The first thing that I noticed when I arrived in Beijing were all the bikes. There are large, separate bus lanes that people were using, even in weather close to freezing. One can tell that the people there grew up with bikes all their lives simply from how comfortable they were riding them. Some had large propane tanks or oil drums strapped to one side and didn’t seem to notice. Friends will travel with the riders by sitting on the back platform with their legs dangling out to one side, hands in their pockets, not needing to hold onto anything for stability. Some people have their businesses run from their bikes; a small cart is attached, an oil drum is placed inside, and a fire can be started inside the oil drum to cook sweet potatoes or chestnuts. The vendors can ride around, and choose a better location whenever business is slow at one.
From what I can tell, Beijing is as developed as Hong Kong, except it’s more diffuse. There are tiny back alleys and run down apartments next to fancy restaurants. There’s quite a large gap between upper income and lower income families. Just walking off a bus at any tourist spot, one will be approached by hordes of peddlers, shouting at you to look at their hand held wares, such as cheap watches out of suitcases, pressed flowers, or little dolls. They’ll follow you around, right back to a bus sometimes, and try to get in the faces of everyone they can. One peddler was trying to sell things while her little boy was running around, and she had to stop approaching people every now and then to make sure he was okay. It’s hard to imagine someone standing in one place all day, barely making money from cheap, shitty items, but with no other choice.
The people can be crude, but are friendly. Parks are very social, and people will gather there to play cards, sing songs together, practice some dancing or Tai Chi, even play a few racket sports. Some older men like to practice calligraphy on the ground, using big brushes and a bucket of water. The letters are large and beautiful, and in the winter, they freeze and begin to sparkle.
The entire Forbidden City is an amazing piece of architecture. Walking into it is like walking into a castle, due to the scale of the open areas and ornamentation. One can definitely understand how an emperor would have ruled from such a place when coming into the gigantic southern courtyard, where officials had to walk through to brief him on the latest events.
Right next to the Forbidden City is Tienanmen Square, where the preserved body of Mao Tse Tung is stored. To visit the body, people line up around the square, sometimes for more than an hour, to get a chance to see the leader of the Cultural Revolution. Loudspeakers proclaim the rules for visiting, while troops with megaphones are constantly telling the crowd how to line up correctly. The square is extremely busy with people walking back and forth, a few of them flying kites. It’s very heavily patrolled, and there just happened to be a marching line of troops when I was there.
I happened to visit one of the newer parts of the Great Wall, which was only about 600–800 years old. The steps are of uneven height, and the section I climbed was very steep; just looking down was dizzying. I thought that it was hard enough just going past a few watchtowers, so I can’t even imagine what building the entire thing would be like. I can’t definitely see the strategic advantage of such a wall though, since the view from only half-way up a mountain was amazing.
An interesting place I had a chance to visit was the 500 Lions Bridge (or Marco Polo Bridge). There are 500 lions on the bridge walls, looking inwards, each one different from the next. It was the starting point of the first shots fired by the Japanese on July 7th, 1937, which led China into World War II. Most of the road has been refinished, although a section has been left untouched and one can see that the pavement has been so weathered that it’s difficult to walk on.
The Summer Palace (or the Garden of Nurtured Harmony in Chinese) is the place where the emperor and his family could stay during the summer, where it remains fairly cool. Even in the winter it looks beautiful, as all the water has turned to ice.
Food Street is a huge row of vendors in downtown Beijing, selling assorted types of foods, although mostly meat. Each little business has two red lamps above their huts, and usually consists of three employees (one will do the shouting to attract customers, one will do the cooking, one will accept the money). The food is usually on a kebab skewer, and can be flame roasted or deep fried. As can be seen in the second picture, there are prices for “Fried Silk-worm” (the brown, maggot-like things second-left on the top row), “Dog-meat bunch”, and “Fresh-rabbit bunch”, although there are things such as squid, locusts, and scorpions available as well. Some of the vendors are Turkish, who moderately speak Mandarin, and roll their tongues to stand out from the other vendors. A popular treat is the stick of fruit, which is slightly glazed like candy apples. Traditionally, it’s the Chinese date (the small, round, red fruit) that’s used, although people now use strawberries, kiwi, etc.
Being able to travel to a place so rich with history was great. I’ve been to places such as Budapest, Sydney, and Banff before, but I barely remember anything about them. To be honest, I don’t care that I’ve forgotten almost everything about my previous travels because they were all meaningless to me at the time. In this trip, however, there was purpose, and I wanted to learn about my history, and how it has shaped my life today. It’s taken me a while to mature enough to appreciate history and culture of other places, and if I were to travel back to a country that I’ve been to before, I’m sure I’d see it in a different light now.
wow, those pictures look super interesting, i wish i wasn’t on dial-up right now so i could look at them all in detail!
Huh, a lot of what you’ve mentioned hasn’t changed. Specifically, the bike culture is still just as interesting and unique. I say, one can never really know Beijing unless one has pedaled through its streets and encountered many of its near-death experiences.
One thing I missed out on, unfortunately, was the street calligraphy.