Temple of Heaven Prayers..Correction...It's A Poem...Thank You Yan

  Our very first stop in Beijing on Saturday morning was the Temple of Heaven, which is as much a park as a temple. This woman was making Chinese characters on the sidewalk with a brush dipped in water. I'm not sure what she was expressing. (I just found out that she was writing an ancient powem which speaks of a beautiful place with a stream and a little bridge.) My sister works with a woman from China who has been looking at my blog. Yan provided the information on what the woman is doing.

She did not pay any attention to the people around her. She moved steadily from one character to another never looking up. To her right people dancing to lively music that sounded like a polka. Right behind her was the Tai Chi group and their music. Nothing disturbed this woman's concentration. 

Chairman Meow in Shanghai

  Lots of feral cats. They probably help greatly with the rat and mice population. Chairman Meow had not had a bath in a while, but he did not look malnourished. He had not been neutered so there are probably lots of little Meows around. 

No Child Safety Seats In China

  This little girl rode in the back of her dad's cart. Other kids we saw rode on the back of the bike or some rode on a special seat just behind the handle bars. No one wore helmets. 

Learning All About Green Tea

  This is the room where we had our tea lesson. Our teacher put a three-finger pinch of green tea leaves from the basket into a glass for each of us. You can see the glasses around the table. A young woman filled the glasses from a tea kettle with water just slightly below the boiling point. We watched the leaves settle to the bottom of the glass, and then we drank. And then, of course, we bought green tea. So now, in addition to taking our pellets twice a day, we also drink green tea two to three times a day for our well-being. I actually like the stuff. I think it's an acquired taste. Our tea teacher insisted that green tea in teabags was medicinally worthless. And always best to get green tea picked in March. I got the feeling that the fall picking went into those tea bags she didn't like and was shipped to the U.S. 

Dragon Well Green Tea Plantation

  This tea plantation is outside Hangzhou in the West Lake area. It is renowned for the quality of its green tea. We were there during the best time to pick the leaves. Spring-picked leaves are more beneficial to your health, according to our guide. 

Maglev Train Levitates

 The train levitates less than half an inch above the guideway (yellow here) using the basic principles of magnets to replace the old steel wheel and track. It's very expensive to build one of these things. The magnetic field created by electric coils in the guideway walls and tracks combine to propel the train. There is no engine. Seems pretty environmentally benign. If you want to know more about these trains go to http://www.howstuffworks.com 

Maglev Train To Pudong Airport

  Rather than ride the tour bus to Shanghai's Pudong Airport for our flight home, a group of us were dropped off at the MagLev station in Shanghai. Our tour guide, the one we really didn't like, warned of all kinds of dire things that could happen to us if we did this. Despite her warnings or maybe because of her warnings, the group of us trooped off the bus, grabbed our luggage and headed up the escalator. The top speed reached on our trip the airport was 430 kph, which translates to 267 mph. It took the tour bus 40 minutes to get to the airport. The Maglev took just 8 minutes and cost $6 per person. Pretty amazing. 

Chinese Trivia

  This huge photo of Mao faces Tianeman Square in Beijing. Our guide told us that due to fading from the sun, it has to be replaced once a year. Just a bit of trivia. 

Meditating Monk

This was taken at a 1,600 year old Buddhist Temple in Beijing called Lingyin. I couldn't go in the temple because of all the incense so I stayed outdoors and watched this monk for about 45 minutes. He was surrounded by crowds of people who had come to pray and offer incense to Buddha. In the background you can see the number for our bus, R-4, and our tour guide carrying it. No matter what happened this fellow did not move. Now that is the true definition of emptying ones mind. I have to try this again. It is wonderful when you truly remove yourself and just breathe.

Hotels In China

With the price of our China tour so reasonable, I was a bit worried about the hotels they would choose for us. I went on line and did some research before we left. The hotels all were rated four or five star. I wasn't sure what that meant for the Chinese. If it was on a scale of ten then we were screwed. I was wrong. They were wonderfully modern and clean. The picture here is the lobby of the Howard Johnson Hotel in Hangzhou. I haven't stayed in a HoJo for years and certainly none in the U.S. look like this. The bartender still struggled to make a gin and tonic.

All The Big Companies Are There

  This is a view of the Shanghai skyline at night from a boat on the river. As you can see, the city is thriving. All the big named companies are here. One more indication that we have to pay attention to China. By shear force of will, the country will dominate this century. For hundreds of years the country focused internally either trying to unite all the states or trying to stamp out the outside world. The leadership has finally realized that the only way to power is through a robust economy. That is their goal. Stand back. 

Inside Starbucks in Shanghai

  I felt like I'd never left home when we walked into this Starbucks right near the entrance to Chinatown in Shanghai. Everything is the same as it is here except the price is in Yuan (8 Yuan to $1) and the people are all Chinese. It had the same feel as Starbucks here. There are 57 of them in Shanghai. Kerry bought a Starbucks T-shirt that says "Starbucks Shanghai". I had a latte and he had the coffee of the day. 

