Day 1: Train ride, Peking Duck

We left Shanghai at 6:30 in the morning for the train station to head to Beijing. After 6 hours on the train and 2 other hours commuting to and from the train station itself, we finally arrived in Beijing at 2 pm. The train was comfortable, fun, and offered a beautiful view of the countryside between Beijing and Shanghai. The train station was bustling and chock full of both Asian chains (e.g. Yoshinoya, Mr. Lee) and Western chains – as much as I rag on the transnational capitalism that has resulted in Western corporations staking their claim in the Asia, I have to admit, it was pretty comforting to know that, if I wanted to, I could easily satisfy my craving for KFC, McDonald’s or Starbucks. Which is why even though I liked Beijing more than Shanghai (an anomalous attitude in the group) for its cultural richness and (what I perceived to be) greater historical preservation, I would rather live/work in Shanghai. Perhaps I’m too attached to what is comfortable – being around other expats, being able to rely on English if needed, knowing Starbucks is just a block away from wherever I am. I’m also not sure how much my feelings have to do with the incredible pollution in Beijing. I caved and got a mask because I could feel the smog in my throat.

Jeh and I in our masks. The pollution was real.

The moment I stepped out of the train station, I felt like I was in Queens. Throughout most of the trip actually I hadn’t felt like I’d visited another country. If Shanghai was a blend of Chinatown (NYC) and Times Square, Beijing felt like a combination of Queens, Houston, and DC. Architecture- and landscape-wise, I felt very much like I was in Rego Park, Flushing, Forest Hills, or some other relatively popular, commercialized area of Queens – milling with people, bustling with commercial activity, but still relatively quiet and calm. Buildings hovered around 11 stories high (in contrast with Shanghai’s typical 40-story building). It was like Houston in that it was sprawling — remarkably difficult to navigate; public transportation is lacking and forget trying to hail a cab. It was like DC in the strong nationalist presence felt, though that may have had to do with the fact that the NPC was congregating at the same time we were visiting.

I joined the group for dinner at DaDong for Peking Duck; we had a private dining room with its own bathroom. The duck was not mindblowing, but definitely excellent. I feel that it was on par with some of the best Peking Duck I have had in the U.S.

Peking duck in the city of its namesake!

Day 2: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Imperial Garden, vegetarian dinner at Buddhist restaurant

Tiananmen Square was surreal. Within the square are the National People’s Congress building and Mao’s Mausoleum (has anyone called it the Maosoleum? If not, that name should be invented), among other buildings. It was a sprawling square, much larger than I ever fathomed. Though the tourists at the square were there for its political and cultural significance (it’s probably akin to the National Monuments in DC), I kept reminding myself that I was standing at the site of a massacre and it humbled me. I was under the impression that no one in China knew of Tiananmen, that 6/4 meant nothing to the Chinese. But the speaker at the next day’s dinner, a minority woman named Jin Lu, said that many people knew of what happened. They just don’t consider it as big a deal as Americans make it out to be, which was interesting to me. In the same way that mass shootings or riots-turned-massacres become just another day in U.S. history, the 1989 massacre is also viewed in the same context as just one incident in China’s long history, which spans thousands of years. This made sense to me, and though I was surprised that people actually knew about Tiananmen, it seemed like Jin, like my father, believes American media has overhyped and sensationalized the significance of Tiananmen. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but it nevertheless was an interesting, humbling and eye-opening perspective to hear. I’m going to have to ask my international Chinese friends more about it.

I was astounded by the Forbidden City. I’ve never been in the presence of such magnificent, sprawling and intricate architecture. I was amazed to think that my ancestors built such a beautiful and exquisite structure. It was unlike anything I had seen in my life and again I was humbled by the weight of history. The Imperial Garden, too, was beautiful. The emperors and empresses truly lived extravagantly.

We then had an insanely good vegetarian dinner at a Buddhist restaurant named Gong De Lin; Buddhist monks had apparently developed ways to make vegetarian dishes taste like meat, and taste like meat they did.

