I'm in China now - Beijing this week, Taiyuan City next week

[Little-Acorn]

Beijing (the few parts of it I've seen so far) is a big, open city, very clean and neat, with many broad avenues and friendly people. Some may point out that I clearly haven't seen much of it.

Lots of police presence in most places, either official Beijing police or hired guards at evey restaurant, hotel, etc. Beijing airport is gigantic, terminal buildings bigger and longer than any I've seen in America, very fresh and new. Did I mention they were BIG?. Our plane took exactly twelve hours from LAX to Beijing, landed at 4:30 AM China time Sunday morning, so the airport was mostly deserted. In most airports they bring the baggage to you; in Beijing they bring you to the baggage, which was at the extreme opposite end of the three terminal buildings. We're talking like half a MILE away, no lie. They have an internal train that runs from the deplaning area to the baggage check, gets up to about 50mph I'd guess. And clean and neat. I have a hunch that if any New York type tried to spray paint that train, he'd wind up being served in a few Beijing restaurants by the end of the week, and not as a customer.

China has only one time zone for the entire country, odd. If it's noon in Beijing, the sun is directly overhead, as you'd expect. But if you call a guy in extreme western China at that moment and ask him what time it is, he'll say it's noon where he is, also... but the sun hasn't come up yet.

Visited Tian An Men square today. Big, open square, would make a great model airplane field if not for the light poles. Again clean, neat, orderly. Thousand or more people just then, but the square accommodates them with room to spare. Lots of police presence. If you look at them, they'll give you the usual cop flinty stare. But I saw one smile at a little boy, 2 years old or so. Haven't seen an armed cop yet. My wife was in Tian An Men Square twenty years ago when the tanks came through. They missed her. She emigrated to the United States shortly afterward, under special rules set up by George H.W. Bush.

There's a moat around the Forbidden City, which is in the exact center of Beijing and was the seat of goverrnment I guess for 500+ years, after Beijing became the capital (used to be Xian) and while the emperors were still emperors (until around 1900). Its name described its status for most of that time, no one could go in except royalty and their servants. Now it's more open, you can get tours. The moat's pretty and scenic, but don't get downwind of it.

The big building with the Chairman Mao picture is real. At the far opposite end of the square, is a huge 200-year-old pagoda-shaped building, maybe six floors high and build of brick. Two of them, actually. Apparently this is where the Beijing city walls were back then, but I hear they were destroyed after the Communist Revolution in 1949.

And they plunked down an even bigger building right in the middle of the square a few decades ago, somewhat spoiling the vast open space. That's Chairman Mao's mausoleum, where his coffin is. I asked my wife which leader made the decision to allow capitalism back into China, which spurred the incredible economic boom they've been having for the last 20 years or so. She replied, "Deng Xiao-Ping". I asked when they were going to take down the Chairman Mao pic and raze the mausoleum, and put up a Deng Xiao-Ping picture, and got a startled, incredulous look. I guess that's not being planned just yet.

More later.

[Gaffer]

Keep the reports coming. Very interesting.

[Kathianne]

I agree with Gaffer. What are you doing in China? Just vacationing or business?

[Little-Acorn]

I agree with Gaffer. What are you doing in China? Just vacationing or business?

Mostly vacationing, my wife is from Taiyuan City and her sister still lives there. This place is screaming with business opportunities, though I don't know if we have the time or the oompah to take advantage of them. Wife isn't too interested. Yet.

After Tian An Men Square yesterday, we walked thru several famous shopping areas south of the Square, and my wife fell in love with a Chinese (i.e. not foreign) bookstore that was loaded with books on Chinese traditional medicine. Afterward we were tired and my wife arranged for a pedal-powered cab to take us back to the hotel. We drew quite a crowd as the three of us (wife, 11yr son, self) got into the thing. It was built for one, or two if they were friends. But I doubt the designers had in mind a 250# elephant like me, plus two other people. Wife and I squeezed in like two sardines, son sat in wife's lap. Driver humorously checked the rear wheel under my side (three-wheel pedicab), decided it would hold, and we started. Driver was VERY strong. Single-speed bike, and most terrain is quite flat, but up a few slight upgrades he didn't slow down at all - just maintained the medium speed he wanted. I could hear the differential whining under the seat. Got interesting in a few traffic jams. Cutting across six lanes of motorized traffic was exciting. I felt sorry for the guy - I ride myself, and know what extra weight can do.

