Beijing is a tourist mecca, not just for foreigners, but for Chinese as well. It is filled with countless historical sights, ancient neighborhoods (hutongs) and cultural institutions. Consequently, there are always picture-taking throngs walking about and the expats who live here will often slip in and out of these crowds. Every now and again I will join them and post what I see.

I won’t try to give you an exhaustive history lesson here; there are plenty of great websites and guides that can do this much better than I can, and I will provide you with links to them. What I will do is point out what I think is great about these spots, what is unusual or illuminating, or if a venture to any particular spot is a complete waste of time. I’ll also be using this space to post the photos that I take for the groups that I go with, if any. Of course, as usual, a complete photo collection with more details will appear on Flickr and can be accessed by clicking on any pictures that I include.

Last weekend, I was part of a group of expats and some Chinese transplants who banded together for an afternoon walking around Hou Hai Lake and its surrounding environs. These include the Drum and Bell Towers and several hutongs.

The entire area is like a preserved section of ancient Beijing. The streets are all narrow, twisting and confusing. The buildings are all squat and uniform, but they are thrown together like a jigsaw puzzle, making the whole area seem chaotic and homey at the same time. Its like standing in the middle of an organically-grown city; it feels right somehow, like this is how people in cities should live.

This could be my Boston heritage talking, as there are many areas in my home town that seem to have grown haphazardly, just like a hutong. Even with this familiarity, though, I still had moments where I felt like a rat in a maze. Even the few modern buildings that have been put up are all built to match the old structures that surround them, maintaining the old feel. Whereas in Boston new buildings will often reflect the era that they are built in even as they strive to “fit” into their neighborhood.

Near the center of the hutong is Shichahai Bar Street. The roads in this area (which line the shores of the lake) are almost all taverns with familiar signage. During the summer this area is supposed to be really jumping. I’ll have to come back to check it out.

The best part of the day for me was when we found a little café beneath the Bell Tower where we could sit out in the warm sun and relax with some good coffee and good conversation.

After this, we all headed up into the Drum Tower to catch the stunning view of the surrounding area as the sun set. It was amazing and I was moved at the beauty of it all. I was so happy to be surrounded by great friends who could enjoy it with me.

As it so often does, the day ended with some of us grabbing dinner together at a small restaurant around the corner from the Towers.

The food was pretty good, though the prices were a tad high. (What do you expect in a touristy area?) I had a blast and went home to grab a nap, because soon it would be nighttime, and I would be off to my next adventure…

I was talking with a Chinese co-worker today when we had a misunderstanding. There was a question about the process involved with my job. An e-mail had come in from another office, and due to its content it was not clear if we had to send back a confirmation.

 
I turned to my colleague and asked, “We don’t have to reply back to that, do we?”

 
“Yes,” He said.

 
So I replied back.

 
A moment later, after seeing my e-mail, he turned to me and said, “You know, we did not have to reply back to that e-mail.”

 
“But you just told me to!” I half-shouted.

 
Here’s where we failed to connect: In English, my question began with a negative, “We don’t…” Grammatically this is fine, but the proper responses are reversed in Chinese. In this case, in order to prevent me from sending the e-mail, my colleague should have said, “No [we don't].” But if this question had been asked in Chinese, the correct response was what he gave me, “Yes [we don't].” Basically, instead of answering my question, as I assumed he did because I was raised speaking English, he was agreeing with my negative statement, since he had been raised speaking Chinese.

 
It just goes to show that things can be very tricky here. Even if you know the words, sometimes the thought processes are so alien that you might still be speaking different languages.

There was an interesting piece in today’s Boston Globe. Writer Christopher Muther was bounced from a nightclub because he was wearing sneakers.

Dress codes in Boston, according to the article, can be restrictive:

Boston’s dance clubs can be a harsh place for a guy who tries to wear something besides the standard thick-soled shoes and untucked dress shirts that are the nightlife norm. Most of the city’s dance clubs have a list of verboten clothing, which usually includes sneakers, baseball hats, work boots, and team jerseys.

