A whirlwind tour of the center of Chinese culture: My trip to Beijing

Our travel group in Tian'anmen Square. Our tour leaders are: the one holding the pink flag in front, and the woman standing all the way to the right. I am in the middle next to the male tour guide, and my friend Nancy is kneeling next to me, and next to her are the cute Australian girls. Behind me to the right standing in the back is Angela.
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On September 29th, 2006, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning to set off on a tour to Beijing. That was the weekend of Chinese National Day (October 1st) so we all had Monday off of classes. Therefore, two of my friends, Nancy, a girl born in Shanghai and now living in New Jersey, and Angela, a girl from London, and I booked a packaged tour through WingOn travel to see the sights of Beijing. Planning was not 100% smooth. At first, one of my friends couldn't get on the tour, and only when we went to talk to them multiple times were we able to get all three of us on the tour. Then, the week before they left, they told us the entire tour would be in Cantonese (we were told previously English or Mandarin) which frightened us a great deal. Among the three of us, one of us could speak fluent mandarin (Nancy) and one of us could speak marginal mandarin (me) and one of us couldn't speak any form of Chinese at all (Angela), but NONE of us could speak Cantonese. Nevertheless, we had already paid, and of the two travel guides, one of them spoke some English, so we just held our breath and hoped for the best. We were meant to meet at Hong Kong International Airport at 6:00 in the morning, and our flight left at 8:30. We realized at the airport that our tour only had 11 people on it, and 7 of us spoke fluent English. There was us three, and a family of four from Australia (with two little girls that were darling). There was also a couple from Hong Kong who spoke mandarin and some English, and two older women from Hong Kong who only spoke Cantonese. This made us feel much more at ease, and at that point, the tour became trilingual. The tour guide who showed us around all the sights didn't speak English, so he spoke Mandarin and Cantonese, and our friend Nancy translated the tour into English.

The Forbidden City. This is me in front of the examination hall.
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We arrived in Beijing at 12, and went straight to lunch. Afterwards, we went right to gugong, or what we know as the Forbidden City. Not even my fatigue from getting up early and my nausea from the plane ride could quell my excitement as we walked up to the home of the Emperor's of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Forbidden City is almost a city within the greater city of Beijing, and has 9,999.5 rooms (heaven traditionally has 10,000 rooms, so the emperor's quarters had to come as close to heaven as possible). There were rooms specifically for the emperor to rest, have meetings with officials, and sleep, and also rooms for the empress, the empress dowager, and even a large examination hall for giving statewide exams, which were used to pick officials to work for the government. The architecture was beautiful, elaborate paintings of dragons, phoenix's and other mythical creatures and designs. All the buildings were red, and they were filled with jade sculptures, silk sheets, and other memorabilia (although much of it had been moved to museums). Ironically, we also found a Starbucks in the forbidden city, which while humorous, was a nice treat after walking for two hours.

Being the center of Chinese culture, pride, and nationalism, I learned so much, not only from the famous sites, but also from the little bit of every day life I was able to observe.

The Friendlies! The Beijing Olympic mascots.
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After we exited gugong, we found ourselves in Tian'anmen square, the spot of the famous massacre that made American news. On one end of Tian'anmen square, was a large picture of Mao, and an inscription praising the People's Republic of China for 10,000 years. On the other side of the square was Mao's grave, and near it, a large picture of Sun Yat-sen, the "father of the People's Republic." Also on the square was the countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympics. One can see the national pride of the Chinese people through the excitement for the olympics, as the mascots were everywhere. The mascots of the Beijing Olympics are 5 "Friendlies," each a different animal-like cartoon representing different things about China. Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yinyin, and Nini. Together, the first characters in their name spells "Beijing huanyin ni" which means Beijing welcomes you. These little mascots were sold on keychains, pins, as pillows and stuffed animals, almost everywhere you looked. When we were there, the countdown clock said "269 days, 2 hours, 39 minutes, and 5 seconds" until the Beijing Olympics.

The Summer Palace
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After a walk through Tian'anmen square, we went to eat dinner, and afterwards, we checked into our hotel. It was a 4 star hotel, and quite nice. We had no problems in the room we stayed in. Having been up since four in the morning (and having gone to bed at 2:30 the night before) we were all exhausted, and went straight to bed.

