Shanghai, China

Hello everyone! As you may have read in the photos I sent out, this will be the last blog post. Dave and I returned to Colorado on December 5 from Shanghai. We were disappointed to cut our trip short, but pressures at home were getting to be more than we could handle abroad. We are still incredible thankful for the time we were able to spend in Asia and thank all of you for continuing to learn about our trip. There are a few blog posts in this entry due to the fact that we could not access our blog in China. The different entries are marked with dates.
Our last stop was in Shanghai. Shanghai was a very different place to visit than Beijing. Although the city is 700 years old, the Chinese still see it as a young city. It is much more metropolitan than Beijing with lots of colorful lights and interesting architecture. Our hotel, the Hyatt, was located at the top of the tallest building in the city. We later learned it is also the tallest building in China, although that is soon to change as they are building a taller building next door. There is a lot of construction taking place in Shanghai. Estimates are that 1/3 of the world’s tallest cranes are located in Shanghai. Our room was located on the 78th of 85 floors. We had a great view of the city from our room.
Shanghai isn’t as big as Beijing and there isn’t nearly as much history to explore. We took advantage of the few interesting sights there were to see in the city. The first place we visited was the Bund, the area Shanghai is most famous for. It is a row of historical building located along the Huangpu River. Across the river is the Pudong district where many of the new buildings are located including the Hyatt and the Oriental Pearl Tower. We had fun walking along this area and seeing the unique architecture and famous sights.
Another area of Shanghai we enjoyed visiting was the Yuan Bazaar and Gardens. We have seen this written, Yu, Yuan, and Yuyuan. I am not sure which one is exactly right. Nevertheless, we had a great time wandering around this bustling bazaar where we found an assortment of Christmas decorations, pirated games and movies, and, of course, a Starbucks. We also explored the Yuan Gardens that were originally built for an emperor. In order to have a proper Chinese garden, the property must contain stone, water, trees, and pavilions. This garden was especially large and very beautiful. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around it.
After these two main excursions in Shanghai, we went outside the city several times to see some of the surrounding area. The first place we visited is called Hang Zhou. It is considered the most prosperous city in China, especially known for the only place in China that has the proper climate to grow dragon-well tea. Hang Zhou was the capital of China long ago and contains much history. Chairman Mao used to visit Hang Zhou all the time to drink the dragon-well tea. Chairman Mao didn’t drink the regular tea though. Each year, the village has a special harvest of tea that can only be performed by virgins. The virgin girls must pick the tea with their mouths and then dry it on their bare breasts for four hours. It is then sold for 500,000 yuan for a kilogram (which is around $60,000 U.S. dollars for 2.2 pounds). I don’t know if Chairman Mao paid for this tea or not. This tradition still continues in China. We were able to drink some of the common dragon-well tea while we visited Hang Zhou. It is green tea and it smells like spinach. In Hang Zhou, we also took a boat out onto the West Lake. This lake is famous for a story (included with the photos) about a snake who lived in the lake that turned into a woman. She met a man and they fell in love. Yet, an evil monk was determined to keep the lovers apart and locked the woman into a tall pagoda where the man could not reach her. He sent the man away to go to school, but while he was gone he gained a lot of political power and came back to rule Hang Zhou. At this point, he was able to release his lover and, of course, they lived happily ever after.
Another story that makes Hang Zhou famous is about a family that wanted to send their daughter to school during the time when only boys were allowed to go to school. Since the school would not accept her, the family dressed her as a boy and she began attending the school. During her time there, she fell in love with a handsome boy who found out she was a girl and loved her too. They wanted to get married after they finished school, but the girl’s family had already arranged another marriage for her. The boy was devastated that he could not marry the girl and killed himself. The girl sadly ended up marrying the man she was arranged to marry. Yet, during the processional after her wedding, she saw the boy’s tomb and was overcome with grief. She ran out of her carriage, ripped off her red gown (the traditional color for Chinese wedding gowns) and started toward the tomb. The tomb split in half and the girl ran inside where she ended up dying. The two bodies were reincarnated as butterflies and flew off together. China has lots of stories like this and the interesting part is that many people believe them.
