Summer Olympics News

The United States State Department released an Olympic “fact sheet” that discussed some of the dangers of the Beijing Olympics. One of the most interesting warnings was about Chinese government surveillance. The department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said:

“All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times.. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant’s consent or knowledge.”

You can read more about the warning here.

I guess Big Brother is even more prevalent in China than in the US, or is it?

If you’re planning to attend the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, you might want to bring some peanut butter and jelly. China has vowed to crack down on food safety, but a recent report showed a street vendor selling buns stuffed with shredded pork mixed with cardboard. Hopefully, this problem will be resolved over the next year.

I have to hand it to the Chinese, the buildings being constructed for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are just phenomenal. From the Bird’s Nest to the Water Cube, they are really unique. The following video focuses on four of the new buildings and some of the controversy surrounding them.

The “Golden Tripod Attic” (Jin Ding Xuan) is near the Lama Temple, and it‘s perfect if you‘re looking for a place to have dinner either with a couple of friends or a large group of people. You can get there by taking the subway to Lama Temple station (Yong He Gong) and then take the exit that leads to the Temple of Earth (Di Tan).

This bustling several-storey-restaurant is really atmospheric, each floor with different seating arrangements. The Golden Tripod is famous for its Cantonese cuisine, but also offers Shandong, Sichuan, and Huaiyang dishes. The menu is available in English, although the translations are sometimes perhaps a bit too unspecific. I ordered “Sautéed vegetables with cashews”. “It’s sweet,” the waiter warned me. I got crisp seaweed and cashews with sugar.

It tasted really good, just not what I had expected. There’s a menu with “dim sum” – the famous Cantonese snacks. It’s not translated into English, but it’s got pictures, so you can see what you order. If you’re having seafood, you can also avoid surprises by picking your food right from the aquarium. In any case, the Golden Tripod Attic is a great place for trying new dishes and experiencing the Cantonese cuisine in Beijing. I can really recommend it.

Steamed buns filled with vanilla custard

Sports Illustrated ran a recent story about a test run for clearing Beijing traffic for the 2008 Summer Olympics. I don’t think that most of us truly appreciate the traffic problem in Beijing. It’s not simply a matter of too many drivers on the road (think New York City). It’s also the lack of adherence to basic road rules. Overall, visitors to the Beijing Summer Olympics should probably plan to use public transportation.

China used to have a two-price-system, one set of prices for Chinese and one set of prices for foreigners. While that was abolished a while ago, it still sticks in the heads of some people. Vendors think that all foreigners have an incredible amount of money to spend and will often charge you three times the price they would ask from a Chinese person – or more. While you will have to resign yourself to the fate that you will always be charged more than the Chinese, you can try to keep the price difference at a minimum.

I’ve seen foreigners adopt a variety of strategies in order to avoid being ripped off. Some tourists just walk away when the first price they are told is not the one they are willing to pay. This might actually be very effective in the long run if more people started doing the same thing, but for now, you are more likely to leave empty-handed and disappointed.

Especially at places like the Silk Market, Hongqiao Pearl Market or Xidan – basically any place where there are lots of Western tourists – bargaining can be tough. There are a few markets in Beijing were vendors will start out at a price that is very close to what they are willing to sell for. You will eventually get some idea of how much money things are worth. The more you bargain, the better you will get at it.

Since I have found no satisfactory guide to bargaining in China in any of the travel guides I have consulted, I’ve put together a little “tutorial” myself. I have found this strategy to be very effective, although a little time consuming at times. There’s absolutely no need to feel bad. No vendor will sell to you if he doesn’t think he’s getting a fair price. Just be polite. Having a Chinese friend with you will save you a lot of time and money. But beware of having your tourist guide do the bargaining for you.

Step 1: Ask for the price.

Step 2: Tell the vendor it’s too much. If you have no idea of what you want to buy is worth, divide the price you were told by five(or so) in your head, and you will probably have a fairly realistic estimation of what it is worth.

Step 3: You will be asked how much you are willing to pay. Ignore that question (very important!) and ask the vendor to go down with the price some more.

Step 4: Walk away when the “negotiations” begin to stagnate. This will bring you much closer to the actual price.

