Beijing,
China
Friday, April 20, 2007
Lauren and I were roommates at the hotel with a hole in the hallway floor, and we woke up for breakfast together at 7am. We went downstairs but it wasn't clear to us exactly where we were to dine, since the area that looked like the dining room was completely empty. We were approaching the front desk to ask to where to go when Kai came out of a side door of the lobby. Apparently we looked confused because he yelled over to us before sticking his arm straight out in front of him and snapping three times. Lauren and I couldn't help stifling small chuckles, because we'd never seen anyone snap like that at anything other than a dog or in movies that want to make a point about how snotty someone is (usually a woman- I'm thinking of the character Natasha in Bridget Jones's Diary). And they, that's just how they do it in China. If you don't know someone, to get their attention, you snap. After he got our attention and directed us to a back room, we me the rest of our group seated together at three tables to eat Chinese noodles, a yellow squiggly jiggly with a slightly sweet taste, hard-boiled goose eggs (much saltier than chicken eggs), noodle soup, and rice. This is what we ate for breakfast every day, and often times lunch, along with the fried meats dishes. Unfortunately, I found out that even after my extensive chopstick lesson the previous night, I was still inept at using chopsticks. (I have since mastered the technique...well, mastered in terms of being the best I've ever been at using chopsticks, but I am still by no means a whiz at them.) But I struggled through, refusing to give up, even though the area around my place was by far the messiest part of the table. After breakfast, we loaded up the busses and drove to a Jade factory. I had no idea that this was going to be part of the itinerary, but these countries have such a way of sneaking in excursions to factories and markets to try to generate revenue. We drove nearly an hour from our hotel in order to get there, and normally I would enjoy the long rides and take advantage of the opportunity to look at the scenery, but Beijing just isn't pretty. The entire city is covered in smog and you couldn't see anything when we got out to the freeways that should have allowed me more views of the landscapes and cityscapes in the distance. Instead, I became fast friends with the color grey. We did drive past a few sites where Olympic events will be held, which was pretty exciting. I have to say, we've really been fortunate in that nearly every place we've gone to has had something significant going on there, whether it was Carnaval in Brazil, Cambodian New Year, or preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games. I'm pretty upset at myself that I wasn't able to find a Beijing 2008 t-shirt once I finally decided I wanted one, but I'm sure it's one of those things you can find online, somewhere. I just didn't buy a lot of shirts in the different countries like everyone else did. I only bought t-shirts in Cambodia because I spilled yogurt on me the instant we got on the bus to fly there, so I needed a shirt to wear the last day. But really, what was I thinking? It's not like the next time I go to China I'm going to be able to just pick up an Olympics shirt. I'm just not a shopper. And I really, really got worn out from shopping because really, I was going through my stuff the other day, trying to figure out how I'm going to pack all of the stuff that I bought, and I didn't buy much at all from China or Japan aside from my fabrics and good luck charms and my presents for other people. I just felt like I was dragging while I was in China. On the drive to the Jade factory, I just didn't feel like I wanted to look out the window and take it all in, like I did in the first few countries. Perhaps because these bigger cities are closer to what I'm used to back in the States. Or just because Beijing wasn't as attractive. I've seen urban areas before, and what I'm really interested in seeing are the areas that aren't built up and urbanized. I know what urban looks like. I think that's one of the downsides of Semester at Sea, is that you only have so much time and if you want to go do the big things, like the Taj or the Great Wall, you're getting shuffled by SAS to the sites and therefore you don't get to go to go where you want. I feel myself rambling and constantly shifting topics as I write this, but as I reflect on China it just ticks me off a little bit. Why did I have to spend so much time shopping? I didn't want to go to a Jade Market. I didn't want to go shop. I'll admit, it was fun. It was fascinating to see jewelry and statues crafted right in front of me. We were taken on a tour and we could watch the workers through the other side of the glass. But at the same time, Dan (my RD and the trip leader) was discussing how odd it must be to work there and be put on display all of the time. It seemed a little bit like a human zoo. Me, personally, I hate when people look over my shoulder when I'm