Beijing Trip

I made a trip to Beijing recently for business.

Flight to Beijing
I flew from the Guangzhou airport to Beijing. For travels within China, the Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou is a better choice from Zhongshan to avoid all the Immigration paperwork etc. I took an airport bus that was not too far from where I lived for ￥75 (~$12) one-way and it took a little less than 2 hours to get to the airport. Not too bad. For international flights, I still prefer Hong Kong. It’s much easier to go to the port and then just take the ferry directly to the Hong Kong airport.

Beijing Impressions
This was the third time I was in Beijing and I got to see a little more of this city, thanks to my cousin. I had never met my cousin before (actually, according to Chinese hierarchy, I am actually her “aunt” as her mom is my cousin, and she’s quite a few years older than me – way too complicated), but I knew of her. Anyway, she was very nice, booked my hotel, picked me up from the airport, took me to restaurants for the two nights I was there. We chatted quite a bit like we knew each other all these years. Gary thinks maybe that kind of relationships would only happen in China, where the family is such a strong bond.

Soho Area in Beijing

I was really lucky with the weather. Beijing was hot and sunny, and with very little pollution. I could actually see the blue sky, the white clouds, and the sun! Beijing in this weather was quite charming, some old buildings mixed with a lot more of the new skyscrapers. There were cars and people everywhere.  At night time, the whole city was alive with people taking strolls, hanging out in the various parks and plazas.

Bar Street
My cousin took me to the famous “Bar Street” in Beijing. It’s an area where a lot of the older building have been converted to bars, restaurants and boutique stores, all situated around a lake. There are also many vendors selling Beijing traditional snacks and arts and crafts. When I was there, there were many people walking about, flying kites, and singing karaokes. It was rather amusing to see these people singing on the street, forcing other people to listen to their songs. The whole area was very much alive!

Beijing Transportation
I was not planning to be adventurous and was just going to take the taxi everywhere. Indeed, I did take the taxi a few times and the prices were quite reasonable. For a 20-minute ride, it would cost about ￥30 (~$5) or so, not bad. I was also entertained by this ad when I was taking one of the taxis.

 

However, at one time, it was really difficult to get a taxi. I tried to flag down a taxi on a busy street and I must have tried that for 20 minutes and still no luck. Since I was right next to a metro station, I decided to give the subway a try. My time spent in Paris riding the subway has prepared me well for the Beijing subway system! For ￥2 (~$0.30), you can get from point A to point B anywhere within Beijing! I was told that the transportation was subsidized by the government and hence, the low prices.The subway system is quite similar to that of Paris. It is efficient and clean, with a lot of people! If you don’t like to be crowded, then avoid the subway.

Once I got out of the subway station, I was having some trouble finding my final destination and it seemed rather a long walk. Since I saw these lining the street, I hopped into one of these.

My destination was only about 1km away, but the lady charged me ￥10 ($1.60) for the short trip. This was probably the most expensive in terms of value, but at this point, I did not care and it was a neat experience. These little things just zipped around the streets, taking the sidewalks etc. and avoided a lot of the traffic.

Beijing Restaurants

Of course, no visit to Beijing could be complete without food, and without tasting the famous Beijing (Peking) Duck! The first night I was there, my cousin took me to Da Dong Restaurant for their Peking Duck. She told me that the quality of the traditional (most famous) Quanjude Restaurant has gone downhill over the years and now only tourist groups go there. Last time I was in Beijing, we went to Quanjude and my recollection was that the food was okay, not great. My cousin ordered a bunch dishes for me to try. They were all very yummy. Besides the duck, some of the little cakes were my favorites.

Ducks Roasting in Da Dong Ovens

Various Little Cakes Made with Different Bean Pastes and Sweet Rice

Sweet and Sour Paste Made with White and Purple Yams

Pickled Radish

Fried Parsnip

Fresh Lychees in Season

Chilled Persimmon Puree with Ginger Sugar

The second night, my cousin took me a family style dumpling restaurant. It was not exactly  Beijing style, but rather Northern style (Shandong). We had some dumplings, steam and pan friend, as well as some cold dishes and some pork, all very yummy.

My cousin told me that May and June were one of the best times to visit Beijing, and the other good month was October. I considered myself lucky to be in Beijing this time and not running into the air pollution like I did in Shanghai. I can see the charms of big cities like Beijing, especially on a good day with nice weather and no pollution. However, I think I still prefer the small-city feel of Zhongshan, with its slower pace of life. Sadly, skyscrapers are springing up everywhere in this little city, just like anywhere else in China. These concrete jungles make one city look like another, and places everywhere are losing their unique charms. I hope there is still some left for my hometown.

New Korean BBQ Restaurant

This new Korean restaurant just opened a few days ago and I had wanted to try it. Gary was very accommodating and went there with us tonight even though he had nothing to eat there.

The restaurant is quite small, only 3 tables on the first floor, and looks like 3-4 tables upstairs. When we got there, there wasn’t a customer yet, but soon after we came, people started pouring in. We always seem to have that kind of effect on restaurants! Maybe we should be paid for that.

Anyway, this is a quiet street and I am glad that the new business is doing well. It always makes me sad when businesses not doing well, especially small businesses where families pour their resources into it.

The people in the restaurant are very friendly. They are not Koreans, but belong to the Chosen minority group (same ethnic group as the Koreans) living in China.

Gary was drinking beer and diligently cooking our meat and vegetables for us. Samantha and I just enjoyed eating!

The Price of Driving in China

We thought buying a car in China was difficult, with all the paperwork requirements etc., but driving a car in China has been much more challenging instead.

Up Close & Personal

We thought driving in Thailand was stressful, with all the mopeds around us. When we first moved to China, the roads seemed bigger, so we thought that it would be better here. I was even thinking that with some practice, even I could get used to driving in China. How wrong was I!

