China, May 2014, part 1

Twenty-five years ago today, an uprising referred to simply as Tiananmen Square resulted in the deaths of unknown numbers of protestors.  Despite economic encouragement that looks very much like capitalism to me, China is still not a place where dreams flourish.  It took me 9 days to figure out what it was that bothered me so much about China, where the streets are clean and even the terrible traffic has an order about it unknown in most of my world.  But what seems to be missing is unfettered joy. And children.

Day 1

The flowers were gorgeous. They were planted the night we arrived.

Yes, it is 4:25 am and we are up...talk about having days and nights mixed up! It is a 13 hour time difference from Houston and without full internet access, that can be annoying. I can't access Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, which I expected, but I also can't get the New York Times and Gmail intermittently.

No calories in Chinese food, right?

A French Chef adds pastries to the buffet

 

 

 

Security in formation, early morning at the hotel front plaza

It is a beautiful hotel. Our room is a lovely suite with the decor similar to the Copacabana in Rio or even the Savoy in London. Dali sculptures and acres and acres of gardens surround the place.

Dali Sculpture at the hotel entrance

Plaque

But. Cab drivers don't speak English and the hotel is 3 hours from the airport...way out in the suburbs. There isn't even a gift shop...the one buffet restaurant, a more formal traditional Chinese restaurant and a small bar with limited offerings being it. No spa, a small gym with about 10 pieces of equipment (listed in the hotel directory as "entertainment") and guards all around.

There are two channels on TV that are in English, and they are, as you might imagine, somewhat slanted in their coverage. Ever sensitive to the IP issues, my husband says they all feel like knock off shows. In fact, there are a lot of second looks being given as we notice things like that...on every table in the restaurant there is a little container of "tooth ticks"...  As a tour guide is to remind us later in the week, the Chinese are very good at copying things.

 

Tooth Ticks

Today, at 9 am, we board a bus to the great wall, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square...this is the quick overview for the people who have to do business the rest of the week. "Accompanying persons" get to see a bit more...we'll see how that goes.

I finished one novel on the plane. I loaded about six on kindle before I left because I was concerned that I might not have access to the system in China, plus it costs more for international downloads.  The FBI encouraged the business people not to bring their computers as it is very common for the hard drives to be stolen or all the information that can be gleaned from any file in the computer, or to which the computer has access to, to suddenly wind up in the hands of the Chinese competitors.  So that’s no laptop, no access to social media and no drinking the water.  We'll see how many are unread when I get home. I brought a notebook to write with and have about 5 pages from when I first got up. I can't believe there aren't more Chinese writers ...but my sense is most people don't even get to see their own Historic Sights. I asked one woman (kept myself from saying girl though I've seen no one who I would guess is 20...) what her favorite place to see was. She told me she likes to play tennis, but there is no time.

Then there are the gas masks in the closet,

only two gas masks ...

three pages of detailed instructions in case of fire (which include filling the bathtub and using the ice bucket to sprinkle water on the flames...). I assure you we will not stay and follow those instructions in case of fire.