I am writing to you now from a city called Khabarovsk in the far east of RUSSIA! I have finally made it and with zero days remaining on my Chinese visa. I was sad and clearly reluctant to leave China, somewhat mitigated by my excitement for Russia and knowing that I will have to come back to China (and probably also Russia seeing how I only have 3 weeks) because there is just so much I haven't seen and so much time I need to spend there without running off to the next city. When I was vaguely planning my trip, I wasn't attracted to the idea of going to China at all. I remember having conversations about how little time I could spend there before I left for Mongolia and I planned on 2 weeks maximum. I haven't been to Mongolia and I have also enjoyed and been constantly surprised and excited by this literally amazing future super-power. I'm not sure what, if any, preconceptions I had of the capital but I have found Beijing to be the most surprising of all the things I have been surprised about in China. Like with the rest of country (apart from Chengdu, which in retrospect, I didn't like much) I love it completely and it's complexities, contradictions and the whole communism thing intrigues me all the more.
I can't define or describe Beijing. It is vast (the size of Belgium, did you know?) but beyond this it is so multifaceted and seemingly contradictory that every adjective I think appropriate to describe it sends me into a dialectical spin - because on the other-hand it's just not, but it is; it's both - both polarities. You see my problem? Take Modernity. Beijing is a thoroughly modern city. It has outstanding infrastructure, a coherent and well signposted road network, a spotless and easily navigable metro system and everything appears to be clean, polished & confident. This of course presupposes a lot about what we think a 'modern' city is (the Shanghai Expo had a few ideas about that - if you caught any coverage). Economically, Beijingers are becoming wealthier and the rapid increase in car ownership, both in the capital and in the cities around the country, seems as good an indicator as any of financial trends. Socially and politically however, those attributes earmarked as signs of a developed society; welfare, "democracy", discursive debate, controversial new art and theatre, are nowhere to be seen. The focus of this debate, that I have seen at least, is always focused on the failing and inappropriateness of Western systems for China. I don't disagree - but in this sense, it doesn't feel as modern as it looks. Less abstractly, as you walk around Beijing (or drive, because you wouldn't walk across Belgium), on one street you could be on any street in any city in the world, and then the next turn takes you down the narrow and ancient alleys of a hidden 'hutong' district. Beijing is crammed full of history and in some areas you are breathing in the atmosphere of a thousand years. Beijing is ancient, historical, culture-rich, yet also cutting-edge, uniform and indistinguishable from city X. Because it is so big, spread out and people are busy running around making money, by day it can also feel quite impersonal. At the same time, walk on a little further and enter the park to your left and you will find an entire community (of the older generation mainly) working out on the exercise equipment, or playing cards, Chinese chess or singing karaoke! In the evenings the millions of dogs hit the streets and everywhere you can see neighbours stopping and chatting on street corners, while the dogs entertain themselves, as dogs do. In the evenings and parks again, music is blaring and there's an entire community outside doing aerobics and line dancing. The park is full - it's wonderful! (I joined in, twice!)
Essentially I can't tell you what Beijing is like except that it is a bunch of incongruous coherent opposites! It is however, awesome, exciting, unexpected and a place you should definitely consider for your next vacation!
If it's hard to communicate an overall impression of and feel for Beijing it's easier to pick out a few highlights of the time I spent there. Highlight #1 was definitely leaving the nasty hotel. I hailed a taxi to take me the whole one block to my hostel; had I left the hotel at all in the 3 days I spent there, I might have discovered just how central I actually was. As irony would have it, the hostel was one of the nicest I've stayed in and a private room here might have been a better all than 'splurging on some moderate luxury' while I recovered. I took day one pretty slowly, eating snickers bars (a rare treat) and watching DVDs curled up in the over-heated TV room. I was in China and so naturally, all the DVDs available for me to watch were fake. I was 1/2 way through 'The Blind Side' when everything froze and spluttered pitifully. I asked the man behind the desk to help me - his solution was to snap the disk in half and put on GI Joe. Erm - well, okay then! This really annoyed me, especially when the exact same thing happened with film #2 and I fixed it by turning the DVD player off for 15 minutes and starting again. The cheapo DVD player must have overheated, but now the cheapo DVD was in 2 pieces, in the trash. Unimpressed. I spent the next week with my head in racks upon racks of pirate movies trying to locate an un-snapped copy. I found it and also bough "Haatchi; A dog's tale" because neither Nicola nor Chloe would go and see it with me in the cinema, and I refuse to pay full price for it - that's what Wood Green Orange Wednesdays are for! Yes I am aware that in about 14 weeks I am going to start training as a solicitor, with potentially my first seat in the IP department. I can't defend myself - it's blatant hypocrisy.
