With the echo of Jose's words, "Keep searching for your next great adventure," ringing in my ears, I set off for Beijing in January for the long Lunar New Year weekend.
I had visions of myself sitting in small dumpling shops, surrounded by the people of Beijing digging into steaming bowls of authentic Chinese food (I've clearly watched too much Anthony Bourdain). Or on a bench in a tucked-away park with neighborhood children out for the day with their grandparents.
My trip to Beijing, however, was not exactly how I'd pictured it. I'd signed up for a three-day organized tour of the city, in the interest of time and money. I'm not really much of a tour-type person - I always think half the fun of travel is planning the trip - but it was through a popular Korean travel company, with most of the tour made up of other English teachers around my age. Because of this, I spent three days crowded into government factories, watching women craft jade Buddhas, and in sprawling restaurants with over 100 North Americans, eating sweet and sour chicken and french fries (yes, that's right. French Fries).
This was not the picture the Lonely Planet had painted for me.
On the second day, weary of yet another meal that included food I could find in McDonalds, I asked our tour guide if I could sneak off on my own for several hours. I was intent on eating some Chinese street food with the locals. He didn't seem entirely pleased with this idea, especially since I don't speak a lick of Chinese, but jotted down the address of our next destination in Chinese characters, pressed it in my hand and told me to be there in three hours.
I headed off, strolling toward a big intersection, pleased to be far away from the bus and actually walking through Beijing. I smiled at every person who passed by me, feeling like I was back in high school and had scored a pass to leave campus during the lunch hour. I was free!
This joy began to dim slightly as I realized that nothing on the streets was open, despite the early hour of 5pm. It was Chinese New Year, the largest holiday in the country, and much of Beijing was shut down. I decided to just head straight for "snack street" where the most famous street food in Beijing can be found. I pulled out my notebook and glanced at the address I'd copied down from someone's guidebook, the neighborhood spelled phonetically.
I stuck out my arm for a taxi, and jumped into the first one that stopped.
"Dong-cheng," I said, realizing I didn't even remember the words for please or thank you. I did, however, remember hello. Well, that would certainly come in handy.
"Eh?" asked the taxi driver. I repeated myself.
He leaned forward, looking me up and down in his rear view mirror. He seemed confused. I repeated the word again, this time more slowly.
"Dong. Cheng."
He turned around. "Ni-an wunjan hao hunzao," he said (or something like that). Now he looked annoyed.
"Um, okay. Never mind then!" I called. "Thank you!" I opened the door and hopped out.
Damn, I thought. Now what?
It was starting to get really cold, so for lack of a better idea, I decided to try another taxi (genius, I know). My new taxi driver looked a lot younger than the last, so I asked hopefully, "English?"
"Eh?" he said in response.
Okay, no go with that one.
I looked at my notebook, said the name of the neighborhood. He stared at me blankly. I said it again.
He started speaking in rapid Chinese, impatiently motioning to my notebook. I handed it to him, helplessly pointing at the word written in English letters. Hmmm, probably would have been beneficial to have the tour guide write it in Chinese.
He stared at the English, shaking his head and handed it back to me.
"Okay, thank you," I mumbled, even though he had no idea what I was saying.
I started walking, frustrated with myself for assuming I'd be able to communicate without knowing the language. I walked and walked, hoping to stumble upon some small dumpling house teeming with people. All the buildings I passed were dark.
Eventually, I reached an intersection where a police car was parked. One policeman stood next to it; the other was rubbing his hands together in the passenger seat. I thought of all the horror stories I'd read about the Communist Chinese policemen during the Olympics. Then I flashed my biggest smile and approached.
"Hello!" I said. "English?"
The policeman, probably just a few years older than me, eyed me wearily. I looked at the gun on his hip. He said something in Chinese.
I pulled out my notebook again, trying to look hopelessly lost.
"Dong-cheng?" I asked, pointing north, south, east, west. "Wang-fu-jing?"
Strangely, my Chinese pronunciation hadn't improved any in the last 30 minutes, and he looked at me, confused.
I kind of wanted to scream. I just want some Chinese street food! I just want a small piece of a real Beijing experience! Just tell me where Snack Street is!
Instead, I stupidly tried again.
"Wang-fu-jing?"