The next morning we got up and went to the Yiheyuan, or the Summer Palace, a beautiful garden that the Qing emperor's built to create a model of heaven on earth. Through it runs what is called the "long corridors" onto which are 10,000 paintings, all of which are different, and represent the four seasons as you walk through all of them. There are also various gardens. In the center is a lake, which we took a boat ride across. After the summer palace, we were taken to a famous silk factory which claims to have once made silk for the emperor, and now makes silk for other famous people (including a shirt for George W. Bush which he wore at the APEC conference). While it was interesting, it was a large sales pitch, trying to get us to buy silk blankets (as everyone, the tour guides, the travel company, and even the bus driver, got commission). While the various sales pitches throughout were somewhat irritating, it was worth it considering how cheap the tour was altogether. We then went to a famous Buddhist temple where the emperor's used to worship, Yunhegong, where not only was there pretty incredible painting and architecture, but also a 3 story tall statue of Buddha, now in the Guiness Book of World Records, as it was all carved from one tree.

A picture of the three of us apple picking.
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After the temple, we went to eat, and then to a traditional Beijing Opera. When they first mentioned the opera, the family with two children did not want to go, as they have the western perception of Opera. In fact, a Beijing Opera is nothing like Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, but more reminded me of the Cirque du Soleil. It had groups of young children doing acrobatics, including a girl who bent herself in weird ways while balancing 30 candles in her feet, hands, and mouth. There was also men who did Kungfu type tricks, like two men who put a two-sided spear on a bamboo pole on the necks, and pressed them together until the bamboo bent almost down to the floor. There was also a man who put a sharp metal knife into his stomach. My favorite part of the show was a "face changer" who had different masks which he changed with the blink of an eye.

The boat we rode across the lake at the Summer Palace. You can see the lake itself in the background.
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The third day, we first went to a few places trying to sell us stuff, a jade factory and a pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical company really went to great lengths to sell us their products, which were supposed to be traditional Chinese medicine. The demonstrator even took a red hot piece of metal (which really was hot, he put a paper next to it, and it burst into flame) and was meant to burn himself, but since we had two young children on the tour, we asked him not to. Nevertheless, it was pretty incredible that his job was to burn himself to sell products. They told us that while Western medicine can be effective, it has side effects, and does not work to fix the inner problems, and balance one's qi (we know this concept as yin and yang). This worked on a fair amount of people, both of my friends spent a lot of money at that place. While it sounded nice, I figured I didn't have over 100 American dollars to spend on medicine when my cheap western stuff works just fine. I tried very hard not to laugh at my friends so incredibly enthralled with the products being presented.

Us with the Great Wall behind us. On the wall, we met a group of people from Australia, who had brought with them a bunch of little stuffed kangaroos, which they put at all the famous historical sights they visited. They let us take a picture with the Great Wall Kangaroo.
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Afterwards, we went to the Ming Tombs, which housed the bodies of 13 Emperors from the Ming Dynasty. It was all built underground, and the walls were made of marble, It was beautiful. There was also a museum showing all the treasure found, including jewelry, silk, gold coins, and statues. After the Ming Tombs, we went apple picking. When I first read this on our itinerary, I thought it was incredible strange. However, near the great wall, there are many apple gardens, and it was a lot of fun to go through and pick our own apples. We even climbed trees until we got yelled at. Not only was it a lot of fun, but the apples we picked were absolutely delicious.

Us holding the Starbucks we bought at the Forbidden City
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The stop after that was the infamous Great Wall. The original Great Wall was built in the second century BC, but that was made of pounded earth, and is not the Great Wall that most of us are used to seeing in pictures. The Great Wall I saw could, at best, have been less than 600 years old, as the Great Wall was rebuilt with stone by the Ming Dynasty. It was a pretty incredible hike up the mountain, but we all managed to get up pretty high before coming back down. At the end of the hike, we were all exhausted. They then took us to the Beijing City Gate, but we were all so exhausted we all just wanted to eat dinner and go back to the hotel.

The countdown to the Beijing Olympics, a symbol of Chinese pride and patriotism.
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The final day, we first went to two places where they again tried to sell us things, another pharmaceutical company (from them, I did buy a massage, but 20 minutes for 20 HK is pretty good (thats about 2.50 American). Then we went to a tea factory. We then ended our tour at the Beijing Olympic stadium, where trainers there gave us all hour long foot massages. We then flew home.

