A journey of 1000 miles begins with one small step . . . and a 'blog'!

A wise(?!) old(?!) man (my uncle Rich!) once told me that: “A journey of 1000 miles beings with one small step . . . and a ‘blog’,” so here I am “blogging” you all from Beijing!

As Claire’s driver whizzes us through the streets of Beijing, amidst tooting horns and squealing breaks, memories come flooding back to me, not only of my last trip to Beijing (when I boarded the Trans-Mongolian Train), but of Japan. The symbols, signs and smells. The bright lights and busy bustling streets. The crazy architecture and the precarious scaffolding structures from which construction workers dangle. The kamikaze cyclists who dart in and out of the heavy traffic, some with laden carts in tow. The temples and . . . the tourists!

We’ve joined the throngs of Chinese and Western tourists to wander around Tiananmen Square, staring at the huge portrait of Mao that peeks through the scaffolding on the gate of the Forbidden City. Toured the temples; visited villages; meandered in the markets. We tour these places, taking photos of unsuspecting Chinese people – while they blatantly take photographs of us!

Beijing has so many temples to explore, each with its’ own history and colourfully designed eaves. There is the Temple of Heaven, the most sacred building in Beijing, that was built in 1420 for the Son of Heaven (aka The Emperor) to perform solemn rites. This temple complex consists of round temples that are seated upon square bases; the shapes of these structures coming from the ancient Chinese belief that heaven is round and earth is square. Another is the grand home of the imperial family, the Summer Palace, a collection of buildings that lie on Longevity Hill overlooking Kunming Lake. We loved the names of the buildings: “Hall for Watching the Moon Toad”, “Hall for Embracing the Universe”, “Temple of Timely Rains”, “Temple of Extensive Moisture”, “Tower of Moonlight Ripples” and “Chamber of Heartfelt Content”. Cherrybank now seems very bland! We also wandered around the lake over the bridges: Willow Bridge, Silk Bridge, Mirror Bridge, Jade Belt Bridge, Bridge of Pastoral Poems, the Lake-Dividing Bridge and on through the “Pavilion of Bright Scenery” that is named after an essay by Fan Zhongyan, a well-known writer from the Song Dynasty, who wrote: “the Spring is peaceful and the scenery bright; the waves are asleep.”

We also visited the Lama Temple that claims to be Beijing’s most colourful temple. On the way here I had a blond moment and asked Claire if there were real lamas here! We arrived to the haze of smoke as people lit incense sticks as offerings. Each person would light three incense sticks, bow three times, pray and then offer their incense sticks to the Gods. In every hall that we entered there was a shrine to the “God of Three Incenses” with this ritual being performed over and over again. The temples are beautiful with their intricate designs and beautifully designed and painted eaves, but for me, the most interesting thing is finding out about the Chinese and how they live.

We ventured out of the city smog and headed for the hills to Chuandixia Village. Zig-zagging up and down the steep hills, tooting as we rounded hair-pin bends on the wrong side of the road in an effort to overtake, we tried to ignore the hazardous driving and marvelled at the small pagodas on the hill-tops and the rippling tree-covered mountains whose peaks could be seen for miles.

Arriving in Chuandixia Village we wandered around the cluster of traditional homes, peering in through the beautiful doorways and venturing inside the courtyards. The stone alleyways wound up the hillside, red lanterns, piercing against the grey walls, some of which were still adorned with Maoist graffiti left by the Cultural Revolution. Metal kettles whistled on log fires, women washing their clothes on washboards, men sitting smoking on stone steps. The doorways, always facing a wall (stone), for perfect Feng Shui, held bushels of corn on the cob, possibly an offering to a God. Inside the courtyards are cool and clean, clusters of kitchen ware, neat stacks of bottles. The positioning of the rooms that surround each courtyard, and often the furniture in them, is defined again by Feng Shui. Each element is assigned to each of North, East, South and West, with water opposing fire (N and S) and wood opposing metal (W and E). This is done in order for a positive path (qi) to be created in order to give a person wealth, happiness, longevity and fertility. Terraced vegetable patches mounted the hillside above the village creating an idyllic location to live.

