China: I've officially lost track of the days

The last couple of days have been pretty exciting along with the story Stacey posted last night. Two days ago, we went to the Great Wall of China. As you can see from the pictures, it was mass confusion right from the start. People were everywhere. It didn’t matter where you stood or which way you turned, you were guaranteed to find a Chinese person (or two … they’re not very big people) in your personal space.

That’s part of the experience, though. The entire Wall is more than 6000 kilometres long and was built many, many years ago primarily for defense purposes. Since the Wall is so long, there is no way we could complete the entire course. We walked for a little more than an hour and managed to hit four of the towers which served as lookouts when the Chinese were trying to protect themselves during battle. Now, judging by the smell when you walk through the towers, they serve more as bathrooms without toilets, if you know what I mean … and I think you do.

The underdevelopment of many parts of China has been striking. We are fortunate to be staying in a very nice hotel (by ‘nice,’ I mean a hotel that would normally be far out of our price range) that is in downtown Beijing. We are right in the middle of the action. But when we drive to a lot of the tourist attractions that are in different parts of the city, most of our travels take us through areas that we would consider ‘the slums’ in North America. For many Chinese people, this is their way of life.

Yesterday, as we walking to the Pearl Market (a very large department store that sells more than just pearls), we walked along a stretch of sidewalk in front of a fish market that was lined with street vendors selling anything and everything. A little girl who couldn’t have been anymore than 4 years old was instructed by her mother to walk with us and beg us for money. Her little face was covered with a rash and she spoke broken Chinese with a little bit of English that we couldn’t understand. However, it wasn’t too hard to figure out what she wanted. Unfortunately, the busier parts of Beijing are also noted for pickpockets. It was more than a little heartbreaking to keep walking and see the little girl throw her arms down in frustration, turn around, and walk back to her mom.

Later on that same day, we were walking back to our hotel and saw another little girl, probably close to the same age, sitting on an overpass that people walk on to cross the street. She was there all by herself, no doubt sent there by her parents to collect money from anyone who would give it. Most of the parts of China that we’ve visited have been like this. Very underdeveloped with not nearly enough resources to go around for everyone. As a result, many of the people who need help have simply fallen through the cracks and are left to fend for themselves. Experiences like this remind me of how fortunate we are in Canada to have all that we do.

Many of the bigger metropolitan cities in China have markets and shops where you can barter the price of the goods you want to purchase. You can do this just about anywhere with the exception of the stores that are owned by the state. Usually, these stores have countless numbers of people working there, sometimes all dressed in the same uniform so you know who they are. It becomes obvious very quickly that they are working on commission because as soon as you even think about looking at something or showing just a minimal interest, they lunge at you like you’re the last customer left on the face of the earth.

Then again, we foreigners stick out to them quite a bit, and it’s like they see dollar signs when they see “rich white people” coming their way. So when they see us, they all say “Hello … Hello” in their very broken English followed by, “Come look at my pants,” or “Come look at my shirts,” or “Hello sir, come look at this …” It’s hard to keep your patience sometimes when about half a dozen of these salespeople are doing this to you at the same time and it doesn’t stop until you leave the store. We try to politely answer: “We don’t want to look at your pants …” I was convinced they were only after our money when one lady came after me saying, “Hello sir, come look at this …” She wanted me to buy a dress.

OK, I gotta go. We’re leaving in a little bit for the Beijing Zoo and the Summer Palace, both of which we hear are pretty cool. Tomorrow, we go to Tiennamen Square and the Forbidden City … can’t wait for that! I’ll write again when I have some more time because there’s more to tell. Funny how that works.

Stacey says hi to everyone and Kaitlyn says, “Ahhhhhhh …,” which roughly translated also means “Hi.”

Over and out.