The piece goes on to say that the dress code is really just a tool that lets bars control their crowds and to maintain “the ambiance of the place.” This is code for “we don’t want trouble-makers or people who aren’t pretty/stylish enough.”

I guess that this is fair, but since I have no real desire to be “stylish” and I have never cared to be out amongst crowds of people who seem to be pre-occupied with such concerns, I tended to shun the bar and club scene back in the States, save for a few regular hangouts in Boston & New York where the concern over style was never trumped by the concern for having a good time.

In China, the concept is completely different. I don’t own a pair of “nice” shoes. I have a pair of black sneakers and a pair of brown sneakers. I’ve been out to some of the top dance clubs and bars in Beijing, and I have never been denied entry. Many times, I’m just in jeans and a t-shirt. Frankly, my passport into almost any club is my white skin. Obviously, I’m a foreigner and I must be rich. (It’s sad, but racism is alive and well here, and I’m a huge beneficiary.)

The only place that I have ever walked away from without entering was a place called China Doll in Sanlitun. They have a sign on their door that stipulates a dress code and a regular cover charge. No dice for me… even though I’m “rich.”

(To be fair, this club sits on a street lined with identical bars that cater almost exclusively to Western tourists. Its sister location is around the block and does not have a dress code or a cover. I’ve been there several times and have always had fun.)

Here in Beijing, when clubs want to weed out “undesirables,” i.e. poor Chinese, they resort to a cover charge. This is usually something cheap to a Westerner (50 RMB at China Doll translates to a measly $7), but will keep poorer Chinese away. Of course, the fee is waived for pretty girls.

But even this practice is rare. Food and/or drink prices inside the hottest, trendiest places can often be deterrent to “regular” Chinese all by themselves. The end result is a class of bars that cater only to Westerners and the nuveau riche Chinese. I tend to stay away from these places because I’m more interested in hanging out in thoroughly mixed crowds of people than just with white folks.

The style thing just isn’t a big deal here and I’ve never seen it be the determining factor as to whether or not somebody gets access to a club. Outward displays of wealth are frowned upon and seen as wastes of money, not to mention not in line with Communist ideals. I have hung out with some rich people here -VERY rich people- but you would never know it by looking at them. They don’t wear flashy clothes or jewelery. Their cars are sensible and if we go out to eat, it is always at a “regular” restaurant that anybody could afford.

This is one of those cultural differences that really suits me and is yet another reason that I’m having a blast here in Beijing.

It’s a little complicated and I don’t want to get into all of the details here (at least not yet), but last week my visa situation came to a head. Due to some paperwork delays on my end, some government misinformation and, finally, some bureaucratic delays by my employer, the clock ran out on my tourist visa last week before my work visa could be applied for. As a result, the good people at the Security Bureau informed me on Monday that I had to exit the country and obtain a new tourist visa before I could file for my work visa. (NOTE: Click on any of the pictures below to jump to my complete photo album from this trip on Flickr with lots more details.)

What day did I have to exit? Try Tuesday.

I learned this information at 3:00pm and by 5:30pm I was in my office frantically making last-minute travel arrangements to Shenzhen for the next day (it costs half as much to fly there as it does to fly into Hong Kong directly) and looking for a hotel. You can get a rush visa in 1 business day, but I had to plan for a few days at least in case there were any problems.

So my week was shot: I would have to take time off from work and I would have to spend my emergency travel funds not on an unexpected trip home, but on a forced “vacation.”

Of course, there are worse places to be forced to travel to.

Hong Kong is a beautiful city. I love it. I have visited several times in the past and each time I have marveled at the seamless melding of Eastern and Western culture. It is both a booming center of commerce and a homey collection of intimate enclaves. Most people are multi-lingual and there is a real sense of adventure in the air everywhere that you go. My biggest problem on this trip was that I couldn’t really go out and experience it all.

