More forbidden city

Here is an assortment of pictures once inside the 4th gate.







This next one is actually an opera house built in the late 1800's with three levels of stages.



My favorite part was the gardens which are shown in the next two.





And when you see a AC unit don't forget:

Tain'anmen Square, Forbidden City and Feng Shui

Our first full day here (Sunday) was a free day and we did some major walking. Jian's husband had offered to act as our guide - he's a bit of a history buff and Jian took their kids on more kid friendly activities. We took a taxi from our hotel over to the south end of Tian'anmen square. For centuries, the ancient chinese system of feng shui was used to oreint buildings, tombs, parks, etc. It was thought that by using certain laws of the heavens and the earth one could maximize the influence of positive 'qi' on one's life. In particular, there is a north/south (almost) line that runs through Beijing that was supposed to represent the exact center line of the city (and I think, perhaps the universe). Several important structures are aligned on this axis. We were generally following that line - and hoping for the resulting benefits of positive qi! The map below shows the area we were in, the center line (added in red) and our route (added in black).

We walked across Tian'anmen square. There was a security checkpoint, but it was pretty low key. Actually the only scanning technology I've had to pass through here is infrared cameras that are looking for people with a fever. The imaginary centerline of Beijing runs right through the middle to Tian'anmen square, including Mao's masoleum and the monument to the people's heroes (a war memorial) shown below.

From Tian'anmen square just crossing the street brings you to the forbidden city. This is a huge palace compound. It was built in the Ming dynasty in the 1420's when they moved the 'capitol' of China to Beijing. Twenty some odd emporers ruled from here over a 500 year period. The last being kicked out in a revolution in 1911. Coming up from the south, there are five huge gates to pass through before one got to the emporer. There are other entrances with fewer gates, but the southern one is the principal way in (more feng shui). Below is the first gate; note the picture of Mao is right on the centerline of the city.

I guess I didn't get a picture of gate 2 (wasn't counting them at that point). Gate 3 is shown below. Evidently if your meeting with the emporer went badly, you might be taken out and be-headed in front of gate 3. But now it's the ticket booth area for the park.

And now gate 4. These are big gates and not close together! To see the emporer you really had to work on it. Actually, your station in life determined how many gates you'd ever get through. A peasant would never get through the first gate.

The last picture was taken while standing right on the centerline of the city. Note the path leading up to the gate. There are stairs on either side but not right down the middle. The middle ramp has dragons carved in it. When the emporer came out the gates, he'd come down the middle, but he wasn't walking. He'd be carried on large throne platform; it was the several servants on either side that needed to use stairs. Once through gate 4 you can fan out and there is a lot of the palace grounds that can be reached. I don't think we ever did go through gate 5. It's a huge place and we didn't try to see it all.

Walk around the block

The first night here the three of us took a long walk around the block. I'm told this is sort of a working class area. A mix of residential, commercial and government offices jumbled together. You'll pass a huge sky-scraper with broad pedestrian walkways and then a little ways down a scrappy looking house will jut way out into the sidewalk and you'll have to walk in the side street to go around. [Jian wasn't sure if this one was an illegally built addition or just pre-dates the expansion of the street and walkway]. Lots and lots of people out and about. Especially on a little stretch by the 'river'. I say river in quotes because it is a real river, but it has been channeled and boxed-in and looks more like a canal. All the people outside reminded me of reading about New York City in the 1800's or early 1900's. The houses are pretty hot and stuffy by the end of the day. With the sun down and a little breeze it feels nicer to be outside. So people are just hanging out on the stoops and sidewalks living their lives. A whole family has chairs, a little table and is playing cards on the median strip of a small street. A kid is squatting in front of a TV that is setting on the sidewalk near an open door. Grandpa, with no shirt on, is sitting on some steps and watching the people walk by. I'd read and Jian comfirmed that Beijing is a very safe place to walk with a very low crime rate.

Hotel Challenges

There were a number of surprises the first night at the hotel. I felt a little like I was in a reality TV show - Survivor: china tourist. Part of it was probably just being dead tired. It's actually a nice hotel, as you can see from the lobby above. But there are nicer hotels closer to the main tourist attractions. This one was chosen because it is right aroung the corner from (5 min walk) the offices we'll visit. I haven't seen any westerners in this hotel or the surrounding streets.

