Final Thoughts on China

Girl Wearing 70th Anniv. Patches

We are flying back today but I thought I would add some random observations about China. I had some time on one of the train rides so I jotted down things I have noticed.

The first is that they actually seem to get things done here. You can say what you want about an authoritarian government but in terms of building, it works. New roads and new buildings are put up at a rapid pace mainly because the government can dictate it. If they want it done, they just make it happen. They select an area, move the residents out, compensate them and put up high rise buildings. None of the bureaucratic red tape that slows our development down to a snail’s pace. Their public transportation system is vastly superior to ours and purchasing is more digitized, to the point where they pay for almost everything from an app on their phone.

High Speed Trains

The Chinese we met seem to be happy and very proud of their country. They work hard and have a dream. Some of them wanted to come to America and others just to get married and own their own home. Roger told me in great detail of the movie "My People, My Country" that came out in honor of their 70th anniversary and how it made him cry from pride at the end. They are very proud of the achievements that China had done to rise from abject poverty 70 years ago to become a world economic and political power.

Ordering Line at McDonalds

Is there strict government control? I would have to say so but it isn’t that visible. Everyone has an ID card and it is checked frequently. In addition there are facial recognition cameras everywhere and you must be recognized just to check into a hotel. You can even get updates on your flight status just from facial recognition software (didn’t work for me as I'm not really in the system I suppose).

China has been a tea culture since ancient times and still is. They served tea eggs at breakfast (not bad), soaked their feet in tea and drink it constantly. They say that switching from hot to cold isn’t good for you so they only drink hot tea even when they are hot. So why so much tea? One reason is very practical. The water isn’t safe to drink here so it has to be boiled and hence the tea.

American Culture is Everywhere

We have noticed that fashion is a little different here. Big round glasses are in style and everyone loves to wear clothes with English words. When we were touring I would say that 25% of the people had English on their clothes, much of it not making any real sense. I mean, what exactly does “Relaxed Diverting”, “Waste Youth” or "Fair World" really mean? And speaking of English, there are American chain restaurants everywhere. KFC is the most popular but followed closely by McDonalds, Starbucks and many others. Their menus are adapted for Chinese taste of course. McDonalds has some kind of egg on a bun with soy milk that they really like. We didn’t get a chance to try it.

Floral Display at Shanghai Train Station

Finally everything is very clean and very well controlled. The obvious reason for this is that they have an army of people who clean and police the area. You can hardly walk a block without seeing someone sweeping and a security guard walking around. Part of this might be the holiday season, but part of it is also the idea that everyone needs a job and that every job is important and to be respected, even those picking up garbage. And speaking of the holiday, we have reached the conclusion that it was actually better for us to visit during their holiday week because it gave us a chance to see China at its absolute best. There are floral displays everywhere that you can't see but every 10 years. That was worth putting up with the crowds in spots.

Day 12 – Shanghai Disney

Birthday at Disneyland!

Today we went to Shanghai Disney to celebrate my birthday. We were both a little worn down from all the traveling and touring so we intentionally took it easy today. We didn’t try to do the park from open to close. We slept in, went to the park late and came home early but we still had a great time. We saw the parade, rode some major rides (Pirates of the Caribbean Battle for the Sunken Treasure, Soaring Over the Horizon), saw a Jack Sparrow show in Mandarin (it was mostly sword-fighting and stunts so language wasn’t a big problem), had our dinner at a nice restaurant and just walked around. One funny thing is that we realized that the last time we were at Disney there was no Jack Sparrow yet so the Pirates ride was almost completely different even though they have some nods to the original. The dog with the key in its mouth is now a skeleton!

Mickey in the Parade

The crowd wasn’t too bad early but it seemed to build during the day and the Chinese get a bit pushy under certain circumstances like when the throw the door open and say everyone find a seat. There is nothing orderly about that, at least in the way we do things. It is a cultural thing that seems impolite to us but is normal for them.

Davy Jones

Jeanne had gotten me a Birthday Button from the park and as I walked around a lot of random people wished me Happy Birthday. It was nice. One of the employees, since we were having trouble with the spotty Disney Wi-Fi, even hooked us up with a FastPass ride so we were able to ride something that would have taken a long time under other circumstances.

