China

My first night in China was very different than I expected. First, we all thought the ship would be along side the dock in the afternoon. That didn’t happen. The port of Shanghai is several miles inland from the East China Sea along the Yangtze River. It would take time to travel that distance. When we get to every port, the MV stops long enough for a local pilot to board the ship and help our captain navigate to the dock. The pilot for Shanghai was supposed to board the ship sometime overnight so that we could arrive at the port by morning. But actually we spent the night at the mouth of the Yangtze River and spent the day traveling to Shanghai. There were no classes and most of us had to reschedule our plans. The staff started calling it a River Day, like a snow day.

            Once we finally got to Shanghai, immigration was pretty easy. They took all our passports and looked at them and our other information in some office somewhere, the officials never needed to see us face to face. At around six, we were called to get our temperature taken and to collect our passports. Apparently they have super advanced temperature taking technology these days, cause they got ours just when we walked into the room on some sort of camera, there was never any visible instrument. I had made plans to go get dinner with friends. Our group had about ten people, maybe. I knew many of them already but I also got to meet some people.

            Together we set out to get some hot pot. I had no idea what that was but was excited to try it as one of the students I was going with was Chinese. Her home school is even in Shanghai so she knew how to get around. It was a weeknight, but I was expecting the city to be busy and bustling as it wasn’t even nine pm. But the streets were almost empty. The whole walk to the restaurant and back to the ship didn’t have me seeing even ten people. There were some cars on the street, and buses and taxis and such, but we passed lots of quiet streets. The cars we did see would honk at us and one another and in some cases for no apparent reason and we did almost get hit by a bus. But it wasn’t going that fast and did stop about a yard away from us. The streets had lights and pedestrian accommodations, but cars that want to turn can go anytime they want, no matter who else is in the intersection.

            Dinner was worth it, though. Hot pot is basically like fondue stew. You choose a broth, any flavor on the menu. At our restaurant we could have two choices for the table. We chose our broth. Both were veggie based and one was spicy. Then we chose different foods we wanted to eat. The servers poured the broth into this contraption on the table, it looked almost like a sink in the middle of the table, but it was what would heat the broth and cook our food. We chose various meats and vegetables to eat. At intervals, the servers would bring our choices and add them to the hot pot broth. They would cook in the boiling soup for a while and then we could pick them out with our chopsticks. The meal lasted a while, which was fine with me. It was very filling. The servers were everywhere and would speak to each other loudly across the restaurant in mandarin. The decorations there were very pretty too.

            I went right back to the ship afterwards because the next day I had to meet my travel group early for our flight to Beijing. I was all ready to go on that, I had spent some time of the River Day preparing. I got a good night’s rest and joined the group at 7:30 the next day after breakfast. There were enough kids signed up to fill three buses. We took them to the airport. It was nice that they had already arranged everything for us. All we had to do was get in the line, show the man our passport, get our ticket, and stand in the next line. This is how it was in both airports (the second flight was Beijing to Hong Kong to meet the ship and that airport was the same though the lines were longer). The flight to Beijing was only an hour, but it ended up being delayed about an hour first. Still when we got off the plane, our buses and tour guides were waiting for us.

             Our guide’s name was Connie and she was very good at her job. We learned about history and modern Beijing life. There was snow on the ground outside in Beijing. I liked it. The entire visit in Beijing was very interesting. But there were parts of it that I did not like very much. We stayed at a holiday inn, but it was not like those in the states. The one we stayed in was a very nice hotel with the biggest continental breakfast I have ever seen. There were at least five different stations with attendants, and that many more were self-serve. I got to see some of the Olympics in the evenings from the room TV.

            The first day we were scheduled to ride in rickshaws (sort of like a buggy pulled by a man on a bike) but we didn’t go until evening. We rode to a local family’s house for dinner that was absolutely delicious. Before we went inside, our rickshaw driver made sure we remembered his number, which was 12. But when we were ready to go back to the bus, my friend and I couldn’t find our number 12 anywhere. There were many rickshaws in the small street, but none of them said 12. Soon many of them had left as groups relocated theirs. Eventually it was just my friend and I left along with Connie the tour guide. The street was very narrow and it was dark outside and since we were not in a large group anymore, I started to feel a bit nervous. It was the two of us standing in a circle with a couple of other rickshaw drivers and Connie as they all spoke and gestured to each other. We didn’t know until we asked Connie later, but it turns out they were only conversing with each other normally. It had sounded to us like they were all yelling angrily. So we did get in a rickshaw, a different one, and made it back to the bus. I am glad I have this for a story now, but at the time it was pretty stressful. My friend and I were convinced the new rickshaw was going to take us somewhere we didn’t want to go.

            The next day we went to Tina’men square, the Forbidden City, lunch and a silk factory, two different temples, an acrobatic show, and dinner. We spent about an equal amount of time and each place, I think. The meals were great, the acrobatic show full of talent, but the highlights were definitely in the morning. I wish we could have spent more time in the Forbidden City though, our schedule had us rushing through it. The day after that we visited a kung fu school, a jade factory, the great wall, and ate dinner at a Peking duck restaurant. I think the great wall was the best part of the whole trip. The weather was fantastic. It is hard to imagine how armies walked along it, let alone built it. When there are stairs, they are all uneven. There are areas with no stairs, just a sloping walkway, and that is somewhat slippery, especially in the snow. But I think in the major tourist areas like where we were, they have people shovel it. In some areas you can see where necessary repairs were made, but the whole place still has a very ancient feel. The wall was built on a ridge, not along side the peaks, so the views from all directions are fantastic too. I rode the chair lift up. Something I have never done before, even though I am from Alaska (this had a few people surprised). I took the toboggan down.

