Do's and Don'ts

There’s a reason stereotypes will always exist. For one, they are usually fact 90% of the time. For two—when they do pull through, nothing makes for a better laugh. When we think of the Chinese in particular, one such stereotype comes to mind: the peace sign. Hippies love the peace sign because it means peace; the deep love Chinese people share towards the peace sign is akin to the way we cherish religion. It’s similar to a smile in America, no picture will suffice without one.

This brings me to my next point. I decided that most people who read this blog are looking for entertainment and knowledge, both of which I have proven to lack. However, I thought if I could compile a list of do’s and do not’s, this blog might miraculously become useful if anyone were to every venture off into this faraway land. So here they are:

Do’s:

1. Bring your own food in case of emergency (aka- every day you care to eat).
2. Hold up peace sign in every picture you take or you will be frowned upon.
3. Understand that no matter how hungry you are, you will see something at any given restaurant that will change that quickly.
4. Always give yourself an hour cushion to travel anywhere—even if it’s across the street.
5. Realize that when everyone in a given area says good morning to you, it’s not because they are friendly, but rather because they want to impress their friends with their fluent English.

Do Not’s:

1. Do not come to China if you are overweight or again, you will be frowned upon.
2. Do not expect much in terms of Fire Codes and Handicap-friendliness.
3. Do not be alarmed if you see a baby defecating next to a statue of Mao Ze Dong. The reason being that babies defecate everywhere and statues of Mao are everywhere—it’s the law of percentages; if babies poop everywhere and there are statues of Mao everywhere, babies much poop near statues of Mao right? Right.
4. Do not expect to be anywhere public with less than 30,000 people staring at your every move. If you’re black, increase that number 10-fold.
5. Do not laugh at someone’s shirt because it has poor grammar; you know that shirt you have at home with Chinese symbols on it? It probably says something along the lines of “I sleep with monkeys.” Seriously.

I hopefully will have more to come. These are the most prevalent for now. But now I shall elaborate a little more.

 Food in China literally means the nearest thing that someone in history has attempted to stomach. A picture in China isn’t a picture without a peace sign (please see below). A dead animal hanging in the window of the restaurant is not uncommon. It takes 4 times as long as expected to get anywhere in this place. Chinese people treat overweight people as though they are African American’s living in Mississippi in the 30’s. Walking into a tunnel with 1,000,000 other people is not considered dangerous, but rather a “light crowd” (please see below). And my personal favorite—everyone wears shirts that could say just about anything as long as it looks relatively English, it’s fashionable.

Yesterday was fun, I was sick most of the day but luckily it was only food poisoning. I am hoping a quarantine official won’t show up anytime soon. I felt better towards the end of the day and went to a Yunan Province style restaurant. It was extremely spicy, not very easy on the stomach, delicious nonetheless.

This morning I woke up around 0700 and went to a Catholic Church called St. Michael’s. It was built in 1901 by a French priest. The mass was entirely in Chinese which was an awesome experience. It seemed in line with the Vatican, but then again, I couldn’t understand much. After Church I decided to check out Tiananmen which I quickly realized was a terrible idea during the Fall Festival because of the ridiculous amount of people everywhere. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been surrounded by so many people in my life. One of the pictures below shows hordes of people trying to cross the street through a tunnel. A terrorist’s dream! I saw a pretty overweight kid out here and felt really bad for him. People stared at him like he was some sort of anomaly which I guess in China he pretty much is. Of course every child below the age of 15 (exaggeration) has their seam on the butt cut out so they can turn everything from a planter to a watering hole into a toilet. I thought taking a picture of that could be seen as child pornography so I erred on the side of not being imprisoned and decided against it.

Enjoy the pictures, I’ll try to keep them coming!

Michael

Pictures:

1. Token Peace Sign Girl #1

2. Token Peace Sign Girl #2 (Keep in mind, I don't look for these people, they just pop up in random pictures because they are everywhere!)

