Thoughts on China

By the way, here are some pictures of Beihai Park in Beijing, which I don’t think I linked to before…

and here are more pictures of Tai Shan…

The train ride…

I traveled from Beijing to Tai’an (the town where the mountain, Tai Shan, is located) in a class called hard sleeper. There are hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper and soft sleeper classes. I have way too much baggage, but was able to stow it in an overhead bin that runs along the side of the train opposite the sleepers. In each hard sleeper berth, there are six bunk beds. Mine was the middle right one. A lady who worked as a journalist for a newspaper about coal production occupied the other middle berth. We exchanged business cards and I correctly figured out that her surname was Lin (since one of the characters in the Chinese Practical Reader I use to learn Chinese also has that name). We talked for a while. She knew just enough English and I knew just enough Chinese that we were able to communicate pretty well. After that, I read for a while and got some shuteye.

I had booked the train through the Lotus Hostel in Beijing. All they had were hard seats on Saturday, which is why I stayed through Monday. Anyway, I didn’t inquire as to the arrival time in Tai’an, which turned out to be about 2:00 AM! There were quite a few taxi drivers hustling business (which I was warned not to get rides from those who are soliciting, but I finally just thought that I wouldn’t mind paying a little bit extra just to get to a hotel and settle in). As it turned out, the driver who kept trying to help me with my bags drove me a decent distance to a hotel and only asked 5RMB (or 66 cents). I gave him 10, since he was honest and hard working.

I got checked into the hotel and went to sleep, readying myself for the climb a few hours later.

Tai Shan

I was thinking I’d climb the mountain and then stay overnight to see the sunrise, so I didn’t start out for the mountain until about 10:00 in the morning (yesterday, 2007-10-16). I got a taxi to the bottom of the mountain and started up. I only saw one other foreigner all day, (I’ll discuss that later), so I was treated specially. There are two things that seemed evident: 1) Everyone in China knows how to say “Hello!” and 2) most people want to have their picture taken with an American. I’ve read many people’s accounts where they say the “Hello!” becomes annoying; however, I find it more endearing. Chinese have to take English in school and most of them don’t ever see foreigners to be able to use it. I also didn’t mind having my picture taken so much. I had a few of them take a picture with my camera, too, to remember all the picture taking!

I didn’t find the climb near as strenuous as the Great Wall section, though I did have to take breaks to let my legs recover as the climb progressed. There were various temples along the way, which gave a natural break. There was a lot of incense sold and red banners put in places with locks, all of which, I believe, are done with the intention of creating good luck for the people doing these things. Most of the temples were Taoist, though Lao Tsu (the founder of Taoism) really was a philosopher and emphasized being at one with nature. The same is true of the Buddha, who never taught religion, but philosophy. The religion and “gods” associated with Taoism and Buddhism in China are more of an add on of local beliefs and customs. I, personally, really like both of the philosophies, but let others practice the religion.

Anyway, I ended up walking the last half of the mountain with another guy who was traveling alone. We took each others’ pictures at the various gates along the way. We reached the summit in the early afternoon. I drank a lot of water on the way up, as well as having a couple of prepackaged ice cream cones, a couple slices of watermelon, a sweet potato (which was really delicious!), as well as some fried dofu (tofu) and pork noodles at a restaurant at the summit. Many people take a cable car to the summit.

At about 4:00 or so, I realized that my schedule was to be in Xi’an the next day (today), so instead of staying overnight on the mountain, I took the cable car and then a bus down to the base and a taxi back to the hotel, where I had my bags put in storage. There, I arranged a flight for today and slept soundly last night. I’m writing this at about 8:00AM on Wednesday, 2007-10-17. I don’t know when I’ll be able to post it. I’m going to take my laptop to the Internet cafe and see if I can hookup to the Internet directly, so that I can put my pictures and this post up before I leave Tai’an.