The alternate reality of China

My heart was racing as we walked up to the immigration desk at the Beijing airport. We still didn’t know if we would be accepted or rejected at the border as a result of Debbie’s birthplace, Taipei. The airport was not what I expected in the capital of a burgeoning country that goes to great lengths to project strength and wealth to the outside world. It’s walls were bare, stores were few and far between, and it seemed like a bit of a relic of China’s past. Was this really the Beijing that oversees the development of entire new cities throughout the rest of the country?

I didn’t know it yet, but this airport was reflective of one part of China, the part that is still left behind and not yet fully developed to the standards of a modern society. The other part of China is the complete opposite – modern, developed and wealthy. In some ways, more advanced than the west. Nevertheless, this environment didn’t ease my nerves at all, as I thought about what would transpire over the next thirty minutes.

After being bounced around a couple of times, we completed the paper work for our transit permit and it was quickly issued to us by the agent. A wave of relief came over me as the agent returned our passports. We proceeded to the border officer to finally enter China, and I was quickly let through. All of a sudden the officer asked Debbie to step aside for a secondary check. The manager on duty was called over and subsequently summoned the agent who issued Debbie’s permit. There was a fair amount of discussion, and I could tell that Debbie was starting to grow uneasy; as was I. Finally after producing some proof that she really did live in Canada the border guard kindly let her enter the country. I was elated. After months of planning I was finally about to explore my top destination.

We proceeded to leave the airport and grab a taxi. I went to the information booth at the airport to find the best transport to our hotel. Now usually, the info booth at airports is simply there to assist travellers with impartial information, but in Beijing this desk serves as a front to sell overpriced private transfers to your hotel. The clerk at the booth told me they would gladly arrange a car for 400 RMB. The price seemed high so I decided to go check out a taxi. At the taxi stand, the clerk manning the station offered us a ride for 200 RMB. Luckily, Debbie caught onto this scam and realized the clerk was selling rides for some other taxi service, not the standard city taxis that were lined up in front of us. So we walked past the clerk and up to a taxi in the line. Debbie spoke Mandarin to the driver and established the ride would cost roughly 100 Yuan – a quarter of the original price I was quoted. It was very fortunate that Debbie speaks mandarin, as most drivers in China don’t speak or read English. (It’s critical to have any address you would like to visit in China written in Chinese characters.)

After a rather slow ride, Chinese drivers tend to follow the speed limit around Beijing as there are a plethora of traffic cams, we pulled into the Grand Hyatt Beijing. Our driver nearly hit a woman who was getting into another taxi. She was not pleased and asked the driver to move the car. He began to shout back at the woman, and she became so angry that she slammed her taxi’s door into our taxi and then punched the window. Our driver got out of the car and got into a full on screaming match with this lady. Our bill for the taxi was 80 RMB but we quickly handed the driver 100 and walked away from the very awkward situation. This was our introduction to China, but I kept an open mind.

Once we got settled in the room, Debbie decided to take a nap, but I was so excited I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go for a stroll around the hotel, near Tiananmen Square. The first thing that struck me was the lack of pedestrians, scooters and traffic that I expected to see in the core of a 20 million person city. There were some pedestrians and cars, but far fewer than Taipei, Bali and the other Asian countries I’ve visited. I never got a clear explanation for this phenomenon. The Chinese government has capped the population in Beijing in an effort to control overcrowding and has since relocated some of the residents of Beijing, so perhaps this was a factor. Others told me it could have been our proximity to the main government offices that discouraged locals from congregating in this area. Perhaps it was even the time of day, I’m not sure. It was certainly the quietest major city core I’ve visited at 2:00 in the afternoon.

The next thing that struck me was the heavy police and security presence around the city. There are numerous small police stations dotting the core of Beijing – many of these stations are housed in a police bus that is semi-permanently parked in the location or is completely mobile. The positive of this heavy security presence is that I certainly felt very safe in Beijing, to the point that I was quite comfortable walking around at night alone.