He reached for something at his side, and I almost gasped. Oh god, he's going to shoot me, I thought. Instead, he pulled out a cell phone, punched in some numbers and started speaking Chinese. Then he handed the phone to me.
"Uh, hello?" I said into his phone, utterly baffled.
"Hello?" said a thickly accented male voice. "I understand you are lost?"
I laughed with relief. "Yes! Yes, I am lost! I am looking for the Dong-cheng neighborhood. Where Snack Street is."
"Dong-cheng?" he responded. "That's a children's hospital, miss."
My heart sank. A children's hospital? What?!
"Well, is there a place near here with good food?" I asked him.
"Oh, yes," he replied. "There's an area with lots of cafes and restaurants, if that's what you're looking for."
I said it was, and he instructed me to hand the phone back to the police officer. He would explain to him where I wanted to go, and the policeman would point me in that direction. After the policeman spoke on his cell for several minutes, he hung up and looked at me. He seemed dubious.
He raised his arm, pointing across the intersection and waving like he was directing traffic.
"Straight across?" I asked, pointing in the same direction. "Just go straight?"
"Shi," he said, nodding. I beamed at him, thanking him profusely in a language he didn't understand. I stopped myself from hugging him, remembering the gun in its holster. He nodded at me, and I dashed across the street.
By now, the temperature was well below freezing and the sky was purple as the sun dipped out of sight. I walked briskly down the main street, past the hotels that still had Christmas decorations, the Prada stores, the KFC. After a while, the street narrowed into what looked like an alley. Night had arrived, and the streets were empty and black. Suddenly, I heard an explosion.
BAM! CRACK, BAM, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, BAM!
I screamed, covering my head. A car alarm started wailing, and I could see sparks streaking across the alley ahead of me. It was Chinese New Year, and everyone in Beijing was setting off fireworks and firecrackers.
After five terrifying minutes of dodging firecrackers and fervently praying that I wouldn't lose an eye, I weaved my way out of the alley and toward another main road. This is what Kosovo must have been like in the mid-90s, I thought to myself, dashing as quickly as I could toward traffic and well-lit roads. All hopes of Snack Street had vanished. At this point, I just wanted to keep all my fingers.
Two hours had passed since I left the bus, and I realized I had just one hour left before I needed to re-join the group. My stomach grumbled in hunger, and my fingers had lost all feeling. I just wanted somewhere warm where I could get something to eat.
The only thing I could find that was open turned out to be a 24-hour McDonalds near a youth hostel. So much for avoiding french fries, I muttered to myself, stepping inside and basking in the rush of warm air. I ordered an ice cream cone and chicken McNuggets, and sat at a red stool next to the window. I happily licked the cone, watching the shrieking Chinese children outside set off fireworks, the white blaze whizzing by their bright faces.
It wasn't exactly the adventure I'd imagined, but I'd met some people along the way, narrowly avoided losing a limb, and witnessed the streets of Beijing on Lunar New Year. And despite the location of my supper, I had managed not to consume any french fries.
**************************************************************************
The following day, we woke up even earlier than usual for the pinnacle of our trip: The Great Wall of China. I bounced out of bed at 6am, preparing myself with several cups of coffee and a plate full of scrambled eggs.
We reached the entrance about 40 minutes after leaving Beijing, only an hour after sunrise. During the previous days of our trip, most of the attractions in Beijing had been difficult to see, let alone appreciate. Swarms of tourists descended on all the big sights, elbowing their way past you, snapping pictures with their camera phones and speaking in deafening tones (Chinese is already a language in which the speaker sounds perpetually angry, regardless of what is actually being said). Our tour bus was one of the first in the parking lot at the Great Wall, and while our tour guide droned on about a group picture, I started mapping our route up.
"Let's go," I said to my friends - Andrea, Dave and Alex. I was intent on getting in front of the crowd and enjoying the Great Wall sans elbowing tourists and loud commentary.
We quickly broke from the group and started jogging up the first stretch of our section. The Great Wall stretched and snaked through the hills and mountains as far north as I could see in the hazy morning. In the distance, past sky and stillness, the Great Wall continued, tall and thin. Immense.
The jogging didn't last long, as the Great Wall is STEEP and I was quickly winded. I'd somehow pictured walking along the Great Wall and not up it. Oh, how wrong I was.
