Steve and Cathy's Blog

The Westin Beijing Financial Street is a beautiful hotel catering to people on huge expense accounts. The amenities that one can enjoy at such a place would make a guest just want to never check out. As Cathy and Steve arrived the previous evening after 9pm and are leaving less than eleven hours later, a Motel Six would have been plenty of accommodation. However, the breakfast is extraordinary, especially if you like fish dishes for your first meal of the day. Cathy enjoys this immensely. Steve watches her in disbelief.   No, no. I did not. I found breakfast in China to be a very broadening part of our travel experience. Truly, I did. Especially the tasty sticky buns.

Now let’s get down to business. We are in Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We board our bus right on time at 8:15am because we have a busy day ahead of us. Our first destination is the Forbidden City in the very center of the city, one of China’s premier tourist attractions and an extraordinary opportunity to get a perspective on the history of Chinese society and culture. It is visited annually by fifteen million people, hopefully not all of them today.

For the past two days, our guides have provided us with tons of information about their country. Listening to them has been like trying to drink from a fire hose.  You can’t take notes fast enough, the changing scenery forces them to change subjects continuously, and there are three thousand years of history and culture to cover. Add to those problems the fact that American historical education is so, so Euro-centric that we come to this part of the world pretty uninformed. To catch up in just a few days time is a daunting but altogether invigorating task, to say the least.

So to set the table for our visit to this capital city, we borrow shamelessly (with some paraphrasing) from the first few paragraphs of the Wikipedia article on China: “The People’s Republic of China is the world’s most populous country with a population of around 1.4 billion.  Covering approximately 3,700,000 square miles, it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. China also has the most neighbor countries in the world. Governed by the Communist Party of China, it exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

“China emerged as one of the world’s earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, China’s political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since then, China has expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin unified core China and established the first Chinese dynasty. The succeeding Han dynasty saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements. The invention of gunpowder and printing in the Tang dynasty completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new maritime Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Somalia. Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, as a republic replaced the Qing dynasty. The Chinese Civil War led to the break up of the country in 1949, with the victorious Communist Party of China founding the People’s Republic of China on the mainland while the losing Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, a dispute which is still unresolved.”  {By the way, I don’t think the links that are showing up here will work}

Our timing – arriving at the Forbidden City before 9:00am – couldn’t be better. It is busy but not at all as crowded as it will soon become. As an introduction of what we are seeing, we borrow again from Wikipedia: “The former Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty—the years 1420 to 1912, it now houses the Palace Museum. The Forbidden City served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years. Constructed from 1406 to 1420 by more than one million workers, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers over 180 acres.”

Michael continues to be a great guide. He explains the significance of all that we are seeing. He points out many architectural features of the buildings – even the infrastructure such as the two hundred huge urns of water used to fight fires, the symbolism of many of the adornments on each building, the purpose of each of the main buildings, the grandeur of the imperial period, the political culture sustained by this imposing site, the absolute power conveyed by the extent of the grounds themselves, and the sheer wealth displayed by the opulence within the walls of this complex. This was the very center of the nation of China for hundreds of years, and our two-hour visit carries us back to that time.

It is also a fabulous people-watching activity. We early bird Oceania tourists are pretty much the only westerners. The thousands of others that are there are primarily Chinese families and school groups, and it is a joy to see them taking in their country’s history. And being themselves, especially the teenagers. They are polite and respectful and energetic and it is fun to be among them.

We must have walked at least two miles within the Forbidden City in the time we were there. There’s no way around not doing so. The weather is very cold (around 45 degrees F.) but it isn’t windy (and the place is surrounded by a 26-foot high city wall and a 20-foot deep by 171-foot wide moat. The walls are 28.3 feet wide at the base, tapering to 21.9 feet at the top). We finally must leave, with a much greater sense of the scope of China’s history and civilization than we had just two hours ago when we arrived.

Next is the center of today’s China: Tiananmen Square. The square contains the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949; the anniversary of this event is still observed there. It is most infamously known for the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in June of 1989 that resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of protestors by the Chinese government.

If the Forbidden City harkens back to China’s earlier history and greatness, Tiananmen Square brings you to the reality of today’s China, even to us casual tourists. It is huge – 109 acres. As it was built to remind every person in China of the power of the emperor, today it more subtly reminds its visitors of the power of the state. It has Mao’s tomb. It has a picture of Mao on one of the buildings. There are CCTV cameras ev-ery-where. You have to go through a security inspection to get in (Quick aside: we are in a tourist group led by a licensed tour company, so we get to skip the security check. As we are being waved in, some poor old confused local guy happens to be walking with us by accident. Security quickly manhandles this poor hapless guy, angrily shoving him back from the entrance and yelling at him. It’s unnerving). There are police officers and military in abundance. Michael says that the security got stepped up after some terrorist incidents in Europe.