TRON Ride

The TRON ride in Tomorrowland is shown in the picture. It is the most popular ride at the park and all Fast Past bookings were gone by the time we got there. Maybe next time. We weren't waiting two hours to ride it!

Day 11 – Xi’an back to Shanghai

View From Our Room

Today was pretty much just a day spent in transit. We had originally tried to book the bullet train for this leg but when all the train tickets sold out we booked a flight on China Eastern Airlines. Taxi ride to the airport and then an uneventful 2-hour flight to Shanghai. It was cool and rainy when we left this morning but back to being warm but overcast in Shanghai. A 45-minute cab ride to our new hotel which sound like it would be really expensive but it cost less than $15. Cabs in China are ridiculously inexpensive.

Where We Ate

One nice thing is that our hotel, the InterContinental Hotels Shanghai Expo, gave us an upgraded room with a great view of the Haungpu River. We don’t like to eat in hotels so we walked around the neighborhood and found a local restaurant. Lots of families and loud talking, but the food was good but not great. The best was a cauliflower and pork dish in a soy sauce that was a bit spicy. I'm going to have to try to make that when I get home. Four courses and drinks for under $15.

Day 10 – Terracotta Warriors

Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta Warriors are the second most famous sight in China, after the Great Wall, and we took an early tour today out to see them. They are about an hour drive outside of town. Roger was our tour guide and the guy was a walking encyclopedia of Xi’an information. The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were discovered in 1974 by local farmers who were digging a well. At first they didn’t realized what they had found and began to smash them until one of the farmers asked them to stop and reported the discovery to the government. The Chinese government took over, built massive structures to enclose the discovery and began to excavate the site. Within a few years the Terracotta Warriors had become a major tourist destination.

Amazing Detail

The warriors were created as part of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, who died in 210 BCE at the age of 49. He had originally planned for 32,000 warriors but died before the project could be completed so only about 1/4 were actually completed. Estimates based on sonar believe the buried Terracotta Army consists of more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses. They are displayed in full battle array according to Chinese military strategy at the time.

Chinese LaBron

The interesting thing about the warriors is that no two are alike. Some are slim and others are fat, some are short and others are tall. The generals are the tallest and they have one on display who Roger said was the LaBron James of the army. He is about 6 foot seven according to the measurements Roger gave us.

The warriors were built with amazing detail. You can see the lifelines in their palms and one crouching archer is shown wearing non-slip shoes. The Chinese have 5 statues on display that you can see up close and the detail is just amazing. The rest of the exposed army remains in position as it was designed 1800 years ago and a large part of the army still hasn’t been excavated.
As this was still the holiday week, there were parts of the exhibit that were overwhelmingly crowded. In particular, an exhibit of two coaches, each drawn by four horses, was super packed and the Chinese aren’t shy when it comes to pushing and shoving. It was really mostly orderly but it also doesn’t bother me because I can push too and I’m bigger than most of them so I got the photos I wanted.

Small Wild Goose Pagoda

After the tour we drove back to town to see more sights. We saw the Small Wild Goose Pagoda which was built by Empress Wu, the same one featured in the show we saw last night. Xi’an is still a walled city and the tour took us next to the top of the wall. The wall is maybe 30 yards wide so there was plenty of room to walk around and some from our group rented bikes and rode around. It had stopped raining but it was cold and windy so the rest of us just huddled together and talked with Roger. He shared a lot of personal things with us but the saddest was that he had to postpone his marriage as his father had a stroke and Roger spent his savings to help save his father’s life.

Mutton Soup

The tour ended in the Muslim section where we were dropped. Five from the tour group walked through what seemed like an endless bazaar selling everything you can think of and found a restaurant serving yangrou paomo, which is one of the most representative dishes of Xi’an. It is a mutton soup served over flatbread that you tear into small pieces. Very tasty and filling. We ordered a medium size but a small would have been enough. 59 CYN or about $8 so you can see food prices are low in China.

Day 9 – Bullet Train to Xi’an

Our Coach to Xi'an

We said farewell to Beijing and took a short cab ride to the West Train Station for our train to Xi’an. They told us to be there two hours early because of the crowds but it wasn’t that crowded so we just sat around for the two hours killing time. Again, no options if you miss the train so it’s much better to be early. The train today was a bullet train but it was older and slightly slower that the one from Shanghai to Beijing. Its maximum speed seems to be around 300 kmh (180 mph) and the seats weren’t quite as nice and no place to plug in your phone to charge it. It was a 5 hour and 42 minute ride to Xi’an.

