The sun has shined brightly on us here in Beijing for the past two days and yesterday we cycled over 20km to the Summer Palace which is surrounded by gorgeous settings. The huge lake was full of pedalos and sightseeing boats and the palace itself was also pretty, if swarming with tourists, mainly Chinese.
I'm in two minds about these palaces. They are certainly impressive in size and with their large open spaces, as well as their detailed ornate paint work which is mainly dark red, apparently representing the red of the Chinese flag. However, they are all rather similar, not especially interesting architecturally or in their craftsmanship and seem to require constant touching up, not something you'd find necessary in the smart stone work of our own English castles and Palaces. The miscellaneous artifacts the curators put behind the windows in various rooms for visitors to look in to aren't all that special either. Most are even quite dusty! Bloody hell - I do moan!
You'd have to be in a bubble, or staying at the Grand Hyatt perhaps (where they serve the best Peking Duck in town apparently) not to realise that Beijing will be hosting the Olympics in a few weeks. In the two days we've been here we've spotted literally dozens of indicators including advertisements at bus stops, on shopping bags (which only two weeks ago China started charging customers for - hrrah!), count-down clocks in public squares, video campaigns on road sides, decorations in shop windows, Tee shirts, flags, Coca Cola bottles, 'Beijing 2008' branded tissues, milk and other household essentials, official souvenir shops, huge floral displays on the main roads and groups of people errecting all sorts of other decorations. People everywhere are renovating shops, fixing and painting lamposts, gates and even bike racks!
I wonder to what extent the buzz we can feel here is due to the anticipation of the games. The people seem so genuinely excited about it! Are they just happy for the extra income they are receiving from the tourists and government? Or is this place always this busy and fun to be in?
If the people here are poor you wouldn't know it from their behaviour or expressions. Looking around one sees a lot of smiling faces, laughter, people singing to themselves, friends hugging and holding hands, intense games of Mahjong being played on short stools and boards laid down in the street, adoring fathers playing with their babies, women feeding their children mouths wide open like baby birds, with bowls of noodles and steamed buns before they can go off and play again with their friends in the street, old women being gently escorted across the road by younger family members.
I don't like the business of spitting however, which the men here do with such gusto and sound effects it is stomach turning.
In fact one chap we met today commented on the Chinese Olympics as expats know it: Spitting, Fighting and Shouting. They are good at those, it is true!
The same guy, a Liverpudlian who teaches in a university in Shanghai also extolled the various virtues of having a Chinese girlfriend. He reckons they are generally much more innocent, eager to please and subservient. Ric thinks I should take note.
He has amused us no end with tales of students. Many have too give themselves English names and he teaches lots of Skies, Angels and others chosen straight out of Manga comics. He has one called Irine who decided to add a copyright symbol to her name when another girl picked the same one!
Another calls himself Hamburger and an Evangelina became Durex because she got the idea that it meant 'sexy girl'. They are now trying to pursuade her to stick with her first choice without embarrassing her!
Today we joined another tour and drove for three hours to the 'Secret Wall', a part of the Great Wall which isn't crawling with tourists.
It was fantastic! The hike was fairly hard work but not completely exhausting and we had perfect weather for it; sunny but with a light breeze. Our guide was a sweet old man who seemed far to frail to be hiking up mountains every day but then I have seen how nimble Asians are now. Cheeky sod didn't speak any English but managed to convey that he wanted a tip from us all at the end.
The view from the top of our hike was spectacular; blue skies, heather-like flora, lush green hills and valleys could all be seen for miles around with the crumbling Wall rolled out like a fat writhing worm across it.
Tomorrow I will be dragged along to see pickled Mao.
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