beijing continued...

On Wednesday, April 1, we went to the Great Wall and to Olympic venues, and I wrote about those trips on that date. There were a couple of other highlights on Wednesday that I want to mention. One is that in the elevator in the hotel that morning, there were a number of young girls that were high school age. As they chatted, my roommate asked them where they were from and it turned out that they were from Canmore, Alberta! One of the fun things about travel is realizing how small the world can be. I talked with them for awhile -- they were thrilled to meet someone from so close to home, and so was I. While our group had walked around the day before, the Chinese people were quite taken with the people in our group who had very blonde (and usually long) hair. Some of the older women would approach and stroke the hair and want to have their picture taken with these people. They also liked being photographed with very tall people. The girls from Canmore were blonde and tall, so we warned them that this would likely happen to them too. I never saw them again while we were there -- they had said they were on a school trip.

Also of note on Wednesday was that our trip leader, one of the academics from Semester at Sea, approached our guide privately and told him that she understood that he might not be able to respond, but she wanted to know if he felt he could comment on the events in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago. He replied that he would comment, but that he could not do it publicly or on the microphone on the bus. He then spoke quietly to those of us within earshot and discussed the fact that he was quite young when the events took place and that the local news showed only a group of students killing a policeman and reported something over 200 people killed when rioting took place. As he got older and more curious he found ways to get information (many internet sites are blocked in China) that had been distributed to the rest of the world by journalists who were present and who managed to get other stories and pictures out. He recognizes that the Chinese people did not get the whole story, but stops short of saying his government was wrong to stop the students. He points out the number of changes that took place after the events of 1989, and of course he is not wrong.

Our last day in Beijing was Thursday, April 2. During the four days we were there Spring had come to Beijing. Leaves had opened on the willow trees, and forsythia was in bloom. We continued our heavy schedule after breakfast, visiting the YongHeGong Lama Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonghe_Temple or http://www.kinabaloo.com/yonghegong.html. It is a temple and monastery of Tibetan Buddhism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhism and apparently if you arrive at the right time (we did not), you can see 130 monks meditating. Any other time many other visitors can be seen meditating, praying, lighting incense or just wandering around looking. There are several buildings and each hall contains several gold Buddhas and other relics. One contains an 18 meter tall gold painted Buddha made from a single white sandalwood tree.

After another great lunch at a local restaurant, we went to see the Summer Palace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace where we had a walk around the grounds and a dragon boat ride on Kunming Lake. We never cease to be amazed at ourselves when we jump at the chance for a boat ride after all the time we spend on the ship! It was quite windy and cool that day, and we enjoyed watching old men flying kites on the Seventeen-Arch Bridge.

Following our visit to the Summer Palace it was time to make our way to the airport for our flight to Shanghai where we would join the ship which had sailed from Hong Kong in our absence. In the bus 0ur trip leader asked Andy if he could give the students some information on the Cultural Revolution in China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution and he did spend some time discussing this with the students. We aren't sure why, but he also had decided to share the information about Tiananmen Square that he had discussed with some of us the previous day. After the discussion our trip leader asked the students to respect the fact that Andy would not be able to publicly address these issues and to make sure the conversation about it stayed on the bus. I believe this willingness of our guide to share his thoughts, his clear love for his city and his country, and his dedication to making sure we had an exceptional experience in China made the differencebetween our trip and the ones that others had in Beijing. I wish everyone could have felt what we did as we came back. Andy's final gift to us was a song -- the only American song, he said, that he knew all the words. This may come under the category of "you had to be there", but we were very moved by his efforts. I could not record the whole thing, but hope you enjoy the attached short video.