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Published: October 10th 2011
Nǐmen hǎo wo de péngyoumen hé wo de jiā rén
I am now on the tail end of my orientation to Beijing, and my word, what a reception it has been!
My flight was next to seamless, and I found my way to the hostel with relative ease. The walk from the airport railway station offered an initial taste of the city. At first one says to himself, "it sure is overcast," and in a sense, that's true. But the "fog" is in fact an impermeable layer of smog that grays the sky and reddens the sun no matter the time or place. In the beginning one is constantly wary of lingering smells, everything from strewn street garbage to "nanwen yiqi" (stinky tofu). There are construction projects everywhere. The cityscape transforms from massive streets with underground walkways to rudimentary "hutongs," small avenues that maze in and out of the non-downtown areas. There is no "right of way" between pedestrians, bikes, cars and buses, meaning it's best not to think of the roads as roads, but rather as sections of one massive parking lot.
Arriving at the hostel, I managed to make lively conversation with a young Moroccan woman, 25 years old, named Maryanne. We quickly decided that each of us needed good company to explore the city with, so she became my partner in crime for the next 5 days. We had dinner, found we had common interests across a whole spectrum of literature, music, movies, political opinions, etc. and and promptly resolved to visit the Forbidden City the following day.
The fact that I landed here in the middle of National Week (which is like the Fourth of July, except times 7) meant tourism was rampant--domestic tourism that is. We saw a pervasion of Chinese people visiting their capital city. National Week also explained my informal "orientation" as nearly all of the people I managed to meet over the next few days were college students studying abroad. Most of them go to school in Shanghai, and had to return there once the holidays drew to a close. The city at large has now significantly slowed down.
The Forbidden City proved to be a massive, ancient complex located at the center of Beijing. Looking back on my visit there, I am glad to have confined my major tourist exploits to just a few days. Every popular destination except Tianamen Square and the Chinese National Museum stunk of a parasitic capitalism. It honestly infuriated me. Whatever body of power that ends up managing these "ruins" is interested in leaching each penny of tourist money that they are worth long before it is interesting in respecting the country's heritage. The places are heavily remodeled, and shops are set up everywhere--even in the holy temples themselves--to try and sell you petty trinkets.
Still, if one manages to put all of that out of mind, and has a good imagination, a visit can be fascinating. As the pictures demonstrate, the Forbidden City and The Great Wall are history incarnate. They are vestiges from a completely different time and place. What social, political and economic gravity there must have been, to illicit such awe-inspiring structures! To stand where leagues of armies have stood, to walk where monks would kneel and pray, to wander where royalty once paraded--these were, I cannot deny, treats.
But as I knew from the outset the delight was not so much what I was seeing, but rather how I was seeing, or more specifically, with whom I was seeing. Better company, I could not have been luckier in finding. Mary graduated from high school in Morocco and went to college in Paris. She speaks Arabic, French, English and has the basics of Italian down. Her favorite director is Martin Scorsese. She could easily keep up with me in talking about classic rock, folk and classical, and left me in the dust when it came to discussing jazz. It was interesting talking about politics with her--especially when it came to September 11th and the current situation in the Middle East.
After that first day at the Forbidden City, things more or less socially snowballed. The following day we went to Tianamen Square and the Chinese National Museum with another Moroccan. He happened to be staying at the same hostel and also spoke French, English and Arabic. Together, they managed to put my language skills to shame. Never have I so poignantly felt the American hubris of contentedly sufficing on one language. Of course, it was great fun practicing my French with them, although I flat out lied about how many years I had actually been learning it (they would have abandoned me on the spot if I said four years and was anything less than fluent) Amazingly they didn't think my French accent was terrible, and outright complemented my Chinese accent.
One highlight of that day was the bargaining. For this, I stood back and took notes, because Simo (Simo Mamou was the second Moroccan's name) was a veteran. We went to the "fake market" where small shops sell fake brand name goods for ridiculously excessive prices. Each little stand is run by a young Chinese girl who speaks rudimentary English and looks terribly innocent. And Mary and I nearly died laughing as Simo went toe to toe with them. You knew he struck a good deal when he left the girl utterly pissed off at having struck a fair deal. They were no pushovers! They would guilt-trip you, get angry at you, baby face you, plead with you, hit you and literally corner you--anything to mix emotions with business and take advantage of unknowing foreigners. I myself couldn't help but have a bit of fun with them, though all I bought was a pair of "Adidas" shoes--for 10 USD.
That night we ate with a traveling bunch of Germans, Americans and one guy from Switzerland. They were a nice bunch, and easily impressionable. They were drunk and half way through several courses of Peking duck when we met with them at the restaurant--it made for a fun and talkative night.
