China - Beijing

Last summer we found out that our friends, Matt and Jana and their six children, would be moving to Beijing, China, for a year and leaving about the same time we were planning to depart for our trip.  We got together and spent a fun evening talking about the details of our trips and agreed we would try to meet up somehow while we were overseas, even though it looked like it might be difficult to find a good halfway location.  We were in Italy in October when out of the blue, Matt and Jana invited us to Beijing to stay with their family for a few days, and Deena immediately went into planning mode as we headed to Greece.  While in Athens for a few days, we managed to score our visas at the Chinese embassy over the course of several days, and we were set to book flights and travel to Beijing after spending a week in Bangkok, Thailand.  We had been under budget for the majority of our trip up to that point, and we were thankful that we had the money to add this extra excursion to the itinerary.  The temperatures in Bangkok were in the nineties the week before we traveled to Beijing; so we were less than prepared for the arctic conditions in the Orient, but we hardly noticed the frigid air in China because we were so warmly received by this amazing family.  

The twelve hours to travel from Bangkok to Beijing included two flights and a long layover, but our excitement level helped the time pass quickly, and we finally spotted Matt and Jana’s smiling faces in the crowd at baggage claim, and they gave us all big hugs before we piled into a van piloted by their friend Mark.  Man, it was really good to see them, and the floodgates of conversation opened while we drove, and they didn’t close until we left four days later.  Their kids were in bed when we arrived at their home, but we got a quick tour before bedding down for the night.  Their two girls gave their room to Deena and me, and Joseph and Deveny got the bunk room. That night we slept the deep sleep of the traveler, weary from the road but safe and warm in a friendly bed.

The whole warm thing ended the next morning as Deena and I walked with Matt and his next-to-youngest son to register our family at the local police station at 7:30. We trudged ahead through a bracing, biting wind thankful that we had packed all those layers in our bags for so long.  The air quality in Beijing is famously poor, but the predicted smog levels were low for the duration of our stay, but they replaced by the coldest temperatures of the winter so far. It was hard to believe that we were sweating in shorts and t-shirts two days before.  The neighborhood police station attendant was absent that morning, so we ended up at the district station about a kilometer away, where we were told that no one would be there to help us until later that morning.  The only way we knew this fact was due to the interpreting expertise displayed by Matt’s son, who speaks Mandarin skillfully.  We headed back out into the cold and walked back home dodging scooters piloted by drivers covered with heavy, snuggie-type blankets to ward off the wind, and I was dismayed watching people with no gloves or scarves riding bikes into the stiff breeze.  I also witnessed another Chinese cultural phenomenon which involves the citizens’ inherent need to boldly extricate even the smallest trace of phlegm from the body as loudly as possible and projecting it to the most obvious place for all to see.  I guess enduring all that smog provides entitlement to this ritual and all of it's privileges.

We were welcomed back with heaping plates of steaming French toast and cups of hot coffee, which we devoured while making plans for the day, but all of our strategies hinged upon our registration, a strict requirement for visitors.  Having endured months of their parents’ constant presence, Joseph and Deveny were already enjoying the company of Matt and Jana’s kids, and we were thankful to be in a comfortable house with familiar food and good friends.  Our whole family headed out again with Matt and his son after lunch determined to achieve registration, and we made the familiar walk back to the district police station, where we waited for a long time with no results.  The Chinese New Year celebration is on January 28, and many people had already left Beijing to be with their families, so some of the bureaucracy cogs were missing, causing the whole machine to run a bit less efficiently.  Without going into all the details, we were finally registered at the neighborhood police station after several hours of haunting Chinese waiting rooms.  The kids were patient, and I was blown away by the skill of Matt’s son who was not intimidated by the adults or the situations and translated with consummate confidence.  Due to the time it took to register our family, we were not able to take in any sights that day, but we got a good look at the neighborhood. We were rewarded for our efforts with big bowls of delicious taco soup and chicken sandwiches, which we ate while watching a movie together.  The kids went off to do their thing, and Deena and I spent the first of three evenings talking long into the night with Matt and Jana about life on the road.

