Beijing is a crazy city that makes NYC look small and slow in rush hour. That being said, it's also been managable and pretty amazing to see this city and country during a time of massive change- old, small winding Hutongs right next to massive sky scrapers. And a lot of the city is under construction for the Olympics. In fact, the night we arrived the road our hostel is on was filled with mud, pot holes, and huge piles of dirt. And literally, the next morning was paved.
We've eaten at an amazing veggie place- it had a vegetarian buffet, which was very exciting... lots of incredible dishes with vegetables, any kind of mushroom you can imagine, and lots of tofu. YUM. They also had mock snails and eel. Both were how I imagine the genuine article to taste- rubbery and more like the sauce than anything else.
Hiking the Great Wall was hands down the highlight of my experience here. It was very special to be hiking along such an incredible construction and also the scenery was breathtaking. We hiked an area 3 hours outside of Beijing, so were alone most of the time, which was a rare treat in this very packed city. Well, alone mostly- we were frequently followed by people trying to sell us things.
Probably the craziest thing we have done here was going to the Silk Market or the "Knock Off Market" where there are four stories of wares with brand names (but are not actually the real deal, so you can get a deal). It was absolutely the most aggressive sales I have encountered- not only were we constantly baraged by a cacaphony of "Looka Looka. You want to buy this? You want these Gucci bags? Good price for you." It was incredibly loud and I was also physically grabbed. At one point I had two women literally hanging on me, trying to pull me into their store. And because I was so much larger than them, I was dragging them down the aisle while telling them no! Mike had people shouting at him, "My God!" "You are so hot!" "You need a fan!" He had beaded sweat on his forehead due to the heat.
It was kind of fun to watch the interactions of other people. We watched one sales person yell at a customer, "Why won't you buy this? Buy this now!" And saw another customer start screaming at a store clerk and actually start trying to hit the clerk with her hand bag. She made several forceful lunges at the clerk, but was grabbed and wrestled by another customer. Wild!
We had a lovely dinner with a new friend, Kamal, the son of our friend in Seattle, Mary Jo. And we met his lively daughter, Day, too. It was really nice to get to connect with some people living in the city and here about their lives here.
Tomorrow we leave for Seattle bright and early...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Return to Beijing
We arrived in Beijing on June 27th. This was a return trip for me not for Carol. I was here in 1991 as part of the Semester at Sea program. We had ported in Shanghai and I flew to Beijing as part of a tour group from the ship. Diplomatic relations with the world were just starting to open up at that point under Deng Xiao Ping's leadership and the Tiananmen Square Incident in which the government violently ended student calls for democracy was still a fresh memory for all. I had the great opportunity to meet with students and discuss politics at a time when many students felt quite anxious about their future.
Beijing looks like a different city to me today. Some things look the same..Tiananmen Square, Mao's frozen body on display at Memorial Hall, the beautiful Forbidden City, many beautiful historic temples, and charming hutongs (narrow alleyways accessible by bike and foot where people live, run shops, sell food).
..but many things look quite different. There's a wonderful modern subway system in which you can get around cheaply and efficiently. There are lots of skyscrapers, and there's a flurry of construction leading up to the Olympics! For one, the international terminal at the airport is a gorgeous new addition- apparently shaped like a dragon but I couldn't see that. There's a bizarre egg shaped glass building called the National Grand Palace that lies just west of Tiananmen Square. It's a strange contrast of new and old architecture at the heart of the city. The contrast of the new and the old is something that you will find throughout Beijing- old architecture in the hutongs, and just around the corner a modern skyscraper.
Just like when I was here in the early 90s, there are still heated political critiques of China especially when it comes to Tibet. I do get a sense from my conversations with students, and friends from the States that live here that there seems to be a bit more room for dissent than there was back in 91 but that's hard to guage from my short time here. It has been interesting to hear people's perspective on Tibet and disagreement with the Dalai Lama's critique of the Chinese government.
It will be interesting to continue to see the influence that the Olympics will have on China and the world's view of China. They are certainly putting tons of energy into making it a great experience for all. I just found this editorial on New York Times Online that I found very interesting. It references the Olympic mascots. There are Olympic mascot paraphenalia everywhere you go. They are actually quite cute! Anyhow check out this editorial when you have a moment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/opinion/02rabkin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Beijing looks like a different city to me today. Some things look the same..Tiananmen Square, Mao's frozen body on display at Memorial Hall, the beautiful Forbidden City, many beautiful historic temples, and charming hutongs (narrow alleyways accessible by bike and foot where people live, run shops, sell food).
