06 August 2006
Postcard from Beijing (2) - July 2005
We are getting near the end of our time on mainland China, and we are going to miss a lot about this country, even the Chinglish. “Property boundaries overlapped because of a lack of careless planning” is a mild example in an introductory video to Beijing. A particular favourite is the sign in one of our hotel rooms: “Care our earth and leave it here after using freely.” (That’s fortunate, I am not sure what the airline would have said about the excess baggage otherwise).
With the varied international backgrounds of the pupils at Southbank, it shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was to find ourselves having a drink with 5 of them in the atrium of the rather posh Beijing Grand Hotel (which describes itself as “formally a palace, now a hotel” but should perhaps more accurately be “formally a piece of wasteland between a hotel and a road leading to a palace, and now an extension to the hotel”). Other than George, there’s goddaughter Kim (here for 6 months as part of her linguistics course at Tübingen University); Kaat Brulez (visiting her mother who has been living in Lhasa for about a year); Sylvia Pronk (a friend of Katie, also at Kent University, and working as an intern in a Law firm in Beijing) and Lars Dabney (ex-BF of Katie’s, studying Politics at Columbia and doing a summer program in China to learn Chinese). Including George, between them they are studying 5 different University courses (Linguistics, Zoology, Law, Politics and Physics/Philosophy) and together with the older generation at drinks (David, Betsy and Chinese colleague Vera), the 9 of us comprises 7 nationalities.
Kim also organizes a dinner for the under-25s and me at another inevitable Peking Duck restaurant, together with 3 of her friends from Tübingen. She takes complete charge of ordering the food, and I have to admit my heart sinking as more and more seemingly unexciting vegetarian dishes arrive (nuts covered in sesame seeds for dinner, anyone?). But I’m wrong; there’s a great balance for carnivores and veggies alike: not just the duck, but also some of the best spicy beef I have ever eaten. And the veggies tucked into the slimy aubergine with relish, so everyone was happy. After dinner, they leave to go out partying – I want to get back to the hotel as we have an early flight to Hong Kong (George makes it back to the hotel with an hour to spare).
My father was born in Beijing and spent the first 10 years of his life here. His father (my grandfather) was buried here and until some intense detective work last year, we were not sure where he was buried, or even whether he was in a cemetery. Last year, we worked out he was buried in the “New Municipal Foreigners Cemetery” and found the place. This time, George and I erect a black marble plaque in his memory. This involves some intense discussions with the cemetery manager, as we do not have quite enough proof for his liking that he is actually buried there, but in the end we convince him. The plaque is in English and Chinese, and looks splendid amongst all the other plaques, which are in Chinese only. It feels like the end of a chapter.
We also visit the house where my father was born, because last year he was not convinced that we had found the right one. We walk the full length of the street (it is quite short) and talk to anyone we can find who looks over 60. It turns out that one half of the street was badly damaged by fire in 1919, the year he was born, which confirms that the other side of the road is where his house must have been, as we suspected. Comparing the various road junctions with his memory of them, there are only two possible houses that could be his and we are 90% convinced it is the house we originally suspected. We take some pictures of the other one just in case it jogs some memories. (It does have an aviary and keeping birds was his hobby at that time).
A final word on Beijing for those of you who may be concerned that China might have lost its uniqueness, represented best by the cumbersome bureaucracy and inherent inefficiencies that go with a communist system: The new China may be buzzing, but the bureaucracies haven’t quite gone. Taking a flight from Beijing airport now involves:
- Fill in a form (it’s only available in Chinese) declaring everything you are taking out of the country
- Present the form for inspection, together with passport and ticket to gain access to the check-in area
- Queue to collect the next form: an emigration form; fill it in
- Present form, passport and ticket to official, who checks it
- Present form, passport and ticket to airline for check-in
- Present boarding pass, passport and form to another official to gain access to the immigration area
- Present boarding pass, passport and form to immigration official, who stamps the passport and keeps the form
- Present passport and boarding pass to security official, to gain access to security area
- Put luggage through scanner and be searched
- Go to gate (in a bit of a hurry by this stage)
- Present passport and boarding pass to gate; pass is scanned and part one removed; move to airside
- New official looks at passport and removes part two of the boarding pass
- Board aircraft, and have the boarding pass checked for the last time by a flight attendant
Oof.
