China Revisited

*China loves blocking websites, including this one, so we were unable to post while we were there. We put up 2 posts in the last day and lots of new pictures, so be sure to check them out!

The last time I had visited Beijing was over 5 years ago. At that time, I had just come overland on a series of buses and trains from Tibet and had mixed feelings on the country as a whole. I had encountered great hospitality on the part of the people in restaurants, shops and hotels but had quite a large amount of discontent for the government and what seemed to be a suppressed Tibet and Chinese society as a whole. At the time, Beijing seemed to be lifeless to me, somewhat dirty and in need of a good jolt of emotion and some freshening up. Evidently the recent success of Chinese markets, and likely the Olympics, had done a good deal to turn things around.

Surprisingly, we received our Chinese visas painlessly, aside from parting with $130 each, and arrived to a newly revamped Beijing airport. I was quite impressed with the new structure but again was met with the odd silence and expressionless faces as hundreds of people queued up to pass immigration. Again, no hassles with immigration and we grabbed our packs and boarded a local bus for the trip into town. Immediately I could sense a change in scenery from what I had experienced only a handful of years ago. The highways and overpasses were new construction, bright flowers decorated the medians and intersections, new high-rise condos towered overhead and hardly any trash was to be seen along the sidewalks and roadways. Again Colleen had searched out a great accommodation deal online and we checked into a corporate apartment for our 4 night stay.

Our agenda for Beijing was quite straightforward. We wanted to see the Forbidden City and the adjacent Tiananmen Square, tour a section of the Great Wall and hopefully catch some of the Iowa football game (a Saturday night game at home meant an early Sunday morning game in Beijing!). We headed out on foot, making a stop to pick up train tickets to Mongolia before heading to view the Forbidden City. Nearing the city center we began to encounter large crowds. By the time we reached the Forbidden City we had to stay within a few feet of each other in fear of getting lost in the congestion. It was quite the scene to behold. Everyone was holding waving miniature Chinese flags, children were adorned with beads and necklaces with large plastic medallions, huge megatron TVs were setup at intersections displaying speeches recently given by governmental leaders, bright banners hung overhead and Tiananmen Square looked somewhat like a carnival packed with decorations and tens of thousand of people. We knew that the Peoples Republic of China had celebrated it’s 60th anniversary the week prior and the hugely popular Autumn Festival was taking place the week of our stay. It seems the government had decided to combine the two into one big two week long celebration. We were not prepared.

It was immediately evident from the huge throng of people exiting the Forbidden City gate (think Boston Marathon but they were walking and everyone was Chinese) that entering would be difficult. Across the street Tiananmen Square was so imposing with it’s own crowds that we did not even attempt to enter. On top of this there were guards everywhere adding some uneasiness to the event. Every 20 or 30 feet there seemed to be another dozen of them, some joking with each other and wrestling while others performed some sort of marching routines for onlookers. Their presence was overwhelming and I was not sure whether to observe them in a serious manner or smile at their antics. We observed the whole circus for probably an hour, took some pictures, and then decided it was time to move on. We got a very good sense of the mindset of the Chinese people, their national pride and the constant presence of their government during this time and traded this experience for the historical significance of a tour of the Forbidden City. On a side note, there were no birds in sight. Apparently the government had been trapping all of the birds since mid-September because they did not want anything flying over Tiananmen Square during the official celebration. They said they were keeping them in cages awaiting , but I am guessing they are all pretty much dead now. Talk about controlling everything!

The next morning we awoke to an early alarm clock. It was likely our only chance to view college football this season and we had made a trip to the beer store the night before in hopes of getting an authentic feel the day of. Our hotel had promised satellite TV with ESPN but of course this was not the case. Luckily we were able to catch a live streaming of the game online and we cherished a bit of our normal Saturday fall routine back home.

An even earlier wakeup call the next morning found us heading in the dark to a hostel 2 kilometers away to meet up with a tour heading to the Great Wall. We had no idea the sun would be rising so late in the day and we were greeted by a toothless bus driver smoking cigarettes

(second side note, EVERYONE in China smokes) who directed us to board his bus in a language that we did not understand. It was odd as the bus was empty, but an hour later we had made a handful of stops to pick up other tourists as well as an English speaking guide.

We had chosen to hike a part of the wall which had only been partially rebuilt. There are rebuilt sections that are more easily toured and to some may appear more picturesque but to us

visiting these sections is kind of like saying you have seen an authentic medieval castle because you visited Disney World. Our tour actually included two sections of the wall, Jinshanling and Simatai, along with a 12 kilometer wall hike that connected the two. The wall is simply beautiful. Having visited before, I had a large amount of joy seeing Colleen’s eyes light up as the wall came into view overhead through the trees. The fist thing she commented, and I remembered thinking to myself on my first visit, was how steep the area of land was that they built the wall. They could have easily chosen a simpler route but building right up the imposing mountains and cliffs worked to further impede any would be invaders. The wall was relatively uncrowned, another reason we chose the section we did, and we spent the next 4 hours hiking the 12 kilometers. It was a lot of steps up followed by a lot of steps down over and over again with over 90 guard towers placed periodically along the way.

We left the wall pretty exhausted. It was a good thing. The following morning we had yet another early alarm to wake to (this time we ordered a taxi) in order to head to the train station and board the Trans-Mongolian train northward.