There's a party going on in China - July 1 is the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Communist Party of China. I wasn't aware of this, but apparently July 1 is celebrated each year in the country as a national holiday. As we rode on our tour bus, we noticed a whole series of posters along the highways all over Beijing and Shanghai like these three:
According to my ace translator the phrase at the top of each poster goes something like "warmly celebrating the Chinese Communist party's 90th anniversary." The one in the center focuses on Shanghai (note the Pearl Tower and other distinctive skyscrapers) and says is loosely translated as "Beginning a new drive, and transformative development, using hard work to take Shanghai and build a society founded in modernism and internationalism." My translator assures me this sounds better in Chinese. The final poster includes the phrase "Ten thousand years of life to the Chinese communist party" and features the 56 ethnic minorities in China. China Daily has a complete site for more on the 90th anniversary.
Other new celebrations for the 90th anniversary include the debut of the new Shanghai-Beijing high speed train which will cruise along at 300 kph and the opening of the world's largest sea bridge (26 miles long!). The New York Times also has this video clip about the increasing patriotism in China, particularly in Chongqing:
The times sure are a-changing: I expected military reviews and lines of tanks, but so far I haven't seen any.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Beijing: Arrival, Tiananmen, economics and the Forbidden City
Chairman Mao in the haze |
We followed AJ's red hat to get us through the crowds. |
Workers quickly cleared trash. |
Fans were an ideal good to sell on this hot day. |
- a) prices were never listed,
- b) prices were negotiable,
- c) the exchange rate was in our favor (about 6.4 yuan/dollar) and
- d) walking away from a vendor was a very powerful negotiating tactic.
One thing I liked was the decorations on the corners of the roofs: the more little "beasts," as the audio guide called them, the greater the status of that building. The Hall of Supreme Harmony had the most so it could easily be seen as the most important.
Below you'll see one of my colleagues from Western North Carolina as he heads off to visit the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Stay tuned for more Beijing posts this week, and please be sure to leave any questions that you have in the comments below.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Back in the USA
Wow. Having spent the previous 11 days in China, I expected the jet lag, but hadn't predicted the "culture shock" (as one of my trip mates termed it) of re-entry into my own country. Why is the air condition so cold, I wondered. Why does the traffic seem so inefficient? Where are my chopsticks? Most of all, where is my day's itinerary?
The one thing I can categorically state about my visit, and which I will continue to emphasize here, is that what I will share is what I saw and heard - and nothing more. Yes, our visit was facilitated by an organization that is part of the Chinese government. Yes, we got a privileged view of China and often were given "VIP tours" of certain sites that we visited. True, we only saw life in cities and did not get to experience the life of rural Chinese people.
No, I didn't completely lose my mental faculties - I knew at all times that I was in a country with a government that has often been criticized for human rights violations of its citizens. There were security cameras everywhere, and I went through numerous security checkpoints where my bag was X-rayed and I walked through a metal detector.
On the other hand, we were allowed to ask anything, and all of our questions were answered. We were allowed to wander around every place that we visited. We had time in each of the three cities that we visited to travel on our own, and we did. I felt safe, safer than I did in the last big American city I visited (Philadelphia).
So, take my posts with as large of a grain of salt that you need, and please leave comments with your questions. I promise to answer each one. --Steve
The one thing I can categorically state about my visit, and which I will continue to emphasize here, is that what I will share is what I saw and heard - and nothing more. Yes, our visit was facilitated by an organization that is part of the Chinese government. Yes, we got a privileged view of China and often were given "VIP tours" of certain sites that we visited. True, we only saw life in cities and did not get to experience the life of rural Chinese people.
No, I didn't completely lose my mental faculties - I knew at all times that I was in a country with a government that has often been criticized for human rights violations of its citizens. There were security cameras everywhere, and I went through numerous security checkpoints where my bag was X-rayed and I walked through a metal detector.
On the other hand, we were allowed to ask anything, and all of our questions were answered. We were allowed to wander around every place that we visited. We had time in each of the three cities that we visited to travel on our own, and we did. I felt safe, safer than I did in the last big American city I visited (Philadelphia).
So, take my posts with as large of a grain of salt that you need, and please leave comments with your questions. I promise to answer each one. --Steve
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Sorry for the lack of updates.
Gentle readers: so sorry for the delay in posting! The combination of the blocked sites, limited Internet access, a broken power adapter and very busy days here have prevented timely updates. I promise I'll do many updates when I get back to the states as well. For now, I am hoping you'll be able to see this iPhone shot of Shanghai. It's not very good quality, but I hope it will help you understand why the Chinese say that their national bird is now the crane!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Update
The good news: I'm in China and everything is fantastic! The bad news is that I can confirm what I learned just after I created this blog: Blogger.com and Blogspot.com are one of many sites blocked in China. I am working on an alternate blog site and hope to post that link in the next day. If this works, you should be able to read this post and I hope see the photo I took, but I will not be able to know if it works - so please comment below and I think I'll be able to see those replies. --Steve
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Post #1: What to say?
In less than 24 hours I begin my 11 day visit to China. Our group of about 25 teachers will primarily be traveling to Beijing and Shanghai, with a brief trip to Wuxi. I'm incredibly fortunate to get this chance to see China up close and personal, though I find myself trying to answer a dozen different questions at the same time. What is China really like? How do the people there view the United States? How are the people changing as the country becomes more industrialized? Etc., etc., etc.
At the moment I think I'm most excited to start taking pictures! The one at the top of the blog is only temporary*, as I hope to have many more in a few days. Stay tuned for more observations, grand ideas, random thoughts and snapshots aplenty headed your way. Feel free to add your questions and insights in the comments!
* = by Peter Morgan from Beijing, China (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
At the moment I think I'm most excited to start taking pictures! The one at the top of the blog is only temporary*, as I hope to have many more in a few days. Stay tuned for more observations, grand ideas, random thoughts and snapshots aplenty headed your way. Feel free to add your questions and insights in the comments!
* = by Peter Morgan from Beijing, China (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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