Planet China - Oct 17, 2009 - Beijing, Beijing, China

I know three words of Chinese: hello, thank you, and "I don't want." It's surprising how well you can get on with those words and excellent pointing skills, because Chinese is just not coming naturally to me, and there's no making sense out of the characters. Sorry.

Arriving in Beijing I was totally lost. In fact, for several days, I was still very disoriented, and usually I pride myself on my sense of direction. The problem stems from several factors but the main one is the smog. When you can only see 500 yards in any direction, it's very hard to understand where you are. On Monday I almost saw blue sky, but then the acid rain started. I try very hard to avoid getting this on my skin because I am so skeptical of its contents.

Also I had no map or guidebook; I didn't realize how dependent I had become on Lonely Planet but in a city the size of Belgium you can't get around on your own very well. On Sunday I went to the Forbidden City. It was huge. There were lots of Chinese tourists wearing really silly hats and Chinese flag stickers on their faces, taking pictures holding peace signs, and wanting to take pictures with me, a token laowai, in which I also always did peace signs. National Day was October 1st and everyone was still feeling very patriotic and loving towards the Party, which took over exactly 60 years ago. When I see the China 60th Anniversary signs everywhere it is confusing because of course we all think of China as an ancient civilization going back thousands of years. But not when the Party gets to rewrite the history books. (Note: I cannot access facebook, YouTube, or CNN from China. I haven't tested any really incindiary sites.)

I tried to visit Chairman Mao in Tiannemen Square but for some reason he wasn't receiving visitors. I don't think we would have got on so well anyhow. It was a blindingly sunny day when I went downtown to meet him, and I racked my brain for a special occasion that could have inspired the government to make the smog disappear. It has some authority over the weather, in case you didn't know. By fighting chemicals with more chemicals, it can induce rain and apparently sunshine. The next evening I caught an English-language newscast and Vladimir Putin was in town visiting on that sunny day. Coincidence? I don't believe it.

Beijing is much cleaner than Cairo, where there were rivers of trash in the gutters. The traffic (by which I mean rules of the road, not congestion) isn't nearly so bad as I expected, either. Then again my traffic tolerance severely changed after the Middle East. Where the Chinese lag behind is the issue of sanitation. I was pleased that public toilets are common and free... they have to be here because otherwise people would seriously just go in the street. I have witnessed the toddlers in split-pants phenomenon and the grating sound of men preparing large spits, and it's very jarring and unpleasant. If the Party can successfully enforce a law limiting a person's number of offspring, surely it can find a way to end this using-the-street-as-a-sink/toilet issue.

This is the longest I have stayed in one place on the whole trip so far. You should have seen how my bag exploded inside the room! My hostel was in a very cool neighborhood of art galleries and hipster shops. Unfortunately it was quite far away from downtown but that gave me the chance to experiment with different modes of transportation (including rickshaw- yay!). The subway is probably the nicest I have ever been on. Buses and the subway have signs and announcements in both Chinese and English. Everywhere else in the city, English is scarce. It's been the least English-proficient city I've been to yet, actually.

The two best things about China are the Wall and the prices. The Great Wall is amazing. I hiked a five mile section of it on a beautiful fall Thursday. It was great to get out of the city and see the leaves turning in the countryside surrounding the precipitous Wall. We went to a section with fewer visitors where the Wall is crumbling apart, and it made for a real lunge workout for the quads, so when we returned to Beijing, I got a massage. At $12 for an hour and a half, one can't really complain, but it was not the most relaxing experience. I don't know whether the technique of squeezing, pressing, poking, and karate chopping a person's (clothed) body has been passed down and perfected over the dynasties, but I prefer the Western way. Regardless, gotta love that exchange rate. (For now at least: I can understand how people say that China is going to take over in the 21st century and outpace the West- if they can stop destroying their environment. Did you know that the opening of the Yangtze River dam slightly changed the Earth's balance and rotation?!)

Several of my sorority sisters are studying abroad in Beijing and it was so nice to have them chaperone me (especially considering the aforementioned difficulties with navigation and language). Xie-xie and a.o.e.!

Tonight I am taking the overnight train to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors tomorrow, and on Monday I continue to Hong Kong. Although Beijing has grown on me day by day, I'm ready for a little recuperation in Western culture; the trip's now more than halfway over!

Lauren a.k.a. Xiao-Fung

(the bartender on my first night assigned me this Chinese name, meaning "little place")