Battle Scene (Tang Dynasty Show)

Today was the first rainy day we have had in China and it looks like our visit to Xi’an is going to be rainy.  There isn’t much to see from the train. It is overcast and quite hazy as we roll through the countryside. We were headed inland so there were more wooded sections and some mountains with tunnels through. We passed less population, but when you reach a town there is construction everywhere. It seems that China is in the constant process of rebuilding itself.

Empress Wu (Tang Dynasty Show)

We arrived in Xi’an exactly on time and took a cab to the hotel. The ride took maybe 15 minutes and cost 18 yuan which is less than $3 so I just doubled it. Hotel is a Holiday Inn Express which is a step down from the penthouse but decent and very clean.

We rode the metro down to our Tang Dynasty show tonight which may have been the best thing we have seen or done in China so far. It was a combination of singing, dancing and a little bit of martial arts thrown in but fantastically staged. It was just amazing. The production tells the story of Empress Wu who was born in 624 CE and rose from a concubine to become the Empress of in the Tang Dynasty. I believe I read that she was the only Empress in the history of China so that is quite impressive.

Amazing Finale (Tang Dynasty Show)

There was one funny thing that happened to us at the show. It is a large dinner-theater type place with several thousand seats and so we took our seats at a table with some other Chinese. No problem. Before the show, a lady comes up to me and asks if my name is John (we are the only non-Asians in the place so I'm easy to ID) and says to follow her. She took us to the best table in the theater which was reserved for us and gives us free drinks. I have no idea why we were upgraded this time.

Atop the Wall Around Xi'an

I should explain a little about why Xi’an is important to the Chinese. Some of it has to do with historic reason and others are modern reasons. Xi’an was the first capital of China and it was the capital city for 13 Dynasties and 74 Emperors ruled from there. Xi’an was the capital from 1046 BCE to 904 CE, so almost 2000 years. The early Dynasties were actually regional but starting with the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, most of the rest of the Xi’an dynasties ruled all of China. The second historic reason is that Xi’an was the eastern end of the Silk Road. Because of this, many Muslims traders relocated to Xi’an and there is still a Muslim Quarter there today. Today Xi’an is the 44th largest city in the world, with New York being the only larger US city, and it is considered to be the Chinese equivalent of Seattle because it produces most of the airplanes manufactured in China.  Finally, Xi’an is home to the Terracotta Warriors which makes it a huge tourist destination.

Day 8 – The Forbidden City

Jeanne and I with Chairman Mao

We had a very nice surprise as Yo Yo was our tour guide again today for our tour of Beijing city. This is our third day with her so she knows us well. Her English is good and she is very competent in handling problems that come up and today the problem was crowds. All the major sights are open today and everyone who has been waiting for that is now out and about. There were massive crowds in Tiananmen Square where we started and it would have been impossible to even walk around there but we were able to see everything but from a distance so it was fine.

The Emperor's Palace

We walked through Tiananmen Tower which is instantly recognizable with its large picture of Mao that looks out at Tiananmen Square and his own mausoleum at the far end. You pass through the tower on you way to enter the Forbidden City where the Ming and Chiang dynasty emperors lived for over 5xx years. The area is called “forbidden” because there are parts where only the emperor was allowed and that included the empress and his children. To reach the innermost part of the palace (for lack of a better word), you have to go through majestic outer buildings. These buildings were surrounded with rooms where people waiting to see the emperor could stay. In all, there are 8000 rooms in the palace. To simplify the description of the inner part, the two main buildings were the Temple of Heavenly Paradise (Emperor) and the Temple of Earthly Paradise (Empress). Behind this is a garden area where the emperor’s 3000 concubines lived. From what we were told, it took one million people 24 years to construct this complex.