Next stop is Hong Kong: we are off to try the “One country, two systems”.
With the varied international backgrounds of the pupils at Southbank, it shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was to find ourselves having a drink with 5 of them in the atrium of the rather posh Beijing Grand Hotel (which describes itself as “formally a palace, now a hotel” but should perhaps more accurately be “formally a piece of wasteland between a hotel and a road leading to a palace, and now an extension to the hotel”). Other than George, there’s goddaughter Kim (here for 6 months as part of her linguistics course at Tübingen University); Kaat Brulez (visiting her mother who has been living in Lhasa for about a year); Sylvia Pronk (a friend of Katie, also at Kent University, and working as an intern in a Law firm in Beijing) and Lars Dabney (ex-BF of Katie’s, studying Politics at Columbia and doing a summer program in China to learn Chinese). Including George, between them they are studying 5 different University courses (Linguistics, Zoology, Law, Politics and Physics/Philosophy) and together with the older generation at drinks (David, Betsy and Chinese colleague Vera), the 9 of us comprises 7 nationalities.
Kim also organizes a dinner for the under-25s and me at another inevitable Peking Duck restaurant, together with 3 of her friends from Tübingen. She takes complete charge of ordering the food, and I have to admit my heart sinking as more and more seemingly unexciting vegetarian dishes arrive (nuts covered in sesame seeds for dinner, anyone?). But I’m wrong; there’s a great balance for carnivores and veggies alike: not just the duck, but also some of the best spicy beef I have ever eaten. And the veggies tucked into the slimy aubergine with relish, so everyone was happy. After dinner, they leave to go out partying – I want to get back to the hotel as we have an early flight to Hong Kong (George makes it back to the hotel with an hour to spare).
My father was born in Beijing and spent the first 10 years of his life here. His father (my grandfather) was buried here and until some intense detective work last year, we were not sure where he was buried, or even whether he was in a cemetery. Last year, we worked out he was buried in the “New Municipal Foreigners Cemetery” and found the place. This time, George and I erect a black marble plaque in his memory. This involves some intense discussions with the cemetery manager, as we do not have quite enough proof for his liking that he is actually buried there, but in the end we convince him. The plaque is in English and Chinese, and looks splendid amongst all the other plaques, which are in Chinese only. It feels like the end of a chapter.
We also visit the house where my father was born, because last year he was not convinced that we had found the right one. We walk the full length of the street (it is quite short) and talk to anyone we can find who looks over 60. It turns out that one half of the street was badly damaged by fire in 1919, the year he was born, which confirms that the other side of the road is where his house must have been, as we suspected. Comparing the various road junctions with his memory of them, there are only two possible houses that could be his and we are 90% convinced it is the house we originally suspected. We take some pictures of the other one just in case it jogs some memories. (It does have an aviary and keeping birds was his hobby at that time).
A final word on Beijing for those of you who may be concerned that China might have lost its uniqueness, represented best by the cumbersome bureaucracy and inherent inefficiencies that go with a communist system: The new China may be buzzing, but the bureaucracies haven’t quite gone. Taking a flight from Beijing airport now involves:
- Fill in a form (it’s only available in Chinese) declaring everything you are taking out of the country
- Present the form for inspection, together with passport and ticket to gain access to the check-in area
- Queue to collect the next form: an emigration form; fill it in
- Present form, passport and ticket to official, who checks it
- Present form, passport and ticket to airline for check-in
- Present boarding pass, passport and form to another official to gain access to the immigration area
- Present boarding pass, passport and form to immigration official, who stamps the passport and keeps the form
- Present passport and boarding pass to security official, to gain access to security area
- Put luggage through scanner and be searched
- Go to gate (in a bit of a hurry by this stage)
- Present passport and boarding pass to gate; pass is scanned and part one removed; move to airside
- New official looks at passport and removes part two of the boarding pass
- Board aircraft, and have the boarding pass checked for the last time by a flight attendant
Oof.
Next stop is Hong Kong: we are off to try the “One country, two systems”.
# posted by DavidF @ 14:48 
