Last Post From China

I will NOT miss all this pollution in Eastern China, although I read in the news this morning that Hays County is close to exceeding the EPA standards for ozone pollution.
We spent a day this week wandering around Beijing, shopping, then eating supper at the "lake-walk" at HouHai Lake. Last night we just hung out at the hotel after closing ceremonies for the trip.
I will miss all the new friends I made, and look forward to seeing them at the conference in December.
take care,
be safe
rem

Lijiang to Beijing

I haven't really talked about Lijiang, not because I didn't like it, but because I just wanted to savor the time we spent there. It was really hard to leave - I hope someday I get the chance to return. Of all the places we've been, this was one I'd definitely recommend. The city was the eastern terminus of the Tea Horse road, linking Tibet and southern China, so in parts of the province Tibetan culture is very strong.
The Old Town is a tourist trap, but beautiful. It is known as the "Venice of China" because of all the canals that run through the town, and has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The climate is wonderful - it rarely freezes, and because it is so high it is mild during the day. There are some really nice hotels, and miles and miles of shops selling all manner of local handiwork, plus a lot of junk.
The area around the town is beautiful, too. We visited a high meadow, and saw an outdoor show similar to the "Texas" production at Palo Duro Canyon.

After several days in this peaceful place we had to leave. I'm glad this place was peaceful, because I needed that inner peacefulness to survive our flight(s) to Beijing. We took off in the late afternoon, never a good time to fly. After a very bumpy ride (enough that several times everybody in the plane sucked in their breath and went "ooooh" in unison) we were diverted to someplace southwest of Beijing due to the thunderstorms there. We sat on the tarmac for almost 3 hours - at least they left the a/c on. I was not feeling good - toothache- but we made it. Landed in Beijing at 10:30, over 2 1/2 hrs late, and got to our hotel at midnight.
3 more days, and I'll be home.
be safe,
rem

The Monastery in Shangri La

We got up early this morning, checked out of our nice hotel, and headed for the Buddhist monastery in Zhongdian. Built in the late 1600s, it is currently undergoing some renovations. The area is a warren of alleys, housing for monks, temples, and courtyards. When we first arrived there were not many tourists, but by the time we left it was getting crowded. Many of the people who worked there wore traditional clothing, although that may have been for the benefit of the tourists.
The many temples had fires going to burn incense, and all the housing had fires inside, so smoke hung over the whole place. The housing seemed pretty rickety - thin board walls with gaps large enough to put my fist through, and caved in tin or wood-shingled roofs. The temples, however, were in excellent shape. Gold-leaf everywhere, bronze roofs, gilded Buddhas. Picture-taking is not allowed inside, so I don't have any images of the Buddhas, prayer rugs, monks meditating, or people praying.
Outside the temple complex there was an enterprising man with a large yak, and a lean-to with a laser printer - a nice photo-op. Several of our group paid 10y to sit on the yak, while the rest of us took photos. The guy was in traditional dress, and sang as he posed. A large crowd had gathered to watch the crazy foreigners by the time we left.

We drove back down to Lijiang this afternoon, another hair-raising bus ride down mountain roads. We have free time in the morning to shop, take pictures, etc., then fly to Beijing tomorrow afternoon.
Can't believe we're almost through!
be safe,
rem

Shangri La

Well, its been found. After Lost Horizon was published everyone began to look for it, and in 2000 the Chinese government announced they had discovered Shangri La - here in Zhongdian. It was a beautiful drive up - we are over 10,000 ft. Terraced fields, a tributary of the mighty Yangtze, picturesque villages, and a very narrow, if paved, road. The kind of driving that could give you a heart attack - steep drop-offs, passing on curves, lots of honking at slow-moving vehicles. The town itself feels almost like a ghost town - lots of nice hotels, a mini building boom, but not many people. The writing on signs has Tibetan first, Chinese second. We did see a Chinese flag flown upside down on a flagpole, the sole symbol of this area's resistance to Chinese government control of Tibet.
The park up on the mountain is carefully controlled. Our bus parked in a giant (if somewhat empty) parking lot, then we boarded a park bus that took us up to the "hiking trail." The 2 trails, one a little less than 2km, one about 4km, are boardwalks through the trees around a couple lakes. The scenery was wonderful, but you can't strike out on your own. There were azalea/rhododendrons blooming, wild strawberries, a type of tree that looked like dogwood, horses, donkeys, and some Chinese tourists. We spent the night here, and go back to Lijiang after visiting a monastery this morning.
Just a few more days and I'll be home.
be safe,
rem