..but many things look quite different. There's a wonderful modern subway system in which you can get around cheaply and efficiently. There are lots of skyscrapers, and there's a flurry of construction leading up to the Olympics! For one, the international terminal at the airport is a gorgeous new addition- apparently shaped like a dragon but I couldn't see that. There's a bizarre egg shaped glass building called the National Grand Palace that lies just west of Tiananmen Square. It's a strange contrast of new and old architecture at the heart of the city. The contrast of the new and the old is something that you will find throughout Beijing- old architecture in the hutongs, and just around the corner a modern skyscraper.
Just like when I was here in the early 90s, there are still heated political critiques of China especially when it comes to Tibet. I do get a sense from my conversations with students, and friends from the States that live here that there seems to be a bit more room for dissent than there was back in 91 but that's hard to guage from my short time here. It has been interesting to hear people's perspective on Tibet and disagreement with the Dalai Lama's critique of the Chinese government.
It will be interesting to continue to see the influence that the Olympics will have on China and the world's view of China. They are certainly putting tons of energy into making it a great experience for all. I just found this editorial on New York Times Online that I found very interesting. It references the Olympic mascots. There are Olympic mascot paraphenalia everywhere you go. They are actually quite cute! Anyhow check out this editorial when you have a moment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/opinion/02rabkin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Beer in Dixie Cups!
Yangshou as we mentioned in a previous posting is quite touristy. Lots of foreigners milling about. It makes sense that it would be a good place to have an English Language school there. On our last day in Yangshou we were approached on four different occasions on the streets of the city by different Chinese students that wanted to invite us to a party presumably to practice speaking English. We were a bit reluctant but after being approached for the 5th or 6th time we decided to go. One of the incentives was free beer. When we got there we were each greeted by about a half dozen students who at this point in the evening were anxious to play good hosts to the rather small group of foreigners that showed up. We were served beer in dixie cups and some delicious fruit and peanuts. We were then also told that there would be a performance in a few minutes.
The performance was quite entertaining. They had planned various line dances to both American and Chinese pop music. I also participated in a game of Charades that turned out to be more of a word association game. The evening culminated with some singing performances and a very odd fashion show where several students did what looked like a runway walk to music but only one woman was dressed in a new outfit. Beer and soda kept flowing through the whole event and I was glad to see that the ration of students to foreigners improved greatly as the evening went on. They did good on street recruitment.
The performance was quite entertaining. They had planned various line dances to both American and Chinese pop music. I also participated in a game of Charades that turned out to be more of a word association game. The evening culminated with some singing performances and a very odd fashion show where several students did what looked like a runway walk to music but only one woman was dressed in a new outfit. Beer and soda kept flowing through the whole event and I was glad to see that the ration of students to foreigners improved greatly as the evening went on. They did good on street recruitment.
Vegan Dining in Yangshuo!
We had a very exciting discovery in Yangshuo- a vegetarian restaurant! The English name was Pure Lotus Vegetarian restaurant. Vegetarian and it had air conditioning! The food was delicious. We liked it so much we ate there three times over 5 days!
Our very favorite dish was Wok Fried Broccoli. It was a delicious lightly fried Broccoli dish with some mildly hot spice added. The presentation was really beautiful as well. They put 2-3 small stalks of broccoli on a spear and fanned them out so you had what looked like a broccoli forest on your plate. Other favorite dishes included Braised Mushroom & tofu and we had a couple other fungus dishes that I can't recall the name of. We have found many different kinds of delicious mushroom dishes throughout China. This place had some of the best!
Our very favorite dish was Wok Fried Broccoli. It was a delicious lightly fried Broccoli dish with some mildly hot spice added. The presentation was really beautiful as well. They put 2-3 small stalks of broccoli on a spear and fanned them out so you had what looked like a broccoli forest on your plate. Other favorite dishes included Braised Mushroom & tofu and we had a couple other fungus dishes that I can't recall the name of. We have found many different kinds of delicious mushroom dishes throughout China. This place had some of the best!
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