As wonderful a place as Hong Kong is, I arrived with no plans, no local contacts, weary and in a foul mood. I’ve done most of the touristy stuff before and didn’t feel like repeating myself, so as a result, I ended up spending most of my time either in my hotel room or walking aimlessly around the Peninsula neighborhood in Kowloon.

There were, however, some bright spots.

By sheer luck I ended up booking a decent mid-level hotel that sits directly on top of Tsim Tsau Tsui station, which is the end of the line for the train from Shenzhen. Furthermore, the China Travel Service (CTS) office that books excursions & processes visas is directly across the street, making this about as convenient a spot to stay as I could have found, and I stumbled across it completely by chance. (My now-legendary luck in China had not, it seemed, abandoned me.)

The Peninsula neighborhood in Kowloon, I learned, is filled with great shopping and restaurants and is only 1 train stop away from the Hong Kong Island (where the trendiest clubs and bars are located). Alternately, the ferry is just a couple of blocks away, as is the immense, obnoxiously stylish Harbour City mall. (Boy, do I know some ladies who could do some serious damage in there!) Another interesting tidbit is that it is like a Red Light District for tailors. No shit. As I walked down the main streets, I was accosted every few feet by well-dressed Indian men asking me if I needed a suit made.

I actually started feeling dirty after a while… Though I suppose that it could have been the abundant porn available on every corner.

I made most of these discoveries not because of my own exploration, but because of the invaluable help of Jade, a native CouchSurfer who graciously spent her Wednesday night walking me around her fair city. We had dinner in Lan Kwai Fong and then walked down to the ferry terminal for the short but beautiful trip back over to Kowloon.

Once there, we paused so that I could take a few photos of the gorgeous skyline…

…Before starting our trek through the Peninsula neighborhood. We went through the Harbour City mall and followed a seemingly random path through marketplaces and outdoor plazas…

…Until we finally settled in a small tea shop and chatted until just before midnight. It was truly the highlight of my trip.

The weather in Hong Kong at this time of year is really unbeatable. It is 70-75 degrees and sunny every day with low humidity. Light breezes were refreshing instead of chilling and the scenery is truly stunning.

I would not have any problems living here and I have often told people that one of my goals is to be able to get a place in this city. Of course, after spending a sweltering summer here and living through one of their infamous rainy seasons, I may sing a different tune, but for now this place is like a paradise for a guy like me.

After several days here of not doing much I ended up getting my new visa with no troubles and headed back to Beijing. As I was finally leaving my hotel, I thought to myself, “It’s great to be heading back home.”

That made me stop in my tracks (and brought the whores- um, I mean, tailors scurrying over). I think that I have finally started to think of Beijing as home.

It feels like I’ve taken a huge step and that there is no going back… Unless I get screwed out of my work visa, that is.

I mention it often, this CouchSurfing thing. If you’ve ever bothered to click on the hyperlink embedded in that name then you know what its all about. If you haven’t, then do it before going on, because if you don’t you might get a little lost. (NOTE: Click on any of the party pictures below to jump the complete photo album from that night. Believe me, there is a LOT more to see that did not get posted here.)

I first got involved with this community last October. I created a profile and offered my services in Boston as a local know-it-all. I gave walking tours of downtown full of stories that you won’t find in guidebooks, as well as a local’s perspective on the history that my home city is so rich in and proud of. I didn’t attend any meet-ups in those first months and my experiences were limited. It is one of those very first experiences that illustrate the amazing connections that can be forged via this website, and how, last weekend, it ended up helping me have one of my most fun nights out since arriving in Beijing.

Back in November, I met my second CSer, Marie-Line. She’s from Belgium and was working as an Au Pair on Long Island so that she could live in the US for a couple of years and travel around a bit. I gave her a tour of downtown Boston and took my baby brother Nick along for the ride. We all got along famously. On a whim, we ended up going to Blue Man Group (which I had never seen), and we had am awesome time. We hit it off so well, that when new Year’s Eve time rolled around Marie-Line decided to come back to Boston to check out First Night with me.

