The decision to visit China is one of the best we have made – it was a revelation. I am not at all sure now what we were expecting but whatever it may have been was not what we found.  The country is amazing and we had a spectacular tour, we certainly hope to go back next year.

We decided to go mainly because we wanted to see our son Peter who currently lives in Kunshan about 40 miles from Shanghai and Malaysia is a lot closer to China than UK. Having explored the idea of incorporating a tour into our visit we found Travel China Guide, a Chinese tour company that seemed to offer an excellent deal, reassuringly they were also recommended to us when discussing possibilities with friends. The other plus was they had a tour that ended in Shanghai so we could conveniently extend our trip to spend time with Peter. Our itinerary was:

                                        Beijing                      Xi’an                      Guilin                             Shanghai                  Suzhou

Beijing

So we packed our limited supply of cold weather gear and flew off to Beijing to be met at 1:00 am by an English speaking guide and a driver who whisked us to our luxury hotel in the centre of the capital. We were up early for breakfast in time for our 8am start with the other 17 members of the tour. Our Beijing guide was Sara (not her Chinese name as the guides all have English names for the tourists!). Like the guides we had at our other destinations she was knowledgeable, funny and extremely well organised. She had an excellent sense of humour and kept a very disparate bunch of foreigners in good order. Our party consisted of 3 Americans, 5 Aussies, 2 Canadians, 3 Brits, 2 Israelis, 3 South Africans and a Lebanese man.

First stop was Tiananmen Square, an intimidating space but less so as it was absolutely heaving with Chinese tourists. There were long queues to see Mao… apparently people will wait 2 hours to see his remains for a few seconds, despite all the terrible things that he instigated during the years of “re-education” and the “Cultural Revolution”. His picture still hangs over the entrance to the “Forbidden City” but elsewhere we saw no sign of his portrait.

Tiananmen Square is vast and treeless with austere 1950s communist architecture on 3 sides and this imposing entrance on the 4^th guarded not only by soldiers but also plain clothes police.

Inside the Forbidden City there were numerous gateways all positioned to balance the energies according to the art and science of ancient feng shui to ensure the health and good fortune of the emperor and those living in the city.

The grandeur increased as we approached the centre of the city. Outside the ancient buildings were in extremely good condition but inside there was little except dusty rooms that had survived Mao’s intervention. The exception to this was one of the emperor’s bedchambers where one of his 2,000 concubines would be brought to him for the night. Lucky girl!

The buildings are impressive with astonishing roofs covered in carvings, courtyards that would hold thousands, balustrades and staircases designed and built not only to impress but also to engender peace and tranquillity, everything emphasising longevity, health, good fortune, wealth and exclusivity. The disappointment is the lack of contents which were done away with during the Mao era which makes the experience rather like a visit to Windsor Castle might feel after the removal squad had been.

After the excesses of the Forbidden City, we were taken by bus and then bicycle Rickshaw to a small area of Beijing that has not been redeveloped and retains its “hutongs” or alleys where most people lived until the ubiquitous high rise apartments started to spring up 40 or 50 years ago. The buildings which are high ceilinged, light and airy, surround a central courtyard which is sheltered from the sun by an overhead lattice which supports vines or long branches of fruit trees, in this courtyard it was plum just coming into bud.

This residence housed one extended family which ran an art business in some of the buildings but often one courtyard will house a number of families – important to get on well with the neighbours here.           

On this our first day we also managed to fit in a visit to the Temple of Heaven.

In the park that surrounded the temple there were people taking exercise, playing badminton, sitting chatting and drinking tea from their flasks, playing cards and board games and this old chap playing a sort of mouth organ come flute. The music was delicate and charming and he loved an audience.

The day finished with an exciting theatre visit for a show based on the Chinese folklore of the martial art of Kung Fu. Practised by Buddhist and Taoist monks for defence it was also used to develop humility and lack of worldliness cultivated through long effort and hard work. The show involved balletic dance, traditional music and acrobatics as well as the Kung Fu which included some impressive destruction of wooden staves and concrete blocks using nothing but the skull with an impressive impunity to pain. It was fabulous and the acrobatics so dangerous that we were not allowed to take pictures for fear of distracting the artists, however, we did get the opportunity to snap this young monk who was particularly inscrutable.

Day 2 started with a hearty breakfast followed by a bus ride out to see the Great Wall which was a little underwhelming until one saw how it snaked away into the distance. We tackled about a mile of the wall, it was hard work as it is very steep in places and has steep steps in others. Coming down allows a little cheating as it has handrails on the steeper parts which make for good sliding. As throughout China there were masses of local Chinese tourists and we were in enough of a minority to be part of the attraction for the locals! One of the joys of the Chinese is their friendliness, they are great talkers – if only we could understand. We had a nice little conversation with a very bright youngster who stopped us to say, ‘how do you do’. His parents, who didn’t speak English, were delighted.

 In the afternoon we visited a pleasant park “The sacred Way” lined with these rather lovely statues of people and animals real and imaginary:

Later we visited the underground tomb of one of the emperors devoid of much to look at (courtesy of Mao), except this pile of money left to please the spirits and grant long life. It seems surprising that more visitors do not please themselves and increase their wealth by helping themselves.

Next day it was time to fly to Xi’an, but first another visit this time to the summer palace set in rather wonderful grounds. There were wonderful bronze sculptures of the beloved dragon and phoenix (the royal symbols of male and female), these were set off by  beautiful magnolias which were in full bloom. One of the enjoyable things in the courtyards of these places is the paving which always includes a strip of pebbled way said to be for exercising the feet and keeping them healthy, old as they are they are still in very good condition.

The park was created around a huge lake and alongside the bank was a marble boat which had been constructed for an empress dowager. Inside was a vast mirror facing out toward the lake where the empress is said to have sat looking at the reflection rather than the real thing so that none could look at her as she took her ease.

The Chinese clearly like their parks and there was one part of the gardens where they had a sort of Hyde Park Corner…but instead of shouting their message from a soap box these crafty artists painted their message on the pavement in water…so that when it dried there was no evidence of their possibly ant-authoritarian message.

 After our busy 3 days we had a superb a la carte lunch in a top notch restaurant and then off to the airport for Xi’an.

This was an interesting salad before it was mixed up and a spicy dressing applied.

What was it? Well lots of things we hadn’t eaten before but it was truly delicious.

Finally it became evident that some people in China clearly have to work very hard for a living ….and others less so.