            I didn’t even know that was a thing, tobogganing down the great wall. They were plastic sleds with thin metal runners that slide down a metal shoot like a water slide, only with no water. It had a lever that you’d push down to speed up and pull up to slow down. It actually took a lot of effort. I was holding on to my bag at the same time, so I didn’t get any pictures during the toboggan ride. I was also keeping my eye on the track to make sure I stayed on it and that there was no one less that three meters in front of me as all the signs said, so I missed a lot of the landscape as well. But the view from the top of the great wall made up for that.

            Unfortunately, there was one aspect of my visit to the great wall, and similar things happened every day in Beijing, that occurred to put a more negative memory on my trip around China. The first day, the same day as the rickshaw ride, we visited a tea factory and learned a lot about the ceremony, traditions, and history of tea in China, as well as various uses. The lady who spoke and displayed for us was so energetic and knowledgeable, it was fantastic to listen to her. But after the lecture and the tea tasting, we were escorted into a giant gift shop where she began to try to sell us things. Relentlessly and for more than twenty minutes. They were beautiful, all the different cups and mugs and teas and utensils. But it would have been nice to just have the cultural learning experience of the tea, without the salesmanship.

            But the same thing happened again. At the silk factory. Look at that quality. You can only find this here for this price. So many people love it. We got to see the whole process of what the silk worms make and how they turn thread into beautiful things, but most of it was just a store. Where we spent a lot of time. And again. At the jade factory. I have never seen such a big store for just one thing, it was like a museum. But everything was for sale. And so many people were persistent that we purchase. Jade is also very expensive when it is real. I don’t know why they brought us there, a large group of college students. Where do they think we get the money to spend on stuff like that? One of the salesladies got to me there, and I did leave with a small piece of jade of my own. I really like what I found, but I would have preferred not to go there at all.

            The street at the base of the great wall was the worst. Sure, they were willing to bargain with you, but they acted, or perhaps really were offended if you didn’t buy more once they saw you had money. One lady was especially rude to me when she found out she took the last of my money, about $5 USD, on a packet of postcards. I heard others in my group say these people would try to look and see in people’s wallets, someone even said they almost had their wallet taken. I am so glad I went to China, and especially the great wall, but all this really put a damper on it. Maybe I should have been prepared. I wasn’t, but I am now, for the rest of the countries. I am sure that knowing what might happen will make my visits to the rest of the ports better. The only place I saw on the Beijing trip that didn’t try to sell us anything was the kung fu school. They put on quite a show for us there. When we took photos with them afterwards, they would have serious faces. But I can hardly say the same for myself, though I did try.

            Hong Kong was our second port in China, where I spent a day and a half. It was very different that China, which makes sense. Though it is technically on Chinese land, Hong Kong for the past hundred years or so had been a British colony and so the policies there were very different than those in China. This is no longer the case, and in Hong Kong things will slowly change to be more like the rest of China. Though there the people still have more say in what goes on in their city. The native language in Hong Kong is Cantonese. They would learn English in school. We learned that they might start teaching Mandarin in the schools, to prepare students to communicate with the rest of China. Perhaps the next generation there will be trilingual and even bilateral, if they don’t want to stop learning English. I didn’t spend much time in the city, beautiful as it was. I noticed it was cleaner there than in China, and a lot more green with vegetation. The people did seem a bit nicer on average also. This is a sentiment that I heard from many other voyagers, that Hong Kong was more appreciated.

            The day we left Hong Kong I went with my class on a field trip to Mai Po nature reserve. It is primarily a bird sanctuary, though they also have research areas and even some fish farming going on. We got to see many different birds. Some had interesting names: pied avocet, garganey, oriental pratincole, ruddy turnstone, and more. The weather was pleasant too there, not as cold as Beijing. Mai Po nature reserve is also a large habitat for mangrove trees, which in turn provide homes for other species. Big worries for Mai Po and areas like it are climate change, and the fact that there aren’t enough untouched or protected natural coastal environments anymore. Migratory birds need food and shelter as they travel, coastal wetlands provide that, both on the western (American) side of the Pacific, and the eastern side, the Austrailasian Pacific Flyway.

            Another issue that arises when trying to manage natural areas the world over is just how to manage them. Many places these days need human involvement or they would be overrun but invasive or non native species. So we need to figure out how to manage these areas. Do we want them to look like they did before any humans came at all? Or just how they did three hundred years ago, when the world human population was way less significant? It depends on the area. But at this point, it seems like there are two major environmental questions that should be answered in the same way. Yes, climate change exists and over time yes there is something we can do about it, and, yes, natural areas are diminishing and yes they definitely need to be managed.

            The last question I pondered as I sailed away from Hong Kong is whether or not I would ever return to China. The answer is probably yes, someday. But there are many other countries, new and previous ones (like Japan) that I would visit or revisit first.  

Posted for 11 February 2014