Final Thoughts on China

Hello again!

I realize I've been terribly negligent of this blog recently.  This is probably partly because a lot of things I've been doing are things I also did last year, so I haven't felt too compelled to tell the same story twice.  It's also because I feel like I've been keeping myself busier on weeknights.  My job is way less demanding this year than it was last year, so by the time I get home in the evening I'm way more likely to meet other for dinner or drinks, which results in less time sitting in my apartment catching up on blogging.

I'm going to try my best to catch up on everything (which includes yet another trip out of the country), but I there are just a few more things I want to say about my time in China.  In the interest of time, I'm just going to list my overall impressions from my short trip in Beijing.

1)  The people--Korean people have never seemed friendlier than they did after getting back from Beijing. Sure, we met a few friendly people during our trip, but the pushing and shoving was unlike anything else I've ever experienced (and I've experienced quite a bit of pushing during my time in Korea!)  I'm sure this is a cultural thing (like it is in Korea), and isn't really the result of any kind of ill will, but people really weren't very willing to help us throughout this trip.  In Korea it's not uncommon for people to be curious about where you're from or what you're doing in Korea, but in Beijing we just didn't really experience much warmth from the people we met.

I should also note there was also a pretty big language barrier. There was far less English than in other countries I've been too.  Obviously it's China, so I wouldn't expect to have everything in English, but it did make things more difficult than they've been in other Asian countries I've visited.


2) Hygiene--If you're the kind of person who needs everything to be clean, Beijing may not be the place for you.  Most people are aware of the poor air quality in China, but the places we went in general just didn't seem all that clean. I've been to other countries with questionable hygiene, but I think it was the bathrooms that really put us over the edge. Add in the constant spitting everywhere (another thing that happens in Korea, but happens WAY more in China), and we were a bit out of our comfort zones.

China has developed extremely quickly, so I think some of the culture just hasn't quite caught up yet. I'm sure that even within ten years Beijing is going to change tremendously in this department.

3)  Government restrictions--Nothing makes you more aware of how much freedom we enjoy in the US like going to a country where those freedoms don't exist.  When I was volunteering at Big Brother Mouse in Laos, I was talking to one of the teenage boys and he told me he wanted to work for the government. I asked him why and he said something along the lines of he wanted to make a difference. Naturally the social studies teacher in me kicked in and I started to ask him about what he wanted to change about his government.  He replied that he couldn't say because if someone found out he said something bad he could be in trouble. This response was a little shocking at the time, I guess because hardly anyone in America ever has positive things to say about the government.

Although people in China have certain freedoms (this isn't North Korea we're talking about), their lives are far more controlled than what we're used to.  Sites such as facebook, twitter, instagram, and google are all blocked in China. Sure people still find ways to use them, but when you're in a country where there are picture of Mao Zedong everywhere and people need very specific government permissions just to have more than one child, you realize you're in a very different place--one that kind of has a weird and less than comfortable vibe.


I wasn't in China long enough to really get to know the culture in any sort of depth.  When you visit a country for such a short time you really only have enough time to pick up on some general vibes. I'm so glad I had the chance to go to Beijing, but it definitely is not at the top of my list of favorite cities.  I had a blast with Jen, but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.

Jen and I talked about how things like the freezing weather and Lunar New Year craziness probably didn't help our experience, so that that is something that still lingers in my mind.  Would I have liked Beijing better if I had gone in the spring and not in the winter?  Probably yes, although I can still say with complete certainty that I wouldn't choose to live in Beijing, and in fact I am extremely glad that I chose to come to Korea and not China.

Beijing Part III: The Temple of Heaven and Exploring the City

We got an early start on our third day in Beijing, as we wanted to try to beat some of the crazy crowds we experienced the previous day at the Forbidden City.  Our first stop on this morning was to visit the Temple of Heaven.  The Temple of Heaven dates back to the early 1400s, and is one of China's iconic sites.  We left our hostel by 8 AM to make our way to the temple, at which point it was surprise, surprise....freezing outside.  There was actually a decent amount of snow still on the ground out by the temple when we arrived, which I'll admit was pretty beautiful.

Luckily, it seemed like we succeeded in beating the crazy crowds, which was a nice change from our experience the day before.  The temple itself was really beautiful and like many of the other temples I've seen, much more impressive in person than in pictures.

While we were walking around and taking pictures, a Chinese man came over and asked to take a picture with us (an all too familiar occurrence as a westerner in Asia), and afterwards he was trying to tell us something, but we couldn't understand what it was.  A few minutes later someone who spoke English told us that there was some kind of show going on soon and we had to move to the sides to clear way for the performance.

We moved to the sides and waited to see what was happening.  Then we waited some more...and some more.  Apparently "soon" wasn't really soon by out standards, and as the crowd got huge naturally the pushing began, which didn't make us too happy considering we were absolutely frozen by this point and getting a little cranky on account of our discomfort. 

Finally, the show began and there were tons of people who marched in with traditional Chinese clothes and flags.  After everyone marched in, different groups came to the center and did some sort of performance. It was interesting to see, but it was pretty long and repetitive and we had absolutely no idea what it all represented. 

