Weekend Notes

The subway started checking luggage on Sunday, with metal detectors. They also made me take a swig of my water before letting me walk in with it (apparently to make sure it wasn't toxic).

Dinner Saturday was amazing--it was Korean Barbecue, and the best darn food I've had in Beijing by a longshot (sad, isn't it?). I'll have to go back.

Noticed a small company dancing to really bad techno-pop outside in Wudaokou in the morning, as an early workout. They did not look happy:
"Yeah, yeah, we're dancing."

Cranes remain everywhere:


Sunday night (after museum) included a trip to a Chinese flying acrobatics show, which was certainly interesting, and a lot of fun, save the drunken Western college students around me (way to lack any grace at all, guys). There were some certainly impressive displays of human strength and flexibility, but I liked the action-packed stuff better. Lots of high jumping, leaping, people-stacking, coordinated ring-diving. The beset part were these guys in a large mechanical apparatus that hung by a single axle and spun free. At the end of each of the two arms were a circles where one man stood each. They ran around the small circles and made the entire apparatus spin--an awesome display of how angular momentum works. They did some rather absurd and dangerous things while on it, and managed to get an otherwise quite clueless audience to play along for a bit. All in all, not a bad time. Though dinner that night was some bread.

Line 10 is still not open, as the government promised it would be (by "Late June"), so I have been stymied in my plans to actually get where I want to go in a reasonable amount of time. We'll see.

Military Fanboys of the World, Unite!

I have found a gem that you have probably never heard of (though I have added a bit to the wikipedia page, if you care); the Chinese Military Museum. Prepare to envy!

Not much to say (besides AWESOME), but each picture will have some commentary. First: Tanks!
T-Series

Planes!
F-Series


Artillery!


Anti-Air!


Machine Guns!


APCs!


Rockets!



Missiles!
DongFeng-2, China's first ballistic nuclear missile.
Cruise Missile

Boats!


Spacecraft!


The Chinse managed to display a great deal of American equipment captured during the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War, probably with some mockery behind it:
American Tanks and SP Artillery from the Korean War
The Sherman
American Ship-Mounted Anti-Air
American Flamethrower from the Korean War

Some cool cutaway RPGs on display:


Some SMGs:



In addition to this osbcene and decadent display of weaponry, there were floors of "historical" exhibits about Chinese wars and other questionably-related stuff. The bias on the whole thing was so gross it was irritating to look at, at times--the Chinese government's official stance on most of this stuff is still rather bizarre. That said, the exhibit on the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is being remodeled (so we missed it), although the name is staying--maybe they're making it less insulting to Americans as they arrive for the Olympics?

The Hall of Ancient Wars included ludicrous numbers of peasant uprisings. There was a hall that talked about how great socialism was for China as soon as the People's Republic was established--with no sense of failure in the Great Leap Forward. The movie about Western occupation in the 1800's literally described the period as one of "suffering on a scale rarely seen in the history of the world." Seriously, guys? More on this on Foggofwar, I'll be making commentary about government viewpoints. But for you, more pictures: There were lots of impressive paintings about war, especially the Red Army:

Ancient Hand-to-Hand Combat
Marching North to Fight the Japanese
A Very Happy Linkup Between the Three Red Armies
Mao Organizes the Operation
Mao Commanding a Victorious Counter-Assault

And my favorite painting: This painting is Chairman Mao suggesting a change of strategy to full assault--when the Communists have half the numbers and weapons of the KMT. I just imagine Mao happily declaring "We have finally reached half their numbers. It's time to press the attack and wipe them out!" And his commanders laughing, unable to contain themselves, saying "You're a suicidal maniac!" But he did win.
"Hahahahaha... Okay, Okay, Really, What's Our Strategy?"

A few closing shots for you: Commie flags:


More Commie flags:


Almost Forgot: the obligatory "I was here" shot, in front of the entrance to the Civil War exhibit:


There was a lot of other stuff in the historical exhibits which I failed to photograph, or am saving for the Foggofwar propaganda post. I failed to get anything at the souvenir shop, either, mostly because it was all pretty lame. But I spent something like 5 hours here, at a clip the whole time. It was a lot of fun.

China is a Bad Place for Pants

I have torn through a third pair of pants since I got here. Three! And they're all new tears--nothing along my old patchwork (which I am proud of). Either I am walking in them too much in China, or the mix of smog and my sweat is corroding the fabric.

Bah.

The Great Wall

Okay, finally made it out to the great wall today. I opted for the hiking option, rather than the cable-car one. I suffered for it.

