Beijing Welcomes You... and You and You and You and a Hundred Thousand Other People Too

Our Sunday morning wake-up call was at 6:30 so that we could meet Vivian's classmate Rebecca, a Beijinger who had previously worked as a Forbidden City tour guide. Rebecca's first stop for us was a little restaurant across from the Temple of Heaven where we partook in a typical Beijing breakfast- a breakfast I hope I never have to experience again. To be fair, it wasn't all that bad, just not very suited to my tastes. The best part was the sesame pastry filled with beef. There were also some soybean desserts and something like mashed potatoes in a thick, salty soup. But the real stinker (literally), was a gray milky soup that Rebecca described as "stinky tofu mixed with smelly socks."

After breakfast, we crossed the street to the Temple of Heaven complex, where the Emperor would go through temples from the south to the north to pray for a good harvest, representing his ascent to the heavens. Being sacrilegious, we took the north to south route.

reenacting the Beijing Huan Ying Ni music video

sliding down national treasures seems to be another favorite Asian pasttime

Following the Temple of Heaven, we went to China's national protest stage- Tiananmen Square- where it seemed every Chinese person had also decided to visit. The square, which felt at least as large as a football field, wasn't jam-packed but it was filled with tourists. Unfortunately, the main Tiananmen building as well as the Monument to the People's Heroes were surrounded by scaffolding, as they were being refurbished for the 60th anniversary of the PRC this October. Also unfortunately, we weren't able to see Mao's embalmed body as we would have had to wait behind the hundreds of people already waiting.

You didn't really want to see Mao's face anyway, right?

After pushing our way through the Tiananmen archway, we found ourselves in the pathway leading up to Forbidden City, the same pathway the Emperor used to traverse (actually, be carried along). That day it was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of tourists and littered with trash instead.

It's actually pretty sad that a place which used to be so important and well-preserved is now a veritable dump.

We were especially lucky to have Rebecca around to guide us through the maze which is Forbidden City, as she not only provided historical information, she also showed us the most expedient path through the place.

storm drains

The palace is quite an awe-inspiring production, with its towering walls, gold plated tiles, and majestic staircases. I almost remarked that, unlike Korean palaces, Forbidden City would have been extremely difficult to invade until my Chinese friends reminded me that the British and French actually occupied the palace during the Second Opium War.

Whoever said that Korean palaces and temples all look the same has evidently never been to Forbidden City. While the first few structures were amazing to behold, the law of diminishing returns eventually kicked in, and once we got to the third or so building which looked exactly the same as the first two, I really couldn't care less.

People kept swarming to take pictures of the insides of the buildings, even though most of the time there was nothing more than a few chairs inside. I got pushed up against more hot, sweaty bodies that day than I ever thought possible.

After the monotony of the palace structures, the clock museum inside Forbidden City was an unexpected highlight. The clockmakers of the 17 and 1800's crafted some incredibly elaborate and sophisticated timepieces, which were all the more amazing considering the fact that they had no computer technology to aid them, only gears and sprockets.

One of the clocks featured hopping birds and flowing rivers, another an elephant which would pull a chariot along a track. Yet the most impressive clock was one which contained a seated figure which would actually write out various Chinese characters onto a small piece of paper whenever the clock chimed.

One of our latter stops in Forbidden City was the concubine quarters. These were behind the largest wall in the entire complex (as seen below), apparently to keep an angry/jealous empress from getting in and starting a girlfight.

These pots actually had a two-fold purpose, neither of which involved playing hide-and-seek: one, they could be filled with hot water to provide warm spots during the winter, and two, they could be filled with any sort of water to be used in case of fire, which the residents of FC were constantly afraid of

Vivian and Rebecca, having lived in Hong Kong for two years, had picked up the brisk walk and unending stamina associated with the island and kept wanting to see more and more, while Sutong and I, influenced by the "lazy American" attitude, were drained and kept waiting for the tour to end.

At long last, we emerged from the back gate of Forbidden City, from which we traveled to a hutong, an alley-sort of street which is historically where Beijingers have lived. Nowadays, they seem to be catering more towards foreign tourists, with restaurants offering Western food and souvenirs.

