Thursday, November 18, 2004
Beijing
So, I just went to Beijing, the Windy City. Not that it is anything like Chicago or serves any food approximating that served in Chicago or has parades like they do in Chicago or crime like they do in Chicago, no. It was just windy as all hell broken loose. I felt like I was standing on the shores of Lake Michigan in January (something I've never done). or mebbe the river styx. It was cold.
But, I had fun. I went there to see Scarlet Leung aka Liang Lingtong, who is in Beijing actually studying the language I simply hope to pick up by proximity. She is in a language and culture college there and all of her friends are indonesian, korean, japanese, or some other asian ethnicity. No Americans, save her. One German 16 year old girl who is mature and cynical in a Chrissie sort of way, as well. The Indonesians were fun to hang out with, generally affable, with a crazy language that I want to learn now. It has a bunch of tongue trills and repetetive sharp sounds that gives off a sense that the speakers are constantly bantering... which they were.
I took a sleeper train up to beijing friday night and sat in a four bed compartment with three random chinese. they talked and i read a book, chipping in every now and then when they wanted an american opinion, but mostly they were talking about how expensive schools are or the weather or beijing people versus shanghai people, all of which i'd heard before. i got a free dinner which i demeated and consumed and then the lights went out around 10 and i slept til 6. From my perspective, I got to beijing Hela fast, but it actually took 12 hours.
We went to the Palace with Scarlet's school, as they take weekend trips to different sights around the area most every weekend. I pretended to be a student (none of the teachers fell for it) and walked in with the rest, not having to pay. The lacquered rooves and the ornate temples and sitting rooms were fantastic, but the whole palace was generally under construction, so the effect was slightly ruined. It was still magnificent tho. Pictures of that are on Scarlet's camera and she doesn't have reliable access to internet, so it may be a while before I get those puppies.
Walked around a mall aimlessly for an hour or so and then went back out into the cold cruel convoluted world to go see Tiananmen. An oddity here: Scarlet has lived in Beijing for about three months now and still does not know her way around the city at all. I read one of the bus signs and found our way there, but man, she needs to get on that. It didn't matter tho, the places we were going were so touristy that if you just picked a white guy and followed, you'd get there eventually, like turning right in a maze.
Tiananmen was large and swathy and more full of people than I expected/less full of people than Scarlet expected. Kites were flying in the air, but these were all being sold by kite peddlers. All of the monuments were cordoned off and guarded around the clock by uncomfortable looking guards. I stared at the Chinese flag for a long time, reminiscing about old capture-the-flag days (not so old, just in college), and wondering what kind of diversion i'd have to set up to get to the flag, cut it down and make it out of the square intact. I concluded that I could make it to the cord, but would be cut down soon there after. Even with Scarlet Diversionary Tactic Beta. I abandoned the mission and dragged my eyes away from the tempting banner.
Right before we got to Tiananmen, we were propositioned by a nice lady named Jessica who is a Christian and an art student putting on an exhibition with her teacher and others. We went up to see the nice lady's work and others' and then i started to notice that her language was changing from nice conversation english into the english that i frequently here in the markets or on the streets of shanghai. such phrases as, cheaper for you, or, give you good price. up until that point she had impeccable diction. so through most of the art viewing i was dreading the ending, where, of course, i had to five times over tell her that we weren't interested and we loved her work but were not going to buy jack shalack. get it? got it? good.
Later that afternoon, we also went up to the top of a temple in a nearby park hilltop and got a really great view of the city. yeah, i could live there i think.
That night I went out on the town with Scarlet and some Indonesians, good times were had. met a guy at a club who was from detroit and was a roadie touring with random rock bands. he was desperate for company, stopping me and chatting me up for a good twenty minutes, while the four girls i was there with were trying to drag me to the dance floor. he just couldn't take a hint, so eventually Scarlet and another butted in and rescued me. he was a nice dude, but i don't usually go to clubs to meet nice dudes. it's a failing of mine, i know, but i live with that.
Next day, sunday, Scarlet and I got up kinda late and then went out looking for a park. At this point the weekend had turned really cold (Scarlet informs me that the day after I left it got unseasonably warm in Beijing), so we were walking around this beautiful park like arctic foxes in the North Carolina zoo, looking at everything through our fur and cursing the air we were breathing. There was a nice long raised walkway with a gate at the end where i wish i could have stopped and picknicked for a while, but the persuasive voice of the wind got me off there all too swiftly. There were also a lot of nice trees and interesting structures, but by the time we got in, all we were thinking about was getting out. so, we did.
