Huray for Hutongs

Imagine living in Beijing, and the first thing that comes to mind is probably huge highrises with hundreds of families living in a single building. For 80% of the population, that image is quite accurate, but for the other 20% the hutong (胡同) is the setting for daily life.

A typical hutong.

If you've seen the new Karate Kid movie, you've seen a hutong. They're basically small narrow streets occupied by small shops and traditional residences. On our trip to Houhai (后海) we visited one such hutong and toured someone's house. Upon stepping through the wooden gate, we entered a small courtyard surrounded on four sides by separate rooms. Almost immediately, the temperature dropped ten degrees due to the plethora of plants and trees planted there. The owner of the house explained that they rarely needed to rely on appliances for heating or cooling because the way the buildings were built helps self-regulate temperature.

Home sweet home.

We continued our tour through the hutong, passing by more residences and shops selling snacks, traditional clothing, communist propaganda... After leaving the narrow streets behind, we took a short walk to the Bell Tower.

Ring it and Ho-oh might appear.

The legend behind the bell says that long ago the emperor commissioned an iron-smith to build a bell for him. But for some reason, even though he'd never failed before, the smith could not get the bell to mold well. Growing impatient, the emperor threatened to put the smith to death if he couldn't complete the bell. Upon hearing this, the smith's wife threw herself into the burning hot mold, and the bell miraculously completed itself. This is a true story, of course.

After leaving the Bell Tower, we spent the rest of the time on a “pleasure boat” ride on the waters of Houhai. Each group of seven got their own personal boat complete with musicians performing on traditional Chinese instruments, and snacks and drinks. A relaxing end to the day.

The sunniest Beijing has been thus far this summer.

The Life of a Government Official

About an hour's drive west of Shanghai is the city of Suzhou, capital of the Jiangsu province. Suzhou is best known for its beautiful scenery, both natural and not. On our day-trip there, we visited the “Humble Administrator's Garden” (拙政園), often considered the “finest garden in southern China.”

As we walked up to the entrance of the garden, we were quickly accosted by tour guides offering their services for a fee. It is by no means necessary to accept, but we found our guide very knowledgeable, and I recommend hiring one out for maximum fulfillment.

The garden consists of over fifty thousand square meters of rocks, trees, buildings, and artificial lakes. It seemed rather unimpressive when we first walked in, but as our guide told us, it was common practice to arrange the features of a garden such that the bigger attractions are deeper in. That way visitors would be encouraged to explore further.

In the central area of the garden, there was a square-shaped structure jutting out into the lake. They call it the four seasons room unofficially because when you sit inside the room, the view seen from each of the four circular doors represents one of the four seasons. Back in the day, it was an excellent place to spend a lazy afternoon, drinking tea and enjoying the scenery.

Spring freshness and summer sunshine.

As we continued walking along the stone path, our guide explained that there were two hallways built for each of the major paths. The plainer looking hallway was for the servants to use, whereas the better one was for the master of the house, his family members, and honored guests. In the better hallway, the ground was paved with stone shaped to look like “人” (person). The characters were stacked on top of each other to symbolize the person whose status is above all other people.

Soon we reached a side branch of the garden, where there were countless bonzai trees. Some of the bigger ones were estimated to be hundreds of years old.

You wont find this at the local nursery.

We finished the last part of the tour by walking through a few of the buildings, which were slightly less interesting than the garden itself. There was a guest reception room, an entertainment room, a tea drinking room, all of which would have been indistinguishable without our guide. All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend a day, walking through an incredibly rich person's big backyard.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

Almost everyone has heard of the Olympics – a lot less people know of the World Expo, an event of Olympic-like scale taking place once every five years at various venues. Its purpose is to promote creativity and appreciation of diversity through displays, performances, exhibitions, etc. The Space Needle in Seattle was one such exhibition, built during the World Expo in 1962 and representing the latest ideas of the time with its elevated rotating floor.

“Better City, Better Life” (城市，讓生活更美好) was the theme of this year's Expo in Shanghai, fitting considering the location. As such the Theme Pavilion housed huge exhibits of the many aspects of city life, from transportation to everyday life to infrastructure.

A snapshot of city life.

Though looking at the displays, I thought the theme could have been going green. The Theme Pavilion had an entire branch devoted to the environmental consequences of industrialization and eco-friendly tips for city dwellers. Most of the city and country pavilions had some sort of displays showcasing their going green efforts as well. It was almost amusing to see each country attempting to one-up the next.

Madrid is green, just like everyone else.

Besides that, the order of the day was surround-image movies, with every other pavilion featuring one or two 3-D or dome films. The images were projected onto screens that were placed in a circular shape, making viewers feel as though they are in the actual movie. A few of the pavilions chose to show movies differently, using projectors covered by four semi-transparent screens to create a 3-D image that can be seen from all four directions.

Hologram technology in the Taipei Pavilion.

Of course the most obvious attractions of the Expo are the buildings themselves. Drive by on the highway and you'll see dozens of huge, colorful structures. The first one to catch my eye was the China Pavilion, mainly because of its sheer size. All the other pavilions are large buildings, at least three or four stories high, but China towers over them, symbolic of the massive Chinese population.

*looooom*

A few hundred meters over, there was France with its aesthetically pleasing glass building surrounded by trees, Britain with its spiky porcupine-like pavilion supposedly symbolizing a seed sprouting, and others. Across the Huangpu River are the city pavilions – London, Ningbo, Osaka, etc. - all also artistically designed to represent the city in question. It's almost worth the price of a ticket just to see the interesting structures. Just remember to bring plenty of food if you don't want to be paying close to 100 RMB for a meal. And for your legs' sake, buy a small stool to sit on while in line.

Outside the Osaka Exhibit.

Touch the Sky

As the engine hummed to life, some were already asleep, resting for the long journey ahead. Others glanced around nervously, hoping it would be yet another uneventful ride. Somewhere in the back, a baby cried.

Outside, the propellers began to spin, and the great metal bird hurtled down the runway, gathering speed like an eagle zoning in on its prey. For a few nerve-wrecking moments, the vibrations continued as the wheels ground into asphalt. And then suddenly all was still as the vibrations gave way to a feeling of weightlessness.

Higher and higher the bird rose, until the houses below were nothing but faint specks, until the tumultuous ocean seemed a calm blue sheet.

High enough to see clouds spreading out below.

High enough to reach out and touch the sky.