Day 3: Temple of Heavenly Peace, HouHai for lunch, Bell and Drum Tower, Nanluoguxiang, Dinner w/ Jin Lu

The Temple of Heavenly Peace and the surrounding park were beautiful. So many people, young and old alike, were getting their fitness on in dance classes, shuttlecock hacky sack games, badminton, tai chi, and kungfu. The fitness culture in China is amazing and definitely needs to be more of a thing in America. I joined in on a hacky sack game; I oscillated between being good at it and horrendously awful at it. Ultimately I bought one because Lanie, Anya, Josh and I want to make it a thing at Rice.

We then went to HouHai for lunch, a beautiful, quaint commercialized area by the lake. We then got to see an incredible view of Beijing, complete with the traditional hutong compounds, from the top of the Bell and Drum Tower.

View from the Bell & Drum Tower!

Afterward, we walked down Nanluoguxiang, a popular street market lined with stores, food vendors, bars and restaurants. Packed with tourists, it was nevertheless a fun experience. At dinner with Jin Lu, I had Shandong cuisine for the first time. I’ve never had Chinese food quite like Shandong cuisine before—dishes included sweet potato with caramelized sugar and sea cucumber. Apparently it is a foundational Chinese cuisine that doesn’t really exist in America, since most immigrants in America are from southern China (my father included).

Nanluoguxiang

Churros and vanilla ice cream drizzled in chocolate off Nanluoguxiang

Day 4: Great Wall, Summer Palace

I got to check off “Climb the Great Wall” from my bucket list. Finally! We had a wonderful tour guide and her driver took us out to the Mutianyu section. When faced with the options of taking the chairlift up or climbing over 1,000 steps to scale the cliff to the Great Wall, I decided to climb the steps. Boy, did I have no idea what I was in for. It was probably the most exercise I had gotten done all year. BUT I made it up and did not regret it because now I can say that I climbed 1,000 steps to get to the Great Wall. The wall itself and the hazy mountainous views around it were breathtaking. It was easily the most remarkable thing I had seen in my life thus far (to be fair, I haven’t explored much beyond the US).

We had lunch at a supposedly “local” village restaurant that oddly was large and had very nice facilities. The food was pretty good. Afterward we drove out to the Summer Palace, where the imperial family would go during the summer when the Forbidden City got too warm. Our tour guide told us about Empress Dowager Cixi, who loved staying at the palace as her summer resort and had a marble boat built to signify the stability of the Chinese government. The stories were entertaining and reminded me I need to brush up on my Chinese history as the stories are as riveting as fiction or a drama. Irrespective of historical accounts of Empress Dowager Cixi, she is undeniably a character. Our guide mentioned that Western powers had destroyed the Palace twice – first in 1860, at the end of the Second Opium War, and then in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, in which 8 allied powers, including France and the UK, burned all of the garden (again) and stole its artifacts, divvying up the goods amongst themselves. The palace is still in restoration. I was reminded of the incredible influence and damage the West has wrought on China. Our guide told us that though Cixi absolutely hated Westerners, she loved their goods – their cars, etc. – a hilarious fun fact that oddly is quite representative of the attitude China in general has (righteously so) taken to the West.

The Summer Palace was beautiful and Empress Dowager Cixi is nothing short of a character!

Bridge in the Summer Palace

Overall, Beijing was astounding in its beauty (putting aside the pollution) and its cultural significance. Though Beijing too has a history of Western imperialism and is a popular tourist destination, I felt the weight of history, culture, and heritage there in a way that I did not feel in Shanghai.

We took the bullet train from Shanghai to Beijing, and thank god, because it only took 5 hours. Upon arrival in Beijing, we were all starving. A few of us stopped at the McDonald’s in the Beijing train station,. This was my first time eating at McDonald’s since June 2014 – but I let it happen because it’s Beijing. The lady at the cash register was ready for us tourists, giving us a picture menu to point to, and she quickly understood my plea for ‘no cheese’ on my Big Mac. Also, High School Musical started to play while we were in McDonald’s #flashback. We then took the Beijing subway/metro to our hotel. The system was definitely not as great as the Shanghai system – Beijing could really invest in some escalators – carrying your luggage up and down various flights of stairs is not a fun past time.

For dinner, we walked around a food market, and tried some very interesting things. If you’ve ever wondered what starfish taste like…just don’t. But if you really need to know – it tastes like what you would imagine fried ocean to taste like – but not like Hawaii ocean, like Gulf of Mexico Galveston ocean. Thankfully afterwards, we got real food – actually the best Peking Duck in Beijing.

