China

The first day we hired a guide to whom I was referred and toured some places in Beijing. We went to a famous Buddhist temple, still operating, one of a few in Beijing. It was quite large and very old, I think about 400 years.

Religious practices are now much freer in China. Everything is now allowed, expect for party members. Party members “must choose only one religion”. There was even a monitor at the temple to see if any members were not choosing correctly.

One notable piece was a 25 meter tall Buddha from a single tree. The carving was moved in and the structure erected around it.
Next we visited the Summer Palace a short drive away. The scale of all the emperor’s palaces is quite large. This was a small city complete with a man-made lake to enhance the setting. The lake was frozen and people were taking shortcuts across. I think there is ice skating there also in the winter.
It was a little chilly during the day. We had some sunshine, but the wind was very cold. After a few days the air quality deteriorated quite a bit and was not pleasant. I had trouble with my eyes burning. The air pollution there would be a significant disadvantage.

We then drove out to the Great Wall and saw a very small portion. The scale again was overwhelming. One million people worked on the Wall for 500 years. In some places it was actually not very tall. I am assuming that the major benefit was the monitoring of the frontier and rapid communication with flags and smoke signals.
Beijing is being transformed rapidly. We stayed in a luxury hotel in the heart of the business district. With all my preconceptions of communist China, I was not quite prepared to see the shopping mall below with Prada, Gucci, etc. As in most places outside the US/Europe, there is a huge discrepancy between the have and have-not. We saw a few of the have-nots on the outskirts of town on the way to the Wall.
The next day we went on our own to the Forbidden City. “City” just barely describes it. 9999 rooms, 3000 concubines, 100,000 soldiers. In the plazas, there are typically 3 sets of stairs up to the major buildings. One staircase had a single stone carving ~40 feet long. This was a single stone that was moved by 10,000 men for a year. The bricks of the plazas are 5 meters deep to protect against tunneling. The buildings are fantastic. People say that if you want to see the contents, they you have to go to the National Museum in Taipei.

Lions were not found in China and became mythical symbols of power. The female is always depicted with her paw on a cub, the male with the world. These are from 1200’s so they must have know the world is round.

Commerce and capitalism (Chinese version) are alive & well, however there are also some interesting cultural issues. In Tiananmen Square, a young woman and her uncle approached us to practice their English. They were genuinely interested, quite friendly and had no other agenda. We walked across the square and talked about quite a few things. She is a doctor and has studied both the old Chinese practices as well as the newer Western style medicine.
I was talking to her uncle about his life and youth. I made a comment about the protest on the Square and his reply was: “We should not talk about that here.” It seemed very odd because they had been so open about everything else and we were not near a crowd of other people. Another person talked about the ‘revolt’ in Tibet that had to be dealt with.

Shopping in the tourist shops and street markets is a life altering experience. The vendors are extremely aggressive. After the 5th or 6th time I got a little used to the shop girls pulling on my arm to get me in the shop. There is also an invisible line at the entrance to the shop/stall. If you cross over the line you are now in their space, you become one of their customers, and salesmanship takes on a new level of practice.

They would name an exorbitant price, I would counter with pennies on the dollar. “you’re killing me”, “what’s your best price?” We went back and forth, back and forth typing in offers on the calculator. Once you got used to the game, treated it as a game and had fun with it, everything was fine. A couple of times, the game got so outrageous, even the sales people were laughing. Then you knew you had them.

The general rule seems to be that you should pay no more than 20% of what people suggest. To arrive at 20% you start at 10%. Negotiating for a while and then leaving seems to be a particularly effective tactic.

As you know, everything is made in China now. We bought silk polo shirts for $5, tennis shoes for $10. Some of the party came Sunday night and arrived without their suitcases. We had business meetings on Monday morning, so we went out Monday morning to shop for them.

We caused quite a stir in the Silk Market shopping center (tourist trap) buying suits at 9am. “I’ll give you special morning price.” “I’ll give you special 1st customer price.” Many of the vendors remembered Gary & I because of the hard deals we had driven the day before.

The negotiating was intense. One of the HP people is 6’4” 260lb. black man with size 15 shoes. It was very interesting. Gary claims that the shoe people don’t like me anymore.

We even went back a third time because Gary needed another bag for all collection. One of the vendors asked him how much he paid – 200 ($25). Her response was “Good price. My sister paid 210 yesterday.” My major coup was exchanging a sweatshirt that would have been too small for Axel. It cost me $6 but it came with a silk shirt.