I rolled out of bed at 5:30 the next morning to join Matt as he made the weekly trip to McDonalds to have breakfast with a small group of men who are his good friends in Beijing.  I was pleased to be invited, and I enjoyed riding the express train, which was not crowded at that early hour mainly due to the New Year evacuation.  According to the people who keep up with population sizes and other sleep-inducing facts, there are a whole lotta people in China, and Beijing is a tightly packed metropolis.  As I munched my egg mcmuffin and drank excellent coffee with these cool guys, I learned that just in the three-square-mile area in which we were patronizing McDonalds, five million people live and work.  I was fascinated listening to these men talk about how they adjust with their families to another culture vastly different from the United States, and I appreciated the glimpse into their lives as they encouraged each other.  The sun was up by the time Matt and I boarded the bus back home, and we rallied the troops for a road trip north of the city.

Growing up in the 1970’s, the only big time Chinese restaurant in my southern U.S. city was named The Great Wall of China, and figured that eating egg rolls there was as close as I would ever get to this ancient testament to Chinese civilization.  The Great Wall in its entirety stretches out over twenty-one-thousand kilometers, and its construction began as early as 700 BC with ramparts made from tamped earth and wood.  The most complete sections of the wall are left from the Ming Dynasty beginning in the twelfth century. It oversaw the building of twenty-five-thousand watchtowers and major brick and stone fortifications in the region of Beijing.  Keeping Mongols and other tribes from crossing the historic border of China was the purpose of the Great Wall, and these groups must have been particularly nasty to have inspired such a massive national project.  Matt and Jana’s friend Mark drove our group of twelve about an hour north of Beijing to an accessible section of the wall that is similar to an American national park.  The sun was bright and its rays shone easily through clear, crisp air as we traveled, and we enjoyed views of the countryside with frozen streams and waterfalls becoming prominent the closer we came to the wall.

We paid a very reasonable fee for our tickets and hiked up to the chair lift that whisked us up and set us off at the base of a stairwell, which was conquered with a brief climb, and just like that, my little family was standing on the Great Wall of China.  It was cold, but even though we were in the mountains, there was hardly any wind, and after hiking for a while along the ramparts, we had worked up a good sweat.  The Chinese didn’t dynamite their way through the mountains in order to create a perfectly level wall that most first-world citizens would expect today.  Instead, they built along the contours of the terrain, resulting in a wall that meanders through valleys and snakes along ridgelines with watchtowers placed on sharp peaks giving the whole setting a slightly cartoonish look that is altogether spectacular.  The hundreds of surrounding mountain slopes and summits were brown with winter, but no less compelling as we hiked the pavers and climbed steep, irregular stairs that required concentration to ascend.  Halfway through our hike, we propped up against the parapets and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and talked about the resources and skill level it would have taken in antiquity to construct a wall of this magnitude in such a desolate location.  

After lunch, we hiked to a watchtower that offered an incredible view of the wall beyond the peaks we had earlier ascended. We took a lot of family pictures before turning around and hiking back the way we came—an easier hike because we were going mostly downhill.  As if the experience couldn’t get any better, to descend from the wall back to the welcome area, we boarded individual toboggans and shot down the mountain in an aluminum trough gathering speed along the sharply curving route ending in a rush of adrenaline at the bottom.  The kids had a great time, and the adults were able to keep up for most of the hike. We spent a fun day in one of the coolest places I’ve ever been a long way from the Great Wall buffet of my youth.  Everyone zonked out on the ride back to Beijing, and we ended up at a Starbucks for coffee before heading to a hot pot restaurant for dinner.  The residential areas of the city are interspersed with huge malls and shopping centers with many western franchises like KFC and McDonalds populating the collection of shops.  

