I think I’ll finish off the Beijing section by combining it with the Xi’an section because I didn’t do a whole lot more in Beijing that I haven’t mentioned. The big thing was one thing I ate and I’ll try to transition that into some general thoughts that I have about China so far. (At the moment, I’m at the end of Day Nine in China and I’m on an overnight train from Xi’an to Shanghai.)
Food: This is a good place to start because the last thing I did in Beijing was to finally have Beijing Duck. You might call it Peking Duck, and I’ve seen it called both here, so I guess either are right. The Beijing Duck that I had was . . . you know . . . Beijing Duck. It had the sauce and the celery and the sauce and the duck. It was good, but I like duck and I don’t think it could have been bad. Generally, I have to say that the food I’ve had here isn’t significantly different from American Chinese food, but I think I’ve been a little shielded by the tour leader. The best experience I’ve had is when I have just randomly chosen things on a menu and tried those things. I’ll have a story about that in the Xi’an portion of the blog.
Traffic: I used to say that traffic signals in Buenos Aires weren’t rules, they were suggestions. Well, in China, traffic signals are dares. A red light in BsAs says to the driver: “I’d stop if I were you. But, you know, do what you want. I ain’t your mama.” In China, the red light says to the driver: “I don’t think you have the balls to keep going. Pussy. What are you going to do? Huh? What are you going to do?” People in China go through red lights like they’re offended the light is trying to control them. I assume its some communist protest thing. Seriously, here it’s legal not only to make right turns on red, but also to make left turns on red. Add to that an assumption that all pedestrians know the deal and you get really dangerous street crossings for those of us who have not been indoctrinated into the system.
Staring: People stare at me a lot. It hasn’t been done in a threatening way or in a way that’s offensive. I seriously get the impression that people are surprised to see an old white dude with a ponytail in their neighborhoods. It’s more funny than anything else.
Tourists: Beijing was full of tourists. There were a lot of foreign tourists, but the majority of tourists were Chinese tourists who were visiting Beijing for the national holiday. The holiday lasts for a week and travel is encouraged. In Xi’an, the big tourist attraction is the Terracotta Warriors. I’ll write about those later, but at that site, there were many more American/European tourists. We’ve also run into a lot of those at the hostels at which we have been staying. I can’t say that I like them very much. The tourists, that is, not the hostels. Maybe it’s because they’re young, but I think it’s because they tend to be spoiled and ignorant. Yeah, I’m going with that.
Okay, that’s enough of the random thoughts for now. Next up will be the continuing saga of Sheldon in Southeast Asia.
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