Turns out I am grossly out of shape, and the altitude is pretty mean, and the day was humid. Many thousands of stairs lay between us and the top, at a pretty steep clip. Based on the signs, I think our vertical ascent was close to half a kilometer. My legs burned, and there were many periods of rest. But we made it to the top!
Drenched in Sweat
Catching My Breath

A few more steps, and we were inside the defensive structure of the wall, ready to fend off Mongolians/Manchus/Japanese.
No Mongols Coming Through on My Watch
"Okay, Still Tired, Take Another Picture"

The rest of the morning-and-early-afternoon consisted of hiking up and down the great wall, checking out some of the defensive architecture, talking about restorations, etc. Very interesting stuff. There is not too much story to tell, so I will explain pictures from here on in. One of my favorite photos (giving me a brief sense of "Good gravy, I'm actually here").
Hand-Made in China

More good views of the great wall:
It Got Brighter

Another one of my favorite shots:
Many Tourists with Many Languages

We noticed the wall really went long distances to assure that it was on local maxima of the mountainrange, maximizing irritation for invading armies without any consideration of cost:
Very Irritating Indeed

The valleys ran deep, covered with foliage even at the time of construction, at least on the "enemy" side--assaulting this thing would have been a challenge.
"Why Don't We Go Around?"

You'll notice two holes here: one for arrows, one for oil/refuse/rubble, whatever you're dropping on scaling enemy soldiers. Very European-style defense. I don't have much in the way of arch pictures, but the defense tower interior very closely resembles Roman Empire architecture:
"We're Out of Oil, Sir!"
"Then Throw Down the Souveniers!"

Here's one of the best examples of a defense tower. They were very 150 meters or so.
Leaning a Bit to Get This Shot

We ran into a single canon--very small, and not terribly well-constructed. No good way to know just how long before the advent artillery this was put in place, but it doesn't seem as impressive as many European designs, particularly given that it's stationary... But the whole construct is a bit confusing; there is clearly concrete renovation for this, but it looks like the concrete is holding the canon in place--what held it in place before that?
This is Not an Excuse to Photograph Rear Ends

On our way back down, a deslightful sight: Beasts of Burden!
Donkey!

And with that, we trotted out--going down seemed so much easier than going up, except that I almost slipped to my death. After sweating, drinking, and then sweating all of the water in my body and my backpack, everything felt a fair bit lighter, too. Left with a bit of a headache from the strain, but got back, got some grapefruit juice in me, and was ready to go.

Tomorrow: Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War Museum (as my mother said: "No political correctness necessary"), which is the name of the war the stuck during the propaganda campaigns of the 1930's, and maybe even some Chinese Acrobatics (I have seen enough Peking Opera on TV that Acrobatics is currently more exciting to dish out the big money for).

Cross-Cultural Geography Experiment

So I ran "English Corner" today, and go to play a little experiment.

I (and some of my friends) wanted to know relative tests of education between the US and China--history, geography, etc. My sample is a bunch of 20-somethings with Master's degrees and years of English class... a sample far more learned and intelligent than the averge Chinese and average American.

I have been talking to many of them about Western history, and for some of them, their Western history is at least as good as my Far Eastern history, which is pretty darn impressive. For some of them, they are... not quite as good (the Chinese words for "parliament," "constitution," "Napoleon," "medeival," etc, mean almost nothing to them). My good buddy Chris is probably the most knowledgable--we had a debate as to whether Rommel or Patton was the superior tank commander (he was shocked that Americans might not know someone as titanically awesome as Patton. "I thought he was a national hero."), and talked about the relative value of the T-34 to the Panzer IV to the Sherman. Anyway, my case studies have shown a great range of historical understanding of the West (though most have a pretty good idea of US presidents--probably about as good an idea as the average American).

We also wondered what they expected of US people with respect to Chinese history. Interestingly, most of them ignored ancient Chinese history, often saying "not much happened." My general impression of expectations, by what people have mentioned:

Kong Zi (Confucius), Lao Zi (Lao Tzu), Sun Zi (Sun Tzu), Emporer Qin (who united the 7 Chinese states-- watch "Hero" for this), Emperor Qianlong (famous Qing emperor), Cixi (the "Empress Dowager"), Lu Xun ("father of modern Chinese literature," and May 4th revolutionary), Sun Zhongsan (Sun Yat-Sen, "father of modern China"), Jiang Jieshi (Generallisimo Chiang Kai-Shek), Mao Zedong, Lin Biao (maybe), Zhu De (maybe), Deng Xiaoping (definitely), Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao (maybe). They also expect us to know about the Qin unification of China, the fact that the last 2 dynasties were Ming and Qing, the poly-colonization of China, the Opium wars, the Boxer rebellion, some internal rebellions (like Taiping), the May 4th revolution (which called for modern government, self-strengthening, some democracy stuff), the fall of the Qing in 1919, the establishment of Republican China, the end of the Warlords (team Communists + Nationalists took them down), the first Sino-Japanese war (Japan takes Manchuria and Taiwan), the first civil war (Communists vs. Nationalists), the full-scale Japanese invasion (WWII), 2nd civil war (Communists win), establishment of PRC, Great Leap Forward, alliance with Russia, Cultural Revolution, rapproachment with US, opening and reform.