At the same time, Christine was a new resident in the city attending graduate school. Her best friend from college back in Buffalo, Liz, was coming to visit her for New Year’s and she posted an inquiry onto the CS Boston message board: What is this “First Night” thing all about, and what, exactly, should we see?

I replied with some basic info on what was going on and my recommendations on which events would be best/easiest to attend. There was some emailing between us, and we eventually decided that Christine, Liz & I, along with Marie-Line and another CSer that she was bringing, Darren, would all go out to First Night together. We would hop between art events and bars and have dinner at a really nice out-of-the-way restaurant to avoid the crowds.

It was, quite simply, one of the best New Year’s Eves that I’ve ever had. All of these disparate strangers had come together with a similar mindset and a willingness to meet new people and learn all that they could about their backgrounds and experiences. It was very welcoming and affirming. But even more, from it sprang a whole new path of life for one of the attendees.

Liz was fascinated with Marie-Line’s choice to become an Au Pair as a means to living overseas. She peppered her with questions about the job and her experiences throughout the night. Eventually, after some subsequent back-and-forth, Liz decided to take the plunge herself and she moved to Geneva, becoming an Au Pair and taking every opportunity to travel all across Europe.

While in Geneva, Liz has, of course, made many new friends, and one of them, Rafaella, took a trip to China recently for her job. Liz told her that she knew me, figured that we would hit it off, and told her to look me up when she arrived in Beijing.

Boy, was Liz ever right! Raffy & I clicked immediately and it was an immeasurable joy to hang out with her. And here the miracle and tragedy is illustrated most clearly: I never would have met Raffy had it not been for Liz and Marie-Line, two people that I never would have met without CS. But now that I have met her, she is gone just as quickly as she arrived.

I still keep in touch with both Liz & Marie-Line, as I am sure that I will keep in touch with Raffy, and I consider both of them to friends. Marie-Line has moved back to Belgium and Liz has visited her there, and I hope to be able to see them both when I take my hoped-for trip to Europe next year. Now, hopefully, I can add Rafaella to the list.

I hadn’t really given it too much thought to this whole social network thing until a fellow CSer back in Boston posted this article on the site. Its quite illuminating and I was interested to read that what I am living right now is a pretty new and evolving phenomenon. Nobody is really sure over the long run how our newfound ability to forge and maintain connections with so many people all over the world will effect us as individuals, within societies, or if we are seeing the first stages of the creation of a new kind of society.

Its all very exciting. I mean, this weekend I met with this crazy cast of characters who were all different sizes, shapes, colors and creeds and we all had an awesome time…

…We were all pretty much strangers, with only the Beijingers knowing each other, but we got along like we were an established group of friends. We vamped it up with each other.

We took embarrassing photos.

We demonstrated feats of strength.

And we most definitely danced together.

Some of us even danced with an old guy.

I really hope that I’m able to keep in touch with as many of these great folks as possible.

Anyway, I guess that what I’m saying is this: This whole social network thing -and CouchSurfing in particular- is pretty awesome. This really is a great tome to be alive… and it’s a great time to be in Beijing.

Here’s a fascinating piece from NPR just before the election about the first political soundbites. They popped up in the historic election of 1908 on phonograph and they are uncanny, almost scary echoes of this year’s race. Give it a listen and you’ll understand why it is always beneficial to remember our history. As we keep forgetting what has gone before, we keep repeating the same mistakes… At least this time it looks like we might just have learned something.

What’s it like being overseas when your fellow citizens back home change the world? Strangely, it wasn’t as bad as I thought that it would have been.

On the morning of November 5 -Beijing time, of course- I walked on over to The Rickshaw, an expat bar in Sanlitun. The place was packed on both floors with Americans who had either gone the night without sleep (like me), or were playing hooky from work so that they could gather together and watch election returns come in.

It was a more than a little weird to be watching CNN as if they were broadcasting the Super Bowl. Breakfast -and a fair amount of booze- was flowing and people were booing and cheering as states were called. We were all hanging on every one of Wolf Blitzer’s words and staring with rapt attention at John King’s demon maps.