There are not as many mopeds on the highway, but there are still many electric bikes. Worst of all, it is the attitude towards traffic safety. A lot of people just don’t seem to pay any attention to what they do. Cars will drift into your lane, without signaling and without looking. Cars will make turns without looking. Cars, bikes, people from the opposite direction will get into your lane for no apparent reason. Cars will stop in the middle of the street, to drop people off, to chat on the phone or to a passer-by, or just because they want to. People driving cars here don’t seem to pay much attention to what’s around them, or to pedestrians.

So is it better to be pedestrians? When I walk, it seems that the cars never pay attention to me and I will need to pay attention so that I don’t get injured (or killed). However, when we drive, it seems that the pedestrians don’t seem to pay any attention to the traffic. We see people walking at night crossing streets without looking and it is extremely difficult to see them. We see people running across the highway to make short cuts. Besides pedestrians, people on motorcycles/mopeds/electric bikes/bikes also don’t pay attention. A lot of time, they don’t wear any helmets. If they do wear one, they often wear these plastic helmets which offer absolutely no protection in an accident. As if that weren’t enough, they would ride these vehicles, at night, without any lights, going contra-traffic, and on highways!

I don’t know where people get their death wishes from in China. In the U.S., student drivers tend to be the most dangerous group to look out for. In China (at least in Zhongshan), they seem to be the safest, because they drive slowly. However, sometimes they drive sooooooooo slowly and people try to pass them, and that can become dangerous as well. On one road near our development, it seems that ALL the learner drivers of Zhongshan are practicing here. It is not uncommon to see 20 learning cars in a row, on different lanes. You can see them doing silly things sometimes as well, and you wonder how good their driving instructors are, and how good a driver they will become once they pass the driving test.

We already had an accident when we first got our car (before we even got the license plate on). I cross my fingers everyday that this will be the only one.

Moreover, we have been warned by multiple people that when driving in China, don’t be a good Samaritan. There are some horror stories of people trying to help, only got themselves into trouble. There was this story about a guy one night saw an older man having some trouble on the street. He stopped his car, got out, and helped the old man, and even called the hospital and got the old man sorted out in there. Then a few days later, he was paid a visit by the old man’s relatives and some policemen claiming that he was responsible for whatever accident/trouble the old man got into. They put him in jail and fined him ¥800K (~$129K). Finally, he just couldn’t take all this any longer and killed himself. I don’t know how much of that story is true, but we keep being told by different people to just mind our own business when driving in China, especially if you have a foreign face.

Parking Lot Troubles

So if driving on the road is bad, parking should not be so bad. Well, we seem to be able to keep our good luck on and off the roads.

In our development, there is hardly any temporary parking on the ground, but we do have this large underground parking lot and it is not difficult to find a space. Some people actually bought a permanent parking spot, but most people (us included), just rent a spot. If you don’t rent, then you’ll pay ¥5 for each day (after 1 hour free parking).

Gary had a few favorite parking spots close to our building. One day, one of those spots was blocked by one of those plastic cones. It seemed that someone (likely the guy next to that spot with permanent parking) was reserving the extra space for himself. Gary parked somewhere else, but then picked up the plastic cone and moved it out of the way. Then next day, it was there again. This time, Gary hid it behind one of pillars in the underground so that it was difficult to see from where the parking spot was. Well, we did not see that cone reappear…

Well, we thought that was the end of the parking lot troubles. Then last week, when we walked into the parking lot, we saw these metal blocks being installed on many empty spots. We flagged a security guard to ask why. Apparently, the New Management Company has decides that since they own the land rights to these spots, they are going to make some more money from it by forcing people to buy parking spots. All the unsold parking spots (which are many) located close to the build entrances are blocked. If you are renting, then you’ll need to park in one of those empty spots that are quite a bit further away. This was done without ANY notifications to anyone. I wonder who came up with that brilliant idea! The guy who seemed to have reserved his own temporary spot before took out the metal block by force (we did not see this, only that the metal thing had been pulled out). We were amused. The next day, the security guards were looming around in the parking lot. This time, Gary wasn’t that amused.

We went to the Management Service department to ask more about this, and they just said that the spots belong to them and people could only access those more convenient spots through buying. Out of curiosity, we asked how much was one of those spots. It costs over ¥60K (~$10K). At the highest daily rate of ¥5/day, it will take parking there every day for close to 33 years to just break-even! I think I will put up with a little inconvenience and continue renting. Apparently everyone is having the same idea as none of the empty spots seem to have been sold.

Traffic Fines

Just as we have gotten over the ridiculous nature of the parking lot incident and started to the funny side of things (because it is so ridiculous), I got a text message from the local Traffic Department that my car had changed lane illegally last week and that I should come in to settle the fines.

China has many traffic cameras that take pictures of any car breaking the traffic law. Points will be accrued. If one reaches 12 points within the year, then the license will be suspended, and one will have to take the exam again (and maybe more tests besides the written exam). So even though it is annoying to have to pay fines, but these cameras are keeping us safer, forcing bad drivers off the road, right?

Wrong! Since the camera can only take pictures of the car license tag, not the driver. Ever so creative, now people with money can just “buy” off their points. Instead of going to the Traffic Department directly, we were told that we could go into any of those auto repair shops and tell them you want to pay the points. You pay the fine (and some extra money), and they will locate someone with a driver license but without a car to go into the Traffic Department and said that he/she was the actual driver driving that car which he borrowed from his “friend”. So if you have money, you can be a terrible driver and still not have any points on your driver license!

We haven’t paid the fine yet. We seem to have plenty of time to do that, so we are not in a hurry. I will talk to a few more friends to see what I should do.

I wonder if we will ever get used to driving in China.