A bit more texture in my recent trip to China

This is the last sequence of photos I will be sharing to hopefully give a bit more texture about China. My family traveled to Guilin and Beijing for a bit over two weeks. We really enjoyed ourselves and were impressed with the pace of changes, especially in Beijing. I took the photo below while on the Li River heading towards Yangshuo. I was really wishing for a sunny day, but the outline of the surrounding mountains through the mist made that trip surreal.

The photo below was taken in Yangshuo in one of the main pedestrian walkways. Crafts, restaurants, and other stores dot this area. The girl heading home with a bag of vegetables struck me. I feel in poorer parts of China, kids doing some family chores are still common. Perhaps as societies become more affluent, kids are focused more on playing and learning. Yangshuo itself has a lot of foreign visitors. Many live there actually. I have heard some of them even smoke pot there publicly.

Photo below is Tiananmen. It faces the Tiananmen Square, where Mao proclaimed the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. Mao’s portrait still hangs there. In the West, Mao is usually portrayed very negatively. For the Chinese, I would say, they generally revere him. People also recognize the disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. (There has been many discussions about Mao on this blog. Here is JXie’s recent comment about him.)

In the eatery area of Wangfujing in Beijing, I was reminded how competitive businesses need to be in order to survive. The photo below is a waiter in a restaurant in that area busy trying to get customers to dine at his restaurant. Travelers first visiting the area may get the impression that the Chinese vendors there are really aggressive. In the 90’s when I first visited, that was how I felt. Subsequent visits to that area have always reminded me that the whole of China is becoming more like that.

During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Western media was in concert criticizing Beijing’s air quality. Some athlete made headlines getting off the airplane with face mask on. Everyone having lived in Beijing knows that the capital city is not very far away from the Gobi desert. When there is strong wind, Beijing will be hit by sand storms. I saw this first hand while in Beijing. The photo below was taken at Wangfujing during a clear day. However, look at the horizon where the sky is brown. That was a brewing sandstorm. We were near the Temple of Heaven one day and the sky was completely clear with white clouds. Within 30 minutes, a sandstorm hit and visibility was no more than 100 or 200 meters.

Below is a wide angle shot of the Temple of Heaven. China was once an extremely rich civilization. It is hard to imagine unless one visits these various immense structures in China.

The whole structure is made out of wood. No nail used.

Below is a Chinese girl posing for her mother in front of the Temple of Heaven. I tried my very best to get her to pose for me. No luck, despite her mother helping.

I came across a Chinese park goer with a peculiar game of tossing and catching neck rings. He was really popular with foreign tourists. This was also at the Temple of Heaven.

One of the best meals we had in China was on Guijie (Ghost Street). The area is full of restaurants and everywhere lit with red lanterns. We visited the area after watching the “Flying Acrobatics” show in the Chaoyang Theatre. A travel agent recommended we hit that area as Guijie was only about 10 minutes away from the theater. In this particular restaurant, a really good Chinese singer was there performing with his guitar. He had a menu of songs he could perform. We picked “甜蜜蜜” (tian mi mi). I had a slideshow of Chinese children with that song here.

Bicycles and mopeds are very popular in China. Below was taken near the Forbidden City.

Not that I have anything against Starbucks. The chain is very popular in China. The first time I visited the Forbidden City, I thought it odd that Starbucks managed to open a store in such a prestigious place. Few years ago, Starbucks was vacated. At this exact location, there is still a coffee shop though.

I have said this previously – one thing I have noticed is that Chinese travelers are on the rise. They are everywhere. In my prior trips to China, it felt proportionally, there are many more foreigners. Even though foreign visitors are on the rise, the proportion of Chinese travelers are rising much faster.