Thoughts on China

Update: From here, the pictures are only showing up sometimes for this post. I don’t know what’s going on with Picasa, where they are stored, since other posts’ pictures are showing up OK. In any case, here are a couple links if you’re interested after reading this:

Pictures (though small) of the play in action (particularly look at the flood scene, it’s hard to believe it’s indoors)

Picture of the theater (more pictures at the bottom of the page)

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Two days ago, on Thursday, I went to see an amusement park and a dance performance at Happy Valley in southeast Beijing. One of my friends’ sister is one of the managers of the dance performances, which is how I even heard about it. All I can say is that the show was incredible! When my friend told me about it, I thought that it would be a good show, but I was not prepared for the utterly fantastic show that I saw. I have seen a few Broadway shows and they pale in comparison! I kept wondering how much the set must have cost, because I could not imagine that the set changes and a couple of the sets in particular would even be possible. As I found out later from this article (please click on the link and read about it) the large theater itself was built specially to host this play/dance and cost $28,600,000 to build!

The story of the Golden Mask Dynasty unfolds in 8 acts (dances), which are described on two screens (one in Chinese and the other in English) before each of the acts and there are no spoken parts, which means that you won’t wonder what is going on.

The play itself was about a legendary dynasty in China’s history that was created after a war between two states. The queen of the victorious state was very magnanimous and reigned as a benevolent empress. The king of the vanquished state was moved by how well the queen treated his people and the two become lovers and have a great celebration (fete), but a flood takes the queen’s life. The reverence and feelings of the people toward her sustains her spirit and she remains with the people as a spirit.

The stage is huge and includes a main stage, which I estimate is about 50-75 yards wide, along with two side stages which wrap around the front section of seating, each of which is about 50 yards wide (but fairly narrow). The action literally wraps around the audience.

The most fantastic parts

The flood scene

The flood scene blew me away! It really looks like a massive flood pouring over rocks as a gushing waterfall with people struggling to avoid being drowned (the picture doesn’t do justice to the scale of this amazing effect). In addition to the front stage, the side stages also have water pouring out of them that fills the theater with the feeling you get when you are near a waterfall. I can’t imagine the pumps it must take to create this effect which lasts for a full 5-1o minutes, let alone having it be only one of the sets that is seamlessly moved into place without a break in the action. If you’ve ever been to Universal Studios in Orlando and saw the Earthquake ride where there is a flood, this one is much more impressive!

The peacock dance

In another scene, live peacocks are part of the headgear of the dancers (16 in all). I don’t know how they get the peacocks to be so relaxed with all the motion and sound, but it is really amazing!

The set changes, lighting, costumes, dancing and acrobatics

The sets are changed and come from the sides, the back and rise from the floor in an elaborate, complex, yet seamless manner. Everything is timed perfectly and to do everything without a mistake seems like a miracle. The lighting is also extremely well done and adds to the drama and excitement. The costumes are also amazing, combining the lavishness of Las Vegas stage costumes and the refinement of opera costumes with the style of China. The dances are very well choreographed both artistically and to tell the story. Acrobatics are also incorporated into the show. In one segment, for instance, three trampolines are used and the three acrobats/dancers use holes in a back stage wall to bounce from and into, sometimes as it is moving up or down.

This is one of those times when words cannot describe the show, but I highly recommend this performance to anyone who might visit Beijing while it is still showing.

More pix here

Wow! That’s all I can say about the Great Wall (GW) (other than OUCH!).

Before I talk about it, let me say for those interested in going to China that I highly recommend the section I went to (Jin Shan ling to Si Ma tai, as well as the tour company that conducts it. I arranged to go through the hostel where I am staying (Lotus Hostel) and the whole day cost Y220 ($28). This includes the transportation from and to the hostel (three hours each way) and all the tickets you need to get from one end to the other, which had a combined face value of Y95, making the transportation cost Y125 ($16.50). The BEST part of the tour company was that they facilitated your trip, but didn’t get in the way. The biggest complaint I’ve seen in researching any type of arranged trip is the mandatory stop at a jade factory, or cloissone factory, with 30 minutes of sitting around waiting for you to buy something, for which the tour company gets a cut. The second part I was afraid of was that we would be herded like sheep, by a tour guide with a flag, as you see at all the major tourist spots in Beijing. As you read, you’ll see that these fears were unwarranted and they did just what you wanted them to do and no more.

I won’t bore you with the details of the 6:40 AM pickup or ride to the GW. They just dropped us off, bought the tickets for us (this was at about 10:00 AM) and said they would meet us at the end of the 5 mile walk at 2:30.