working, especially writing. So for that to be my job, to be expected not only to make things but to be watched as I make them, I'd struggle with that. After a brief tour of the work areas, we were escorted into a room where our guide, who was a little bit robotic in her presentation, taught us how to test for real Jade. Hold it up to the light and scratch it. Real jade, unlike glass, won't be as transparent because you'll be able to see the nuances of the gem in the light. Jade will also leave a mark on paper because it's softer. Lauren, as we were sorry to learn, had been fooled into buying a glass bracelet passed off as jade in Cambodia. Following the presentation, we had time to shop. I saw the most interesting products of all, which were a pillow and a mattress. I had no idea that one could produce pillows out of pieces of jade tautly strung together in cylindrical shapes. We could test them out by pressing our faces up against them, and they seemed like they would be comfortable enough. I almost bought one just so I could see what the side of my face would look like after having jade pressed to my cheek for six hours. We then moved on to peruse the miles and miles of jewelry cases and shelves full of all kinds of sculptures. My favorite was a carving of jade where the technician worked from the outside in, creating different rings that are still attached to the main outer ring, to symbolize family. I also enjoyed the hand-painted perfume bottles and the necklaces in different colors of jade. I spent some time bargaining for the pieces I bought as gifts, which they said you couldn't do in a factory, but as Dad told me, the worst they can say is no, right? Everyone knows that prices are higher in factories, and with the number of things I was getting as presents, they could afford to give me a little discount. I got a huge kick out of the show my salesman put on for me, though. When I finally did decide what I wanted, after having the "best necklace" and the "best bracelets" pointed out to me, I'd tell him my price. He would fold his hands, bow slightly, and ask me to wait one moment as he went to check with his manager. The manager would come back, the salesman would tell his boss my price, and the manager wouldn't hesitate before agreeing to it. A perfume bottle caught my eye so I went to look at it as he wrapped up my other selections, and when I told him I wanted to add it to my collection if he could give me everything for a certain price, we went through the same routine. Honestly, it looked like the manager was getting a little annoyed with my salesman for continuing to call him over to approve my prices. The manager would approach with determination in his walk but as soon as he saw it was me, he'd just chuckle to himself, pretend to listen to his guy tell him my price, smile, and nod. Thinking back on it now, I probably could have done a lot better with my bargaining if it had been so easy. Oh, well. When I was done I made my way back to the front and bought some coffee and a couple of shot glasses with Olympic events on them. The mascot is a Power-Puff Girl looking thing, sort of humanlike but looking a bit like a panda, and on each shot glass it was playing a different sport. Classy, the only Olympic Games paraphernalia I bought was shot glasses. Again, oh, well. Our next stop after the factory was a visit to the Ming Tombs, which are actually spread out over miles and miles of land, so we just went to one area, and it was absolutely stunning. We had to walk past rows of screaming ladies, trying to get us to buy their t-shirts and parasols and memory cards. At least in China people trying to sell you things don't come up to you and wave their merchandise in your face; no, here, they literally scream at you. "Madame, madame! T-shirt!" It must be really difficult for children to visit these places, because they always want to touch things, at the very least look. So I'm sure as soon as they touch something, the vendors are heckling the mothers and fathers for money. But then at the same time, I feel terrible ignoring them. This is, after all, how they make their living. Really, though, a chill pill would help. At least to us Americans, being screamed at isn't going to tempt us to buy things. And it just cracks me up how each of the ladies sells the same thing at her table as the women on either side of her. And yet, when you say no to one and walk to another with the same things you said no to the first time, somehow it's going to be more appealing at this table? And I'm not swayed by pretty people, so I'm not going to buy something from her just because she's prettier. Perhaps that works sometimes, I'm not sure. I think it's just their culture though. They're loud, they are in your face, they are pushy. So since they shove past you in line, I can't really be surprised that their sales techniques include yelling out at people. After we made it past the screaming women, we found ourselves in a beautiful garden, and not a tomb like I'd expected at all. Linda explained to us that the