Kunming

We spent several days in Kunming, and left this afternoon. It's a beautiful place, and reminiscent of Austin - very laid back. Our hotel was on the campus of Yunnan University, and there was a street across from the hotel that reminded me of 6th street - chic clothes shops, bars, and restaurants. I found an Italian restaurant with fast wireless, so I was able upload photos, but I never got around to posting.
We saw lots of temples in Kunming - Taoist, Buddhist, and Muslim (which we didn't end up touring). The Taoist one was in a park-like setting on the edge of town. There were lots of tourists, as usual. I really liked the Buddhist Temple in town. No tourists except us, and a really peaceful place, which I needed. The stress of having people around all the time is starting to get to me. I spent the last evening at the Italian place sitting by myself eating margherita pizza and surfing the web. And then 5 of our group showed up; so much for solitude.
We also went to the Stone Forest. This is an area of weird karst formations, formed when old limestone seafloor was uplifted and eroded. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we didn't get to go wandering around among the huge pillars of rock. I have never seen anything like it, except for some areas in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas.
Dianchi Lake is another tourist spot in Kunming. This beautiful place is incredibly polluted by industrial waste, mostly mining activities. Around the far shore of the lake are many industries which used the lake as their dumping ground. The government is trying to clean it up, but it will take many years.
Yunnan Province is home to 26 different ethnic groups, so there is a lot of diversity in town. I am always surprised by how different each area of China has been. I'm not sure why, since not every place in the US is the same - certainly New York City looks much different than Jackson, Mississippi.
We are now in Lijiang, and our plans have been disrupted by mudslides and road construction on the road to Lugu Lake, so we're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow. Today we're visiting a glacier, so I've got to go borrow some long pants.
be safe,
rem
Stone Forest


Temples


The Lake

Expo 2010

We found the 1.3 billion people - they were all at the Expo. We went Friday, and spent all day there. Since NAEA didn't have a bus for us we took the subway, which was an adventure in itself. Chinese people (watch out for the upcoming generalization) are notoriously bad map readers, we have discovered. In Hohhot they couldn't tell us where we were when we pulled out the map, and Friday when Dr. Who and Bob were studying the subway map at the Metro station they had no idea what it meant. The sign told us where we were, and they knew where we wanted to go, but otherwise they were clueless. We had to tell them which trains to take, and how many stops for each; but we made it.

OMG, the place was unbelievably crowded, and the holiday was over. The Saudi Arabia exhibit, which was supposed to be the most spectacular, had a 5 hour wait, so of course we didn't see it. I must have walked 10 miles around the place in the blazing haze/sun. It was Texas week at the USA pavilion, and the Marshall Ford Swing Band played a set. We talked with their manager, and when he found out we were from A&M they played the Fight Song, which they had learned for Gov. Goodhair, but never got the chance to play for him. We didn't go through the US exhibit, as the ladies in our group said it was very disappointing - just 3 little videos.

Nepal, Algeria, Brazil, India.....not much time waiting in those lines. There were some very cool exhibits - Chile was spectacular - they had a whole upside down room; you walked into a blank space, looked up, and there it was. They also had a nice little outside bar. Mexico was sort of disappointing except for some art they had hanging from the wall. Italy, where we waited in line for an hour, was also amazing - a tailor shop with real people working inside a glass box, a symphony hanging from the wall, and lots of fashion-art stuff. Spain was weird - what the heck does the giant robot baby represent?


But what got me were the people. Almost everyone there was Chinese, and the tickets weren't cheap. They were coming on vacation from all over China - the rising middle class. All 1.3 billion of them, shoving and pushing with never an 'excuse me' to be heard. If I slowed down in line to take a picture they would shove right past me into the middle of our group. I guess with that many people, if you wait you'll never get anything.

The whole place closes down at 9 pm - what the ****? In the US it would be open 'til midnight, at least. But this ain't the US, so we took a taxi home, because the group I was with wanted to see the lights of Shanghai at night.


The first few pictures are from the top high school in Nanjing, which we visited Thursday afternoon. 63 kids in the geography class we saw. But then, teachers have what amounts to a college-type schedule, with only 2-3 classes per day, and office hours the rest of the time - with real offices!

