Mental Wha?

While our itinerary this time through China has been much fuller than I’d anticipated, I’ve no doubt that I have been procrastinating sitting down to write this as I had been waiting for some traveler’s clarity to spring into my conscious mind which would help me tie a neat little bow around China and serve it up in something concise and palatable. Perhaps four days in one of the most complex and historically diverse countries in the entire world will not be enough for me to understand yet the implications of what this trip means to me. This may occur as something more of a travelog then, but since the point is to keep writing…

A few nights ago I hopped on a plane at Denver International Airport and flew from Denver to LA, to Tokyo, to Beijing. 22 hours of total travel time. Asking someone, “How was THAT flight?” is a little like asking somone, “How was your root canal?” There really aren’t a lot of other interesting ways to describe something for which the only reward is getting where you’re going. Despite the multiple transfers and 20 minute window in Tokyo to get off one plane, get through security, and get on another plane, my bags and I arrived to Beijing in one piece. Upon landing there was a strange moment when 5 Chinese health inspectors boarded the plane dressed like extras from “Outbreak,” pointing little devices at peoples heads and clicking a button. The objects looked a little like plastic guns with lenses at the end of them. When they were done going from passenger to passenger they hustled an Asian business man off the plane and we were allowed to disembark.

That's my Mao!

After collecting my bags, I met up with Jen and we proceeded to the hotel. Thursday morning, Jen and I got on a double decker bus and rode to Tianenmen Square. The heat was oppressive. Beijing is at the height of it’s summer, and the temperature was a brutally humid 101 degrees. Tianenmen Square is, as the name suggests, a vast open stone square dotted with occasional lamp posts and political statues, with few places to find shelter from the sun. What places there were people would cluster together in the shade like animals in a desert heat. No doubt because of the volatile nature of it’s history, entry to the square has been limited by the government to certain tunnels that go under the streets on all sides. Within every tunnel now is a security checkpoint of 2-3 guards scanning the bags of people entering and exiting. The square itself is flanked by the communist headquarters, the resting place of chairman Mao, and the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the entrance to the Forbidden City) where a portrait of Chairman Mao gazes across the square at the pedestrians.

The Summer Palace

The Forbidden City itself covers 7 million square feet, much of it vast open courtyards and outdoor stages. After that we headed to the Summer Palace, essentially a former exclusive resort for Emperors and Empresses. The palace is built on a sprawling piece of land that stretches around Kunming lake.

Of course it’s close to impossible not to take great photographs in places like this but what I found most enjoyable was watching our fellow tourists. For instance I’m thinking of bringing this look to the States when I get back. Everywhere we went we found men whose solution to beating the heat was to roll up the hem of their shirts and let their sweaty bellies (no matter the size) hang out in the breeze. I think I could pull it off. Similarly, while touring the cultural exhibits has been fun I’ve found modern Beijing to be much more compelling. I’m informed that the Chinese approach to cultural antiquities is to rebuild them rather than to preserve and restore. While the Great Wall is still a site to behold, for me there is something diminished knowing that many of the sections have been torn down and rebuilt over and over again in the last 100 years. But just walking through even a market in Beijing is a singular experience. There are entire malls dedicated to knock-off clothing and souvenirs. Each floor is jammed with booths of items (none of which have a price on them) and there is a sales person to “help you.” As I walked through the aisle, sales people would yell to me to come and check their stock and that they would give me the best price of the market. Some would even grab my arm and pull me in. For an American who is used to a very different concept of what retail service is, the experience is an intense one.

Only a couple days left now, including a visit to the Great Wall. My reaction to the trip has not been quite what I had anticipated. I understand that I am a person who travels in search of Traveler’s Clarity. It’s that sparkling moment of insight on your own life that being a new place often provides you. I have been to China before, briefly. The last visit was two years ago in Shanghai and the experience was overwhelming. The moment I stepped off the plane everything was blindingly intense – from the smells and sounds of the street to the texture and tastes of the food. There are massive floods of people everywhere you go, flowing around street corners and up subway stairwells, each one of them with a vastly different concept of personal space than my own. While the country is much more open than it used to be, people still find the site of a pasty 6′3″ American unusual, and stare with open curiosity. In the military museum the other day three young men stopped us and it took a few confused moments for me to realize that they weren’t requesting that I take a picture of them, but rather that they be allowed to take a picture with me. You can’t help but be challenged by the experience – let it reach into your mind and play with your world view and preconceived notions (though in just what way depends on the person of course.) I found the first time it melted the boundaries of my world and allowed me to expand them before they were rehardened by the inevitable return to my own personal grind back home. Regardless they are still changed.

I had expected that experience again this time, but it seems that the first time you come to a place it acts on you whether you want it to or not. Thanks to our capacity to normalize any experience no matter how extreme, the second time you come to a place it’s innate ability to shock and surprise you is greatly reduced and the experience becomes much more subject to what you’re committed to getting out of it. Showing up is no longer enough. There is something I can do with all this but just what it is I’m not quite sure yet. Being here represents an opportunity to consider my world from a much larger perspective and than implement changes accordingly.

I’m still giving myself some time though I know there is a deadline. The first day back in Colorado these experience will still be accessible. By the end of the week, the grind will have set in again and the opportunity lost.

More next week. Leave a comment below and tell me about a travel experience that you found helped changed your view of the world.

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