The local “tour guide”

You could take a cable car up to the start of the trail, or walk. Of course we all walked. It was here that I got a small sense of what we were in for. The walking around Beijing did not prepare me for the steep incline and I got quickly winded. There were a number of locals, all of whom have things to sell, that were sizing us up, figuring who would be the most likely to buy something from them. I can’t remember the name of the one who attached himself to me, but he was very friendly and it gave me another chance to practice my Chinese. He acted as a tour guide of sorts, insisted on carrying my bottle of water when going up steep steps and took pictures of me at a few spots. I thought to myself that I know he’s just doing this so he can make some money, but he is doing me a service and he could use the small amount of money more than I can, anyway. He walked
to the half way point with me, at which time I bought a book about this section of the GW from him for $20 - Y20 (the Bank of China had problems of some sort the day before, so I was out of RMB (Yuan, or Y, so I negotiated to give him $20 and he gave me back Y20 and the book). So, it was about $17.50 for two hours of his walking with me and the book. I felt a lot better about that than I would giving money to the beggars anywhere that want a handout without giving anything in return.

The hike

The first half was predominantly uphill and the second half was downhill. I was carrying a full size pack (since I couldn’t stuff my jacket in my daypack) and took five bottles of water with me, which I purchased at the hostel. Because I am so overweight, the severe uphill sections filled my legs with lactic acid from lifting so much and I had to stop more than I wanted to. It reminded me a little bit of my father, who was my age in 1976, hiking with my brother and I up mountains in Colorado. Slow and steady wins the race.

There was an alternate route, off of the GW, that some people took, who felt they couldn’t make it. It’s good they have this alternative, as I could see that some people could get into real trouble if they didn’t have an “escape route”. My “guide” asked me once if I wanted to use it and I told him that I didn’t come to the Great Wall to use the escape route! If nothing else, my pride would keep me going.

The views were breathtaking (which wasn’t hard, since I already was gasping for air!). No amount of pictures or video can compare with the panorama that the real thing presents. It was really nice that there weren’t tons of people on the Wall. There were some, of course, but it was easy to get a picture of just you and the Wall. From the pictures I’ve seen of the most popular tourist section (Ba da ling), this would be nearly impossible there. The other thing that is nice is that, while some portions of this have had repair work done, it is an older section of the Wall which is largely not restored.

Well, there are a lot of materials on the Web about the GW. I just want to say that none of them can prepare you for the majesty and grandeur of the real thing. The most amazing thing about the Wall, in my opinion, is not the scale of it (some 2400 miles, or some such astronomical number). That would be very impressive on flat ground, but what makes it almost unimaginable is the terrain on which it was built. I know I am completely out of shape, but to get up the mountains with a load of stone would be incredibly difficult, even if you were in great shape.

One last comment, in reading about the GW, I often come across thoughts that it is wide enough for four horses and this would be a way for messages to pass quickly up and down the wall. Well, horses are not going to have been going up and down these slopes very fast, if at all. I can see smoke signals from tower to tower could pass messages quickly, but not messengers. I could be wrong, of course, but when you get to a section that looks equivalent to a double black diamond ski slope, I can’t see a lot of four abreast horses romping down it.

More pix here

The Temple of Heaven (ToH) was built up by all the other people at the hostel who had been there as fantastic, the best site they had seen in Beijing. I didn’t have the same feeling. Of course, the architecture is fantastic, with the circular structure having been built without using a single nail, but the site itself was smaller and the tour groups more concentrated here than elsewhere. In addition, you couldn’t go inside the building and there were no lights on, so it was hard to see anything in there. The park around the ToH was nice, but was essentially a lot of cypress trees laid out in a grid.

Also, the museum had far fewer artifacts than either the Forbidden City or Summer Palace.

So, although the architecture was cool, you can see that in pictures as well. I suppose I’ll just chalk it up to different perceptions.