tombs are actually scattered all over, and that many different locations actually comprise what is called the Ming Tombs, and we were just at once location. We were in a gated, mile-long walkway through a garden with statues of famous Chinese leaders, poets, and other people of influence, as well as animals. We walked past green grass, flowers, and the statues while soft classical music played from speakers planted all over the garden. I'd been expecting a tomb, but this was absolutely spectacular. Katie, Lauren and I walked with Linda most of the way and took pictures together. She was just such an outgoing person, so ready to jump into a picture or direct us to this statue of the lion because we'd look really cute peeking out of its legs. And Katie and I had started a new tradition of getting dizzy wherever we possibly could, which Linda thought was hilarious so she joined in. It took us about an hour to walk through, and we just chatted and took pictures the whole way, with Linda hurrying us along if we took too long so as not to get too far behind the rest of the group. She stuck with us on our climb up the Great Wall as well. That's what I liked so much about my visit to China, was the opportunity to get to know these two students so well. That's what makes the world seem so small to me, is that in talking to them, aside from different traditions and cultures, they're really not that much different, at least to me. They too have families, and problems with school, and problems in general, goals, and opinions, and the desire to go out and have fun. Regardless of how we think we should deal with the problems of the world or of what government you support or how you spend all of your spare time studying because the country is so competitive that you feel you have no other choice or of how you leave your chopsticks in your bowl, from what I've seen people are all fundamentally the same, aside from the obvious differences in temperaments and everything else that makes us different from one another. But it's when things begin to get bigger and groups start to form, that's when you start to see differences. Duh. But really, I don't think I expected people to be as similar to me as they were. Perhaps it was a naïve expectation, but I remember just being surprised at how similar Linda and I were, and how I thought about how I knew people like Kai who were shy and nervous and anal. I guess I just had this thought process that these people from other countries were going to be so different, but in so many ways they're not. And that's what makes it so hard for me and makes me question so much now is because how can people do some of the things we do to each other when if we simply had a conversation with most of them, we'd see just how similar we could be? The Chinese don't hate us, as most of the world doesn't really hate Americans. They just dislike our leaders but they understand that we are not our leaders and thus they have no reason to not like us. And in talking to her, the three of us were becoming fast friends with her. We left the tomb and drove to the Great Wall, which I couldn't really see until we got right up close to it because of all of the pollution. But once I did see it and started climbing, I thought, what else could I possibly say at this point? We were on the Great Wall. Enough said. Though it really wasn't what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be one, continuous wall built up on the hills that we would have four hours to walk alongside, but our one section of the wall, of many many miles of sections, we were at we had to actually climb. It was climbing stairs. And silly me, I'm looking up at the wall from the parking lot below thinking, okay, I can see the watch tower from here. Why do we need three hours here because we can totally make it to that point, which is the top right?, in so much less time than three hours. Of course, when we climbed the stairs passing elderly folk and being passed by energetic youngsters and reached that point, we quickly realized we had much further to go until we reached the top. So we continued climbing. We climbed for an hour and a half, up stone stairs. At the beginning of the climb we'd stop every once in awhile to look at the view, which unfortunately wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped it would be because of the thick blankets of smog on the hills (and we were quite a few miles outside of the city itself). My pictures came out terribly because the wall was barely visible in them, but that doesn't matter much anyway because on the way down my memory card, the two gig memory card I'd purchased from an old lady at a stand outside of the Ming Tombs for the equivalent of twenty US dollars, failed. Looking back on it, it was quite obvious that it would probably be flawed, so why I used it to take all of my pictures on the Great Wall I haven't a clue. And of course I'd left my other memory card in my bag on the bus, so I was SOL, except for Katie who took pictures for me. But, until that point, I kept