China Part 1

It was finally time for my China trip, but I had a bit of a rough start.  The wheel on my brand-new suitcase locked up and literally melted getting it to my hotel in DC.  I bought a new one that night.  As I made my way to my gate the next day, I realized I had lost my brand-new jacket.  The only thing I could buy before boarding was a hoodie, the one piece of clothing I hate.  When I got to Beijing, the wheel on my newest new suitcase came apart.  At least it still rolled, sort of.  I sure hope this isn’t an indication of the kind of trip I’m in for!

China day 1 and 2 were travel days.  Day 3, Beijing- we went to Tiananmen square.  After seeing so many public squares in Europe, I was surprised at how bare this was.  Its supposed to be the largest in the world, but it’s just an empty space filled with people.  On the south side stood the Monument to the People’s Hero, a 10-story obelisk monument to the ‘martyrs of the revolutionary struggle in the 19^th and 20^th century’.  Across the street, on the western side was the Great Hall of the People, a government building used for legislative and ceremonial activities.  When foreign heads of state visit China, this is where the meetings are held.  The National Museum of China is on the eastern side and to the north sits the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China and a communist revolutionary.  Chairman Mao wished to be cremated upon his death, but his wishes were ignored.  He was embalmed and is now permanently interred in the mausoleum. 

There was a 2 hour wait to view Chairman Mao, the line snaked back and forth along one side of the square.  The rest of the square was filled with people milling around.  There were about 20 tour guides off to one side guarding large piles of backpacks, presumably for their groups waiting in line.  There was a giant flower vase off to one side, a left over from the National Day of the Peoples Republic of China.  This week-long national holiday celebrates the founding of the Peoples Republic of China on 1 October 1949.

Our next stop was the Forbidden City.   The massive complex is the former imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, from 1420 to 1912.   It is now a museum, and open to the public.  The Forbidden City is where 14 Ming and 10 Qing emperors and their households resided, as well as the ceremonial, political and government center for almost 500 years.  The entire complex covers more than 180 acres and consists of 980 buildings.  It was called the Forbidden City because no one could enter or exit without the emperor’s permission.  This included his wives and their children. 

The emperor had a first wife and countless other wives knows as concubines.  There were ordinary concubines and favorite concubines, all constantly struggling to improve their position.  One such concubine, Cixi, became known as Dragon Lady, or Empress Dowager Cixi.  As a young girl of about 14, she was married to the emperor and became an ordinary concubine.  She bore him a son, who at 5 years old and the only surviving son, became emperor upon his father’s death. Cixi became the Empress Dowager, or empress mother.  She was able to oust the group of interim rulers appointed by her husband and assumed control or regency, which she shared with the 1st wife, empress Xi’an.  Her son died before he could become emperor so Cixi installed her infant nephew and retained control.  When the nephew came of age, she had him thrown in a dungeon where he remained for 10 years.  It was thought he tried to assassinate her.  When Cixi died in 1908, she had basically ruled China for 47 years. 

The Forbidden City, although huge, was jam packed with people.  A fair number of them were large tour groups like ours, led by tour guides carrying little flags or scarves of all colors. I learned just as much listening to the different guides as our own; they each had a different story to tell.   The entire complex seemed like mostly vast open courtyards with little of interest.  They were lined with buildings that were not very spectacular, but they did have one interesting feature.  On each corner of the roof were small carved figurines, mostly in the shape of dragons. This is the equivalent of a star rating.  A building with 8 dragons is more important/elaborate then one with 4 dragons.   We finally got to the section where the concubine’s rooms were, so we did get to see a little glimpse of domestic life.  There was a large garden near-by, but it seemed to be filled with huge rock displays and very few plants.  There were quite a few trees, each labeled with a plaque identifying the tree as 100, 150 or 300 years old.  The rocks we found out, were meant as a display of wealth.  They were quarried from the bottom of a lake, which was an expensive endeavor.  The gardens were supposed to promote tranquility and peace, but I thought that would have been accomplished much better with actual living plants.  In truth, I found the entire Forbidden City to be very stark, although the buildings were pretty, in a simple kind of way.  I liked them better then some of the more elaborate buildings you often see in the west.

