Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen square is a huge square in the middle of Beijing, just south of the Tiananmen Gate and the Forbidden city. With its 440 000 square meters it is the third largest city square in the world. It is most famous of the protests in 1989 and that it is host to the mausoleum of chairman Mao.

Just to get into the square you will have to pass a security control with x-ray machines. If you want to take a glimpse of the late leader, you will have to undergo further inspections. No cameras, video cameras, bags, backpacks are allowed inside the mausoleum. You will have to leave these in a storage room. Normally you can trust these facilities, but make sure you get a token for your deposit. You have to wear closed shoes, long trousers, and generally respectful clothing. Once you deposited your bag/camera, queue up for the entrance. You will easily find the queue that goes around the building several hundred meters on an average day. Near the entrance there is one more control, smokers usually say good bye to their favorite lighter here. Once inside the building, turn off mobile phones, remove hands from pockets, stay silent, and if you still have a chewing gum in your mouth, freeze your jaws. Proceed in a slow, but steady manner, take a look of the prepared body of the chairman, notice that it is made of wax anyway, and head for the exit. Seriously, any talk, any laughter, any disrespectful move and the guards will speed up your way out. Once outside, smokers can get themselves new lighters, but not the same ones that they left behind. It gets a bit funny here, as people fight for the best lighters and kids tend to take them with two hands for future economic benefits.

If you absolved the 1 hour waiting, 50 second visit, you can recollect your camera and continue to discover the square. The square has around one police officer and 4 security cameras per visitor. The latest police gadgets and vehicles are also on display.

If you are like me, and you do not look Chinese, you will definitely find yourself in the situation I did. Upon entering and walking around the square, a group of 2 men and a woman approached me. They struck up a conversation with surprisingly good English. They told me they were from the countryside and came for the 1st of May celebrations to Beijing. They asked me where I was from, what did I do in the city, how long I stayed, etc. After the small talk they proposed to have a beer in a nearby bar, so we can celebrate our newly born friendship. Well, if you are not straight out of kindergarten, you know that something is fishy here. I politely declined saying that I am Muslim and can not drink beer and moved on two take more photos of the square. Five minutes and 25 photos later another two guys found me with similar good English and similar interest in my visit. At this time I started to bend the truth and started to give shorter answers. To test my new “friends”, I asked them to take a photo with me. One of them flatly refused saying that he was Buddhist (sounds like a BS), but the other one caught the bait.

I am not joking, the same pattern happened at least 8 times while I was on the square. After the second or third I was convinced that they were government agents who were monitoring the intents of tourists. To test my limits, I started to really bend the truth. In one of my stories I was a photo reporter from New York creating a report about the freedom of Tibet. I was counting the seconds how much longer it will take until they arrest me, but nothing happened.

After my escape from the square, I rushed back to my hostel to turn to Lonely Planet that could explain me what the hell was going on. And it did: they were no government agents at all, they were simple scammers who were trying to get people to a “tea ceremony” and then make them pay the hefty bill. Phew. Nevertheless here is a photo of two of the scammers for educational purposes:

Of course, there are also some legitimate visitors, who ask you to take a pic with them, especially if you look like David Beckham …well, in their eyes:)

Beijing: capital of the capitalist communism

Beijing, literally meaning “northern capital” is the capital of China with around 19 million inhabitants. I happened to arrive here by a high speed train from Qingdao, which was an achievement itself regarding the pure Chinese information board hanging at the train station.

Beijing itself is much more modern than a lot of us would imagine. I heard a couple of stories from my father who was there 20 years ago, when cars were scarce and everyone used the bike to get around. Well today, the city has millions of cars, but scooters and bikes and all kind of funky vehicles are still plenty. The public transportation is one of the most modern you can find in Asia.

If food is your main concern, fear not. Many places offer English menu, but even if not, with very little vocabulary you can manage quite well. I managed to get along with only one word/symbol I learned (and the translation is not accurate):

beef – 牛

If you are veggie, you must do your own homework:)
Nevertheless a couple of times I had no idea what I was eating, but simply by avoiding food sold on the street and greasier pork dishes, I had decent meals every day.

The two most important sights to see in Beijing are the Tiananmen square and the Forbidden CIty. Tiananmen is worth a separate blog entry so I will discuss it later.
The Forbidden City is basically the palace of former Chinese emperors. As in Beijing generally, do not believe the small scale of the maps. The place is huge! You can easily spend a whole day here without seeing it in total. Apart from the vast amount of domestic “let’s photograph everything” tourists, the funniest thing in the place is the name of the palaces and sites. Just to name a few: Hall of Military Eminence, Hall of Literary Glory, Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Mental Cultivation, Palace of Tranquil Longevity, Hill of Accumulated Elegance, etc.

