“B is for Big”

Arrival in Beijing

Jie arrived in Beijing, China on Thursday September 27 after spending a week in Busan, Korea. After landing in the Beijing airport and going through customs, as a Chinese citizen because China issued Jie a travel document, Jie and her boss caught a taxi to Beijing. Since it was around 5 pm Beijing time, Jie hit traffic all the way to the financial district where Mei lived. However, the taxi driver was very calm and resourceful and found Mei’s apartment in record time. Mei warned Jie that where she lived was nothing like the rest of Bejing and she was right. There were less people, lots of restaurants and coffee shots, and generally a place with very nice atmosphere. Mei’s apartment was somewhat like a hotel where she gets maid service twice a week and can ask the lobby to provide things like extra towels and blankets. What a life! 

First Weekend

That night, Mei took Jie to a really good restaurant around her house. We had wholesome veggie, rice, and some meat. It’s good to be back in Asia. Jie can’t find good Chinese food anywhere in downtown DC! Although Jie had jet lag, Mei asked if Jie wanted to go get a food massage. “Of course!”, Jie thought! The foot massage place was well organized with ladies with headsets and computer screens showing the availability of the massagers. Pretty soon Jie and Mei were ushered into a room with two sofas and a TV. Twenty minutes later two male foot massagers came in to wash our feet and proceed with the massage. Since you never know with Chinese massages, the massage turned out to be a full body massage but it was still really good. Jie fell asleep half way through and the foot massager thought it was hilarious. It was nice to have the TV on. Mei and Jie watched interesting Chinese talk shows and interesting Chinese music videos!

On Friday, Jie took the metro to her boss’s hotel. Metros are an experience in itself since there are always so many people and so many armpits. Also, you have to be very pushy when getting off the metro. However, it is very cheap only $0.40! After getting to the hotel and holding a meeting, Jie and her boss decided to go to the Forbidden City. As everything is in Beijing, the FC was huge with multiple buildings with courts for the emperor, the empress and their attendees. By the time Jie and her boss was finished, it was around 5 pm and they couldn’t find one taxi. After a frustrating 30 minutes, Jie and her boss hopped on a bus and then took the metro. Jie and her boss finally made it back to the hotel two hours later and her boss was ready to drop! Jie met up with Mei later that night to eat Peking duck at Made in China. Mei and Jei went to get drinks at one of the tallest buildings in China. After that. Jie was ready to drop. What a great and tiring day! 

The next Saturday, Mei thought it would be fun visit the 728 art district at Dasanzhi metro stop. Jie and Mei took the metro and then the bus. Various art pieces were housed in a renovated 50 year old decommissioned military factory building. 728 is often compared to New York's Greenwich Village or SoHo. The district had a lot of symbolic art, great atmosphere, and lots of coffee shops. It is a place of serenity away from Beijing. Jie has to admit that it was rather shocking at the amount of symbolism about China in the art. Mei went on a hunt for good post cards. After taking lots of great photos and eating at a coffee shop, Jie and Mei decided to go back to Dasanzhi train station to find a movie theater. Although there were a lot of malls near the station including the Raffle’s mall, there was neither bookstores nor movie theaters. It’s times like this when Jie and Mei realize that China is still a developing country. There are a lot of grand buildings but the buildings do not factor in user experience. After walking around like ants in a huge concrete jungle, Jie and Mei thought it would be best to return to Mei’s apartment and then head out to dinner.

At night, Mei met up with her business school friend at a restaurant with traditional Yunan food. The restaurant was in an alley way and in a houtong otherwise known as a rich family compound. Mei managed to find a taxi which was a miracle. The restaurant door was very shabby but it was well decorated inside. There was lot of foreigners because the restaurant was featured on trip advisor. Mei and Jie ate plates and plats of veggies, meat, and fish. It was all very spicy. It was fun catching up with Mei’s friend. 

On Sunday, after a great brunch near Mei’s apartment, Jie, departed to the Beijing West Train Station to catch an afternoon high speed train to Zhengzhou, Henan for the Yellow River Forum. The Beijing West Station gets a lot of flak for being hard to navigate and costing a record of ¾ of a billion dollars. Jie and her boss managed to get on the train with no problems. It was a smooth ride and each person had a spacious seat. The ticket only cost $40 for a 5.5 hour train ride. 

