Meeting Mr. Mao - On the Roots of PRC

In 1949 a man named Mao Zedong was standing on a balcony at the Tiananmen Square and proclaimed that time of PRC (Peoples Republic of China) has begun. The whole Tiananmen Square itself is strictly guarded area and no matter which direction you enter there, you have to access through metal detector and your bags will be scanned. For Chinese people, police even scans their ID cards before they are allowed enter (guess to check are they suitable or not) but for tourists that doesn’t happen all the time but passport check is possible but not likely, mine was checked once. But after all it is the parade sight of PRC for show off its greatness and power, a place where nothing ever happened… or how was it?

Now about 65 years later same nation is still standing and has become one of the world most powerful nations. The same man, Mao is lying in his mausoleum at the square. I have visited in Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow but it was tiny compared to this one. And the security to get in there: You have to have your own passport with you, you can’t carry any kind of bags or cameras or you will be pulled out from queue and told to take them a locker before visiting, and go to the end of the queue which can be annoying because during public holidays / tourist seasons etc. you might need to queue hours to get in the mausoleum. Before entering you have to walk through metal detector plus you will be scanned also manually if it beeps which often happens because of belt for example. Visit in Mausoleum itself don't take more than max. 10 minutes because it is not allowed to stop inside. First hall has a big white marble statue of Mao and place where people could leave white roses (and there were lots of them), in second hall was Mao himself lying in a crystal coffin with two honour guards standing in a uniforms 24/7 beside the coffin, and third hall had some writings and revolutionary paintings on the walls.

Other buildings on East and West sides of the square are National Museum of China and the Great Hall of People. The Great Hall of People is the place where the National People’s Congress (“parliament”) is gathering for its meetings and many other national and international events. The main hall where meetings are held looked more like a theatre than actual parliament, which is probably because of red colour but I still see it slightly ironic. Besides that hall there are many smaller meeting rooms for each province to have their own which is of course decorated on provinces own style. That is the idea I l really liked because it kind of illustrates the diversity of PRC. The picture shows view of the Shanghai Hall.

National Museum of China is also possibly one of the biggest museums where I have visited, I wish that I would have hat the step meter to count how much I walked just inside the museum. In the museum there were some changing exhibitions and some permanent exhibitions, I was more interested in permanent ones because they were connected to China’s history in various ways. Buddhist sculptures, China’s money, Ancient China Bronze or Jade art… The two exhibitions I would recommend everyone to see is “Ancient China”, which allows visitor to walkthrough all way Chinas history from pre-historic age, through all the dynasties and “The Road of Rejuvenation” which starts tells the history of PRC all way until modern days. Those two exhibitions gives a good overlook and understanding of China.

 Oh, and then there was idea of exhibition that I haven’t ever seen, which was really cool! It was about gifts given to China from other nations/organizations important politicians etc. Obviously on those kind of gifts every nation wants to highlight its own national proudness and cultural heritage so it was interesting to look what kind gifts were given from different parts of worlds. Some of them were easy to spot from distance where the gift was from, I even found gifts given from Finland to China – three different pieces.

Looking For a Place To Call Home

Yesterday I moved again, this is now fourth place where I will be living since my arrival in Beijing (1.1.2015). There have been differences between places, but there are two things that connects all of them: Hard beds and a western toilets and that is a luxury because all public toilets and even most of the restaurants etc. have the kind of system where you have to squat to do your things (in Finnish knows as “kyykkyvessa”). Thank god I’m not a woman because then life would be much more complicated, if you know what I mean... ;-)

But back to the places I lived so far. First place was called Beijing Tiantan Wancheng Hotel (rated two-to-three stars), in general nice place Southern part of Beijing just above the Temple of Heaven park but with non-English speaking staff. The room was okay, quite spacious double room with a big window with kind of “French balcony.” Bathroom had even a shower section separated partly (just the sliding door was missing) by glass so the whole bathroom wouldn’t be floating after taking a shower. Stayed 10 nights.

Then I moved to the hostel called Feel Inn where I supposed to have a bed in dormitory shared with five people, but I was put in to smaller “room”, or more like a closet with only one bunk bed and one chair. Room itself was about 2,5m x 1,5m without a window but the hostel had a nice small bar/common room where to spend time. Bathroom facilities were shared, two toilet-shower combinations where shower was attached to wall almost above the toilet. It was even smaller box than my room, where slippers were always needed to avoid getting feet wet! On the other hand, if paying 5 euros for a night there is no much to complain, besides I liked the place. Location was great, only 10 min walk to Forbidden City so like really really central location. Stayed 7 nights.

As I had been moving onward on South-North axis, thought to keep up the same direction. Third place was Yo Yo hostel, quite far from center (close to Longze metro station). To get to the center, I needed to change metro at least once and in total ride took 45 minutes. Super warm spacious double room without actual bed, it was just a mattress on the floor, but it worked well as it was the way room was designed. There was one very interesting interior design solution: As you were in the room, lying on a bed, it was possible to see the shower through the glass window in a wall. That was the only window in the room, which drove me nuts because there was no way to know what time of the day or what kind of the day it was before actually walking outside. Stayed 4 nights, but it was free for me because the company where Baiba started to work, paid the room during her training period… So no reason to complain.

As I said, yesterday I moved again. Back to the city center in a hostel called Happy Dragon (such a Chinese name :D). Room in here is okay sized double room, a bit chilly but without any weird glass walls and with the small window which actually means a lot after living in “darkness”. The plan is to stay here until end of February, a bit more than 30 nights… Hopefully so but we’ll see, it's a long time so who knows what kind of ideas might come up with.

Afterwards I will get my student dormitory room on campus and Baiba will be looking some flat/room to rent.  But before getting that far, it was time to celebrate this new “home” with some fruits (generally tasty, except Finnish strawberries are better) and glass of apple wine (turned out to be a "okay tasty" Chinese product).