Still a number of bicycles in this part of Beijing, but cars and buses now predominate. Most streets have a wide bike lane on the right side, more than in the U.S., it's nice. And it gets used more than in the U.S.

More to come. We're about to rent bicycles and go on a route my wife planned out, several hours' worth I'd guess. The area just north of Forbidden City is rich in hutongs (Chinese residential streets, lots of character and culture there, in San Diego we'd call them barrios). I mentioned to her that riding in an area like that in certain parts of Los Angeles can get you a knife in the ribs, but she laughed and said it was very safe here. I guess we'll find out. 30 yuan (about $7.50) for four hours rental, per bike, not bad. It was five times that in Yellowstone last year. Bikes were probably better, but like I said it's very flat here, no gears really needed.

I may feel a little bit like an intruder in the hutongs - they may look like "culture haven" to us tourists, but to the people who live there, aren't they just "home"? How would you like a bunch of babbling strangers riding up and down your street, interfering with the traffic, and staring at you like you're a bunch of animals in a zoo? Maybe I'm oversensitive - wife is from here, and doesn't mind.

[Mr. P]

Mostly vacationing, my wife is from Taiyuan City and her sister still lives there. This place is screaming with business opportunities, though I don't know if we have the time or the oompah to take advantage of them. Wife isn't too interested. Yet.

After Tian An Men Square yesterday, we walked thru several famous shopping areas south of the Square, and my wife fell in love with a Chinese (i.e. not foreign) bookstore that was loaded with books on Chinese traditional medicine. Afterward we were tired and my wife arranged for a pedal-powered cab to take us back to the hotel. We drew quite a crowd as the three of us (wife, 11yr son, self) got into the thing. It was built for one, or two if they were friends. But I doubt the designers had in mind a 250# elephant like me, plus two other people. Wife and I squeezed in like two sardines, son sat in wife's lap. Driver humorously checked the rear wheel under my side (three-wheel pedicab), decided it would hold, and we started. Driver was VERY strong. Single-speed bike, and most terrain is quite flat, but up a few slight upgrades he didn't slow down at all - just maintained the medium speed he wanted. I could hear the differential whining under the seat. Got interesting in a few traffic jams. Cutting across six lanes of motorized traffic was exciting. I felt sorry for the guy - I ride myself, and know what extra weight can do.

Still a number of bicycles in this part of Beijing, but cars and buses now predominate. Most streets have a wide bike lane on the right side, more than in the U.S., it's nice. And it gets used more than in the U.S.

More to come. We're about to rent bicycles and go on a route my wife planned out, several hours' worth I'd guess. The area just north of Forbidden City is rich in hutongs (Chinese residential streets, lots of character and culture there, in San Diego we'd call them barrios). I mentioned to her that riding in an area like that in certain parts of Los Angeles can get you a knife in the ribs, but she laughed and said it was very safe here. I guess we'll find out. 30 yuan (about $7.50) for four hours rental, per bike, not bad. It was five times that in Yellowstone last year. Bikes were probably better, but like I said it's very flat here, no gears really needed.

I may feel a little bit like an intruder in the hutongs - they may look like "culture haven" to us tourists, but to the people who live there, aren't they just "home"? How would you like a bunch of babbling strangers riding up and down your street, interfering with the traffic, and staring at you like you're a bunch of animals in a zoo? Maybe I'm oversensitive - wife is from here, and doesn't mind.

Just don't point an laugh. :)

[Abbey Marie]

Very interesting thread, LA.

[Little-Acorn]

Well, the Beijing weather forecasters aren't much better than their San Diego counterparts. "Chance of afternoon thundershowers" was the call for he day we rented bikes. My wife laid out a route around 10 miles long, with lots of interesting stops. Halfway thru, at about 9:30 AM local, we heard the rumbles, and they weren't jets. In fact, I haven't seen a single aircraft since arriving in Beijing (airport is 20 miles out of town and there is no repeat no private aviation in China. Stopped at the Prince Dong Palace north of the Forbidden City, and while looking around the sky started getting very dark. In the midwest we'd have been battening down the hatches when the sky looked like that.

