China - Beijing

Our Hainan Airlines plane was the reddest thing we had ever seen. Red is the color of luck or celebration or reduced turbulence or something. We sat down in our red seats at the front row and began people-watching the frantic and friendly Chinese. The plane was only semi-full, and they were sprawling themselves all over, socks up. In front of us was a large TV screen with Chinese tourism propaganda on. City by city, the major attractions appeared on the screen, along with scenes of enthusiastic communist children running the fields, grandmothers beating grandfathers in mahjong, and proud mothers bringing home wholesome groceries. There were also scripted cultural scenes of dance, song, acrobatics, and so forth.

Our first Chinese mystery was the meal. The stewardess offered chicken and fish as options. Abby picked chicken and promptly got beef. Seeing that the beef was not even an original option, we were surprised. After five minutes of discussing the matter, the beef was replaced with chicken. No one knew where the beef came from, but surely another passenger got it as their meal.

I'm not going to lie, still haunted by memories of Egypt, we were expecting the worst in Beijing. I was getting mentally prepared to beating Chinese touts off me and securing my money-belt with my elbows. Transferring from the airport shuttle to the metro line, we were looking around suspiciously and keeping our hands on the bags. As we were exiting the metro, an old lady said 'map' and stuck out a map she was selling. We walked right past her: "no, thanks." As we were walking, we kept an eye on each-other's backpack. After finally finding the hostel, we put away our bags and got out again, this time with a map and just a few bucks on us.

You know what? This wasn't too bad. Kids were walking around nibbling on skewered sugared lychee; old ladies made their way down the street holding wooden baskets full of vegetables; street vendors boiled up dumplings; and all kinds of two-wheeled vehicles snaked by the residents down the old streets. Stylish Chinese teens were getting a haircut at the barbershop; a few white tourists were discussing fabrics with the local tailor; and seated on low wooden stools, an unarmed policeman and a couple of giggly friends smoked their afternoon cigarettes. This wasn't too bad at all. So what that we couldn't read a single street sign? this place felt safe and relaxed right away.

It is hard to describe Beijing in words, but here are a few characteristics. The metro system is the easiest system you'll ever use, with four exits at each station, one per intersection corner. To use it, you must pay a quarter, run your bag through the metal detector, and voila! You've joined the [literally] millions of Chinese underground. If you opt for the roads instead, they are enormous -- sometimes up to 10 lanes. The traffic covering the roads comprises every vehicle you can think of, with any number of wheels, animals, and people. There are a few remaining trees on the streets, but they are slowly completing their full migration to temples and parks.

Speaking of temples and parks, it seems that the only parks in the city *are* temples, and that every temple has a 'park' section complete with benches and bands of old people crowding around Chinese Chess boards. We visited the most popular temples -

Forbidden City: a boring maze of not-too-old buildings, which housed Chinese emperors for centuries. As tourists pour in through the main doors, they find a simple trend inside - every building is followed by an outside space, which in turn is followed by the next building. This alternating pattern gets old after the 20th red building. Inside the main buildings are usually deities in the form of gold statues. Some of the smaller buildings contain the old furniture used by the Chinese emperors and their many concubines. We've learned that the concubines leisurely hung out in the garden, hoping to attract the attention of the emperor, who in turn would scope out one or two or three, put some moves on them, and take them home to one of his 50 red buildings.

Temple of Heaven: a park the size of some 20 football fields. Inside, besides the trees and the usual Chess-playing crowds, are impressive buildings with ancient purposes. One of the buildings was dedicated to the prayer for Good Harvest, and had all the history you would imagine associated with such a building. Opposite to the Good Harvest Hall was a stage-like round structure made of rock. The 'stage' served as the ancient version of a parliament: the emperor stood in the middle on a raised tile (supposedly making his voice much louder) and spoke to all of the Chinese generals surrounding him.

Summer Palace: the emperors' summer home away from steamy Beijing. Unfortunately, we only got to spend an evening here. This park is dominated by a lake around which the emperors built walking pathways, bridges, and little shops. Here and there we ran across wooden boats rocked to a lull at the dock and tucked-away flower gardens. Makes the hour-long metro ride worth it!

We have also made it to the Great Wall. It takes two hours of driving on highways and dust roads to get to the Wall. The final 10 miles of driving took us on a rocky unpaved road among 3-story suburban houses (nice albeit eerily vacant), then an impoverished village or two, and finally just dirt. Our guide decided not to draw out the experience too much. He told us the history of the centuries-old structure in about 15 minutes, and left us to roam about for the next 5 hours. I'll skip the description of magnificent views and just mention a few of the unusual events on the wall, the ones that don't make it to the postcards.

At first, there was no one but our group of 20 on our stretch of the Wall. Every once in a while we ran across a small group of Chinese or white tourists. The Chinese tourists clearly haven't spent much time in major cities. First, the guy (about 45 years-old, with the trademark tourist orange cap and pro-grade camera) carried his own sound system, amplifying a Chinese radio station for all of us on the wall. Second, his wife began taking pictures of the Wall that were all suspiciously located behind Abby. Abby turned around and stepped away, but to no avail. Eventually, the rogue tourist gave up on disguising her actions, and began taking pictures of Abby no matter where Abby stood. Luckily, Abby soon made it known that she's had enough attention, and we moved on. The third indication that these tourists were somewhat unfamiliar with the ways of the modern man came when we noticed some of them hiking among trees and brush. They reached the Wall and scaled it from the Chinese side about a half a mile from the actual stairs to the Wall. At that point we gave up on trying to figure out why they do the things they do, and just took pictures of their successful ascent to the Wall. After our visit we ate with the other backpackers in a local village and returned back to the friendly Beijing.