Near the concubine quarters was a pagoda for them to rest in after walking a bit.  Not that long ago, China still practiced foot binding.  At a very young age, little girls had their feet bound very tightly which caused the toes and side of the foot to break and fold under.  This was though to be delicate and beautiful, but I’m guessing was a way to prevent women from running away.  As a result, women could barely walk.  Our guide told us about her grandmother, who was foot bound.  She always wanted to visit the great wall but couldn’t because she couldn’t walk.    

She also mentioned that in modern China there is no such thing as day care.  Before a couple decided to have a baby, they first had to figure out who would care for the child if both parents worked.  The Chinese will not trust anyone but family to watch their children.  She also talked about the one child policy, which was just eliminated in 2015.  It was introduced in 1979, after a 10-year policy allowing 2 children.  In the mid 80’s it was amended to allow rural Chinese to have a 2^nd child, but only if the first was a girl.  There were exemptions for ethnic minorities, no matter how far back the minorities immigrated.  Our guide was from inner Mongolia, several generations ago, so she was allowed 3 children.  Both her and our next guide talked about the value of boy children over girls, to carry on the family name.  What the didn’t mention was the practice of aborting girls, killing them after birth, or dumping them in orphanages to try again for a boy.  There is a current policy that forbids finding out the gender of a child before birth, to prevent aborting girls but of course, money gets around that.  When I asked (as delicately as possible) about the fact that if girls were tossed aside in favor of boys, once those boys came of age, who were they supposed to marry?  They vague answer was, they just married women from outside China.  That was ok, especially if they were Asian. 

Our 1st guide Lilly was very sweet, she constantly referred to us as her children or family.  “OK, Lillie’s babies, this way”.  One other funny thing she did, when she called for a bathroom break, she called it the happy room.  Anyone need the happy room?  She explained it like this.  When you visit the happy room, you are happy at how good you feel after your release.   We thought it was just something she said, but our next guide Peter did the same, so I guess it’s a thing.  Peter also called it the Opera house.  “We’ll stop by the Opera and sing a song” “Anyone want to sing a song?”  Even people in our tour group would ask each other, have you seen the happy room or Opera house?  In all the hotels and some of the places we visited, they had regular western toilets, but many only had the squat toilets.  If your unfamiliar, it’s just a tiled or porcelain hole in the ground.  There is a place on each side of the hole for your feet.  It’s believed to be a healthier way to go than sitting down.  Most seemed cleaner than expected, but I did see quite the mess in one.  I am so lucky that I can hold it all day if necessary, because with my bad knees, there is no way I could squat low enough without going all over myself.  As an avid long-distance hiker, before my knees went out, I had no problem squatting in the woods.  Who knew that was a skill?  Some of the ladies in our group were saying they had no idea how to squat.  It’s not the same as hovering over a public toilet seat, you have to get much lower, while holding your pants up and down at the same time.  Also, there are no hooks for your purse or bags and you most defiantly don’t want anything on the ground! (Google picture, for some reason, I never took one)

During the entire 2 weeks, we saw many western tour groups, with people from all over the world.  Even with so many of us wandering around, no matter where we went, the locals would stop, stare and take pictures.  One of the women in our group was a beautiful African American.   So many Chinese wanted their picture taken with her, she barely had time to enjoy the sights.  They just walked up, pulled her aside and posed.  Every time we stopped for a group picture, there would be half a dozen cameras pointed at us and we sometimes had random Chinese people try to join the group photo.  It all seems pretty good natured, with lots of smiles.  When I caught someone photographing or videotaping us, I always smiled and waved.   They were not at all bashful at getting caught, in fact the vast majority grinned and waved back.  We passed several groups of school children, who were delighted to see us and try out their one or two English words.

