Our trip to China was incredible. Especially for learning about the rich history so remote to us, for admiring Chinese delicate art, for tasting real Chinese food, for listening to the Chinese people views about life, for a kick out of staring at thousands of fancy cars behaving totally disorganized on the highway, for visiting temples offering moments of peace, for strolling through exciting modern and ancient cities…
I will never look at a tag “Made in China” with the same eyes. I understand better what is China about-
Here are some of my thoughts.
Wherever I go, I love to visit city parks. China was no exception. Whether it was in Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong I was welcomed with the same scene: A park filled with older people happily enjoying in a big number a variety of sports: Tai Chi, Kung Fu, dances with fans, sword fencing….No one is dressed in sport clothes. Everyone is deeply concentrating on precise moves. It felt good to watch. There was no pretense, you sensed no obligation of ‘what one should do”. It was simply enjoyable passage of time. We sat there for the longest time and felt that all we saw made a perfect sense.
All of China, on the other hand, is quite a complicated matter. It does not always feel to locals like a walk in a beautiful park! China is beautiful and romantic; chaotic and unpredictable; incredibly advanced as well as incredibly behind; China has unprecedented moments in its rich history along with sad times with suffering beyond any country imagination.
“My snippets”:
When you walk through Shanghai you feel you are in the most developed city in the world. The creative shapes of super-modern buildings have no limit, hundreds of colorful neon billboards entice you to visit sound brand stores, the fast speed tram will whisk you anywhere in the city at the incredible speed of 274 miles per hour…The colonial charming left bank of Huangpu River tells story of 19.century wealth and European presence, the right bank is China’s pride of the tallest and flashiest buildings in the world. The city pounds with a happy life, Apple, Zara, Max Mara, Coach, Rolex stores are packed and vendors with knock offs of anything in the world are ever-present in the streets. But how many of the 1.3 billion Chinese can enjoy this desirable scene of happy city dwellers is a nagging question.
The Great Wall of China was a highlight – it had no other function than to protect, millions 0f people died while the wall was constructed over centuries yet once you are walking it, jogging it, strolling it – you are moved: Moved by the incredible human achievement to build a 3,000 mile long wall undulating up an down through forest, deserts, plains… We see it in the fall with the most beautifully colored leaves around and it is romantic as if medieval time was just happening…We are posing for many local tourists who love to snap photos of anyone blonde…teenage girls giggle when asking permission to take a picture of us and then run away only to scream of joy to capture exotic us…
The wall is beautiful, smooth, comfortably wide, reassuring that if we decide to achieve something we can do anything. We walk and walk far away from crowds – just us, the wall and beautiful forest around. I wish we could hiked for days…it felt so special, it felt as if we accomplished something. How silly to think that. Yet we all shared the same touching feeling: To walk on the Great Wall of China feels to be a part of human race that goes together hand in hand through joys and sorrows.
Beijing Forbidden City with its nine palaces, nine courtyards and a Summer Palace are a testimony to the rich past of both sensible and cruel governors who had vision for common good or only for their own good. The city behind the walls is full of beautiful vistas of endless buildings with red roofs, colorfully painted columns, enormous statues of turtles,(longevity), endless number of lions (symbol of emperor’s power) and romantic hideaways. We visited the Forbidden city after a thirty hour plane ride and so some of its part are in haze…
Olympic Village from 2008 Olympics charmed us: the Bird’s Nest stadium is quite a spectacle with its pleasant organic shape created from inorganic steel that is weaved as a true nest. Your eyes cannot leave its pleasant curves. The entire village feels welcoming with its wide avenues, beautiful flower sculptures everywhere and imaginative super-modern buildings around.
In Xi’an, an ancient capital of China, we bike all the way up on intact ten mile long city walls built in AD 700. We love the ride in a fresh automn air, pedalling away on the cobble stones 1300 years old, happily talking, admiring beautiful colorful historical buildings with roof line going up at the end to ward off evil…
The Terracotta army – the biggest archeological jewel discovered in 1974 – is incredible. An emperor Qin, who united China in 200 BC, built for himself the tomb with 8.000 life-size soldiers each with his unique features and a real weapon. Just imagine that. You stand there in disbelief with your eyes fixed on the never ending rows of soldiers…
Hong Kong just swallows you in. Before you know it you are n the midst of a wild wonderful sophisticated dance. The island, belonging till 1997 to England, has buildings seemingly one on a top of the other. What a spectacular view from Victoria Peak – as if someone carefully built a city from a logo blocks with number of gardens and pools on the highrises! People fill the streets, eateries, restaurants, bars, galleries, temples, stores, markets in incredible numbers but it feels good as the crowd is very happy and welcoming… You have a choice of walking the city blocks or hop on the longest escalator in the world elevated above the sidewalks. You have a choice to get off the escalator at each city block to have a dumpling soup and oolong tea. Hong Kong is fascinating, a city that never sleeps, a city with milions things to do, admire, enjoy, learn, create…like the swap meet that start at 10 PM and was crowded the entire night!!
And all of this we did too: a visit to a middle school (incredible!), a trip to a silk factory, a cloisonne factory, we had Tai Chi lesson in the park (it was fascinating – we generated quite an audience!!), caligraphy lesson in the museum, rickshaw ride through old Beijing, daily dinners with endless variety of exotic food appearing in front of us, tea pavillion visit with a lesson how to drink which tea, theater performance with blooming talents of Chinese artists hard to match anywhere in the world. We admired incredible museums. We sought out temples and pagodas to find some peace…
If you did not know and did not see revealing signs not belonging to the picture of perfect developed ultramodern cities, you may forget that China is a Communist country. You may forget that the people enjoying the advent of modernity may be in a small number, they may not know that you cannot freely travel, open a Facebook account, are forced to live in incredibly polluted cities. Yet…you visit a fascinating country with people who in general do not smile much and it is fair to say they may be quite assertive, but they are real, hardworking, unpretentious people going through quite a massive society transformation that must be overwhelming to say the least. I wish them the best, and from all they may wish for I hope they will achieve to live in freedom.
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