Shanghaied in Beijing

Holy. Crap.

My last day in Beijing was by far my most intense day yet. I think that's saying something.

It started early, when I met my tour guide at 8:00 am. Her name was Sunny, which aptly described her personality. She was a pretty great tour guide. She was funny, and had lots of interesting things to say, which you'd might think would describe EVERY tour guide, but this is not the case. Turns out, in Beijing, you have to be certified to be a tour guide. 20 000 people apply every year. Only 1 000 make it. Sounds like a martial arts tournament? Tour guiding is serious business in Beijing.

Anyhow, we went off to the Ming Tombs, which is oddly enough, where the Ming emperors are buried. The Ming emperors were also the ones who built the Forbidden City, and all the other stuff we looked at the previous day. The only bit that is open to the public is this one big room that they have converted into a museum. They had some neat stuff in the museum, which I did not take any pictures of because my camera drains batteries faster than you can say "overpriced garbage" (which is something you say a lot).

The most interesting thing about the museum is actually the building itself. It was constructed out of these pillars, which are each about 3 feet thick. These pillars are solid wood, and they were built out of a single tree trunk each. The type of tree they were made from (now extinct) grew on the other side of China. The emperor made 500 soldiers carry 60 trees all the way across China, so he could have a spiffy place to be buried. It took them 10 years.

The other interesting thing about the tombs is what happened during the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was Chairman Mao's attempt to push China back into communism, after it had been getting slowly capitalist. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Our tour guide said it was Mao's only mistake. Yep, just that one. No others at all.

Anyways, during the cultural revolution, the Red Guard, which was like a volunteer army of students stormed the Ming Tombs and set one of them on fire, because they were trying to show they were better then the feudalists. Nothing says you're better like fire, after all. So the Emperor and Empress's clothes, which were very well preserved, are now a little cripsy, as are the emperor and empress themselves.

After the Ming Tombs, it was off to the Great Wall. (The Chinese think everything is great. They have their Great Wall, Great Leader Chairman Mao....) The Great Wall is pretty famous, and it rather deserves that fame. It has several different sections, which total 100 000 km. That's more than the circumference of the Earth. It was not ENTIRELY successful at keeping the Mongols out, but it is impressive nonetheless. There's really not much to say about it, except for the way you get up it.

See, the Chinese were pretty clever, and they don't just have their wall any old place, they have it on top of mountains, which makes it extra difficult to get over. So, in order to go up it, you have to walk up a mountain. Or alternately, you can take the roller coaster. Yes, that's right, roller coaster. You get on at the bottom, and it pulls you up. Then you wander around, and come back down, which is about the greatest ride ever.

On the way back home, we first went to a Jade factory, which is pretty cool. Jade is very very beautiful, and they had some absolutely stunning jewelery and other things, which I would love to have taken pictures of, but lo: my camera was out of batteries.

After the Jade factory, we went to a silk factory, where they show you how they make silk. The silk they take off the worm's cocoon is very very fine, and it takes 8 strands to make a single thread. Then, they take those threads and turn them into flat pancakes of silk. THEN they stretch it out and turn it into a blanket. Make sense? It's OK, I don't understand, and I watched them do it.

The store they had after (because they always take you to a store) had some lovely silk kimonos and such, but not for men, and not for cheap. So, no one is getting a kimono, I am sad to say.

Because traffic was light, we got back to the hotel early, so I had about 4 hours to kill before I had to meet the person who was taking me to the train station. So, I decided to walk to Tienanmen Square, which was not too far away. That is where the fun began.

Tienanmen Square is on the opposite side of the Forbidden City from where I was, and the Forbidden city is quite large. So it was actually a longer walk then I thought it would be (about a half hour). When I got to the courtyard that separates the Forbidden City from Tienanmen Square, the PLA was doing some marching exercises, which I watched, but they had also blocked off Tienanmen Square for their marching. So, there was a huge crowd of people at the gate, which I slowly ambled towards. I should point out that a LOT of people were openly staring at me. In several instances, children would point at me to their parents, and their mom would go "shhhhh" and point them in the other direction. Also in this time period, a pair of women and a man came up to me and started talking to me about my trip, for no reason I could discern, but they were nice enough, and I really like talking to people who live in China, because that's how you learn things.

Anyhow, eventually I got into the square and it is pretty cool. Dead centre in the middle is Mao's Mausoleum (A Mao-soleum if you will). On every side are gorgeous buildings. Also, the army is EVERYWHERE in that square. I was actually kind of sad about that, since I was going to put on my hat and get someone take a picture of me pretending to order students shot. No reason in particular I wanted to do that, since nothing like that ever happened in Tienanmen Square, right Chinese government?

I didn't have much time in Tienanmen square though, because these two Chinese girls started talking to me, and offered to show me around old Beijing, so they could practice their English. This was a pretty awesome idea, since I wanted to see as much as possible, and having a local guide is super cool. Plus it was the same direction as my hotel, and I was pretty sure those two girls couldn't overpower me. I say girls, but they were probably my age.