The Magic Of the Tricycles

Regardless the fact that there are much more cars in Beijing than people in whole Finland, they are not the best possible vehicle in here. Scooter, bicycles and especially tricycles are playing the very important role of people’s daily transportation, for example when moving along small Hutong alleys.

Tricycles are the best because they provide more axel weight so they can be used for basically for whatever. Almost all tricycles bikes etc. are motorized so it makes moving around lighter.

Based on my empirical research (=eye observation), I noticed that there are three main categories on tricycles, divided by the main purposes of use.

First of all there are models that are suitable for transporting goods / parcels etc. Some of them are officially marked by enterprises logos but then there are all kind of variations so people can move anything from construction materials to their daily shopping products with their tricycles.

Second and third models are both for transporting people. As China is known to be quite hierarchical society where That is the reason  why there have to be separated categorized models for people. 

Second model is meant for rich and royal people because of its design, so with this one you can imagine to be an emperor or empresses in China.  

Third model is for common people, but notice that it is planned for every possible weather conditions. A feature which is not available in royal model so my guess is that after all common people are just more clever that royal people. :D

Hard Nights

No, this is not the story about being partying all night long, this is pure story about sleeping...

After almost two weeks of stay in Beijing, I realized one thing: People in China like to really sleep on hard beds… First night I was not shocked, but slightly surprised that “is that the bed where I should be able to sleep at”. The place I lived first was a hotel so there the bed was after all okay nice double bed after getting used to it, and at least it had a real mattress.

Now I moved to another place for a week and there are no words to describe how my bed is it in this hostel. I couldn’t call that thing on the bed a mattress so it really feels like sleeping on a floor, but I guess during this week I will be okay with it and then move again to the third and last place before getting a student accommodation from campus.

Oh man, I really do miss my wonderful king-size bed back at home :P

Wandering Through the Temples

Religions or more like the guides for “the correct ways of living” – Confucianism and Daoism – and later Buddhism has formed the base of Chinese ways of thinking during the history. As one prove from that, there are still numerous temples around Beijing. So far I’ve visited probably two most important ones, the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple.

Older one from those two is the Temple of Heaven, built in the 15^th century. Huge park complex surrounded by 5 meter high stone fence, and I really mean huge: 276 hectares, so quite a walk around!! Within that area there were three main buildings: The Hall of Prayer for Good and Harvests, The Imperial Vault of Heaven and The Circular Mount Altar. The Circular Mount Altar was connected for two others by a stone bridge which was rising little bit as walking toward the main temple so it would give an effect that you would be walking towards the sky… Clever.

As I was looking the park, I just wondered how lots of work the gardeners have done because every single tree were on line with each other no matter which direction I looked. I wouldn’t have patience to do that. People just did gather in the park for traditional folk dances, music etc. so I guess that because here are so many people, the park has to big also. Yet I wasn’t brave enough to go participate on traditional dances but maybe after a while I will.

Lama Temple works as both, monastery and temple representing Tibetan Buddhism so there were still monks living there. It was built during first decades of 18^th century so it is a bit newer one than Temple of Heaven. Also this temple complex was built based on harmony and balance on North-South axis, extremely precise artwork. That could be seen from the moment I did step inside the gates, a long pathway with high trees bending over it on both sides leading to a next gate. Entering through that gate there was smoke in the air, not much and not because of fire. People were burning incenses while they were praying in front of one the many Buddha statues.

There were few larger praying halls walking forward in the temple area. Buddha statues were amazing, for example one room had three big statues: the one in the middle representing present, the one at the left side was the past and the right side statue was the future. And the last hall “The Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happiness” was the world biggest Buddha statue carved from one piece of wood – 26 meter tall!! It was really unbelievable and it has made its way even in the Guinness Book of Records.

48 Hours in Beijing

Arlanda airport seemed to be okay and when returning from there to Helsinki, I fell asleep during the flight and missed free coffee/tea service… Besides that small incident all the flights were on time and actually went really fast. At the Beijing airport everything went smoothly: filling the arrival form, queuing for the passport control, picking luggage and walking through the custom – I was officially in China!

Now I have been here around 48 hours and thought to tell my first impressions:

First of all, people: it feels weird to be minority as so far I have used always been in places where western people are majority but now it is vice versa. I have already been in couple of photos with some Chinese people, guess it’s just so fun for them to see “weird looking westerns.” But still I was expecting streets and everything bee actually much more crowded than they have been. It is said that Chinese have always been good for doing practical innovations, one of the best I saw is the gloves attached on scooter / on bike that keeps your hands warm while driving.

 Secondly the language is interesting, regardless those Chinese courses I took during the Autumn I am really confused. The language barrier do exist because here it is really rare if someone speaks even few words of English so the communication has been so far me speaking English to someone and someone talking Chinese to me connected with a waving hands, pointing pictures and using the pen and the paper… I really need to work on my Chinese to make surviving here bit easier. Translation is still on process.

Thirdly about weather, everyone told me that air is so polluted in there that you can barely breathe and seeing the sun is really rare. Within these few days, sun has been shining and I sky have been almost clear. Air has been fine, not at all as bad as I was expecting… To be honest, I don’t (yet) notice even the difference, but that will be changed, I'm sure of that.

Fourth point is food… It is delicious, the variety of have been great, so far I tried for example duck wings, dumplings, noodles, fried mushroom pan etc... Quite basic things as you can see, especially to compare the things that are available: Lamb testicles, roasted duck head, pork heart on a spit and everything else that you might imagine for. Food is cheap: Meal can be found easily in a price range of 2-4 euros. But be aware: being able to eat with chopsticks is vital, otherwise is better only to rely on soups or starve.