As I mentioned in my earlier article about Qingdao, when visiting less frequented sites, make sure you get enough information before. Guidebooks, even Lonely Planet can be painfully outdated in just a few years. That’s how we found out the underground city has been closed…after having a hard time finding it at all:)

Beijing is also the capital of counterfeit goods. There are huge malls selling only fake stuff: first floor for Luis Vuitton bags, second floor for Rolex watches, third floor for pearls, etc. The demand is so high that there are organized buses bringing and taking groups of tourists and hotels are built up next to the malls. Remember: the quality of the counterfeit items also varies a lot. The cheaper the crappier, Fake or not, make sure you bargain a lot, even if you feel you are way undershooting the real price. My personal experience is that nothing costs more than 10 yuan (around 1.5 USD) in China!

Another word you might want to learn in China is for internet cafes: 网吧

Internet cafes are not difficult to find. The audience mostly consists of local kids playing some online games. Do not expect to see a lot of foreigners, and at check-in you have to leave your passport at the operator’s desk. Some places might even refuse to provide the service to foreigners. Internet explorer 6 browsers are considered extinct everywhere else in the world, but here they are the favorites, thus in order to actually use any websites, your first thing will be to download a normal browser. Lots of services, like facebook are blocked, nevertheless everyone knows what to download to bypass the block. Other services, like twitter, have Chinese copy-cats that are not blocked, thus more widely used. Weibo, the twitter clone is the same as twitter, but can actually be censored by the state.

And to close this post, let’s talk about the naked baby bums you can see quite a lot in Beijing:)
In order to save on diapers, thus directly contributing to preserve our fragile environment, a lot of parents opt for baby panties that are split in the middle. When nature calls, they simply hold the baby above a trash bin, or grassy area, and the job is done. And in winter? Babies have cold bottoms.

^{(photo by Kendra Ferrell)}

Qingdao: a livable, modern city

My venture into China began in the city of Qingdao. With it’s 3.5 million inhabitants, the city is nowhere to be found amongst the most populous Chinese cities. Often elected as one of the most livable cities in China, in fact, it was offering a very pleasant first step.

Not so pleasant was the first gulp though. Carrying my big backpack several blocks under the sun, finally I arrived to a pizzeria, a meeting point with my friend, Rudi. The waiter saw that I was a bit worn out, so he offered me a glass of water. The mental image of cold water refreshing by body was quickly overwritten by the taste of warm water that I was actually served. I got the first lesson: Chinese do not drink cold water, as they believe it is not good for health.

Luckily, there is some place for cold drinks in Qingdao. Because the city used to be a German colony (damn, I had to travel around the world to learn that Germany had a colony in Asia!), the country’s second biggest brewery, Tsingtao is located here. Drinking Tsingtao is very popular, they even hold a yearly beer festival. Funniest thing however, that a lot of places offer you beer by the weight. They hang a Tsingtao-branded plastic sack on the tap of the keg, along with a spring balance, and if you order 2kg of beer, they will fill it up until the balance reads 2kg. Then you walk away with a sack of beer and pour it into glasses at home.

Selina, Janice, Rudi, me and a sack of beer

The city was also the host of the sailing events of the 2008 Olympic Games. Today, the city is building a new metro network. By 2016 they plan to finish an underground network of 8 lines. (As a side note, in Budapest, we are trying to construct our 4th underground line for the past decade and the trains running are around 40 years old). Parts of the city feature modern skyscrapers, but village-like neighborhoods can also be found. Cars of unknown brands cruise up and down on the roads, but the taxis almost exclusively wear the well known VW brand.

Located not far from Qingdao, one can make a day trip to the mountains of Lao Shan.
The trip can be tricky, because the way to get there has changed quite a lot in recent years. As a general advice in China: do NOT rely on lonely planet or any other guide books too much! An edition dated only a few years back might contain already outdated information. That’s just how rapidly China changes!
Nevertheless once you get to Lao Shan, you can do a number of great hikes (the park is huge, do not underestimate distances!), buy some locally grown tea, or contemplate nature (some say Taoism was born here). The natural park also has state of the art fingerprint scanning entrance gates …just to make sure all nature lovers get registered by the state:)

Last but not least, Chinese mistranslations are always a good reason for a grin:)

Gyeongju (경주시)

Gyeongju, also known as Gyeongju-si or Kyongju, but not to be mistaken with Gwangju, Jeju or Cheongju (although they all sound the same) is a coastal city in the east of Korea, around 400 kms from Seoul. It used to be the capital of the Silla dynasty and most prominently features a number if little grass-covered hills, which are actually tombs of the late kings.

