June 13, 2007, back at the hotel room

Forbidden City 7, originally uploaded by eiratansey.

Tonight we went to an acrobatics show. Though it had some vaguely cheesy moments (like the canned music and holographic lasers) it was impressive - lots of tumbling and people lifting themselves above a whole column of people - often by one hand! The best part was the final scene- about a dozen female gymnasts did tricks on bikes, and at the end, they all made a formation - on one bike - while rolling around in a circle. Awesome.

You know, I've been thinking - the Forbidden City is so big - it reminds me of Versailles, and how the people of the french revolution used Versailles as an indictment against the excess of french royalty. I wonder if it was the same with Chinese people and the revolution. It makes me somewhat glad to be an American. Although we have certainly had our share of abuses of power, we've had nowhere near the oppression or corruption that most countries have experienced. Jade was talking today about the genius of the American founding fathers, and how that has helped America (somewhat) from falling into the traps of greed that other countries find all too familiar. An important thing to remember for even the most disillusioned and cynical Americans. Why do I always think so much about being an American when I travel? I guess it’s the most obvious way to highlight our positive and negative attributes.

Another thing we experienced a lot of today was everytime we went to a tourist attraction (Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square entrance, Temple of Heaven entrance), we were surrounded by people hawking silly tchotchkes. The usual items included Mao watches, “Rolex” watches, postcards, Beijing Olympics 2008 shirts. The best method, it seems, is to avoid all eye contact – completely ignoring them, even when they shake the items an inch from your nose. Saying “too expensive” seems to encourage them into bargaining. As irritating as it is, I do admire their persistence – and we have seen very few beggars so far. It seems important to try to keep our perspective, because it’s easy to fall into this idea that “Everyone’s out to get me!”

I appreciate many of Jade’s motherly qualities – she took pictures of us constantly throughout today’s site seeing – we heard her requests for “Group picture!” every few minutes, and being good students we complied. I imagine we must have at least a dozen group photos from today alone.

Things I am quite enjoying so far:
* The enormous use of bikes, in general. The best is when boyfriends/husbands give rides to their girlfriends/wifes on their bike. Being a bike nerd, it looks so endearing and adorable to me - most everyone has a rack on the back of their bike, so the passenger will just sit side-saddle. Awww.
* Chinese children are actually quite cute.
* I love seeing so many active old people! They stroll, play cards, talk, and today at the Temple of Heaven, we saw some playing a game that looked very similar to Hacky-sack. So cool.
* The food – lots of meat, but very fresh-tasting. I’ve never enjoyed the very Americanized Chinese food at home, but I’m pleasantly surpised by the food here. I did pass on the cow stomach lining at breakfast, but I did try these interesting gelatinous strips at lunch.

Things that aren’t exactly thrilling:
* The squat toilets. Actually, I’m pretty neutral about this. The other girls are very grossed out, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me so much – at least there are no dirty seats to hover over. The boys keep asking if we have handle bars (no). Though I’m still not entirely sure how comfortable it would be to take a shit in a squatting position.
* The air, the air, the air is so gross. My eyes are feeling better, but not as much as I’d hoped – probably because of the disgusting air that also makes it hard to breathe. Hopefully the air will be much cleaner in Dalian. Tomorrow is the Great Wall of China!