Hong Kong and China

The way that Hong Kong and China were done was different than other
ports. We docked in Hong Kong last Thursday. I was only able to spend
one day there, because the next morning I left for Beijing. I spent
four days in Beijing, while the ship was sailing to Shanghai (with
only about 100 people on it who decided not to go to Beijing). From
Beijing we flew to Shanghai where we met the ship and got to spend one
day in Shanghai. I was basically running around the country of China,
a typical week on Semester at Sea.
Let me just start by saying that I would absolutely love to go back
to Hong Kong. I only spent one day there, so I think I need a little
bit more time. During the day, I was able to visit the Chinese
University of Hong Kong and meet some local students who attend the
university. We ate a traditional dim sum lunch, and honestly, I have
no idea what I ate, so when I get back I'll show you all pictures to
see if anyone can identify the food. Whatever it was, it was all
delicious. After we struggled with the chop sticks for awhile, we were
led on a campus tour by several of the students. It was somewhat of a
dreary day, which was really nice, because my sweatshirts were
starting to feel neglected with all of the tropical countries we've
been to. The campus wasn't anything spectacular, architecturally,
however it overlooked the ocean and had many different areas that were
beautifully and distinctly Asian, such as a large tree, surrounded by
an infinity pool that overlooks the sea. My favorite part of the
college campus was that it felt like a college campus, something that
I didn't realize I missed until I stepped onto the university
property. It felt so comforting just to be somewhere that felt
familiar, even though it was completely foreign.
After we said goodbye to our new friends, I met up with some of my
American friends for dinner in the city and the famous Hong Kong light
show. We walked to the Avenue of Stars. The Avenue looks across the
bay to Hong Kong Island, where the business district and the
skyscrapers stand. Every night at 8 pm music is played and the
skyscrapers' lights dance to the music and flash lasers. The night was
foggy, so it wasn't as spectacular as we were expecting, and the music
was a little bit like something that would be played during a
Disneyland light show, but it was still a fun experience. It was
pretty amazing that the entire city could be cued to music and the
cityscape is one of the best that I've ever seen, simply because it is
so colorful and alive.
Later, my friend and I went to a night market in the city that sold
art, traditional clothes, and of course, a few touristy souvenirs.
This market, was absolutely unending. We decided that we would walk to
the end of it before we decided to buy anything because we had no idea
where to begin. Ten minutes later, we still weren't at the end of it,
so we decided to just start looking at the goods. I found this great
original painting of the city for about 5 USD. At these markets, you
are supposed to bargain with the vendors, but this painting clearly
was intricate and unique. I felt like I was ripping the artist off by
giving him his asking price. In the US a painting like that would have
been $40 at least.
Here's a good story for you. Kind of embarrassing, but I think you'll
find it funny, so it's worth it. I was looking at some traditional
Chinese dresses in the market. The sleeveless kind with the high
collar. You've seen them before. It was made out of silk and only cost
about $10 USD. The size on the rack was a medium and it looked like it
would fit me. At home, I am typically a medium, so I asked the woman
if this dress would fit me. She told me no and when I asked her what
size I needed she looked me up and down, walked around me, clearly
surveying me very closely and then proceeded to say, "Extra, extra
large." My friend and I started cracking up, because I wasn't
expecting that. Then she says, "Because of this," and hits her rear
end. That made us start laughing even harder. Now, I haven't gained
much weight, but the sizes in all of these Asian countries run very
small and I guess I do have a little something that many Chinese
people don't have; a few curves. I'm stubborn though, so I held up a
large, decided that it would fit and bought it.
Yeah, it doesn't fit.
After that fun little experience, we were both out of Hong Kong
dollars and decided that it was time to go back to the ship. By this
time, it had started to rain, so we made the two-mile walk back to the
ship while getting drenched (which was actually a lot of fun), and
said goodbye to Hong Kong.
The next morning I had to be up bright and early for the three-hour
flight to Beijing. When we flew into the airport, it was completely
deserted, which seemed a little bit strange. It was a huge building,
with a lot of wide-open spaces, which seemed to be common in Beijing.
The architecture gave it a very modern look. As soon as we boarded the
buses, we discovered why it was so empty. The airport had only been
open for ten days. It was a new addition to the city in preparation
for the Olympics.