Delayed Posting

We are now in Kunming, so much has happened since my last post. They keep us busy.
Suzhou was interesting. We took the bullet train there, and then a bus to a tourist trap called Zhou Zhuang town. Its a very old city that has been sort of restored - very narrow alley/streets, lots of shops and restaurants, and thousands of tourists since it was Dragon Boat holiday. Pushing, shoving, bumping, with nary an "excuse me" or "sorry" to be heard. You should definitely not come here if you don't like crowds. There are some bridges over the canals that date to the Song Dynasty, and a Ming official's house that was jam packed with people, but otherwise was beautiful. Notice most of the shots have people in them - you just can't get a picture of anything without people in it. The stalls had a variety of things for sale, including lots of silk pieces, from clothing to embroidery. The vendors are really pushy, and of course start out with a high price, but then you walk away and they chase you, so you can get a silk blouse for $13 US.
We had lunch in the hotel there, then went back into Suzhou to tour one of the 280 private gardens. Before the Cultural Revolution there were over 1,000 different large gardens, but they were destroyed because they were bourgeois, and not useful to the improvement of the people. Again, packed with tourists, so not nearly as peaceful as it should have been. It was built by a Ming official who got the money through graft and corruption, then was forced out of office.
Not all the pics are captioned = the Internet is slower than dirt here in Kunming - I mean slower than dial-up, almost.

Dear Mr. President

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Respect My Authoritah
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Nanjing Sightseeing

This is the most beautiful city we've been to. We spent today sight-seeing. In the morning we went to the Zhongshan Mountain National Park, to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum and the Ming Tomb. Today is a holiday - the Dragon Boat Festival - so families were thronging the park.
After lunch we visited the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, a memorial to the holocaust inflicted on the city by the Japanese. It was pretty gruesome, so I walked through quickly, then sat outside and people-watched.
Shopping for too short of a time, then supper and a walk along the old city wall. Later some of us went to a coffee house near the university. It had very slow Internet connection, so I am back in my room.
Tomorrow we get up at 5 and leave at 6 on the bullet train for a day trip to Suzhou. Should be fun - they have a huge park, with lots of gardens, and we have a small lecture on "the art of gardening." We won't return to the hotel 'til after 9, so I may not get pictures up.
be safe
rem

Maps of the New FAA No-Flight Zone over the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

via Geographic Travels: Maps of the New FAA No-Flight Zone over the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Why can't planes fly over this area?

View Larger Map

Tourist Traps and Culture Clash

Well it wasn't a real ger, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. The whole past 2 days have been sight-seeing at tourist traps, or trapped on a bus. To make matters worse we have an unlikeable guide named Alice. I know she is just as frustrated with us as we are with her, but it doesn't make her much easier to take. We were traveling yesterday, and one of our ladies needed to use the restroom. Alice had the driver stop at an abandoned building and told the woman she could go in there and pee. I guess the usual tourists she shepherds would be ok with that, but we weren't. Of course, when we stopped to use the restroom at the next toll booth, I thought maybe the abandoned building would have been better.


We drove for a long time and ended up at the "Singing Sands" dunes near the Yellow River. This is a big tourist destination, sort of like the Monahans Sandhills, only with lots more stuff. I paid 40y to ride a camel, took a cable car to the top of the dunes, and decided not to slide down, since I've done that a million times at Monahans.
Back in the bus covered with sand, I slept for 2 hours and missed the giant traffic jam at the exit for the yurtel. The driver and Alice were prepared to wait in the traffic, but when Lynne found out we could go a little further and see Genghis Khan's Mausoleum instead of waiting til today, negotiations took place and we went on.
We left the mausoleum, and the bus driver was not sure about the route to the yurtel, so he asked at least 3 people. We ended up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere for a couple hours - it was starting to get dark. I did get to see a lot of rural Inner Mongolia, which looks at lot like New Mexico, but poorer.
We finally got to the yurt tourist trap after dark. The staff met us dressed in traditional clothing, serving the worst tasting rot-gut moonshine I've ever had. We were ushered into the dining hall, where a play was just beginning. It was a sort of dinner theater, with a play on stage and more drama from the drunk Chinese tourists at the next table. One of the men was so drunk he kept going onto the stage. The actors and dancers continued their performance of traditional songs and dances like this was a common occurrence. We explained to Dr. Who, our Chinese host, that in the US the guy would at a minimum have been thrown out, and probably arrested. But not here.
Afterward we checked into our rooms in the fake yurts. There was a kang in each room, so I felt a little better. Several of us went out to star-gaze, and then the loud party started. Over by the dining hall was a giant bonfire and ear-numbing music - hip-hop and modern. Everybody was line dancing around the fire. Some of the performers from earlier were break-dancing... not exactly what we expected to see here. As the fire died down they did the "bunny hop" and then all disappeared. Peace and quiet - we all slept well.
Up early for tea and breakfast. Since nobody wanted to pay 180y to ride a horse we left at 9:30 for a 4 1/2 hour ride home. We got here at 7:15 tonight. We were in an area that has a lot of coal mines, and it seems it is all transported by truck. We got stuck in a traffic jam near Baotou, where there's a Y in the road, with a sort of traffic circle. It was backed up for miles. They said "could be hours, could be days" for it to unjam. All because of the thousands of coal trucks moving China into the 21st century.
View Larger Map
So we are back at the same hotel, but the condoms and underwear are gone from our rooms. We fly out tomorrow for Nanjing. The pictures are on line, but not captioned yet.
be safe, watch out for coal trucks,
rem