Another glimpse of Chinese life was on a hutong tour near the Houhai Lake. Hiring a rickshaw driver (who was blatantly impressed by our haggling skills – yes I am still a good hag!) we bumped up and down hutongs peering into open doorways and calling “ni-hao” to people passing by. Hutongs are the ancient alleyways that lie off the main streets all over Beijing, small communities now sandwiched between high-rise hotels and shopping centres. Similar to the closes that run off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, these hutongs would formerly have had names such as Cujiang (Vinegar Shop), Jianchang (Arrow Factory) and Biandan (Bamboo Pole – for a narrow hutong) describing the trades that occurred there. Old people sit watching the world go by, or hunched over their lively game of mah-jong or cards, one old lady picking her ear wax out with a stick! Bedding airs on the line, clothes strung along the wall and vegetables stacked on the stone floor. Life seems simplistic, but fulfilling.

Away from their homes we see people enjoying simple pleasures. Everywhere we go groups of people are hunched over playing cards. Men sit in swimming trunks by the lake playing cards before taking a dip. Outdoor gym equipment is found in most parks and by the roadside where people stop to work out on the cross-trainer or step machine! In the parks people do gymnastics on the railings or tai chi under the shade of the trees. Bat and ball games similar to lacrosse are played in the temple grounds. And why not enjoy a simple life with no worries when you are living in a country where the government censors the media. Watching the BBC World news broadcast one morning the news reader spoke about the Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia that had received an “angry reaction from China” before my television screen went blank. Not much negative news about China is broadcast into China, and therefore the people live in blissful ignorance of the events that should affect them. However, a headline on the MSN news concerning China caught our eye: “Funeral Strippers Clamp-down”. “Police in east China have decided to clamp down on the tradition of strippers at funerals. Five strippers were arrested last week for disrobing at the funeral of a farmer.” Apparently striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai’s rural areas to allure viewers to the funeral as it was believed that the more people that attended a funeral, the more honoured the dead person was!

Peering out of the window each morning the city looks grey and at home I would be wrapping up before going outside. Here the smog over the city prevents the sun from entering and over the temple rooftops and modern shopping centre buildings Claire and Gus rarely get a glimpse of the distant hills. Despite the pollution Beijing appears clean and tidy with its’ immaculate parks and gardens and litter-free sidewalks. The winners of the 2008 Olympic bid, China is taking its victory very seriously and already most flowerbeds, intersections and shopping centres have statues dedicated to the Olympics. There is also a clock next to Tiananmen Square that is counting down the 717 days, 5 hours, 4 minutes and 54 seconds to the start of the Olympic events that will take place in Beijing. This has also meant a huge increase in construction as the city strives to perfect itself for the upcoming world event. Construction workers work through the night, sleeping when they can in bamboo bunkbeds with wafer thin mattresses in their on-site huts (or catching forty winks on a bench!), before once again wobbling along the precarious scaffolding, some without hard hats, to work on the buildings. Prior to the Olympics the city officials are also on a drive to wipe out the spitting that is all too common to the Chinese culture. They are now providing a cup attached to a bin in which they are encouraging the Chinese people to spit into. As yet, I am still to witness this, as I dodge on-coming and side-flying spit balls (déjà vu of the school bus!).

Beijing has a lot to be proud of though and I am sure the throngs of tourists that travel here for the Olympics will enjoy the sights and smells of the city. The night markets, which are surely only there as a tourist gimmick, will thrive with the live scorpians on sticks selling by the handful! The kidneys, squid, cockroaches, bats, crickets, sea horses and star fish will surely be popular too! Gag reflexes will have to put up with the smells not only in the night market, but also the public loos. Apparently China is very proud to have invented the first flushing toilet, and Beijing’s loos are renowned for their pristine condition compared to those in the countryside (a treat that is in store for me later this week!) However, the smell of these toilets is not the only thing that is off-putting! The lack of doors and cubicles at these holes in the ground is certainly a new concept for foreigners here! It is definitely easier for young children to go to the loo here. The children run around with slits in their trousers and no nappies on. Their bottoms flashing to the world, the boys often with slits that go down the front too! Mothers and fathers can constantly be seen holding a child over a nearby tree or flowerbed to urinate from through the slit! Joking aside, Beijing is a city rich with culture, a fusion of old and new, that will impress any visitor.

Marvelling at these small insights into the Chinese history, culture and traditional lifestyle is fascinating. My tour guide, Claire, now a true local, has lots of insights and a guidebook at hand, but yet I am still bubbling over with questions and accost any Chinese person who has an ounce of English ability. Claire and Gus have put up with my questions with patience and have helped me to grasp some simple Mandarin to get me by during the rest of my stay. Thank you to both of them for putting me up in their luxury pad (and for putting up with me – and my questions!). It has been a fantastic first week of my trip. Tomorrow I will join the Gecko tour to travel from Beijing to Hong Kong on a ten day tour, plenty of time to ask the tour-guide all those unanswered questions!