snapping away on the way up to the top. It was quite interesting too how the farther up the wall you climbed, the cheaper the merchandise became. At every lookout tower women would be perched selling souvenir t-shirts and sweatshirts reading "I climbed the Great Wall" and of course, bottles of water. A sweatshirt that cost 50 bucks at the bottom of the wall cost 20 at the top. I suppose, if you're lazy, you have to pay more. I just felt horrible for the people who have to make that climb every single day, just to sell their stuff even cheaper than the people who work at the bottom. Maybe they all work together and they rotate. I'd actually hope so because my goodness, to have to sweat and struggle up those stairs like that on a daily basis, just to sell your goods at a significantly reduced price, that's awful to me. The last stand was still about a half an hour from the top, though it was the last watch tower. It may have been half an hour, however, because by this point Lauren, Linda and I were quite tired so we were going a bit slower than we'd started out going in the beginning. Linda was a trooper though, continuing to encourage us and at times push us, because we only had so much time, we have to make it to the top before the bus leaves us! We had plenty of time still, but we appreciated her encouragement, for the most part. When you're huffing and puffing, hot and sweaty, and discouraged by the fact that everyone's saying you're close and yet you still can't see the top, sometimes you can get a little bit annoyed. But indeed, we persevered and we all made it to the top. Looking out over everything- nothing but the hills and the wall on three sides, the tiny speck of a parking lot and the line of wall we climbed to get to that point, it was amazing. There I was, standing on the Great Wall of China. I had burned my calves and thighs intentionally to see and touch this phenomenal piece of history that I'd been reading about in my history books since elementary school. But the coolest part of reaching the top was that it's tradition to scream once you get to the top. By the time Lauren, Linda and I made it up there were twelve or so other girls up there and a few more trickled up after us, so Linda orchestrated a group scream rather than fifteen individual screams, so in unison we all yelled at the top of our lungs for as long as we could. Our voices filled the air for miles around us and of course my ears, and as I listened, my arms outstretched and my face looking up at the sky, it was one of those moments when you truly feel alive. It was a release, a cathartic moment to let out all of this energy and emotion that had been filling my entire being for so long. It made everything real. The excitement, the doubt, the supreme essence of this entire journey, of experiencing and taking in the entire world, it was all rushing through my veins. I knew that it hadn't all been a dream because here I was, feeling its effects as I stood there at the top of the Great Wall screaming. I'd had to convince myself before that I wasn't dreaming, but at that moment, I could feel how real it had all been. To let it all out, all of the emotions from panic to ecstasy that I'd been experiencing day in and day out for the past 75 days, it had to have been there in the first place. And when out it went into the Chinese air in the form of a scream, I knew it had all been real. On the way back down the Wall, which was obviously much easier than the trek up, we had to stop constantly because everyone wanted to take pictures with Katie. Blonde hair isn't all that prevalent in Asian countries, so tourists from all over wanted pictures not with the Great Wall they were climbing, but with the blonde girl. It was hilarious to watch, because as desperately as they wanted the pictures they were too embarrassed to ask her for a picture. So what they would do instead is follow close behind or in front of her and pretend to take pictures of the wall, but really get her. When they'd stop in front of her, she'd keep running into them. Or, when she'd try to move out of the way, they'd chase after her so she wouldn't leave before they got their pictures. After she realized what was going on she'd just ask them if they wanted a picture, and they were so incredibly pleased to not have to be sneaky about it. So I played photographer for them, because brunette hair was boring, and Katie was a star for the day. I loved it. Once we finally made it down, we stopped at the shop at the very bottom to buy shirts and sweatshirts, but realized how much more expensive they were so we hiked the first set of stairs again to get to a little cheaper price for "I Climbed the Great Wall" memorabilia. I could have killed someone at that point, walking back up the stairs. My legs burned like no other point in my life. We still had about a half-hour before getting back on the bus, so we treated ourselves to a beer and ice cream bars. We contemplated sleeping in the Great Wall, but we had no idea how to go about it at that point. A cab didn't