There are about 3 million things to do in Beijing, and I had roughly 4 days. I spent day 1 with some lovely American girls and we hopped, skipped and jumped from the Temple of Heaven to Tiananmen, to the Forbidden City, Jingshen park & then to the night market to sample some tasty local delicacies. The Temple of Heaven is set in a massive open, green park, and before we even reached the sight seeing bit, we spent a good 40 minutes hanging out with the locals, somewhat in awe of the variety of talent and skill being displayed so casually on a Sunday morning. In lots of outdoor parks in China, you will find exercise equipment which resembles a colourful adult playground. There's equipment a lot like cross trainers, weight pulleys, a big disk you have to spin around with your arms and loads of parallel bars. On some bars the women collect, natter and loosen their hips by swinging their legs back and forth, while on other bars, men, clearly in their 60's & 70's swing around with the vivacity of an 18 year old gymnast. One of the Americans I was with was also a gymnast and she followed suit, equally as impressive, but for the 50 year age gap. My attempt was pitiful and I barely managed to swing my legs over and hang upside down. I always hated gym, and it's no more fun now because I still suck at it. Something else I also suck at is a Chinese game where you kick a disc, a bit like a badminton shuttlecock but with feathers, from one person to the next, arching it in the air. It must be the years of stereotyped sport coaching and my schools netball-only policy, but my reflex was to catch the damn thing, which is not in the rules. Something I was marginally better at, was waving a 10m ribbon attached to a stick around in the sunshine. Not as easy as you might think, so I was pretty chuffed I only mummified myself in it a few times. I should start a comic or something; "Adventures of Stupid While Girl".
The actual Temple itself was glorious, huge and very shiny. I must be reaching the 50+ marker of the number of pagodas I've visited, but this one did stand apart as something special. There was also a helpful exhibition detailing the historic worship rituals of the Emperor which contextualized it into being more than another beautiful pagoda.
After the Temple of Heaven and lunch, we took a taxi down to Tiananmen Square. I studied China and the '89 pro-democracy demonstrations a bit when I was 16. Being a bit of a geek, it felt exciting to visit a place that I had some detailed background knowledge on. This is something that has been lacking from my travel thus far. My history education has been narrowly British & WWII orientated (5 years of Hitler - re-visit that, won't you, Cameron?) & I have felt the absence of any knowledge of Asian history and even of the Vietnam War. I was in Vietnam long enough to fill in some of the gaps, but the beasty war book I did buy was Vietnamese published and hilariously biased and so this might require a bit of library time to level out. The only bits of Chinese history I know about are Maoism, Tiananmen and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Maybe this ignorance was a factor in my lack of desire to come to China and my unending surprise when I got here!
Tiananmen Square itself is vast! And the iconic Gate of Heavenly Peace with Mao's unflattering portrait (he was the least attractive of all the big-time communist leaders, don't you think?) is only one tiny end of it. Perhaps this is because of its size, but even though it's very busy, it didn't feel bustling or crowded. Wherever you look there's big open space, which for me at least, drew attention to the uniformed guards & militaristic undertone. It's a poignant place, and an honour to be there for all it represents and the questions that event still demands of China today. To get to the Forbidden City you go under Mao's portrait and through the gate. This enclosed space is teeming with people, to the extent that it was sometimes hard to move. I found my bag unzipped here - a failed attempt by a pickpocket, who rejected my old-looking phone and stole my supply of loo-roll. I was very grateful for the money belt and camera around the neck arrangement, but disproportionately upset about the good quality toilet paper - such things are precious in Asia! We didn't actually go into the Forbidden City - there are some kinds of tourism I abhor more than I am curious about, and audio-guides and cattle-herding are one of them. That evening, around dusk, we climbed to the top of the hill in Jingshn park and looked out over this glorious, vast city. Birds flew around in the fading sunlight, and this same sunlight reflected off the many lakes. Postcard-Picture-Perfect. The Summer Palace will easily require a full day of your visit, and it is worth these precious hours. Again, like most things in China, it is huge! It is also beautiful and absolutely spoils the visitor for pagodas and temples and royal buildings. The highlight of this day involved more climbing, this time to the top of the Temple of Incense. Of all the pagodas I have seen in the last 3 months, this is the one alone that made me stand back in reverence and see the magnitude and importance of this religion.
