Beijing - First Impressions Confirmed

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We had a late start this morning, taking our time to recover from the process of making our way from Vietnam, and relishing in the comfort of our first real bed in a couple of days. We headed out at about 11, into central Beijing to the main shopping strip. We visited a really flash (and absolutely massive!) shopping centre on Wangfujing St (the best part was definitely finding a Transformers Display where I could have my photo taken next to a big cardboard cut-out of Optimus Prime), then we went outside and walked along the street, when we stumbled across a massive bookshop where… you guessed it!... we were able to proudly purchase of THE LATEST AND FINAL HARRY POTTER BOOK!!!!! YEAH!!!! We knew China had to be good for something! This was the definite highlight of the day!

After this, we stopped to buy some of the most fragrant Jasmine Tea from Fu’s Tea Shop (apparently quite a famous tea shop in Beijing). It was pretty cool because they give you samples cups of all the teas they sell so it was quite fun to walk around the shop getting to taste so many different teas. Once we tried the Jasmine, we couldn’t help but buy some. It was beautiful.

Then we headed over to Tiananmen Square which was both moving and strangely cold. It felt odd to be at this famous and iconic site, one which is so closely associated with, and symbolic of, the violent, ruthless and oppressive Chinese regime… It felt strange because no one else seemed to be noticing this… We felt like there should be some memorial or something, to recognise those who were killed on this square, but instead all we could see were Chinese flags being waved by other tourists which, combined with the backdrop of the massive portrait of Mao on the front wall of the Forbidden City across the road, made us feel queasy. It is like everyone is just oblivious to the history, and to the present.

The Forbidden City seemed interesting but was quite expensive and incredibly busy and in the heat of day we weren’t really in the mood to negotiate thick and sweaty crowds… So we took in what we could of the free sections and then ventured to the big park next to the Forbidden City to grab an ice-cream and a seat in the shade. Much nicer… and fewer Chinese flags in our faces, so we were happy for the break.

We rounded out the day with a fruitless search for a vegetarian restaurant that was recommended by Lonely Planet. We walked for an hour and a half, checked and rechecked our map, but concluded that the place we wanted was in the location of a brand new park (which covered the entire block), another victim of the Olympic preparations. We discovered today that there are many such examples of this ‘progress’ as we walked past entire blocks, or series of blocks, that had been walled off… through the gaps we could see houses and buildings reminiscent of those we saw on our initial taxi ride in Beijing, all marked for demolition in favour of whatever else will look impressive to tourists and the world’s cameras come 2008 - like more parks, I guess, such as the ones that had replaced the buildings we had been searching for. One shop we passed had a sign on it pleading with people to take up their cause against the government, who were planning to demolish their property, which had been their home and shop for over twenty years, and create another new park in its place. The same fate seems to have befallen some other eateries that we looked for too, in whose place all we could see were more recently erected massive walls that blocked off everything within them. We wondered what has happened and what will happen to all the people whose homes and businesses are destroyed in preparation for the Games. All these observations, combined with the knowledge of what the Chinese Government has done and is doing to the people of Tibet, made us feel very unsettled and reinforced our reasons for not really wanting to be there, except as a stepping stone on to the Trans Mongolian Railway.

If you’re interested to find out more about our objections to China, specifically in relation to its treatment of Tibet, check out the website of the Australia Tibet Council.

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Comments

[The Daft Wonder]

TRANSFORMERS
We all LOVE Transformers. Optimus Prime is excellent but I do love Bubble bee as well. Extreme envy as you got to have a photo next to Optimus Prime (even though it was only a cardboard cut out). Must also say...overwhelmed with joy that I know that there are others out there who are as geeky as me, just needing to have the last Harry Potter book. Geeks UNITE!! :-D