The Story of the Summer - Beijing (Pt.1), Nanjing, Suzhou, etc.

Hello and Ni hao! When I last left off I was in Hong Kong and soon to be flying to Beijing. In this blog I will talk about my first trip to Beijing, the Great Wall, Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and Tongli. I hope you enjoy my recounting as much as I experienced them!

 

Beijing, China: We flew into Beijing May 21^st. The flight into Beijing was a bit shaky but the city itself was amazing. In fact, I would probably say that Beijing is my favorite city in all of China. This is because it offers politically interesting sites, historical relevance, and a great nightlife if one so chooses. Also, Beijingers speak Beijinghua, which is the closest accent to Mandarin.

Now, I will say that Beijing is not the cleanest city in the world. People freely spit on the streets, one is allowed to throw trash on the street, and every so often you catch a waft of something that is terrible and uniquely Chinese. Believe me, though; Beijing is much cleaner than it was before the 2008 Olympics. This is because citizens got the taste of clean air, well-kept streets, and international prosperity and they wanted to keep it. One specific policy of interest is that every owner of car must use some other form of transportation one day out of every week – this alone cut down on emissions by a huge amount. In fact, our first day in Beijing we were able to see the stars, which dazzled me… until I realized that it was a fluke in China to see the sun or stars.

When we first landed in Beijing we went to our hotel and I, with our tour guide, went to buy a suit top because I lost mine in the Taiwan airport (boo!). Since it was ten at night when we arrived I had to haphazardly buy an overpriced suit and live with it. Luckily that was the only bad part about Beijing – everything else was incredible. During the next week were able to go to P&G Asia, Cummins Co., the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Heibei Lake, Tiananmen Square, the Silk Market, and the Great Wall. Let me discuss these separately.

 

Points of Interest:

1. The Great Wall of China is so good I need to make up a word for it… strumtrulescent (cite: Will Ferrell). Pictures, words, nothing can accurately describe the beauty of it. We went to a secluded section (Simontai), walked along it, and then – be jealous - zip lined down from it. If I were to recommend any experience in China, this would probably be it. Just an FYI: go on a clear day; it will make the experience ten times better.
2. The Forbidden City is really cool to see once. The architecture is really interesting and the different parts are cool, but overall it is really a one-time experience. The same is true with Tiananmen Square.
3. The Summer Palace: The summer palace is a huge lake that the Emperors used to stay in during the summer months. Its architecture was very similar to the Forbidden City’s – which is traditional Tang Dynasty (I think?) architecture. The most notable part about the Summer Palace is that we almost got kicked out because… well, we are all secretly eight-year olds and 6-person paddleboats necessitate pirate fights. So we boarded our vessels, immediately got bored of paddling, and decided to have a water fight. It ended up with one boat almost tipping, a kid fell/jumped in, and the rescue boats had to rush out to pick him up. We thought we were in trouble with the police, but it ends up we were just in trouble with our professor – he was furious! Overall a hilarious experience that we, luckily, have chronicled on video.
4. Friends in Beijing: I have multiple friends who live here, because of this I had some great times out with Australians (better known as Aussies), Danish Olympiads, and all sorts of interesting people. Three Miami students were living in Beijing and all three offered me separate experiences that are unforgettable and not really legally blogable. The one experience I can discuss is going to an Internet bar with my friend who is a Beijinger. We went to this bar at midnight and stayed until one, which cost $.80 for two people. The interesting part is that these bars attract an amalgamation of young people who will literally stay up all night playing video games. I don’t get it, but my Chinese friend thought it was cool. 
5. I ran across my first language barrier in Beijing. This was particularly disturbing because the individual I was trying to communicate with was a Chinese girl that I met in the VIP section (a long story) of Mix’s Club. The mixture of loud music and differing languages made it so our communication was literally impossible. This is definitely the first time on the trip I truly realized the importance of continually speaking and learning Chinese. Sadly I wouldn’t really understand how to do this until after the end of the first trip.
6. Interesting food experiences: I am just going to list them because there are too many. In order of weirdness: chicken tendon, deer tendon, Zhenbing (waffle pancake), chicken heart, chicken liver, seahorse, scorpion, silkworm cocoon, and finally lamb testicle. Most of it wasn’t too bad actually except for deer tendon (it tasted like warm mucous) and scorpion (too crunchy).