Step 5: Once the price sounds fairly reasonable, you can tell the vendor what you are willing to pay. Always start out a bit lower than what you‘re planning to spend.

Step 7: If necessary, walk away again. If nobody shouts after you to come back, you know that your price was too low, and you will have to start over again at the next booth.

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Step X: Once you got what you wanted, feel smug and, most importantly, never ever ask a Chinese how much the stuff you just bought is really worth.

I booked a room through www.ctrip.com at the Beijing Nikko New Century Hotel, a five star hotel run by Japan Airlines, The hotel is located in the western part of the city between the third and the second ring road. Booking through ctrip, the hotel was only 788 Yuan ($100) per night.

As I got there on foot, finding the entrance was the first challenge. I walked around the whole hotel past construction workers who all stared at me wondering what the strange “laowai” (foreigner) with the bag in her hand was doing wandering all the way around the hotel. Once I got to the entrance, I found out that I could have gotten there so much easier had I taken the entrance from Xizhimen Road. In any case, this is something that won’t happen to you if you take a taxi.

The hotel looked okay from the outside, though of course not as nice as on the pictures I’d seen. The lobby was really plush, although it was almost a bit too much with all the gold ornaments, little lights on the ceiling, and the palm trees next to the counter selling mooncakes for the mid-autumn festival, which was two days ago.

Checking in in English was no problem. The fuwuyuan (universal term in the north of China referring to all service staff whether in a hotel, a restaurant, a shop or anywhere else) spoke English well enough to explain everything that was necessary and answer my questions. I had to carry my luggage upstairs myself, but I only had one bag, so I don’t know whether it would have been any different had I had more luggage.
As the elevator sped up to the 18th floor where my room was, I was getting more excited.

The more disappointed I was when I got to the room. Officially I had booked a deluxe room. I don’t know what exactly I had expected, but it had definitely been something else different from the smallish room with the gray carpet I was standing in. For a moment, I was thinking about setting up a tent and sleeping in the lobby. That is not to say that the room was horrible. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. There was just nothing special about it, either. Later, I found out that Deluxe room was just a nicer name for standard room, i.e. all rooms that were not business rooms or executive suites were simply called “deluxe”. The room was very similar to other standard rooms I had stayed in and paid considerably less money for, that is except for the mini bar and the chocolate bar on my pillow. Not to forget the comb in the bathroom that was made out of real wood… Anyway, I was disappointed.

The service was not overwhelming, either. Again, there was nothing wrong with it, nobody was unfriendly to me, and the staff was able to help me when I had questions about where this and that restaurant was or on how to check out later, but nobody was overly enthusiastic, either.
There are a couple of things to say in favour of the hotel: There’s a Carrefour right across the street, which is very convenient if you need or want to do some grocery shopping or need anything else. The selection of restaurants nearby, on the other hand, is less impressive, but there is a variety of restaurants, cafes and bars in the hotel.
The hotel is located fairly close to Xizhimen subway station. You can take a taxi there or take a bus from Baishiqiao bus stop very close to the hotel. Xizhimen is two stops away. If you don’t cross the road, this is one of the very few places were you’ve got an extremely high chance that you’ll get on the right bus.
The view on Xizhimen Avenue at night was nice, too. But it didn’t make up for the small size of my room.

If I could do my own hotel rating, I would say that I stayed in a three star room in a four to five star hotel. You can tell it’s not the newest hotel, either. The room was only $100, and I know that there are more “discount five star hotels” like this in Beijing that are okay, but not what you would expect from an upper range hotel. Unless you want the services offered by a five star hotel, there’s no need to stay there. You can get similar or better rooms in cheaper hotels. It’s probably better either to spend the $200 or $300 and stay in a hotel like the St. Regis and get a real five star hotel (of which there are quite a few in Beijing, too) or to save the money and stay at a place that might have a less fancy lobby, but equally good rooms.

It’s always considerably cheaper to reserve a room online than to book at the hotel directly, so here are some websites that have got good offers.
http://english.ctrip.com : the Chinese classic in English; you can reserve all types of hotels except real budget places and dorm beds. You can also book discount flights here if you have to travel within China.
http://www.sinohotel.com : everything from no stars to five stars; you can also book dorm beds here
http://hotelguidechina.com : 3-5 star hotels, you can search hotels by area.