seem too promising to catch to take us to a spot where we could, plus it was still early so we would have had nothing at all to do. So, disappointed about not being able to sleep there but amazed we'd actually climbed the Wall, we climbed back onto the bus and drove back into the city for dinner, and it was incredible to realize that even after the passage of three hours, the skyline didn't look any different. It was no darker at 5pm than it was at 2pm because of the smog. Just unbelievable. After we made it back in, which took forever because the city's so damn big and so damn busy, we went to the Remnin University campus to have dinner. The University had set up a special room attached to the cafeteria for us, and each of the seven or so tables had a university student there for us to talk to. After piling our plates with amazing food from the buffet line, we ate and played a game with our student, whose name I couldn't understand. He asked if we'd ever played the Number Game, and taught us how. He gave someone his cell phone, had them pick a number, and we went around the table guessing the number. With each guess they'd tell us higher or lower, and whoever guessed the number essentially lost because he or she had to do whatever the cell phone holder asked them to do. The first time, Lauren "lost" and was instructed by the Chinese student, who had picked the number, to make an announcement to our student tour guide, Kai, that she was in love with him. (This backfired tremendously, which I will get to later) I "lost" and was instructed by Katie, who'd chosen the number (I obviously shouldn't have guessed 666 which I just knew she'd pick because I know her too well) to stand up in front of the room and do something funny. Our exchange student suggested that I get up and dance, but obviously I couldn't dance alone so, quite to his surprise, I pulled him up with me and we did a little jig in front of the group. He had no idea how to dance, so we completely fudged it, but it was so much fun to laugh and make fools of ourselves. By this time, everyone was done eating so we were ushered outside to meet with our student tour guides from the University. We were split up so that each tour guide had no more than two SAS students. I was lucky and had one eighteen-year old girl, Claudia, all to myself. She introduced herself and led me around campus. We talked about our families (including about her mother's procedure after she gave birth to Claudia because of the one-child limit), the education systems in China and in America (her best test scores in high school awarded her a scholarship to Remnin to study Economics, so that's what she's doing, and not surprisingly she was fascinated by the freedom I have to choose where I wanted to go and what I wanted to study), and she told me about how she wants to do an exchange program at MIT in the next year or two. She first took me to her apartment where she lives with her five other roommates, most of which she gets along with. I asked if she goes home often, and she says that she stays on campus over the summer and only goes home for a week or so at Christmas. Home for her is the same town that Mao was from, a piece of trivia she was obviously very proud of. I asked her a couple of other times where she was from, to try to get her to tell me the name of the town, but that seemed inconsequential if you knew Mao was born there as well. She told me about the holiday tradition there, when the entire family gathers together, eats, and shoots off fireworks. She didn't quite know what to call them when she was explaining them to me. She told me you shot them off and they exploded light, which I thought was just adorable. She also stopped so we could take pictures constantly, and her favorite pose was standing next to me and giving me bunny ears. So I have bunny ears standing in front of the library of the University, in front of the soccer field and track where everyone was hanging out after night had fallen, and in front of statues with the founders of the University. She took me to one of her favorite lounges, a coffee house type hangout on the main floor of one of the dorms, where she'll do homework or hang out with her friends when she has time, and it looked just like any other big university. She then took me to the building where most of her classes were in, and the coolest part about it was the reader board that they had in the entrance of the building, listing which classes were being offered which that day, what room they were in, what time they were at, and the professor. We then walked down a hallway so I could peek into a classroom, all of which were full even at 8:30 at night. As we walked from the academic building to the main park on campus, I asked her what she likes to do for fun. More specifically, I asked her what she did in her free time, and she told me she studies. She says a couple of times a week she'll go play tennis, but has to for a tennis course she is taking at the University. She says she never sees friends and rarely talks to