Postcard from Beijing

The immensity of China is daunting. It is also exciting. Its size makes it feel like it something much bigger than just one country. One of the world's oldest countries is transforming into one of its newest...almost overnight. This country is so many different things to so many different people. A threat to some, an opportunity to others. China is more, much more than we think it is.
China is much talked about, but that doesnt necessarily mean we are genuinely well informed about it.
There's a lot going on in China these days. You might have heard about it. But seeing is believing. ONly after you have found yourself in the middle of an Olympian sized traffic jam with what feels like half of Beijing's 16 million people, do you even begin to get a sense of the scale of China and its thrusting, attention grabbing emergence onto the world stage.
Despite its size - it takes a huge amount of time just to make your way from one part of the city to another - Beijing is a rather pleasant place. People are generally friendly and very helpful. Many want to practise their English. The subway system puts the London tube to shame: modern, clean, efficient, reliable. And largely chav-free.
The Chinese are seemingly invading their own country. Small armies of tour groups in red and yellow caps all over beijing. The people are armed with cameras and there's little respite from them. Young people are bright, clever, quick and eager to learn in ways that I rarely encounter in my own country. It is a sobering thought.
Confucius once said that, 'Is it not a joy to welcome friends from afar?' - and this also seems to apply to the hasslers to. But I can take them in my stride. After some 5,000 years of continuous history they're still on the go, relentless and restless. There's no time for sitting down here. I did what I always do, just walk and talk.

Everywhere you walk, there are faces, hundreds of faces. From a meditating old man to a chicly dressed yung girl. So many faces, so much action, so little outside comprehension. It is all but impossible to take photos without including other Chinese people taking photos of other Chinese people. SO many of them either look really young or really old. Never go the wrong way down an underpass though. You just get swallowed up into a chattering chasm of excitable camera-wielding humanity.

I walked around Tianamen Square - if you never knew of its history you would take it as a pleasant place, if slightly sparsely Soviet in style. From the ancient ruins or the sprawling Forbidden City to the gleaming (and now largely disused and empty) modernity of the Olympics complex, China seems to encompass so much.
I walked for several hours along the Great Wall -this coiled serpent unleashing itself, it is so much more close up. You can appreciate it from a different dimension. Even there in the remoter stretches of this amazing structure, people try to sell you thins:
'I am a farmer?' one man waving some postcards at me for the fifteenth time told me.
'What do you farm? Tourists?'
'Yes'
'Its a good time to harvest now?'
'Yes. Special price for you my friend.'
And then there's the food - again encompassing the delicious appetising (mouth-watering roast duck) to the less appetising: Sheeps Penis, Roast Eel, Fried Scorpions, Sea Snake, Stir fried pig liver, fried pig's kidneys....anything whet your appetite there?!

There are the old winding alleys of the Hutong, rather touristy now but retaining a sense of timelessness. And then there are the glitzy shopping malls, brimming with bright neon and overspilling with giant adverts. I was told I was not allowed to call it capitalism (a dirty word here) but you can decide for yourself. Egalitarian communism at its redistributionalist best. They are nothing but efficient though, you have to say that. What takes us six years to build, they probably knock up in six months. Thats good and bad.
The world's (arguably) oldest civilisation has transformed itself many times before. We forget or overlook this. And it will do so again.

The impression is that grand old Chairman Mao, still revered and respected, has turned into a sort of deified Diana for China in its new century. The soldiers here are fairly relaxed.
People asked me about England and told me what they knew...James Blunt, The Spice girls, Harry Potter and Prince Andrew. All the good things about my own country then...hmmm.
One man I met mentioned the Olympics. He asked about the London 2012 display with the red bus. 'It was very...erm...different and ....fashionable!' Embarassing would have my adjective, I told him.
So now I'm on my way inland. Where it might lead I dont quite know, but if the censors are kind, I'll try to write again when I can. Until then....