Monday, May 16, 2005
Ni Hao from Beijing!
I have just spent nearly five days in Beijing, the capital of China. Tomorrow, I will depart for Canada, with a 24-hour stopover in Vancouver, the most Chinese of Canada's cities. I will have the opportunity to visit my friend Eric, who lives there.
Whereas I found Shanghai to be a relatively compact and easy-to-navigate city with ultra-modern buildings, Beijing, by contrast, is very spread out and is split into districts by huge avenues that are as many as 14-lanes wide. Alongside these main avenues are block-like Communist style buildings containing government ministries, apartments, convention halls, shopping malls and offices. These buildings are so long that it requires several minutes to walk past each of them. Even the more recently constructed buildings on these huge avenues are block-like and do not show the imaginative architectural styling that the Shanghai towers did. At most, these Beijing behemoths might have a small pagoda-like structure on the roof to make them look a bit Chinese. Basically, Beijing's huge avenues are reminiscent of those I saw in Moscow, although this place is less drab than Russia's capital.
Unlike Muscovites, the people of Beijing smile a lot and are generally fun to deal with, as were the residents of the other Chinese cities I visited. Older Beijing residents tend to dress more stereotypically Chinese than in the other cities I visited, especially when compared to the fashionable residents of Shanghai. In Beijing, it is very common to see men wearing drab grey Mao suits and Mao hats.
Because Beijing is flat, the bicycle is a major form of transportation. Usually, these are cheap one-speed models and are driven by people of all ages. Delivery men and rickshaw drivers favour three-wheeled bikes. There are special bike lanes on most wide avenues. Although the bicycle is king in Beijing, the automobile is rapidly gaining popularity. There will soon be 3 million cars in Beijing, which is not much for a city of 16 million, but which nevertheless will test the capacity of the existing road system. As a result, construction of a sixth ring-road is underway, as is an expansion to the city's subway system.
The subway here is cheap, efficient and easy to use. For 45 cents, you are whisked to most major sights. Important announcements and essential signage are bilingual - Chinese and English. The only problem is that I tend to bang my head whenever I exit one of the subway cars. It is not easy being one of the taller people in town!
Hutongs
Behind many of the block-like Communist buildings are narrow alleyways called Hutongs. These alleyways contain primitive one-floor houses that face into courtyards. In the Hutongs, one also finds basic restaurants, fruit stands, butcher shops with raw meat hanging on hooks, long distance calling centres (for people who cannot afford their own telephone, I suppose) and other types of stores. It is fascinating to wander along these shady tree-covered alleyways. You never know what you might find in the Hutongs.
Entire Hutong districts are gradually being torn down and replaced by ultra-modern apartment and shopping complexes. It is not uncommon to be walking among the third‑world conditions of a Hutong, emerge from the Hutong, cross the street and then enter a luxury shopping mall that replaced a former Hutong. The mall may contain luxury boutiques that our economy in Montreal cannot even support. The contrast between being in the third-world one minute and enjoying the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous the next is remarkable.
The residents of the Hutongs that are torn down are relocated to more modern apartments elsewhere. Thus, although tourists may complain that the heritage of the Hutongs is disappearing, the actual residents of these neighbourhoods are often quite eager to have their poor homes expropriated by the Beijing Municipal Government.
All this construction is likely to accelerate as Beijing nears 2008, when it will host the summer Olympics and become the focus of international attention.
The Square; not the Massacre
In the centre of Beijing is Tiananmen, which around here is the name of a public square, rather than the name of a massacre. In fact, Tiananmen Square is the largest public square in the world. At the north of the square is the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which you have probably seen in photographs. It is a pagoda-shaped parade reviewing stand with a huge portrait of Mao Zedong hanging from it. Communist leaders stand on top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace during Chinese military parades.
Once you pass through the gate under the reviewing stand, you eventually enter the Forbidden City, from where Chinese emperors ruled from the 1420's until 1911. The walled‑in Forbidden City is filled with numerous pagoda-shaped buildings, where the emperor and his ministers, empress, concubines, eunuchs and other hangers-on lived, worked and played. It is said that there are 9,999 rooms in the Forbidden City. I skipped a few.
During my visit to the Forbidden City, I rented an excellent audio tour narrated by Roger Moore. It was somewhat disconcerting at first to hear him begin, "Ni hao. My name is Roger Moore," instead of the more familiar, "Hello. My name is Bond. James Bond."