During my one-year stay in China as an exchange student, I was very careful not to have to go to the hospital, and, in fact, the only time I ever had to was when I accompanied someone else. Apart from that one time, I managed to stay away from hospitals and was very grateful for that. The horror stories circulating among students about Chinese hospitals certainly contributed to that. Even when I got a 104 degree fever in a malaria area over night, I preferred just taking the malaria medicine I’d brought along over going to the hospital – and I still think that was a good choice (I would have gone to the hospital had I been in Beijing though).

This time, things went differently. I had dinner at a fast food place near Beijing railway station. I’d been looking for a different place to go to, but there were not a lot of other restaurants around. I had no one to have dinner with that night and just wanted to grab a bite. It was a very typical fast food place with cafeteria tables and plastic bowls. A look into the menu told me it was pretty expensive, too. My experience in China so far has been that if an ordinary small restaurant has nothing special to offer and charges more than other places, the food is usually not very good, so I briefly though about getting up and leaving. But I didn’t feel like having to look for another place, so I stayed. I got Zha Jiang Mian, a famous Beijing dish which is usually very good and had always come as a vegetarian dish when I had ordered it so far. Apparently, it also exists with meat, and that was what I got: a pot of noodles with lots of ground meat on top. I ate them up quickly and left.

In the subway station, my stomach was beginning to feel funny. I ignored it. “You’ll be fine.” I told myself. Nothing serious had ever happened to me because of eating Chinese food – and I’d eaten lots of things I would never put into my mouth in Germany. If anything, I thought, this is la duzi – diarrhea. La duzi is something you will probably get sooner or later if you are in China. It usually goes away after a day or two; it’s annoying, but nothing to worry about. On the bus, which was cramming full as usual, it finally began to dawn on me that this time I would not be fine. I got off two stations early, just about in time before my stomach decided to revolt. I rushed into the nearest restaurant and right into the gents’ room, as the ladies’ room was occupied. There’s something comical about squatting in the less than hygienic restroom of a really plush restaurant, having stomach problems and la duzi at the same time while crowds of angry men are banging on the door demanding to be let in.

I did feel a bit better afterwards and took a taxi home. “You’ll be fine.” I told myself. I was wrong again. I spent the next four hours at home in the bathroom. When my roommate got back very late at night, I told her what had happened. “Off to the hospital,” she said. I was not happy about going, but by that time, I was feeling so miserable that I didn’t really care any longer. Plus I was beginning to be really dehydrated as my stomach refused to take anything in, and I didn‘t know for how much longer this would continue. Unfortunately for me, the taxi driver who took us knew a lot about meat poisoning and how very dangerous it was, and was more than willing to share that information. I just remember hunching over my plastic bag in the back of the car and saying “Let’s talk about something else now, shall we,” every once in a while, but he just ignored me.

The hospital we went to was crowded and not the cleanest place I’d ever been to, but after all the horror stories I’d heard about Chinese hospitals, I had expected something worse. The syringes were new, although the nurse doing the blood test was very reluctant to tell me at first. “Does it make a difference?” She just snapped. I decided there was no point in telling her that yes, it made a big difference. The other people at the hospital were nicer, though not much more specific. “You’ve got bacteria in your blood,” I was told once the results came back. “We need to take one more blood sample amd do more testing now, and you’ll get an infusion in the meantime.” I tried to extract some more concrete information from them, but they just told me I‘d probably have to be re-examined again in a couple of days. I can’t say I cared much at that point in time.

After they took my blood sample, I spent the next three hours getting my infusion lying on a bed designed for patients having their ECG done. It was the only bed not occupied, and I did feel bad since there were quite a few patients much sicker than I was who did not have a bed. Every now and then I had to get up to make room for people who got their ECG done. Finally, at four o’clock in the morning, I got the results of my blood test: the form of meat poisoning I had was harmless, and I would be okay soon. Still not very specific, but much better news than what I’d been told before. I had to go back to the hospital for the next three days to get more medicine, which I did at a smaller and much nicer hospital closer to my home. I am still eating meat, but I’ve been more careful and have been staying away from ground meat altogether, as spoilt ground meat apparently is one of the major sources of food poisoning.

