Yesterday, May 7, we were picked up in the morning from our hotel and driven to a Hutong in Beijing. Hutong is an area of old Beijing which looks much like I thought all of Beijing looked like. Crowded and densely populated it is the exact picture I imagined when my mother told me to finish my dinner because the poor people in China were starving. It exists, however, only because the government wants to retain it as a cultural relic and tourist attraction. Only a small minority of Beijings population any more lives in a hutong and only because thy wish to. At the hutong we took a ride around in a rick shaw, two to a cab. Now I know why I see no rick shaw around town; they were outlawed 10 or so years ago. They are permitted in the hutong only to afford tourists an experience from old China.
Following the ride, Susan took us into one of the homes for lunch with a local family. Must have been 12-15 separate dishes, way more than we could possibly eat. Susan told us that Chinese traditions require that food must always out strip a guests appetite or face is lost.
We were taken to the airport and Susan accompanied us through the magnificent new terminal building through the issuance of the boarding passes where we said our goodbyes. Keep her in mind if any of our friends come to Beijing.
The flight to Xian was delayed but got off in time to get us to Xiam around 5 pm where we met our guide, Ming (call me Tony) a young nice looking boy in his mid twenties. An hour later driving in rush hour traffic we got to our hotel ( the Shangri-La) and checked in. The Shangri -La is no Peninsula but quite satisfactory.
Xiam is located smack dab in the center of the country. Tony, a native of Xian (pronounced like the “jou” in “soup d’ jour”) veritably gushed about Xian. and here’s why. Until 221 bc, the land we call China was inhabited by numerous tribes and kingdoms. In 221 b.c. Qin She Huang (don’t forget, that’s pronounced “Chin she wuang”) through warfare with the various kingdoms, united the country and established the Qin Dynasty which ruled much of present day China and whose capital was Xian. Qin ruled for 49 years and brought the first semblance of Chinese unity to the country. Emporer Qin never married, fearing that any surviving Empress would insist that her son succeed to the Emporership thereby usurping leadership from whoever Qin picked to succeed him.
Qin was pre-occupied with his mortality so, rather that wasting his time trying to live a long life, he concnetrated on enjoying a splendid death. 700,000 people were put to work building an army of soldiers made of terra cotta clay to accompany Qim into the after-world. After 40 plus years of solider building Qim had managed to assemble an 8000 man army which, with all of the necessary weponry, were buried not far from Qin. One of Qin’s sons of concubinate heritage, succeeded Qin and was killed by one of his generals after ruling for four years thereby ending the Qin dynasty. The general, as was the custom in those days, killed all of the new Emporer’s concubines and family and did a good deal of destruction to Qin’s terra cotta army, thereby ending the Qin dynasty and inaugurating the Han Dynasty which was to survive and good deal longer. By destroying the resting place of the army by burning the supporting wood structure, the army disappeared from sight and memory until 1974, when a local farmer, drilling for water discovered a terra cotta head 30 feet under ground and the rest is history. The terra cotta warrior museum, which we visited today, is truly one of the archaeological treasures of the world.
Now that we have been here for four days I feel expert enough to profess on all things Chinese. One thing has become clear. China, although still nominally communist, is no more a police state than is the U.S. (given Cheney-Bush it may be less so). As best I can tell the people have no greater restrictions on them than do U.S. citizens. They are free to leave, stay, work at any job they chose, open any business except certain industries reserved to the government like banking, pursue their own educational goals and even openly criticize the government so long as they don’t promote violence. Although the government control most of the news, independent newspapers are allowed. Every citizen I have met is fiercely patriotic and proud of the success China has achieved.
Todays South China news contains a big editorial on Tibet and appears to be quite fair in its presentation of the issues existing between China and the Tibetan separatists. I notice that China is even considering adapting anti trust legislation forbidding price fixing and monopolization. Mao must be turning in his grave.
Dumpling dinner and a Shaanxi music show tonite. Tomorrow on to Shanghai.
