China is the biggest paradox that I have ever experienced.
You hear about their great and long history dating back to before written time before hearing that it is expected to be the world’s greatest hope for a technological future. You eat food that is from the most basic of supplies, only to taste the some of the greatest flavors you have can imagine in your life. You see these temples and palaces where less than a hundred years ago only royalty was permitted, only to be shoved by the twenty thousand tourists on their phones and yelling to one another.
Unfortunately, this last aspect is the one which I will take with me in my stories of this voyage. When reflecting on Beijing, there are no memories of feeling as though I was a part of something much as I did in each of the other ports. Here I felt as though I was one of the masses, forced into the lemming-like state of crowding. The creations that rose out of the world which should have been the most amazing sights of my life were nothing more than walkways filled with unappreciating bodies alongside spots of newly painted color and plaques with cheesy metal figures. It was hard for me to see this, and even harder to discuss it with a faulty member upon returning to the ship. “It’s my thought that in the years to come, China will burst with population. They will spill over to the other countries, but in the meantime, they are so used to being crowded that their monuments will be torn apart by misuse.”
In truth, to some extent this bothers me far more than does the hunger and poverty we’ve seen. Strides have been made in the world to eradicate such disasters and help the victims, however there are no efforts to aid the much quicker destruction of the history of China. Some of the people in danger in other parts of the world such as South Africa and India are known about and cared for as aid and cures are being worked on. By the time that the destruction of the monuments in China is realized by the government, it will be too late. Unlike the populations, however, history cannot be recreated or revitalized. You simply cannot bring back the throne of the first emperor or books written by the ancient historians after they have been destroyed by the people who take nothing but a photograph away from these relics.
Perhaps more disturbing to me was the amount of importance there was on revenue on these historical sites. We had a lecture the night before our sight seeing began in the city, and rather than speak about the historical impacts of the Forbidden City, our PhD lecturer spoke about the Starbucks hidden in the city and challenged us to wander around and find it. This simply encouraged the students to spend the time we had in this centuries old monument searching for a shop that can be found in any city on the globe, only to buy their products and shirts proudly emblazoning the words ‘Starbucks in the Forbidden City!’ for all to see. Hawkers and stalls lined the way, some more pushy than the people in India and Vietnam. They bought their way into the monuments with stolen goods and stood in the way of our reading the run down plaques to sell knock-off Olympic t-shirts and Mao watches. You could not get two feet (which was a hassle anyhow with the crowds in every space available) without having goods shoved in your face, only to cover your ears when the police blew into their whistles and chased the hawkers around in circles.
As terrible as this sounds, the hawkers were the highlight of my time in Beijing. At one point outside Tiananmen Square, the seventy Semester at Sea students on our tour were gathered waiting for the busses to arrive and take us to lunch. Within moments of realizing that there were more blondes than there were anywhere else in the city gathered in the same spot, around thirty sellers surrounded us and took their wares out in hilarious fashions—some opened briefcases or messenger bags, tilting them so that only the person they were harassing was able to see the merchandise. The most amusing of all were the Mao watch sellers who had their supplies tied inside their trench coats, exposing himself much as a flasher would in a run-by nude show. As we bargained and argued with them, yells suddenly filled the sidewalk. Within moments there were twenty policemen in full uniform, chasing the hawkers as they scattered like ants from their hill. One of the men caught turned to his capturer and shoved numerous toys and bags into his arms, paying the uniformed officer to walk away. Somehow, it worked—the man turned his back as the hawker ran in the other direction.
After a few minutes when the police had wandered off to catch more sellers in action, some of them returned to us. They were far more cautious this time, passing money and supplies only when they were inches away from us and looking over our shoulders the entire time. The man who had paid the cop off grinned weakly towards us, pointing to the police in the distance and making gestures that clearly showed a decapitation had he been caught. Not sure what to make of the entire situation and excited over the sudden drop in price due to the need to dump their supplies, we got onto our busses and exchanged stories of what we had seen in and out of the gates. These men, it seemed, were the perfect reflection of what we had seen in Beijing—willing to take any risks of loss in order to make a quick dollar.
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