I didn't write that much about my trip to Beijing last year at the time. Funnily enough, although the reason I set up this blog originally was as a travel blog, I have ended up writing perhaps the least when travelling. There are so many things to see, to experience, to enjoy that the time feels too short often to find an internet access and submit an entry. And once back from the travels, often it feels a bit too late. So the blog has ended up less as a travel blog and more just a personal blog for my life in Geneva. Hopefully this will change the day I set out for my one-year long travel...
All this to lead into an entry about Beijing and Chinese people with more than a years delay. These thoughts are brought on by my dear boyfriend currently being in China for 2 weeks and hence writing and telling me about what he is experiencing on a daily basis. He loves it! Like I did! It is also brought on by the experience of some friends who happen to be travelling in China at the same time although they have been there a lot longer. They do not seem that happy. Actually in one of the last entries one of them, E, wrote that she hates it and that she cannot wait to leave. It seems that we experience things differently. What my lovely N and I seem to take as an interesting cultural difference, such as the constant attention one gets, E and M are taking differently. Perhaps it's because they have been there for more than a month now and it has worn them weary, perhaps it is just different ways of perceiving life.
For me Beijing was a great experience. I loved it so much that I wished someone would offer me a job there for a year or so to allow me to live there and really explore everything!
And I did not find the Chinese rude. When my mother and I walked down one of the main streets in Beijing, but one a little bit off the tourist paths where you hardly see any foreigners, people would stare and smile, children point and laugh. I took this as a positive thing. I understand them completely; we must have looked like aliens to them - both of us taller than many of the men, me very blond, my mum with white hair, fair skin, foreign - we look so different.
All this to lead into an entry about Beijing and Chinese people with more than a years delay. These thoughts are brought on by my dear boyfriend currently being in China for 2 weeks and hence writing and telling me about what he is experiencing on a daily basis. He loves it! Like I did! It is also brought on by the experience of some friends who happen to be travelling in China at the same time although they have been there a lot longer. They do not seem that happy. Actually in one of the last entries one of them, E, wrote that she hates it and that she cannot wait to leave. It seems that we experience things differently. What my lovely N and I seem to take as an interesting cultural difference, such as the constant attention one gets, E and M are taking differently. Perhaps it's because they have been there for more than a month now and it has worn them weary, perhaps it is just different ways of perceiving life.
For me Beijing was a great experience. I loved it so much that I wished someone would offer me a job there for a year or so to allow me to live there and really explore everything!
And I did not find the Chinese rude. When my mother and I walked down one of the main streets in Beijing, but one a little bit off the tourist paths where you hardly see any foreigners, people would stare and smile, children point and laugh. I took this as a positive thing. I understand them completely; we must have looked like aliens to them - both of us taller than many of the men, me very blond, my mum with white hair, fair skin, foreign - we look so different.
However, to tell a short story, not so many years ago, approx. 30, when my cousin then aged 5 moved to Paris with her family, she soon decided to wear a bonnet the whole year around as people wouldn't stop touching her very blond hair. This was hence the way Parisians behaved seeing a Swedish very blond child 30 years ago! For me therefore, it seems very logical that the Chinese stare when seeing European people 30 years later. And at least they are well behaved enough not to come up and touch our hair :D
As for the friendliness, we encountered it almost everywhere! From the taxi driver who couldn't understand our map (tip: get a map with Chinese characters on it as many people do not seem to be able to read a map but the taxi drives know what different streets are called) but tried his best to help us, even getting a police man to come with his map so that I could point out the right street there, to the hole in the wall restaurant in on of the Hutongs where the staff only spoke Chinese and the menu was in Chinese, but where they found someone they knew to come and help us order and we ended up having on of the best meals for hardly any money.
Sure there were some rude people around. And yes, we did walk out of one restaurant where we didn't really feel welcome. But people being rude to us happened perhaps twice in 8 days, while when in Paris in August this happened at least twice in 2 days! (Yes, Paris as the example again - it seems that I cannot get away from it ;)
I loved Beijing, and I am longing for the day I can go back and visit Beijing again and discovering some of the rest of the country! If you do go, try to enjoy the cultural differences as much as you can! That's the fun part of travelling to places far away from yours - people act differently than to home, life is different than to home and that's what's soooo amazing!
2 comments:
well, my recommandation for Zambia is very similar. Enjoy the difference and do not take personal when somebody points at you or says "Musungu!" (White person, but with negative touch)
We will transfor our living room when you come to Zambia, if by that time our house is not finised. Don't worry!
Big hug
Mir
PS: skype is not bad here in our house!!!
Helena,
as you can see, despite of travelling I'm still reading your blog :-) It's raining in Hanoi, and I want to take some time to just get a couple of things straight here.
I never said I "hated" China.
As I said in a previous post, travelling (at least as we do) is not a holiday, and we didn't leave Switzerland thinking we were going to have a one-year beach party. We consciously decided to travel overland because that's how one can really experience a country, but it comes with inconveniences. There are small everyday difficulties, just as in "real" life, that one has to deal with. We are not all the time "happy, smiling and having fun". There are times of weariness, there's homesickness (not only the "I want to have a home, a clean bathroom and a proper washing machine" type, but the much more difficult "missing friends and family" type). Pretending that these moments don't exist would be lying.
Our travel blog is not supposed to be telling banal stories like "we visited another nice temple, have wonderful food all the time and oh look at these lovely pictures!". Our blog is of course about our trip and what we are doing, but also about those little stories that make a trip worth remembering, and, yes, also about the difficulties. Every country, every place has its two sides. Russia was full of nice and very hospitable people like I've never seen before. But there's alcohol. A lot. In the trains, everywhere. In the end, I couldn't stand it any more. I asked myself why these people are drinking themselves to death. I didn't find an answer. Same in China. Beautiful nature, a lot of nice people, a lot to see and do. At the same time, pollution, lack of human rights, noise, and people like that guy on the train. I can't help to ask myself questions, try to find answers. That's my way to travel, my way to try to understand the countries we're visiting.
Everybody has his or her own way of travelling. The uncomfortable but rewarding overland route, or successive plane trips. Seeking out the nicest tourist spots, or just trying to follow a train line and also see some less famous places.
One way is not better than the other, it just has to be right for you.
Hugs
Eva
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