The next day, we went with the same tour guide to Zhujiajiao, a water village about one hour outside Shanghai. This was a very magical experience for us. The village was definitely how we imagined much of China to be (and how I think much of it is). The big cities give you such a small glimpse into the culture or life of people, especially in a country as large as China. The water village thrives primarily on its fishing industry, although tourist shops are also there. I really believe the photos do the town much more justice than I could do it in words. It was such a quaint and friendly town and so interesting to visit. Of course, we visited Taoist and Buddhist temples while we were there. We got the opportunity to talk to our tour guide a bit about religion. Chinese people do not take religion very seriously. More than anything, they are very superstitious. They can be one religion one day, and one religion the next day. I am still a little confused about religion in China because the Chinese people seem to have religious freedom and yet America recently put them on a list of countries who are especially troubling at violating religious freedom. I am not sure where exactly the truth lies. We did learn that you cannot practice religion in public places. Our tour guide told us a bit about Taoist death rituals. His father-in-law had recently been hit by a car and died (if you have ever seen traffic in China, you will understand how easily this could happen. There are virtually no traffic rules enforced.) He and his wife’s family burned all the man’s clothing so he could use it in heaven. They kept one pair of trousers though. This is the tradition. The also created a bunch of paper creation to burn including a paper car with the driver who killed him’s name on it. They believed they could burn the paper car, thereby sending it to heaven and allowing the father to use it to drive around until he killed the man who killed him. It was very interesting and strange to hear about. I believe the general Chinese belief on religion was summed up while we were in the Taoist temple. There were huge (and I mean huge, like nearly as tall as me) sticks of incense you could burn and our tour guide explained that people could burn these for the future fortune of their children. We asked if he believed in this tradition and he said no because it was too expensive to believe this one. I think this shows the general wishy-washiness people have toward religion in China.
We also had the opportunity to learn a bit about Chinese family life from this man. This was especially sad for us to hear and made us realize how many of our freedoms we take for granted. Our driver was married but he had five concubines. He had two illegitamate sons that he never sees because it is, as you know, illegal to have more than one child. Our tour guide is also married with one daughter. He and the driver visit massage parlors all the time together and massage does not have the same meaning in China as it does in America. The girls who work in the massage parlors are between 17 and 24 (which is Chinese age so they are between 15 and 23 in America). The men do not tell their wives about this, but say that even if they did there is nothing their wives can do to stop them and divorce is very difficult. The men can also beat their wives and children and the police have no jurisdiction over it. Our tour guide says he has beaten his wife. If the women have an affair, the man will kill her. He says this does not happen very often, but only because women are too afraid to have affairs. Also, the parents will occasionally still throw baby girls away when they are born because they want to have a son. This mainly happens in rural areas. The women have to go the hospital every month to get tested for pregnancy. If they become pregnant with a second child and they are discovered, they will be forced into an abortion. If the police don't find out until after the child is born, the parents will be fined thousands of U.S. dollars (which is a lot considering the average person only makes around $1000 a year) and lose their jobs. It used to be worse. They used to come to your house with a crane, take all your belongings, and knock your house down. And this was not that long ago. This was in the 80s. Also, he told us people didn't have enough food to eat until recently. He said they often went without food when he was a kid. It makes me really sad and put a damper on an otherwise lovely day. As you can see, China still has a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of human rights, although things seem to be steadily improving.
Well, I guess that’s it. Thank you so much for keeping in touch with us via this blog during our time abroad.

Beijing; November 25

We left Beijing Friday night (it is currently Sunday morning) and are now in Shanghai, about 2 ½ hours south by plane. The weather is much warmer than Beijing (yea!), but just as gloomy. Right now, the fog is so bad that I cannot even see past our window ledge. We are staying at the Hyatt in the tallest building in Shanghai. We are on the 78th floor which is so high up. It is good neither of us is afraid of heights.
I left off in our blog entry after we had visited the Summer Palace. The next thing we planned was a visit to Hutong, the historic part of Beijing. We were very fortunate to get to take this tour because the government is planning to tear down all but around 100 houses in the next years. Our tour guide was directly affected by the government’s decision because he was forced to leave his Hutong home. Families like his are given a price for the land and basically forced to take the price and leave whether or not they want to leave. It is very sad and even stranger to think that eminent domain, the name for this practice, also occurs in America. In China, all the land is government owned and the people must always lease the land. Life in Hutong has not caught up to life in the rest of Beijing. Forty percent of the people who live there still use public bathrooms. They still use coal to heat their homes. We got the opportunity to visit with a man nicknamed Mr. Cricket who was gracious enough to serve us jasmine tea, roses, crabapple chips, and nuts. He lived in a courtyard with several other families but was considered affluent because of his many pets. Mr. Cricket had birds, crickets, a turtle, fish, a dog, and cats. In China, you need a permit to own a dog. Just ten years ago, owning dogs was illegal because of the safety hazard but now you may own one if you pay the fee for a permit. The fee has decreased significantly and is now around 150 U.S. dollars. You still cannot own big dogs though. One of Mr. Cricket’s fish could spit water up out of the tank and hit Dave on the shoulder one time. A few of his birds could talk and our tour guide told us that Mrs. Cricket had taught them poetry. If she started saying a poem, the bird could finish the poem. We actually spent quite a bit of time here until heading to the Bell Tower for more tea at a tea house. Here, we learned about a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and were able to try jasmine tea and lychee tea. They were both very good. After the tea ceremony, we climbed to the tops of the Bell Tower and Drum Tower. It gave us a nice view of the Hutong area from the top and we got the opportunity to chat with our tour guide a bit more on the way up and down. His views were much more progressive than our other tour guide whose mother was a member of the Communist Party. He seemed upset about being forced to move out of his house in Hutong and the general deception of the government. He joked about a sign that said “Biggest Drum in the World” on a big drum in the Drum Tower being symbolic of the exaggeration of the government about many subjects. He said that many people in China desire the lifestyle they see Americans living but aren’t certain how to attain it.
