Arrival Day: June 29

The Air Has Flavour

Images: Top one is Qian Men: The Gate looking up / north along Qian Men Street.
Bottom one is the outside of the hostel / hotel where I am living: 365 Inn on DaZhaLan Street.

Once of the first things I noticed as soon as I left the building at Beijing Capital Airport was the air. Not only was I suddenly in 29 degree heat with accompanyng humidity, the air here has almost a solidity to it that only happens for a few weeks of the year at most in Toronto. This morning I think those particles have settled in my nasal passsages and the back of my throat.

I arrived in Beijing about two hours after the scheduled arrival. There was some maintenance issue in Chicago - O'Hare. It had either to do with the plane or the luggage carousel or both (we were told two stories by the crew of the plane while we were still on the ground). We left Chicago two hours late and did not make up any time despite the length of the trip. While I am tempted to speak more of the trip, this note is about first impressions of Beijing, not O'Hare Airport and United Airlines.

I have been in a few airports and they are essentially all the same. Beijing airport felt empty when we got off the plane. I think perhaps ours was the only flight, although there were more people moving around than could be attributed to just one flight. Still it did not have the feel of Pearson Airport on a weekday afternoon. Once outside the differences started to show. There were two lines for taxis, organized by the passengers with the help of two airport employees. A group of cabs would pull into various designated slots, individuals or groups of people and their stuff would be loaded into each cab. Then all the cabs would leave. Then the next group of cabs would pull in. Very efficient.

The ride into the city felt long, but the ride from Pearson to downtown Toronto can be long. There were traffic problems in a couple of places. At one point we saw about six or eight men trying to push an old double-high bus backwards along the expressway. This was directed by a police officer. They seemed to know what they were doing but I predict there will be several trips to the doctor for muscle strains and tears for those men.

Nothing, not my words, not the guide book, nothing, prepares you for Tian Men: the Gate of Heavenly Peace. You can read how high it is, how wide it is, how long it took to build. Until you see it it is difficult to imagine. We drove past on the way to my hotel. In those few short moments I could not really get more than a few glimpses at it. But it is magnificent and powerful and cannot help but be a focus of life in this neighbourhood. AS we drove past the gate I tried to imagine what the walls that used to be attached to it looked like. If they were anything at all like the gate it is no wonder Westerners destroyed as much of Beijing as they did as often as they could. The gate is like a dinosaur, or perhaps more appropriately a dragon. Coiled strength and power inside an impervious beautiful shell. Bang on the outside too hard and the dragon will wake up.

The hotel where I am staying is a youth hostel with private rooms upstairs. I am on the second floor in a small room with a double bed and a private bath. The hotel is on a street called Da Zhai Lan in the XuanWu district. It is about ten minutes walk south of the gate and the famous Tian An Men Square. The Square is directly south of the Forbidden City (the centre of power for the emperors). So my hotel could not be better located for people who want to immerse themselves in the history and culture of Beijing and of China. DaZhaLan is one of a series pedestrian-only streets in this part of the city called hutongs. They are something like alleyways, although the "pedestrian only" sign is at least as often ignored as it is obeyed. The entire street is paved with square black stones, it would be slick when wet I think. My host said the prices on this hutong are somewhat higher than on others, probably because of the number of tourists.

For supper we had three dishes in a small restaurant down the street: ground pork with pressed tofu sheets and shredded green onion (an imitation of Peking Duck), green vegetable and noodles and Western-style green beans. Western-style meant long beans with dried chilis and Szechuan pepper, not what I expected from the name on the menu.

The shops on the street were mostly quite specialized. There is the Beijing equivalent of a dollar store, a couple of hat stores, a couple of shoe stores, a grocery store, a couple of pharmacies, a few places selling candy and drinks, several restaurants, a bookstore, at least two calligraphy supply stores, a couple of clothing stores. And I am missing several because it took nearly ten minutes to walk to the restaurant and very few of these shops were more than 3 - 5 metres across. You could live your whole life on this one street and not have to go anywhere else except for banking and the post office. There was a blacksmith / machinist / bicyle repair shop as well, a kind of shop that disappeared from North America many years ago. The owner is a worker in iron and steel, metal rods and coils and other shapes all around, a fire on the floor, and a broken trike out front waiting for repair. In a city where two and three wheeled transport outnumbers cars this is an important shop.

Next stop: breakfast, then wandering, then to Tian An Men Square, my first attempts to go somewhere and back without my host. I have a cell phone with my host's number preprogrammed, the first one on the list. If I get truly lost and cannot get help, then I can call.