3. St. Michael's Catholic Church

4. Barbecued Congo Eel with Wikipedia (Sounds delicious)

5. Scorpions anyone? These weren't cooked yet so most were still thrashing about.

6. Way too many people trying to go into a way too small tunnel at Tiananmen.

7. Duck hanging in the window of a delicious restaurant, right next to our table.

I Forgot How Much I Love This Place

There’s not much going on in Beijing at 6:00 am, but I made do. I decided I would return to my old stomping grounds from last year and pay my respects. Er Li Zhuang, it’s called, and it hasn’t changed a bit. I decided against showing up at my host family’s house and surprising them since I don’t know if they would recognize me and might possibly call the authorities. Instead, I headed for the train station, Beijing West, in search of a ticket to Tibet.

It’s amazing how there appear to be more buses on the streets in Beijing than people, yet for some reason no matter where you want to go, it takes at least a mile of walking to get there after riding 13 different buses. I finally made it to the train station though and asked about 45 people where I could get a Tibet Travelers Permit; not a single one had any idea what I was talking about.

This is where being 100% fluent in a language proves a lot more useful than being 50%. I decided the train station was not the place I needed to be and instead headed for the hotel where I could use my broken Chinese to converse with their broken English.

Apparently the Chinese really don’t mess around when it comes to holidays. Communist China’s 60^th anniversary isn’t October 1^st, but rather October 1 – 10. Convenient. Now, this might seem pretty cool for the 30 million people or so living in Beijing, but it’s really rough for me considering not a single travel agency is open between now and the day I leave for New Zealand. Luckily, desperate businessmen do exist in Beijing.

I got in contact with one travel agency by calling the guys cell phone. He gave me the run down that China doesn’t allow any foreigners to visit Tibet without a tour guide and a traveler’s permit. However, traveler’s permits usually take up to 10 days to get, leaving me basically out of luck. He said he would see what he could do but I have a really strong feeling it isn’t much. 

In order to get my taste of Chinese history for the day, I decided it was my time to be enlightened by the Temple of Heaven. Now, let me explain something about Chinese architecture and how unique it is. The first couple important places are amazing. For example, when I first saw the Summer Palace and Tian’anmen, I was in awe. But after a while, it seems like every important ancient building starts to look the exact same. I don’t mean to downplay these places because they are all quite amazing and the history is pretty awesome, but at the same time, it seems like the only thing that catches my attention anymore is the historical aspect of it all.

The name “Temple of Heaven” sets a standard that really makes it difficult for the place to exceed or even meet expectations. It was beautiful no doubt, very relaxing because it was almost entirely covered in gardens and trees. Apparently it used to be the Emperor’s religious center. Now it’s just filled with old Chinese people dancing and doing tai chi—go figure. I guess that’s what happens when Communism virtually wiped all religions off the map in the past 60 years.

Now I’m sitting here, all alone, peering out over the skyline of Beijing wishing I could be riding on a train to Tibet. If anyone has any connections in the government out here, please try and help me out. But whatever you do, don’t tell them you found out I needed help when you read my illegal blog!

Thanks, rather Xie Xie.

Stay Classy Everyone!

Michael

Picture #1 - Beijing's West Train Station
#2 - Temple of Heaven
#3 - Temple of Heaven Garden

Call It National Pride

Thirteen hour flights can be pretty draining. Then again, sleeping the majority of the flight makes for a much easier transition of a 15 hour time change and the virtual elimination of September 30th, 2009 from my life. China proved once again that reliability is not a priority in the Orient. Thirty minutes before our scheduled landing in Beijing we were redirected to Tianjin because of "poor weather conditions." On the tarmac, we waited, and waited. Two hours to be precise. Of course, my arrival date of October 1st happens to be the 60th anniversary of the Communist ruling of the People's Republic of China. Consequently, Beijing airport cut off all flights arriving after 9 am. Lucky for us, we landed at 8:45 am, just in time for tea.

