Beijing Part 1

This is really a city that deserves a few words written about it. Although like my trip (which was only for 4 nights), this blog will be (too) brief. I hereby promise not to detain you for more than a couple of hundred words.

The first thing that struck me and Lisa as we took our taxi from the airport was how quiet the streets were. This is a huge sprawling city with a population of over 17 million, which is renowned for its  perpetual bustle of bikes, cars, tuk-tuks and people. But this was Chinese New Year – a time when people leave the city to head to their families in their hometowns – and so the streets resembled the UK on Christmas day: shops were shuttered, traffic was sparse, and the atmosphere was almost disappointingly calm. 

In contrast to Seoul, the architecture is broadly low-rise, especially in the old parts of the city which are made up of traditional hutongs -  small, narrow alleyways, flanked by one or two-storey buildings (Apparently this is a relic of imperial rule – Beijing’s old emperors used to forbid anyone from building anything  that might rival their palace as the tallest thing in the city). There are few advertising boards, and at night, the neon glare for which Seoul and other big Asian cities like Shanghai or Tokyo are famous, is replaced by an eerie darkness in much of the city. Beijing appears dark, slightly old-fashioned and possessing an undercurrent of potential danger.

But even at night, I couldn’t describe Beijing as sleepy. Fireworks are, of course, one of China’s most famous national inventions, and around Chinese New Year they can be seen, and heard, everywhere and all the time. Men, women, young and old, can be found in alleys, on any stretch of pavement, even in the middle of main roads (with traffic passing only yards away) - setting off fire-crackers, burning sparklers or firing a myriad of colours into the night sky. COOL!

The lack of people in the city turned out to be a blessing.  We never had to queue for the subways (which at 2 yuan a trip – 20p – are fantastically cheap), and a taxi ride (that is, if you could find a taxi) were quick (and, mostly, very cheap – we generally paid just over £1 for a ten-minute ride).

Our first night was spent meeting our friends Jo and Martin, and trawling the restaurants and bars around the hutongs, enjoying nice Chinese beer like Yanjing or Tsing Tao– such a pleasure to drink some decent brews after the recurring disappointment of Korean piss-lager like Cass or Hite. We also took in some cocktails and I bought a bottle of Baijiu from a corner shop – Chinese rice wine which tastes and smells really fucking strong BECAUSE IT IS! It certainly helped keep me warm as we wandered the streets watching the craziness of Chinese New Year unfold. We decided we ought to go to Tiananmen Square for midnight, thinking that as the centre of the city that would be the best place to see the fireworks, but actually the best place was outside a hotel just around the corner from Tiananmen Square, where we chanced upon a hotel whose staff seemed to supply an endless number of fireworks onto the street and kept us coo-ing and ah-ing for half an hour or more as we watched the sky dissolve into explosions.

Chinese New Year’s day we went back to Tiananmen Square, and you could really appreciate the beauty and scale of the place by daylight (and a very nice day it was too!). For the first time we were accompanied by real crowds of people, almost exclusively Chinese, checking out their capital’s most famous public space. Surrounded by grand government buildings, huge, identical red flags, and thousands of people taking posing for photos, the place felt huge, full of history and importance. It was also probably the only part of Beijing that reminded you that you’re in a communist country – security was tight (our bags were scanned on entry, and CCTV cameras were everywhere) and Mao’s body is buried here in a huge, overbearing Mausoleum (you can still go and see his corpse if you want to, but sadly it closed when we were there), whilst his huge portrait stares across the whole scene.

After haggling for a few tacky souvenirs from the mass of street hawkers, we passed into the Forbidden City, and compared to the distinctly Modernist grandeur of Tiananmen, it felt like stepping back in time. This vast complex was built by the Emperors about 600 years ago, and is remarkably still pretty much in one piece. For about £4, you can wander around the several gates, palaces, courtyards and gardens for hours. Amazing stuff, and again, photo-op heaven.

From The Forbidden City the flow of human traffic leads to Jangching Park, which is basically a man-made hill and pretty much the only high place in central Beijing (this city is very flat), from which we could review our day’s route, and, accompanied by a few cans of Tsing Tao, we saw the sunset over Chinese New year’s Day and see the start of yet another night of fireworks.

A short cab ride took us to a famous and very swanky restaurant for Peking Duck, and after gorging ourselves on the city’s famous dish (prepared and dished up by an expert waiter at the table – nice touch), we returned to our hostels by subway for a well-earned rest. Tomorrow would be an early start.