China Holidays 2017 Beijing

I want to complete the section of the website about China with aspects of Beijing during our two weeks stay with Karin and Wei.

After Angola almost 40 years ago, we lived in the southeast of China (Macau, Hong Kong, and the Guangdong province) for two years. China has been through some momentous changes during these last 40 years and although I was expecting to see changes, nothing prepared me for what I saw. Imprinted on my mind were pictures of narrow and dirty roads packed full of bicycles, horse/donkey-drawn carts, rivers without bridges having to be crossed by ferries, poverty that made our hearts bleed and chaotic urban areas.

We did three trips through the Guangdong province, as part of groups invited by the Chinese government with the objective of providing training for the people manning the structures that were being set to start tourism in the region. These trips were structured within the communist rules and we were only shown things the government wanted us to see. The guides were trained to exalt the virtues of the system and were very cautious not to express personal opinions. Having lived 5 years under a communist regimen controlled by the Soviets in Angola, it was pretty clear to me what was happening and I could read between the lines what the reality was. The government control was evident and overpowering wherever we looked.

Tourists where issued with special money that could only be accepted in the tourist shops the guides took us. I had an interesting experience with this: we were on a river waiting for the ferry to arrive and I noticed a man catching shrimps and selling them cooked in butter. They look delicious and I approached the man and tried to buy some. He looked at my money and categorically refused to sell me the shrimps. The Guide had to buy some and explained to me why he could not accept my money. It was only for tourists.

In my trips to Mongolia, I had been exposed to Beijing massive airports and that was an indication of the changes that happened, but the reality I saw outside exceeded all expectations.

We have to thank Karin and Wei for the way they organised our holidays and tried to show us, in the limited space of time we had, aspects of the Chinese life we would never be exposed to if we had been traveling incorporated in a normal touristic tour.

We lived in the Hutongs (Dongsi Qitiao, Dongcheng district), a suburb of Beijing, built by Genghis Khan some 800 years ago and now being brought to its old glory.

A square reticulation of very narrow streets (no cars in the Genghis times) designed with military precision, with grey high walls delimiting the courtyards, only broken by small windows and exquisitely decorated entrance doors. Being designed by the military, the courtyards where very Spartan in their amenities. The basic ones do not have toilets nor entertaining quarters even today; in each quarter there is a public toilet and people gather outside to socialise. However, the streets are very clean (exception to Wei’s neighbour that throws his cigarette butts in front of his house) as you can see in the photos. Obviously, the residences of the senior people that we visited were more elaborated, an example of which you can see in the photos of Karin and Wei`s house and the Prince Fu Mansion.

I took photos of the streets and avenues of Beijing and you can see how wide and clean they all are. The traffic in particular in the central areas and during the peak hours is chaotic, apparently without rules, but one can see some sort of general tacit respect for everyone’s rights to circulate, including cyclist and pedestrians, and surprisingly hardly any horn tooting.

The mixed of the old and modern architecture in the centre of the cities was fascinating. The old grandiose palaces and government building sat side by side with modern skyscrapers designed by famous architects. I tried to show you photos of the ones that impressed me the most.

The presence of the security forces although discreet was everywhere. Only in Tiananmen Square, we saw armed security. The sort of “neighbourhood watch” in the Hutongs is unbelievable. In every corner, you see a man in blue uniform watching the proceeds, riding bikes and interacting with the people. As soon as we arrived at the Hutong and I came outside of the house to look around, one security person immediately approached me. In broken English, we had a polite conversation where he enquired about my place of residence, what I was doing in Beijing and if I liked China. We had to register with the Police and obtained a “temporary residence” permit from a very happy and friendly police lady. The fact that in our Australian passport our place of birth is Silva Porto and Nova Lisboa caused a bit of commotion because they could not find it on the Internet. Fortunately, Karin gave them a short summary of Angolan history which was very much appreciated.

We tried to give you an idea of Beijing lifestyle in the series of collections as shown below:

You can look through the collection by clicking on the links above



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