On the way back home we stopped in a nice warm dvd shop where we spent a pleasurable hour sifting through movies and cds. i kept pulling out dvds that made me go "ooh!" and made a big stack. at the end of the hour, i reshuffled and got the dvds down to a justifiable number. In my mind, as i had not yet bought dvds in china, I was way behind. so i bought a whole bunch to make up for that fact. then we went back and watched one of them with some folks. it's a relatively recent chinese fighting film called House of Flying Daggers (renamed House of Flying Kisses by a guy named Leo/Ryo) and was beautiful in certain parts, but unbearably overromantic at other points. i think i could have endured without laughing, except for leo constantly commenting at the end. the ending was very tragic and lovely, though, so try to sit through it just for that.
Next day I checked out and five of us rented a van to take us to Badaling (Great Wall, part of it). On the way there the driver suggested we go see Old Beijing. Bad suggestion. it was a miniature version of beijing in the old days, but it was run down and off-season, so it was totally boring and uninspiring. that didn't stop us from taking godzilla pictures with the small castles or from generally running amok. supposedly parts of crouching tiger hidden dragon were filmed there, but i saw no sign of that. we got outta there and moved on to the wall. still very cold at this point.
colder still at the wall. so, our first inclination is to go up to the highest point around we can find and stand in an unprotected area for a long period of time while purposefully overexerting ourselves by climbing steep climbs. but, no, it wasn't as bad as all that. it did seem vaguely foolish at the time though. we took a sky lift up to the top and walked around for a while. this is supposedly the most reconstructed part of the wall, so it's less pretty, but i didn't notice nor mind. the vistas were dramatic and architecture greatly impressive. i noticed how some steps were taller or shorter than others and how some people had carved names of loves or countries into the rock. i sat for a while looking at the wall march on up the hills and mountains, through terrain that looks neither walkable nor buildable upon. i sat and gaped.
they dropped me off at the airport on the way back in to beijing. i waited a bit, got on the plane, had a courteous conversation with the businessman to my left, deplaned, and then waited a half-hour in the taxi line to get home. all in all, a good trip. short, yes. but good. i think i'll go back soon. it seems that beijing, like rome, deserves a longer visit.
But, I had fun. I went there to see Scarlet Leung aka Liang Lingtong, who is in Beijing actually studying the language I simply hope to pick up by proximity. She is in a language and culture college there and all of her friends are indonesian, korean, japanese, or some other asian ethnicity. No Americans, save her. One German 16 year old girl who is mature and cynical in a Chrissie sort of way, as well. The Indonesians were fun to hang out with, generally affable, with a crazy language that I want to learn now. It has a bunch of tongue trills and repetetive sharp sounds that gives off a sense that the speakers are constantly bantering... which they were.
I took a sleeper train up to beijing friday night and sat in a four bed compartment with three random chinese. they talked and i read a book, chipping in every now and then when they wanted an american opinion, but mostly they were talking about how expensive schools are or the weather or beijing people versus shanghai people, all of which i'd heard before. i got a free dinner which i demeated and consumed and then the lights went out around 10 and i slept til 6. From my perspective, I got to beijing Hela fast, but it actually took 12 hours.
We went to the Palace with Scarlet's school, as they take weekend trips to different sights around the area most every weekend. I pretended to be a student (none of the teachers fell for it) and walked in with the rest, not having to pay. The lacquered rooves and the ornate temples and sitting rooms were fantastic, but the whole palace was generally under construction, so the effect was slightly ruined. It was still magnificent tho. Pictures of that are on Scarlet's camera and she doesn't have reliable access to internet, so it may be a while before I get those puppies.
Walked around a mall aimlessly for an hour or so and then went back out into the cold cruel convoluted world to go see Tiananmen. An oddity here: Scarlet has lived in Beijing for about three months now and still does not know her way around the city at all. I read one of the bus signs and found our way there, but man, she needs to get on that. It didn't matter tho, the places we were going were so touristy that if you just picked a white guy and followed, you'd get there eventually, like turning right in a maze.