Temple of the Sun

We had an obligatory stop at a Chinese herbal medicine demonstration where they try to sell you medicinal herbs that was followed by lunch at a local restaurant. The food was on average not up to the previous tour lunches but there were a couple of dishes we really liked, Caramelized Eggplant and an orange flavored stir fry of carrots, pork and peppers. After lunch we visited to the Temple of the Sun. “Sun” is appropriate word today because it is nearly 90 degrees today and there are people everywhere but Yo Yo steers us through the crowds. The temple is a beautiful round building symbolizing heaven which the Chinese believed was round while the grounds were in a square shape which symbolized the earth. Only the Emperor prayed here and it was for the people to have a good harvest.

Lake at the Summer Palace (in the background)

We had another obligatory stop at a pearl demonstration and we then on to our final stop at the Summer Palace. This palace was built for the Empress Dowager Cixi (pronounced "see-she"). She was never really an Empress but through clever manipulation she served as regent and effectively controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. She had the palace built and to get to the palace she had a special canal constructed to carry her there from the Forbidden City. She even had the lake enlarged and shaped like a turtle to symbolize longevity. The hill behind the Summer Place was created from the earth removed from the lake. Today the palace is a Buddhist Temple but you can walk around the lake or enjoy a boat ride. Cixi obviously wielded enormous power and had almost one million people working on her special projects.

Because of all the crowds today the tour took about an hour and a half longer than normal and we were tired when we got back to our room so we just ate in the Executive Lounge.

Day 7 – Hutongs and the Food Tour

Temple of Confucius

Before I begin, let me just say that DoubleTree is treating us very well in Beijing. They upgraded us to a Penthouse suite on the 25th floor and access to the Executive Lounge, both of which has been really nice.

Today, October 2, is a continuation of the National Holiday. All the subways and roads are open again but some of the major sites still haven’t reopened and so we took a food tour which turned out to be a lot of fun. The tour didn’t start until 4:30 pm so it gave us a chance to sleep late and rest.

We left a little early to do some sightseeing on the way to our meeting point for the tour. Our traveling today was all by subway and it is basically straightforward once you have done it once. We did hit a couple of wrinkles but the Chinese have been very quick to help us even if they didn’t speak any English. You can select English when you buy your tickets, but paying was a problem at one point. The Chinese all pay via the WeChat app but it doesn’t work for us so we have to pay in cash. We were at one stop when our fee was 8 yuan (about 60 cents each) and I tried to pay with a 20. The machine kept rejecting it and finally a Chinese guy pointed out to us that it only takes 5 and 10s. There was no change machine but finally a worker called over a guy who made change for us. We thought we were going to have to sleep there that night!

Emma and Jeanne at a Hutong Entrance

We stopped at the Temple of Confucius on the north side of Beijing. It was initially built in 1302 during the Yuan Dynasty and expanded by later dynasties. The grounds were shady and peaceful in spite of a large amount of tourists. Confucius was an ancient Chinese philosopher (551 to 471 BC) and founder of Confucianism which is kind of a combined religion/philosophy of life.

Emma was our guide for the food tour and it turned out that we were the only people on the tour so the three of us just visited a street market and walked around one of the Hutong areas. A Hutong is a narrow alley of one-story courtyard style residences which are basically public housing in central Beijing. Families can live there for free and their children can inherit the right to live there as well. They only pay the utilities but the government owns the physical building. There were Hutongs in use in the 13th century but most of the hutongs we saw were much newer, probably from the 40s and 50s.

Jianbing Being Made

Here is the list of the foods we tried on the tour:

1) Skewers of meat, mushrooms and bread cooked in a spicy hotpot.

2) Jianbing. These are a kind of crepe with egg, bean paste, spices and a crunchy center that is the normal breakfast eaten in Beijing. We liked it a lot. Unfortunately they don’t serve it in our hotel or we would have it again.

3. Candies. Emma bought us a variety of these but the only one I recognized was Hawthorne gelatin, which is similar in taste to cranberry.

4. Dumpling. We shared a local Beijing beer and a plate of dumplings filled with pork and green vegetables of some kind. Very good.

Emma, Jeanne and I Sharing a Donkey Burger

5. Donkey Burger. I know what it sounds like but it was actually very good. Donkey, which is a specialty in Beijing, is a lean meat without a strong taste. Kind of like a good quality of beef. We both finished our portions.

