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Published: June 22nd 2009
Beijing was a lot of fun! The city was amazing; there was so much to see that a weekend just wasn’t enough. The city was everything that a bustling metropolis should be; there were all kinds of shops, sights, scenes, and restaurants. I was really impressed, so I plan on going back on another weekend to see more. Maybe I’ll bring my computer with me next time so I can write about my experiences every evening. It’s hard to recall two days worth of sights and actions in a lot of detail, especially about specific points. That kind of blog would be too long, and it would go off on tangents too often. I’m worried that it might drag.
Well, we (my classmates and I) arrived on Friday evening, and had a meal of Peking Duck to kick things off. Even though the restaurant that we ate at was very nice and apparently famous for their duck, I really didn’t like the duck that much. I’ll try it one more time before I completely write it off though.
After dinner, we all went to see a Chinese opera at the Beijing Opera House. The first section of the opera
was short. It was a skit about a young nun who slipped away from the nunnery in secret to pursue her her object of affection, a young scholar named Pan. This skit featured the nun and a comical, old boatman. This skit was very beautiful, even if it was fairly simple. The second part of the opera was completely unrelated to the first, but it was incredible! This portion of the opera was about the Buddha sending 18 Arhat warriors to arrest the Monkey King for his transgressions, but of course the Monkey King used his magical powers and kung fu to beat every one. It was *very* cool. I would like to return to the opera house to buy a copy of the play or to see more; it was that good.
After the opera, we went to the hotel, which was also really nice. The bed was firm, but unlike the beds in our dorm room, I couldn’t feel the springs. The beds also had the fluffiest pillows, and the most amazing comforters… also unlike the bedding in our dorm rooms. We stayed here briefly before heading out for the night. It wasn't as interesting as I
would have hoped, so I don't want to spend too much time talking about going out at night in Beijing. Instead I’ll sum up two nights worth of going out on the town by saying this: apart from being expensive and often times grossly over priced, the clubs that we went to in Beijing seemed to be almost identical to each other and yet they were separate business. The clubs had similar lay outs, similar themes, similar cover charges, played the same kind of music, and were equally over crowded crowded. I remember one place where you we couldn't even walk in through the front door because literally every square inch of the floor was covered with people and the crowd was spilling out on to the street. Speaking of music, I also didn’t like their DJ style. If you go out in the US, the DJ will play a full song, or the'll at least play close to a full song before moving on to another one. In Beijing, many of the DJs spent at most a minute or two on a song before moving on. Some of the people I was with liked this style, but I was
really annoyed. I was annoyed because they kept playing songs that I liked, and then changing the song a minute or so into it. In this aspect, I much prefer Tianjin, but then again there’s a lot that I haven’t seen in Beijing. I wanted to see a live band, but we didn't hear of any one who was playing. These were all places that had been highly recommended by different travel books and people who've come to Beijing before. Hmmm...
Actually, the first night after going out, me and three other people decided to stay up long enough to go to Tienanmen Square to see a ceremony which is apparently called “the changing of the guard,“ or at least we called it that amongst ourselves. Now the changing of the guard happens every morning at sunrise in Tienanmen Square. As the sun rises, rows and rows of Chinese soldiers march out in very precise fashion and raise the flag to the national anthem. It’s much cooler looking than I described, and every morning the square is absolutely crowded with people who show up for the event. We weren’t sure what to expect this particular morning, and after paying
a 33 Yuan cab fair to get to Tienanmen, we completely missed the whole thing. Actually, that’s a lie - we got there in time to hear the national anthem start up and to see a flag raising in the distance, but that was it; I was really upset.
To get into Tienanmen Square for the changing of the guard, you obviously have to pass a security checkpoint which seemed surprisingly low tech and uninvolved. Basically you walk through the gate where there is one, MAYBE two soldiers/ guards standing guard. If you have a bag, you put it on one of those sliding, scanner things that they use at the airport, and I don’t remember seeing any metal detectors. Well, the people who hadn’t passed the checkpoint and who were watching from outside of the fence started jumping the low rising barrier after the ceremony ended. All seemed to be going well for them until a soldier started marching menacingly towards the trespassers. No one wanted to challenge the soldier, and all the Chinese people ran to jump back over the fence. Actually, I noticed that the guards didn’t seem to have any weapons on them, not even
Flag raising grounds
This is just before the ceremony began.the guards at the security checkpoints. At most I remember seeing a guy standing near what appeared to be a fire extinguisher though it was probably full of tear gas or something, so all they really could do was march towards people and stare them down, haha~ I don’t know, but this just seems funny to me. Because so many people have a view of the Chinese government, and in particular the military as being oppressive, this is quite the dichotomy. I mean, the men involved in the actual flag changing ceremony carried rifles, but at this point that just seemed ceremonial.
Well, then the cops came and starting telling people to cross to the other side of the street, so every one crossed the street. It wasn’t because any one was in trouble; they were just clearing the street so the day could begin. As we were walking up the side walk across from Tienanmen Square looking to catch a cab home, we saw a man jumping over another fence for another military building. Man - that guy really launched himself over that fence; I think he rolled in mid air. We were just walking onto this scene
The ceremony begins!