We headed straight to the Summer Palace, a palace surrounding a lake
that the Dragon Lady built, unbeknownst to the rest of China at the
time. Honestly, I could move to the summer palace. Despite the fact
that all 1.3 billion people in China were there on this particular
day, it was absolutely gorgeous. The day we were there felt like a
perfect fall day. That crisp air with that certain lighting that only
comes around in the fall in the US. The buildings were spread out over
several miles and pagodas, walkways and trees blooming cherry blossoms
surrounded the area. Out on the lake, people were paddle boating and
taking guided cruises. Intricate carvings of golden dragons lined the
roofs of the pagodas, artwork that goes underappreciated, but is
incredibly detailed and had to have been time-consuming. We were able
to walk around this area for a while before heading out to a dinner at
a Peking duck restaurant where we were able to sample different
preparations of the duck. We even got to see them being prepared, an
image that, unfortunately, I'm not sure I'll be able to get out of my
head for quite some time.
The second day we woke up early and took the hour and a half drive
outside of the city to…The Great Wall of China. In order to walk up to
the Great Wall, we had to pass through a small market selling all
types of tourist items, including fabulously tacky t-shirts announcing
to the world, "I climbed the Great Wall." I bought two. Our group had
the option of taking a chair-lift up to the actual wall before
climbing, but I had a challenge from my grandparents to climb all the
way to the top, so there was no way I was going to take a chair-lift
up there, so two of my friends and I hiked the never-ending staircase
to the Great Wall, where we were greeted by even more never-ending
staircases. Even though the day was hazy (as all days are in the 1.3
billion person China), the Wall was still a magnificent sight. In the
distance, jagged mountains could be seen through the haze, and on the
hills around us, the Wall twisted, hugging the curved areas perfectly.
We soon found out that we were celebrities in China. We were stopped
by a group of middle-schoolers from Qingdao and two-by-two they took
one picture after another with us to show their friends back home.
They were incredibly nice kids and we had fun posing for pictures of
them, occasionally holding up the peace sign, which is made in almost
every picture by the Chinese. It took us a couple hours to climb to
the top (I did it Grandma and Grandpa!), mostly because we had to stop
to take pictures every eight feet or so, but when we got there, it
seemed like we could see all of China below us.
After leaving, the Wall, we had the rest of the afternoon to do
whatever we wanted, so two of my friends and I jumped in a cab and
headed for the Beijing Zoo to see the pandas. Our cab driver spoke no
English, so my friend Cheri pointed on the map where we wanted to go,
and tried to act out a panda bear, before he figured out where we
wanted to go. The panda house was under renovation for the Olympics
(like the rest of Beijing), however it was still open. When we got
there, one of the younger pandas had climbed up into a tree and was
teetering very close to the edge, on branches we were sure could not
hold his weight. We watched this for a while before heading around the
rest of the zoo. Honestly, the zoo grounds were very nice, but the
housing for the animals was not. The cat house consisted of very large
lions and tigers in very small cages. I had to leave that room. We
were wondering if the Olympics will cause the zoo to have to improve
the conditions that the animals are living in. I hope so.
We got there with only about an hour and a half before the zoo
closed, so after we quickly saw some of the main attractions and took
some great pictures of us running around the zoo, we found another cab
driver, who also spoke no English, and somehow got him to take us to
the Olympic Stadium and Aquatics Center. The stadium is called the
Bird's Nest, because it looks like… A Bird's Nest. This is where the
opening ceremonies will be held, and right next to it is the Aquatics
Center. This is a large blue rectangle that appears as though it has
bubbles on the outside of it. It glows bright blue at night. Both of
them, even though they are not quite finished and we couldn't get too
close, are quite an impressive sight.
After we had seen the Olympic venues, we were in serious need of some
familiar food. I am a huge fan of Chinese food, but for some reason,
this was the one type of food that really upset my stomach. We decided
that we needed to make a stop at Pizza Hut. We tried to tell our cab
driver that we wanted Pizza Hut. I had even taken a picture of one
earlier so that I could show him, but he wasn't sure what I was trying
to show him. Cheri drew a picture of a pizza and tried to draw the
Pizza Hut symbol, but still, nothing. Finally, we decided to just head
back to the hotel and go from there. As we were driving home, we saw
one on the other side of the street and started telling the bewildered
driver, who did not look much older than us, that we had seen a Pizza
Hut. He finally understood, made a u-turn and dropped us off.
Now, Pizza Hut in China is fine dining. Ok, maybe not fine dining,
but it doesn't feel like a Pizza Hut in the US. It feels more like a
California Pizza Kitchen, if that helps to put the image in your mind.
We sat down and looked at the menu. A pepperoni pizza was called "The
American Special." Perfect. We each ordered what would have been in
the US a personal size pizza, but they did not quite understand that
we each wanted a pizza. "Three pizzas?" They said in shock. We told
them yes, three. When they brought them out, I swear, people were
staring at us as we ate them. They really weren't big! I don't know
what the big deal was!
