Advertisement
Published: March 28th 2011
Edit Blog Post
The master and pupil
Making dolls out of noodle dough We are on quite a roll hitting all of the mega cities of Asia—Manila, Taipei, Seoul and now Beijing. It is a far cry from Bora Bora! With all the touring and shopping the ship is pretty quiet at the end of the day. Beijing marks the end of the third segment of the World Cruise so there was a big turnover of guests. We bid farewell to Ken and Shirley and Vic and Mary and Cecile and then headed out to Beijing for an overnight. The port for Beijing is Tianjin and it is one of the largest cities in China. Because of the notorious traffic jams on the highway between the two cities we had thought about taking the train into the Capital. But as it turns out we were fortunate that we took the ship’s two hour shuttle to Beijing. Tianjin has opened a new cruise terminal and it is now an hour’s taxi ride to the train station which costs about $100 and a lot of aggravation for those who chose to take the train.
Regent had arranged for all of the world cruisers to stay at the China World which is a beautiful luxury hotel
in Beijing. As soon as we arrived, Kitty and Suzanne, Kevin and I went off in search of a Peking duck restaurant. We found a good one and filled up on what would now be called Beijing Duck since the Communists changed the name of this city. Then we went to the pearl and silk markets which are multistory buildings--filled with hundreds of individual shops selling their wares. I can’t believe there are enough oysters and silkworms in the world to even supply these markets much less the thousands and thousands of stores just like them all over China. We actually found the best buys on silk products in a small pedestrian subway underneath the Third Ring Road--a place we stumbled upon by chance.
The hotel had a beautiful swimming pool and health spa both of which we needed to get all the smog off of us. While China made a big push in 2008 to clean up the air for the Olympics, it is still plagued with terrible smog and traffic. Residents can only drive in the city on certain days based on the last numbers of their license plates. People are still flooding into the big cities
from the countryside hoping for a better life. There is talk of relaxing the “One Child” policy in this country teeming with billions of people. There is definitely a “One Pet” policy in place in Beijing with heavy fines for offenders.
We read in the local papers about how people were buying up every bag of salt in the country and hoarding supplies due to the radiation threat from Japan. The rumor started that the iodine in salt would save people from the effects of nuclear fallout. The government issued orders forbidding hoarding. The use of certain words in advertising also became prohibited while we were there. Words such as high class, luxury and elite can no longer be used on billboard advertising. Excessively promoting “foreign” things is also banned.
We visited Tian’anmen Square, the Chairman Mao Mausoleum, the Forbidden City and drove by many of the heavily fortified foreign embassies including that of the United States. In spite of his wish to be cremated Mao was embalmed. Crowds of people queue up each day to view the old dictator as he slowly deteriorates. His body is lowered into a refrigerator every night and rumor has it that
he has to go in for periodic maintenance. There is an adage in China called the 70-30 Rule. It is said that Mao was right 70% of the time. Unfortunately the other 30% included disasters like the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward resulting in the deaths of 30-50 million people from starvation.
Much has changed in China since the death of Mao as the People’s Republic has become an economic powerhouse. Bicycles are almost gone from the scene as are the Mao jackets. The Little Red Book is now most popular as a tourist curio. The people strike us as very happy, optimistic and energetic. Repression is not as evident as in past years but the human rights record is not one to be envied. In the last several weeks a number of journalists and activists have been arrested or at least intimidated. The frequent reports of internet blocking have been referred to as the “Great Firewall of China.” The Politburo does not want protests like those that are occurring in the Middle East. We saw several SWAT teams throughout Beijing guarding against any spontaneous demonstrations. China is one of the most complex countries in the world.
In its long history, China has contributed much to the world in arts, philosophy, architecture and commerce. It is a powerful force to be reckoned with and one that should never be underestimated. After all, isn’t everything in the world “Made in China?”
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0345s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb