Monday, April 28, 2014

Beijing for Beginners

Time for another travel review....

Daughter No 1 has been working in China for the last six months and we felt she was due for a parental visit.

‘Just be prepared for culture shock,’ she warned. Culture shock? I’d spent three years living in LA. I thought I was pretty well prepared for anything.

Our journey into the unknown began on the Express Way from the airport. We expected to be greeted by the fug of hazy sunshine – who hasn’t heard all about China’s pollution problem – but not the blizzard of ethereal white blossom that fell from every available tree.  The husband’s nostrils began to twitch rather ominously as this cloud of kapok infiltrated in through the open car window.

A visit to China is an attack on all senses. We stayed near the Wangfujing, one of Beijing’s major shopping streets, where the rancid aroma of steamed tentacles from the food market hits you as you browse western style malls. 



Deep fried scorpion, silk worm cocoon and star fish on a stick are all available within spitting distance of the latest Prada handbag. And I mean spitting distance.  That’s another Chinese habit which sends shivers down every western visitor's spine. The sound of en masse guttural clearing of the throats and depositing of phlegm is as synonymous to the city as beeping car horns.

(Closed toe shoes are a must. Apart from the fact that you will be spat upon and trampled upon, according to our daughter nappies are also apparently a privilege of the rich. When that toddler suddenly squats down in front of you, move out of the way.)

The locals queue up to view Chairman Mao’s mummified remains on public display in a crystal casket in a huge mausoleum adjacent to Tiananmen Square.  

‘Surely he would be turning in his grave at the sight of all this capitalism,’ I remarked to the husband as we passed yet another Starbucks. He no longer cared, his sinuses were so blocked up.  

Elbows at the ready we battled our way through the throng to all the tourist hot-spots – the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Lake Houhai, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall. We took our life into our hands crossing Beijing's busy, congested roads - an adventure in itself. (Don’t be fooled by that green man.  If the taxi doesn’t run you down on the zebra crossing, the moped rider will.) 

Despite Beijing’s cosmopolitan veneer, Chinese families asked if they could pose with us – celebrity style – for a photograph. Others strategically placed grannie or granddad close by for a surreptitious snap of a trio of ‘waigouren’. Fair-skinned foreigners are still a novelty to those visiting the city from the outlying countryside.

Beijing is a city of contrasts. It is impossible to ignore the growing gap between the young and wealthy who embrace the western influences, and the poor and elderly, who appear to have been left behind. 

China has a fascinating history and I'm glad I've visited.  To stand on the Great Wall was an amazing, uplifting experience and so was the visit to  our daughter's neighbourhood spa. This is where a little local knowledge goes a long way.  £12 for a full sixty minute body massage.  Every taut, tense muscle pummelled, pinched and pulled into submission. It wasn’t my heart I lost in Beijing, but my back ache.





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