Goin` out west

Sunday, 25/11/2012 – 164 A.D.

`Twas a very sad morning, and not just because `tis one month exactly until Christmas. White Shirt has finally gone to the great wardrobe in the sky. He was on borrowed time and had become extremely tatty. Nor was he actually that white anymore, rather a kind of yellowy-cream. He could have got the boot even halfway through America, but he hung in there, playing on my loyalty. Still, now that I have Teacher Coat, there just isn’t room for White Shirt in my luggage. But I held an appropriately solemn ritual of parting for him and I. In the absence of a bugle to play, I just hummed quietly, hoping that Tim wouldn’t hear in the next room. Then I put him in a ceremonial cloak, i.e. chocolate bun multipack wrapper, and put that in a sacred coffin, i.e. grey plastic bin in the corner. And that was that. White Shirt represented a different era when I wore slightly baggier shirts. He will be missed.

After checking out of the Leo Courtyard we went a couple of streets down to what was described as an electronics market, but it was in fact full of stalls displaying beauty products. No, thanks, or “bu yao” as they say over here (lit. “don’t want”). Or, as Tim has taken to saying these days, “a swing and a miss” (it’s not getting totally on my nerves just yet). We had lunch at a nearby hostel’s restaurant, Helen’s Hangout, where we pursued the theory that I may have a tiny lactose intolerance. This is driven by the fact that I seem to cough more after certain meals, and we may have narrowed this down to meals containing cheese. We’ll be keeping an eye on that one. Oh, and speaking of which, we still have not come up with that elusive fifth cheese joke. Here’s a recap if you’ve forgotten the original four:

1.      How do the Welsh eat their cheese? Caerphilly.

2.      What’s the best cheese to hide a horse in? Mascarpone.

3.      Which cheese do you use to tempt a bear out of a cave? Camembert.

4.      Edam is made backwards.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the National Museum of China, and we could have spent most of the morning there too, had we remembered how close it was. The museum is free, but you need to have your passport or ID card swiped to get inside. I believe this is so the authorities can see where you’ve been, i.e. on trains to certain places, or visited this and that building. Everywhere people go seems to be monitored. However, whereas some amongst us may view this as controlling Big Brother tactics, the general feeling is that processes are needed to protect a system which runs highly efficiently and in which the ultimate aim is enablement, rather than restriction. Go figure. On the streets I do not see that many beggars and most people look like they are reasonably well-off, though I bet it’s a different story out in the sticks. But as a stranger here, I see no graffiti on the walls, the cities are safe (pickpockets and, err, petty scams being the main threats) and there are no hooded teenagers hanging around to make you feel threatened. Maybe if I looked a little deeper under the surface I’d see more signs of injustice and oppression, but currently looking from the outside-in, things generally seem to be okay. After all, China IS on the up, no one is denying that.  

[Tim adopts typical Chinese photo stance, i.e. rigid posture, eyes straight ahead, no emotion on face.]

The museum not only kept us out of the cold, it was very entertaining. The whole of the vast basement level was devoted to ancient China, i.e. from prehistoric times up until, errr, 1912. Not “ancient” by most peoples’ definition, but definitely another world compared to the society in place now. Even though we’d seen plenty on this subject back in Shanghai, we still found ourselves transfixed by the weird and wonderful wares on display. Plus the dynasties of imperial China was a section of my knowledge that was severely lacking before arriving here – you never know, just being aware of when the Tang dynasty was in power might help me answer a question sometime at The Guest House quiz!

[The Chariman contemplates whether he should have included a section on Tim in his Little Red Book.]

There was a large, open room on the ground floor devoted to Communist artwork, which I found particularly interesting. The vast majority of these featured Mr. Mao, usually in conversation with his leutenants in the glorious revolution. Oh yes, it was damned inspiring stuff, tending to show brave soldiers charging fearlessly towards the enemy, or surrounded by peasants with huge, wide smiles, so happy to have been liberated from their earlier oppressors. There’s such a strong bias in these works that I find it difficult to take them seriously, but as a record of what constituted art in these somewhat shadowy times, they provide a fascinating glance. 

Frustratingly, the room detailing the Chinese republic that was formed in 1912, and the subsequent Peoples’ Republic created by Mao in 1949 was all in Chinese with no English translation whatsoever. This was the part I really wanted to see! Just as I was vaguely singing the Chinese authorities' praises two paragraphs ago, they throw me a curveball. What’s the point in only having it in Chinese? So Western eyes will not pry and return to their homelands saying things that they shouldn’t? Hmmm.

Our time in the museum was cut short because we wanted to get out onto Tiananmen Square and see the flag lowering ceremony at sunset (about 16:50). There are always large crowds for this, but fortunately I can see over the tops of their heads. Was it worth standing in the cold for ten minutes? Only to say that we’d seen it. The ceremony itself wasn’t that impressive, akin to the changing of the guard in Windsor Castle, but with some expert flag-folding thrown in for good measure. And there was no stirring music to make you feel good about being part of the great Chinese nation. 

[The Beijing Monks XI soccer team pose for pictures.]

[I play camera wars with some giggly girls taking my photograph.]

[Tim gets into the spirit of it all by adopting a shade of Communist Red.]

After collecting our luggage from the Leo Courtyard, and under strict instructions from the manageress to walk away if the fare came to more than 40 yuan, we caught a taxi to Beijing West Station. This was constructed in 1996 at a record cost of three quarters of a million US dollars. It is the largest station in the whole of Asia, and just like everywhere else in China, it was full of people.

But there were plenty of hot taps nearby for us to fill up our noodle pots. As I was putting the sauce sachets into mine, a young girl approached me and asked how it was called in English. “Noodles,” I replied, sounding somewhat surprised. “Just that?” she asked, sounding somewhat surprised. I shrugged. “Okay, you would call it pot noodle.” She thanked me and left, with me feeling a bit guilty for being rather standoffish, but even after Haven worked her healing magic, I’m still in anti-scam-detection-mode. And to be fair, though a legitimate line of enquiry, it was still a strange question! 

[No less than four extras came with this pot noodle - a record! He didn't try the sausage though.]

So, we got on the train. If you’re a masochist and therefore a regular reader of this blog then you’ll remember that there were no hard sleepers available, so we were soft sleeping it tonight. Which two people would we be sharing with? None, as it happened! Oh joy of joys! And the standard of this soft sleeper was the best we have come across yet. Every bed had its own miniature TV, and it didn’t matter that nothing was being shown on them. There was just a general sense of true cleanliness, unlike other trains where it's appeared clean on the surface, but then we’ve lifted up a bed sheet and seen a stain that the devil himself could have made after a night eating hell’s fieriest vindaloos.  

The train left the station at 20:02. It would reach its destination at 08:12 the next morning. How perverse that both Tim and I wished we could have stayed on it a little longer! Beijing was the furthest east we would go in Asia, now it was back west we wuz headin`. In fact, we wouldn’t stop headin` west until we reached Southport…blimey! 

Blighty’s well-and-truly calling us back now…