The Chinese cities

Hello again. This blog post will cover our experiences in – you wouldn't have guessed it – Chinese cities. Beijing & Hong Kong to be precise. We actually stayed in Beijing twice (before and after our trip to Mongolia) before flying to fabulous Hong Kong.

Beijing probably is the location where our first impression (bad) and our final opinion (very cool) of the city differed the most out of all the places we've seen. Here is why:

Having spent one month amongst extremely polite Japanese, arriving in Beijing at first came as a proper culture shock. The average Beijinger is a lot more “direct” than people in many other places. That, coming from a German, means a lot. For example, when queuing, people in Beijing literally get their elbows out and push their way forward. I prefer queuing in London. Moreover, foreigners are prone to fall victim to one of the many tourist scams. There's a popular list of 60 well-known tourist scams in Beijing alone. We managed to avoid 59 of them. The one we did have to deal with was the rickshaw-driver-overcharging-rich-foreigners-scam. We had to call the police before the bastard finally gave up. Another factor adding to our hesitant embrace of Beijing was that the effects of the public education programme leading up to the Olympics (among others telling locals not to spit on the streets) have worn off. Last but not least, pollution in Beijing is so strong that seeing the blue sky is as likely as Mario Gomez scoring a goal. So, considering the above, you might understand why we didn't exactly fall in love with Beijing right away.

After a while, however, we learned to deal with the initial deterrents. For example, it didn't take Judith and me long to sharpen our elbows while queuing and do as the Romans do. Payback time. The main reason while eventually we ended up very much liking Beijing is that we were able to stay with Leti (who had studied with me in my undergrad studies) & her boyfriend Jon. Leti is Spanish, but grew up, studied, and worked in many countries. With her love for Asia, she considers herself an “egg” - white on the outside, yellow on the inside. Jon first moved to Beijing some 15 years ago, and thus must be considered one of the grand seigneurs when it comes to foreigners in town. The two of them now live in a really cool traditional Chinese home with a nice courtyard (and an inflatable jacuzzi!!). 

Their house is in a Hutong – one of the old Beijing streets/ quarters constantly under threat of being bulldozed to make way for new property developments. Life in the Hutong is great in that you can experience the normal way of life outside the fancy new glass & steel structures, with regular Chinese sitting outside on small plastic chairs, playing cards, and sipping a beer.

Besides providing us with a lot of tips and background on Beijing, Leti & Jon turned out to be true experts when it comes to local night-life. Going out with them and their outgoing group of friends made us appreciate the diversity and liveliness of this 20+ million mega-city. We went for dinner virtually every night to sample one of the very delicious regional cuisines of China.... check out our upcoming “The Food – Part 3“ (I promise to post it soon, it's just that the beach here in Vietnam makes it so, so tough to sit down in front of our laptop). Besides eating and partying, we somehow managed to fit in some sightseeing, too. The world famous sights like the Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall are quite impressive, but be prepared to share your time there with tens of thousands of other tourists. 

Beijing, and with it of course much of China, has developed at an amazing speed over the last few years. Just look at the huge number of modern buildings everywhere (admittedly, many of which are empty as a result of the property bubble), and you see what I mean. From a Western perspective, many things might not seem right yet - economically, socially, environmentally, and politically - but keep in mind where China has come from. What the Chinese have achieved over the past 15 years took the Western world 150 years to do. If they continue to work as hard as they do right now, it's only fair that the Chinese get a bigger share of the global wealth and power pie, with the saturated West having to accept a smaller slice.

OK, enough, back to the light-hearted story-telling. We eventually left Leti, Jon, and Beijing after some ten days with a very positive image in mind, and, again, a hangover. We didn't even sleep before flying out to Hong Kong. Will we ever learn? Only time (and this blog) will tell... 

Few places in the world have impressed me as much as Hong Kong has. If you're looking for a proof that capitalism works, go to this allegedly economically most libertarian country/ city in the world. From being a mere fishing village a century ago, HK has benefited massively from its use of free capitalism, its geo-strategical location, opium-trade (OK, that was a while ago) and many (cheap but voluntary) immigrants from all over the world. Today, HK is a global commercial powerhouse, whose inhabitants on average (both mean and median) are a lot more wealthy than any of their counterparts in the neighbouring countries. 

HK in large parts consists of rather small, mountainous, tropical islands. If you want to fit 7 million people into a place like this, you can either dig massive subterranean lairs (rather unlikely) or build many skyscrapers. As a result, HK is the most “vertical” city Judith & I have ever visited, both regarding residential and commercial buildings. Nevertheless, the tropical vegetation is abundant in the mountains and parks and gives the city a pleasant, exotic feel. HK is so small that I ran into two people I know more or less by accident. One was a former client of mine, and the second one was Ayako, who had studied with me in my undergrad programme and who showed us a great dinner place.  

On Sundays, there are thousands of Philippine women, many of whom work as maids for the rich & powerful, occupying the central sites around the HSBC building. It's fun to watch them as they sit on their blankets, pick-nick, and chat away.

After only four pleasant days in HK, it was time for Judith & me to move on again. Some ten days ago, we flew to Ho Chi Minh City, this time without a hangover. Right now, we are in our little bungalow 5 meters away from the beach and enjoy the sun burning onto our bellies. I've certainly had worse. Our next post will cover food, followed by an update about 'Nam. Hasta luego.