Beijing Duck Restaurant
I have never tried Duck before and after arriving at this fancy restaurant I decided that Duck would be a safe food to try out. Let me tell you: duck is the best!! We got to watch as the chef brought a duck into the middle of the room, CHOPPED it's head and body into pieces and then carved it up for us to eat (too graphic?). Matt took a great action shot of the chopping for me. They served other food but the Duck was the best.
Thursday January 24, 2008:
8:30am- Morning lecture: Road to Modernization by Professor Tong (boring!)
10:30am- Depart hotel for Beijing Urban Planning Museum, Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City
While on the bus, the tour guides usually explain the days events and give us a history lesson on where we are going for the day. Stan was the tour guide on my bus and he was really bad. He hardly spoke English, didn't know any facts and made nothing interesting. All he did was stand around with a blue flag so we would know where to meet the group. Stan was explaining that we would go visit Tiananmen Square and I turned to a friend and asked if they knew the history because the square. Someone else jumped in and said they had no idea either so I decided to ask Stan the tour guide: "What happened at Tiananmen Square?" His response was classic, "I was not there at the time." The entire bus was freaking out. Why wouldn't he tell us?? What was he hiding?
First we went to the Planning Museum. It was a beautiful place and the best part were the models they had of the City and Buildings. I took a bunch of pictures here because it was just so cool!
I bought a sandwich from Subway to eat for lunch because they told us we wouldn't be able to eat all day. Here I was being all prepared for the day and everything... before we got off the bus I asked STAN (he was seriously the worst!) if we would be coming back to the bus and he muttered something and then said Yes we will come back after the museum so I left my Subway Sandwich and Gatorade on the bus. Do you think we were really coming back to the bus? No! I was really mad. Anyways, after the museum we walked over to Tiananmen Square. On the walk I turned to Joffre Chan (she is the woman in charge of the Syracuse HK program here in HK) and asked her about the significance of the square. She too at first was hesitant to tell me about all the people who were killed there but after I kept prying she eventually revealed the entire story. I really do not feel like writing it all out but just Google Tiananmen Square and you will find out everything you need to know- to make a very long story short- thousands of students were protesting and were killed by the army. In HK, Joffre and other were actually watching the protests on TV so it is a very sore subject that no one is proud to speak about. Again I took a bunch of pictures... Mao Zedong (Chinese communist party leader) is the man in the portrait.
Next, we walked into the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is huge (720,000 sq. meters- assume a football field is 5,000 sq. meters => 720,000/5,000 = 144 football fields). It used to be the place where the Emperors lived and the political center from the Ming to Qing dynasty. Surrounding the city are walls that were 7 meters high! It took us about an hour to walk through the whole city. And that included stopping every now and then to take some pictures. I tried to be creative with each picture in the different areas we walked into. I remember it being really cold so the first souvenir shop we found we all stopped to warm up. After we finally made it to the end, we hung out in the coffee shop until the rest of the groups finished there walk. Then we walked again back to the Bus where my Tuna subway sandwich was waiting for me.
Later that night me some friends went out to dinner for some Chinese food. We walked into this building to try and find the restaurant and we are ushered downstairs to the basement. It was a little weird but once we got down there more people were eating. They handed us 2 menus for about 8 people? They always do this for some reason. I think because they assume one person will do the ordered and all the dishes will be shared. The menu was probably 50 pages and was a real piece of art. It had pictures of every dish and was made out really nice materials. I always try to order the Spring Rolls because those are my favorite but they always have pork in them. I found a couple of dishes (a chicken, a beef, a tofu etc). The meal was so tasty! This is the type of food you think about when you hear how good Chinese food is. We ordered so many dishes and they just bring them out and put them in the middle of the table for everyone to share. The best dishes were the shredded beef (really spicy- I actually had to take a 10 minute break at one point) and the Tofu (also spicy). I was so full after this meal!!
Friday January 25, 2008:
9:30am- Guest lecture by Professor Shi Anbin on the Chinese Mass Media.
From this lecture I took away a couple of things:
1.The Chinese media model is described as Developmental (administered liberalization/open up of niche market)
2. Dramatic revolution in media is taking place now (Olympic Effect: free international press interviews, regular press conferences being held, possibly demolishing the internet firewall which China currently has)
3. New Media Politics (sending SMS text messages to fight for a cause or in justice) has dawned.
Decent lecture... The most interesting thing I learned concerns Censorship. After the lecture we had the chance to talk with some students that Professor Anbin has been teaching. According to one of his students: the reason why there is censorship in China is not so much because the government tells the media outlets what to print or to say but because the reporters themselves censor information because they want the Chinese readers to buy it (media is a business).