More Hohhot

OK, so its not Matamoros. Some parts of it are nice,like the University. And the food is wonderful, so different than Beijing. Tomorrow we go to the grassland tourist trap ger, to spend the night. Here's some pictures from our travels today. Who knew there were Muslims in Hohhot?
click on the pics to see them.

Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China

I get to sleep in a ger! That will be 2 nights from now. That will be one night less we are in this god-forsaken hotel, with condoms available in the bathroom, and men's underwear for sale on the shelf above the tea pot.
We rushed to the airport in Beijing this morning, somehow we thought the plane left an hour later than it did. It took forever to get our tickets, then all but 1 of the guys, and several of the women, got extra searches at security. I was the last person to board the plane before they shut the door. After a one hour flight we had a rough, bumpy, fast landing in Hohhot, and so here we are at the "very nicest hotel" in town, according to our guide. I've really been transported to Matamoros or Reynosa.
This is the bleakest looking place I've been in a long time. I imagine its what Beijing was like before the Olympics. Street-front stores, everyone on bicycles or electric scooters, torn-up roads, just very poor. Block after block of Soviet style apartments going up. Block after block of rubble where the old hutong-type housing was. And still more of the traditional housing, crumbling into piles. Garbage piled everywhere - along fences, behind gates, in rooms that open to the street.
At the same time there is some beauty - parks full of trees and flowers, the old Muslim Mosque, and the Da Zhao Buddhist temple.
No captions yet on the pics - too tired. More tomorrow.

Update: pics are done.

Hohhot, China, June 10

Free Day - Pearls, Scorpions, and a Bus Ride

Our last day in Beijing before leaving for Hohhot. We started out at the Pearl market - 4 floors of shopping! My first stop was the ATM, as I have already spent most of the money I came with. I got enough to last me for at least a couple of weeks, since I am almost through buying all I intended to. The top floor of the Pearl Market is jewelry, but I didn't make it up there until it was almost time to leave; I got distracted on the 2nd floor, by the silk. The bus was leaving at 11:30 for the bookstore downtown, so I had to hurry upstairs to pick up the pearls I ordered a couple days ago from Sandy Pearls. The owner of Sandy Pearls came to the hotel a couple nights ago with a large selection of her wares, and there was a frenzy of ordering from the women on the trip. Both beds and all available desktop space was covered with pearls - necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets, jade of various sorts - way more than I could imagine. I ordered a couple things as gifts. Anyway, I got my stuff and ran for the bus.
Several of us made the trip to the bookstore - 6 floors of every imaginable book in Chinese. They had a small selection of English language books. Jackie found me a Chinese language National Geographic magazine, and I got a couple more gifts for the teachers in my hall. The bookstore is downtown, and this is how I pictured Beijing - lots of people. Where we have been staying there are not so many people walking around, so we kept wondering - where are all the billion Chinese we keep hearing about. There is a pedestrian-type mall down the block, so that's where we headed. Down a side street was this incredible market. Lots of local-looking people, plus some tourists. I ate a fried scorpion.
The scorpions were live, and they fried them up, seasoned them, and then - yummy? Not much taste to the bugs, just crispy, with a sort of seasoned salt on them. A couple of the guys ate snake, then we found a small restaurant and had lunch - rice with stir-fried chicken and veggies.