Anyhow, they showed me around (and Old Beijing is pretty nifty. It is rather old: 600 years in fact). After walking for a while, they said they were tired, so why didn't we stop in this teahouse? I thought that seemed fun, and agreed, but the second I walked in the door, I remembered something that the Aussies had mentioned the day before. They were walking around in Shanghai, when they met some students who took them to a teahouse. Then, they were given various "samples" of tea, asked to buy some, and then informed that the "samples" they had just drank were, in fact, rather expensive. I became very suspicious that this was about to happen to me.

And wouldn't you know it, I was right. I tried some very nice tea, and sampled some very nice fruit. You might know I am not the biggest fan of tea, but that was before I came to Beijing and had some of the best tea in the world. The English can stuff it. The sludge they and the countries they colonized are drinking is nothing compared to some of this tea.

That said, after all was said and done, each cup of tea (I had 8, I think) was 30 yuan ( = $4.10 CAD). That's a pretty steep price to pay for a cup of tea. But when you consider the fact that the tea cups were doll-sized (because they were samples), it becomes ridiculous. They also charge you for the fruit. All told, the bill was 1100 Yuan ($150 CAD). Then, ever so conveniently, the girls didn't have enough to pay for their share, so I had to pay half. I wasn't upset though, and I'll tell you why.

I have now been successfully conned. I don't think it'll happen again. And I don't think I could ask for a better con. In the process of being conned, I got shown around Beijing, drank some excellent tea, and had a nice chat with some locals. (The con, here being that I'm pretty sure those two girls were working with the tea house.)

Anyhow, after that (no I didn't leave immediately. I had already been duped, what more could they possibly do) we wandered around for a little while, and then they stated that I absolutely had to have some Peking Duck, that being the dish that Beijing is famous for. Well, I DID want to try some Peking duck, so we took a taxi to a restaurant, I ordered some duck for me, and some fried rice for them (this was what they were getting out of it). The duck was quite good, and I don't at all regret that part of it.

Afterwards, they helped me get a taxi back to my hotel. Or they kind of did. My hotel was kind of a hole in the wall, so they directed him to take me to the North Entrance to the Forbidden City, which is about a 5 minute walk from my hotel. He took me to this place, let me out, and I found myself promptly lost. You see, I had memorized the way back to my hotel, but I had done so in daylight, and it was now quite dark. I knew I was in the right area, and I knew the name of the street I was looking for, so I decided to walk along the Forbidden City until I found it.

I finally found the street (Jingshan Street, in case you're wondering) and started going down it, only to realize that it definitely was not the right street. At this point, I was late to my hotel to get picked up, lost, and by myself in a dark city whose native language I didn't speak. I was also dressed in a ridiculous manner. Luckily for me, I don't panic until after things have finished happening, because a split second later I figured out that Jingshan was a crescent, and I had come in the other side, so I only needed to keep walking. I made it to my hotel, and my contact took me to the train station.

Once on the train, I sat down in my bunk (which is TINY. They have four people in about the same space as your standard closet.) A family with a crying baby came in and took the other three bunks. I was not impressed. However, the girl from the family asked me, for some reason, if I spoke French, and when I said yes, she asked if I could trade bunks with her grandmother, which I was happy to do. I was also very happy to speak to someone in French. You see, since I've got here, I've been fighting the urge to spout French at the Chinese, because for some reason I think they'll understand. Somewhere deep in my brain is the idea that all non-English languages are the same. So, finally getting to speak French, and to a Chinese person was pretty excellent.

I'll pick up from being on the train in the next post. But first, let me allay some suspicions you might have. The topic of my having a girlfriend is of great interest to the Chinese. And when I tell them I don't have one, they usually call me handsome, and then tell me I should find a nice Chinese girl while I am here. You'd think I'd enjoy being called handsome, but the Chinese say that to everyone, except for Dr. Chen, who thinks everyone is ugly.

The thing with finding a nice Chinese girl while I am here is that according to these same people, in China, if you have a girlfriend, that basically makes her your fiance. Among the things on my list to-do, getting engaged to a girl who doesn't reside in the same country as me, or speak the same language as me is pretty low down. So, instead of fending off offers to help me with my love life, I've started telling people I have a girlfriend. So you know, she is short, skinny, 20 years old and very beautiful. I don't know what her name is, or what she's like, but no one is very interested in her. But she is apparently very lucky to be my girlfriend, because I am such a prime piece of real estate.

Anyhow, my point is I made sure to tell these two Chinese Con artists about my fake girlfriend right away, so they were not at all trying to seduce me into anything. No, it was for pleasant company that I gave away so much money. What's more, I'm pretty convinced it was worth it, although I wouldn't do it again.

At any rate, here are some pictures of the Great Wall and Tienanmen square. My camera ran out of batteries before I could take some pictures of my shyster friends (of course).


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