Nihau from China

Hey guys,

After a much needed nap once reaching our hotel in Beijing, I woke up to the sounds of foreign tongues on the other side of the door and incessant honking outside.
China is the closest I've been to being a true foreigner, aside from being in the Dominican Republic. Every sign is in a languange that I can't even begin to understand, the people look at Conor and I like we are these rare and tall, light-haired aliens - and they have no qualms about staring. The streets are busy with pedestrians, cyclists and cars who, getting dangerously close to one another, don't care about each other and where or how fast they are going -- but somehow you don't see accidents every three seconds. It just works out for them. I think that everyone is so used to living so closely in this communist setting that they are accustomed the proximity and so know just hot close they can get before hitting.

Walking the streets, action comes from all angles so you need to keep your eyes looking about you -- making it difficult to concentrate on one thing that you're actually interested in.
Little kids have slits in the back of their pants (manufactured this way) which allows parents to save on diapers and lets the child relieve themselves whenever they feel the call. Yesterday we even saw a father holding his kid over the gutter so that there was nothing to clean up I suppose. We read that the Chinese government is urging people to stop this habit. I mean, China's role in the world is becoming quite significant, you can't have kids taking the call on the sidewalk in front of you.

We arrived in one of the cleanest airports I've ever seen, driven to the hotel on major and clean highways (being maintained by someone with a mask and a broom), and now walk the streets where construction workers mix concrete on the sidewalk itself, women do laundry in the gutter and kids walk around with slits in their pants. In most places you see people preparing for the Olympics with street sweepers, construction everywhere you turn, and money going into huge projects -- but the contrast with even just the street our hotel is on ( in the city, not rural) is astonishing, these people don't have money. I think that I imagined this situation in China somewhere but not right in Beijing.

I keep trying to get some good shots of people and the surroundings but I look SO out of place here that the camera just cramps my style even more because everyone looks at what you're taking the photo of, especially the person you may be taking it of. I'll get over it. Wo keyi pai ni ma?

Conor and I ventured to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Prior to leaving we thought we'd 'Google' the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 just to get a bit more background about it - but all access was denied to sites saying more than just that the Square is a tourist destination due to its place in politics and the area where nations meet. It was Chinese censorship at its best. It's funny that on the surace everything looks fine here, but if you go just a little deeper you can see the amount of control the government has over its people. I've never felt so controlled in my life. In Canada you can learn anything you want to.
It was stunning to walk into the scene of Mao's portrait with massive and domineering red flags looking over the Square. Soliders march everywhere you look as it is a place of strict control while still allowing thousands of tourists walk around within the chaos of thousands more tourists.
Tianenman Square occupies about 400,000 sq.m. and was originally the gateway to the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City). Now it's famous for the location where Chairman Mao declared the foundation for the People's Republic of China in 1949. In Mao Zedong Memorial Hall you can go and see his preserved body in a crystal sarcophogus. We climbed to the area of the Tiananmen where Mao made all of his speeches from. Very cool. Chairman Mao is an important figure for the Chinese people because he represents the rise of the Communist ideal in China as the leader of the Communist Party. Although critiqued for his methods these days, 30 years after his death he is still a very important person to the Chinese people -- you see photos, T-shirts, watch-fabs, lighters, and anything with a surface illustrating how he is still venerated today.
The Forbidden City, or originally the Imperial Palace was the home and ritual center of the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. It was completed in 1420 and covers 1,000,000 sq.m. Filled with many Halls of various names (i.e. the hall of supreme harmony, the hall of literary brilliance) they are now home to over 1.5 million objects of the Imperial era (war and lifestyle) as it now acts as a museum -- The Palace Museum. Conor and I were tired so we didn't explore the entire Palace, and as most of Beijing, parts were under contruction. Still, the intricate artwork and vastness still shone through the scaffholding.
(photos to come when we get to a faster computer)

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