A little rain fell, we ducked under an available roof, then the lightning started flashing. All the buildings in the Palace are covered with lightning rods, and there was a very large radio antenna less than a quarter mile away. Far off at first, under that VERY dark and almost yellow sky, then closer, until several times there was no separation between flash and bang. 11-yr son freaked out, I didn't know he was that afraid of lightning. So I held him and gave him a high-school-level seminar on lightning, timing the flash and bang, describing how tall pointy things attracted lightning and we weren't it, etc., and pointing out that we were perfectly safe. He relaxed a little, but still looked unhappy.

The wind blew a little, but never very high, and the rain was medium-to-heavy. Then started tapering off, the sky to the north started lightening up (not much, but that ugly yellow color faded), and he relaxed. Rain stopped after a while, so we mounted up and headed for the hotel, maybe 6 miles away, wife leading, son in middle, me riding drag to shepherd any lost sheep.

Big mistake. That storm was the first of two, and the second one found us and stayed centered right over us, for nearly the entire trip home. Map reading's a b*tch in the rain. We stopped and my wife got us some el cheapo raincoats, and we barreled on. Lightning flashing all around, several simultaneous flash-bangs, and it turns out those nice wide bike lanes, sometimes isloated from the traffic lanes by six-inch curbs, turn into lakes during heavy rain. We left spectacular roostertails (26" knobby tires) practically on every street. I got several facefuls of mud from my son's bike until I had to back off. Saw several bikers with much better raincoats than ours, no cessation of traffic, and the sky didn't really get any lighter.

The rain NEVER stopped, and became quite heavy at times. 11-yr son was impressive - I knew he didn't like the lightning, but he kept pumping gamely along, even after the left sleeve of his raincoat tore off somehow. I pulled up next to wife and started announcing in a lousy Irish accent that the rain was a wonderful thing, else how did she expect the Emerald Isle to stay so green, she should thank the good Lord for the blessings he was bestowing upon us this day etc. etc., got her to laugh as we plowed on through. Had to pause between thundercracks, but a good time was had by all, considering we looked and felt like drowned rats.

Got down to Tian An Men Square, followed the 12-lane main street eastbound between it and the Forbidden City, then had to cross that street to head up toward the hotel a block away. Rain was bucketing down, cops were trying to handle traffic as best they could, curbs were flooding, horns blaring everywhere (standard procedure in Beijing, even in good weather).

We scurried across in what looked like a gap in traffic (it wasn't). Halfway across, several large buses came flying around the curve to our right. The female cop on the corner started yelling at us, and when I looked I saw that even she looked scared. I yelled at everyone to GO GO GO, we made it and got splashed hugely by the rightmost bus. The cop just stared at us, then turned her back and started helping more sane people. Got the family up onto the sidewalk, then rode through a large, deep puddle to the curb myself, and found out the hard way that it was a construction zone, dropping the front wheel into an invisible hole under the water, covering it to the axle. Didn't go over the handlebars for some reason. Jumped off as clumsily as a 55-year-old fat guy ever does, hauled the bike out of the hole, and squelched all the way home.

Got back to the hotel, turned in the bikes, told them we wouldn't charge them for the very thorough bike washes they were getting. They laughed and didn't charge us for being 30 minutes late. Got up to our room in high spirits, all things considered, and hung up all our clothes to dry. Looked outside ten minutes later, and the rain had stopped.

Later reports on CCTV-9 (the only English-speaking Chinese news channel) said that several unusual thunderstorms had rolled over Beijing and surrounding areas, caused by collisions of two weather fronts that just kept slashing back and forth over the capitol.

BTW, the hutong residents stared at us a lot more than we stared at them, so I didn't feel so bad. Apparently not too many roundeyes get up to that particular area, most guided tours don't go there. And big ones like moi stand out like sore thumbs. But it seemed like a lot of just friendly curiosity, no big deal.

More to come. We went later that day to a large establishment in Beijing, the like of which I have never seen in all my days, called The Hot Club in English. It's basically a Massage Parlor Plus. No, not a massage parlor plus THAT. No sex involved whatsoever, not even by request, it's not that kind of place. What it is, is very nice. It's also Beijing's best-kept secret.

[Little-Acorn]

We visited the Tombs of the Ming Dynasty Emperors. This place is VERY Chinese. Back around 1300 AD, they set aside an entire mountain valley, about 30 miles north of present-day Beijing, as a burial place for their emperors when they died. They regarded their emperors as gods, so got quite serious about honoring them after departing this Earth.

The entire valley is in a mostly-natural state. Farmers grow some crops here, but other than that (and a few modern power lines) the valley is quiet and left to itself.