We wandered around the market awhile, then took cabs to the Lao-She Tea House. The tea was good - I had Jasmine - and there were performances by musicians, juggling, and a shadow play. Here the stork is trying to get the turtle, and finally succeeds. It was pretty good. By then it was almost 5, so Patricia and I decided to head back to the hotel. We are both older, and the 20 somethings wanted to stay out til after dark. We need our sleep, so we thought we'd catch a cab back home. No luck. The one cab who stopped said no, too far - or maybe he didn't know where it was. Our minder had given us business cards with the name of the university, address, and a sort of map, all in Chinese, in case we got lost. About that time the younger folks came out of the tea house, so we hooked back up with them. They were trying to get a rickshaw ride somewhere. It was then that the old Chinese man in the silk jacket came up. Pat showed him the card, and Bethany (the Chinese language teacher in our group) translated for us. He ended up writing some instructions on the card on Chinese, including bus #456. We followed his instructions to go down the block and around the corner into uncharted territory.
Fortunately, each bus stop in Beijing has 2 workers whose job is to keep order. We asked at the first stop by showing them the card, and they indicated "5" and pointed further down the street. After passing a couple hutongs, 2 more bus stops, a lady with a box of baby chicks, and lots of shops, we asked again and were directed to a line with 5 written on it - for bus #5. Shortly thereafter the bus arrived, and we got on with a hundred other people. The helper talked through the window with the conductor (not the driver) and she indicated she would let us know when to get off. We passed the Grand Beijing Hotel, lots of office buildings, and at each stop more people got on, and few got off. We stood holding on to the overhead handrails until a seat finally cleared out. Not much later we were directed to get off.
At this stop some locals waiting for the bus were very helpful. Pat showed them the card, they pointed out the line for #456, then discussed whether or not that was really the right bus. After a few minutes it came, and along with lots more people we got on. Pat showed the card to the conductor and she nodded, so we grabbed the rails and hung on. By the time we got to the freeway the bus was so packed no one could move. We got on the freeway and drove for a long time, and Pat and I began to recognize some buildings. By the time the bus exited we knew we were headed in the right direction - we were in the "suburbs" where all the apartment buildings are located. Our stop ended up being 1/2 block from the NAEA campus. In all, it was exactly the experience I wanted - an hour and a half of real life in Beijing. Each bus cost 1 yuan, about 6.7 cents. We found out after we got home that another couple had taken a taxi back and it cost them 200 RMB, about $30.
So I am packing for Hohhot, and tomorrow morning we take off. It's been great here, I look forward to our return.

Privacy

Our group met this morning to process what we have seen, and to discuss lesson ideas. I thought perhaps we might be being listened to, but wasn't sure. Turns out they are taping everything we say. Unfortunately some people commented on what our young translator had told them privately - thoughts likely to get her into trouble with the government. Nothing big, but still probably not considered appropriate to speak with foreigners about - like looking for information on the Internet about Tienanmen Square and not being able to find anything.
So after the break, when we saw the turning tapes, we decided to talk about how Vivian loves her country, is proud of it, etc. I hope that makes up for our earlier comments.
Pretty scary, though. I have to watch what I say in the classroom, because I don't want to influence the kids one way or the other - my goal is to help them learn to think for themselves. And I could run into trouble with parents and the school board, too. But I don't have to be afraid the government will lock me up or send me to a re-education camp for disagreeing with them. I can speak here, or Facebook, or on the street, and so can anyone else. I feel really lucky.

Random Thoughts on China

Well I've been here several days now, and it is starting to sink in. Several themes are appearing in our interactions with the people and place that is China.
The overarching narrative of the country seems to be its desire to prove it is the equal of the Western world. The rush to modernize, to build, to drive, to move forward, and the urgency with which this is taking place, all suggest that China wants to be seen as a modern nation. I haven't seen this much construction in one place since I was a kid in Houston. Everywhere you turn there are bulldozed hutongs, vacant lots full of rubble, waiting to be transformed into another high-rise apartment building. Cranes hover over the city like some giant orange robots, reminiscent of the old Erector sets. The traffic reminds me of Houston in the early 70's when the freeways were 3 lanes wide; everybody weaved in and out, trying to maintain that break-neck speed of a city on the move.

But what is different than the West is that in the rush to prove they are our equals, they forget to pay attention to the details. Several examples: the beautiful plantings along the freeway - they are gorgeous, and really add a nice touch, but the grass between the plantings is long and weedy. The Ethnic Cultures museum today - wonderfully exquisite clothing and cultural relics, but a floor outlet was shut with tape, and the electrical fuse box in each room had to be used to turn on the lights.