We ate very well while I was there. Every meal was served "family style" (as we would call it in America) and put on a wheel in the center of the table. We had a variety of food, including Peking duck, a Beijing dumpling feast, traditional food from Hubei, and a seafood meal. We were very lucky that all of our food was given to us. However, although the food was delicious, my friend Angela and I (the two non-Chinese) came back feeling very uncomfortable, and my stomach still isn't completely back to normal.

A picture of Beijing Nightlife. You can see behind me, our tour guide, and Angela, the bright street of Beijing bars.
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One night, the second night, was my tour guide's birthday, and to celebrate, we went out to bars that night. This was a very interesting experience for me. Much of the music played in the bars was western, and the drinks tasted like they did in America. As I don't really drink much in America (believe it or not) I only know a couple drinks, and tend to stick to Pina Coladas, which were quite nice in Beijing. At the bar we ended up in, the singers sang a variety of Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and really old English songs (such as "Hotel California." Actually, the lack of contemporary English music is also found on Hong Kong, they are a bit behind the times.) The one thing I didn't like about the night life is how aggressive the people who work at the bars were. They would do anything to get you to come in, including following you down the street, and even blocking the sidewalk outside their bar and not letting you pass. One bar even had a small child, no older than 8, chase after us and actually grab onto my arm. This frightened me quite a bit, as I was not used to strange children, who I think was purposefully quite dirty, grabbing ahold of me.

There were some things that surprised me quite a bit. One of the things that I had heard about, and didn't quite believe until I was there, was the issue of cleanliness. Everything from the smog in the air to the state of the bathrooms I was not at all used to. I had never seen air like that in my life, even my pictures of the great wall are fuzzy because of the smog. Also, the toilets were not typical toilets, more just like a ceramic hole on the ground, which again I had heard about, but it never really hit me until I got there. Some people's behavior also surprised me. I actually got used to the sound of people hacking up spit, and spitting on the ground, as everyone does it all the time. We also saw a woman helping her baby urinate in Tian'anmen square, right on the ground!

I had interesting encounters with Beijing locals here, and a few surprised me. The darker and more uncomfortable encounters were with the beggars and sales people. I was used to bargaining with people, my parents taught me at a young age in Mexico how to bring prices down at markets. In Mexico, the sales people can be aggressive, but not like they are here. They will yell in your face, and follow you around on the street trying to get you to buy things. Even at the nice factories where everyone gets commission, they were quite aggressive, which we found out later was because they HAD to make a sale. A young woman at a tea factory had us taste 5 kinds of tea, and when we didn't want to buy any, almost cried because she would get into trouble. We ended up buying tea from her. The beggars are equally aggressive. They will sit outside of the tourist spots, and once they see white people, will come running along, showing their deformities, hungry children, or anything else that will make you pity them. One man had been horribly burned, and followed us around for almost a block. The children who were on the tour with us were quite frightened, but I think it made an impression on them. This kind of thing I don't think is seen quite to this extent in Western countries.

On a funnier side, I noticed a cultural difference that surprised me, and in the end, I found quite humorous. As I was getting my feet massaged, the young man who was massaging my feet was quite friendly. He called me beautiful (I think he wanted tips) and offered to help me practice mandarin, telling me I could ask him questions, and he would help me practice. Then, as we were talking, out of nowhere, he called my friends and I fat. My girlfriend who spoke mandarin overheard, and did a bit of a double take as he continued to smile and laugh. Obviously, according to American standards, my friends and I are not even close to fat, however, to the Chinese, we were. I always thought "fat" was a bit of a universal insult, but apparently he didn't. My friend then explained to him that in America, being called fat was extremely offensive. He suddenly felt very bad, and apologized profusely. At first I wasn't thrilled about this comment, but looking back, he didn't seem to think it was a bad thing, and it was an interesting cultural difference.

Overall, Beijing was one of the greatest experiences in my life. Being the center of Chinese culture, pride, and nationalism, I learned so much, not only from the famous sites, but also from the little bit of every day life I was able to observe. We were also very fortunate with the travel group we came with. All of us bonded quite a lot, and are even still keeping in touch by e-mail. The tour guides did everything they could to make our trip enjoyable, from making the tour trilingual to completely changing the itinerary so we could all see what we wanted to see in Beijing. It was a fantastic experience, and life changing. My only regret is that I wish I could have stayed more than four days!