The Eric Wroolie Blog

Of all the pictures I was going to take in Beijing, I was most looking forward to the one of me standing in front of the Mao portrait at Tiananmen Square. Everyone gets that picture.  I’ve seen it in books so often—with it’s bold Chinese characters on the read wall behind.  This picture was going to be even better than one standing on the Great Wall.

Well, wouldn’t you know it?  The entire time we were in Beijing (two whole weeks!), several of the monuments in Tiananmen were covered in scaffolding.  In this picture on the right, you can’t even see the “Peoples Republic of China” characters because they are behind green scaffolding.

I kind of felt like Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Vacation when he drives cross country to Wally’s World to find out that it’s closed.  I wonder what tourists to New York thought in the eighties when the Statue of Liberty was in scaffolding for months while they refurbished it for the 1986 anniversary.

The 60th Anniversary of the PRC is taking place next month, so they must be getting ready for that.  Even the Monument to the People’s Heroes in the square was covered in scaffolding.

It wasn’t too bad at night, you could still see the characters when they were illuminated.

Despite all the maintenance, the square was packed every day we went (we found ourselves back at the square about 4 times in total).

I mentioned in the earlier post that I was surprised by the number of Chinese tourists.  For some reason, I expected all the tourists to be from the west.  But most of the tourists were from around China making a once in a lifetime trip to see their capital.  It’s no different than the tourists in the States who make the cross-country trip to Washington DC.  I’ve been living in England so long I forgot what is was like being in a big country.  In fact, the Chinese tourists had more reason to be visiting than I did, I guess.  They weren’t put off by the maintenance work at all.

Another site that was closed was the Science and Technology Museum.  We took a taxi across town the visit the museum, but when we arrived (and our taxi left), we found that it was closed for a month for renovations.  There were several ‘unofficial’ taxi drivers swarming around like vultures in the front of the museum trying to get us to take their taxis to another site like the Beijing Aquarium.  We stood there, not sure what to do—but I was sure I didn’t want to watch fish at an aquarium.  I noticed a man with a young boy who seemed to have made the same mistake we did and was trying to decide where to go next.  He was being hounded by the drivers just like us.  I walked over to the man and asked him where he was going next.  He seemed surprised that I was trying to talk to him in Chinese—but I was obviously not a driver and not trying to sell him anything.  He told me that they were going to find the underground train and go to the Military Museum.  I asked if we could follow them.  We had only been taking taxis until then, so it sounded fun.  The drivers were annoyed, but we all walked off.

We walked with this man’s family (himself, his wife, and their son) and another family they were friends with for about a mile and a half to the underground station.  They were visiting from Inner Mongolia.  We talked about school out there and they were very interested in our 3 children.  They didn’t speak any English—but they told me their son was learning English in school (he didn’t want to show me what he knew).

There were two boys in their group.  I asked if they were brothers.  One boy’s mother told me that they couldn’t be brothers because China has too many people.  They could only have one child.  I knew this, of course, so I felt a little stupid.  Then I asked if they were cousins.  No, she told me, they are not cousins but only friends.  The one child rule came in in 1979.  I realised that China would not have siblings, but I never considered that this would one day mean no cousins, no uncles, no aunts . .

It took us ages getting to the subway station—the other Dad, being a tourist too, really had no idea where the station was but shared my keen sense of direction.  We stopped and asked a lot of passers-by for directions.

The subway train we rode was very crowded.  The Beijing subway at 2pm was like the Central Line at 5pm.  It took a couple of hours, but when we finally arrived at the Military Museum . . . it was closed.  It was Monday, and the museum is always closed on Monday.  But I didn’t mind.  This was the only real time we were able to have a lengthy conversation with a Chinese family.  If the Science Museum had been open, we wouldn’t have been able meet them at all.

It was a great experience.

I started learning Chinese when I was 18 years old.

I didn’t choose it, but it was assigned to me.  I’ve been using it here and there for the past 19 years.  I occasionally start up conversations with Chinese people I meet on the street (sometimes to the embarrassment of my family) and try to read Voice of America articles online from time to time.  A few years ago, I paid a tutor to meet me during my lunchtimes once a week so I could practice speaking and reading Mandarin.

photo credit: nuomi

It is a skill that is not critical to my job, but I try to maintain anyway.  A few years ago, I was able to translate (surprisingly well) for a group of Chinese visitors who were involved in a joint venture with the company I was working for.  Last year, I met with an official at the Chinese Embassy in London where we discussed software offshoring for almost an hour—entirely in Mandarin.

But I’ve never been to China.

I’ve always intended to go, but there was always a reason it was not possible.  Most of the time, it was too expensive to go.  Then, with small kids, it was just too difficult.  Sometimes, the scarce holiday time was used to go back to the States instead—to spend some long overdue time with my family there.  Even this year, I had scheduled a trip to Dalian, but had to cancel because of problems with my UK visa being transferred to my new American passport.  Sometimes it feels as if I will never make it there.

Tomorrow, I’m going to Beijing.  I’m very excited.  This is the one place in the world I’ve always wanted to go.

There are still possible obstacles in the way.  Already, the travel agent has given me problems about the fact that the first name on my plane ticket is not spelled exactly as it is on my passport.  “I’m sorry, we can’t change it now.  Even though it is an E-Ticket, you either have to rebook the flight and lose all of your money, or hope that the Customs and Excise people are reasonable and let you through.”  Even though my visa and passport are in order, my trip may be cut short due to bureaucracy around the ticket.

I’m also concerned about the swine flu.  I’ve been reading all over the web about people being put into quarantine for 7 days in China because someone on the flight had a temperature.  From what I’ve read, someone will board the plane upon landing and take everyone’s temperature with a temperature gun.  If someone who sits around you has a temperature, you could be spending time in quarantine.  I thought about waiting until Swine flu is over, but who knows when that will be?  There will be another reason next year not to go—and the year after that.

When I was first learning the language, we had Chinese teacher who would talk about the streets of Beijing.  I can remember trying to say something I considered complicated in Chinese—stumbling over the words—tones all wrong—and I’m sure it sounded horrible.  He would look up at the ceiling while considering what I had said.  To be polite, he would always say, “It wasn’t exactly right, but if you were on the streets of Beijing, they would understand what you just said.”  Well, we’ll see.

Last year, when I met with the official at the Chinese Embassy, I mentioned that I started learning Chinese in 1991—soon after the Tiananmen massacre (“Note: NEVER mention the Tiananmen Square massacre to someone from China!”).  I told him that I planned on visiting China one day, but wasn’t sure when.  He looked at me and said, “Eric, China has changed so much since then.  It’s completely different.” I’ve been watching the news and know that China is growing quickly.  But, when he said that to me, I felt kind of sad—like I was letting it slip away from me.  In the movie “Dances with Wolves”, Kevin Costner’s character chooses to go to the frontier so he could see it before it is gone.  I feel like I need to go to China before it changes further.  I want to see China while it is still China.

I hope I’m not too late.