Somehow the boys, both smokers, both still sightly hung-over from the night before, got a good lead on us, while Andrea and I wheezed our way forward.
Everything I'd read about the Great Wall in January had included words like "bitter cold," "snarling winds" and "extreme weather." As it was a bright, sunny day and I was wearing 47 layers of clothing and felt like I was on a Stairmaster at level 8, we quickly began stripping off hats, gloves, scarves, until I was holding half my clothing.
The climb was tough, but the views made it worthwhile. And because I wasn't with the guys, I didn't need to pretend to tie my shoelace in order to stop and take a look (good thing too, since I was wearing slip-on boots). We sat on the stone steps, taking it all in - the train chugging toward Mongolia, the infinite curl of the wall, the bright day.
I had been prepared to be disappointed by the Great Wall, the Asian equivalent to the Leaning Toward of Pisa, a sight hyped up and overrated. Especially, as the week before, one of my Korean middle school students had returned from a weekend trip to Beijing and told me the Great Wall wasn't all that great.
"It wasn't that big," she'd said, sounding bored.
Well, apathetic Korean teenager I was not. The wall was big - and grand and impressive and every other adjective for big I can think of.
I mulled over all the facts our guide had spouted off: over 1 million people had helped construct it, the longest man-made structure on Earth. Half of the builders had died in the process, built in sections over 2,000 years. And while it was intended, for the most part, to keep out foreign invaders, supposedly Genghis Khan had famously said: "A wall is only as strong as those who built it." (take that, China!)
All the facts and information about the wall were cool, but the coolest part was just being there, staring at it unfolding through the mountains, walking up it, touching it.
I will always remember my dad telling me a story when I was younger, of him riding in the back of a truck through Sudan. "There I was, bumping around in the back of a truck through the deserts of Eastern Africa. And I thought to myself, Remember this moment. You never know if you'll be back here again. And you know, 30 years later, I've never been back to Sudan."
That stuck with me, and standing atop the Great Wall of China, on Lunar New Year just outside of Beijing, I marveled at it all. Closing my eyes, I thought to myself, Remember this moment. You never know if you'll be back here again.
I had visions of myself sitting in small dumpling shops, surrounded by the people of Beijing digging into steaming bowls of authentic Chinese food (I've clearly watched too much Anthony Bourdain). Or on a bench in a tucked-away park with neighborhood children out for the day with their grandparents.
My trip to Beijing, however, was not exactly how I'd pictured it. I'd signed up for a three-day organized tour of the city, in the interest of time and money. I'm not really much of a tour-type person - I always think half the fun of travel is planning the trip - but it was through a popular Korean travel company, with most of the tour made up of other English teachers around my age. Because of this, I spent three days crowded into government factories, watching women craft jade Buddhas, and in sprawling restaurants with over 100 North Americans, eating sweet and sour chicken and french fries (yes, that's right. French Fries).
This was not the picture the Lonely Planet had painted for me.
On the second day, weary of yet another meal that included food I could find in McDonalds, I asked our tour guide if I could sneak off on my own for several hours. I was intent on eating some Chinese street food with the locals. He didn't seem entirely pleased with this idea, especially since I don't speak a lick of Chinese, but jotted down the address of our next destination in Chinese characters, pressed it in my hand and told me to be there in three hours.
I headed off, strolling toward a big intersection, pleased to be far away from the bus and actually walking through Beijing. I smiled at every person who passed by me, feeling like I was back in high school and had scored a pass to leave campus during the lunch hour. I was free!
This joy began to dim slightly as I realized that nothing on the streets was open, despite the early hour of 5pm. It was Chinese New Year, the largest holiday in the country, and much of Beijing was shut down. I decided to just head straight for "snack street" where the most famous street food in Beijing can be found. I pulled out my notebook and glanced at the address I'd copied down from someone's guidebook, the neighborhood spelled phonetically.
I stuck out my arm for a taxi, and jumped into the first one that stopped.
"Dong-cheng," I said, realizing I didn't even remember the words for please or thank you. I did, however, remember hello. Well, that would certainly come in handy.
"Eh?" asked the taxi driver. I repeated myself.
