... Prosperity and Longevity

Beijing provided all the history, contrast and grandeur that I was expecting from one of the largest (and oldest!) cities in the world. A contact in Hong Kong helped to book us on an English-speaking tour of Beijing-- which, considering it included hotel, airfare, and food, was dirt cheap by American standards-- and I was relieved that I wasn't going to have to self-navigate my way through a sprawling city of 17+ million people. I've made my way through a number of foreign cities, but having no knowledge of Mandarin combined with the fact that, unlike Hong Kong, very few people speak English, Beijing was a little too foreign for me. And considering the traffic in Beijing makes even the most congested expressways in Chicago look desirable, I was thrilled to be chauffeured around the city. I was fully prepared to be on a bus full of old people, and was shocked to discover that we had been booked a private tour, and instead of geriatric travel companions, a tour bus, and brightly colored hats, we had a guide, a driver, and a black sedan.

Our guide, however, failed to meet us at the airport, so with the help of another guide we took a death-defying and interminable taxi ride to one of the nicest hotels I had ever seen, comparable only to the hotel where we stayed in Hong Kong-- stunning! My only complaint was that (like our Hong Kong hotel) the bathroom had glass walls. And unlike our Hong Kong hotel, the privacy shade was not opaque. Oy. Mom and I got closer in ways that we never intended. But it was at the hotel that we met our guide and our driver (a gruff, intimidating fellow who was quite possibly affiliated with the Chinese mafia), and they whisked us away to dinner, where we were served an absolute feast of Szechuan-style cuisine.

Our whirlwind tour began in earnest the next morning. We adhered to a very strict schedule, and were closely supervised. Even when our guide not with us, he was either at a table across the room or passed the responsibility of keeping tabs on us to another guide or a store clerk. I got the feeling that we saw exactly what they wanted us to see, and little else. Which was strange... what we saw was incredible, but it seemed that the poorer, urban, and less glitzy parts of the city were carefully hidden just out of our view. We shopped where they wanted us to shop, ate what they wanted us to eat (turns out that Chinese food is just called "food" over there), and did what they wanted us to do. Our only glimpses into what life was like for the majority of those who live in Beijing was when our guide and our driver pointed out where they lived... which, by comparison to what we saw and where we stayed, was pretty grim. Guess that's communism for ya!

We started our tour in the (infamous) Tiannamen Square, which is much more massive in person than anything I've ever seen in pictures. The big draw there is Chairman Mao; the guy who turned China into a communist country. I had never heard of him, as he died before I was born, but his body has been preserved and has been lying in state in one of the buildings on the square for more than thirty years. The Chinese love Chairman Mao, and many make a pilgrimage from the farthest reaches of China to see his carefully preserved corpse; it was all our guide could do to keep from slapping himself in the forehead when I (astutely) commented that he was the same guy that was on their currency. I spent most of that day (most of the trip, actually) listening as best I could to the volumes of information our guide recited to us, pausing to snap a few pictures, then dashing through the crowds to catch up to him and start the process all over again. I learned that, in addition to numbers, colors hold great significance to the Chinese. The color red, for example, is a symbol of prosperity and good fortune, which is why so many things in China boast this color. It turns out that the color was a significant part of Chinese culture for thousands of years before the birth of Karl Marx; the fact that it also symbolizes communism is just a happy coincidence. And the number 9 is tops in mainland China; it's the closest mortals can get to a perfect 10, which is reserved for the gods. Not even the emperors have things in multiples of 10!

From Tiannamen Square we ran through the Forbidden City and Prince Gong's Palace. I learned more than I'll ever be able to remember about Chinese culture; but mainly that the emperors had their own bridges and concubines and walkways and whatnot, and that every yin has a yang: male and female, circle and square, etc. etc. After a lunch at a government-approved restaurant (where they looped one Chinese Opera aria through the speakers, over and over... and over, thinking we tourists wouldn't notice) we took a pedicab ride (that's a rickshaw attached to a bike) through the Ho-Tung district to see how the "locals" live. We felt bad for the poor little pedicab guy for having to pedal the two "fat Americans" around the village... he was tipped handsomely afterwards.

The next day took us to the Great Wall, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was quite impressive, but not easy to climb. The ancient stairs were wildly uneven, and the railings (when there were any) were quite low. We climbed as high as we could in the time we were given, but didn't make it to the top of the mountain, which might have given us a better idea of its grandeur. From there we visited the Summer Palace, which was probably my favorite stop on the tour. An idyllic property built on a prime lake shore location, the sprawling buildings had a lovely backdrop of waterfront and willow trees. Because many of the buildings are still in use, one of the only places we were able to enter was the "four-star" bathroom, which turned out to be anything but.

Our final day was as cold, miserable, and snowy as the previous day had been sunny, warm, and beautiful. We visited both the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple. After learning more about the inner workings of the feudal system, with the emperors, castes, and human sacrifices and whatnot, I can almost see how Communism would be a welcome change for the Chinese-- yikes! Our guide had some terse, yet carefully worded comments about the Dalai Lama, too, and why Tibet shouldn't be autonomous.... I completely disagreed with him, but it was interesting to get such a different view on the matter.

All in all, I enjoyed my brief time in Beijing. I appreciated the efforts made by the people we encountered to speak our language and make us feel welcome. Just as I can't pronounce some of the phonemes in the Mandarin language, many of the people we encountered had trouble pronouncing some of the syllables commonly used in the English language; it took me the better part of the day to figure out that when our guide was saying "prorry", he meant "probably". Like I said, though, their English is much better than my Mandarin will ever be. Yet in the too-literally translated words of a store clerk from Beijing, I would like to say to the hospitable and welcoming people of China, "I hope we can keep touching!"