The influence of the government in China was evident everywhere I visited. I noticed there were quite a few people sweeping the streets with old-style brooms, and wearing a uniform that appeared to indicate that they worked for the state. It struck me as a way that the state provides employment to some of its citizens who perhaps are underemployed, though I can’t be certain.

The following day, we took an organized tour to see Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, and the Great Wall of China at the Mutianyu entrance. Our guide was a nice woman about the same age as us who spoke almost perfect English. The first stop was Tiananmen Square which is absolutely massive, especially considering its location in the heart of Beijing. As our guide described Tiananmen she made brief mention of the student protest that took place. To paraphrase “there was a student protest here years ago, that you may have heard about. Since that time, the government has increased its security presence in the area so there will be no more protests.” I think she may have been burying the lead there a bit, but compared to the first time Debbie visited China about 10 years ago this is actually progress – at that time there was no mention of a student protest and even tourists were told not to discuss it.

Next up was the Forbidden City. Once again the scale of the area was striking, with countless wooden buildings, painted in vibrant blues, greens, golds and reds. Historically this is where the emperor of China resided with his harem of concubines and eunuchs; no other men were allowed inside of the palace. The palace itself was impressive, but I found that I really had to stand there and try to imagine how this scene would have looked two hundred years ago to free my mind from the few hundred thousand tourists that visit the site daily and surrounded us as we walked around.

After a two-hour drive, our next stop was the Great Wall of China. We took the cable car up to the wall as we enjoyed the lush mountains around us. When we arrived our tour guide gave us a quick history lesson highlighting the fact that the Great Wall’s construction actually began thousands of years ago in piecemeal as different regions built their own segments of the wall to fend off nomadic tribes and the Mongols. It wasn’t until the Ming dynasty that the segments of Wall were joined into what is now known as the Great Wall. What impressed me the most about the Great Wall, was the fact that you can actually hike along it for 5KM-10KM at a time, as it winds through the rugged mountain terrain. Hiking the wall really gave me a better sense of its size. It was hard to wrap my mind around how it was possible to construct a wall that is probably fifteen or twenty feet wide, a couple of stories tall, and thousands of kilometres long. All of this made more difficult by the fact that it was constructed hundreds and thousands of years ago. As I hiked a few kilometres and probably passed millions of bricks, I gained a true understanding of why the Great Wall is considered one of the wonders of the world.

After this long day of exploring, I decided to take a leisurely bike ride through Beijing the next day and explore some of the famous Hutongs (alleyways). Biking around Beijing was an amazing way to explore the city. It has great bike lanes on almost every major road in the core. The Hutongs of Beijing really highlight the change that has taken place in China over the past couple decades. They are remnants of the city’s past; grey, sometimes dingy, and dotted with retirees, children and shop keepers sitting outside on plastic chairs or going about their daily business. Some Hutongs have shops and vendors, but many others are splendid in their simplicity. They are a far cry from the steel and glass skyscrapers that are mere blocks away.

On our way home to Canada a couple of weeks later, we spent the last day of our trip in Guangzhou. As we pulled up to our hotel, it was clear that this was the modern China, with its sparkling buildings, new roads, western fashion brands and a wealthy class of Chinese enjoying the amenities of their city. The people of Guangzhou certainly seemed to be a different crowd than those who I saw in Beijing. They were younger and seemed to have some money to spend. The city has a massive park cutting through the middle of the core, the world’s 6th tallest building and a free museum displaying China’s rich culture through its ancient pottery, wood carvings, art and numerous other exhibits.

I left China seated next to an economics professor from a university in Beijing who was doing a post-doc in Canada. One of his primary areas of focus, is studying equality/inequality in China. After witnessing the stark contrast between China’s working class and wealthy as well as it’s underdeveloped and hyper-developed areas I thought this was a fitting end to my trip. I had the chance to hear an academic view on the same themes that I had just witnessed first hand. As we passed the fifteen hour flight talking away, I realized that I was leaving China, more fascinated with it then when I had arrived. I also had the strange sensation of being repelled and drawn back to the country simultaneously. Despite my discomfort with some of the policies of the government; the culture, people and the alternate reality that China presents are too hard to resist. I only hope I’ll have the chance to return.