Although the halls of the school we toured a couple of days go were freshly painted, and they had marble window sills and beautiful woodwork, a large streak of paint was not cleaned off of a lampshade on one of the chandeliers in the entry way.
There are myriad other examples I have seen, and I am not sure why it is like this. Are they so used to poor conditions that even a little better is something to be joyful about? I guess the majority have never been to a Western country, and don't realize how seedy China looks in comparison. But as they catch up to us, and more people travel abroad, I am sure that will change.

The other main theme is the extraordinary degree of government control over information. I came face to face with it when my VPN was out and I couldn't get anywhere I wanted to go on the Internet. We also hear it daily in our lectures: the government is always right; they want the best for us, the people. Do these people really believe this? Only one lecturer has been even a little critical of the government, and she was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. But then I remember my Internet experience, and realize - if there is only one source of information, what else would you know? The government controls school textbooks, TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet. If they don't want you to know it, you won't. So when you ask a question in the lecture, you get the government line. It's been frustrating at times - what will happen when there are the 33 million men who can't find wives, because of the preference for male children and sex-selective abortion? "That's a problem but the government will have a plan." Since rural young people are moving to cities, where will China get the labor and food to feed it's people in the coming years? "the government has a plan..."

The lecturers talk about the freedoms the people of China have, including the freedom to worship as they please. And then we see this at the Ethnic Cultures Museum today:






So you had better cooperate with the government, and adapt your religion to their goals, or you're out. But it doesn't seem to sink in with our Chinese friends that this is what the statement means.

That's all the blogging for tonight. It's 10:30, and we have a long day tomorrow. I will try to post pics after I am clean, but it may be tomorrow before I get any up.
be safe,
rem

Up, Up, and Away

Northern China maybe be protected by the Great Wall, but it has not stopped the invasion of the tourists. We climbed it in Badaling with several thousand other people. It's a famous section, the first to be restored, and was climbed by Pres. Nixon when he visited China in 1972.
I can't really see why the Ming emperors built it, other than to provide jobs for thousands of their subjects - the surrounding mountains are pretty rugged, and would seem to be enough protection from invaders. It is a lasting legacy, though, and very impressive feat of construction. I can't imagine how many people it took to build it. Unfortunately the haze is still with us, so the beauty of the mountains is hidden from view. I had to recolor/retouch most of the wall pictures because they look so faded.


This is part of our group.

After our climb we did a bit of shopping, then went for lunch.
I am not sure where the restaurant was, but it is famous for it's Peking duck.

There was a tremendous quantity of food, all very tasty. The vegetable fritters dipped in a curry-type powder were wonderful. That's Dr. Who (Hu) with the chopsticks. He's a professor at NAEA, and our main "minder." We learned at lunch he's a member of the Communist Party - the first I've met.


The NAEA plan was the Wall, lunch, and return to the hotel. After much discussion we convinced them we really needed to go see one of the Ming tombs that dot the area.

We went to the Ding Ling Tomb, and it was a wonderful place - peaceful, not nearly as crowded. It was also planned with Harmony and Balance in mind. The buildings are impressive, but the artifacts have been removed to a museum.
The umbrella I am holding in the picture has it's own story. I bought it for sunshade, and to give to Lizzy, and got scammed out of a $100 yuan note (about $14 US) in the process. I paid with the 100, they wanted smaller bills so I said give me back my hundred, and she gave me a counterfeit note. I knew as soon I walked away, and went and found our minders -Dr. Who and Bob - and took them back to the stand where I bought it. As soon as the lady saw them with me, she knew she was sunk, and when confronted (I have no idea what they said to her) she pulled out her wad of money and gave me a RMB 100. I feel pretty stupid, but that's how she makes a living, and she was good at it, since tourists don't really know what RMB money looks like.
So we're safe back at the hotel, and it's time for bed.
One last note - our hotel has western-style toilets in the rooms, but everything else in Beijing is squatty potties, and you can't flush tp anywhere, it goes in the wastebasket next to the toilet.
This is a fancy squatty potty in the hotel lobby area. It's kinda like camping out.