If that night was the Germans, the next two days it was the French. The same group of French kids, in fact, who had consistently the hostel up till the wee hours of the morning with drinking, smoking and pool. Mary managed to ask them to let us tag along on their trip to the Great Wall. So we got up at 6:00 in the morning and departed.
These people were characters. Transparent, insecure and completely unhealthy but characters nonetheless. I had great fun analyzing and inserting myself into their group politics. The girls, sauf un, were rather dumb, two of the guys were nice and sported a vulgar humor. The third was subconsciously recognized as the group leader, and probably felt the most threatened by my being there. All of them were chain smokers and alcoholics, or maybe they were just French. For lunch on the Great Wall they brought potato chips, Oreos and beer. C'est la vie!
Perhaps I am too harsh. These people meant well and I was happy to win their friendship. They were tempted to treat me as the "kid" of the group, which I didn't mind. It made for good attention. And they were fond of the opportunity to identify with their own partially lost adventurous, idealistic and innocent selves. I employed some charm and talked in French when I could, and was accepted into their group as the young "americaine."
Saturday was the last day these various groups had to experience Beijing. So Mary and I went to the Summer Palace with an older French sailor named Clement. He was fond of Maryanne. I let the two talk most of the day and kept to myself and my music as we explored the expansive grounds of the Palace. For dinner we had dumplings and discussed the meaning of life.
That night Maryanne and Clement went to the food market, so I hung out with the French kids.
It was 10:00 at night and they invited me to a bar, so I hemmed and hawed, and took the necessary precautions to go out for the night. It turns out we were going to a high brow French bar to meet another group of French college students, one of whom was having a birthday. I got to wish her bon anniversaries and drank a glass of 7 USD per glass chardonnay. My French friends were very protective of me (I was the 'kid' after all) and I received some great lessons good wine. I learned, best of all, that California does in fact have good wine, but only because it imports its grapes from France (this actually makes it French wine).
I talked with a French guy who I supposed typified French attitudes of the Chinese. He mostly offered a condemnation. Of course, some of his negativity could have been prescribed to the fact that he is a young, relatively ignorant man traveling with a familiar group in a foreign environment. Naturally, anybody fitting this personage will tempted to set up an us/them dichotomy between himself and the surrounding populace. And naturally he will take an opportunity to make fun of their way of life when it presents itself.
But beyond this, I got a first hand taste of Franco-European ethnocentrism, some of it legitimate, some of it baseless. This man and his group probably thought--consciously or unconsciously--that the French bar we were at was a haven of culture in a land of savages and barbarians. To a certain extent I could understand this. The almost complete disregard for conventional Western manners takes some getting used to. Burping, unguarded sneezing and spitting abound. And there is a perceptible sense of apathy typical to the Chinese mindset--"anyone who isn't me or my friends is essentially invisible". That very same night, actually, I was walking with Mary down the streets of a hutong, and a car clipped the side of her leg at 10 miles an hour. The man in the car literally looked back, saw the two of us, and drove on. She was OK physically, but was reeling in shock at the sheer effrontery of the act (then again, I have also dropped money and had Chinese citizens pick it up and hand it to me--sweeping allegations are hard to make and ultimately amount to stereotypes).
So my French friend had a point and I played along with him just to see how deep his disenchantment with the Chinese people went. Pretty deep, in fact. He called them stupid and inefficient and offered some pretty lame examples. He was eager to get back to the University in Suzhou, and then back to France. It was a revealing conversation and I was happy to have met him.
We went to a night club, and I, an American, danced to Chinese pop music in a Beijing night club with French college kids. It was...a nice way to bid them farewell.
We took taxis back to the hostel, and Mary gave me a good scolding for going out. Of all the accomplishments in those first 5 days, befriending her is my most treasured example. We talked into the night. When she got back from the market, she had worriedly looked around for me. Clement asked if there was "anything going on between us." This, we laughed at for a while. I am 18 and she 25, she reminded him. We would sooner talk about ourselves within relationships than have then the thought of beginning one enter our minds.
In the morning, I was reminded how much I hated goodbyes. I bade Mary and mes amis Francais au revoir, resolving to meet up with them once I made it to Shanghai.
We'll see what else Beijing has in store for me until then.
Chris Stasse--Happy Chopsticks Hostel, Beijing.
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Sunny
non-member comment
I\'m so glad to read this and hear that you\'re doing well. Not only are you surviving in a \"whole different world\" by yourself, you\'re thriving! Keep making friends and keep having adventures, but also be cautious. Sending millions of good thoughts your way! Keep writing!