We had a huge crowd for dinner as many of Matt and Jana’s friends joined us at the hot pot restaurant which was the Chinese version of the fondue concept.  We were seated down the length of long tables with a burner at each place setting in which a pot of savory broth was situated.  The broth began boiling rapidly and we selected many varieties of food items from iced bins passing slowly in front of us on a serpentine conveyor belt snaking through the entire restaurant.  The whole experience was fun, and we cooked up all kinds of stuff like noodles, sliced beef, pork balls, wontons, corn on the cob, and gelatinous tree fungus.  There were many choices of seafood, and fruits and vegetables as well, and the kids enjoyed free refills of soft drinks and bowls of ice cream for dessert.  After dinner, the adults hung around and talked for a while as the kids left for a youth activity, and we picked up several boxes of Dunkin Donuts for breakfast the next day.  Back home, Deena and I waited up for the kids with Matt and Jana, and once again, spent the evening talking long and deep about our lives and families, and we enjoyed this time together immensely.

Our last full day in Beijing was cold.  It was Jack London cold.  Weapons-grade coffee and hot chocolate were no remedy for this cold.  We were all bundled up and standing in the security line waiting to enter Tiananmen Square. As I watched the limber, winter-stripped willow branches trace the undulating gusts of wind against a watery blue sky, I knew we were in for a test of endurance.  Tiananmen Square is the site of the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.  Most westerners know the name of the square from the infamous protests of 1989 that are still not widely discussed within the borders of the country today.  Due to the intense cold, we completed a quick, perfunctory inspection of the square before heading to the underground passage to the Forbidden City across the street.  

For five-hundred years, Chinese emperors and their families called the Forbidden City home, and the 180 acre complex surrounded by an eight-meter high wall is spectacular and certainly worthy of royalty.  We purposed in our hearts to walk the length of the city from gate to gate; so we braced for the wind and mushed on through the Gate of Supreme Harmony making our way past buildings with names like The Hall of Mental Cultivation and The Palace of Tranquil Longevity.  The ancient wooden structures retain their original gilded beauty, and we managed to force our hands out or our gloves in order to snap some pictures.  Outside the far gate, we surrendered to the cold and called it an afternoon with the kids once again showing remarkable perseverance and positive attitudes.  A couple of taxis and a long subway ride brought us back to the neighborhood and the White Deer restaurant, home of the much revered pineapple chicken, a favorite dish consumed weekly by our host family.

It felt great to be out of the cold, and we sat in high anticipation of the food, which began arriving in steaming bowls and was immediately set upon by our hungry crew.  We’ve been to the Chinatown section of several major cities and enjoyed some excellent food, but the cuisine originating in the homeland trumped them all.  This was a top-ten all time greatest meal in the world...ever...amen.  There was beef and potatoes, kung pao chicken, cumin lamb, vegetables, rice, all prepared with tiny peppers that created just enough heat to make the taste buds come alive. A reverent silence blanketed the room as the waiter delivered the pineapple chicken with curls of steam rising from the delicate golden chunks of tender chicken with a light crispy layer that melted on the palate.  Matt ordered a ton of food, but there was very little left over, when we donned our jackets once more for the walk home after a meal to remember.

The kids joined in the late evening discussion on our last night, and we had a great time listening to their perspectives of “Mom and Dad on the road freak outs” and other funny stories from both families’ experiences living far away from home.  We didn’t want the night to end, but the adults finally conked out and went to bed while the older kids stayed up talking until two in the morning.  This late-night discussion was fun for our kids but also unfortunate since we had to get up at 3:30 AM for an early flight out of Beijing.  Somehow we pulled it off, and Matt gave us all hugs before we loaded up and headed to the airport courtesy of Mark the driver.  Two flights and a long layover later, we reached our hotel in Bangkok around 7:00 that night.  We were up again early the next day for a trip back to the airport and a flight to Chiang Mai, our home in the mountains of Thailand for the next two weeks.  We anticipated our trip to China for a long time, and now that it’s over, it almost seems like a dream.  Matt and Jana were gracious and showed us an amazing time, and their children are a delight.  

It was completely refreshing to talk to a family in similar circumstances far from home and learn more about their lives and their dreams.  Humans were knit together for the purpose of enjoying relationships with their Creator and each other, and while the comforts of home and familiar circumstances create a longing, it’s the desire to spend time with others that generates the heart’s most yearning.  As we sat at the airport in Bangkok waiting for our next flight, we talked about our experience in China, and we already missed our friends in Beijing.