We both felt our time in Hutong was worthwhile and interesting. It was neat to see the way people in Beijing lived before the age of high rises apartment buildings and tourism.
Our last tour took us to the Temple of Heaven, Tian’anmen Square, and Forbidden City. As those of you who receive the photos could probably tell, I enjoyed our time at the Temple of Heaven very much. We didn’t spend a lot of time visiting the actual temple since you could only look from the outside, but instead enjoyed the activities that take over the Temple every morning. Retirement age in China is 50 for women and 55 for men. After retirement, the citizens are allowed to purchase a pass to all the historical sights for a very small price. In order to occupy their time, many people come to the Temple of Heaven to participate in all the interesting and free activities that take place during the morning. Dancing classes, tai chi, card games, choir practice, knitting, crocheting, and hackey sack were just a few of the activities going on while we were visiting. It was quite interesting to see the community developed here. The Temple of Heaven is the largest temple in the world built just to worship the sun.
After visiting the Temple of Heaven, we went to Tian’anmen Square. The experience of being in such an infamous place was very interesting. It was especially interesting because our tour guide wouldn’t mention at all the 1989 massacre that made the sight so famous around the world. She told us that she has a very hard time believing what foreigners tell her happened really happened because she was raised believing something very different. She was about our age and I believe most Chinese don’t deny the massacre, they just don’t talk about it. The memory is probably different for the younger generation who weren’t alive or were too young to remember much about it though. There is a lot of police around Tian’anmen Square since it is near the government buildings (although there are just generally a lot more police than I have seen anywhere else). Tian’anmen Gate, which is where Tian’anmen Square got its name, leads into the Forbidden City, the imperial palace. Oddly enough, a two-hour special on the Forbidden City was featured on the National Geographic channel the evening before we went to the palace. The Forbidden City was built out of sandalwood, a wood that is very difficult and time-consuming to get to Beijing. The saying goes that 1,000 men went into the forest to cut down one sandalwood tree and only 500 came out. The problem with sandalwood is that it catches fire very easily and so the Forbidden City’s buildings were burnt down many times before lightning rods were invented. The emperor lived a very lavish life, but no civilians were able to get a glimpse of the lifestyle because the Forbidden City was not open to the public. The emperor had one empress and many concubines who lived in the inner court of the Forbidden City and were never allowed to leave. In fact, I had always heard that the reason the Chinese bound the women’s feet was for beauty but, in fact, it was also to make it difficult for the women to walk so they could not find any lovers or escape their husbands. Even in the life of the commoners, the women had their feet bound at three years old to prevent them from meeting men other than the men they were ordained to marry. The only men allowed in the inner court of the Forbidden City were the emperor and the eunuchs (who could not act out on any sexual act with the emperor’s women due to a surgical procedure done before employment that made it impossible). I found it very interesting to imagine that the last emperor was not kicked out of power until the early 1900s. It is hard to imagine a working imperial system in such recent history. Although the main buildings in the Forbidden City were under renovation (expected to be finished for the 2008 Olympics), the sight was still very interesting to learn about and visit.Overall, Beijing was an extremely fascinating and educational city to visit. We learned a lot about Chinese history and culture while we were there.Shanghai seems very different from Beijing. The city’s buildings are colorful at night and the whole city is more modern and seems more prosperous. One of my parents’ friends called Shanghai the “New York City of China” which I believe may be an accurate description.

Beijing; November 18

We have been in Beijing for one week now and are adjusting to life in China. It took us a little time to adjust, especially since our Google is blocked much of the time. I knew I depended on Google, but I didn’t realize how much until I couldn’t access it anymore. The weather in Beijing is cold. I didn’t bring a winter coat with me but I had decided to purchase one in Korea, a decision I am especially grateful for now. The import tax in China is 100% so I know I got a better deal by buying it there.
We have been keeping ourselves very busy upon arriving in China. There is so much to see and do in Beijing.