After buying my bicycle, I was going to the Temple of Heaven (ToH). I wanted to find a small pot to boil water in, so that I could make tea in my room. I had passed a WalMart Supercenter on the way to shopping the day before (also on the way to the ToH) and thought that would be a good place to check. Besides, I had to see what the differences were between the store we Americans love to hate but still shop at and the Chinese model. I didn’t get a lot of pictures inside, but I did get a couple. I wish I would have gotten the food section (this is a Super WalMart, after all). There was a girl explaining something to several customers about the tank of turtles there, there were fish tanks full of fish for someone’s dinner, the cooked chickens were neatly displayed in a deli case with the necks and heads intact (not something you see in the States), etc. I asked the greeter if I could take her picture, but got a stern “No” (in English) in reply. They are girls about 20 years old that have huge sashes diagonally across their torso. In any case, I found the water pot (not as small as I desired, but suitable) and was on my way…

On Tuesday (2007-10-09), I wanted to buy a bicycle. There were two shops near me. I briefly looked around the first one and didn’t see anything that suited my fancy. The second shop, Giant, had just what the doctor ordered. With my limited Chinese, I was still able to let the salesman know that I was only going to be here for a week and wanted the cheapest bike he had. He directed me to the Y348 ($45) model and he put on <<<a bell>>> for (Y10 more). I plan to resell it when I leave Beijing. I had already talked to a lady on the shopping street that was interested in buying a bike. When I got back to the hostel, one of the workers expressed an interest, as well. I won’t have time to put it on China eBay, but I should be able to recoup about Y200-250, making the week rental that much cheaper. Plus, it is far superior riding my new bike to <<<the ragged one>>> the hostel had for rent at Y30 ($4) a day.

Traffic in Beijing

Most people would be scared to death to ride a bicycle here, because traffic is seemingly chaotic and, unlike Tallahassee where one or two people go through after the light turns read, Chinese drivers pretend those cars are broken field blockers and they are the running back! In the meantime, they are coming into bicycles that have started across and the oncoming traffic, which honks in disapproval. If there’s an open space, people treat it as they would the last seat in musical chairs.

The amazing thing is, though, that I’ve only seen one accident in my time here and that was one that had nothing to do with the aggressive driving. You just have to be vigilant that people may be coming around you from behind on either side and not make sudden moves.

Overall, the chaos works extremely efficiently and the overall motion of traffic is like a dance, with cars, the double long “accordion” buses, bicycles and pedestrians all playing chicken a million times a second, without the crash you would think has to happen. I’m sure they do happen, but I haven’t seen the signs that on has taken place recently and I have traveled quite a bit here so far.

Unlike Tallahassee, where when the light turns green you may wait for a few second while the lead driver yaks on their cell phone, here everyone would simply drive around them. It’s like the traffic you see in the US in silent movies, if you know what I mean.

But, there is always a complete lane designated for bicycles. It is definitely the best way to get about the city.

Ring Roads

Beijing is laid out in a N-S-E-W grid, which makes it extremely easy (if you have a sens of direction and/or a compass) to get around. In addition to this grid, there are concentric ring roads that allow you to travel diagonally. Most things of interest to travelers are within the 2nd ring road. The 3rd ring road would be equivalent to Interstate highways that turns into 3 digit numbers and circle the city,

Hi, well after a few blog entries, I thought I’d change how I do things. Rather than do one blog entry on all the events of a day, I’ll break up the events so each one will be easier to find (for me, when I review this after I get back home). I have done the previous four entries in this way.

I have done some photostitched panoramas of some of the places I’ve been. You can see them here.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has responded to the posts. This trip is really a dream come true for me and I am happy that you are enjoying it, as well. The Internet has really made this a cool way to travel and share experiences, as well as to create diary I can enjoy later.

I have to be ready to go at 6:40 in the morning, so no late night for me tonight. I went to Walmart, Temple of Heaven, Wangfujing shopping district and a Toastmasters club in Beijing today. I’ll update this after I get back from the Great Wall tomorrow, I hope. I need to do a lot each day, or I’ll fall behind and be worthless…

Good night,

Scott

Well, as you can see, I had a very busy and productive day! I met a lot of nice people, had Peking Duck (picture below), etc. I’ll put these into different headlines below, so you don’t have to read the parts you aren’t interested in…

Cell phone problems resolved

Well, I found out my cell phone has a fairly short battery life. Luckily, it came with two (which I’ll now bring with me). I had a lot of people to call….I was glad to talk to my wife, Linda, though I made the mistake of calling her at 11:00 in the morning (aka 11 PM in Tallahassee time). I tested the local Chinese call to my coworker, Wenjin, and it worked well. I called my tutor (and student) Sophie, who was probably wondering if I had fallen off the face of the earth, since she is setting up a way for me to see her sister’s dancing troupe. Then, I made a local call to Lily, the VP of PR for the Toastmasters club I’m going to tomorrow evening. It turns out she is giving a speech tomorrow night about an interesting historical site that was uncovered in Sichuan province in 1984 (I’ll be going to Sichuan and am looking forward to the speech).