On the way back to out hotel, we thought we had walked into a war zone. Or maybe just – fireworks? It turns out it was the Lantern Festival which marks the end of the Lunar New Year Celebration, and everyone was using up their fireworks. It was a great welcome to Beijing.

In the morning we headed to Tiananmen Square. Watching a woman try to commit suicide in front of Tiananmen Square and subsequently being taken away by 30 policemen all in less than a minute was the most surreal experience of this whole trip. While walking around, we were under the impression that no one knew what had happened on the square. However, later on we met with Jin Lu, who said that people do know what happened. However, they view the event much like we sometimes view the Civil War and the Civil Rights era, a part of our past, and just that – a part of the past. The Chinese people don’t find it as big a deal as Americans who hark back to it non-stop, or at least that was her impression. Afterwards we headed to the Forbidden City, which was crazy big and we did actually end up losing Brandon. Once again, people were always trying to take photos with us, or with their kids and us.

In China, I finally got cupped! Don’t ask – but it’s totally a thing! Beijing also oddly reminded me of Moscow – the Soviet grey style buildings, the pollution. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy.

On the last day, we visited the Great Wall (or in Chinese, the Long Wall). If you ever want to realize how utterly nonathletic you are, try climbing the wall. It was beautiful, quite stressful  I’m pretty sure a few people were ready to throw my Taylor Swift loving ass off the wall, but it was a great way to end our stint in Beijing.

In order to get from Shanghai to Beijing, we took a bullet train. It would regularly take us about 13 hours to get to Beijing; however, with the bullet train, we were able to get to Beijing in about 5 hours, which really surprised me. After getting to Beijing, we arrived at our hotel. We were staying at Penta Hotel, a German chain, so our experience was very “western” to say the least. Most of the other people staying at the hotel were Europeans or Americans, and everyone spoke English.

Beijing, as a city itself, was in stark contrast to Shanghai. Beijing is a very sprawling city, with building drastically spread apart, high rises hard to find, and traffic at its worst. Shanghai is extremely urbanized, so it was surprising for me to see a city like Beijing. I personally prefer the urban and busy life, so Beijing was seemingly “dry” to me. Regardless, Beijing had its perks, and I got to visit some incredible places. In Beijing, we visited the Tiananmen Square where we had to go through a thorough security check about 3-4 times, which seemed a bit excessive to me. It was a bit staggering to me that the tourists, who were from other parts of China for the most part, had absolutely no idea about the Tiananmen Massacre and were visiting Tiananmen as a “national monumental” place. It was simply surprising to me that no one there knew about the politically relevant protests and incidents that occurred in the very place they were visiting as a place of national pride. After Tiananmen Square, we passed by Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum and went inside the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City Palace was absolutely beautiful and being able to visit the place where previous emperors used to live was fascinating. I got the opportunity to wear what seemed to be traditional Chinese clothing along with Anya and Lanie, and we had a great time. We also visited the Great Wall of China, which I unfortunately had to climb while I was pretty sick, but the hike was completely worth it. We also visited the Temple of Heavenly Peace, Summer Palace, and Drum Towers.

In relation to my research, our visits in Beijing were not particularly relevant. Pollution levels in Beijing were in the 300s, and it was interesting to see that many Beijing residents still were not wearing masks. Even we went and purchased masks for the three days that we were in Beijing, so it was surprising to see that the Beijing residents were not. Perhaps the residents weren’t wearing masks because they weren’t educated about the pollution levels, and thus, they did not have stark opposition to Beijing’s lack of substantial pollution policy. However, I will need to do more research and literature review before making an assumption about that.  Our meeting with Jin Lu, a minority resident, was interesting because we were able to talk about the Tiananmen Massacre with her. Her opinion was that although many people do not know about it, the older people that do don’t find it necessary to pass down to future generations. The Massacre, to those that know, isn’t particularly relevant anymore. I was surprised to hear about this.

We spent the front part of our trip in Shanghai, and the back half in Beijing. There was a bullet train that brought us there in five hours. This was definitely not there last time I went to Beijing. Last time I visited Beijing, I was only ten, and you had to take an overnight with super-nasty bathrooms. We got these big buckets of instant ramen, though, and we played some checkers or something. I think I might have had comic books, too.