I spent Halloween in Beijing, and because it is a very quiet, if not non-existent affair here, my celebrations (I was with Americans and so we had to celebrate!) took a on slightly unconventional twist. We decided that it would be appropriate to celebrate by eating scorpions at the night market! I sampled, nervously, scorpion (the little, not the big kind, and minus the stinger) which were still alive until plunged into boiling fat, snake and seahorse. All of my experiments ended well, snake being my favorite and seahorse being a very crunchy, salty experience. I was also offered the chance to eat a tarantula and donkey-penis. I graciously declined.
Day three, which I think was a Monday (but could have been any day really), I climbed the Great Wall of China! I signed up for the 'hiking' trail, being warned by the kind lady at the desk that it was a lot harder than the other alternative. True to ridiculous form I signed up and paid my yuan and the next morning at 8am, found myself scrunched up on a mini-minibus on the way to Jinshanling. All of my hours of trekking and increasingly beasty calf muscles finally came good and I walked it, literally, struggling on only a few uber-steep bits. It was easier than I expected AND I didn't fall over once! What a victory! Even more so if we overlook that this 'hike' was essentially a million stone steps, not exactly what you'd all 'rough terrain'. In the words of that hapless president "it really is a great wall" and it snakes through some breathtaking, mountainous scenery. We stopped about half way along, on a sunny flat spot and had a picnic. I cracked open a beer (Cheers, Tammo!), and sat, on The Great Wall of China. What a feeling. This day was fantastic, and not only because of this mighty check on the 'to-do before I die' list, it was my ONE day of autumn! I've had a glorious, sweaty, extended summer, Beijing city was turning pretty cold, I was traveling further north, ending up in Siberia of all places, and I was starting to feel confused because I'd essentially jump from +30 to -something; from summer, straight into winter. My equilibrium was set right again by 'Great Wall Day' because I got to see hundreds of red orange, golden etc leaves on and falling from the trees, and I could even step on a few and feel that satisfying "crunch" underfoot. Autumn was made all the better this year by it’s brevity and I really relished my one day of it – especially because it was cold and sunny (my favorite weather) and not a drop of British-rain to be seen!
My last day in Beijing I spent running around trying to do everything I hadn’t had time to do yet. This failed epically, but I did dally on down to the silk market where I bartered as though my life depended on it, Vietnamese style, and still paid over the odds for a beautiful silk kimono. I was also accosted by a million marketers jumping out at me from behind pillars of “same same” Prada to offer me more pirated wares. I did buy a purse. It’s a bad fake, but it’s still really nice and I need a good purse (I think – I can’t really remember what I own in my other life). I also bought the most fantastic presents in the history of all travel presents for a few choice friends who might come close to appreciating it. They’re not fake, but about as genuinely “Chinese” as you can get!
I took the overnight train that evening to Ha’erbin. I’d been wanting to visit this city for a while, and a little research informed me that I’d have to get to Russia this way because I no longer had that Mongolian Visa. Annoying and yet, fortuitous. The train was fine, but I was harassed by a smelly drunk for a long time, who kept shouting at me in Chinese. No one would help me and no one spoke any English. I see this event as the turning point for when my traveling got a whole lot harder!
Ha’erbin is a really interesting, bohemian-esq and heavily Russian-influenced city. Because of my dual interest in both China and Russia, I found my stop here to be really fascinating and most enjoyable. It was great because it felt so European, and yet also, so Chinese and the incongruous mix of architectural and cultural influences gives the city an edge and intrigue that really fits together nicely. I spent a whole day in below-freezing cold, trying to organize my itinerary for getting to Russia. It was complicated by the date my visa expired and the coincidence of train timetables and the date on which this would mean I crossed the border. This is super boring and very logistical, so I shall summarize my day of broken communication into – I couldn’t go to Vladivostok (boo) or straight to Irkutsk because I would overstay my visa – by 4 hours, and so my one option, unless I wanted to sell a kidney to pay for the flight to Irkutsk, would be to get a train to Khabaravosk, which is big city #2 on the Train-Siberian route, and famously Russia’s coldest city of over 500,000 people. This is what was eventually booked and paid for (through my chilly red nose).
