Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

Cloudy indeed

I woke up Saturday morning to see that the sky had turned a mustard yellow.

The news reported that it was the biggest sandstorm of the year to hit China. Winds from the country's northwest region were carrying sand to Beijing and cities in the northeast. A sign of growing desertification as The Washington Post put it today.

I walked outside and didn't feel much dust in the air. Everything outside, however, looked as if it were polluted.

Indeed, the weather in China is kind of crazy. Fortunately, my timing couldn't be better.

On Saturday afternoon I left for Taiwan to see family. I'm hoping to escape the crummy weather in Beijing.

Here, I was walking through Beijing Capital International Airport at terminal 3, the newest expansion of the airport.

Direct flights between China and Taiwan only began about a year and a half ago as a sign of strengthening relations between the Chinese mainland and it's so-called "breakaway province" . Before you usually had to fly through Hong Kong or Macau, where you then changed planes. But now things are more convenient, with a trip from Beijing to Taipei equaling a swift 3 hour plane ride.

One visible result of the direct flights is that many of the passengers around me were Chinese mainlanders, who were traveling to Taiwan for the first time. By ending the ban on direct flights, Taiwan was in part hoping to boost tourism.

Still, the Taiwanese government has placed restrictions, and have a quota for the number of Chinese tourists that can enter the island each day. Recently they lifted the number for 4,311 to 6,000 to meet the overwhelming demand for tourist permits.

As for me, this is maybe my 9th trip to Taiwan. Before I left, I spoke with a few Chinese friends in Beijing. They all said they wanted to come with me, with one friend adding that she was "jealous".

In spite of flying hundreds of miles away, I still could not escape the sand storm as it spread itself across Asia. One local news report said it was the biggest sandstorm to sweep Taipei in 25 years. At least the sky is not yellow.

Go away winter

Just when it seemed like spring was coming this happens.  Now it feels like I'm stuck back in January.

This is actually the second time it's snowed in Beijing this month. Tomorrow I'll have to ride my bike in this to get to class. I have to say, winter can go screw itself.

Networking

Apparently, I've become a member of an "illegal" group.

A month ago I joined the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China. Last night the group had a get-together, and I had a chance to meet quite a few members of the foreign media working in Beijing.

"We're illegal," the president of the club said to me, making clear to pronounce the "il" on the word "illegal".

"The Chinese government doesn't really like us," he added.

As I introduced myself to the people there, very quickly I felt like I was becoming known as the "archaeology guy." It made me feel a little embarrassed since I just freelance about it.

I even became a little intimidated as I met some of the others present. The first person I met was an NBC camera man, who was still recovering from jet lag.

"I was working at the Olympics in Vancouver for four weeks," he told me. "Then I was in Chile to cover the Earthquake for three days."

All night, I was surrounded by people who seemed way too cool for me. Many of them had been in the journalism industry for decades. In those three hours I was there, my world felt a lot bigger.

Bunnies

Lots of things are sold on the streets in Beijing. Even pet shops can be pretty mobile. This cart, which was towed by a bicycle, carried with it fish, birds and other pets.

I was tempted to buy a bunny.

Back to school

After a month of vacation, the new semester has started at my university. Now I have to get up at 6:50 a.m. Sigh...

Upon returning to my Chinese language classes this week, I met with old friends and saw plenty of new faces.

On the downside, I have homework again. I can't get myself to do it any of it. Ugh...

Chinese hell

If you go to a Daoist temple in China, you might catch some graphic images of what Diyu 地狱 or hell looks like. As you can tell it's not a very fun place.

This particular display showed what it's like in "Six Cao Hell". "The statues lively tell the stories of Retribution Theory of Daosim and Cause and Effect Theory of Buddhism," a sign read.

Pingyao

Earlier this week I traveled to Pingyao, which is located in central China. What's special about this place is that it's one of the most well preserved medieval towns in the country. A lot of what you see there looks the way it did hundreds of years ago during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368 to 1911). Travel writers have described being in the town as if you went back in time.

One of the defining features of Pingyao is the still existing city wall surrounding it. It's around 40 feet high and tourists are allowed to walk on it.

Although the wall doesn't exactly have any enemies to defend against, it does seem to act as barrier between the ancient architecture of Pingyao and the modern China outside.

Very few cars are allowed in the city. And hardly any building within the town is over three stories high. Most are just one level.  There are no streetlights either, just strings of red lanterns that line between the buildings.

When you are shopping or dining here, you also get the treat of visiting many of these historical buildings.

The hotel I stayed at was located in a traditional courtyard home. The manager says the place is several hundred years old.

To get around, I had to take one of these. Basically it's Pingyao's version of a taxi.

It felt like I was riding a lawnmower. I think the top speed was about 25 mph.

Pingyao has quite a few stray dogs running around. But I was surprised to find a few stray roosters clucking about. Relatively speaking, this Chinese town is small, around 490,000 people. On the outskirts, you can find many farms.

Here is some cheap food I bought with a pair of fellow students at my university. The honeycomb of dumplings, a specialty found in Pingyao, was the tastiest.

Even as Pingyao likes to live in the past, this town is very much a place of tourism. Most of the shops on the major streets here sell souvenirs. At the same time, all the restaurants display the same English labeled menu outside their doors. Local people here keep an eye out for foreigners, incessantly asking them if they need a tour guide or a driver to get around.

As annoying as it is to be bothered, the tourism is good for the local economy. One driver told me that before he was doing this he used to be a farmer. Back then he made close to around $500 to $600 for the entire year. As tourism developed in Pingyao, he changed professions.

Pingyao looks its best at night, when all the red lanterns are on.

The funny thing is that when I first arrived in Pingyao, it happened to be 5:30 a.m. By then nearly all the lights in the town had been turned off. The town seemed to almost literally disappear.

I will stab you

While traveling this past week, I tried to wield this spear. It was pretty heavy and nearly as tall as myself. Back in the day, bodyguards would escort transported goods while carrying these as their weapons. One can imagine a past, where people carried a weapon to work everyday. A society full of badasses.