Ancient Drum Tower

We talked quite a bit about life in ancient Beijing and also about current Beijing. She showed us the Bell and Drum towers which used to announce the opening and closing of the bridge across the moat that let people in and out of the old walled city. We also talked about President Xi’s newly announced initiative called the “China Dream” which is a version of the “American Dream.” They still have 1% poverty that they want to reduce to zero. China is also a growing capitalist country where everyone can own their own home but today it isn’t very practical as the cost of an apartment is very expensive and most people have to rent.

We walked along a lake lined with bars and live rock music and it was crowded with young people. Definitely modern China. They she dropped us at a subway station and we started our trip home. That station wasn’t very convenient to our hotel so we had about a 1:15 ride with three changes but all things considered, it was a pleasant evening which was made better by Emma’s excellent English and happy personality.

Day 6 – Great Wall, Ming Tombs, National Day

Great Wall of China

Today, October 1, is National Day in China. In honor of the day when Mao declared China to be a Republic, they always have a celebration but every ten years they do a special large military parade and as this was the 70th anniversary another large celebration was planned. I think there was something like 300 tanks and 150 airplanes in the parade with a special emphasis on new digital weapons. The parade was at 10am and there was an evening celebration with fireworks at 8 pm, but really there were things like speeches going on all day. We spent the day outside of Beijing but we did watch the evening celebration on TV. It was very comparable to an Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Great Wall Rising Through the Mountains

The entire downtown area (inside the second Ring Road) was blocked off to traffic, subway stops were closed and pedestrian access was severely limited. I am saying this in order to explain why we had to leave the city at 6 am because access got even tighter as the day went on. We were lucky as Yo Yo and her driver picked us up at the hotel while everyone else had to do substantial walks to get outside the ring. In any case, we left Beijing early in the morning and headed to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is about an hour’s drive to this section of the wall and therefore it is less crowded that other sections closer to Beijing. It has another advantage in that there is a cable car that takes you up. About $15 but well worth it because it is so steep. We could barely make it to the cable car!!!

Jade Money Dragon Statues

Because we were so early, we almost had the wall to ourselves. It is truly a wonder of the world how that thing was ever built. Every stone was carried by hand and held in place by sticky rice and egg shells according to our guide. I suppose it has been restored because it looks like mortar today. She also said that 3 people died building it for every 1 meter of the wall and they are buried underneath it. Again, what? The views were amazing, chestnut trees and mountains surrounding the wall were so beautiful.

We had an obligatory stop at a Jade factory and Yo Yo told us the story of Pixiu (Pee-Shoe) who is called the Money Dragon because he eats money and jewelry. That is why he is always pictured with his mouth open. A statue of the Money Dragon is supposed to being wealth and preservation of wealth to the owner. To have good Feng Shui the statue needs to face a door or window. The story itself is a little off color so I’ll skip it but it was hilariously told by Yo Yo with some slightly misused American slang. As least I don’t think we talk about dragons as having a booty, do we?

Ming Tomb

Next stop was the tomb of one of the Ming Emperors. There are 13 of the Ming Emperors buried in this section about an hour outside of Beijing but only the tomb of Emperor Wanli has been excavated and that was in the 1950s. His name was Zhu Yijun and he ascended the throne at the age of ten and adopted the name Wanli when he became the 14th Emperor of the Ming dynasty. He ruled from 1572 to 1620. This is near the end of the Ming Dynasty and the later Mings are not well liked by the Chinese. The only nice thing the guide said about him was that he was the first emperor not to bury his concubines alive with him.

Soul Gate

The Soul Gate has an interesting story. It represents the portal between the earth and the afterlife so when you leave the tomb you must dust the evil spirits off yourself and shout “I’m Back” in Chinese as you pass through the portal to prevent them from following you back to earth so we all did that. Men must step with their left foot first and women their right. Why? According to the guide it is because women are always right. Really it is for Yin and Yang reasons.

Olympic Water Cube

After another tea demonstration we arrived at our hotel at about 5 pm. No sign of the parade but the city was closed down still. We did pass by the 2008 Olympic site along the way and saw the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the Water Cube. China is hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics and they are already building another large stadium in the area.

Having dinner was a little tricky tonight. Everything was closed early for the ceremony but we were able to walk around and find a nice place to eat. I had Peking Duck and Jeanne had Pork Dumplings. It was all very, very good.