He leaned forward, looking me up and down in his rear view mirror. He seemed confused. I repeated the word again, this time more slowly.
"Dong. Cheng."
He turned around. "Ni-an wunjan hao hunzao," he said (or something like that). Now he looked annoyed.
"Um, okay. Never mind then!" I called. "Thank you!" I opened the door and hopped out.
Damn, I thought. Now what?
It was starting to get really cold, so for lack of a better idea, I decided to try another taxi (genius, I know). My new taxi driver looked a lot younger than the last, so I asked hopefully, "English?"
"Eh?" he said in response.
Okay, no go with that one.
I looked at my notebook, said the name of the neighborhood. He stared at me blankly. I said it again.
He started speaking in rapid Chinese, impatiently motioning to my notebook. I handed it to him, helplessly pointing at the word written in English letters. Hmmm, probably would have been beneficial to have the tour guide write it in Chinese.
He stared at the English, shaking his head and handed it back to me.
"Okay, thank you," I mumbled, even though he had no idea what I was saying.
I started walking, frustrated with myself for assuming I'd be able to communicate without knowing the language. I walked and walked, hoping to stumble upon some small dumpling house teeming with people. All the buildings I passed were dark.
Eventually, I reached an intersection where a police car was parked. One policeman stood next to it; the other was rubbing his hands together in the passenger seat. I thought of all the horror stories I'd read about the Communist Chinese policemen during the Olympics. Then I flashed my biggest smile and approached.
"Hello!" I said. "English?"
The policeman, probably just a few years older than me, eyed me wearily. I looked at the gun on his hip. He said something in Chinese.
I pulled out my notebook again, trying to look hopelessly lost.
"Dong-cheng?" I asked, pointing north, south, east, west. "Wang-fu-jing?"
Strangely, my Chinese pronunciation hadn't improved any in the last 30 minutes, and he looked at me, confused.
I kind of wanted to scream. I just want some Chinese street food! I just want a small piece of a real Beijing experience! Just tell me where Snack Street is!
Instead, I stupidly tried again.
"Wang-fu-jing?"
He reached for something at his side, and I almost gasped. Oh god, he's going to shoot me, I thought. Instead, he pulled out a cell phone, punched in some numbers and started speaking Chinese. Then he handed the phone to me.
"Uh, hello?" I said into his phone, utterly baffled.
"Hello?" said a thickly accented male voice. "I understand you are lost?"
I laughed with relief. "Yes! Yes, I am lost! I am looking for the Dong-cheng neighborhood. Where Snack Street is."
"Dong-cheng?" he responded. "That's a children's hospital, miss."
My heart sank. A children's hospital? What?!
"Well, is there a place near here with good food?" I asked him.
"Oh, yes," he replied. "There's an area with lots of cafes and restaurants, if that's what you're looking for."
I said it was, and he instructed me to hand the phone back to the police officer. He would explain to him where I wanted to go, and the policeman would point me in that direction. After the policeman spoke on his cell for several minutes, he hung up and looked at me. He seemed dubious.
He raised his arm, pointing across the intersection and waving like he was directing traffic.
"Straight across?" I asked, pointing in the same direction. "Just go straight?"
"Shi," he said, nodding. I beamed at him, thanking him profusely in a language he didn't understand. I stopped myself from hugging him, remembering the gun in its holster. He nodded at me, and I dashed across the street.
By now, the temperature was well below freezing and the sky was purple as the sun dipped out of sight. I walked briskly down the main street, past the hotels that still had Christmas decorations, the Prada stores, the KFC. After a while, the street narrowed into what looked like an alley. Night had arrived, and the streets were empty and black. Suddenly, I heard an explosion.
BAM! CRACK, BAM, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, BAM!
I screamed, covering my head. A car alarm started wailing, and I could see sparks streaking across the alley ahead of me. It was Chinese New Year, and everyone in Beijing was setting off fireworks and firecrackers.
After five terrifying minutes of dodging firecrackers and fervently praying that I wouldn't lose an eye, I weaved my way out of the alley and toward another main road. This is what Kosovo must have been like in the mid-90s, I thought to myself, dashing as quickly as I could toward traffic and well-lit roads. All hopes of Snack Street had vanished. At this point, I just wanted to keep all my fingers.
