May 10, 2010 - Beijing

So, we find ourselves in a small courtyard-style house in the depths of one of Beijing’s hutongs watching a “kung fu” demonstration from, according to the guy who let us in, one of the oldest and most famous kung fu families in all of China. Actually, it seemed like more of a circus act – not that they didn’t know their stuff. After a bit, out comes a metal sphere the size of a billiard ball. It’s passed to the audience so we can all see how solid and heavy it is. The guy on stage does some moves to gather his chi, then takes this metal ball and somehow puts it in his mouth. How he got it in without losing teeth, I don’t know. Amazing. Lot’s of clapping, oohs and aahs.

Then he swallows it. Unbelievable, but he walks around showing us all how his mouth is now empty.

Damn, that’s gotta hurt. And he does start grimacing a bit, while the ring master goes on (and I gather this from tone, rather than any comprehension of Mandarin) about how hard this is and how we should all sympathize with this poor guy with a chunk of metal in his belly…all while a hat gets passed around to collect a few yuan.

Yuan in the hat seems to be the cure, because the guy decides he’s had that ball in his stomach quite long enough. A bit more gathering of chi, some pushing on the stomach, and lo! He spits the ball out 15 feet into a waiting metal tray.

Interesting first day in Beijing…

I (Robin) take full responsibility for making us late for our first flight. Late enough (and the flight left 10 minutes earlier than expected) that they were “boarding all rows” by the time we got there.

But made it to San Francisco without further incident. The flight from San Fran to Beijing was a pain. Traveler tips: don’t sit by the galley, especially in the aisle seat. And even though it was an “overnight” flight, when you are traveling with the sun, it doesn’t get dark.

The Beijing airport is impressive if nothing else. Our driver and interpreter were waiting for us and we made the 40 minute trip to the hotel. Paying extra for the interpreter is something we are questioning—though she was a delightful young woman, her English was intermediate at best.

She did, however, have some interesting insights to share. She noted that the gap between rich and poor in Beijing was significant. As we were driving through traffic, she mentioned that the authorities had taken actions to reduce traffic on the highways by prohibiting people from driving on certain days based on their license plate numbers. Apparently, some people just get around this by buying another car and driving the one that is allowed on any particular day. She also brought up the one child policy and said that, while it’s still in place, people with money just pay the fine if they want to have more children.

Got to the hotel without incident, which is in Xitao Hutong – hutongs are the old neighborhoods of the city with lots of tiny alleyways lined with courtyard houses, little shops and restaurants on the larger streets and lots of people on bikes. We walked around a bit in shell shocked state, grabbed a bite to eat (with the requisite confusion), then tried to play a round of cards just to make ourselves stay awake as long as possible to start the adjustment. Well, we barely saw 8:30 and crashed until around 5:45.

Some brief observations about Beijing hutongs: it is surprisingly quiet at night, there is a perpetual state of small-scale repair and construction, and there is always the smell of sewer gas lingering. And they have more public toilets than you can shake a stick at, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The next day we decided just to wander around the hutongs and check out a few things. Just a short walk from our hotel were the Bell and Drum Towers, which offer excellent views after a steep stair climb. At street level, you don’t really get a very good perspective on the size of the city and how spectacular its skyline is. But get up 15 or 20 meters and that all changes. The towers themselves are pretty cool, but the view was the best part.

Sure, we’re tourists, but we don’t really want to feel like tourists. So a rickshaw ride through the hutongs was probably not a good choice for our next activity. Seems like a reasonable thing to do, until you realize that no Chinese folks are riding the rickshaws, at least that we saw. We’re all for making a contribution to the local economy because of a general belief that it helps make folks happy to see tourists, who would otherwise surely be a nuisance. That said, we prefer the pace of walking and the locals don’t gawk at you as much when you’re walking. Thanks to our brief ride, however, we did get to see that pretty bizarre “kung fu” show.