Beijing jing jing

Probably not the most appropriate photo or best representation of Beijing, but if you were a twenty-four year old and saw a subway station with a name like that you'd of done the same.

To the North American world it’s Chinese New Year, to the other 1.2 billion or so Asians it’s Lunar New Year. Calling it Lunar New Year is the least you could do for countries like East Timor and the 1,084,000 East Timorese who celebrate this festive occasion. Semantics aside, a group of teachers from our school decided that there would be no better place to jubilate than the epicentre of Lunar New Year – Beijing.


I am glad I went to Beijing simply to debunk any myths and preconceptions I may have had about China. Beijing might just be the most developed looking city I have ever visited. Everything looks immaculate on the outside and the architecture is modern, eclectic and brilliant. There are McDonald’s and KFCs everywhere and a few Starbucks are rearing their caramel, frappuccino, latte heads. Beijing was a city of cell-phones, iPods, MTV and brand new and brand named cars. Not something I expected from a communist nation. It was hard to know if all of these changes were merely an impressive facade that will hopefully fool the world when everyone is tuned in this summer to watch the Olympics, or whether this nation is merely booming. Although I only spent five days there, I am inclined to feel it is the latter. Watch out for China. It’s going to get big (and I don't mean population) in a hurry!


But don’t trust my weary tourist eye. Here are some recent facts from the BBC: China’s exports in January increased 26.7% to $109.7 billion, the biggest year-on-year rise in six months. Imports rose 27.6% to $90.2 billion, the biggest increase in almost two years.


Inside the Forbidden City. The biggest maroon wall I've ever seen. Aquamarine no, I've seen bigger, but maroon, yes the biggest wall I've seen.

But it must be said that I only saw urban China and not rural China. Urban China is home to the rich and multi-national corporations. Rural China, home to about 700 million people, is not an idyllic and bucolic place like it is in the developed world. It is place where people don’t want to be, and in the last 10 years somewhere between 100 and 150 million fled the countryside and headed towards the city. After being to Beijing I can imagine why so many would make this their destination.


I’ll skip giving you the details chronologically, but Beijing was good to the six of us. First we went to Tiananmen Square. I had this great idea for a perfect photo op, but it proved a bit more difficult to get my hands on three tanks then I imagined. We managed to enter the Forbidden City on New Year’s Day and celebrate with what seemed like 908.5 million other Chinese people. As we were walking around, I noticed a basketball court inside the Chinese imperial palace (the most obvious place for a basketball court) and two Chinese guards shooting some hoops. I could resist giving them the “hey, my basketball brethren can we shoot around?” They understood and accepted the international nod, and in no time we were playing three on three inside the Forbidden City with two out of uniform Chinese Army men. They were really good and really tall (another myth) and from this point on, we shall refer to the one guy as Yao Ming.


Because it was Lunar New Year and we were in the country that invented, and is synonymous with, fireworks, there were explosions for two straight days. It didn’t matter that it was noon and nobody could appreciate the colours, the fact that the boom right beside you might actually cause your colon to have an unexpected movement seemed a good enough reason to ignite fireworks all day. By the second day it almost became a peaceful background noise, even at three in the morning. Of course we couldn’t shy away from the fun ourselves.


Blackcats are fun. So are 12,000 of them.

Being in Beijing it almost goes without saying that we visited the Great Wall of China. This structure lives up to its name. It was incredibly beautiful. I still can’t get over how this wall endlessly snakes over the mountainous, country terrain of China. To me it seemed somewhat useless to build a wall, seeing as how the mountains were a natural defence, but I guess I wasn’t there trying to keep those tenacious Mongol’s out of the country all those years ago. Coming in a close second to the wall was the way we made out exit. All great wonders of the world should have zip lines that let you plummet and soar over a lake as you take in the sights of an international spectacle. For $6 this is exactly what we got to do.




Kelly and I zip-lining off the Great Wall. Now that's an exit!

The weekend after this, five of us decided to go skiing and snowboarding one last time before the weather started to turn. We went to a resort called Yongpyong. Now of course you’ve never heard of it, but this place lost to Vancouver by three votes to host the 2010 Olympics. It’s a pretty serious ski hill and you can understand why I wanted to go. After going skiing twice in your life, you really do start to demand and deserve the best. Like all third time skiers I was completely entitled to Olympic class skiing. An excellent day on the slopes, and when the hills are that high, and excellent day on the lifts.



The best (and most co-ordinating) outfit the rental people at Yongpyong could lend me. Despite feeling like a banana dildo all day, I was easily recognizable by my friends.

That’s all for now,

Amatorially,

Mangina