Tiananmen was large and swathy and more full of people than I expected/less full of people than Scarlet expected. Kites were flying in the air, but these were all being sold by kite peddlers. All of the monuments were cordoned off and guarded around the clock by uncomfortable looking guards. I stared at the Chinese flag for a long time, reminiscing about old capture-the-flag days (not so old, just in college), and wondering what kind of diversion i'd have to set up to get to the flag, cut it down and make it out of the square intact. I concluded that I could make it to the cord, but would be cut down soon there after. Even with Scarlet Diversionary Tactic Beta. I abandoned the mission and dragged my eyes away from the tempting banner.
Right before we got to Tiananmen, we were propositioned by a nice lady named Jessica who is a Christian and an art student putting on an exhibition with her teacher and others. We went up to see the nice lady's work and others' and then i started to notice that her language was changing from nice conversation english into the english that i frequently here in the markets or on the streets of shanghai. such phrases as, cheaper for you, or, give you good price. up until that point she had impeccable diction. so through most of the art viewing i was dreading the ending, where, of course, i had to five times over tell her that we weren't interested and we loved her work but were not going to buy jack shalack. get it? got it? good.
Later that afternoon, we also went up to the top of a temple in a nearby park hilltop and got a really great view of the city. yeah, i could live there i think.
That night I went out on the town with Scarlet and some Indonesians, good times were had. met a guy at a club who was from detroit and was a roadie touring with random rock bands. he was desperate for company, stopping me and chatting me up for a good twenty minutes, while the four girls i was there with were trying to drag me to the dance floor. he just couldn't take a hint, so eventually Scarlet and another butted in and rescued me. he was a nice dude, but i don't usually go to clubs to meet nice dudes. it's a failing of mine, i know, but i live with that.
Next day, sunday, Scarlet and I got up kinda late and then went out looking for a park. At this point the weekend had turned really cold (Scarlet informs me that the day after I left it got unseasonably warm in Beijing), so we were walking around this beautiful park like arctic foxes in the North Carolina zoo, looking at everything through our fur and cursing the air we were breathing. There was a nice long raised walkway with a gate at the end where i wish i could have stopped and picknicked for a while, but the persuasive voice of the wind got me off there all too swiftly. There were also a lot of nice trees and interesting structures, but by the time we got in, all we were thinking about was getting out. so, we did.
On the way back home we stopped in a nice warm dvd shop where we spent a pleasurable hour sifting through movies and cds. i kept pulling out dvds that made me go "ooh!" and made a big stack. at the end of the hour, i reshuffled and got the dvds down to a justifiable number. In my mind, as i had not yet bought dvds in china, I was way behind. so i bought a whole bunch to make up for that fact. then we went back and watched one of them with some folks. it's a relatively recent chinese fighting film called House of Flying Daggers (renamed House of Flying Kisses by a guy named Leo/Ryo) and was beautiful in certain parts, but unbearably overromantic at other points. i think i could have endured without laughing, except for leo constantly commenting at the end. the ending was very tragic and lovely, though, so try to sit through it just for that.
Next day I checked out and five of us rented a van to take us to Badaling (Great Wall, part of it). On the way there the driver suggested we go see Old Beijing. Bad suggestion. it was a miniature version of beijing in the old days, but it was run down and off-season, so it was totally boring and uninspiring. that didn't stop us from taking godzilla pictures with the small castles or from generally running amok. supposedly parts of crouching tiger hidden dragon were filmed there, but i saw no sign of that. we got outta there and moved on to the wall. still very cold at this point.
colder still at the wall. so, our first inclination is to go up to the highest point around we can find and stand in an unprotected area for a long period of time while purposefully overexerting ourselves by climbing steep climbs. but, no, it wasn't as bad as all that. it did seem vaguely foolish at the time though. we took a sky lift up to the top and walked around for a while. this is supposedly the most reconstructed part of the wall, so it's less pretty, but i didn't notice nor mind. the vistas were dramatic and architecture greatly impressive. i noticed how some steps were taller or shorter than others and how some people had carved names of loves or countries into the rock. i sat for a while looking at the wall march on up the hills and mountains, through terrain that looks neither walkable nor buildable upon. i sat and gaped.
they dropped me off at the airport on the way back in to beijing. i waited a bit, got on the plane, had a courteous conversation with the businessman to my left, deplaned, and then waited a half-hour in the taxi line to get home. all in all, a good trip. short, yes. but good. i think i'll go back soon. it seems that beijing, like rome, deserves a longer visit.