Apart from the tombs, there are a number of religious sites and temples, and at the time of our visit, they were preparing for celebrating the birthday of Buddha. It is customary to write some good wishes on a piece of ceramic tile, and so did we …of course, after negotiating it down to half price:)

Korean girl and boy bands

As mentioned before, South Korea is pretty much flooded by teenager girl bands and boy bands. Two excellent examples are Girls’ Generation and SHINee. Enjoy!
(further readings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:South_Korean_girl_groups and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:South_Korean_boy_bands)

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

To all our loyal readers, who actually celebrate it, we wish you an awesome Christmas time and a New Year full of adventures!

..and a little retrospective: celebrating new year’s eve one year ago in Valparaiso, Chile:

Seoul: traditions and modernism

As mentioned before, Paul and I were following different routes after Vietnam. The original plan, to go to Japan was crossed out by the severe events at Fukushima, so I decided to give a visit to Korea instead. So it happened to be that I arrived to Seoul without my sidekick, but I met here our friend and fellow traveller, Eunjung, who we had already met in Peru and Argentina. She did a great job introducing me to everything, that’s Korean, especially helped me a lot with eating only the best Korean food:) I have also met here Zoltan, an old friend and colleague of mine from Hungary …talk about a small World!
Arriving to Seoul one can not help but notice the modernism, the advanced infrastructure, and the number of big and small bridges. The current president, formerly the mayor of Seoul has strong connections in the construction business, the explanation can be. He was also the youngest CEO in Korea at the age of 35 and he consults with Chuck Norris on a daily basis.

Apart from the modernism, Seoul also puts great emphasis on the traditions. A number of temples can be visited and traditional costumes are worn at changing of the guards and other occasions. If you are lucky, you can also catch some tunes played on the traditional Korean gayageum.

A funny tradition in Korea that you take off your shoes before entering someone’s home. The first hostel I stayed happened to be in one bigger house, so the shoe store facility was right outside the front door. It was not that funny to take off your shoes in 5 degrees Celsius. Korean homes traditionally had neither chairs, nor beds: you were sitting on the floor and sleeping on the floor. On the plus side however, their floor-heating technology dates back quite some time, so once inside the house, you won’t be cold.
Korean cuisine is great, especially if you dig spicy food. Traditional Korean meals consist of a number of shared side dishes and one or two main dishes. Amongst the side dishes you can almost always find the ever-popular kimchi, a spicy kind of cabbage. Korean barbecue is made right at your table and Korean pancakes are a cheap and yummie alternative if you don’t feel like eating anything complicated. Soju is the local “sake”, and men and women are not afraid to get a bottle, even if they can not handle the alcohol content of it. Unique in Korea that they are using steel chopsticks. Originally the royal family started to use them, being afraid of food poisoning, but later on it became the number one utensil of the common people as well. I have to say, it feels much better to eat with them, than with their wooden and plastic brothers.

Korean writing might seem Chinese at first, but it is actually based on a standard alphabet. In a matter of days you can start reading out loud Korean words, even though you will have most of the time no idea what they mean:)

Being a Korean teenager has it’s own peculiarities. Young adults keep living with their parents, they are spoiled with technology, but dating a boyfriend/girlfriend has some very rigid rules. Couples have hardly any place to go if they want to spend some time together. That’d where DVD rooms come into picture. Originally these are small private rooms, that you can rent to watch a movie with your friends, but they are mostly used as a place of romantic encounters. No need to say, DVD rooms are not difficult to find anywhere in Seoul.
Youngsters are also flooded by hundreds of teen boy and girl bands. The recipe is always the same: a group of 6 or 7 teen stars, converted by excess plastic surgery, sings stupid songs on the TV all day long…literally … and they are popular.

One of the last days I stayed in Seoul, I hit the local fish market. Normally it is full of merchants and customers, but those days consumption dropped to a minimum as people were afraid of radioactive leakage at the shores of Japan. The local authorities did their best to tell people that the fish is safe and it is being monitored 24/7.