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Published: March 8th 2005
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The Great Wall near Beijing
My fingers were nearly frozen, but I took this picture of Dick while we were walking the Wall. The view was great - mountain ranges all around and the wall disappearing in the distance on both sides. The Wall is an unbelievable 4000 miles long, completed over hundreds of years in six Chinese kingdoms to repell invaders from the north. We left the Crystal Serenity shortly after docking in Hong Kong for another overland trip. Coming into Victoria Harbor was quite an experience, as what lay before us was a skyline filled with more enormous beautiful skyscrapers than either of us have ever seen anywhere, including NY City. Unfortunately it was still too dark and smoggy to get good pictures, but still a very impressive sight with all the lights shining like diamonds against the dawn sky. Population of HK is about 7 million, less than NYC, but it has even less land available for building so the tall beautiful buildings are all scrunched together.
Twelve of us were bussed to ultramodern new HK airport for the 3-hour trip to Beijing, north of HK and in inland China. The first thing we learned is that HK and China are still very much separate, with different money (HK dollar vs. the yuan) and, as you no doubt know, different ways of dealing with free enterprise. We were surprised to learn that independent shopkeepers (and their lesser brethren, street vendors) are looked on with great suspicion, as having developed since Communist days out of the “criminal class,” who could not get a
In Tiananmen Square, Beijing
A family picture on a pleasant afternoon in the square. We saw no families with more than one child. Our guide said his young son is "the sun, and we are sunflowers whose faces always turn to him!" respectable government job because of their backgrounds, and therefore had to make a living robbing other people by selling them over priced goods. This sounds good in theory, but we found the respectable government shops sold the same goods as the vendors and charged vastly more for them. However we did follow prudent advice to hold onto our wallets while shopping. The street vendors particularly were as aggressive as the car window cleaners in NYC!
In spite of all these contradictory attitudes, Beijing is obviously flourishing. The streets are lined with busy private stores and shops, along with government department stores and supermarkets. Our expert Chinese guide told us that everything has changed since China began to encourage more free enterprise in late C20. The streets and broad avenues bustle with new cars (not the bicycles of a decade ago), and impressive new skyscrapers are sprouting everywhere. We stayed three nights in the marvelously beautiful 5-star China World Hotel and were served scrumptious western meals the equal of any hotel in the US. It was our base while we visited numerous attractions in the Beijing area - the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, a jade carving shop
Forbidden City
Entrance to the Forbidden City, which faces on Tiananmen Square. An imposing structure that looms over the large square. Think "The Last Emperor." Chm. Mao (pictured) is still highly revered. Standing guard at his nearby tomb is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a Chinese soldier. and lovely old temples and shrines. Fortunately the Cultural Revolution (now recognized as a horrible mistake) didn’t destroy them all, though apparently there was plenty of damage to their historical artifacts.
A section of the 4000 mile Great Wall runs about 40 miles from Beijing. We piled on all the coats and sweaters we had, as BJ was just coming out of a cold spell and there were patches of snow on the ground. The wall was up in mountains, a little like going from Greenville to Asheville, and the wind was fierce. After walking the wall a few hundred yards and admiring the view - including the fantastic sight of that 15-foot wall meandering over neighboring mountain ranges on both sides - we were glad to climb back down and warm ourselves with hot coffee in the government gift shop, where I had my first lesson in buying trinkets there vs. from the vendors lined outside. They have indeed grasped free enterprise with a vengeance, like cockleburs on a fuzzy dog. I found the best way to deal with them was to hold out whatever I was willing to pay for an item, and then walk away when
Confucian Carved Figure
Many of these larger-than-life carved stone figures stood on each side of a very long paved walkway to a temple used only by the emperor and his court for many generations. No woman had ever set foot on the walkway until C20. the vendor insisted on more. The vendor usually ran after me and accepted my offer.
I’ve always wondered how China enforces its one child per family rule. Our guide says having more than one child is not absolutely forbidden, but there are severe penalties. The first child (or twins, etc) has many privileges, such as free education, medical care, access to jobs, retirement benefits, and other goodies. Subsequent children, especially in large metropolitan centers, get none of these. They are doomed to a life of second-class citizenship and often end up in rural areas working on farms. It seems these draconian measures were necessary because for many years, China copied Russia and rewarded "hero mothers" with five or more children. The resulting population explosion then forced even a stubborn beauracracy to change its policies.
After three nights in Beijing we flew back briefly to Hong Kong, had lunch in the airport (a very welcome McDonald’s whopper with fries!) and then flew on to Hanoi in Vietnam, which borders on China. But I’ll save that for another chapter, as we have too many pictures for this one.
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