There is still a very high chance that the worst problem you will ever encounter in China is diarrhea. You should be sure to bring some medicine for that. In case you do have to go to the hospital while in Beijing, you have several options. You can either go to one of the regular Chinese hospital, which vary in quality of their service, or to one of the hospitals for foreigners, which are less crowded, cleaner, (and considerably more expensive), but might take you a lot longer to get there. I remember having to ride in the ambulance for 45 minutes when I accompanied a friend to one of those places. Make sure to have enough cash on you or to bring someone who can pay, as otherwise you will probably not be treated.

I also found the section on medical information of the website of the US embassy quite useful. You can get the names and addresses of a couple of major hospitals in Beijing here, as well as the number of an emergency

I went to Tian’anmen Square one last time before leaving China. I’d read about the decorations for National Day on October 1 in the newspaper and seen the first preparations myself. National Day celebrates the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949 and is accompanied by a week of vacation, during which the entire population of China goes travelling, or so it seems. Students go home for the holidays while Beijing fills up with tourists from all over the country. It is a time notorious for the impossibility to get train tickets anywhere. The only option for those who do not wish to spend hours or days in a queue and then fight over the last few tickets, or for those who despite all efforts leave empty-handed, is taking a plane.

On my last day in Beijing, National Day was noticeably drawing closer. I had trouble getting into the cram-full subway train, and only managed to squeeze myself inside thanks to the crowds of people behind me who kept pushing.

The decorations on the square had been finished the day before. On one side of the square was a miniature Potala Palace, a miniature Three Gorges Damn, and a train representing the railway from Qinghai to Tibet, which has just been newly opened on July 1 this year.

Right in front of the Monument to the People’s Heroes hung the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, inofficial father of the nation and first president of the Republic of China, established in 1912 and not to be confused with the People’s Republic whose anniversary is celebrated… Nonetheless, Sun Yat-sen’s gets his place on Tiananmen Square every year.

On the other side were the Olympics mascots sitting in the middle of the flower arrangements – probably the biggest attraction judging by the number of people taking photos – as well as a rather smallish and much less impressive replica of the “Bird’s Nest”, one of the major Olympic venues. Since last year nobody knew yet what the Olympics mascots would look like, this the first year they were displayed for National Day.

Tian’anmen Square was filled with people, mostly from the countryside, taking pictures in front of the giant Olympic mascots and the other decorations. For most people coming to Beiing is something that they don’t do every year. It might even be a once in a lifetime experience for some, so everyone is really excited.

I was in for another photo session. There were only a few foreigners around that day, and as soon as people noticed I was willing to have my picture taken, more and more came up to ask. I’ve gotten into the habit of asking everyone who wants to take a picture with me whether I could also have a picture taken with them with my camera in return. Most people are very surprised that a foreigner wants to take their picture, but nobody minds, so by the end of the day, I had a nice photo collection on my camera as well as lots of new cell phone numbers, i.e. lots of new friends. I’m still in touch with some of them.

I had to go back to the place where I stayed fairly early though, since my flight was going that night. So I got back onto the subway, which was slightly less crowded by then, and went home to get ready to pack.

My agenda for today sounded quite simple: take a tour to the Great Wall at Badaling. Badaling is the section of the Great Wall closest to Beijing and most overrun by tourists. I had only been to other sections of the Great Wall so far, but never to Badaling. I had, however, taken various tours before in China, so basically I knew what I was getting into. Taking a tour in China is a well-balanced mixture of having to wait for hours, then being rushed through a couple of sights, taken to some tourist shops, and paying twice the price originally agreed on. If you’re lucky, you’ll even get to wear a hat. This was pretty much what I expected from what I knew from previous tours – and I was not disappointed, although I never got around to taking the tour.

I meant to take The Tour Bus No. 1 from Qianmen bus station and reserved tickets the night before. We agreed on 70 Yuan for the bus and the entrance tickets, which was a bit less than I had expected. “No hidden fees?” I asked. “No hidden fees,” the guy reassured me, “everything’s included.” “Are you sure?” I asked and almost felt guilty for being so persistent. Yes, he was absolutely sure.

