Beijing Wrap Up and On to Pingyao

I've wrapped up my time in Beijing and I think a week was plenty. I saw the sights, braved the street food, practiced some Mandarin, and even did some shopping – though I didn't really buy anything. Beijing (and China or that matter) is a really interesting place. There's a total mix of economic development which exists side-by-side with a culture and way of life which feels (pardon my cliché) stuck in the ages: 50 story cranes alongside wooden wheelbarrows, donkey carts and handmade straw brooms. In Beijing I'd frequently see construction workers digging trenches wearing full suits as their counterparts speed by to the office in their brand new car. You also see businessmen and teenage girls riding through the streets on beat up rusty bicycles, talking on their cell phones. In the small restaurants in the hu tongs you get a full mix of people often all at the same large table. It's a great time to see China as it continues through its breakneck rate of change. I continue to think what will be different when I make it back. The people have such great pride and dignity and there's a wonderful excitement in the air over China's great "coming-out party" – the 2008 Olympic games.

When I last left you, I was thinking of going to a new hostel... well I tried, and it was a total disaster. I made the personal discovery that it was closed, being situated in the soccer stadium which, like everything else, is being renovated for the games, and had moved half way across town. It would have been nice if the woman had told me this when I made the reservation, but her English was bad and my Chinese, as previously indicated, is what they call "bu hao" in these parts. After over an hour of calling, walking, missing bus stops and more walking, I checked into my new hostel and met my roommates - a crazy old man from Illinois and a truly strange Japanese male prostitute (or so that's what the crazy old man told me). The crazy roommates, combined with a high price, bad location, unhelpfull wait staff, and sub par accomodations. Needless to say, not long after checking in, I decided to check out the next morning. The morale: In a city of 16 million people, when you find a good place to stay, you don't question it.

That evening I left the hostel to see Sanlitun - a big expat area in Beijing. The streets were nice and clean, lined with trees, well-kept restaurants, coffee shops and bars with bilingual signs. It was a sharp contrast from my previous hu tong which has, let's say, a lot more "character." I continued to run into foreigners, but not the mystified type I was used to seeing staggering around the streets wide-eyed with shopping bags full of Adidas ripoffs. In contrast, these foreigners were confident, clearheaded, and determined. It was nice to see that it's possible to understand and live in this place that seemed to crazy to me. After exploring the streets and offshoot alleys, I realized I wasn't going to find any local flavor, so, after getting directions from a French woman (apparently the French will speak English to an American, provided they're in Beijing) I found the Bookworm, an expat English lending library, book store, coffee shop, bar and restaurant. The place teemed with laptop-toting expats, cappuccinos and glasses of vino. It reminded me of Bus Boys and Poets in DC (probably not coincidentally where I received the recommendation), except the staff barely spoke English, just to make sure I remembered where I was.

The next day, I woke early, high-tailed it back to my old hostel and arranged my travel and accommodations for Pingyao, my newly determined next destination. That afternoon, I headed to the US embassy where the streets were closed off for a two block radius. After flashing my passport a couple of times I was past the droves of people lined up to get Visas and onto the ghostly desserted streets on the other side of the barbed wire fence. The embassy was closed for lunch, so I played some Jian Zi (best described as a combination of hacky and badminton) with some Chinese people on their lunch break.

Playing Jian Zi outside the US embassy during the lunch break

Turned out they worked at the US Embassy, which I learned when they headed back in and left me out on the street alone. The embassy finally opened. I passed through security, gave a "what's up" to the army guard on duty, took my number, and waited. While waiting, in a room full of Chinese (which was odd because I was in the "US citizen services" room), I got to listen to the other American in the room talk about how he disliked San Fransisco's liberal ideals and how his Chinese wife shouldn't worry about moving to America because she could always get a job at a Chinese restaurant because there were "thousands of them." I was more than a bit appalled. I'd only met two Americans so far and one was crazy, the other a jerk. With out much additional fan fare, I filled out my form to register my presence in the country, utilized the nice clean restroom, stole some crisp cold water from the water cooler and was back on Chinese soil. Next up I hit the ancient observatory, a small stone mound from the 1400s nestled amongst brand new skyscrapers downtown and topped with old astronomical instruments all adorned with elegant weaving dragons. This was one of my favorite sights because I had it all to myself and the contrast between past and present was wonderful.

Instruments ontop of the ancient observatory, built in the 1400s and now nestled among the skyscrapers of downtown Beijing

The rest of Beijing was relatively uneventful. I spent an afternoon at the Summer Palace, a huge expansive day camp for emperors and their empresses (built mostly out of funds extorted from the milatary). The Summer Palace was definitely a highlight with temples, lakes, bridges, brass oxen and Chinese Theatre.

A visitor contemplates Kunming Lake with a view of the 17 arch bridge at the empress's Summer Palace.

This was followed by a large dinner with three Australian girls, followed by an inprompt to trip to the "VIP room" of a place affectionately called "This is a Pub" by the 4 Swedes, one Canadian and one Englishmen whom had been there before. It got this name because, in spite of the huge neon sign over the door which says "Pub" (which can't be missed because it was basically on a deserted alley), when they first entered the bartender announced "This is a Pub". The actual name was quite a bit stranger, but I think "This is a Pub" is better. Simplicity has its virtues. The VIP room was in the back, with no windows, some pictures of naked women on the walls, a fake trestle ceiling with fake Ivy and hand shaped chairs - all lit by blinking colored Christmas lights and night lights. Besides us there were 4 Chinese in the front sitting at the bar. It in no way resembled a pub, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

On Saturday I did some more shopping, ate a large lunch of beef noodle soup and "Ma La Dou Fu" (tofu with chili peppers) and eventually headed to the train station. Beijing West was a total madhouse full of other chaos. There were mobs of people everywhere, coming in, going out and waiting on their bags. Through some miracle I found the waiting platform, boarded the train and was off to Pingyao. I got a hard sleeper, one of a group of six bunks, three stacked on a side. I had chosen the top bunk because it's supposed to be the safest to store your stuff. When first boarding I sat on the bottom bunk with a Chinese family. They didn't speak any English, so I chatted in broken Chinese. I asked where they were going and why, knowing full well I wouldn't understand their reply, but I think they were traveling for the older man's health. The old man and young woman were very patient with me and helped me with my Chinese. The younger man - presumably the woman's husband - would just talk back at me really fast then give me a strange look when I didn't understand. They gave me some nuts, filled my water bottle with hot water for tea and offered me their address and telephone number in Beijing and I reciprocated with mine. Then, just before 10pm I headed for my bunk because that's what everyone else was doing. I eventually fell asleep, slept through my alarm and was woken soon after by the train staff because the train was approaching Pingyao. I scrambled my stuff together and jumped off the train as a woman yelled at me for being late. All in all though, the train and the wonderful family was a true highlight.

It was pitch black, 5 am, and coming out of the station I was met by a man with a sign that said "Arghur Howard". Out of a handful of people, a Japanese woman and I jumped on the cart and were whisked through the north gate under the imposing city walls and into ancient Pingyao... more on that later. Zai Jian