Tourists in Beijing

Gracie and Dad (me) at the Forbidden City in Beijing. Arienne used this picture in her blog, but I couldn’t resist using it as well.

My postings have been few and far between for a number of reasons. I know, Grandma, you don’t care, but here are my excuses (is anyone beyond my grandma really reading this?):

--After I last posted, I taught my Thursday class and then we went to Beijing (last weekend).

--Upon arriving home, Arienne fell ill with a fever and bad stomach cramps, Samuel and Grace contracted a head cold (one I gave them), and I was asked to teach an extra seminar for faculty at the new campus (oh yes, I am teaching here in China, although not blogging about it yet!). In other words, for the past week we’ve been in survival mode.

We are just coming up for breath from our travels to Beijing and to the bathroom, so here is my first installment in the post “trip to Beijing” era, with many more to come. Having now seen all of TWO cities in this “vast and complicated country” (quoted from over two thousand different sources that have characterized China thusly), we have gained a much deeper understanding of our temporary home. Keep reading subsequent entries, because I’m planning on unleashing my accumulated knowledge VERY SOON.

In the meantime, here are some notes on our Beijing trip transcribed from my journal:

September 03: Beijing:

We've been here three days and it could not be MORE different from Hohhot. Everyone, it seems, speaks English, especially in the tourist parts of town. The city is teaming with waigoren, travelers and tourists alike. We are among the latter group, making no pretensions about seeing the "authentic" China from our four-star hotel in the central city, just blocks from the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Beijing's high-end shopping street, Wangfujing Dajie. Our hotel is filled with French and other Europeans on tours, giving Arienne ample opportunity to speak French. Our waiter at dinner the first night was French and Arienne told me later that his family has been living in China for decades and he doesn't know one word of Chinese. Coming from Hohhot, I dare say that touristy Beijing hardly feels like "China" to us (and I use quotes because we have not yet seen much of China)--no donkey-carts, street-side vendors, or chaotic traffic. On the second day we rented bikes and rode through the hutongs and boulevards of the central city, none of us wearing helmets, and the traffic was an absolute breeze compared to Hohhot. People actually YIELDED to pedestrians and bicyclists as they made right-hand turns!

The final stage of the Tour de France. Wrong turn takes us into the hutongs of Beijing.

The orderly traffic reflected what is happening throughout Beijing: the city is being sterilized in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. The unwieldly hutongs and chaotic alleyways are being gentrified or destroyed to make way for large, antiseptic apartment complexes. While Hohhot and Beijing could not be more different, they share one dominant characteristic: they are both cities under construction. Everywhere the old is giving way to the new. In his book, "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis estimates that over three million poor people have been dislocated from central Beijing as China seeks to present to the world a clean, orderly, and modern city. I don't know if his numbers are correct, but it's not hard to imagine as you ride through the city and watch entire neighborhoods being torn down and colossal new structures springing up everywhere.

Traditional hutongs like this one are giving way to modern apartment complexes.

Everywhere Beijing is putting on its best face in preparation for the Olympic Games. Here the banner trumpets “Civilized Business for the Humanistic Olympics.” (I scribbled down the first word but can’t find it now. Anyone?)

Beijing is under construction, most of it shrouded in green tarping, as in the view below:

From a tourist perspective, however, Beijing could not have been nicer. The hutongs were cute and teaming with good food and souvenirs. The Forbidden City was forbidding and awe-inspiring. The Great Wall was great! (Although our kids were more interested in the toboggan ride back down from the wall than the wall itself.) The air was better than I expected. The parks were beautiful. So, despite tired and whiny kids, high prices, and snooty tourists (ourselves not included, of course), Beijing was wonderful. We plan to go back and as soon as we save up the money.

Child Abuse: Forced march up the Great Wall of China. From left: Arienne, Grace, and Samuel (gasping for air).