Next, we had dinner at a place called "Jing Wei Lou" near our hotel, which I would strongly recommend to anyone visiting Beijing. While the flour dishes like the dumplings and green onion pancakes were average, the toffee-glazed sweet potatoes should be as much of a must-eat as Peking duck.

donkey meat tasted slightly of liver

kung pao chicken, vegetables, and toffee-glazed sweet potatoes

I'm really thankful we had sunny weather and clear blue skies that weekend in Beijing- apparently both are relatively rare in the city- and it was great to be able to see the famed capital for myself. Nevertheless, by the time I landed back in Seoul Monday, I was glad to be back in the clean, modern, [mostly] efficient, and more compact city. Beijing certainly boasts power, grandiosity, great bargains, and great food, but it also suffers from its huge size, overcrowding, brusque attitudes, and relative inefficiency. It seems to me that Korea's small size, which I had previously seen as a negative aspect, is actually a boon. People in Korea seem to be united by various strands of Korean culture (including, but not limited to, Kpop, dramas, hagwons, and Starcraft), while China is home to so many people from varied racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds that it's much more difficult to pinpoint definitive commonalities linking Chinese people together.

Asian Vacation Part II

The Mutianyu portion of the Great Wall is a little more out of the way than other parts of the wall, but it is also the area Bill Clinton visited during his China trip, so it's not altogether removed from civilization either. When Clinton came, he went up to the wall via an enclosed trolley car. While acrophobic Sutong wanted to follow Clinton's path, Vivian and I preferred the ski lifts and convinced him it would be more fun.

I had pretty low expectations for the Great Wall- after all, I'd seen plenty of walls in my life. Perhaps because of this, the wall ended up being my favorite part of the trip. In real life, the fortification was jaw-droppingly beautiful, and exploring the watchtowers and climbing the giant steps were adventures in themselves.

我看不懂中文

Thankfully, the steps weren't actually this absurdly challenging to climb, though it felt like it at times

Some of the wall's steps were so large and at such a steep incline that I had the sensation of feeling like a baby climbing up a giant staircase.

Apparently the wall has divided the countryside for so long that the vegatation on one side is distinctly different from that on the other.

The best part of the wall was the section past the "No admittance" sign, where someone had graciously carved out a narrow, narrow path through the overgrown shrubbery to the ruins of a wall watchtower. It was in that section which had been undisturbed by modern-day meddling, where I felt I could experience the "real" wall. I should note that many portions of the Great Wall have been restored, so it seems Korea is not alone in perfecting the great art of rebuilding and replicating.

yes that is Sutong's shoulder, and yes he is carrying a purse

Once we had finished traversing the wall, we rode wheeled toboggans along a giant metal slide all the way down the mountain.

"Asian vacations," as opposed to American vacations, require one to fill one's day with as much as is physically possible and then some, so immediately after the Great Wall, we rented bikes and rode over to visit the famed Beijing universities.

Being virtually ignorant of the Chinese university system, I honestly didn't think Qinghua and Beijing Universities were such a big deal, but according to Sutong they're like the MIT and Harvard of China, respectively. Both schools were teeming with tourists snapping pictures like crazy, especially at each of the main entrances. I was especially struck by the extensive gardens on each campus- if I hadn't known better I'd have thought the colleges were national parks instead.

Qinghua main field

The famed South gate of Qinghua, where countless little kids were taking pictures in hopes of someday attending the school

A recently constructed building at Qinghua, made entirely from materials imported from the U.S. We overhead a tour guide saying that they were trying to replicate Columbia's library.

Vivian also got yelled at for standing on this lawn, as grass in China is not to be stood upon.

Lake at Qinghua

a classroom building at Beijing University- Sutong said most of the students at Beijing U are working to go to grad school in the US and eventually become professors there

Rather uncoincidentally, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Sun have set up divisions right across the street from Qinghua, making it convenient to recruit the brilliant techies the school churns out.

For dinner, we stopped at Quan Ju De Peking Duck restaurant on the first floor of the Microsoft building. Quan Ju De was one of two original Peking Duck restaurants, and has now become so successful (from feeding millions of hungry tourists, no doubt) that they've built chains throughout the city and are even publicly traded.

The meal was a fairly elaborate affair- after the waitress brought our cooked duck out to our table, the chefs meticulously sliced each part of the animal. First, the best skin was served, followed by a few plates of skin and meat, the head and breast, and finally a soup made from the duck bones.

Even though our servers were far from satisfactory and lied to us a number of times, that didn't detract significantly from our enjoyment of the food. I'd say the duck lived up to the hype, and each bite was like an explosion of oil in my mouth.

And now for a change of scenery

Last Friday I finished my last classes and said goodbye to my English class of future Parliamentarians rather unemotionally before rushing off to the airport in order to catch my flight to Beijing. The whole trip to China is such a blur and I went through it in such a sleep-deprived state that sometimes I question whether it really happened.