The airport was massive, just as I remembered. I hurried down to the taxi-fetch and hopped into the first taxi available. I called the hotel for directions and, like clockwork--always reliable--found out all the roads leading into the vicinity of my hotel were shut down for security purposes.

Goodbye taxi driver, hello God-forsaken subway system. Even the subway system had it's limits. The closest I could get to the hotel was a 15 minute walk. Not too bad when you don't have a 50 lb backpack on and a 50 lb bag to handle.

Much to nobodies surprise, I got lost. In my infinite wisdom I decided that Line 2's stop at Dongsi Shitiao was equivalent to Line 5's stop at Dongsi. Turns out I ended up on the wrong side of Beijing. I guess that's one of the beauties of not really knowing where the heck you're going--you get to see places you never would have in perfect circumstances.

I called the hotel and they sent a bus boy to come and rescue me from the Zelda-esque maze of Beijing. I arrived at the hotel and quickly dropped off my bags in the room and headed straight for Tiananmen to see the parade. Apparently, in China, parades are exclusively for the people in them and foreigners watching them on TV. I couldn't get within a mile from the parade route, let alone Tiananmen. Barricaded for days. I resorted to sitting in my room and watching the display I was so thrilled to be able to see in person--or so I thought.

I'm pretty exhausted, probably because of the time change but I'm sure walking around for two hours in search of a back entrance to fool the government and see the parade firsthand didn't help. I guess it also doesn't help walking through customs watching yourself on an infrared computer monitor hoping to God your temperature doesn't rise above 98.6 degrees in which case you'd be spending your first 10 days quarantined to a room with no human interaction. I passed. My final challenge of the day was to circumvent China's ban of Blogspot, Facebook, CNN, and just about every other website that isn't controlled by the Chinese government. Took me about two hours to figure out I could do it with a personal VPN. And now, I can bring you these glorious blog posts for the next 2.5 months.

I did some research on Tibet, I'll be attempting to connive my way into that glorious region tomorrow when I visit a travel agent. Turns out the Chinese language comes back rather quickly, and to my surprise, I actually got along quite well with the taxi drivers, hotel clerks, and soldiers.

The pictures posted are of a fighter-jet flyby and a stoic, full of pride, Chinese modern warrior. Enjoy. ---Turns out internet doesn't want to allow me to upload pictures. Maybe tomorrow.

Zaijian,

Michael

欢迎朋友们

"Don't get H1N1!" "Stay away from the dog meat." "Take a lot of pictures." "Don't forget to update your blog!" "Eat as much American food as possible." Most importantly, courtesy of my brother-in-law: "If you see a bunch of people running in one direction, run the other way."

I leave tonight with all these wonderful words of wisdom taken to heart. The importance of these little suggestions shouldn't be taken too lightly, I know. But it's not necessarily the opinions or the thoughts that are important to me; it's the fact that many of you aren't just saying these things in jest or because they are expected, but because you actually care! 

I know, half of you fell out of your seats in hysteria right now, but let's be honest, for the 1/1,000% of you that might actually care what I'll be learning about myself and the world in these next three months--I appreciate it. It motivates me. I guess you could equate it to a lone farmer in the highlands of Africa waking up on a dewy spring morning to find his hen, Loretta, with a record breaking 15 eggs beneath her supple bottom. 

You get the point.

Maybe you don't; either way it doesn't really matter. I set out for the Middle Kingdom at the wee hour of 0140 from LAX to arrive in the capital of the wonderful communist capital of Beijing--Peking for you stubborn folk. Weather will be mild, people will be plentiful. Air will be clean.....er than before the olympics at least. And most importantly, there will be a lot of Chinese language being thrown around. 

Keep track of these updates, I promise they will get more exciting. I have a lot of life-threatening things lined up for your pleasure. I figure it this way, if one of us has to go in order for everyone else to experience some amazing things, I should be the one to do it. Whatever you do, don't mention that little detail to my wonderful mother!

Good night and good luck,

Michael Wurth signing off.