Category: Travel

Our Beijing hosts Mr. and Mrs. G spent part of May walking the Camino Santiago de Compastela. Once they returned home to China, Mrs. G commented that she wished she could post photos of her pilgrimage via her Instagram account, but that it was “too late,” because it wasn’t “instant.” I told her that it was totally fine, that there was even a hashtag for when you post photos after-the-fact, but she didn’t–she doesn’t–believe me. She has always been a bit of skeptic when it comes to technology and social media.

I, on the other hand, totally believe in #latergram. We returned from Beijing about a week ago and jumped back into work and life, but China was such an amazing, rich experience, I’m going to avail myself of a few more #latergram posts.

When I heard that the National Museum collection included artifacts from ancient Chinese dynasties that were thousands of years old, I expected spearheads, bowls, and maybe a phallic fertility god or two. I did not expect to find…whimsy. I found these works absolutely delightful.

After strolling through — you know — 5000 years of Chinese history, we ended up in the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibit, which covers 1911-the present.

[By this point in the trip, my brother and his wife had joined us. My sister-in-law grew up in Taiwan, and her fluent Mandarin was oh-so-helpful. For example, she could give a cab driver turn-by-turn directions to the Bell and Drum Tower, whereas Mr. and Mrs. G (with their more limited language skills) once had to act it out for their taxi driver. Also, we could now order specific dumpling fillings instead of just “dumplings.”]

My SIL was very interested in how China’s version of modern history differed from what she had been taught growing up in Taiwan.

There was no mention of The Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. To be fair, every culture rewrites history in its own image, but it was unsettling to have those huge events ignored outright.

By the way, we were in Beijing for June 4, the anniversary of the student-led protests in Tiananmen Square. No acknowledgment of that anywhere, either.

Beijing parks are delightful and are used delightfully. We have great parks in the United States, but here in Beijing, I’ve witnessed a whole different level of park culture.

In Beijing, parks are for group activities like ballroom dancing and martial arts. It’s also a place for friends to hang out and play games and for people to pursue their hobbies, be it singing, or Chinese calligraphy. As my pastor would say, it’s a great place to “bond without buying,” (hang out without spending money).

Ritan Park (where these photos were taken) was originally built for members of the Imperial court. Come to think of it, I think many of Beijing’s best parks were once exclusively used by royalty. They are wonderfully democratic places now.

Quotes from my pals:

Mr. G: “Beijing parks are one of the happy surprises of moving here. They are a combination living room and backyard for most Beijingers.”

Wes: It’s almost like privacy is not the same thing here because people live in such close proximity. [says the man who would never enjoy singing in public].

Mrs. G: “They are the happenin’ spot.” [she makes sure to note that she is saying “happenin'” not “happening” because she is cool like that.]

On my first morning in Beijing, the Beijinger who met me for coffee commented, “I can’t believe what nice weather you’re getting.” I thought she was referring to the sunny day and the moderate temperature, and maybe she was. But she was also definitely referring to the air quality.

We didn’t realize how good the air quality was when we arrived until today, when the Air Quality Index (AQI) went back to “normal.” These two photos were taken at approximately the same time of day, in similar weather. 

The AQI hasn’t been bad (by Beijing standards) but we feel it. Wearing contacts is slightly uncomfortable; Wes has developed a dry cough.

People sometimes use smog as a metaphor for, say, systemic racism in the U.S, but I haven’t actually been in really serious smog since the days of my childhood in Southern Cal when we had “air alert” days that kept us from going out to the playground. Smog sucks. It’s microscopic. It’s everywhere. You get used to it.

(The first photo is of the large lake at the Summer Palace — the “Versailles” of Beijing).

Google is amazing, isn’t it? I’m a devoted user of its mail, internet search, maps, and Google drive, but until this trip, I had never made much use of Google translate. The translation app has a camera function that is particularly impressive. Hold the app over the words in question, and a real-time translation appears, even mimicking the color and shape of the original text. But with all the magic of technology, Google still can’t do context, which plays such a critical role in forming and understanding meaning.

The most consequential fail of the app so far was when we thought we were ordering 16 dumplings but ended up ordering 48. The app had told us it was “16 yuan for two,” but really “two” meant “half” — as in a half dozen. No wonder the waitress kept asking us in sign language — are you sure?

