'don't interrupt me when i'm talking crap!'
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2007
1
20
Trip End
Dec 15, 2007
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
beijing is a city full of glaring contradictions. shiny new buildings are everywhere...and scattered about their feet are ancient temples, winding alleyways (called hutongs),and monuments to china's recent political history. 15 million people live here...and the distances are sprawling. maps are deceiving (for a number of reasons)...what looks like it should take maybe 10 minutes to walk actually takes 30...assuming that what you're trying to find is still actually there. the amount of construction in beijing is astounding, although maybe not especially surprising considering the olympics next year. whole blocks have been leveled and walled in so that new buildings can take their place. major streets end at construction sites...and suddenly you're left trying to figure out how to get actually get where you wanted to go. not to mention that the ubiquitous hutongs are almost never accurately represented on maps....they're too small and too evasive. as well, street names change at almost every block...the naming in chinese being very literal with syllables denoting direction and orientation. it takes a while to get used to...but i seem to be doing all right with navigation now. beijing is also covered in a thick haze most of the time...it's hard to tell just how much of it is atmosphere and how much is pollution. i haven't really found it any more difficult to breathe... and when the sun does shine through the air is much clearer. i'm also not sure if the chinese government has started trying to clean up the air for the olympics yet...i've heard that they were planning rotating factory closures to improve air quality.
the culture in beijing seems to be more and more influenced by chinese youth culture...trendy clubs, bars, and venues are everywhere...and fashion and design seems to be hugely important..though one disturbing trend among young men and woman seems to be wearing shirts with english phrases that are often vaguely nonsensical or just strange. some of my favourites have been 'i love m-mouse', 'go down', and easily the best (and with a rare sense of grammar) 'don't interrupt me when i'm talking crap!' i'm assuming that the people wearing these shirts are wealthy and educated enough to have some sense of what the english might mean...but the shirts are worn with a complete lack of irony.
as for what i've been up to...i've seen a lot in the last four days. i've been to the temple of heaven, a large walled park south of central beijing filled with temples from the ming period (built 15th century-ish). far more interesting was the forbidden city which is a massive complex full of temples and living quarters where emperors once lived their entire lives and peasants were forbidden to even look at (hence the name). it's difficult to describe just how much space the place occupies, right in the middle of beijing no less. i've also been to the lama temple, which is probably the most revered tibetan buddhist temple outside of tibet. the largest of the temple pavilions houses a stunning 17 metre high sandalwood buddha statue...supposedly carved out of one giant piece of sandalwood from tibet (the guinness book of world records believed it...) i couldn't get any pictures of it due to spiritual sensitivity...but they couldn't possibly have done it justice anyway...it needs to be experienced in person. yesterday i went on a day trip to part of the great wall...not the most well known segment at badaling but one slightly further away at simatai. badaling is usually mobbed with tourists to a degree that turned me off completely. simatai is slightly harder to get to...but the views are better and i was rewarded with only sharing the space with maybe 100 other people (virtually zero for any tourist spot near beijing). it was cloudy and so while the enormity of the views was diminished, parts of the wall were literally in the clouds...which more more than made up for it. the wall at simatai was quite steep in parts (stairs at 60-70 degrees) but i figure that i need to prepare myself for my trek in nepal...i think i might hike up a few mountains around china too as a warm-up.
i've also spent time exploring beijing's 'communist' spots..tiananmen square and the surrounding monuments and buildings. the square is massive, slightly longer than a kilometre and always brimming with people. it's housed on all sides by buildings...the tiananmen gate to the north with a large painting of mao, the national museum to the east and mao's mausoleum to the south (both closed for olympic renovations). and finally the great hall of the people to the west...which i went into to look around. the chinese government has its meetings here...the lecture hall/theatre in which they're held can hold 10000 people. apart from that space however, the hall feels more like a slightly dilapidated luxury hotel than it does a house of governance. and all of this is probably the greatest contradiction...modern china is a booming capitalist economy...and no one's trying to hide that fact, least of all the chinese government. 'communist china' is a misnomer of epic proportions. it's just capitalism with authoritarian governance. which is interesting in a number of ways...it brings into question the idea that capitalism somehow always creates democracy and political freedom (an idea long held by right-wing intellectuals)...capitalism seems to function just fine in the absence of political freedom over here. but the collective cognitive dissonance of the chinese people as a result of the clash of long held and cherished beliefs about revolutionary history and the reality of the current economic climate is on a scale probably unheard of in history.
one of my more interesting interactions took place while was i walking around tiananmen square. i had read that there was a scam of sorts particular to beijing where art students introduce themselves to you and drag you back to their student 'gallery' exhibition to try to get you to buy fairly crappy knock-off paintings of chinese classics. there's always an excuse as to why they're not actually studying. i was approached by someone almost right away and, knowing what was going on, was happy to have make my way to the gallery (seeing as it was right at the top of the square) if only for the interesting conversation on the way...i had no intention of buying a painting. i told 'linda' (as she called herself) that i wanted to go into the great hall of the people on the way and she said that she'd never seen it herself and could she come along. there's an entrance fee for the hall...RMB 30 for me, RMB 15 for her (because she's a student), plus RMB 5 for a manditory bag check that she paid for. this made me nervous because now she'd spent some money while following me around and would probably be more forceful when trying to get me to buy paintings later. when we finally finished with the hall and made our way to the gallery, everything proceeded pretty much as i expected...and i eventually managed to make it clear that i wasn't going to buy anything (although the paintings weren't actually as bad as i thought they'd be). i felt bad that she had spent money though...so i offered to pay her back the 20 yuan she'd spent...and encountered the importance placed on saving face by the chinese for the first time. it was unacceptible to her to take my money as such...however she said that i could make a donation to the school instead...which i'd pay to her...and everything would be fine. so i did, and it was.
Comments
haha,it's funnyI
hehe .it's interesting to hear about such funny story.
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This is a good read. Thank-you.
well documented !
A nicely written experience giving a feel of being there