When we first checked in, the rooms were very hot and muggy. Not too surprising, just need to find the thermostat. Took a little while. There is a funky wood paneled master control area with dimmers and switches for all the room lights, the radio and AC controls. AC wouldn't seem to come on. Jian called in help, but we slowly realized the AC was on, you just couldn't tell. At least not immediately. This is not the land of the big honkin' AC. It's a central system and you can feel it if you put your hand up to the vent, but you can't really hear or feel if it comes on otherwise. It does a decent job after 15 minutes or so.

In a bit we all went to dinner downstairs. When we returned to the rooms, mine was pitch black and hot and stuffy again. When we were ushered into our rooms earlier, whoever let me in (I can't recall) had used the key card and then there was a nifty little holder thingy for the card right inside the door that they showed me. I thought, well that's cute. Turns out it was more than cute. You have to put the card in that slot to turn the power back on. Whenever you leave your room with your key the power to the whole room goes off after about a minute. That includes the AC, the room frig, a charging camera battery. China is undergoing a boom in power usage too and conservation is a big push. So we always get to return to a warm stuffy room.

I knew the power would be different. It's higher voltage 220 instead of 110 so it would fry some US devices. But a lot modern electronics are designed to handle both. It's especially easy to do in an AC adaptor and I checked all three that I brought and they were fine with the higher voltage (all three were made in China too, so they are back home again). The plugs are different as well, but I had been told that I would probably be able to plug in. Well that works if you just have the two prongs, but it can't accomidate the third ground prong. The camera adaptor was fine but the laptop charger had the three prongs [I ended up just bending the ground prong off as I had work to do the next day and was too tired to think about other options and it's superfluous in an AC adaptor anyway].

The hotel has high speed internet which worked fine for me. I did find right away that a number of sites are blocked including this blog, facebook and youtube. Poor Carrie has had a lot more trouble since she has a mac and evidently the internet in the hotel is setup to only work with Windows (not sure yet whether it's the OS or the browser that's the issue)! [Everything is Windows here, even on the ministry computer systems. We run all our stuff on linux, so we've had to do some training in that area as well].

The next surprise was laying down. There's no mattress! At least not what we would call a mattress. Felt like laying on a box springs. Fortunately I was so tired that I slept fine anyway. There is a pretty decent comforter and I realized the second day that since it is a queen size I could fold it in half and tuck in under the sheet to make sort of a makeshift 'pillow top' effect. I certainly don't need the comforter to stay warm. That's worked out okay. One last surprise is that the AC shuts down sometime overnight. Not that it's all that hot, just warm and stuffy. It has probably dropped to the mid-70's outside they figure, but it's still a bit muggy I figure. Highs have been ~88-90 and lows ~68. Jian mentioned that they opened the windows overnight and that did help on the third night [apart from a couple of mosquitoes-no screen].

In summary: Trip to China: a fascinating adventure/not for the fussy or inflexible. And I would avoid the summer months if you don't like being warm to hot a lot of the time.

First Impressions

The airport terminal in Beijing has these immense cavernous spaces. Hard to do it justice on a photo. Not very crowded-they have built with room for growth. The customs lines were very quick and easy, as was getting money. One of my first interactions with other people was a bit ironic. We were walking and see this caucasian guy coming the other way. As he gets closer, he gets a sly little smile. I realize as he passes that he is giving me the Texas Longhorns 'hook-em horns' hand sign and that I'm wearing my polo shirt with the OU logo that Matthew gave me for father's day. A football rivalry of truly international proportions.

We were met by co-worker Jian, a meteorologist from the Ministry of Water Resources and a driver. The government ministry or university or large corporate motor pools all have chauffeur staff. A large pool of labor here. I wanted to be comfortable on the long flight but didn't want to be too casual when meeting our hosts. No worry-both were youngish guys and the water resources person (real hard to catch or spell names still) was wearing docker type shorts and a black T-shirt with 'Rock My World Baby' in large english lettering. Wearing clothes with english phrases is a fashion statement, just as we'll see chinese calligraphy character in the US. What it means is a secondary concern.

It was about an hour drive to the hotel. On first glance, a lot of the city looks like a major US city. Reminded me of Los Angeles, more than anything. First off there was the thick brown haze. Probably even worse smog than I remember seeing in L.A. back in the 70's. On closer inspection, there is all the chinese signage - that's different. The vegatation also reminds me of L.A., lots of trees and shrubs, but the drought tolerate kind - like those tall skinny cypress. It's not that wet here, about 22 inches a year. Most of that falls in July and Aug during the warm and muggy monsoon season and then there is a long dry spell fall to spring.

