In an effort to remain concise, and because internet speeds
are not always the best overseas, I've begun to keep a personal journal in
addition to what I’ll be posting in this blog.
In the unlikely situation that my readers can’t get enough of my
exhaustive narrative, I’ll post more detailed musings at a later date, if
requested.
After twenty hours of trans-Pacific transit, I arrived in
Beijing so fatigued that it still didn’t feel "real" to me. The first thing I noticed was the air, which
is an asthmatic’s nightmare. Even at the
baggage claim, there was a smoky haze that had the distinct odor of burning… not
campfire burning, or popcorn in the microwave burning, but a sort of chemical
burning. I thought to myself, “Maybe
they’re doing construction nearby.” But no,
all of
Beijing is cast in this heavy particulate pall. My taxi driver called it “mist”, but it’s
unlike any mist I’ve encountered before. I took me the entire night to get used to,
and I flew in after a few days in Los Angeles, mind you. I’ve noticed it from time to time throughout
the day, and have also noticed how many locals here seem to breathe in short
two-part sniffs, and the prodigious amount of phlegm in the streets. In fact, this morning an old lady almost hit
me with what we used to call a “snot-rocket” back in elementary school.
Despite this, I woke up early this morning, excited to see
the city and careful not to wake the female Chinese twenty-somethings I’d oddly
been placed in a room with. Unbeknownst
to me, due to my late-night arrival, my hostel is situated in a traditional
alley called a
hutong. Once the bulk of
Beijing, the narrow alleys
that many of us think of when we picture China are becoming a thing of the past…demolished
to make way for wide boulevards and modern apartments. It was when I stepped out of the hostel and
into the hutong that the reality of my new environs finally hit me. With no sunlight and no tall landmarks, I
easily became lost in the Saturday morning hustle and bustle. For all of the movies I’ve seen depicting hutong,
nothing can compare to the experience of actually being in the middle of the
action. It’s so unlike anything I’ve ever
known…dirty, smelly (in both good and bad ways) and chaotic.
Beijing itself is monstrous. It is population-wise (and possibly area-wise)
the largest city I’ve ever been in. Simply crossing the street has often felt
like a dance with death, but after covering nearly twenty miles on foot today
(really, twenty miles…thankfully the city is flat as a board) I’m starting to
get a feel for who is going to stop for you and who isn’t. Most of the time, I just try integrate myself
into a pack of locals, and move when they move. By the time I got my bearings,
I was near the Drum Tower, a Ming dynasty creation built for a time when they
used percussion to mark the hours of the day.
It is a huge structure, and certainly tall enough to make sure most of
the residents within the city walls were within earshot of the sonic clock.
From there, I made a long trek around the Forbidden City toward
the
Beijing West Train Station, with the hope of getting an overnight ticket to
Xi’an, China’s ancient capital, some 560 miles to the southwest. Again, I found myself lost, wandering through
authentic
Beijinghua neighborhoods
until I finally found my way to the crowded terminus. Shoving my way through the throngs of people,
I queued up at one booth out of thirty that said “English Speaking”. After numerous travelers cut in front of me,
I finally made it to the window, and after two agents came to help the first
agent translate, I somehow managed to purchase a ticket. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the
rudimentary English of the employees, especially when my ability to speak
Chinese is essentially non-existent.
Although it’s been a real challenge…so far, the language
barrier has been broken by using a great deal of patience and humor. After the painful walk to and harrowing
experience at the train station, I finally decided to quit being so cheap and
just take a cab to Tiananmen Square, which I still had yet to see. The driver spoke a tiny bit of English, but
was adamant in letting me know how much he loved American music. He made his point by blasting Michael
Jackson. It was fun. We were both grooving along, me riding
shotgun and dancing to “Smooth Criminal” while he sang “Arnie, are jew rokay?” He let me off next to the Great Hall of the
People (China’s parliament building) and wished me good luck.
Tiananmen, like Beijing itself, is enormous. Once again, it almost didn’t seem real, and
since the weather was deteriorating at that point (it was in the 30’s all day,
and then started to rain) it was hard to get good pictures. I definitely plan on trying again tomorrow,
as well as after I return from Central China.
Because it was so cold, and dreading another long and confusing walk
back to my hostel, I made up my mind to walk into the first place I saw that
had a Tsingtao Beer sign. Before I could
even get to the front door, the matriarch of the family-run establishment was
already ordering me to come inside. She
was very pushy, and kept saying “Hotpot!” “Hotpot!” until I ordered one. I had never had traditional Chinese hot pot
before, which comes out in a big copper bowl with flaming charcoal in the
middle, surrounded by a funnel so meat and heat don’t mix. I’m sure I overpaid for the whole thing, and
I made an awful mess, but it was might tasty and the charcoal was good for
hand-warming. But, the real star of my
dinner experience had to be their menu.
It was full of so many hilarious English translations that I can’t
mention them all here. I did post a
picture of one, however.
So now, I’m back in the hutong and thinking I’ll
probably give my dogs a rest and enjoy a quiet night here or somewhere
nearby. I still get to fit a full day in
here before I leave for Xi’an tomorrow evening, so I’ll probably head back
towards the sights at Tiananmen, and possibly the Forbidden City. There’s still a lot to see around here, not
least the Great Wall. It may be a couple
of days before I can check in again, but I’ll do the best I can.
