Beijing, China - experience the new reality

BEIJING AND CHINA
Experience The New Reality

By Ray Chatelin
Photos by Toshi

Imagine, if you will, walking the maze of narrow streets in Beijing where thousands of bicyclists create a symphony of ringing bells in the evening light as workers create rush hour, China style.

If that’s the first image of China that enters your mind, you’re wholly out of date. That was the past, when China was still a closed society, mired in its cultural history and a political system that was inward looking. Bicycles were the main means of transportation and cars were beyond reach of most.
Today’s China is a far different place than it was a decade or so ago. Once a closed society, it has galloped into the 21st Century with economic power and with its newfound strong economy it is sharing its complex culture with the rest of the world. And never has it been so easy to experience it.

Many things are still the same as it once was, especially in cities away from Beijing and Shanghai, China’s new financial center. In those places you can still find the old ways that used to be China. But, in the massive Tienanmen Square, across from the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City) in Beijing, a Polaroid camera no longer brings to you proud mothers holding up their children as you approach. This China is a nation with countless cell phones and digital cameras.

Just a short bus trip away from Beijing, is the Great Wall of China that winds for hundreds of miles along the China countryside - the only man-made object that can be seen by astronauts as they circle around the globe. Walking along part of its length is still a magic moment. And everyone seems to give you a gracious smile as they pass, acknowledging your curiosity. And be prepared for young people who want to practice their English.

China is a house with many rooms, no two of which are the same. The way people live in Shanghai, for example, with its European history and where its riverfront Bund was once referred to as the Wall Street of the Orient is a culture removed from Beijing’s broad avenues, intricate residential courtyards, The Forbidden City, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and Tiananmen Square.

That’s what makes the country so fascinating. The Great Wall; the Forbidden City with the 9,999 rooms that housed the great imperial dynasties of China; Suzhou's Grand Canal and it's incredibly fine silk factories; the 2,000 year old teahouse in Shanghai's old district; are all very different experiences.

At dusk, when workers go home, the maze of streets in Beijing are alive with thousands of bicyclists mixed in with new cars as a newly prosperous China finds itself between two worlds – the past with its bicyclists and the future with cars clogging up the main streets.

Traveling throughout China is a great travel digestive - allowing you to gently absorb the rich and varied feast of cultural dishes made up of the various districts of this diverse nation. For each part has a distinct character.

Shanghai was once a place of intimate streets and buildings. Some of it is still evident, but the city is now a massive collection of high-rises and office towers. But some things are still the same, like the 2,000 year old teahouse in Shanghai's old district. On the Huangpu River, one of the tributaries of the flowing Yangtze River, the water teems with life with family junks, freighters, passenger liners, river boats of every type, coal carriers, long lines of business junks strung together and hauling small industrial goods.

Tour guides reflect the current liberalization of political and social attitudes currently sweeping the country. Tourists are surprised that guides now speak openly of matters that were taboo a decade ago. Questions about family planning, divorce, politics to a limited extent, history, and current affairs are answered with courtesy and often frankness.

The heart of Beijing, of course, is the old Forbidden City, where infallible Emperors once lived - men who ruled China with life and death powers over their countrymen. Tourists walk through those rooms and marvel at the history while at the same time listening to lectures on how much life in China had changed since those days when Emperors executed their subjects for what they said or how they thought.

The palace’s complex construction began in 1407, during the reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty and was completed fourteen years later in 1420 with a million workers including one hundred thousand artisans driven into the long-term project as slave labor. It covers 720,000 square meters (178 acres) and has 800 buildings

The last emperor of China was driven from the Inner Court in 1924. Prior to that, 14 emperors of the Ming dynasty and ten emperors of the Qing dynasty had reigned here. The Forbidden City is the world's largest palace complex and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Yellow was the symbol of the royal family, so this is the dominant color in the Forbidden City with roofs constructed with yellow glazed tiles. Decorations in the palace are painted yellow and even the bricks on the ground are yellow. One exception to yellow stands out, however. The royal library has a black roof because it was believed that black represented water then and could extinguish fire.

Beijing is a grey and windy place with broad avenues that funnel the dust roaring down from the Gobi desert. So be prepared, especially in the autumn months.

In Beijing, or any other major city in China, there's no shortage of internationally proven hotels. New Otani, Sheraton, Hilton, Shangri-la, Holiday Inn, Hyatt, Crown Plaza, Howard Johnson, Novotel, and other chains have properties in cities throughout the country.

Yet, even with China’s rush to become modern, its culture has an ancient fascination that will always be deeply rooted in centuries past.