Day 4 Beijing - we visited the great wall at Juyonggun Pass, which had spectacular views.  Or, it would have, but it was so hazy you couldn’t see much.  The haze, or smog in truth, was with us each and every day, even far away from the cities and in the mountains.  I’m sure the sun came out now and then, but we never really saw it.  We only had 1.5 hours, so most of us climbed up to one of the highest towers and had a look around.  The steps were very steep and at one point narrowed so that only two rows of people could pass, one going up and one going down.  The view was amazing, even with the heavy haze.  The area looked a bit like the Smoky Mountains, with heavily forested but small mountains all around.   You could see the wall stretch along the ridge in either direction with guard towers here and there.  The steps were uneven, with some really high and others about ¼ the height.  It made climbing a challenge and coming down even more so. It was much what I expected, having talked to people who had been to the wall.  It was jam packed with people but still a wonder to see. 

We also went to a jade museum where we learned a bit about the history of jade, and a very heavy sales pitch.  This was the government owned facility, so of course our guide assured us, had the best quality.  One young sales woman followed me around so aggressively I had to duck into the bathroom to shake her.  Everything I stopped to look at, she was right there to tell me all about it, no matter how many times I told her I wasn’t buying.

The drivers seem very impatient here, honking for basically no reason.  The people are the same way; they shove right past if you are going too slow or in the way, and they cut in front of you in line.  It’s hard to remember they aren’t being rude, it’s just the culture here. For the most part, I didn’t mind too much. 

Our guide told us if you buy a car, the license plate alone cost about $14,000 and you could wait up to a year to get one.  In the bigger cities you can only drive certain days of the week, based on the first digit of your tag.    With so many people, 21 to 25 million in Beijing and Shangha , and the crazy price for tags, I’m surprised there aren’t more scooters.  They do have a great metro, in Beijing for example, the metro has 16 lines.

Day 5, We left Beijing and flew to Shanghai, then drove to Sushou, which made for a very long travel day.  We got a new guide Peter.   He was quite the character!  He would tell a story about his life or talk about something funny and crack himself up.  He would laugh with his whole body, complete with a little dance.  Or maybe a seizure, it was hard to tell the difference.  He was like the energizer bunny, he kept going and going and going.  Sometimes he was too much, but then we merged with another group for a day and their guide seemed flat and monotone compared to him.  He was pretty open about life in China, and at 51 years old, he had seen a lot of changes.  He said traditionally the father is the head of the house in all matters over his wife and children (even after they marry) until his death,.  Then the eldest son takes over.  He told us how he met a girl and fell in love, but his father said he couldn’t marry her, she was too thin and couldn’t make babies.  She now has twins.  He met another girl, but his father said no, she was too tall.  She was Peter’s height.  So, Peter waited several years till his father found him an acceptable wife.  Arranged marriages still happen but are less typical with this generation.  Even if unhappy, they stayed married but had girlfriends.  I doubt the wives were allowed boyfriends.  The divorce rate used to be 0%, but is still very, very low.  If couples do divorce now, they often lie to their families.  Peter still obeys his father without question or resentment.  He really wants to visit the US, it’s his life-long dream, but “Father says no, so OK, I don’t go”.    He has one daughter and says life for her is so different, with a free and open China. 

I asked if it’s so open, why no google – maps, email, search engine, play store; no Facebook, messenger, or Instagram; random access to outside news.  He said it’s because there is no reason, Chinese have the same service as Facebook or Twitter called WeChat.    Why pay other than Chinese company?  I never realized how much I relied on Google.  I had no access to the outside world for 2 weeks.  Luckily, I could exchange text messages on the American phone my brother gave me, but only if I knew someone’s phone number.  And since I hate talking on the phone, I only had my mom and brother’s number.  Some people had roaming with their US carriers and had access to most everything, but I never thought to do that because I always buy a local sim card.  I use an app called Fast News, so I get feeds from 8 or 10 different news organizations.  Most of the time I couldn’t see any of them, but some days I could see the various headlines from 3 or 4 sources, but I couldn’t open the article.

 

Link to Photos in part 3

A note about the photos - Everywhere we went in China, the smog was so heavy, everything looked dull and hazy.  I've edited all my photos to enhance the color and reduce the haze.   

Here's a before and after