Pictures for the day (click to go to the website):

OMG

which stands for "oh my goodness" in case any of my church family is reading this. But I admit, I did use stronger language than that when I found out tonight that my VPN was not working, and I couldn't access this site to blog (or most of the sites I read). The NAEA is updating their Internet linkage, so we haven't had access at the hotel since yesterday morning. But sometime before it was out Windows downloaded a "critical update" to my computer which screwed up my VPN. It took me an hour and a half tonight to figure out what was going on (after several 'system restore' attempts). Finally, after trying to search on Google's Hong Kong website-the only one I could access - for my VPN provider, an ad appeared in the sidebar for "bestVPNforAsia." I clicked on it, paid through PayPal, downloaded and installed it, and here I am, for only $13.95 a month. I can hardly believe China's firewall didn't block it. It makes me thankful we have uncensored access in the USA.
Another reason I am up late blogging is that after I got access, I uploaded 214 pictures to Picassa and captioned them -Tienanmen Square, and the school we visited today. So, I am back to blogging, 2 days worth.
Thursday in Beijing, June 3:
We had another lecture and discussion in the morning with a sociologist from Beijing Normal University, Dr. Zhao Mengying. He talked about China's movement toward modernity - a new lifestyle based on industrialization. In 1840 the Opium Wars were the beginning of changes in China. As China's culture suffered under foreign pressures, the Chinese begin to emphasize socialism to protect their way of life. The Sino-Japanese war increased patriotism and feelings of nationalism in the Chinese people. Then in 1949 the Revolution occurred, and a new way of life began in earnest. Dr. Zhao talked about the differences in rural and urban areas, how the government struggles to deal with the differences, and the changing relationship between the two.
I was mostly interested in the migration of rural people to the cities, and the hukou system that restricts movement. In China the government owns all the land. If you live in a rural area you get an allotment to work, and that provides for your economic security. Theoretically, if you move to the city you must give up your land, because city people get a type of social security to provide for their needs. However, in practice, it restricts the movement of people from rural areas to the city so that the cities will not become overcrowded and filled with slums, like Rio or Calcutta. Between 1952 and 1980 China's urban population rose from 11 to 19%, while by 1980 the rest of the world 's urban population was 42%. But in reality many people move to the cities, so although it is not "illegal" for them to do so, their children are not entitled to go to school there as they don't have the proper permits. Recently Beijing decided to allow migrant workers' children to attend school, but those migrant schools are not well funded. The government is working on a new system, sort of like our 'green card', so that if you can prove you've been in the city for several years you can get a permit to live there and be legal.
One other thing I found really interesting about the land ownership is that even in the cities the government owns all the land, so when you buy a house you sign 2 contracts - one for the house, and one with the government to rent the land for 70 years. This is relatively new, so no one has any idea what will happen in 70 years when the rental agreement expires.

After lunch we took the bus with blue-tinted windows to Tienanmen Square and the Imperial Palace Museum. What can I say but OMG.
Acres and acres of beautiful buildings, sculptures, carvings, and history. There are really no words to describe it - how vast the palaces are, how ornately decorated. The whole complex is laid out according to Chinese philosophical ideas of Harmony and Balance - heaven/earth, yin/yang, water/fire. It was explained to me today when we visited the school - one of the students told me that the Chinese symbol for middle is: which represents the balance, and the line is the heart. The Emperor's throne is on the heartline, right in the middle of Beijing. The student told me that when you say someone "has his heart in the middle" it means he's a good guy, who wants to do the right thing and have people like him.
The old city walls are gone, torn down by Mao to make way for modernization, but the idea remains.
Tienanmen Square is across from the palace, and it, too, is enormous. Both the palace and the square were filled with Chinese tourists who were enjoying their national treasure. Families, kids, young and old, savoring the late afternoon sunshine and basking in national pride. Our guide told me 1.3 million people filled the square for celebration recently. It was also sobering to remember another anniversary today, June 5 - that of the Tank Man and the protests in 1989.
By the time we arrived back at the hotel we were exhausted. Since we had no Internet access most of us turned in early.
I'm giving up on blogging tonight - it's 1:30 am, and I have to get up early for our trip to the Great Wall. I'll try to write more tomorrow night.
be safe, enjoy the weekend,
rem

Tea

and lots of it. More than I've had in the last 10 years put together, so I am floating away. All day long the serving girls kept filling the teacup with more hot water, so I kept drinking it.
We started with breakfast of noodles, salad, and eggs, along with a few other dishes I couldn't identify. We progressed to the opening ceremony of the Project, in a small room, with a long oval table and no air conditioning. After the Vice President of the National Academy for Education Administration spoke, our fearless leader Dr. Lynne Walters spoke, and then we had our first lecture.
Dr. Zhang Yun presented her ideas and knowledge of Chinese culture. She is a professor of English and Chinese literature at Beijing Foreign Studies University. The lecture was interesting, but then she came and ate lunch with us, and told us a little of her experiences during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966-76. During that time of anti-intellectual purging she and all the teachers at her university were sent south to work on a collective for "re-education," a nice word for punishment. Since her parents were, as she put it, "petite bourgeois," she was suspected of harboring ideas contrary to the state, and so was watched closely. She had to throw all her books on the fire, and work hard to prove herself a good communist. That's about all she would say about it, so it must have been a very unpleasant experience for many people.
She did show us some acupressure massage points, to relieve stress and ensure good health and longevity. Since she's over 70 and doesn't look it, I listened and tried to learn.