While I was in Ha’erbin I did manage to get to see the Siberian Tigers – which are magnificent. They are also huge – one paw, I think, is the size of my face! The busses and taxi combination to get to the reserve was complicated and it was cold and no on spoke any English, so I decided to get a taxi (which cost me an extravagant 3GBP). The taxi driver didn’t quite understand the guidebook, and so I sat in the front seat of a Ha’erbin taxi, growling like a tiger making clawing motions with my hands. He understood and roared back, so I roared back at him. We then drove off singing to the Elton John track on the radio (circle of life – appropriate, huh?), me in nasal English, he in something that’s not quite a language, I’m sure. When I got to the reserve I had to be driven around the different areas of the park in a minibus with cages over the windows. That was a bit of a disappointment, as I wanted to walk around, but this way I didn’t have to stare through cages (only the ones on the windows) and got a lot closer to these gorgeous animals, who came, quite unconcernedly, right up to the bus. There were also a few snow tigers, leopards cheetahs and lions, both African and white, at the reserve, and my favorite: black panthers! My black panther jumped up on a branch right in front of where I was standing on a raised, caged platform, and stared right through me with big, round amber eyes. Another ‘species’ that I previously didn’t know existed are called ‘Ligers’. I initially took this for a spelling error, but in actuality, when a male lion mates with a female tiger (or the other way around, I’m not sure) a baby liger is born. This funny looking animal looks much like a lion, with less of a mane and many faded stripes. It’s awfully funny, and cute – but cute in a ‘could eat me alive’ kind of way, which makes me less inclined to laugh at it.
That afternoon I went to the Japanese Germ Warfare Museum, known as unit ‘731’ (google it). It’s on the site of an old prison/research complex, and is where the occupying Japanese during WWII carried out a multitude of ‘germ warfare experiments’ i.e. biological attacks, on Chinese and Korean POWs. Such experiments included plague dissemination; infecting and recording the effects of syphilis; making naked POWs stand outside in the cold (in the winter it hits about -40) to time frostbite reactions; vivisection and the list continues. There’s a very eerie and empty feeling about this place, which is part reconstructed now because the Japanese bombed it (with bombs tested on their own inmates) on their departure to destroy the ‘evidence’. This was partially ineffective and it remains so little known about because the records, which were handed over to the US in exchange for immunity from war crimes prosecution, were covered up. That hollow feeling always shivers through me when I leave places like this. Not to trivialize what I had just experienced, but I’ve never been happier to see a KFC and sit, chicken burger in hand, and be in a normal social environment.
My train to Khabarovsk left the evening of the next day. With time to kill, I walked around all the less touristy parts of the city and along the bank of the river. There was a really great buzz on the streets and walking in the sunshine through all this made me really happy. I happened across a local market, and after the usual trinkets, home wares and unusual food, I came to what must have been the ‘pet market’. I first spotted two beautiful golden Labrador puppies sat on a cage looking timid. They were gorgeous and I cooed over and petted them for as long as I could before their fierce looking owner/retailer shooed me away. Further down the street though, there were, quite literally, hundreds of puppies for sale, some which couldn’t have been more than 2 weeks old, and others quite clearly terrified by the whole ordeal. This made me sad – I don’t think much of Chinese animal welfare. Around the corner, hundreds of goldfish were for sale either in jars or small transparent bags. I care less for goldfish, but it still wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ha’erbin is the first (and only) Chinese city that I’ve been able to orientate myself in. This surprised and pleased me. Along with its fascinating Russian/Jewish/Chinese mix of history, equally intriguing architecture and attitude, what I really loved about Ha’erbin, was sitting in toasty cafes drinking hot chocolate. This was the first time I’d had to spend any real time in below freezing temperatures. These invaluable few days spent adjusting saw me get it wrong quite a lot, with either too many or too few layers, but I think I’ve got it now. I’ve also got the least attractive, but most comfortable and warmest winter wardrobe I’ve ever owned. Lugging the heavy winter layers around Vietnam and China had finally started to pay off; I am here now, and Russia is cold!
great post - take care, Andrew Booth
ReplyDelete