A taxi can take you to the entrance, where there is a long stone-paved walk thru the valley, lined with trees, neatly kept grass or other growth, and every ten or thirty yards, an ancient carved figure. Mostly life-sized animals, or soldiers, or govt officials. Don't know if any vehicles are allowed, we saw none, not even bicycles. This valley is pretty much in the same state it has been for the last 600-plus years, mostly unchanged.

The ever-present air pollution reduced visibility to about half a mile, so we were unable to see up into the mountains. According to maps, there are thirteen seperate tombs up there. One has been carefully unearthed and preserved, and we went to see it. These structures are of stone, and they LAST, and have been there since before Columbus discovered America. They get maintained, of course.

The tomb we looked at, consisted of several stele (monuments) under stone arches with pagoda-like turned-up corners. But the surprise lay underground: The Chinese dug a huge, broad hole, built a complete palace for their departed Emperor, fully furnished it, and then buried it and told no one it was there. This one was discovered I think in 1950 or so, when a buried bridge partly collapsed and formed a small sinkhole. They dug down, figured out how to unlock the doors, and went through the inside, cleaning and restoring it. Now they allow tours. The rest of the thirteen tombs in the mountains remain buried and untouched.

It is a quiet, beautiful, and somber place. Not even somber, really - it was set aside as a home for the spirits of the emperors, who were expected to continue their rule after death. I've never heard of ANY country doing this for its leaders in the hereafter, but the Chinese take it as a matter of course.

That makes it a VERY Chinese place IMHO.

Next: The obligatory visit to the Great Wall. But I found it wasn't just obligatory - it's a d@mned good idea.

[Little-Acorn]

Pictures of the Great Wall don't do it justice. But even the pictures are impressive. Walking on it, though, gives you an idea of just how hard the Chinese worked to create it. Especially considering it was done some 2,000 years ago, when the population of the country was maybe 1/1000 of what it is today. They must have bankrupted their entire country for years, in the effort to get it done. And they DID get it done.

Just walking through one of the guard towers, gives you the idea of the effort that went into it. They aren't just slap-dash stone huts - they were carefully planned, with passageways, arched roofs, stairways inside, crennelated tops for archers, etc. carefully merged into the Wall itself.

And there aren't just a few. They occur ever 100 to 500 yards. And the Wall is FOUR THOUSAND MILES long. It's just incredible.

Actually it wasn't all done at once. This fact lowers its impact, from stupendous to merely huge. For the first few thousand years of China's existence, the country wasn't a country, but merely a bunch of kingdoms scattered around the land. They had different customs, foods, economies, and languages. Most of the kingdoms had walls around them, in part to protect from the other kingdoms, and partly to protect from northern invaders (Kublai Kahn and his buds).

China's first emperor Chin showed up around 200 BC, and brought all these kingdoms together into a country, which was named after him (CHINa). He mandated that everyone speak (or at least write) the same language, spreading Chinese characters through the country. And he built walls from kingdom to kingdom, connecting their existing walls into the huge project called the Great Wall of China.

And when he was near death, he decreed that an army of stone soldiers be built, to surround him in his tomb. This was done, buried underground, and lost to memory, only being accidentally rediscovered around 1970 by a farmer digging a well in the area. The army is now known as the Terracotta Warriors. In their own way, they are just as stunning as the Great Wall. More on that later.

[glockmail]

After years of whining my Mom finally went along with my Dad and did a two week tour. They loved it. That was their last big travel thing together.

[Little-Acorn]

Driving in China

It's different from driving in the US, though not hugely so. You drive on the right side of the road (not the left as in England and Japan), left lane is usually faster, red light means stop and green light means go. But the differences are important.

To a newcomer to China, city streets (I saw Beijing and Taiyuan City, driving styles are pretty much the same for both) appear to be a madhouse. Cars straddling lanes, driving in bike lanes or the wrong way in oncoming lanes, always at least one horn blaring from one direction or another, cars flagrantly cutting each other off again and again, etc.

But if you sit back and watch what is happening, and especially what the drivers' reaction is to each thing that happens, something striking emerges: it all makes sense. And even more striking, it's all based on courtesy and safety. You'd never guess that from your first glimpse (at least, I didn't guess it at first), but it turns out to be true. And most striking of all: There are NO collisions.