Tons of construction cranes and huge apartment blocks. It's a boomtown. As we got farther along we could see more neighborhoods, parks and shopping districts and you would see more traditional chinese design and architecture.

Presentation update

Presentation went very well. They liked what we had to show them. An interesting day. I would have had more time this evening, but it took me a couple hours just to recover. Tonight was the big welcome to China banquet. It felt a little like being in a movie scene. Much of the dining here is 'family' style. Tables will have a large glass surface that rotates on a central swivel covering most of it and then there is about a one foot rim around the edge for your own plates, glasses and utensils. The serving dishes are placed on the center surface and during the meal various people will rotate the center slab around to something they want. It will sit in one place for awhile, but when you get tired of what you can reach from there, you can move it yourself or someone else will and you can grab stuff as it goes by.

The table tonight was the biggest one of that style I have seen yet. Seated 16 (all full) and was about the size of our pool. They keep placing dishes on so that there is one every couple of feet, so must have been 30 things. Some are quite simple but some more involved. More on the food a different time.

The director of the Ministry (exact title, not sure?) was there and seating is pretty important. He sat first and then they had me and Jian sitting on either side of him. The next guy down in rank sat on the other side of me and then Carrie past him. We had three glasses, one for water, one was a wine glass and the third a little shot glass. The little glass was for some important Chinese liquor (tasted a little like Ouzo). They asked me if I wanted wine in the wine glass or more of the 'Chinese spirits' instead. The director was having spirits in both glasses and they seemed to be hoping I would too, so I did. And then came the toasting. It's been a long time since I drank shots of anything.

There was much toasting during the event. Some informal, others with more traditional meaning. None of it was 'quiet formal' though, more like a party atmosphere. It got fairly boisterous, actually. The director didn't speak much English, but he would raise his glass and toast in Chinese. Then the guy to my other side would translate. A lot about welcoming us on our first visit to China and thanking us for sharing our work and hopes for future visits and collaboration and international friendship and such. It was very nice and even though it felt a little like a staged event it also felt like the sentiment was very sincere. They really are very keen in connecting with the rest of the world. They are very proud of China's history as a major player on the world stage and are eager to catch back up to that position again. But not in a competitive aggressive way, they just want 'in' on the modern standard of living of the industrial west.

The toasting got more informal later as people got up and moved around the table and a lot of people wanted to specifically toast the Americans. I was getting a little woozy by the end.

I also did a little test post on the blog this evening. I discovered that if I connect to the Storm Lab VPN, then I can surf anywhere. With the VPN, browser requests are originating in Norman, not here. I checked with Jian to see if that would be okay and she just laughed. I get the impression that they are not worried about what enterprising tourists can figure out, in fact they want to learn from us. I think it's more of a nervousness as to how the masses will respond to the tide of modernization sweeping the country.

Doing my part to even out our trade deficit with China

This is a quick test post. I appear to have found a way for me to post directly to the blog.

Money hasn't been a problem at all. One can exchange currency in the airport, but even easier is to just use an ATM. Many of the major banks in the big cities are on Cirrus or Transfund or one of the big bank networks. So I put my little Tulsa Teachers Credit Union card into the China Construction Bank ATM slot, enter my PIN and withdrew 1200 Yuan. That's about $180. There will be fees, from probably both ends, and they are more than you'd pay at home, but the currency exchange charges a $7 fee for the first $100 dollars converted too, so it's comparable. Best to do a few larger conversions/withdrawls than lots of small ones.

Prices are pretty easy to figure out. Everything is in Yuan and take that price and divide by 7 and you're pretty close to a dollar value. Same denomations as ours. There are some smaller sub-divisions than a Yuan plus coinage, but since a 1Yuan bill is about 15 cents I haven't seen or needed much of the smaller stuff.

China is pretty inexpensive when you get here. Especially when you consider that Beijing (population 10 million) is comparable to being in New York or Los Angeles. Our hotel rooms are about $120 a night. A similar tier room in Manhattan would be $250. Meals have been $4-$8. And there's no sales tax and no tipping; so order a $3.50 entree and you leave paying $3.50. Bottled water or a coke inside the forbidden city was 50 cents, whereas a similar venue back home (Disneyland, Yellowstone) you'd expect those good ole $3 drinks