Buses leave between 6 and 10 a.m. Since I live quite a way from Qianmen, I got up at 5:30. Once I got to Qianmen, the first thing I learned was that I would have to pay 100 Yuan. “We don’t take anyone for 70 Yuan,” the colleague of the person I had talked to the night before informed me. I called the guy again. “No problem, 70 Yuan, that’s what we agreed on.”
“No extra fees?” I asked again.
“Absolutely everything included,” was the answer, “hurry up and get in the car!” He took me to the tour bus, about half a mile away.
Once I got there, I was asked to pay. “That’s 70 Yuan for the tour,” the lady said, “plus 80 Yuan for Old Beijing.” (I.e. Hutongs and neighborhoods with traditional courtyard houses.)
“I didn’t book a tour to Old Beijing,” I said.
“Either you pay for it or you’re not going.” The lady said, and the guy I had talked to and who had assured me about ten times that 70 Yuan was all I would be paying just shrugged. “Up to you.”
I decided that I was not going, at least not with them. The guy drove back to Qianmen, but of course refused to take me, so I had to walk back. I was beginning to be annoyed, but since being annoyed is what taking a tour in China is all about, I wasn’t too worried, yet.

There are plenty of other tour buses leaving from Qianmen. Basically if you go there before 10 o’clock on any day, people will shout “Badaling! Great Wall!” at you from all directions. I asked one of the ladies how much her tour was. She showed me a card with all the prices listed. 150 Yuan alltogether. “Any other fees?” I asked. “No.” She said. “Everything included.” I asked her whether I had to go to Old Beijing if I took her tour and whether that would cost me any extra money. After a short pause, she nodded. I left.

On my way back, I passed the guys from Tour Bus No. 1. The guy who had refused to take me back was already sitting there in his car eying me suspiciously. His colleagues all thought the whole situation was very funny. I asked them whether I could just go and see the Great Wall for 100 Yuan, the price they had originally told me. They said I had to go to Old Beijing and pay for it, otherwise I could not take their tour, but they would still take me for 180 Yuan. It was then that I decided I would not be taking a tour.

I do not think that 180 Yuan is an awful lot of money. Nor do I mind seeing old courtyard houses; on the contrary, I like old Beijing, although 80 Yuan is really too much for that. The problem here is one that you will most likely also encounter when taking a tour. People will talk you into coming with them offering you a really low price and then charge you much more in the end. If you’re lucky, you find out before you get in the car. Usually, they won’t tell you about the extra fees before you actually get to the place. Sometimes, you don’t have much of a choice, but have to take a tpur because there is no other way to get to a place . I probably would have still gone with them had they been friendlier, despite the fact that they had tried to trick me. But I just couldn’t get myself to get back in the car with the guy who had lied to me and refused to take me back to Qianmen.

I did get to the Great Wall though, and I will write more about Badaling and how I got there in my next post.

After reading in the newspaper that this year’s tea had just newly arrived in the stores, I definitely had to go to Maliandao to buy some. Maliandao is in the southwest of Beijing, just south of Beijing West Railway Station. It’s basically a whole street just lined with tea stores, some bigger ones, but mostly little family-run businesses. Some are right on the streets, others are hidden in little alleys. It’s easiest to go there by taxi. I fyou do decide to take a bus (e.g. bus no. 609 from Beijing West Railway Station) get off at Maliandao Nankou.

When I first got there, I was shocked. I had not come in a while, and all I saw was t0rn down buildings where I thought the little alleyway I used to go to had been. I finally decided to walk into one of the big buildings with countless little tea shops inside. There I was told that quite a bunch of the little tea shops had been torn down in October the year before and moved into the bigger building.

I was still disappointed, but decided I could also buy my tea there. You are always invited to sit down and have a little tea ceremony before you buy in order to try all different types of tea. Nobody rushes you or tries to talk you into buying something. I usually stay for a few hours.

So yesterday, I just sat there, had lots and lots of tea and made friends with the tea sellers, two nice young people. There were other customers who came and went; sometimes there were four or five of us sitting at the little table, sometimes it was just me.