Enuf With The Silk...On To The Doctor

  A trip to China would not be complete without a visit to a Traditional Chinese Medicine pharmacy. We visited the Tong Ren Tang, which is located on the edge of Tianeman Square and has been serving the Chinese since 1644 when it became the pharmacist to the Qing Dynasty. We had our three pulses taken by a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor. He then asked us, through an interpretor, a few questions and finally prescribed medicine for us. With me he was right on. He said I had stomach problems resulting in acid reflux. Bingo. He did the same thing with Kerry. He said he had energy and immune problems. We both came away with two bottles of pills each. Mine are shown in the photo. I take 30 pellets from each bottle twice a day after meals. Kerry is lucky enough to have one prescription that only requires two tablets but the other one is 30 little pellets. We have been taking them for two weeks and my acid reflux is gone. Plus I feel better. We won't know if Kerry's has had any affect until he has his next platelet blood test. 

Tales From The Cocoon

Another way to harvest the silk still starts with soaking the cocoons in hot water. Then the worker gently pulls each cocoon apart, removes the (dead) worms, and stretches the wet cocoon over an arch that looks to me like the rounded end of an ironing board. The worker keeps stretching more wet cocoons over the arch until there are many, many layers. The cocoons are then set aside to dry and the worker starts all over covering another arch with wet cocoons. Once the cocoons are dried they are removed from the arch and one side is cut so the pile of cocoons lays flat. These flat cocoons are then individually stretched until each is close to the size and shape of a rectangle to fill a quilt for various-sized beds. We watched four women doing this pulling. It looked easy but as it turned out the stuff is so strong that you really have to work to stretch it out. Even the guys in our group had trouble. Meanwhile these petite women just kept on pulling. Once they have a high enough pile of quilt filling they put it into a silk duvet cover. There are ties, rather than buttons, to keep the cover together. This is what went into our silk quilts and pillows.

Finding The First Silk Thread

  This is the silk thread production line. Not exactly Ford Motor production line but nonetheless a production line. The women drop 8 cocoons at a time into small pots of boiling water. Our guide claimed the worms inside were already dead when they hit the hot water, but she's also the one who said the air in Shanghai was clean. You decide for yourself whether they are killing the worms or merely loosening the first silk thread. Eight silk threads are then combined and spun into an 8-strand thread of silk. These women stand all day putting their hands in very hot water and using their eyes to detect a tiny silk thread. The lighting was not good, and I didn't see any signs of a place to sit while they worked or rested. This was one of those workplaces that made me squirm. But we bought four silk quilts and two silk pillows. This factory produces one-fifth of China's silk products. More to come on silk. 

Some Silkworm Facts

 These puffy white balls are silkworm cocoons. Inside are a male and female silkworm who have been spinning this cocoon for about 10 days. Now we come to the mind-boggling part. Each cocoon contains about 3,000 feet of silk thread. In the silk factory we visited in Suzhou (southern China) workers boil the cocoons to loosen a single thread. They gather together single threads from 8 cocoons and spin them together to make an 8-strand silk thread. You need 3,000 cocoons to make a pound of silk. Silkworms are considered domesticated because they can no longer fly. Only a few silkworms are allowed to grow to be moths so that reproduction can occur and the cycle can start all over again. More pictures to follow. 

Another Great Sign

 Not sure where we saw this, but I really liked it. 

Handicapped Accessibility Is Limited

  This might look funny to you but if you were handicapped and wanted to get to the top of Tiger Hill and see the Leaning Pagoda, this would have been your only way to do it. I don't know how much these gentlemen charged.

The only signs we saw for "handicapped people" were in the bathrooms, and they just denoted western toilets rather than the "squat" ones the Chinese use. But even then there were several steps and narrow doorways to get in and out of the bathroom. We did not see many people in wheelchairs. When we did, it was obvious that they could get out of the chair to get around something that was limiting access. 

The Ubiquitous Twig Broom

  I like this picture because of the contrast between the new and the old. Brand new car, new toll plaza and the centuries-old broom that is used all over China by government workers and private citizens alike. I guess when you find something that works you stick with it. 

Chinese Soldier in Tianeman Square

  We are still curious as to why he has two fire extinguishers next to the box he's standing on. He's on the edge of the square. 

Beijing Hosts 2008 Summer Olympics

 There are signs all over Beijing of the impending Olympics. This is the chance for the Chinese to show the world that they are right up there with the best of them. I've never seen so many construction cranes in one city. Our guide told us that the subway system would go from 35 miles of track to 200 miles. Traffic would come to a standstill if mass transit wasn't expanded. The antiquities are being refurbished including the Emperor's Palace (shown here) in the Forbidden City. It's surrounded by scaffolding and not open to tourists. There is a clock in Tianeman Square that counts down the days, hours and minutes until the Olympics begin in Beijing. All I can say is, I hope they learn how to make a decent Margarita and martini before the torch arrives. Right now their skills are lacking. And they could do with a few softer beds. I also hope the air conditioning works. Beijing is miserably hot and humid in the summer. 