After witnessing the incident with the lost local, we will be sticking closer to guide Michael more than ever. We follow him down a set of stairs that leads to a large corridor that runs under the street. We emerge in Tiananmen Square. Michael walks us around for a few minutes pointing out the various buildings, as well as giving us some stats about the square (in the 80s, the stone pavers in the square were replaced with new ones that are around 18 inches by 30 inches. They used 280,000 of them).

He also explains that Mao isn’t actually buried in this building we are seeing. He died and his body was placed in this huge display area for people to walk by. Within a week, things were getting pretty ripe (“We do not have proper embalming knowledge like the Indians,” he says), so a wax replica was made of the guy and his actual body was removed. When asked to where it was removed, Michael says: “Nobody knows. At least they are not saying.”

Given the enormous police and military presence in the square, it is obviously a safe place to be. Way earlier in the tour, one of our fellow guests had taken off on his own to go to God knows where after asking Michael for directions about a thousand times. He was to meet us near the flag in the Square. Michael left us on our own, told us where to be and when to be there, and went off in search of his lost sheep (he was successful, with considerable help from others who knew we would be there until the guy was back in the fold). We wandered around people-watching, trying to get an inkling about how the average Chinese person viewed his country and his government – especially being right here in Tiananmen Square. They seemed to be very happy and excited to be there. Many were quite dressed up.

Finally we regroup and head back to the bus loading area. At this point, the street peddlers descend on us tourists. Michael tells us not to acknowledge them unless we actually want something. If one person expresses interest in making a purchase, the vendor will feel we are all fair game. Cathy is really uncomfortable with all of this. Fortunately, in a few minutes our bus arrives and we hop on board. We are heading for lunch.

I cannot remember when or where, but some time during the morning Michael is asked about the government. He has an interesting thumbnail description of the PRC: “The PRC should be called the PDSD, The Peoples Democratic Socialist Dictatorship. It’s democratic in that the leaders need to listen to all views from all over. Then they decide what to do. That’s the dictatorship part. But at least something gets done.” We are thinking that this statement speaks volumes, and we will follow up on our thoughts that it engenders at another time. At another point, he states: “It’s hard to stop the corruption.” And we are thinking that it’s the corruption on the local level that is the problem. He adds: “It is hard to describe China in one word.” Interesting food for thought.

One other illustration of government control over information: Michael tells us that he was in college at the time of 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations. He knows about the student that stood in front of the tank, but has never seen the photo of this incident that half the planet has seen. One last anecdote: Steve notes that we have all seen big long red signs with white characters on buildings, the sides of roads, all over the place. Are these put up by the government, he asks? Michael says: “Yes, they set our goals. They are saying that our goals are peace, prosperity and green sustainability.   We have goals in China. The government tells us what they are.” Reading between the line, we are thinking that he is proud that China has set goals for his country to achieve, but is not entirely sold on the idea that the people have no say on what those goals are.

That he makes some of these statements at all is a pleasant surprise to us. He has a license to protect, after all – and a living to make. He feels comfortable to not just sing the company song. Hmmm. A little beacon of hope for the people of China perhaps.

In about fifteen minutes, we arrive at a restaurant for lunch. It is a chain of come sort, but definitely a local chain, we think. We are seated around a table for ten with the Lazy Susan setup. Bowls and bowls of food are placed on this Lazy Susan and we sample each one. [There was a menu but we couldn’t figure out what most of the stuff was. It was basically a repeat of last night. Bony meat full of gristle, bland mystery vegetables, it was yucky. But the restaurant was very cool. It was also a grocery store with lots of fresh veggies and fish on display. Many of the fish were swimming around in tanks! Plus they had the hole-in-the-floor squat toilet that I am getting good at but will be glad to leave behind!]

Thanks for sharing that last tidbit, Cathy. After lunch, Cathy and Steve tour the restaurant to look at all the vegetables and seafood displayed beautifully. Here are some photos of what we are seeing. The displays are very well done, and the food is extremely fresh and enticing – for the most part. I am not sure our grandchildren would agree, but it was impressive to us.

Cathy hops back on the bus to wait for the others to finish their meals and board. Steve stays outside chatting with Bob, who is looking to buy a pack of cigarettes at the gas station next door but is short of local currency. Steve lends him enough to make his purchase and lets his wife Sue know that he is feeding his bad habit. We joke about that for a minute. It’s a light moment with a nice couple that we have seen around the ship for the past three months.

We finally set off on our three-hour trip back to the ship. It gives us a chance to reflect on Beijing the city. Although the excursion book we have tells us that it is a city of towering skyscrapers, we did not see it that way, especially having been to Xi’an and Sanya where we saw hundreds and hundreds of enormous thirty-story apartment buildings. Michael explained that, in the 1950s, everyone in Beijing – rich and poor alike – lived in one or two-story buildings surrounding a courtyard. If you were poor, you lived in one building. If you had money, you had two or three buildings to live in. We could see that as we rode through the city. It had a human scale to it that the other cities lacked.