I asked the tea sellers whether they often had customers who did not speak Chinese. They said quite a few. Sometimes they would bring someone who spoke Chinese, other times they would come by themselves, but they usually managed to buy tea somehow. In any case you get to try the tea and can then pick what you liked best. There are other places in Beijing where you can also have a tea ceremony and where people do speak English, like Tenfu Tea Store, but Maliandao is definitely the much more authentic experience.

After about four hours, I decided it was time to leave. I bought some tea cups, two different types of tea and got some more as a gift. Finally, we took some pictures and exchanged cell phone numbers.

As I walked back to the bus, I discovered that only very few places had been torn down, and that the alley I had gone to before with all its little tea shops was still there. I had only walked into the wrong direction first. With Beijing changing so fast these days, I was really relieved to find that Maliandao is one of the few places hardly affected by those changes so far.

The Summer Palace is a huge park area in the Northwest of Beijng, three quarters of which are covered by Kunming Lake. It was build in 1750 and destroyed during the second Opium War. After it was rebuilt in 1886, it served as Empress Dowager Cixis Summer Getaway. The Summer Palace also had one of Beijing’s earliest telephone lines so Cixi could talk to her nephew and adopted son, Emperor Guangxu. There’s an exhibition about those early phone lines in Shuimuziqin Hall.

Admittance to the Summer Palace is 30 Yuan ($3.8). You can also buy a ticket for 50 Yuan ($6.3), which already includes some of the attractions inside the palace that you need to pay extra money for. As the Summer Palace is really huge, unless you want to rush from sight to sight, buying just the entrance ticket and then see what you want to do inside is good enough.

At the entrance, there’s not only a weather forecast, but also a “tourist volume forecast”, which I thought was pretty funny. But at least I learned that I was one of 15200 expected visitors that day. I had no idea so many people came everyday.

I first walked around the lake and down the Long Corridor, a wooden corridor decorated and painted with colorful patterns and landscape scenes, and then went up the many stairs to “Cloud Dispensing Hall” (admission 10 Yuan, a bit more than $1). This Hall and the surrounding buildings were just renovated in 2005 and are shining in bright new colors. Unfortunately, the “Tower of Buddha Incense” was still closed when I was there because of construction, but it will be reopened for visitors on October 1, the National Day in China. Unless you are afraid of heights, Cloud Dispensing Hall is worth spending the extra buck. I can imagine that the view from the Tower of Buddha Incense must be even better.

The Tower of Buddha Incense

After I had gotten back down, I walked around the lake, eating some green bean ice cream and took a look at the big tacky marble boat sitting at the side of the lake. The Lonely Planet speculates Cixi had it put there because the Summer Palace was rebuilt using money from a navy fund… Whether this is true or not, the boat is really just, well, big and tacky, but nonetheless a very popular photo object.

Of course, the obligatory Olympics merchandize stores and ads for the Olympics, which can be found at all major tourist sites, weren’t missing. They blend in perfectly with the architecture of the summer palace…

You can rent pedal boats at the lake for 30 Yuan (a bit less than $4) for 4 people or 60 Yuan ($7.5) for 6 people, plus a deposit. Since I was by myself this time, it was not worth renting one, so I decided to cross the lake on of the many “Pleasure Boats” instead (rides 8 Yuan, $1). There’s nothing all too spectacular about the boat ride except being taken from one side of the lake to the other, but it’s a good shortcut in case you are tired of walking, plus it gives you a good opportunity to take a picture of the impressive Tower of Buddha Incense.

The boat ride took me to South Lake Island, a small island connected to the lake shore by a bridge. I checked out the photo exhibition there about Puyi, the last emperor, and Empress Dowager Cixi. Except for the introductory note and a Mao quote about Puyi and why the Party did not kill him, not many other inscriptions were in English though. Neither was the “Taking photos strictly prohibited” sign, so you can pretend you didn’t know.

Finally, I fought my way through hords of tourist groups all wearing bright orange hats and had a quick glance at the “Hall of Benevolence and Longevity” right next to the entrance/exit, where court affairs were handled under Cixi and Guangxu.

There are various other exhibitions and attractions at the Summer Palace, so you can easily spend the whole day there and just walk around und pick what you want to see or relax at the lake. Or you can try and walk all around the lake and let me know if that’s possible. I’ve been meaning to do that, but have always given up somewhere on the way so far.