Two hours had passed since I left the bus, and I realized I had just one hour left before I needed to re-join the group. My stomach grumbled in hunger, and my fingers had lost all feeling. I just wanted somewhere warm where I could get something to eat.
The only thing I could find that was open turned out to be a 24-hour McDonalds near a youth hostel. So much for avoiding french fries, I muttered to myself, stepping inside and basking in the rush of warm air. I ordered an ice cream cone and chicken McNuggets, and sat at a red stool next to the window. I happily licked the cone, watching the shrieking Chinese children outside set off fireworks, the white blaze whizzing by their bright faces.
It wasn't exactly the adventure I'd imagined, but I'd met some people along the way, narrowly avoided losing a limb, and witnessed the streets of Beijing on Lunar New Year. And despite the location of my supper, I had managed not to consume any french fries.
**************************************************************************
The following day, we woke up even earlier than usual for the pinnacle of our trip: The Great Wall of China. I bounced out of bed at 6am, preparing myself with several cups of coffee and a plate full of scrambled eggs.
We reached the entrance about 40 minutes after leaving Beijing, only an hour after sunrise. During the previous days of our trip, most of the attractions in Beijing had been difficult to see, let alone appreciate. Swarms of tourists descended on all the big sights, elbowing their way past you, snapping pictures with their camera phones and speaking in deafening tones (Chinese is already a language in which the speaker sounds perpetually angry, regardless of what is actually being said). Our tour bus was one of the first in the parking lot at the Great Wall, and while our tour guide droned on about a group picture, I started mapping our route up.
"Let's go," I said to my friends - Andrea, Dave and Alex. I was intent on getting in front of the crowd and enjoying the Great Wall sans elbowing tourists and loud commentary.
We quickly broke from the group and started jogging up the first stretch of our section. The Great Wall stretched and snaked through the hills and mountains as far north as I could see in the hazy morning. In the distance, past sky and stillness, the Great Wall continued, tall and thin. Immense.
The jogging didn't last long, as the Great Wall is STEEP and I was quickly winded. I'd somehow pictured walking along the Great Wall and not up it. Oh, how wrong I was.
Somehow the boys, both smokers, both still sightly hung-over from the night before, got a good lead on us, while Andrea and I wheezed our way forward.
Everything I'd read about the Great Wall in January had included words like "bitter cold," "snarling winds" and "extreme weather." As it was a bright, sunny day and I was wearing 47 layers of clothing and felt like I was on a Stairmaster at level 8, we quickly began stripping off hats, gloves, scarves, until I was holding half my clothing.
The climb was tough, but the views made it worthwhile. And because I wasn't with the guys, I didn't need to pretend to tie my shoelace in order to stop and take a look (good thing too, since I was wearing slip-on boots). We sat on the stone steps, taking it all in - the train chugging toward Mongolia, the infinite curl of the wall, the bright day.
I had been prepared to be disappointed by the Great Wall, the Asian equivalent to the Leaning Toward of Pisa, a sight hyped up and overrated. Especially, as the week before, one of my Korean middle school students had returned from a weekend trip to Beijing and told me the Great Wall wasn't all that great.
"It wasn't that big," she'd said, sounding bored.
Well, apathetic Korean teenager I was not. The wall was big - and grand and impressive and every other adjective for big I can think of.
I mulled over all the facts our guide had spouted off: over 1 million people had helped construct it, the longest man-made structure on Earth. Half of the builders had died in the process, built in sections over 2,000 years. And while it was intended, for the most part, to keep out foreign invaders, supposedly Genghis Khan had famously said: "A wall is only as strong as those who built it." (take that, China!)
All the facts and information about the wall were cool, but the coolest part was just being there, staring at it unfolding through the mountains, walking up it, touching it.
I will always remember my dad telling me a story when I was younger, of him riding in the back of a truck through Sudan. "There I was, bumping around in the back of a truck through the deserts of Eastern Africa. And I thought to myself, Remember this moment. You never know if you'll be back here again. And you know, 30 years later, I've never been back to Sudan."
That stuck with me, and standing atop the Great Wall of China, on Lunar New Year just outside of Beijing, I marveled at it all. Closing my eyes, I thought to myself, Remember this moment. You never know if you'll be back here again.
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