Beijing is also doing much to protect its history. Michael and other guides we have had in China have made reference to the incredibly destructive Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s when Mao and his henchmen lost their minds and went about destroying so much of the nation’s cultural heritage, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed or starved to death. Beijing is described as a city of walls. Besides the Forbidden City walls, there was a set of inner walls and another of outer walls. Only portions of those still exist as a result of the madness of the 60s. Fortunately, the historical, cultural and tourism benefits of preserving what is left of these fortifications prevails now.

We clear the city and enter a modern six-lane expressway that connects Beijing with Tianjin where our ship is docked. Technically, it’s only 67 miles, but the cruise terminal is at least another 20 miles. This is a toll road, as are almost all modern limited-access roads in Asia. Cathy and Steve go to separate seats to give each other more room (Another advantage to booking excursions through Oceania is that these buses are a) really nice and b) never completely filled. We never feel crammed in). Cathy eventually nods off, but Steve’s transportation DNA kicks in. Here are some of his (largely irrelevant) observations:

• The bus has some kind of speed notifications, which are going off constantly. I shall never quite understand what is going on. [Every time the driver went over a certain speed, an annoying beeping would come out of somewhere on the dash. If he went over another higher speed, an extremely annoying Chinese female voice would admonish him. I don’t know how he could stand it. Talk about Big Brother!]
• “Pass on the right” is not a rule in China – or anywhere else in Asia (of course, it would be passing on the left in those countries that drive on the left).
• On expressways, certain road signs are in Chinese and English … and have interesting pictures. Here are some:

• Each country seems to have unique trucks. Only Steve Knight would ever see this, I know. China motor freight transportation is very largely made up of thousands and thousands of flatbed tractor-trailers. The trailers have either two-foot steel sides that may or may be removable, or six-foot frame sides. Everything – everything – moves on these trucks. Van trailers make up about 2% of the equipment; 98% are those flatbeds. Containers are another story, of course. Oh, and cars are hauled on these huge, overlength trailers. They must be 75-feet long.

• All the way from Beijing to Tianjin, along the side of the road we see tree farms. Every single square inch within a quarter mile of the road is dedicated to this. Millions of saplings are grown here. Michael tells me that the climate and the topography (it is as flat as Kansas here) are perfect for such a crop. Only saplings are grown here. They are then dug up and shipped around the country. Much of the land adjacent to the highway is still owned by the government and on long-term leases to private concerns. When you think of it, it is a very clever use of space. The saplings provide a pleasant roadside environment, improve the air quality next to the road and provide revenue to the government that they might otherwise not have.
• The high-speed rail line parallels this expressway for part of the way. Two or three times, we see these trains racing by in our direction. These beautiful trains flash by us. What takes at least an hour by bus takes a half hour on these trains. Steve is green with envy that this country has seen the wisdom to build these.

• We stop once at a service area for almost a half an hour. The convenience store inside had almost all of their lights off, which is kind of odd. And I don’t think they even have coffee. Maybe it is a government-run place.
• For a major highway located between two cities, each with 10 million or more people, the traffic is really light. I’m thinking that there are several factors contributing to that. One is the excellent rail passenger service. Another is that there is no place to put the damn car once you get back to your thirty-story apartment building even if you did have one. A third would be that China’s middle class is pretty new and hasn’t actually had access to or the money for cars until recently.

One other observation about the port area itself. This place is a textbook illustration of how China is planning for their future. The cruise terminal is 17 kilometers from downtown Tianjin. It is located at one end of an enormous – and I mean sprawling – area with the name of China Free Trade Port Area or something like that. It is practically empty. All the roads are built, each one being six-lanes wide. There are dozens of logistics buildings, most of which are empty. There are residential areas – Chinese-style twenty-story high-rises. The buildings are virtually empty. In other words, it’s a shell, but they are preparing. In ten years, if the past is prologue to their future, this installation will be packed. In this regard, China is so, so far ahead of us. They have actual ambitious economic goals, and, one way or the other, they intend to achieve them.  That’s why you see the photo of buildings at the beginning of this post – this is the new China.  You see this sight everywhere.

Our bus arrives back at the ship around 4:30pm. We bid our excellent guide Michael a fond adieu. Tomorrow he picks up another tour group and leads them on a two-week journey around the country, including a trip to Tibet. What stamina!

Once more we are greeted by the smiling, friendly Chinese Immigration authorities (Not!). We have one more night and one more day in Tianjin, but we are reevaluating what we want to do in light of the two-day, non-stop sprint. We are due to take the Highlights of Tianjin excursion. As we review the itinerary, all we can see is “Four Hour Bus Ride” since we have spent so much of the last two days on Green Bus 1. We will see if we can recover sufficiently to getting back on it.