As part of the train experience, there was a “train attendant” that was in charge of the section of our train. There were also carts with food and snacks. About an hour away from Zhengzhou, Jie started noticing the bad air. At first, Jie thought it was going to get better but it didn’t even after she arrived in Zhengzhou. The air was three times as bad as Beijing and Jie could smell the chemicals in the air. The air was so bad at times, it made Jie’s eyes water. What was amazing was that after four days in Zhengzhou, Jie had completely gotten used to the bad air. Imagine how bad it was for the people in the City! After getting off the high speed train, Jie and her boss realized that they needed to keep their ticket in order exit the train station. Unfortunately, Jie’s boss had thrown her ticket away and the station police wouldn’t let her exit without buying a new one. Luckily, the drivers who were waiting for Jie and her boss intervened. Jie is unsure what happened at the end, but the station police let her and her boss leave the train station.

The Yellow River Forum was quite an experience by itself. All the important government officials were there. Jie will have to write a second blog entry on the forum but will stick with the fun times she had with Mei. 

Second Weekend

After four days in Zhengzhou, Jie took the high speed train back to Beijing. This time, there were more people and less seats. Jie and her colleagues sat in a three seater facing three other people. 5.5 hours later Jie arrived in Beijing West Station. Luckily her colleagues had ordered a car for everyone, because it was impossible to find a taxi. 

On the last Saturday, Mei ordered a car to the part of the Great Wall called Mutianyu. It is one of the more scenic parts of the Great Wall. After an hour and a half, Mei, Jie, and her boss arrived in Mutianyu where they took the cable car up to the Great Wall. Jie and Mei were lucky. The day was lovely and they were able to see the rare Beijing blue sky. In addition, the temperature was perfect so they had a clear view of the great wall and mountains. There were a lot of shops selling Chinese chopsticks, clothing, and other souvenirs. After riding the cable car to the top, Jie and Mei decided to climb a portion of the great wall which was steep. Since the wall was steeper than it looked, Jie was suddenly frightened because of the height but took Mei’s hand and climbed up the wall. It was tough but well worth it. Mei decided that climbing the wall two times was enough since she had recently been to the great wall with Mom! 

After eating a satisfying lunch of steamed dumplings, Mei, Jie, and her boss stopped by the Beijing Olympic stadium, took some pictures and then headed to the airport. 

Thanks Mei for being an amazing host. See you in December 2012!

A Few Thoughts from Jie and Mei

The only word to describe Beijing is “BIG”:

• China is a big and exciting. As Mei pointed out, their economic growth is not so much due to their but by the sheer number of people. The purchasing power is immense.

• Jie sees a real struggle between China’s economic growth and natural resource management. Something has to give sooner rather than later.   

• Perhaps due to path laid out by Chinese ancestors, the Chinese like to build things that are big and grand. On the surface, it doesn't appear that the Chinese puts as much thought into the purpose of the building and whether it would be useful for people. Jie and Mei found this particularly true when they were wondering the huge malls in search of non-existence coffee shops, bookstores, or movie theaters. They felt the user experience lacking.

• Jie and Mei were impressed with how many people they met who were progressive thinkers. One Peking University professor talked about coming up with ideas and running with it. Very much a western mentality. One of Jie’s colleague said that her husband takes care of their house and does all the cooking just so she can concentrate on her work and her career. Unheard of in other Asian countries.

• Due to the sheer number of people, there’s a lot of diversity and therefore people are less narrow minded and judgmental.

• All in all, China has a lot of work ahead of them in terms of solving their pollution problems, improving their customer service, solving their population problem, and understanding that people’s thoughts and actions cannot be controlled. However, it is changing quickly, and on the surface, for the better. The top down governance, although problematic at times, does force  decisions to be made quickly. And as long as they are the right decisions this is a good thing. Also the western influence, in the form of multinational companies and foreigners are changing the way people act towards each other. Jie heard more sorry’ s this time than a year ago when she didn’t hear hardly any.  There is hope for the future!