Chinese Travelogue

4/24/08

By Avery Williams
Travel Correspondent

Staring from my seat at 6,000 feet I hear over the planes intercom system announces that we will be arriving in Beijing in 20 minutes. Fourteen hours is an amount of time no human was designed to sit through, especially when it is in the company of 20 or so spoiled high school brats. Looking from my window seat you can see the sharp peaks of terraced mountains that lay north of the city. And as suddenly as these pass you see the city. Even from this vantage point it expands on beyond sight and not an inch of the land is wasted.

We went through the airport and were greeted by our faithful tour director, Jeffery Shu. Chinese born, but a resident of the United States now, Jeffery was one of our worst experiences with English. All being exhausted we were brought to our hotel then out to dinner. Once dropped off we need to walk to the restaurant. This is when I knew we were really in a different country. We walked the streets and were invaded with images, sounds and smells so very abnormal. Police officers everywhere, but with no guns; an overpowering smell that reminded me of sewage, which I later learned was a delicacy known as sticky tofu; people with no concept of personal space.

My senses just opened up and try to experience it all. Walking the streets and being offered foods that were promised to be deer and candy dipped fruits brought an almost uncontrollable desire to try it all. I must say though that this was strongly discouraged because it would undoubtedly give us a case of the “Runny Stomachs”.

One of the most addicting things of China is one thing that will always be held dearly in my heart, the silk market. It is the world center of con artists who will gladly part foreigners of there money. But with the right insight and a quick wit and strong resolve you could really be the winner of this haggler’s paradise. One of my crowning achievements from this center of debauchery was a hand made tea set they tried to sell me for almost three hundred dollars(US). With an unwavering resolve I walked away a happy man with something that cost me one tenth the asking price. I must admit though that I made a few enemies who insisted that I was a no good thief.

But above this all, two things really stood out about the whole trip that made me fall in love with China. First of these was of course the food. I went into this fearless, undaunted by the fears of “socially unacceptable” foods. I was not disappointed by anything I tried, and there wasn’t anything that I didn’t try.

The second thing was the grandness of all of China. The culture was one refined by thousands of years more than we can conceive. The very manor of life is so different from ours and there are so many things I think we could learn from them. They have buildings and structures that describe their way of life, functionally, but never forgetting the importance of ascetic value. The Summer Palace was a place of beauty and affluence. A walk up the Great Wall was a far more demanding then any post card could describe but worth every bit of it. The Forbidden City and Terracotta Soldiers showed the grand scale of China’s past. And the Temple of the Jade Buddha showed both the beauty of their religions but also there acceptance of the west by allowing us in. But I fear with increasing Western influence this is slipping away and they are becoming a little bit more like us.

There is just so much that this country has to offer, and the way it is portrayed in the news now is really unfair. It is not the history, culture or faith of these people that we are opposed to, but their government. Even with everything in the news I know that I personally fell in love with ever aspect of China I experienced and have promised myself that I will return one day.