Touring Beijing

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  Beijing, China
Sunday, August 24, 2008

Tuesday I woke up sometime before 6. The sun was already beating down through the window. All of China works under one time zone so the sun rises and sets very early in Beijing (and all of the major cities on the coast).  Feeling hot and a little nauseous from jetlag, I wasn't in a very adventurous mood. So I decided to accompany Adam to his ESL class that morning. I'm glad I did.

Both Adam and Rachael teach English but for different programs. Adam's class is comprised of about 20 students, most of which are older teenagers but also includes a statistics professor and an older woman. The day's topics included important history events of the 20th century and the pros and cons of globalization. As Adam taught the lesson, many furiously typed on their electronic English dictionaries that looked expensive. These students are lucky to be able to take a summer course like this. But learning English doesn't translate to instance success (per our standards). For instance, the best English speakers I've encountered so far worked at Starbucks. But for the Chinese, Starbucks is an excellent opportunity to make a relatively good living.

I was very impressed with how well the students spoke English and their ability to formulate complicated and nuanced opinions in a foreign language. The debate on globalization was no different than what would take place at White Hall at Cornell except they would use primarily Chinese history for their evidence. Interestingly, almost all of them thought globalization was a good thing that will allow China to gain prestige and improve the standard of living for the citizens.

But I was even more impressed with their ability to think in English. Adam asked the students to list what they thought were the three most important events in 20th century Chinese history. After a while, I asked why no one thought the Olympics should be on the list. Instantly, half of the students emphatically rebutted that the year 2008 isn't in the 20th century. Only by thinking in English could they respond so quickly. Right now, I cannot come close to voicing such nuanced opinions or thinking in Arabic. But I can say that teaching English looks like a fun and rewarding job and I should seriously consider it during my stay in the Middle East.

A side note: many students talked openly about the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, millions of Chinese lost their lives during a cultural and academic purge under Mao's leadership. I learned later they blame that atrocity on Mao's wife and therefore it is not a taboo subject. Today, Mao is still revered to the point of near deification.

In the afternoon, Adam and I decided to go to the Summer Palace. The Palace sits on a huge lake on the outskirts of the city. Emperors used to avoid the summer heat by escaping to the Palace - thus the name. I won't/can't explain in words what my pictures can show once I figure out a way of uploading them. But the palace affords a great view of the city from its mountaintop. Of interest, the dowager Empress Cixi commissioned the construction of an all-marble boat for use on the lake. It was built, launched, and sank in quick order. Today it sits precariously on the edge of the water, both pretty and pretty useless.

After a Peking Duck dinner, Adam, Rachael and I went to a movie theater in a nice mall. We saw a Chinese movie called Red Cliff about the vilified historical figure of Cao Cao. If you like movies with a lot of stylized bloodletting and in-your-face metaphors, then it's worth seeing. I was more amused by the assigned seating in the theater. More importantly, they have Coldstone here - and yes, they do sing.

The next morning I felt ready to strike out on my own. After overpaying for an "American" breakfast, I hailed a taxi and set off for Tiananmen Square.  The world's largest square, we know Tiananmen best as the location of the student protests in 1989 that were brutally repressed. But the Chinese venerate the square as the landmark where Mao announced the formation of Communist China in 1949. I decided to skip Mao's Mausoleum (too macabre) and instead focused my attention on the numerous topiary structures built in honor of the Olympics. I then passed under Mao's giant picture to enter the Forbidden City.

The Ming and Qing dynasties used the huge complex as their seat of power that was quite literally forbidden to the general public. For the first time but not the last, I had trouble with the ticket required to enter the city. Namely, I bought the wrong one. China's tourist industry, though vibrant and still growing, is severely lacking in services for non-Chinese speakers. Ticket booths only use Chinese and list a confusing array of pricing for unknown variations of ticket packages. The English signs that do exist are deficient and rife with grammatical errors (but they are amusing). To make things easy, I am now in the habit of just giving the cashier the money for the most expensive option, rarely more than 5 dollars.

The Forbidden City was as massive as it was stunning. The main three buildings are three different thrones for the Emperor. The first is for daily business and the third for meeting dignitaries. The second, without exaggeration, served as a resting point for the Emperor as he traveled between the other two. I was also intrigued by Volkswagon-sized urns that dotted the entire complex. During the time of the Emperor, they were filled with water to minimize the high risk of fire. Nonetheless, it seemed every building at one point or another was destroyed by fire and later rebuilt. In addition to the buildings, the City also has many historical artifacts like jade and ancient carvings from the Zhou dynasty (500 BC). Adam later told me that most of these are likely fakes - the Nationalists took all the real valuables with them when they fled to Taiwan. Today they are used as a bargaining chip in the political struggle between the two Chinas.

For lunch, I met with Adam and my other friend Ham, who is also studying Chinese and lives in Beijing. Together, we went to explore the Old Summer Palace. This palace served the same purpose as the other Summer Palace, but as the name suggests, was built earlier. However, it was destroyed by European forces during one of the Opium Wars. I guess while fighting for the right to addict the Chinese to opium to make a profit, they felt it necessary to destroy cultural landmarks as well. In any case, now the Old Summer Palace consists of a nice park dotted by ruins.

It would have been nice, then, to actually get to see it. But it was not to be. As I said before, the tourist industry is still new. In this case, the park did not have very good signs or maps to point us in the right direction. Somehow we ended up on a dirt path that arced through the woods. Suddenly on a top of a hill, we looked down to see the ruins but we found ourselves on the wrong side of a security fence. Like the responsible tourists we are, we jumped the fence and started towards the first cluster of ruins. Right as I pulled out my camera, we were stopped by a security guard who demanded to see our tickets. The request was odd as there is no way to get to either side of the fence without first purchasing a ticket. Nonetheless, Adam and Ham retrieved their tickets and showed the guard who then looked to me. I dug my hand into my pocket to find a ticket for every possible attraction but the Old Summer Palace. The guard told Adam and Ham to stay put and motioned for me to follow. Talking in Chinese and disconcertingly smirking, he led me away from my translators. Rational and irrational thoughts raced through my head - what is the penalty for trespassing in an authoritarian country? I later found out the guard said that we were only going a short distance away to buy another ticket, but I missed that message. But by the time I got back, we had no time left to explore the ruins. We had an Olympic game to catch.

Adam and Rachael already had tickets to the softball bronze medal match between Australia and Japan. Luckily, buying scalped tickets was easy enough with Adam as translator and negotiator. Getting into the stadium, however, was another matter. Once again, there were no signs so we ended up asking a police officer for help. His directions led us directly into a fence. Asking another officer, we were yet again shown into a dead end. Eventually we escaped the labyrinthine security measures surrounding the stadium to find our way into the game, already in its second inning. The game itself was very exciting, extending into extra innings. As Americans, we were by default the loudest in our section and led several slow claps and chants of jaiyo or let's go! Though the highlight for me was watching two 12-year-old Chinese kicking back several beers. Laws are far and few between here and rarely enforced.

The entire Olympic experience essentially serves as a microcosm for my experiences in China so far. The simplest of tasks here, like eating breakfast or taking a taxi, take on entirely unexpected challenges and difficulties. Literal and figurative fences abound. But they are never insurmountable and the rewards are always worth it.  

I went to bed soon after the game. The next morning, I would have to face a new kind of obstacle, large enough to repulse invading hordes from the North.

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