Lunch was delicious assortment of dishes, plus fresh fruit. And then we had a 2 hour break, during which I tried to nap, but unfortunately I was unsuccessful.
This afternoon we had 2 more lectures, about teaching geography and history in Chinese schools. It sounds a lot like our education, but with much more central control. There are few textbooks to select from, and national standards that have to be covered, as they are on the test that students take to get into college.
Prior to 2001 schools in China operated on a system similar to Russia's, but at that time reforms were implemented and now the system has been "Americanized." Instead of memorizing a laundry list of facts, teachers and students are being encouraged to discuss and think about ideas. This change has been difficult to implement, and reforms are ongoing. Our group asked many questions of the Chinese lecturers, and we had productive discussions about policy and standards. In light of the Texas SBOE recent adoption of new Social Studies standards, which includes "laundry lists" of dates and people, we seem to be moving backwards while China is moving forward.
Because the lectures this afternoon were delayed due to the late arrival of one lecturer, we did not have a break before our evening meal. This was presented in a banquet room, with Chinese red wine, and 15 or 20 different dishes, most served one at a time. We had 6 or 7 dishes on the rotating lazy susan as appetizers, then shrimp with pineapple and mango, very spicy tofu, mushroom tea, 2 kinds of rice, fish, pot stickers, a dumpling with some sort of greens, chicken soup, dishes I can't recall, and finally fresh fruit. I am still stuffed.
When it was finally over, 2 hours after we started, several of us walked around the outside of the NAEA complex back to the hotel entrance. In the lobby a man was doing calligraphy for a group of Chinese educators.

The artist was packing up as we entered, and a couple of my colleagues said he was with the calligraphy center, which was down the hall. They had gone there last night, so we went to see the center, and ended up staying an hour while they made and poured at least 4 different types of tea for us.






The artist was not there, but several of the people who worked at the center entertained us. One of our group, Bethany, speaks Chinese, so she interpreted for us.

After so much tea I am not sure if I can sleep, but I'm going to try. Tomorrow we have lectures in the morning and then we really are going to Tienanmen Square.

Jet Lag

It's 2:30 in the morning in Beijing, and I am wide awake, so I might as well be productive. Besides, all but 1 channel on the TV are in Chinese. The pic is the view from our hotel on the grounds of the National Academy of Education Administration, our sponsoring group. It's out near the 5th ring road, so we are 10km from the city center.
The flight in was pretty uneventful, if extraordinarily long. Over 24 hours from the time I got to the airport in Houston until we arrived at the hotel here. We flew to Newark, changed planes, then headed over the pole to Beijing. Both planes were completely full, and I didn't have a window seat, so no pics of the Houston-Newark trip. On the Continental flight to Beijing I didn't have a window seat, either, but I was in the first row of the third section, so had extra leg-room since I faced the bathroom wall. Plus, the emergency exits on either side of us had windows, so I got lots of pictures of Greenland and Russia. I wasn't able to sleep much - lots of traffic in front of me, people walking the aisles, using the lavatory, babies crying, but I did miss the North Pole while I was sleeping.
After clearing customs we road a short train through the airport, exited, and our hosts met us at the exit. The airport wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected. The road to the hotel was not crowded, either. They told us that at rush hour it would be packed. I did see lots of construction, and whole blocks of apparently old buildings that had been bulldozed. Also, there were thousands of trees that had been planted along the highway, I guess to block the view during the 2008 Olympics.
The hotel is nice, we each have our own room. Supper was a buffet with various dishes, most of which I was not familiar with. Spicy cabbage, pot-stickers, some sort of mashed potatoes, and 20 other things. I will definitely be losing weight while I'm here.
Enjoy the pics, and wish me luck staying awake during the lecture tomorrow morning. In the afternoon we go to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. I am looking forward to that. Maybe tonight's rain will have cleared the pollution out of the air. It's terrible, my nose is stopped up with dust, and my eyes are burning. We will be in Beijing 10 days - I hope its not this bad the whole time.
be safe, see you soon,
rem