2:30pm- Site visit to Ogilvy PR Worldwide China
We went to there office in Beijing and had the chance to meet and hear some of the associates speak. We heard from the President of the branch Scott Kronick as well as one of there tech people. The tech guy was sort of nuts and swore a lot during his presentation but the material was interesting. He gave us statistics on cell phone usage (400 million users- one of the biggest markets) and about intellectual property laws.
Sushi for dinner.
Banana Club!! We went to this club later that night which was only a 3 minute walk from our hotel called the Banana Club. You had to pay a cover charge and buy drinks but the drinks were not that expensive. The club was very exciting. They had a huge dance floor with a really cool wall that had lights all over it. You could even smoke hookah (which we did of course). The weird part about the club was when you went into the bathroom. Right when you walk in these guys are there, working for tips, washing hands etc. The problem was, they tried to do a little more then wash your hands... I happen to be the only person in the bathroom at the time when I walk over to a urinal and start taking care of business when all of a sudden something is touching my back. I'm shocked and realize that the guy is giving me a back massage. Now, I obviously can not go to the bathroom while this is happening so I am tell the guy, Yo back off, he obviously doesn't understand and I am so confused like why would you want to touch me when I am going to the bathroom. So I get creeped out and just run out of the bathroom. Weird experience. Then I met a guy who was from Pittsburgh!! It was so funny we were just talking for a while about life. He was there on business. Otherwise, good music and good drinks good times.
Saturday January 26, 2008:
7:30am- Depart hotel for early morning Taiqi Lessons.
We went to the Temple of Heaven for our lessons. Once inside the temple, a Taiqi Master flipped on his radio and started to move. Taiqi is really an amazing skill that takes a lot of practice and focus. We all tried to learn but it was really hard and our Master was really skilled (and didn't speak English). After the lesson we walked around the Temple of Heaven. You have to pay to enter the Temple but it was a very social place. All around people were doing taiqi or singing with a choir. Towards the end of our walk, we saw hundreds of people just hanging out. Some were singing others were playing cards or showing off some impressive skills they had. Everyone seemed to be having a great time in the Temple of Heaven.
Late morning: time for our lesson in Calligraphy at the Lao She Tea House by Joffre. We all went upstairs in the tea house and sat around practicing Calligraphy (you need the brush, ink, stone and paper). Joffre was the Master and we were the students. It is not as easy as it looks but towards the end I was starting to get the hang of it.
After our lesson we headed back to the bus where we were bombarded by people trying to sell us cheap stuff. We had to fend them off and thought we would be safe once we got on the bus but that didn't stop these people. They followed us on to the bus!! We told them we didn't want to buy for a good 5 minutes no joke but they wouldn't leave. They made us fee like if I didn't buy this key chain they would starve to death. They were only selling them for 1YUAN! Need I remind you the exchange rate is about 7YUAN to 1USD. The whole episode was disturbing. People on the bus were really upset with this woman and were yelling at here to get off the bus! But, she stayed and guess what... People actually bought the key chains. A good lesson in perseverance.
12:30pm: We leave the Tea House and head over to the Hutong area for lunch with a Beijing Family and tour of the Hutong/Drum Tower. The "Hutong" means Narrow Alleyways but I define it as a little village surrounded by trees and patios on the sides/narrow streets (I was marked off 1 point on my quiz because I didn't define it correctly?). We rode on this little carts to get the family's house in the middle of the Hutong. Basically a guy rides a bike with a cart attached to it. It was really fun but scary because there were so many of them and the streets were so narrow I thought we were going to crash! Anyways, we are taken to one of the homes. The women in my home did not speak any English so I had to ask the tour guide (dumb Stan) to tell her I could not eat Pork. So the woman made me my own special beef dish. The food was actually really good. She made rice, beef dish, chicken with green vegetables, potato dish etc. We all sat in her 3 room house and shared a nice meal. The woman was really sweet and at the end she told us her life story (someone translated for us).
After lunch we got back on the carts and were taken to the Drum Tower. We climbed up took a look at Beijing from high up, listened to a drum beating show and then walked back down the narrow steps. I am pretty sure there are no safety regulations for those steps. After the Drum Tower we went to a tea ceremony and learned about different tea's (Oolong, Black and Jasmine*) and how to properly drink the tea. Pretty cool.