The first thing we did was go visit the Underground City. This is a maze of tunnels that the government built from 1969-1979 when they feared a nuclear attack from Russia. The tunnels can hold up to 300,000 people. It was interesting to see, but it was more interesting to get there. We had just arrived in China and so the only thing we knew how to say in Chinese was hello (ni hau). We asked the hotel how to get to the Underground City and the explained the route via subway. We arrived near Tian’anmen Square and began our quest to find it. We weren’t having much luck and no one spoke English. Many of the people whom we tried to show our map would not even look our direction. Finally, we found a hotel and went inside to ask. They said it was very difficult to find, gave us vague directions, and then wrote down Underground City in Chinese characters for us. A man pedaling a bike with a carriage behind it offered us a ride. We showed him the paper from the hotel and he promptly cycled us through winding back roads before we arrived at the tiny entrance to our destination. The most interesting part of this ride was watching the passing scenery. It was not beautiful scenery and Dave and I saw much of the poverty that the Chinese people lived in. It was very sad to see the decrepit buildings and the tired, cold people.
The next day we went to Wangfujing Street, a popular shopping street in Beijing that has everything from street vendors to department stores. This was our first opportunity to experience the persistence with which the merchants would pursue the tourists. Although they were a bit more delicate with me, the people were tugging at Dave’s arms and one was trying to place a communist hat on his head. It was interesting and amusing to have such a unique shopping excursion. We also had our first opportunity to barter. I am not sure we were any good at it, but we tried.
On our third day we visited Lama Temple. This temple was enormous and was home to the largest Buddha statue I have ever seen. It was eighteen meters (approximately fifty feet) high and made out of one piece of sandalwood. It was quite impressive.
On Thursday, we took a whole day and went to the Ming Tombs and Great Wall. It was our first day to have the opportunity to speak to any Chinese person who spoke English. Our tour guide was kind and informative. All of the tourism in China is run by the Chinese government and we know the tour guides must be cautious about what they say. It was interesting to hear her speak about China and communism in such a positive light when we view communism so negatively in America. She seems happy about the eased restrictions on the people and claimed that she doesn’t mind the continued censorship of the internet and other media. She also mentioned that the people do not care that they don’t get to elect a leader. She believes that their form of government is stronger than the American government since it does not have to cater to the people. The desperation we have seen some of these people in and the human rights violations we know still exist today in China lead us to believe that people having a say is very good for the people. She says they have relaxed many of their policies. People no longer have to be Buddhist if they don’t want to believe (although she says they were never forced to believe in Buddha). This religious freedom was confirmed by other Chinese people with whom we spoke, but at the same time the United States released a list of countries which are of particular concern over religious freedom and China made the list. I am not sure what to believe. She told us that abortions are not forced upon women who become pregnant a second time (due to the One Child policy), but reading between the lines of her talk caused us to believe that women are strongly encouraged and nearly forced to abort second children. If a woman chooses to have a second child, the family loses all government support. Divorce is legal as is cohabitation but it is still frowned upon. The way she speaks, you would believe China has many liberties. And as for Tian’anmen Square? “You may ask me anything you want about Tian’anmen Square,” she told us. “Just don’t ask me what happened there in 1989.”
The first place we visited with our tour guide was the Ming Tombs. They were a bit anticlimactic. We had heard there were thirteen tombs belonging to various Chinese emperors. When we arrived, we were able to see only one of the tombs and were informed at that point that the tomb we were seeing would not be opened for another 200 years. We just walked around the outside of the building which was less than fascinating. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t a fifty minute drive to get there.
We headed to the Great Wall after lunch. What an amazing sight! I would recommend this to anyone of you. The wall is 4,000 kilometers long. We got to climb a bit of it and it was unfathomable how much more there was of the wall that we hadn’t seen. The only thing that detracted from this trip to one of the seven wonders of the world was the merchants that were camped out on the Wall waiting for tourists to pass by so they could try to sell their goods. It wouldn’t have been so terrible to pass them but they would literally follow you along the wall tossing their goods in your face so you couldn’t enjoy the moment. They would tug on your arm as you tried to take photos and were just generally very persistent. We were unsure why the government didn’t stop these people from taking over the tourist attraction. It was a difficult position to be in because you felt very bad that they were so poor and had to stand there but at the same time you wanted to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see the Great Wall. We walked along the wall until close to sunset and then headed back into Beijing.
Yesterday, we went to the Beijing Zoo where we saw the panda bears. They were fun to see. Neither Dave nor I had ever seen pandas before.
After visiting the pandas, we went to the Summer Palace, the home of the empress dowager (the mother of the emperor and the Dragon Lady mentioned in the photos). She was called the Dragon Lady because she ruled China from behind her son, the emperor. Although he put on the face that he was ruling, it was in fact her making the rules. In China, the dragon symbolized the emperor and I believe that is why she was called the Dragon Lady. The Summer Palace was so huge; our tour guide told us that it would take a week to go through all the buildings and see the surrounding land as well. After seeing how expansive the palace was, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if that were true. There were lots of buildings, a lake, and a forest. It was very neat to see.
Before we leave Beijing, we still have plenty of sights we plan to visit.