I have never used cell phones much before, but it is extremely handy to use in this situation, where I’ll be out and about all day, but always in cell phone range. There is one amusing thing, though, that I’ll try to get rectified if I can. I got an SMS from Lily, telling me about something that I wanted to reply to. This cell phone has a PDA like screen that you write the letters on….or that’s what I thought. I was going to start it with “OK”, but when a list of Hanzi (Chinese characters) came up for me to choose from, I realized that while the store had changed the menu system to English, it will be rather challenging for me, with a 200 character knowledge, to write coherent messages. A lady in one of the stores I went to (see below) said I could change that to English, as well, but we couldn’t test here theory since the phone calls above used up the battery! Oh, well….

Beijing Bicycle…my sequel

One of the movies I watched over the last year in preparing to come to China was “Beijing Bicycle”. It’s a good movie, but it’s late, so I won’t go into the plot. Suffice it to say that I rented a bicycle for the day from the hostel for Y30. While this is only $4, it is really not a good deal, since you can by one for Y150 - 200 ($20 - 27). So, tomorrow I’m going to go bike shopping. The first one I took out, I had to immediately return for another, since the pedals would slip a quarter to a third of their rotation without moving the chain, which was very aggravating for the 100 yards that I tried it. That was the only one they had with a basket and a big seat for my big butt…so, I ended up on a “mountain bike” (I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow), which had a low gear ratio, questionable brakes and steering, etc. On the positive side, it didn’t stand out in the crowd, so no one would go after it to rip it off…

The flow of traffic is very chaotic, but very musical at the same time. Everyone seems to work in unison to go efficiently about. There is a whole lane of traffic dedicated to bicycles, and traffic lights at intersections are also there with a bicycle on them. I could write a lot more about it (and I probably will, since I’ll be using it as my primary means of transport for the rest of the week), but I’ll save it for later.

Shopping in Qianmen

I was on my way to the Temple of Heaven, when I passed by a shopping district that I wanted to go to sometime this week. So, I parked the bike and walked along. I made a big mistake with my first purchase…I didn’t bargain! It was a stamp made of soapstone that I had engraved with 凯勒 (kǎi lè, or a reasonable approximation of my last name, Keller). I bought it for Y100, or $13.50. Stupid me. I was kicking myself the rest of the day, walking past all of the shops that sell them…which reminds me….

This street is made up to resemble an old time shopping district and they sell all of the cool Chinese stuff that I like. The four treasures (ink, paper, inkstone and brushes) for calligraphy, calligraphy and paintings, yixing teapots and tea, as well as “antiques” (who really knows which are and which aren’t here), etc. are sold by shops on both sides of the narrow hutong walking street.

It was really a pleasant experience for me, since I got to practice my Chinese with a lot of very nice shop workers. One of them told me she learned her (quite good) English at “English Corner”, which takes place every Friday evening at Renmin University (where my Chinese tutor went to school). So, I’m going to show up there on Friday to check it out and maybe help a few people with their English and get Chinese tips in return.

I told another shop worker (in a Yixing teapot store, her brother has a store in Yixing, where I’m going, so I got his card from her) about my plan to buy a bicycle and sell it cheap. As it turned out, her family is looking for another bike, so this will work out well for both of us. I’ll be able to use a bike all week for about $25, then I’ll sell it for about $5 or $10 to a family that will get a good deal and make my bike that much cheaper at the same time. A good deal all around.

Beijing (Peking) Duck at Quanjude

Well, I hated eating Beijing Duck alone, but at least it wasn’t eating me!

Quanjude was an interesting restaurant. They have a waiting staff that is huge and make sure your teapot and your condiments are always full. I ordered a half duck and mushroom soup. It was very good, but I’m not good at describing tastes, so I won’t try. One of the wait staff took this picture for me. BTW, I forgot to get any pictures along the shopping street, but I’ll stop there again either when I go to the Temple of Heaven (which everyone staying at the hostel says is wonderful) or when I go to sell the bike mentioned above. So, this is my only picture of today’s activities…

Well, it’s 1:22 AM, so I’m going to get some sleep, since I’ll have another full day tomorrow, I’m sure.

As my plans are now:

I’ll go to either the Temple of Heaven or Beihai Park tomorrow, then go to the Zhongguancun Toastmasters Club meeting tomorrow evening.

Wednesday, I’ll leave at 6:40 AM to the Jinshanling to Simatai section of the Great Wall (a 4.5 or 5 hour hike) and get back in the evening (exhausted, but happy, I’m sure).