I’m a political junkie, but an election returns viewing party? I’d hung out with some friends back in 2000, but it was nothing like this. As the hours went by and it started to become to clear that Barack was going to win, the crowd started getting bigger and tangibly excited. There was a definite electricity in the air.

One of my best memories from that night came when Obama took Virginia and on CNN Campbell Brown turned to John King and his map and asked him, “Please show us the path for John McCain to victory form here.”

King looks at Brown kind of incredulously, waits for a FULL FIVE SECONDS and says, “Uh, O-Kay…”

We all broke out into laughter.

Then, as 12:00pm rolled around (11:00pm, ET) and everybody knew that Obama was going to sweep the West Coast and Hawaii, there was a countdown and room went nuts:

 

I go crazy for the 4^th of July. I am as patriotic an American as you’ll ever find. But I have never felt such pride for my country as when I found myself sitting in a bar in Beijing, China, with a couple of hundred fellow Americans, reveling in an historic victory such as this one.

And it still hasn’t faded. Many of my foreign friends, and the CSers who pass through, all comment on how great an election it was and how excited they are for Obama to take office. I can’t wait to see how this all turns out.

A final note: When John McCain walked out and gave his concession speech, I was floored. I turned to a woman standing next to me and wondered aloud: “Where was THIS guy during the campaign?” This was the John McCain who I had voted for back in 2000 and who I was so excited for just after the New Hampshire primary. If only he had been able to make it through the crazy right-wing South we might have had a more substantive and interesting campaign. I know that we still wouldn’t have ever heard of Sarah Palin.

Well, that’s all behind us now. The future is ours, I guess.

It’s frustrating. My hometown paper just doesn’t get it. They keep printing stories about how Boston’s City Hall is such a great structure. They did it earlier this week and today they gave space on their Op/Ed page to yet another Brutalism apologist.

The people of Boston overwhelmingly hate the “new” City Hall. Yet the Globe keeps on giving voice to the minority of effete, smarter-than-thou architects and design aficionados who continue to try to tell us that what we have is not, in fact, a hulking monstrosity. It’s not really a barely-functional public works disaster. Actually, it’s a gem that should be preserved for future generations.

After all, didn’t Parisians want to tear down the Eiffel Tower after it was built?

Bollocks, I say. The Eiffel Tower was built to be a monument, to evoke something about the city of Paris and the French people. City halls, while they can be monuments (Toronto’s is a fine example), are supposed to be facilities that serve the public. This is where we come to transact the business of governing ourselves, and right now it can barely do that.

My feelings on this are pretty clear: I want the building gone yesterday and replaced -in its current location- with something more appropriate, functional and, if needs be, less “exciting” to architects. Here are some of my favorite comments so far from fellow Bostonians who get enraged whenever somebody tries to tell them what’s good for them when it comes to City Hall:

I am so tired of elitist critics telling us how unenlightened we are! The great majority of us think that Boston City Hall is ugly because it IS ugly. Who cares that it was the darling of a microscopic percentage of the population many decades ago? I’m sure the — pick a past culture, any past culture — Sumerians built a lot of crappy looking structures, too, and guess what? They’re gone! The world moved on! Let Boston move on. You preening/can’t-ever-let-go-of-the-supposedly-glorious-1960s types can circle your Eurocars for a tailgate party and cry into your overpriced wines and cheeses. Emphasis on the whine. And cheese. — by tjdurant November 21, 10:53 AM

A foreign friend of mine, upon seeing it for the first time, said “It looks like that building on the penny, but turned upside-down.” I think she got it right. It’s wrong because it does not rest on a broad foundation and aspire up towards an ideal, but looms over us from a narrower base. The interior is dark and unwelcoming– that concrete is cold and impersonal, not rugged and populist. The windows look like something you’d shoot an arrow out of, not the open eyes of clear-sighted leaders. Do I need to go on? The visceral reaction is valid. — by kate2468 November 21, 8:15 AM

Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall….ur I mean eyesore. — by lriggs November 21, 8:30 AM

…The building has all the personality of an East German security headquarters and deserves to blown up, along with the hideous parking garage that goes with it… — by tedso November 21, 10:41 AM

I couldn’t agree more.