Once in Beijing, I got some of that sweet, sweet KFC, except the stupid little train station KFC ran out of their flagship dish, the fried chicken sandwich. I think if KFC still sold this in America, Chik-Fil-A wouldn’t dare open their idiot mouths about political issues they don’t know anything about. Chinese KFC blows that Atlantean octogenarian’s soylent-sandwiches straight out of the water. American KFC still sucks, though.

Now that my irrational hatred for S. Truett Cathy and my strange obsession with Chinese KFC are out of the way, I have to say that Beijing is a very different city from Shanghai. It has been almost ten years since I was here. In 2008, my mother kept us away from Beijing because it would be crowded in anticipation of the Olympics. In 2012, we kept away from Beijing because it was apparently “not worth it”, and we had other places to see, like the Terracotta Soldiers in Xi’an. In 2015, I finally visited Beijing.

I now know why my mother kept me away.

I’d had a cough for a few weeks by then, starting the week before we left. It got worse here. The smog sort of sits around the buildings, looking like fog. “It almost looks pretty,” said Steven. Yeah, it does. It looks like early morning, eternally, in this city, but that’s not fog. It’s smog, the stuff that kills you.

WHERE THE HOOD, WHERE THE HOOD, WHERE THE HOOD AT!?

You see, there’s a reason I’m wearing a mask in this picture, and it has nothing to do with my inherent badassery or my overflowing levels of street cred. I was avant-garde, because I bought mine first in Shanghai. Everyone else bought theirs later on in Beijing. So avant garde.

Beijing is a lot more spread out than Shanghai. It’s also much harder to get a cab in Beijing. That said, there were a lot of things we liked about Beijing. I think everyone’s favorite was the lake. We also visited a hutong, an old-style complex of houses from the Qing dynasty. A lot of the ones remaining in Beijing have been turned into shops. The one we went was actually crowded, and it had a lot of trendy shops. I bought some postcards, and just outside of it, I got myself a bag with this on it:

And then everybody started making fun of me. Damn, I did not realize this class was filled with a bunch of close-minded tools. Actually, now that I think of it, I also got a bag with Shimakaze on it.

Yeah, it might be because of Shimakaze. OK, yes, they definitely made fun of me because of Shimakaze.

We also went on the Great Wall, or a chunk of it, anyway. It was filled with labor, sweat, drudgery, and pent-up anger. But, you know, it was still fun, and I even got to take a cute cat photo. The people on this trip love cute cat photos. I reckon Lanie and Anya have at least a hundred between the two of them. I can see why. Look at them, aren’t they so cute!?

Look, there were, like five other people and a little kid who were laughing and taking pictures, too, OK!? It wasn't just me! Don't blame me! I'm not the only one!

Beijing was naturally a little sadder than Shanghai, since we arrived through Shanghai, but left from Beijing. Even that aside, though, I think I liked Shanghai better. I have more experience with it, but overall, the city environment in Shanghai is far more…liveable than it is in Beijing. I do like the hutongs, though, and I wonder if we just didn’t get to go to the equivalent in Shanghai.

The bulk of our projects’ research completed, we left Shanghai for another bustling metropolis: Beijing. As the capital of the People’s Republic of China and a city steeped in millennium of history, Beijing proved an exciting and informative end to our trip. We reached the city by way of a bullet train from Shanghai. Most of us seized the opportunity to get some sleep, but the factory-dotted countryside provided interesting views along the way.

In Beijing we feasted on delicious Peking Duck and visited the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, the Summer Palace, and the Great Wall. The Forbidden City was a remarkable piece of cultural history, and some friends and I were surprised and impressed by what we saw in the Imperial Garden. Tienanmen Square, dotted with statues of communist patriots fighting for freedom as well as patrols of armed soldiers, was unwittingly ironic in the cruelest way; there was almost a palatable tension in the air (As we learned later, there had been a knife attack recently, and the government was holding assembly nearby).

The Summer Palace was beautiful and serene. The Great Wall surpassed my expectations, and we enjoyed exploring the ancient structure. Almost as much fun as the wall itself was the toboggan ride to the bottom, where you controlled the speed and breaks, and there wasn’t much of a side rail! We talked with alumni and locals in Beijing in order to get a firsthand understanding of our projects. I learned how difficult it was for rural Chinese to make their way to the better opportunities and living conditions of the big cities.