Thursday, I’ll go to Temple of Heaven or Beihai Park (whichever I didn’t go to on Tuesday) and then pick up tickets to Sophie’s sister’s dance troupe. It will be nice to meet Sophie’s 姐姐 (jiějie, or elder sister) and tell her (in Chinese, of course) what a great teacher her 妹妹 (mèimei, or younger sister) is. The Chinese have a name for every relative, so you can tell just by the short name what relation someone is, without trying to figure out if it’s the mother on the wife’s side, etc. The downside is, of course, you have to learn all the words!

I have decided to forgo my trip to Chengde in favor of spending more time around Beijing. Part of this trip is about “seeing the sites”, but an equal portion is getting to meet and talk to very interesting people who are just as interested in our culture as we (or at least I) are (am) in theirs… Plus, it will give me another chance to try another restaurant or two before I leave Beijing next Saturday….

Until tomorrow, 再见 (zàijiàn, or goodbye)

Cell Phone problem explained…(I hope)…First of all, I finally got an email from the Pandaphone/Pandasim company that mentioned the dates of the service (which I specified) of October 8 - November 11. Well, because of hundreds of dollars of savings, I changed the plane flight to here to October 3 and didn’t think to change that with Pandasim. So, they were waiting until tomorrow to turn it on. I wish they would have noticed that from the first few frantic emails of “please turn the service on”, but I think it should work tomorrow…

Update…well, it’s 7:30 in the morning on Oct 8 and my cell phone is still giving me the “Sorry, your phone needs to be charged” (with money) message. So, I wrote them another email. This is really frustrating! sk

The Summer Palace

More pictures

All the pictures I have seen of the Summer Palace have been of the buildings and the marble boat. In reality, it is a huge park around a lake that has a big hill in one area. While it has a lot of cool old architecture, it is really nice to walk around the lake, which I estimate is about 5 miles, depending on which paths you take. It was extremely windy (about 35 mph / 55 kph) today. As you can see in a couple of the pictures I took, the lake looked more like an ocean with the chop that the wind created.

While much has been written about this place, here are a few of my observations that I have not seen when studying for the trip. The big round building on the hill is a Buddhist temple. The willow trees are really fantastic. I had heard of “the wind in the willows”. It really looks like an invisible living being is making its way through the trees, since their branches have many leaves and hang very loosely down. It looks much different than the oaks and pines where I come from in Tallahassee, Florida. It was easy to find places to be all alone, and it is a nice place to sit and think.

Well, my legs were definitely sore when I got home, so I took a five hour nap when I got back. That’s why I’m up now. I’ll try to get some sleep…

Yesterday, I went to the Forbidden City (故宫, or Gùgōng). I’ve uploaded some pictures here.

You may be wondering about the title of the post. Well, I had read all about the various hustlers that operate around Tiananmen Square, including ones that pose as students that want to learn English, then try to get you to go into a “tea ceremony”, only to leave you with a bill that is astronomical. This is the one I played along with until they wanted me to go into the teahouse. Two girls said they were students, etc. and asked where I was going. I said across the street to Tiananmen Square. They wanted me to go a different way, but since I had read a lot about these types of scams, I realized there was no danger in going that direction. It was actually along the moat and then another street which was pretty neat. Along the way, I taught them a little English and they taught me a little Chinese. In particular, whenever someone would come up asking if I want to buy postcards, etc., I would say “Bù xiǎng, xièxie ni” (不想, 谢谢你), meaning (I thought) “I don’t want it, thanks”. Well, the two girls told me that I should say “Bùyào, xièxie nǐ” (不要, 谢谢你) instead (which means, more understandably, “I don’t want it, thanks”), since xiǎng means “think”, as well, it may sound more like “I don’t think so” instead of “I don’t want it”, giving them the feeling that they can change the way you think. In any case, it worked! Most hawkers were rapidly dispatched with this alternative phrase. Now comes the fun part. When we walked past the tea house that they thought they were leading me to, I simply said I had a time schedule to keep and had to go to Tiananmen Square. When they said something about how I would like the tea ceremony, I simply told them….”Bùyào, xièxie nǐ, zàijiàn!” They had unintentionally given me the very phrase to use against their scam! So, I learned a useful phrase and enjoyed a walk in a cool area I wouldn’t have gone to on my own, without any problem. They were very nice and simply said, “OK, zàijiàn”.

When I got back to the hostel, I related my experience to one of the other guests and they said that they had fallen for the same scam that day and had been taken for Y1000 ( about $133). They were philosophical about it, that they enjoyed the different teas for 3 hours and learned some things, but they still had that unpleasant feeling of being fleeced.

I’m glad I read so much before I came. It’s much easier to learn from other’s problems….now, if I could just not lose my cell phone…