I am continually struck by all of the differences that there are between Chinese and American culture. And, just as often, I am struck by just how the same all of the people that make up those respective cultures are. (NOTE: Click on any of the pictures below to jump to the complete photo album on Flickr, where you’ll find a lot more details on our day!)

Take last Sunday, for instance. My good friend Yansu came across some promotional tickets for the Beijing Amusement Park for 5 people. Fall weather in Beijing is clear, dry and crisp (usually in the upper 40s to low 50s) every day, so it sounded like a lot of fun. Plus, a Chinese amusement park? This, I had to see.

This was like the equivalent of Canobie Lake Park. It was a smaller venue than, say, Six Flags, in terms of the number of rides, but the layout is very different from what you’d see in the US. Back home, these places tend to have a carnival-like atmosphere, with an attempt made to squeeze as many rides and games into the area as possible. Here, there is a premium placed on open spaces, long walkways and scenery. The artificial lake surrounding the park is pretty striking. Also, there weren’t any carnival games that I could see anywhere.

This was like a piece of Americana copied painstakingly by the Chinese, but re-built with Chinese sensibilities in mind. For instance, all of the rides are things that you’d recognize in America: Merry-Go-Round, Ferris Wheel, Roller Coaster, etc. The buildings had a western aesthetic. No hutong-esque structures here. Everything looked like it came straight out of a “Typical Amusement Park Structures” box.

Even the lines to get onto the rides were American. No jostling, pushing or shoving, as is typical everywhere else here. (Just try to ride the subway during rush hour.) Everybody was orderly, and even happy, to wait their turn.

Now the food served at some of the snack stands… that was a different story. This stand was waiting for us after we got off of the roller coaster.

I loved this setup; it was so Chinese, in several ways. First, it was reminiscent of the food vendors that you see in the streets in the mornings and evenings all around the city. They often have the best food and it is unbelievably cheap.

Second, the food was unusual. It was all on a stick, and you had 3 choices: chicken, beef or squid. And when I say “squid,” I mean an honest-to-goodness squid impaled on a stick and boiled. Even being from New England and used to all kinds of seafood, it was an odd thing to see. I’ve actually tried squid in China before and don’t care for it (I’m partial to New England style fried calamari).

Finally, there was no “line” for the food like there was for the rides. It was a scrum to get to the front and get your order in to the vendor. And when you finally got your food, you had to push your way through to the little area to the side where the spices and sauces were laid out.

It all tasted great, as Lena can attest.

As you’d expect in a place like this, everywhere you went there were kids. And families. When you see a dad chasing after his kids, or an older brother looking exasperated at the antics of a younger sister, you realize that for all of our stupid differences, everybody is the really the same. Maybe we see things a little differently sometimes, or maybe our governments take what we think are crazy stances on some issues, but when you put folks into an amusement park, that all just goes away.

I had a really great time, and while it wasn’t as crazy and alcohol-soaked as my French adventure the night before, it was rewarding in its own ways. I got to chill out with some great friends, get a little taste of home in the process, and then wrap it all up with a fun meal at the end.

Life certainly is good.

My friend Akua showed me this video from Flight of the Conchords and I instantly fell in love with it. After my impromptu French immersion last weekend I have not been able to get it out of my head. It is hilarious and has the comedy duo singing a nonsenical song with the few French words that they know thrown together at random.

I have described or showed it to several friends (including my French friend Claire who laughed hysterically at it) and I have been promising them all that I would send them the link. I’ll do them one better: I’ll post it here.

Honestly, I would love to learn French. I think that it is an awesome language. But first things first; I gotta learn Mandarin.