Leaving Shanghai, a warm welcome in South Korea.
Shanghai was a hard place to leave. For me, the city was magnetic; drawing me towards it at first, and later refusing to let me go. Every step seems like an adventure, every street corner has something interesting. It can be scenic or it can be chaos. Shanghai is glamourous but rude, and the showpiece of China.
So with Shanghai in my rearview, I landed in Incheon, South Korea yesterday afternoon. It’s hard to imagine just how different South Korea is from China, even just this short flight over from Shanghai. By comparison, Korea is organized, polite, and subtle. That’s just relative to China, in my experience.
I took a bus nearly from the top end of this small country to the bottom and didn’t even need a washroom break. In 4 hours I arrived in Gwangju where I’ll be for the next 3 days. This compact city of 1.4 million feels like a village compared to Shanghai, but is actually quite a major metropolitan city itself. Of course, I’ve got a bit to share!
About China
I’m currently in Shanghai, the largest and most affluent city in China. It’s been a busy week of traveling across this huge country, and now Shanghai will be my final stop.
When people ask me, “How’s China?”, finding a quick way to describe this place is challenging. China has been very good to me, and it’s an amazing country. You run out of words like crazy, hectic, and madness for a place like China. To put it simply, there’s a lot of people packed into a country that’s developing at a breakneck pace. It’s really a contrast to the west, where as a society we’ve already gone through industrialization and it’s challenges. The Chinese people have grown to know nothing else than being surrounded by masses upon masses of other people. Things like personal space and privacy seem practically nonexistent.
What leaves the biggest impression on me about China, aside from the massive population, is the sense that you’ve got a rich, all powerful government, and a relatively poor mass population. The government has done great things for the country, especially with it’s infrastructure and other state sponsored megaprojects. But this is still a country where even after you buy a property, the government still owns the land. Talking to Chinese who wish to emigrate from China, this seems to be the most important issue. It’s not the restrictive freedom of speech ( see Internet censorship), the one child rule, or any of the other challenges facing China, it’s land ownership.
With that said, the plane ticket to china may have been the best ticket I’ve ever bought. If words can’t describe china, perhaps a few more pictures can help.
Xian
The Chinese have a saying, ” Go to Beijing if you want to see a thousand years of Chinese history. Go visit Shanghai if you want one hundred. However, if you want to see three thousand years of Chinese history, visit Xian.
Famous for thick noodles, the terra-cotta army, and it’s Muslim quarter, Xian may have been the furthest I’ve ever been from home, both geographically and culturally. Historically the seat of several dynasties, Xian is now one of many rapidly developing Chinese boom cities.
Xian, and my interesting train ride over, feels vastly different than Beijing. My simplified synopsis would be: Beijing is China’s effort to be an east meets west metropolis. Xian however, is more internationally isolated, and thus more unmistakably Chinese (though you may still here Justin Beiber blaring from somebody’s mp3 player).
Below are a but a few captures from Xian, untouched straight from the camera. I’m looking forward to getting them onto the computer back home and putting them (and a few hundred others) through a bit of photofinishing, but thats a ways away. Until then this wordpress app will have to do! Peace.
Ancient empires
China is blowing me away . There’s just so many people here. China has 30+ cities with metro areas of over 3 million people. Canada has 2. Right now I’m in the ancient city of Xian, China’s 13th largest city – 6.7 million people. Its still madness. People, traffic, congestion everywhere.
Here are a few captures from the Great Wall and Beijing. I’ll try and keep a stream of photos coming from Xian and Hangzhou if internet connections permit. Peace!
First impressions of Beijing
I knew ahead of time that China was going to be interesting. My first encounter of this, the most populous country in the world, is it’s capital. Beijing.
Right away I’m confronted with terminal 3 at the airport, easily the biggest structure I’ve ever set foot in. So big, that after waiting an hour to get through customs, I needed to take a subway train to get to the baggage pickup area.
The city is hard to describe for me. Its organized, but it’s hectic. Its urban, but its not organic. Every major street is at least as wide as Las Vegas blvd. We’re talking 8 and 10 lanes wide. This makes pedestrian exploration difficult at times, because they even put up fence barriers along the sidewalks, so to cross a street you may sometimes have to walk half a kilometer in either direction to find either a tunnel or overpass to get across.
Then you’ve got the hutongs, the more traditional neighborhoods that are disappearing fast to make way for these new wide land streets. Within the hutongs the streets are so narrow you can touch both sides with either hand.
The subway system is crazy. Ridiculous. It’s a mosh pit. Pushing and shoving is allowed, and really surprisingly widely accepted. If you’re afraid of a little bit of friendly violence, the subway system isn’t for you.
That’s all for now.