There were a bunch of shops around this area so we used the hour of free time to look around. This is where I bought a mini hookah for $10USD. After shopping we got back on the bus and went to the Hotel. I think for dinner this night we got a bite to eat at another local Chinese restaurant but I can not remember.
Later that night we went back to the Hutong area to hit up the bars. There were lots of bars and the drinks were cheap. Right when we got out of the taxi we were surrounded by people all yelling at us and telling us to come to there bar. I took advantage of this forced them to lower the price of there beers. When we got them down to about $1USD we went to there bar. It was a good night. The first bar played all American 80's and 90's music. After the rest of the group found us we headed out to a couple more places. We found this one bar that had hookahs so we bargained for a good price and smoked a hookah. Meanwhile no one else was in the bar so we got to pick the music and Greg played Guitar on stage while Marcus talked into the microphone which had an echo so it sounded really cool. All of a sudden, we hear a loud CRASH from the back of the bar. We all turn around and see that a shelf where all of there alcohol sits had just snapped so all of there bottles of alcohol cracked all over the floor. They must've lost a couple hundred dollars worth of liquor. The owners were going were going crazy I am just happy none of us were anywhere near that area so they knew we didn't do it. It got a little sketchy in there so we all left. We were going to just go back to the hotel but we met up with some more Americans and hung out at another bar instead. Then we finally got back into the taxis and went home.
Sunday January 27, 2008:
10:30am: Depart hotel for the Great Wall (Mutianyu Section)
The trip to the Great Wall was unbelievable. It really can only be summed up through pictures so I won't write too much here. We walked, walked, walked and walked some more and then we took pictures and then we came back down in little toboggans. Up at the top of the wall I signed my name and gave a shout out to AEPi. Simply an amazing experience.
While we were waiting for the rest of the group to finish there climb down we played with the feather like hackey sack they were selling all over China. It is pretty much a plastic bottom and a bunch of feather put together to create this toy that everyone kicks around in a circle. It is pretty addicting!
After we returned from the Great Wall I went to this place called the Silk Market. The Silk Market is pretty much like Canal Street in NYC on steroids. It is a mall with 4+ floors with stores packed in right next to each other and they sell everything from fake UGS to North Face jackets to watches, sunglasses, handmade suits, clothing of all sorts, electronics, souvenirs, luggage etc. Anything and Everything. Every price they originally tell you is a lie. They start off saying like 400 Yuan and you just go, NO 50 and then they are like, too low but you just keep saying 50 and then they finally go ok 100 and you finally keep pushing them down until you do the fake walk away like forget this and they come chase you and sell it to you for 50 Yuan. It is so fun!! But I am a cheapo and didn't really buy a lot of stuff. What a place though. It turns intellectual property rights into a joke. I find it very ironic that police patrol through the market.
Monday January 28, 2008:
9:00am- Guest Lecture by Paul Mooney on Being a Foreign Journalist in China
10:45am- Guest Lecture by Professor Ye on the Environment and Development of China
Afternoon- We went out to eat, got some tea and hung out
7:45pm- Depart Beijing via overnight train to Shanghai
The train ride was pretty awesome (even though it was 12 hours). Everyone in the group occupied two sections of the train which were right next to each other which somehow meant we could all get really drunk and be really loud. So that is what everyone pretty much did. This was my first train ride experience and I must say, if you are able to occupy a cabin with only people you it is not a bad way to travel. For the first part of the ride, like I mentioned, everyone was drinking- I think the beer cart was sold out by the end of the trip. For the second part of the ride, people started calming down and we were able to get a couple hours of sleep. The train station was ridiculous. Thousands of people were there trying to get home for the Chinese New Year but because of the bad weather everything was delayed or canceled. This meant lots of unhappy Chinese people. I think we heard stories that people were just sleeping there for days trying to figure out what was going on. When we were walking out we a huge fight break out. A bunch of people were trying to push through the line to get into the train station. The police couldn't handle it on there own so watched as soldiers came to the scene and began to calm things down. It was a pretty crazy time and all we could do was helplessly watch from the side.
2 down 1 to go.
-Asher
I am going to again type up the journal I wrote for my class:
Journal #2- 1/26
Beijing is a very different place compared with Xian. I think it was obvious right when we landed at the Beijing airport that this city was going to be very busy, have lots of traffic and give off an all around different vibe. When our tour guide started talking about the city he really didn't do it justice. There is so much more then just traffic, pollution, state flowers and new cars...