On the West side of Tiananmen Square is the Great Hall of the People, which is what passes for a parliament in this Communist state. In contrast to the hoards of people visiting the Forbidden City, there were very few visiting the Great Hall of the People. Visitors have to pass through a metal detector and then must place plastic protectors over their shoes, so as not to scuff the floors. These covers resemble a shower cap, but are designed to cover shoes.
Since there was no organized English-language tour, I was left to wander around China's parliament by myself, shuffling along in my plastic-covered shoes. At one point, I found myself alone in the 10,000-seat theatre-like room where the Central Committee of the Communist Party meets. You have probably seen photos or video of this room when it is filled with senior members of the Communist Party. The building housing the Great Hall of the People is basically the ultimate in Communist-style architecture, with numerous huge square plain-looking meeting rooms with high ceilings and paintings of scenes from the Chinese countryside on some walls. The carpets are a little scuffed.
The Dead Communist Triple Crown
At the southern end of Tiananmen Square is the mausoleum of founding Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. I dutifully lined up with the true-believers one morning to see Mao's body, which is on display at the mausoleum. He looked pretty good for a guy who has been dead for 29 years.
The line-up contained thousands of people, 99.99 % of whom were Chinese, and wound its way through Tiananmen Square between yellow lines painted in a designated path. When someone in line strayed outside the yellow lines, one of the many guards would yell at them through a megaphone and they would quickly correct their errant ways. The line-up moved quickly (like the lines at Disneyland) and I was in and out in less than 45 minutes. I waited in line next to a tour group of short people with ruddy complexions who were probably peasants from the countryside belonging to one of China's 56 ethnic minorities. They all wore identical cheap white baseball caps from a tour company and looked positively thrilled to be visiting Beijing for probably the first time, as they awaited their impending encounter with their late esteemed leader. I towered over these small people. Throughout the wait, they stared at me and seemed to examine me. I suspect that I was the first tall white guy that some of them had ever seen up close!
Now that I have filed by Chairman Mao's glass encased body, I am proud to say that I have completed the Dead Communist Triple Crown: I saw Ho Chi Minh's body in Vietnam in 2001, Lenin's body in Moscow in 2002 and now Mao's in 2005. While Ho and Lenin are more wax-like, in the Madame Tussaud mould, Mao looks more granite-like. Ho and Mao still attract long line-ups. Lenin is far less popular: My 2002 meeting with him was nearly one-on-one, so to speak.
Besides the central monuments, museums and dead bodies that I have described above, Beijing has many other temples and monuments scattered throughout the region. You have surely seen many of these painted on the dishes in your favourite Chinese restaurant.
The Wall
One of the highlights of my visit to Beijing was my visit to the Great Wall of China. Contrary to popular myth, the Great Wall of China is not the only manmade object that is visible from outer space. Indeed, the Wall has not been a continuous structure since long before the advent of space travel. Also, it is only 10 or 15 feet wide, for the most part. At present, there are some five sections of the Wall in the vicinity of Beijing that may be visited by the public. The one closest to Beijing is usually inundated by tourists and hawkers. I chose to instead visit one of the more outlying sections. When we arrived there, the vendors actually outnumbered the tourists, so I was happy with my choice. While exploring the guard towers and hiking along the top of the Wall, I was able to take photographs of sections of the Wall that had absolutely no people on them.
The Wall was built along the tops of mountain ranges more than 2,000 years ago in order to keep the Mongolians from the North from invading China to the South. To get up to the actual wall, the Chinese have installed a chairlift, like the ones you find at a ski hill. To return to the place at the bottom of the hill where buses and cars park, instead of taking the chairlift, they have installed a mountain luge, like the one at Mont Tremblant. It seems a bit un-historical, but sliding down a long track from the Great Wall of China on a little one-man trolley was a thrill, nonetheless.
Hiking along the top of the Wall was physically demanding as it rose up and down the mountain tops. Most of the way involved climbing or descending uneven stone steps. Only short distances had flat stones that were easily traversed. At one point along the way, I met a Mongolian family that was selling Cokes from a cooler. When they asked an outrageous price for one drink and I protested, they explained, "She carry it on back up mountain from Mongolia." I still managed to knock the price down by half. The Mongolians were happy and my thirst was quenched!