So a bunch soldiers marched in rows very precisely out of the building behind them. It had the robust air of watching a football team bust out of the dressing rooms at the beginning of a game... but not quite. when this happened, and the event was blocking our way to the main road. We saw a man in a white, long sleeve, button up shirt and black pants pursuing him (in that menacing marching fashion) from inside of the fence. The man in the button up shirt started yelling at the middle aged man who had jumped the fence, but all the middle aged man did was kneel. Did he say anything in response? I think he might have, but I can‘t remember what. We noticed that the perpetrator was holding a picture of some one who we assumed was a family member. We imagined that this man was protesting something that the government did; perhaps they had imprisoned the person in their picture? Well, then the guard who the man in the button up shirt had been standing by marched over and began interrogating the fence-jumping man - and then yet another soldier came from out of no where and started interrogating the man. We got out of there, but as we were walking away, we turned to see the fence jumper being directed down the street by the guard. We don’t know what happened to him afterward,
but it didn’t look like the soldiers were going to do anything with him other than yell at him and make him leave.
After this we went to sleep briefly, and skipping over the details of my sleep schedule, I spent the rest of the day at the infamous silk market. Now I had been told that this silk market was an amazing place that had everything you could ever hope to find for super cheap. This was not the case. The jewelry looked cheap (except for the stuff on the top floor), and many of the vendors sold the same type of stuff. Even the knock offs weren’t that good for the most part. I mean, I’m pretty sure that Gucci and Coach never paired up to make a purse, let alone one that was made out of a poor material that felt like a potato sack. This is coming from some one who doesn't even pay attention to purses.
Now, this isn’t a subject that I have talked about before, but I’ll talk about it now. Even though I like Chinese people in general, I do not like Chinese merchants at all. They are the most
dishonest, money hungry people you will ever meet. You will NEVER find a Chinese merchant who will be willing to give you a fair deal on a product, at least not if you’re not a foreigner. They will try to take you for all that you got, and it’s your job as the consumer to relentlessly fight for a lower price. Now I’ve had to barter in Chinese thus far, but surprisingly all of the merchants in the Silk Market spoke really good English, at least it’s good enough to tell you that a cheaply made pair of boots that are made out of leather and lined with faux-fur are made out of real leather and fur and should cost well over 800 Yuan. For as much as I dislike Chinese merchants because I think that it’s fundamentally wrong to prey on people, I have to say that for the most part I much prefer shopping China. You really have to hunt for your buy. That part's fun.
You’ll walk around one whole floor full of merchants all selling the exact same product, and each merchant will try to convince you that their cheap plastic fans which have cheap
paper glued on to p;astic frames are different from the plastic, glue and paper fans sold by other merchants and are of better quality. This happened today when a man bought a robe for his sister. He showed the robe to a woman who was trying to sell him the same product at a higher price and she insisted that her robe was different and of better quality even though they were the exact same product from the same manufacturer. Sometimes they will tell you that an item is name brand. This happened when I went to buy a hair clip for my bangs - they told me that the hair clip was name brand even though it was a obviously a simple, cheap piece of plastic and you could see the glue from where it had been put together. As I said, I wasn’t really impressed with the items being sold here. The quality was pretty bad, and in most cases, I’d be willing to pay more for better quality, but I did find some really neat things.
Well, we spent a LONG time on silk street because we were waking from floor to floor (I think there are six or seven floors), the whole while comparing the prices of different vendors, and bartering. I think I spent at least 20 minutes bartering for one of the items I bought, but before I bought this product, I spent at least 20 minutes bartering for a similar item. As I said, this process can take a LONG time. After we finished with Silk Street on Saturday, we played Chinese chess, and then weghad some dinner at a Korean barbecue which was delicious… then we went out again… and then we stayed up again to see the changing of the guard, and this time we actually made it! Woo! We saw the whole thing!
I think the ceremony took place around 4:45, but my friends and I arrived as early as 4:00 and it was already getting crowded! Actually, the changing of the Guard was a lot like a rock concert, only with out screaming. Every one squeezed in, and began pulling and pushing their way through the crowd to get as far up front as they could. It was super crowded! As it turns out, we were the only foreigners present which is surprising because there are a lot of foreigners in Beijing, and I would have thought that this ceremony would have been a huge tourist attraction. I noticed this the first time that we came to Tienanmen the morning before. The people in the crowd were staring at us; they completely did not expect to see a bunch of white people there. I think even the guard in front of us was staring, but it’s hard to tell because it’s their job to stand in place, and not move. I think a lot of the people were too afraid to squeeze us white people in too much, but our Korean friend was not so lucky. Because he was a "fellow" Asian, the Chinese people in the crowd obviously felt more inclined to try jerking him out of the way. The changing of the guard was very cool. I took a lot of pictures during the ceremony, but as it turns out, once the ceremony ends, you’re not allowed to take any more pictures of the soldiers. If you try, you won’t get in trouble, they’ll just move a little further down their post away from you. Well, I don’t know what would happen if you were really persistent about it. Then you might get in trouble, but we weren’t exactly persistent, haha~
After the changing of the guard, we went to sleep for a bit before packing up to leave the hotel. We didn’t have much time in Beijing on Sunday, so I’m going to go back for another weekend sometime to see Tian Tan and other things. I can see the Great Wall in Tianjin, so I won’t worry about that too much.
I've uploaded some pictures from the flag raising ceremony that we called "changing the guard" as well as a clip of Monkey king battling Buddha's arhat warriors (arhats are like holy men). Unfortunately for some reason I lost the sound for this video, so feel free to play what ever you think suits it while you watch, haha~
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judy
non-member comment
Beijing
wow, your trip sounded fun..when watching the changing of the guard on t.v., it looks so intimidating..when i used to barter in italy, i would just start walking away if i didnt get my price, then they would give in and give me the price i wanted to pay..it is alot of fun!!!..just a game...