By the time the performance ended, we were beyond frozen and it actually hurt my joints just to start walking again. Our number one mission was to find someplace warm and FAST.  Luckily, we saw a little bakery across the street and we were lucky to get there before the rush of people came in. We got some coffee and really delicious bread and sat in the warmth for a while while figuring out what was next.  

After defrosting a bit and getting some food we were in much better spirits and decided to head over to Yuanmingyuan Park because there was a festival going on for the Lunar New Year.  There were red lanterns everywhere and of course, lots of food stands.  While we didn't eat anything, we did enjoy walking around the park. 

After we finished at the park we decided to go back to the hostel to figure out our plan for the rest of the night (and to use a clean bathroom...we had already had two more extremely traumatic experiences this day).  We got something to eat and decided to head Wangfujing Street to do some souvenir shopping. 

One of the streets in this area sells all kinds of food....seriously, ALL kinds of food, including seahorses and scorpions.

Yep, those are seahorses.

Yummmm!

We walked around for a while, but it was freezing and it was really crowded (noticing a theme here?)  We also weren't so successful in our souvenir shopping, so we decided to go back over to the huge mall located just across the street. The mall had tons of western stores and as we walked around Jen and I mentioned how it kind of felt like we were just back home--apart from the Lunar New Year decorations that were everywhere.

  

We decided to eat at a restaurant in the mall and had some very delicious dim sum for dinner.  We walked around for a bit more before decided to go back into the cold to make the trip back to our hostel.

The area around the mall.

We finally made it back to our hostel and our warm room to pack up our stuff for our early flight the next morning. Although our second day in Beijing had been a little rough, we had a much better time on our third day, and felt satisfied that we could leave China on a pretty positive note.  

Beijing Part II: Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City

We woke up on our second morning in Beijing and decided to have breakfast right in our hostel to avoid the cold for a bit longer.  Once we got brave enough, we headed out into the icy weather to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

We got there by using the subway without any issues, but as soon as we got off there were TONS of people--which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day.  Tiananmen Square is located right before the Forbidden City and it is the site of many important events in Chinese history. It even houses the body of Mao Zedong in a mausoleum that was built just for him. However, by the time we were there it was freezing, snowing, and crowded, so we didn't hang around for long before heading to the Forbidden City.

Big picture of Mao. Jen and I often said throughout the trip that Beijing had a weird "communist" feeling.  I know you're probably thinking "well DUH!" It really isn't an eloquent way to describe it, but it was definitely a different vibe from what I've experienced before.  There were pictures of Mao everywhere.

Once we got into the Forbidden City the crowds just got worse and worse. We were battling huge crowds of people just to walk anywhere.  Add in the snow and freezing cold and we weren't exactly happy campers. This was not the 50 degree weather that we saw in the forecast.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace for nearly 500 years. The palace was only open to the emperor's family and those who had permission to enter, hence the name of the "Forbidden City."  The palace itself was huge and did look nice with the snow.  The girl who worked at our hostel said that people wait all season for it to snow because it looks so pretty on the palace. She said she had been waiting all winter to go see it in the snow, but this was the first chance.  This probably didn't help with the issue of the huge crowds...I swear all of China's one billion people were visiting on this day.

So many people!

This little girl was absolutely adorable. She was trying to talk to Jen and couldn't quite understand why she couldn't speak Mandarian to her.  

One of our worst experiences of the day was using the bathroom.  To enter the bathroom there was only one door instead of a set of double doors.  There were TONS of people trying to get inside, and no one seemed to care about letting anyone out. The result was just a huge crowd of people fiercely pushing, pushing, pushing! It got to the point where Jen and I literally couldn't move and were yelling at people to STOP! This was probably the most outrageous thing to us, especially since there were small children in the crowd.

Once we entered the bathroom, things unfortunately didn't get better. The smell inside was so overwhelmingly terrible that Jen and I instantly covered our noses and started coughing.  I'm pretty sure that this bathroom had never been cleaned. After waiting in line we tried to take care of our business as quickly as possible and get out of there and back into the fresh air. Normally I would try not to act like that--clearly the Chinese people were totally unphazed by both the pushing and the conditions inside the bathroom and Jen and I probably looked like rude foreigners...but there was really no way to hide our reactions in this situation...it totally took us by surprise.

We walked around the palace for a bit longer, but we were actually pretty miserable from the huge crowds and the wet snow. Eventually we called it quits and decided to make the walk back to the subway. Here's an interesting fact about China...you have to go through security before you get on the subway. Your bag has to be screened and you have to walk through a metal detector before you can even get on the subway.  It didn't seem like it was really very thorough though..it really seemed like it was more of a formality than anything else.

Look at that sexy face mask! These signs were at the subway station.

And cute ones for kids!

After we got back to the area near our hostel we had wanted to book tickets for a show that night, but the people at our hostel told us that the normal programs weren't happening because of the holiday.  This meant we didn't have any plans for the night, so we decided to get some food.  Unfortunately, something about what we had didn't quite agree with me and I had to spend the next hour laying in our room with an absolutely terrible stomachache.

We decided to stay at the hostel to make dumplings again that night instead of venturing back into the freezing cold.  We were totally beat from the day and didn't really care to go back into the cold or the huge, pushy crowds, so we spent the rest of the night resting in our room, hoping that our next day would be better.