ANYWAY: That experiment. I was looking for something a bit more concrete, though halfway through realised I was sortof failing.

I took a blank map of Asia, and an alphebatized word bank of English country names, broke them into seven teams of two, and said "Go!" and awarded Oreos to the winner (competitions with sweets as prizes are popular at Horizon). Remember these guys have had years of English, so I expected their English to not be so great--but they certainly knew the English names of many countries, and still managed to get a fair number of these wrong. Of note (for interest's sake only, there is not much value to be assigned to these):

One group put Russia in Kazakhstan's place.
They all got the Koreas, China, Japan, and Mongolia perfect.
Half the groups got Vietnam wrong (I did tell them beforehand that Vietnam was "Yuenan" in Chinese), and Laos/Cambodia/Thailand/Burma were a struggle.
One group nailed 20 out of 37, which is probably better than most Americans would do on the same English test, but the group included the manager, whose English was excellent (and this is her home continent).
No group knew the proper locations of Iraq or Iran, though many put them somewhere nearby (the names were very familiar from news, and sound a lot like the Chinese "Yilake" [that's "yeelahkuh" for those that don't know pinyin] and "Yilang" [that's "yeelahng"]).
One group got Afghanistan right, and one Pakistan.
All but one got India right.
In general, the groups knew China's Northeast perfectly, it's Southeast moderately well, it's direct south okay, and its western areas relatively poorly.

It was all very interseting to see what they knew. One really can't scientifically compare this to Americans at all--the test was 10 minutes, with a sample size of 12 Masters' students with varying levels of English (from bout my level of Chinese to near-fluent). I am thinking about giving them a map of Europe and no word bank, and saying "fill it in with whatever language you want," see how they do, and then get a few of you to do the same thing to get a better idea.

But my general impression is that while Americans may be pretty lousy at geography, even well-educated Chinese aren't perfect, either.

Apologies of this pseudo-science post offends anyone.

Temple of Heaven and Some Architecture

Sunday was a trip to the Temple of Heaven with Candy, a coworker from Horizon. I got a bit lost and arrived late, but found her, and we went in. Like other parks on weekends, especially in the mornings, lots of folks were out in the park, practicing what outdoor activities they liked. Lots of singing, dancing, etc:
Some Dancing...
Singing...
Some Strange and Elegant Sport

We went by all the major sites, though with a strange sense of blazing speed:
The Temple of Heaven
Proving to Myself I Was There
The Temple's Plaque

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is an ancient part of the Temple in which the Emporer had the obligation of performing a wacky and complicated ritual, full of animal sacrifice and fire:
The Temple's Most Popular Part

Heading south, we got some good views of some excellent gates:
Gates to What? I don't Know.


This altar-looking platform, with 9 steps, is apparently quite significant. I didn't remember why:
A Very Expensive Plaza

We then went and got lunch at one of Beijing's xiaochidian, or snack shops. She decided to order some famous Beijing dishes for me to try, despite the fact that outsiders almost never like them. Why are they famous?

This terrifying mess was literally a soup of many pig organs, including stomach, heart, tongue, liver, intestine. The liver was by far the worst part. Tasted like toxic chalk. Behind it, sweets that seemed to be more Candy's realm than mine (she did not want to try the soup, she'd already tried):
Delicacy, baby.

These next two dishes were not quite as offensive, but were offensive nonetheless. The bowl of white stuff is some sort of soy concoction (it's not like soy milk, it's more like rancid tofu) that is supposed to be healthy for you. The further bowl was either some terrible seafood or some more intestine. One dipped it in sesame sauce, almost as an apology to its own taste.


These two dishes were decent; the rings (which I hoped would be a bit like onion rings) had no taste and the chicken had this strange sourness that gold old pretty quickly. But it was at least edible.


so that was an adventure. Here is my torturer, my lunchtime inquisitor:
"You Like It?"

The walk home was a victory in architechture. Some good stuff:
Beijing Normal University
An Apartment Complex
Something Under Construction