Ding Ding Hao

Each day our guides in China have helped us say a few new words in Chinese. We were told that if someone asks us how our day is and we reply, “Ding Hao”, it means very good. Well, here in Beijing, our experience has been Ding Ding Ding Hao! We’ve found the city to be extraordinarily clean—no litter in sight, and haze free with blue skies the entire time we’ve been here. There’s much excitement as they prepare for the upcoming Olympic Games in 2008 and everywhere you look there’s scaffolding and billboards covering buildings being cleaned, and or repaired or painted and many new structures being built. We saw two of the venues near completion and they look to be fantastic. The main stadium will look like a giant bird’s nest and the swimming pool area is a large square with an outside surface that looks like bubbles rising to the top. It’s going to be spectacular, but how they’ll deal with the millions of visitors is still a question they haven’t answered. Here the number one issue is traffic. Our trip from the airport which in the best of times would take about 20-30 minutes took over 1 ½ hours!

In the short period of time we’ve had in Beijing we’ve accomplished and seen a lot. Each day we toured, ate endless buffet lunches and or dinners and had opportunities to shop. The hotel has a shopping center with EVERY imaginable designer shop. Besides that, there are the local craft houses specializing in pearls, jade, cloisonné, embroidery - you name it. And, of course the street vendors (known as “hello boys”) who find you at every corner. They love to negotiate with you and we have become “expert” at bargaining and have grown to really enjoy it. The vendors are very good natured and seem to be having fun, although with high quality Pashmina scarves at less then $10 and T-shirts 3 for a dollar it’s hard to go wrong. Despite the strength of the Yuan, you can actually get better prices everywhere for dollars (cash) which are converted at 8 to 1 vs the official rate of 7.70 – and no conversion fees. So you save about 10% vs charging.

Here those of us from the West are known as “Big Noses” and we’re a source of curiosity, especially to those who’ve come from more remote regions and haven’t had much contact. People often stop and stare, point us out, seek to have their photo taken with us or just approach and say “Hi” looking to practice their English. Everyone now takes English at school beginning at kindergarten. It’s interesting to note that Mandarin speakers have an easier to understand accent then those Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong.

It’s been exciting to see the famous places like the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square, but the most incredible sight was our visit to the Great Wall. Our group went to a more remote section, not frequented by hordes of visitors (the Wall gets 10 million visitors a year), so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It’s the place where they take the important visitors (Bill Clinton is a local hero here and there is a picture of him with the Premier). It was a long walk uphill before taking a cable car to the summit. Once there, we were rewarded with a vista for miles in either direction. It’s hard to imagine the manpower it took to complete this 3,000 mile wonder. They tell us it took a million men 16 years to build (many of them buried in the foundations of the wall). Sections of the wall have been recently rebuilt but there are many areas not open to the public because of disrepair. As much fun as it was to climb and see the wall, the experience coming down was fun in a different way. It’s the slow season and the “hello people” are like a carnival. Paul’s favorite line was to point to me and say I had the money! This worked until he negotiated to buy, not ONE, but TWO Mao watches (the arms are the hands if you can imagine!). Well, I couldn’t believe that he did this and refused to give up the Yuan he had promised to pay. “Absolutely Not!” was my response and the whole corner was chuckling as I continued down the path shaking my head saying NO, NO, NO! Well in the end, the price came down to $12 for the two watches (Barry will be proud)! The experience was fun for both sides and the negotiations friendly with back and forth banter that often resulted in a sale.

We had many opportunities to talk to our guides and ordinary people in the shops and on the street. It’s absolutely clear this is not a “free” society. For example, the area around the “Forbidden City” used to be full of squatters who built shacks against the outside wall. The government decided to move them away. They rounded them all up and checked their identity cards. All those not born in that neighborhood were illegal and were shipped home. The few who were born there were relocated to new housing. Everywhere we went, all the old houses (Hutongs—alley ways with housing) had been torn down and replaced with high-rises. The residents had very little to say about it. There is very little of the “old China” left to see except in museums—the city wall was torn down to ease the traffic congestion. Our guide told us that the government has recently begun to preserve some of the historical districts (three areas of Hutongs are being renovated) and new buildings are incorporating some traditional styles of building. We also talked about religion. Only authorized religions are allowed to pray in authorized locations. Recently a group of Catholics were arrested for praying at home! Also, ordinary people cannot have satellite TV so access to Western shows are limited to only hotels and authorized persons.

The one topic that really got everyone’s juices flowing was the integrity of China’s borders. Every time they talked about the political organization of the country Taiwan was included as a “Special Administrative Region”, the same as Hong Kong. We were informed that China had lost enough territory in the Opium Wars and would not stand for any more. They were still upset about Mongolia being stolen after WW II. I guess we had a better idea about the way they feel after seeing how real the history of last 3,000 years is to everyday people.

We’ll be sad to leave here and can only wonder what the city will look like in another 5 years.