The Chinese New Year celebrations are coming to an end and
the millions of people are flocking back to the city. I was expecting to
achieve quite a lot over the week of celebrations, but that wasn’t as easy as I
had planned. The city closes down for a week. It’s bizarre to see such a deserted
city which is usually thriving. 75% of businesses close and the city is lit up
with fireworks and firecrackers, just the noises you want to hear when you’re
trying to sleep in.
So, I did what most people do when there is nothing to do –
drink. Luckily, some of the few establishments open were a select few bars, and
I could sniff them out a mile away.
I’ve had my first experience of a Chinese night club and
they are quite the spectacle. When you picture a club in western country you
imagine a bar and a dance floor, in China they sell booths and each booth is
sold an expensive bottle (or bottles) of top quality alcohol and a fruit
platter. Of course, a fruit platter. Most are dressed in their finest attire,
while I was in a farmer shirt looking like I’d come straight from the rice
paddies.
Chinese culture is built on saving face. (I’m going to
define that now and any Chinese people reading this will probably scoff at my inability
to grasp the “saving face” concept.) Saving face is about one’s public appearance
and opinion. A Chinese person would buy a gift for someone they cannot afford
to give the appearance of wealth, or order more food at an already full table
while exclaiming there isn’t enough, or they'd rather borrow money from
multiple parties at increasingly unsustainable interest rates than have others
know that their company is broke.
This bodes well for night clubs as everyone is throwing
money around. Although, not me. Again another Chinese culture I cannot get on
board with. While most people were ordering bottle after bottle of high end
vodka I blagged my way onto the guest list to get free entry and was waving my free
drink coupons at the bar. "Another free rum and coke, please."
The competition was fierce, there were hundreds of rich
Chinese guys that I couldn't compete financially with, but on the dance floor
they’re as stiff as a scarecrow. This is where I come into my element. While I
can shake it with best of them the difference between us is that at the end of
the night the scarecrows take their ladies home in a Mercedes and I have to
tell my lucky lady that we’ve got to wait until 5:30am for the subway to open.
I did manage to tick something significant off the bucket
list during the week and that was visiting The Great Wall of China. It was definitely
a wise idea to spend 3 hours in the Chinese mountains in a -12°C chill.
It is a very impressive wall. Originally built between
220-206BC, stretching 8,850km to keep out the Mexicans. And Qin Shi Huang even
got the Mexicans to pay for it.
I went with Matt and Drew and we booked our excursion as
part of a group tour. On my travels I’ve seen many Chinese tourists groups and
hated every one. Always a large group of pushy tourists with a tour guide
speaking incoherently into a very cheap and very loud PA system. Now I was in
one of these groups. It didn’t take us long to break away from the guided tour
and explore on our own.
Obviously it was to keep out the Mongolians (I was just
joshing with you before) and looking at the surrounding mountains the wall
seemed unnecessary. It looked pretty difficult to scale these enormous
mountains, you’d think a wall would be a piece of cake. Their ability to scale
mountains was trumped by their inability to build a ladder.
I do have a few criticisms of the wall and the first is the
inconsistent step sizes. This tied with having a few beers on the wall made walking
along it a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Criticism number two, it’s
too long. I was on it for 3 hours and hardly saw any of it. An escalator or a
Stannah Stairlift would improve the experience significantly.
On the way back down the mountain we had the privilege of
sharing the very same cable car that Bill Clinton had used when he visited the
wall. Who knows what went on in that car, but knowing what old Bill is like I
didn’t want to touch anything.
The Great Wall is impressive and it shows the achievement of
the human race. It’s amazing what man can achieve when there is no concern for
human lives. You’ve only got to see what they’re doing in Qatar to see a modern
example. And you know, all those people who have lost their lives building
those stadiums would say the sacrifice of life is worth having air-conditioned
sporting arenas.
Going to try my hand at skiing in a couple of days. I could play it safe with snowboarding, but the idea of trying to ski, breaking a bone, and spending a significant amount of time in a Chinese hospital is just too appealing.