her family because she is busy with school work from her eight-course load. I looked at her in amazement, asking how she could ever find the time to take eight courses, as I sometimes find my four-course schedule overwhelming, and she made it seem like it wasn't that big of a deal to her at all. She explained she only has some of those classes once a week, so that seemed to satisfy her. We walked through the park and realized we were running late, so we rushed back to meet the rest of the group. We exchanged email address, and I gave her the red Frisbee with "SAS" printed on it, and she was so touched that she took her charm her Mom had given her off her cell phone to give to me. I tried to insist she didn't need to do it, but it's rude not to accept gifts, so I gratefully accepted it. We hugged each other several times before saying goodbye, and even after only an hour it was hard to say goodbye. The mood as we left the campus to walk back to our hotel was a mixture between excitement and sadness. Even in such a short time, many of us had gotten close to our students. I laughed at myself, too, because all day I'd been nervous about one-on-one time with a student. I don't know why it is that I fret so much about interacting with people, wondering what I'm supposed to say and talk about. And then of course, it all came so naturally and I had to wonder why I was ever nervous at all. On our walk back to the hotel I talked to Dan about my going to Tanzania to volunteer for a month and he convinced me that if I had a choice, I should opt to teach English because of how great it would look on a resume. That coupled with my Semester at Sea experience, he said a lot of people would be interested in talking to me. That's one of the things I really feel I missed out on with the whole Semester at Sea experience was the life-changing part of it. Of course, I am changed because of it, but unlike with so many people I know, Katie included, my experience wasn't so much life-changing as it was life-assuring. I'd already had ideas of what I wanted to do before I went on the voyage, and what I saw and did only deepened my desire to use my life to do good in this world. I'd hoped it would help me figure out more specifically how, which it didn't. At least, not that I recognize yet. But it's a hard question to be asked now that I'm home, is how do you think it's changed you? I feel like now that I'm home, in some ways I've done exactly what I feared I would do. I was talking to Amanda the other day as I was rereading all of the emails that I'd sent to friends and family while I was away, and I remember as I read them so vividly the emotional experience of it all, and yet when I look at what I'm doing now, not a lot has changed. I do silly things like make sure I turn off the lights when I leave a room or not leave the water running or don't waste, things that I should have been doing before anyway, but I definitely do things like that now. For awhile once I got home, I didn't want to drink Starbucks anymore for fear of how big corporations take advantage of developing countries, but here I sit at Starbucks, drinking my soy latte. If something like what I experienced can't truly change a person, is there anything that ever will? Will we ever find a way to make the changes the world needs to make it better for everyone? We all, myself included, can talk about our desires to and our ideas of how to do it, but then we return to our lives. It's exactly what our wine tour guide was talking to me about. You can only do what you can do. But I'm desperate to find a way out of that. I mean, I suppose the fact that even after leaving my journals all summer I've now returned to them, with every intent to keep working on them until I either get lucky and get them out there or have at least tried like hell to. I suppose right now, at this point in my life, it's what I can do.
After we walked back to the hotel, Lauren, Katie and I got ready to go out with Linda and two other girls from our SAS group. We all agreed we didn't want to have too late of a night so we'd save karaoke for another night, but we wanted to do something. So, we piled into two cabs and drove to a pretty deserted-looking area with one strip of bars and restaurants. We tried one but for some reason Linda wasn't satisfied, so we walked through the mud to one a couple doors down. This place was the cutest place I've ever seen. There were pictures and dried flowers and books pasted to the wall, the booths were cozy and intimate, and the place itself was no bigger than a small coffee shop, and with five American girls we were certainly a hit. Everyone came by to at least say hi, and several people sat down to talk to us. We ordered popcorn to snack on, and Linda insisted that we try her favorite drink, Green tea and Chivas whiskey. We sipped our drinks and visited, talking girl talk and gushing about how we'd all climbed the Great Wall only a few hours ago. Truly, I still can't fully grasp how lucky I was to do all that I did in those three months. Amazing.