The third day, we visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and
the Lama Temple, named for the Dalai Lama, not because it has llamas
(somebody thought that on our trip). Tiananmen Square was huge. It was
much bigger than what I have ever imagined. I can't imagine how
frightening it must have been to be in that huge open space during the
1989 massacre. Across the street is a larger-than-life portrait of
Mao, watching over the square. I was asking one of our guides about
the massacre. First I asked her where the famous picture of the tank
was taken and she told me that it was down the street from where we
were standing. Next, I asked her how many people exactly were killed
during the massacre. "None," she said, "At lease that's what the
government told us." She went on to say that she knew many people had
been killed, but because the official stance of the government was
that no one was killed, she had no idea how many casualties there
actually were. She told me that her neighbor had been there that day
and that he had never come home. His parents never found out what
happened to him that day. That was my first experience with the
censorship in China.
After we had spent some time in Tiananmen Square, we walked across
the street to the Forbidden City, the emperor's palace. The Forbidden
City is made up of building upon building, all red, consisting of
roofs curved up at the ends. In the back of the city is a large garden
with very interesting, but beautiful trees and flowers. It took us
about an hour and a half to get through here, and we didn't even see
the whole city. The place is absolutely huge. That and the 1.3 billion
people who were at the Summer Palace followed us to the Forbidden City
made it difficult to see the entire palace in the amount of time we
were allotted.
Later in the day, we went to the Lama Temple, a Buddhist temple with
many different shrines to the Buddha placed around the grounds. We
happened to be there on a special day. I might be mistaken, but the
way that I understood it was that the day we were there was the 15th
day of the month in the Chinese calendar, which was a day for prayer.
There were hundreds of people there burning incense and performing
ritualized prayers to the Buddha. Each temple had a dozen people or so
outside deep in prayer. We were offered incense to burn by a woman and
were invited to participate in the activity, which was a very touching
and uniting experience.
That night we went to an acrobatic show in the city. The things these
people were able to do and the amount of strength and flexibility they
showed off did not even seem possible. They made it look so incredibly
easy, we felt as if we should be able to jump on stage with them and
effortlessly throw our legs over our heads while standing on our arms.
The next morning, Cheri and I turned on our TV in the hotel to CNN,
one of the two English channels. The channel was black, so we flipped
around for a little bit before returning to CNN to see that the
channel was back and that there was a light interview on. We thought
that it was no big deal and got ready for the last day in Beijing.
Later that day, we were talking to some other people who had
experienced the same thing, only they had been watching the channel
when it had gone black. Apparently, CNN had gone black in the middle
of the story about the Olympic torch relay protests in London and had
come back on after the story was over. That afternoon, as we boarded
the plane to head back to Shanghai, there was a Chinese newspaper in
English offered to passengers as we walked in. The headline read,
"Warm Reception in Cold London." According to the China Daily, London
had been very happy to have the Olympic torch pass through and the
event occurred with almost no blips. There are two sentences about any
kind of interruptions. The newspaper states, "British police foiled an
attempt by a person to grab the torch and immediately took him away.
He was among the 25 who tried to disrupt the torch relay and were
detained for public order offenses, police said." These two sentences
are in the middle of the article. After this it goes on to talk about
how excited London is to have the 2012 Olympics. I thought this
article was incredible, especially because I am positive that the rest
of the world's newspaper articles were about the protests with maybe
one or two sentences about the 2012 Olympics. I know that in the US,
we don't always get the most unbiased news, but it was so strange to
me to know what was going on in the world and to see that the people
of China are not getting even close to an accurate report at times.
Just imagine if you had no idea what was really going on in the rest
of the world, not because you didn't want to know, but because you
couldn't know. It's a really strange thought for me.
I spent the last day in Shanghai, a much more modern feeling city
than Beijing. Beijing is much more spread out than Shanghai giving it
less of a "big city" feel and more of an industrial feel. Shanghai has
the skyscrapers and the bright lights condensed in a city center area.
One of my favorite parts of Shanghai was the architecture. The
skyscrapers are not just straight up and down rectangles growing out
of the ground. Each is unique with it's own curves and edges. Even
though the day was freezing cold and we had to deal with sleet-like
rain, meaning that we couldn't visit some of the outdoor areas we had
planned on going to, we still had a lot of fun just exploring the city
on our own.
Tomorrow morning, we get to Japan, the last major stop on the voyage.
I am planning on packing as much as possible into the four days that
we are there, because after that, we get to spend a lot of time on the
ship. I'm trying to find a baseball game in either Kobe or Hiroshima
so wish me luck!