Second Impressions

Jade Belt Bridge, Summer Palace, Beijing April 2, 2010

Happy Easter.  It's almost over here but you're just starting to look for Easter Eggs right about now.

Baseball season begins officially in a few hours when the Red Sox play the Yankees.  Unless I’m mistaken, the local ESPN station will broadcast cricket and football (soccer) scores ad infinitum or show a rerun of some European basketball league game played last week instead, even though ESPN in the states will carry the real game that matters…to me anyway.

Yesterday I spent the entire day at one of my favorite places, The Summer Palace.  It’s not that it’s an amazingly old example of Chinese architecture since it was originally built in the 1700’s and essentially rebuilt in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s after British and French forces burned it to the ground, twice, in an effort to show the Chinese who really ran things in China.  Such was the diplomacy of two world powers at the time.  What really interests me about the Summer Palace is the grounds, which mostly survived intact even though most of the buildings did not.  There are several lakes, many beautiful stone bridges, large and old willows and a series of lawns and wooded areas that attract crowds.  It’s yet another wonderful park that Beijing’s citizens flock to with all the expected activities normal to Chinese parks.  It really is quite a show.  The mulberry trees were just beginning to blossom and hints of green were beginning to show on the hanging tendrils of the willows.  The day was comfortable and there was some fairly regular sunshine that worked its way through the light haze.  All in all it was quite charming.

Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha from below, halfway to lake level

Being on my own I had a chance to visit areas of the Palace I had not on several earlier trips. I climbed up to the Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha (a strange name that conjures up some juvenile humor on my part) for the first time.   From the south the path up looks rather imposing with the switch backed stairs climbing along a sheer masonry wall but if you go around the back way it’s a rather pleasant stroll through a bit of woodland with several nice pavilions along the trails.  You’re climbing all the way but it’s not all that demanding.  The view from up there was really quite dramatic since you’re looking down on Kunming and Back Lakes and there were literally hundreds of little rented boats going every which way that day.  Trying to photograph it proved futile as the haze mostly obscured everything to the camera even though you could see things pretty clearly by sight.  Some polarized lens caps would have made quite a bit of difference I expect.  But alas I had them not.

Looking through a different kind of lens, one colored by my own limited experience, I’ve been noticing some changes in how people react to foreigners here compared to how it was just a few years ago.  In 2001, we were constantly stopped by local folks to have their pictures taken with us.  Apparently we were novelties back then and worth the effort.  Yesterday no one paid me any mind.  There were hundreds of foreigners all around and it seems the novelty has worn off.  That’s a good thing on balance, I think.  I suspect it’s still more like 2001 in many of the less developed places in China.

Something else I have noticed over the last week is that a significant number of Chinese have lost the impressive work ethic that was always on display in the past.  This may be unique to Beijing but I suspect it is endemic to all the more prosperous cities.  Cashiers now throw your change at you instead of giving it to you with two hands as I had become used to and really found nice.  I’ve seen security folks (private guard forces not the People’s Army folks) texting instead of paying attention.  Store clerks spend a fair amount of their time yakking with each other and less paying attention to customers.  It goes on and on.  It seems at least in some ways the Chinese have achieved their goal of becoming more like Americans.  I do suspect that this kind of indifference, I can think of no better word, is generally limited to the lowered paid service sector folks but it may be a harbinger of things to come if this infects the whole working class.  It may not be long before large numbers of the low and medium wage manufacturing jobs that now sit in China move to places that want them more.  It’s already begun in a limited way.  It may not be all that long before China starts to wonder where all those jobs went.  

The Seventeen Arches Bridge just because I like it.  Summer Palace April 2, 2010

Comments

[Joan]

Thanks for sharing the Summer Palace with us. It's one of my favorite places as well. Hope you continue to enjoy your trip as much as we're enjoying reading about it!