Thoughts on Beijing

This past April I participated in a Chinese competition.  After doing pretty well I got to go on a trip to Beijing, organized and sponsored by Hainan Airlines and the Confucius Institute (an organization that promotes Chinese culture abroad).  Five other winners and I saw major sites around the city, ate well, got to know locals, had some free time to ourselves, and bonded with each other as we explored Beijing.  We also toured a Hainan Airlines plane hangar and aircraft operation center, and the Confucius Institute headquarters.  I am extremely thankful to have had such a thorough and enjoyable first visit to the capital.

Instead of giving detailed descriptions of the visit, I'll just go over some general thoughts on the trip and how it's affected the ways I think about being a tourist.  As is increasingly the case when I visit a new place (especially if it’s a popular tourist destination), I found myself analyzing the different activities we participated in, trying to understand what I had enjoyed most and why.  This trip was an especially good study in the subject, as we had such a wide range of experiences.

Looking back, the specific experiences that stand out to me the most are the big sites, like the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City.  These were definitely the parts of the trip I was looking forward to most.  They didn’t disappoint.   Tiananmen was an agoraphobia-inducing expanse that no number of tourists could fill.  The Forbidden City, though slightly more congested, was a well-preserved window into China’s imperial past.  The Great Wall was as beautiful as in the photos, and as we walked along, it was wild to think about its 2,000+-year history and the lengths to which emperors went to protect the kingdom

But while these specific places stick out first in hindsight, what made the trip for me was the group of people with whom I shared the experiences (sounds super corny, I know).  Seeing the Great Wall alone would be awesome, but the experience is more enjoyable and memorable with other people.  You’re able to collectively freak out that you’ve finally made it to one of the world’s most famous historical sites. 

Even though those famous sites are the ones I remember first when looking back, I wouldn’t say they were the one’s where I was enjoying myself the most...  Some of the experiences we had were fun just because we knew they were so different, the kinds of stuff that tourists in Beijing either don’t tend to do, or sometimes just can’t. For example, touring the Hainan plane hangar was partly interesting because it was so new and unexpected.  None of us had ever been in a hangar before, or seen the inside of a jet engine or plane wing.  On the flipside of that, we had all seen countless depictions of the Great Wall.  While all this hype around a site definitely adds to the excitement of going there, it sometimes makes it difficult for the place to live up to expectations.

On top of that, the major sites can come across as so tourist-oriented as to sometimes seem canned, as though they are there purely for tourism purposes and not for any intrinsic value they have.  This always depends on the site... for example, the Temple of Heaven, definitely a major tourist site, was one of my favorite places we visited in Beijing.  This was partly because it wasn’t just a tourist site, but also a park for locals to use.  We saw tons of locals chatting, playing cards or Chinese chess, or strolling the grounds, enjoying the scenery of the temple in a completely natural way...  It just gave the place an enhanced sense of value and authenticity.  This is one reason why I like visiting churches or temples that are still in use-- they also have an added sense of value and authenticity.

Another experience I enjoyed immensely was shopping at the Pearl Market, a location famous among tourists for cheap products, including fake silks and fakes of famous brands.  Haggling for products is part of the culture of the market which makes for a pretty lively atmosphere.  Fake luxury bags (Louis Vuitton, Gucci, etc.) are the most popular item.  We couldn’t walk anywhere without being aggressively asked, “Wanna bag?!”  Most of the merchants seemed to have enough English down to successfully bargain, but it’s quite a fun way for a student of the Chinese language to practice their speaking skills.  It’s fast-paced but doesn’t really call for any advanced vocabulary, and if you get confused or your brain-overheats you can just stop talking and pretend you’re contemplating prices.

But for me the true beauty of haggling is in the connection you can make to the salesperson.  Both of you are invested in the conversation and give it your full attention.  It becomes easier to relate to the other person through the universal understanding that people enjoy saving/making money.  In a typical bargaining session, the salesperson first puts forward a ridiculously high price for a product, after which the buyer suggests a too-low alternative.  Bargaining ensues and hopefully, if the buyer doesn’t give in too early, both parties can agree on a suitable price that pleases both.  This is the best part of the whole thing, because all of the buyer’s pretense of disgust at the high prices (in the end really only a bit higher than the final price) falls away, as does the seller’s disbelief at the low prices suggested by the buyer.  Both people can sort of chuckle at the strangeness of the entire process, and perhaps have a real conversation as currency and goods are exchanged.  This materialistic ritual may seem sort of silly, or like a shallow way of connecting.  But in a foreign country where it can be difficult to bridge the cultural gap it’s gratifying in a way that doesn't just  have to do with consumer culture.

That basically sums up my thoughts on the trip.  While I enjoyed being in Beijing, it feels great to be back in Yunnan now for the summer.  Thanks for reading.