The Traveling Duo

Beijing - in a nut shell

Daniel and I have been in Beijing for the four days now, and it has been pretty amazing experience.  It’s a crazy time to be in the city.  Everything is about the Olympics, the entire city has been bulldozed and in the process of being rebuilt over the last 10 years, and right now is crunch time.  

What this means is that in the race to modernize, some people get left behind.  There were poignant moments where, while riding brand new city buses sporting flat screen TVs, we passed through slums with homes that were only marginally nicer than the piles of rubble around them.  Fully a quarter of the population lives in these squalid conditions, though you’d never know without leaving the city center.    

Rather than staying at a hostel in the heart of everything, we’ve spent quite a bit of time in a residential area on the northern edge of the city.  We have been living with a family, who have to be one of the nicest and most generous families on earth.  Because of this, we have gotten to see a side of Beijing that most foreign tourists don’t see.  Life moves slower out here, but not by much.  Even at the end of the No 5 subway line (one of 4 brand new subway lines) , there’s a throng of people jammed into the bus during rush hour.  Of course, over 200,000 people live in this neighborhood. 

Despite the crowds, family remains the central theme in life.    Children move away to go to college, but once they start a family of their own, the parents will move in.  Our host’s son lives in the apartment above them with his wife and his in-laws.   Children seem to be everything here, as their daughter - Ya-Ya - receives constant attention and care. 

I’ve also learned that an important Chinese custom is to take very good care of all guests.  In the four days that we have been here, we’ve woken up to a feast for breakfast with another feast in the evening.  We’ve also been chauffered to all of the tourist sites where our host will wait two hours for us to explore.  All the while, we are not allowed to pay for a thing or lift a finger.  A new baby is about to be born, and we are seen as good luck because we have come at the same time. 

All in all, its been an eye-opening experience and I couldn’t imagine a better way to start our round-the-world adventure.