Tuesday, November 29, 2005
XI'AN, BEIJING, FOREIGNERS & BIRD FRU
On our last day in Xi'an we went to see the Terracotta Warriors. Erected 2000 years ago, these 6000 life-sized statues all have different faces. They were discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well. Now they are the 2nd biggest tourist draw in China after the Great Wall. China proclaims them to be the "8th wonder of the world." However, since I can think of a half dozen "8th" wonders of the world, let's call it the 14th wonder of the world. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is flooded with tourists and people hawking little warrior souvineers.
It was then on to a 12 hour train ride to Beijing. I really like overnight trains. You get to meet lots of cool Chinese people (and a few crazy Dutch expats.) There are six people to a sleeper car and surprisingly, unlike anything else in this country, the beds are big enough for me. And comfortable. Arriving in Beijing at 8am, we checked into the Beijing Jade International Youth Hostel. It's really fancy for a hostel and located right near Tiananmen Square.
That morning we went to Tiananmen and wandered around the largest public square in the world, overlooked by a giant poster of Chairman Mao. Those who don't know the story of Tiananmen, I'll simplify it for you...student protests turn into a citywide protest with 1 million people...Deng Xiaoping declares martial law...the army opens fire on the crowd killing anywhere from 800-10,000 people (depends on the estimate, no one knows)...Time magazine photographer takes the 1989 Photo of the Year that I hope all of you have seen, of the lone man standing in front of a line of tanks (If you haven't seen it, look it up online.)
My next few days have been exploring Beijing. We saw the Hutongs - little side streets, many of which are being demolished for the Olympics; The night market - where one can sample delacasies ranging from snakes to bees to scorpions (by the way, starfish is gross;) and an open market where I bought some propaganda posters with Russians killing Japanese and Nazis and Chinese killing Nationalists (Taiwanese.)
The weather in Beijing has been quite nice, around 50 degrees. The only problem is one can't see the sun here, due to all the pollution. Living in Beijing is equivilant to smoking 70 cigarettes per day. Lovely.
Last night I hung out with Kev, my soon to be cousin through marriage. We went out for pizza and he told me about his being a filmmaker here. He just did a documentary on an orphanage in the south, and the government, realizing what he had shot, tried to take away the film. They destroyed his tape in front of him, but he had already swiched the tape. He then smuggles the films out of the country and puts a different name on them so they don't track him down. He has been living here for 3 years and gave me some tips for living in China.
Other people I've been hanging out with include: a French Canadian who keeps garlic with him due to fear of vampires; a black Nigerian Brit who came to China during SARS because tickets were cheap and never went home and who now writes plays and poetry and parties a lot; 3 vegetarian Finns trekking through Asia on the way to a monastery in India to learn yoga for 2 years; and some other interesting people. What is it about me that I attract crazy people.
I had Peking duck the other night. $5 for a whole duck. No one seems to realize that you can't get bird fru if the poultry is cooked. A World Health Organization scientist from Japan has claimed that China has had over 300 bird fru deaths so far and about 1000 cases, but that, in a repeat of SARS, the government has systematically covered this up. People have been arrested who were supposed to do the documenting of cases, and the government continues to blatently lie, anolg with praying that the first human-to-human transmission doesn't occur here.
On our last day in Xi'an we went to see the Terracotta Warriors. Erected 2000 years ago, these 6000 life-sized statues all have different faces. They were discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well. Now they are the 2nd biggest tourist draw in China after the Great Wall. China proclaims them to be the "8th wonder of the world." However, since I can think of a half dozen "8th" wonders of the world, let's call it the 14th wonder of the world. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is flooded with tourists and people hawking little warrior souvineers.
It was then on to a 12 hour train ride to Beijing. I really like overnight trains. You get to meet lots of cool Chinese people (and a few crazy Dutch expats.) There are six people to a sleeper car and surprisingly, unlike anything else in this country, the beds are big enough for me. And comfortable. Arriving in Beijing at 8am, we checked into the Beijing Jade International Youth Hostel. It's really fancy for a hostel and located right near Tiananmen Square.
That morning we went to Tiananmen and wandered around the largest public square in the world, overlooked by a giant poster of Chairman Mao. Those who don't know the story of Tiananmen, I'll simplify it for you...student protests turn into a citywide protest with 1 million people...Deng Xiaoping declares martial law...the army opens fire on the crowd killing anywhere from 800-10,000 people (depends on the estimate, no one knows)...Time magazine photographer takes the 1989 Photo of the Year that I hope all of you have seen, of the lone man standing in front of a line of tanks (If you haven't seen it, look it up online.)
My next few days have been exploring Beijing. We saw the Hutongs - little side streets, many of which are being demolished for the Olympics; The night market - where one can sample delacasies ranging from snakes to bees to scorpions (by the way, starfish is gross;) and an open market where I bought some propaganda posters with Russians killing Japanese and Nazis and Chinese killing Nationalists (Taiwanese.)
The weather in Beijing has been quite nice, around 50 degrees. The only problem is one can't see the sun here, due to all the pollution. Living in Beijing is equivilant to smoking 70 cigarettes per day. Lovely.
Last night I hung out with Kev, my soon to be cousin through marriage. We went out for pizza and he told me about his being a filmmaker here. He just did a documentary on an orphanage in the south, and the government, realizing what he had shot, tried to take away the film. They destroyed his tape in front of him, but he had already swiched the tape. He then smuggles the films out of the country and puts a different name on them so they don't track him down. He has been living here for 3 years and gave me some tips for living in China.
Other people I've been hanging out with include: a French Canadian who keeps garlic with him due to fear of vampires; a black Nigerian Brit who came to China during SARS because tickets were cheap and never went home and who now writes plays and poetry and parties a lot; 3 vegetarian Finns trekking through Asia on the way to a monastery in India to learn yoga for 2 years; and some other interesting people. What is it about me that I attract crazy people.
I had Peking duck the other night. $5 for a whole duck. No one seems to realize that you can't get bird fru if the poultry is cooked. A World Health Organization scientist from Japan has claimed that China has had over 300 bird fru deaths so far and about 1000 cases, but that, in a repeat of SARS, the government has systematically covered this up. People have been arrested who were supposed to do the documenting of cases, and the government continues to blatently lie, anolg with praying that the first human-to-human transmission doesn't occur here.