The Great Wall was a great feat of engineering and is quite spectacular as it snakes its way into the distance from mountaintop to mountaintop.
On the way back to Beijing, we passed a theme park devoted to honouring China's 56 ethnic minorities. Typical architecture of each of the 56 minorities is reproduced EPCOT Center-style. The whole place is constructed on top of a super-modern luxury shopping mall. Perhaps, the design of this "Ethnic World" is meant to symbolize the idea that, although the Chinese come from diverse backgrounds, they are all now unified under the common ideology of consumerism?
Underground City
Another of the stranger sights I visited in Beijing was the Underground City. No, this attraction has nothing to do with linking a bunch of office buildings and shopping malls with the subway system. Rather, it is a huge bomb shelter that was constructed between 1969 and 1979, as a result of a fear that the Soviets would invade China. Instead, the Soviets chose to invade Afghanistan, so the shelter was never used.
To visit the shelter, one has to find a non-descript white building in a narrow Hutong. The building resembles one of Beijing's public toilet facilities and is therefore easy to miss. Fortunately, I noticed the small English lettering and entered the building, where I was greeted by several people dressed in camouflage fatigues. One of them, who spoke some English, escorted me down some steep stairs to a tunnel eight metres below ground. We walked along very long and damp oval concrete tunnels that resembled sewers - fortunately, without the sewage. Every so often, my camouflage-clad guide would point out a room and tell me its intended use. Some were to have been hospitals; others theatres and others living quarters. He also would point out darkened sections of the tunnel and say, "That way, Forbidden City" or "That way, Temple of Heaven." Every so often, an air vent would extend up to the surface and we could hear noise from the Hutongs above.
Supposedly, the tunnels were designed to allow up to 300,000 people to live in them in the event of a nuclear attack. In true inefficient Communist style, they were built entirely by hand.
After we had been walking for a while and the dampness started getting to me, we suddenly arrived in a huge store. It was filled with numerous camouflage-clad salespeople and specialized in selling silk blankets. My tour guide then suddenly turned into a silk sheet salesman. He explained how the silk sheets are indestructible and how they can keep one warm, especially in the cold dampness of a nuclear shelter tunnel (or the cold winters of Canada). Despite his persuasive sales pitch, I declined to make a purchase at this subterranean boutique. With that, he reverted to being a tour guide and we passed through a huge steel fireproof door - like one would find on a submarine - and continued our walk through the Underground City.
Diplomacy
A couple of days ago, I spent the day with my law school classmate, Pierre, who works as a trade commissioner at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Pierre, who grew up in Quebec City and Montreal, speaks fluent French, English, Korean and Mandarin. He has lived in Beijing for the past four years. As a trade commissioner, he is responsible for helping Canadian companies sell their products and services to China, particularly in the aerospace, automotive and tourism sectors. He often lobbies senior officials in the Chinese government.
Pierre gave me a tour of the Canadian embassy. It is a place of work for 300 people and many of them live within the embassy compound, as well. There is even a swimming pool, tennis court and a bar (complete with a bubble hockey game, in true Canadian fashion) within the embassy grounds. The embassy compound is protected by a squadron of Chinese guards, barbed wire, two layers of steel fence, bullet-proof glass and closed circuit cameras. Basically, it is like a luxurious prison.
Unlike some other embassies (e.g., Japan's), the high-security protection of Canada's embassy is not in place to guard against protestors. Canada is not normally - if ever - the target of protests. Instead, this protection is in place in order to ensure that North Koreans do not try to enter the compound for the purpose of claiming refugee status and demanding safe passage to South Korea. This threat is more than theoretical. Last November, 44 North Koreans, posing as telephone line repair people, managed to climb the fence (which had less barbed wire back then). They had alerted the media and the whole thing was broadcast practically live on CNN. The North Koreans ended up camping inside the embassy compound for the next three months before eventually gaining safe passage to South Korea via Singapore. Since my friend Pierre speaks Korean, he was very involved with these "visitors" as a translator. He made several trips with them to Singapore. Also, when the 44 people jumped the fence, some were badly injured, so Pierre and the other embassy staff were involved in negotiating safe passage to the hospital for them under diplomatic cover in official embassy vehicles and had to stand guard to ensure that the Koreans were not snatched from their hospital beds by the Chinese police and shipped back to North Korea.