I initially had high expectations for Beijing because of all the hype about the Olympics. I have no idea what's required for a place to host the games but it would have to be big enough and conducive to large crowds and entertainment. Honestly though, I haven't really seen too much here to have a serious opinion on whether or not Beijing should host the Olympic games but I am excited because it will be great for this city- especially the economy.
Moving on to some of my observations now... The first main thing that stands out to me is the Chinese natives neglect to speak about the true events that occurred in Tiananmen Square. What do I mean? The first person I discussed this with was Stan our tour guide. I felt ignorant but asked him why this place was so famous in the first place. He and laughed and started to say because it is the biggest square in the world or something like that. And he didn't care to elaborate. I pressed him and said well I remember hearing that people were killed here, was this true? His response to me was: "I was not in Beijing at this time." I couldn't understand why he would not answer a question I found to be rather simple and comparatively speaking not THAT terrible. Other students then told me that when they spoke with Chinese natives they neglected to mention anything- I even spoke with Joffre about it and during her story she never once mentioned that students were killed until I brought it up. So I started asking why this is such a sensitive issue: was it because many people were actually watching the events unfold on the TV at the time? Did people not feel it was an important part of the story? Or are people trying to just forget what happened? Before I answer this I must say the whole time I was thinking about 9/11 and the WTC bombings. If the roles were reversed and a group of Chinese students came to visit NYC and asked what happened on September 11th I wouldn't hesitate to say that people were killed when planes were hijacked and flown into these buildings. I think the difference between these two cases is very culturally significant. Here is the difference- in America such as the case with 9/11, when something wrong or terrible happens we feel the need to publicize this information to the entire world. So we build a monument to serve as a tangible reminder of what happened here. I saw no such thing at Tiananmen Square. Instead I saw nothing to signify an important event that took place in history at this location. Now to try and analyze why the people I spoke with failed to mention the killings. I think they want to try and forget the past because it is something they are not proud of and don't want visitors to get any wrong impressions. My response to this thinking is contained in a quote that goes something like- those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. In America we seem to understand this concept more at least in terms of tangible objects and something go out of our way spending lots of money to never forget the past.
My logic that Chinese want to forget the bad things that happen and focus on the future and the good was re-affirmed by one of Professor Anbin's graduate students. I did not catch his name but he was the only male in the group. He started to talk about censorship here in China and I couldn't help but ask him why was the government censoring at all? What was the government afraid of? I couldn't understand what the government would really be able to cover up in the first place considering all of the new source media today. He told me and the other students that it wasn't so much that the government was censoring but rather the individuals, the writers were censoring themselves. They do this because they want there newspapers or magazines to sell and if they don't write good things people won't read it. I have never heard of something like this before but I am sure it is a common practice even in America. Anyways this comment made me connect my analysis concerning the desire to censor by choice and certain parts of the Tiananmen Square story. It might be an over generalization but if appears at least in Beijing the people want to only hear news in there best interest and what will make them proud. This is very different I would say in America and very obvious especially now because of the upcoming election. People want the truth- whatever shape/size it comes in.
Another interesting observation I have had here in Beijing is that Americans are much respected. This is noticeable from many different interactions I had over the past two days. The first comes from this man named Kevin. Kevin is from Xian but went to school at Stanford for an exchange program. Kevin must've seen us walking from the other side of the street because right when we came out of the subway he started talking to us and asked if he could come eat with us to practice his English. We agreed and had a nice chat with him about government. He told us here people buy other peoples votes which I didn't really want to believe and Kevin asked me if would ever sell my vote. To be even asked this question in America would be considered an insult. Second, this little boy was standing outside 7-Eleven and when we were walking by he grabbed Greg's leg and wouldn't let go until finally we bought him some food. The interesting thing was that he didn't try to solicit the other Chinese but the Americans. The people inside 7-Eleven didn't even care that he was standing on there steps begging. In America we probably would've called the police so I assume Chinese are more generous to the poor and homeless.
My last observation occurs in the restaurants and bars I have attended. Every time we are going to pay the bull and it is brought to us the waiter/waitress stands there until all of the money is collected and given to them. In America, that would be very rude to do this but it seems common practice here. I have this feeling that the people here are a little obsessed with money.
Beijing should only get better from here. Tomorrow we see the Great Wall and I will go to the silk market.
I am glad I didn't turn this in yet because today at the Temple of Heaven I came to realization that Beijing is such an amazing city and I completely understand why the Olympics will be played here.
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