For now, the art of translation still belongs to people and their people brains.

In other news, we bid a fond farewell to Kate, who left us for her summer job in Sydney. We also welcomed home Mr. and Mrs. G!

Being here in Beijing reminds me of how much I enjoy traveling internationally. It can be stressful to not speak the language or wonder if you’ve just spent too much on something, but I actually kind of enjoy that feeling of dislocation.

Being in a different culture is sometimes obvious, like seeing roasted scorpions on skewers or watching a busy intersection in action:

But sometimes, the most discombobulating moments of being in a different culture are when things seem very similar, but work very differently. Which is a philosophical way of saying — a Chinese bank machine ate our ATM card!

So. As it turns out, Chinese ATMs do not always work the same way as ATMs in the United States. Some are only for deposits, some for withdrawals. Most importantly, mistakes in card usage or even taking too long can result in the machine eating your card.

Here are some pro tips about using Chinese ATMs we learned the hard way.

1. Never use an ATM that doesn’t have an option for English.
2. Do not use a machine that is not attached to a bank office where you can go in and ask for help if something goes awry.
3. If the machine starts beeping like a timer is counting down, remove the card immediately by pressing the button for “eject card,” provided that you know how to read Chinese. If you do not know how to read Chinese, note point 1.

We suspended our card, just in case. Then we went to the front desk to ask for help and — there was Dennis, the nice man who picked us up from the airport. He took the matter in hand, called the bank and talked and talked, furrowed his brow, raised his voice, talked some more.

(In the meantime, here are some photos from our day at a Tibetian Buddhist temple and environs).

Back to the ATM card incident of 2017: Dennis helped us settle it. The bank will call the front desk when they’ve recovered the card and the front desk will call Dennis and Dennis will let us know. It should take about a week. 

Luckily, we are traveling with a competent adult (Kate) who has an ATM card, so we are totally fine. Also, we pawned off some of Mr. and Mrs. G’s antiques and electronics for extra cash. Just kidding, Mr. and Mrs. G! Just checking to see if you’re reading!

We had a fun day hiking a remote part of the Great Wall with a company called Beijing Hikers, but now jet lag is hitting me like a ton of bricks, so I’ll keep this short. Hiking along the wall itself wasn’t too bad, but getting up  to and from the wall was very steep and challenging. Note to self: when a company tells you a hike is “strenuous,” believe them.

The wall was built over several dynasties at unspeakable human cost. While the towers were useful for signaling an attack, and while the top of the wall served as a kind of road in sections, the Great Wall did very little to keep unwanted people out. Hmm–a lesson for our current political leaders, perhaps?

We are in Beijing to visit Mr. and Mrs. G,  dear friends who currently live and work here. Due to a scheduling mismatch related to when Kate has to be at her summer job, we have arrived in China while Mr. and Mrs. G are still away on their trip abroad. Being the world’s best hosts, they hired someone to pick us up from the airport. We were delayed in Hong Kong and worried that our driver might have given up, but when we emerged from customs at 1:30 am, bleary-eyed from almost 24 hours of travel, there was Dennis. Yay! Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. G!

The next morning, I got to meet up with a fellow Wallie (the nickname of people with MFAs from Warren Wilson College). This Wallie is a friend of Mrs. G’s (who is very good at connecting people) and it was really wonderful to meet up, drink coffee and talk about life, reading, and writing. Also, she helped me buy a sim card for my phone, a process that happened 100% in Chinese. Since I only know three phrases in Mandarin, I very much appreciated the help. When it comes to signing up for a data plan, “hello,” “thank you,” and “you don’t look very well,” would probably not have cut it.

Then it was lunch — delicious cold noodles from a cart–and onto Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

The cold noodles we’d had for lunch were so good, we decided to check out Wangfujing Street, one of several areas in Beijing dedicated to street food. And there were many, many delicious things to eat.

And, there were lots of things that stretched my sense of what constituted “delicious.” It also seemed that anything that could be roasted, toasted, or fried and put on a stick, was.

We ended the night with something that has universal appeal: jasmine tea-flavored soft serve.