Day 4: Beijing – Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Pearl Factory, UIBE

We visited the Temple of Heaven, and I gawked across the fence, wishing I was the CEO of a multinational company who had been chosen by the “Emperor of China” (or some Fortune trade publication goons) to attend the Fortune Global Forum across the way. Needless to say, they hadn’t responded to my email attempts to get an invitation while I was back in the states. I decided this wasn’t the best time in my life to climb a fence and get arrested, so I moved on. Some day, maybe.

As I walk by, Tai Chi carries on in the park. This I was expecting, but the strange group samba exercise dance thing they do kind of throws me off guard. (I later confirmed that this was in fact a version of the samba). I hear salsa is also popular.

The Chinese seem to be really into numerology, superstition, and the sort. Odd numbers are for men, and even numbers are for women. The number 9 is the greatest odd number, so it represents the emperor. That’s why you see “9 dragon” this and the “9 circle” that. Three is a pretty sweet number too. After a while you just sort of get the feel as to which numbers are cool for something and which aren’t. These numbers go into every bit or architecture and ritual you see.

While we’re on the subject, they also dig fortunes and such. The Chinese Zodiac (12 year cycle with the animals) is very much for real, and those I spoke with appear to actually believe that your year of origin makes a defining statement about your personality and relationship compatibility (I’m a dog by the way). Despite my knowledge of the Chinese fondness of superstition, this I was not anticipating..

While I’m on the subject, the Chinese Calendar is pretty neat, with its leap months, and months actually correlated with the lunar cycle (men can only guess at the benefits related to that), and people having two ages. It has 60 and 3,600 year cycles, and was around thousands of years before ours, so I’m not entirely opposed to switching to it. Not to mention, the last Chinese New Year was on my birthday (Feb 9), which I might add was also Ash Wednesday, but more importantly my birthday. I could go on about the Chinese calendar being cool and different, but I won’t bore you, you can look it up yourself if you’re interested.

Back to superstition: On the other hand, fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco for an American good time, and the average Chinese person seems to have no idea what they are.

Throngs of uniformed school children waiting in line to get a chance to visit the echo wall at the Temple of Heaven.

I did a meditation pose on top of the altar/emperor’s stone at the center of the concentric circle walkways, as some Chinese people chanted Buddha! -- and smiled. There is a certain joy derived from standing in places that would have ensured your imminent execution, had you visited them at most any of the other time in the last thousand or so years.

Today was the first day (of several) that I had a Chinese person ask me if I was Neo or Agent Smith from The Matrix. Apparently all it takes is a pair of black Ray-Bans and being American. Alan explained to me that Chinese people (especially him) love American cinema, especially certain movies such as Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles (animated), and of course The Matrix. The plotline of The Matrix is relatively compatible with Eastern philosophy, lots of green Chinese characters flash across the screen, there’s martial arts, kung fu, and flying, and Keanu Reaves is a tad Asian-American looking.

We took a boat ride to the Summer Palace and saw some great pagoda’s overlooking the landscape. This is a classic example of a leisure palace built by a woman who was supposed to be building a navy. (The things you could get away with before cell phones were invented)

On the encouragement of one Chinese student I climbed a tree and looked out over the beautiful lake. On the encouragement of another, I climbed down before I was arrested.

It was at this point that I had a conversation about my home town and how I lived somewhat out in the country, outside a city. Through this conversation I realized that my Chinese friend “Alan” (see below w/ jacket) had an entirely different conception of city and country than I would say most Americans do. He explained that cities were considered safe and that most old people and families preferred to live in the city, and that the country was dangerous and full of bandits. I had a tough time explaining to him that cities in America were generally considered more dangerous than small towns. He’s convinced I spend my free time shooting renegade bandits, meanwhile I’m trying to explain that I leave my doors unlocked at night.

We also visited a freshwater pearl “factory” at the lake and saw their special variety of pearl laden oysters. To my mom: I’m lying, I didn’t actually visit a pearl factory and not bring you home pearls. Something wasn’t right about this state-run place to me either. Perhaps it was the late night infomercial pearl cream that they sold. (it did seem pretty nice though). At this point, I think I was just getting a general distaste for state run tourist shops.

One of the neatest things we did on the trip was to meet with students from China’s top business university (UIBE). Weizing (sp?) Lee was a professor there, and is apparently an important person in the Chinese government (accompanied the ‘emperor’ to Washington D.C.). Two of the UNL students made an average classroom presentation and played a Husker video for the Chinese students (who seemed astounded at football). A Chinese student then entirely outclasses us with a presentation that showed a better command of the English language than our own. About at the end of this presentation, I was reminded the Yao Ming, is pretty much where its at as far as Chinese people are concerned.

I spent a lot of time talking to a nice girl – Nie Yoo Mong -- (said Nee-eh). I called her Mong-mong, which turned out to be her nickname as a child, which I don’t think was quite appropriate and fully tactful of me to address her by. She was a corporate finance major getting ready to enter business school, she looked smart and dressed smart. She then confirmed herself, by asking me if her 730 GMAT was good enough -- And then did so again by asking if it was better than mine (ouch). She was considerably taller than most Chinese girls and had a distinctive character about her face that made me think she must have been from a certain ethnic minority. Somebody somewhere has a picture of me with her that I’d like to get a hold of. She and I talked all about Universities that she might want to attend in the United States and regions she might visit. I learned that the best Chinese University was about $1000 US/year. We talked about Donald Trump and Bill Gates and how American students are lazy trouble-making drunks.

Then of course, our entire crew took the Chinese students to the bar, to in fact confirm that we were lazy trouble-making drunks. For many of them, it was their first experience going to a bar. Some of them danced and had a great time and vowed to come back. It was clear that many of them were from the Chinese social elite and had had relatively sheltered upbringings. One of the students in particular (Alan), seemed so interested, that he traveled with us for the next few days, sleeping on the floor in our hotel rooms, following us on our travels, and not even going home to change his clothes. I have to say that I appreciate his tenacity, because I learned a great deal from his conversation, and thoroughly enjoyed having him around.

Our tour group drank the first bar clean out of Tsingtao (an inexpensive but high class Chinese beer, that I’m told by a friend in the States was copied from stolen German recipes from captured breweries).

At this point they moved on to another bar with a dance floor. The Chinese students seemed to indicate that they’d rather we be locating someplace more suitable for talking than a bar, but a number of them who had never been before, got into dancing and had quite a time. Many of the bars were full of American/western imagery. Mostly Jack Daniels and threesomes.

While at the bar, I met a male Chinese student who the American girls all seemed to think must be attractive and popular, and who they thought had stylish clothes. I spoke with some of the Chinese girls and they explained that he was the sort of boy that a Chinese girl would maybe be friends with, but would not be interested in dating, and that his “fancy linen clothes” were clothes of the commoner. I then asked the Chinese guys, which Chinese girls were the most popular and desirable and found again that it was totally opposite of what the American girls expected – it was an outgoing tomboy looking girl that spoke excellent English. Through this sort of reasoning and comparison, I was able to determine that expectations for attractiveness and popularity differed quite significantly between the Chinese and American students. (This would come to explain a great number of seemingly mismatched couples that I would encounter during the trip). I also learned that a certain population of Chinese college girls look like they are 12. Some of the students seemed mid-twenties, other seemed surely in junior high to me, but all were of similar age.