Lane changes

Cars don't "cut each other off" - that's an American concept. If someone needs to use the part of the road you're in, he will gently move into it, and you will gently yield, perhaps moving into another space where yet another person yields to you. No one will take offense or feel you are being "pushy". Traffic flows fluidly from lane to lane, and the lines on the road are merely suggestions. Moves that in America would provoke an outraged blast on the horn accompanied by various finger gestures, don't even merit a second glance in China. They are normal and expected, drivers watch for them as a matter of course, and adjust appropriately.

Use of the horn

If you are in the leftmost lane (usually the fastest but not always, same as in America), and overtaking a slower vehicle in the next lane, it's courteous in China to toot the horn when you are two to four seconds behind him. You are not insulting him or ordering him out of your way. You are informing him of your impending closeness and asking him courteously to let you pass. His response will be to simply keep going as he has been and stay in his lane.

If you come upon someone stopped in a through lane (happens fairly frequently in downtown areas), you can fade easily into the next lane (drivers there will yield, or if they need to stay in that lane they may too t the horn, but it's a polite gesture, not an "FU" as Americans may intend). If you cannot change lanes, you might come to a stop behind the car. You do not honk at first - you are assuming he has a good reason to stop as he has (letting out a passenger or etc.), and that he will get going again as soon as he reasonably can. This is an assumption seldom made in America. After a moment, you will toot the horn, again not as an FU, but as a simple request that he yield to YOUR need to go ahead, and please move along.

Horns on Asian cars even sound differently from old-style American horns, though the large influx of Japanese, Korean etc. cars to the U.S. have gotten Americans used to them. An American-style horn is loud and blaring, compared to the more musical note of a Japanese or Chinese car horn. And the purpose if different. An Asian horn says "Please, sir, may I ask you to let me pass", while an American horn says "Hey, you stupid idiot, get your head out and get out of my way".

Chinese traffic, especially in heavier downtown areas with many lanes, reminds me of a school of fish all swimming together, mixing, weaving, changing directions etc. Ever seen two fish bang into each other while "flying in formation" that way? Neither do Chinese drivers. Unless someone simply makes a mistake, making a quick move without looking, or etc. But accidents in China are certainly no more common than accidents in America… as long as everyone drives the same style, Chinese style.

I drove a car briefly here in China, spelling a Chinese drive who was getting tired on a long expressway trip. I'd been studying Chinese style a lot while riding as a passenger, and this expressway was quite simple, with sparse traffic, so I didn't kill anyone. It was quite easy really, as can be expected. But my driving instincts are all American, of course. Even though I pretty much "knew " what to do in each situation, I had to consciously think about it in advance, go over it in advance in my head each time. In America I react automatically when someone changes lanes, slows down, etc., but those automatic reactions are not the same as a Chinese driver's reactions, and so might not fit. And so hazards can occur, as a result of my automatically doing "the right thing" which is not right for Chinese traffic.

As an example, you might be driving down a three-lane road with lane lines marked. The lines swerve to the right where a fourth lane opens up for left turns. When an American drive comes upon that situation, he will swerve to the right to stay in "his" lane, usually without even thinking about it - it's just the right thing to do. Except in China, it isn't. Lines on the road aren't laws as they are in America. In China, they are merely suggestions. In that situation, virtually all Chinese drivers would keep going straight ahead, effecting a "mass lane change" if you will. Except to the Chinese, it's not a lane change - nothing has changed, the cars' relative positions are still the same, aren't they? And the American driver who swerves quickly to the right to stay in "his" lane, will probably clobber one of them.

My guess is, these Chinese driving rules (customs, perhaps, but it's what they do) evolved this way because the introduction of cars to the traffic is fairly recent. Pedestrians, bicycles, and small scooters were the ONLY traffic for as long as anyone can remember. Large, wide vehicles that could go two or three times as fast, were something new, and were required to act as newcomers, politely asking for accommodation from the "real" traffic to get where they needed to go. The cars' drivers, too, were newcomers, in the sense that they hadn't a clue about how to drive in traffic, except to act like bicycles themselves, yielding, gradually swerving, etc. So Chinese driving, while looking like an uncoordinated madhouse to more regimented Americans, is actually based on much more politeness and accommodation than American driving.

And the bottom line? It works. People get where they are going, there are no collisions, and traffic tie-ups get resolved much more quickly and fluidly than in America. And as an added bonus, tempers get a little less frayed.

[Kathianne]

Little-Acorn, are you still in China? How long will you be there?