Big Hunka Jade

  This jade carving is in the lobby of the jade factory we visited in Beijing. It's carved from one large piece of jade. For some reason, jade has never really interested me. I tried to buy something in the factory store but just never saw anything I liked. That was a rarity in China. 

Peking Ducks

 Those white feathery creatures in the middle of the picture will grow up to be Peking Duck. It's one of the few dishes I recognized in China from my Chinese eating experiences in the U.S. It was just as fatty in China as it is here in the U.S. The crispy skin, however, is delicious. 

Weddings

 We saw several couples having wedding pictures taken when we got off the boat after our tour of the Venice of the Orient in Suzhou. The brides rent their dresses plus several other costumes in which to have their pictures taken. This is all done in advance of the actual wedding. It was pretty cold that day. When they were moving from pose to pose, you could see that most of the brides wore long underwear and warm shoes. 

The Leaning Pagoda Of Suzhou

 Long before the Leaning Tower of Pisa even thought about leaning, this pagoda at Tiger Hill in Suzhou had been built and started to lean. Apparently it has stabilized so no engineering work needs to be done on it. Now the Chinese take great pride in their long history. That wasn't so during the Cultural Revolution. They are quick to point out the short length of U.S. and European history. Afterall, they built the leaning pagoda before Columbus even set sail for America. 

Excercise

The Tai Chi photo was taken in the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing. This was a common site in parks wherever we went. The Chinese take their exercise seriously. We saw elderly woman out walking who were also moving their arms to get their heart rates up. Playgrounds had equipment that you might find in a gym only it was built to last forever. We saw lots of adults using them. And then the dancing. Well, you just can't find better exercise. Again, the photo was taken in the Temple of Heaven park. The music sounded like a polka, but I don't think it was. Some of the dancers were quite good. With limited space in their homes, when you want to dance or exercise you go outdoors.

Random Thoughts On China

1. Air quality is terrible in most places. Our guide kept assuring us that it was just fog and haze. Meanwhile I had to put on my surgical mask that has a charcoal filter so I could breathe. My throat actually burned before I put on the mask. There are few if any air pollution laws. It's especially bad when you sit in traffic surrounded by diesel trucks. Smoke pouring from stacks was dark gray to black. Between the cigarette smoking and the air pollution they probably have a high incidence of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
2. Water quality is iffy. In Beijing we were told that by 2008 the water will be okay for Americans to drink. Right now it works for the Chinese whose bodies can handle (supposedly) whatever is in the water. We drank bottled water or beer to stay healthy.
3. The taller Chinese live in the south of China. That's where Yao Ming comes from. He's a hero to the Chinese people. His picture is everywhere on billboards. Speaking of billboards, they have some of the biggest I've ever seen. Some stretch for nearly a block.
4. Our guide in Beijing, Ann, said that the Cultural Revolution was a bad thing and that the government was wrong to do what it did in Tianeman Square. She was a teacher at the time. One of her students was shot while standing on the sidelines watching the slaughter. She was a government guide so what she told us must be the government line.
4. The Chinese apparently like very hard beds. The first hotel, which was very modern and nice, had beds that felt like plywood with a thin layer of cottom over them. Not very comfortable but we were so tired it really didn't matter.
5. Our Beijing hotel, King Wing, was listed on the internet as a five-star hotel, which it seemed to be with one exception. The bar was a disappointment. My friend Susan and I said we should set up a consulting business to teach the Chinese how to set up a bar so they will make more money during the Olympics. After a couple days of beer, I decided to order a real drink at the King Wing. The menu listed all the liquors and a bunch of mixes. I asked for Bacardi rum and diet coke with no ice. The young woman waiting on me said, "moment please" and disappeared. She came out of the back room with a young man. They looked at the menu, conferred for a minute and then both disappeared. About ten minutes later my drink arrived with ice and regular coke, but it did have rum. Another couple ordered margaritas, which were on the menu. They came in martini glasses. After that night we went back to beer. The bars were better in the hotels in Suzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai, but the slow service in all of them certainly cut into their revenue from alcohol.
6. Chinese wine and beer were the only alcohol served on the China Air flights we were on. The vineyard is Great Wall, and it's a consortium of a Chinese company and a French vintner. Let's hope it gets better over time. I could have removed nail polish with the stuff I tasted.
More musings later....

Chinatown in China

 Our last day in Shanghai was spent in and around the Chinatown area. Lots and lots of little shops selling just about everything both real and fake. Also, quite a few pickpockets. I wore my money, passport, ID and credit cards in a small pouch that hung around my neck under my clothes.

This tea shop was where we found a special clear plastic tea thermos for Kerry so he can take green tea to school with him. He fills it with leaves and hot water in the morning and then just keeps refilling with hot water. You can refill 3-4 times before you need to add more leaves. By that time he is home again. More about green tea later.