All of this adventure was taking place as an official visit to China by Prime Minister Paul Martin was being planned for January. Pierre planned a series of visits by the prime minister to natural gas depots. The public buses of Beijing run on natural gas and the equipment that allows this to happen is manufactured in Canada. Pierre had to deal with all the logistics of the visits, including dealing with security and both the Canadian and Chinese media. One famous photo-op that you may have seen in Canadian newspapers was when Martin drove a bus. Pierre had to ensure that someone was in place to shift the gears as Martin stepped on the gas pedal and steered.
Hockey Night in Beijing
At night, we went for dinner with Pierre's friend, René Roy, who had just played a game of hockey at Beijing's only ice rink. In keeping with his family name, René plays goalie. René's day job is to ensure the safety and proper functioning of Bombardier's jets in Beijing and sometimes in Japan, as well.
We ate some excellent sushi. Despite the general hatred of the Chinese for the Japanese, the restaurant was filled with Chinese diners.
Although eating sushi was quite straightforward, other restaurants here are a bit strange. I had an interesting meal at a restaurant called "Morals Exceedingly Food Seat of Government." I have no idea what that means. They serve braised carp lips, among other things. I opted for the beef, mushroom and rice, instead. It was an excellent choice.
Gomery Commission
The Gomery Commission became front page news here the other day. Apparently, funds were used to pay for a television series broadcast in China starring Da Shan. Da Shan is the Chinese name of Mark Rowswell, a white Canadian who speaks perfect Mandarin and who has become a huge television star here in China. Although he is barely known in Canada, every Chinese person knows Da Shan. In the China Daily, Judge Gomery is quoted as saying, "I don't think there are too many Quebec separatists in China."
China
It has been fascinating visiting China. This ancient country is being transformed into a modern state at an accelerated pace. Although it is technically still part of the developing world, China already has more middle and upper class people than does North America and their numbers are growing. China is Communist in name only. There is an unwritten social contract by which the Communist Party remains in power without challenge and, in return, it ensures a rising standard of living for the Chinese people.
The people here adhere to the ideology of consumerism. Unlike many Buddhists in Cambodia and Thailand, who believe that they will prosper in their next life, the Chinese want to prosper here and now. In bookstores, they no longer sell copies of Mao's little red book. Instead, they sell books with titles like the Business Plan of Wal-Mart or the Strategies of Toyota (along with the complete works of Donald Trump!). This week, Beijing is being turned upside down by a conference organized by Fortune Magazine. Bill Gates will attend, as will many CEO's of Fortune 500 companies.
As you probably know, Chinese couples may only have one child. As a result, this country is filled with children who are pushed hard to succeed, since all the dreams for the next generation are focused on one offspring. There are many educational books and toys for sale here. School entrance exams are discussed in the newspapers as an important event. Competition is ferocious: It has been said that, in China, if you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.
Tom Friedman of the New York Times has written that, in the past, we were told to eat our vegetables because there were children starving in China; now, our children must be told to do their homework because there are children in China who want their jobs!
This warning should not be seen as overly ominous. The rise of China can benefit everyone. The growing Chinese middle class can be a whole new market for us Westerners. In addition, although we cannot compete with China's cheap labour costs and work ethic (they work six or seven days per week; you see busy construction sites here early on a Sunday morning, when an equivalent site in Canada would be empty), we still have a capacity to think outside the box that I have not witnessed here in China. This is not a place where people can express themselves freely. We are thus able to do higher value-added work than most Chinese. However, we must not be complacent and rest on our laurels.
It will also be interesting to see how China develops and to see how it maintains social stability in the face of the widening gap between its rich and its poor.
China is a fascinating place that can offer us many opportunities. I am glad I stopped here for an initial visit and that I got a taste of what this huge nation has to offer.
All Good Things Must Come to an End
My trip is nearly over and I have enjoyed it thoroughly. I hope you have enjoyed reading my e-mails. They will serve as a journal of my adventures.
By the end of my voyage, I will have traveled nearly 40,000 kilometres by plane, train, automobile, bus, motorcycle, boat, three types of tuk-tuk, rickshaw, chairlift, mountain luge, subway, taxi, limousine and, of course, by foot. I will have taken 10 flights and one bus ride and visited 10 cities and 11 airports.
I think I will need another vacation just to recover!
Bye for now.
--Larry