I touched down in the Beijing airport around 8 pm and followed Sutong's directions to the hotel he had made reservations at. I had been hoping that my one year of Mandarin would instantly return to me the second I entered the country, but alas, virtually none of it did and I had to resort to mixing English and Chinese phrases which were met with confounded looks by those I attempted to speak to.

Upon hitting the Beijing streets, I was amazed at how refreshing it was to see dirty streets and poor workers eating on the side of the road. I remember when I first arrived in Seoul I asked Janice where the ghetto areas were, and she said the closest thing would be some rundown houses near the N tower in the middle of the city. I've found that Seoul really is lacking in the "ghetto" department, aside from the goshitel I had originally planned on staying in, which was inhabited by poor migrant workers.

And in actuality, the Hou Hai area where our hotel was located in Beijing was ghetto only in comparison to Seoul- it's home to Chinese celebrities and the Beijing elite as well. Once I managed to find the hotel and get settled, Sutong, his girlfriend Vivian, and I set out to the lakeside where a number of jazz-club like establishments were situated (and playing songs that were popular in 2006 Kyrgyzstan like "Gasolina" and "Boro Boro")

Sometime during the course of our conversation, the topic of Koreans came up. Vivian explained that a popular Chinese slang word is a word that sounds like "dee-yeah," which is hard to define in English, but usually means "cute" in a good or a bad way- i.e. whiny Korean voices, couples wearing matching clothes. Apparently, it also applies to Taiwanese people as well- one Taiwanese singer on the radio had a "dee-yeah" voice.

Another slang word introduced to me was the word "niu," which literally means cow, but which figuratively means "cool."

For my first meal in Beijing, I had the chance to try authentic Chinese zhajiang mian in its country of origin. Strangely, I've heard both Koreans and Chinese declare that their country created zhajiangmian/jajjangmyeon and that the other country could not possibly have the same dish. Sometimes I feel like Asia is one big high school and each country is its own little social clique.

The salty Chinese zhajiang mian was initially much better than the sweet Korean jajjangmyeon, but after a few bites it felt like a stroke waiting to happen.

the view outside our hotel room

one of the lakes by our hotel

We had originally planned to get up at 5:30 the next morning to head to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. That didn't happen, so at 8:30 we departed for the wall. On our way through the Beijing countryside, we stopped at a restaurant where you could catch and then immediately eat your own fish.

Sutong actually caught our fish- I just pretended like I was helping

A pretty cow place to eat

To Be Continued

Wanderings

Lately I've been exploring the fortresses around Seoul. First up was Hwaseong Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage site which is about half an hour southwest of Bundang. The entire structure, which dates back to the Joseon period, is huge, so I only had a chance to the visit the haenggung, or "detached palace" where the king would conduct business when he traveled to the fortress.

Some say that once you've seen one Korean palace you've seen them all, but I would respectfully disagree. I've found that despite the common colors, shapes, and patterns, each palace has its own distinct character. For example, Hwaseong Haenggung featured more of everyone's favorite mannequins than the other palaces.

The king's father had been imprisoned in this wooden chest when he was a boy because his father felt he was unfit to be king

mannequins celebrating the king's mother's birthday

someone forgot to finish these mannequins

As luck would have it, there was a film crew on site the day I visited. I'm not sure what they were filming, but it was an interesting glimpse into the world of Korean film. The only thing that seemed to be missing was a craft service table with kimchi and ddukbokki.

The palace looks pretty impressive, right? Just like a page right out of a history book? I thought so too- until I went to the info center and found out that almost the entire structure was a REPLICA which had been completed around 2005. Most of the palace had either fallen into disarray or been destroyed during the Japanese occupation. At least it gave some Koreans a chance to practice making replicas.

In between fortress hopping, I paid a visit to Cheong Wae Dae, the "Blue Roof House" where the South Korean President lives and works. It was pretty underwhelming. The tour guide basically showed us the President's park, then walked us by a couple buildings before calling it a day.

Supposedly this tree is very old and famous

No sightings of President Lee Myung-bak

The next fortress on my agenda was Namhansanseong, the forest-mountain fortress. This defensive structure was built to protect Seoul from southern invaders and now seems to be a favorite hiking spot for old Korean men and women. The low fortress wall follows the entire mountain range, encircling a small traditional town and other temples and structures.

Korea's very own [semi] Great Wall
Seoul skyline through the smog

lookout tower on the west side

Sadly, there were no mannequins at Namhansanseong, but I think the scenery more than made up for it.