 

Nanjing: is a very historic place. It was once the realm of many different Chinese empires (Nanjing literally means “Southern Capital”) and, more recently, the home to Chang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang headquarters. If you are not familiar with Chinese modern history, just realize that today China does not revel in Chang Kai Shek’s shadow but instead in Mao ZeDong’s. This is because Chang Kai Shek was a Nationalist who ran an incredibly corrupt government and was defeated by the Communists in 1949. This is relevant because it means that Nanjing has had a bad rap for almost sixty years. This would definitely be my first “real” view of China. This view showed a China that is not glamorized like Hong Kong or politically powerful like Beijing. The city was dusty, dirty, packed, and a little desperate. Now this is not to say that Nanjing was boring, on the contrary it was a blast! But that’s because it had a really international bar center (called 1912 – the year Sun Yatsen threw out the Qing Dynasty and made the Republic of China) that loves American people.

 

Interesting Points:

-       First and foremost, 1912 rocked my socked off. We were given cheap and free drinks at a couple different bars and were allowed to dance behind the DJ’s.

-       When buying knock off goods in China one goes to a place (like the Silk Market in Beijing) and argues until they get the price they want price. In America this is very uncommon except in one place: a flea market. Our first view of Nanjing was a Chinese flea market, which is disturbing. It was so bad that I literally couldn’t will myself to buy anything just because they were cheaper and of less quality than I thought possible.

-       Interesting food of Nanjing: Cho Doufu (Stinky Tofu). I didn’t try this dish until later, but it literally smells like baby poop… and tastes a little like it smells. This is only a southern Chinese dish and cooked in Shrimp oil (hence the smell).

-       Something to shy away from: Western-style Buffets in China. They take what they believe is western food and turn it into JapKorChirican. Our teacher thought this was a good idea because we had a bunch of picky eaters on the trip. Oddly enough this is when people started getting traveler’s diarrhea… coincidence? I think not.

-       Chang Kai Shek’s/Sun Yat Sen’s offices and Sun Yat Sen’s tomb. These were pretty cool things to see, but not when it’s 90F and you’re “under the weather.” This is also about the time in my trip when I decided it was time to stop tomb and temple hopping. Repetition gets boring. Repetition gets boring. Repetition gets boring.

-       Finally, I had my first translated lecture. The speaker would say something in Chinese then the translator would read a written speech to us. We all kind of thought they could have cut out the professor and just let the guy read the paper, especially since they had to read it line by line. It was on green GDP in China (a subject I enjoy) and it still almost put me to sleep.

 

Wuxi/Suzhou/Tongli:

Just to make it clear these are not all the same place but instead three areas around one another that we saw in succession. Let me first of all say, Wuxi was boring. It is called the “Hollywood of China” because it is the home of CCTV, but it was touristy and not real interesting. Luckily we were only in Wuxi for half a day then we stayed the night in Suzhou. I was pretty under the weather that night so I hit the hay early. The next day we traveled around Suzhou and then the third day we went to Tongli (a small fishing village) and finally into Shanghai.

 

Interesting points:

-       In Suzhou I was starting to get sick so I decided not to go out. I hear there were some pretty banging bars, but I wasn’t up for the challenge. What I did do was get an excellent haircut for 2.5 USD, where they washed my head twice, trimmed it was scissors, and gelled it. Score. I also got a two-hour massage. The first hour was all feet and the second hour was the rest of the body. To halt any questions, no there was no happy ending. But there were little Asian women who could put a hurting to a man’s body. I guess some of the girls on our trip were actually bruised by these masseuses. I loved it.

-       Interesting foods in Suzhou: I had whole smelts, pigskin and ear, and spicy cabbage. The smelts were delicious and you could eat the bones; the pig parts were not bad; the spicy cabbage was to die for. Overall I couldn’t complain – though one other kid puked from trying chicken feet. The group I traveled with at first was really lame about trying new foods.

-       Tongli is a small fishing village. It was pouring rain when we got there. We were then forced to go on a boat ride that I pouted about a lot. Darn it if it didn’t turn out cool! I also got buy some really cheap souvenirs and had my first “local tea.” This will become more important in my next blog concerning Hangzhou and Shanghai.

 

Well, it seems I have filled another couple pages and been able to reminisce on some amazing experiences! I will try to post the next portion sometime in the next week or so. Things are starting to get crazy busy so I will see how it goes. Until then, Zaijian!