China: Beautiful, Bold, and Banned

I’ve been to mainland China before in the early 90’s.  At that time, I visited my grandparents’ village near the mountains of Fujian Province.  It definitely imprinted an image of China that I never forget: dingy, dilapidated, dated, and somewhat dangerous.

Nowadays, the country had undergone major changes. The most obvious is the rise of capitalism in the country. Manufacturing is a thriving business, and a lot of Chinese got rich.  Cities, especially the coastal ones, have grown by leaps and bounds.

Last week, I just returned from a family’s vacation in China.  We visited Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. We had minor setbacks here and there, but the travel was generally pleasant, educational, and fun.

Shenzhen

We love to visit the city because there’s free accommodation for us¹.  The city itself is brand new and has grown tremendously because of its close proximity to Hong Kong.  I could take the subway to the border and cross the two cities with ease.  Shenzhen is a place for shopping at Luo Hu and Huaqianbei shopping districts.  Shenzhen is also a great commerce center with many big business setting up offices there. There’s also the Foxconn Factory – made famous by the incidents of suicides, allegedly driven by insurance payouts.  Notoriety aside, Shenzhen has wonderful amenities, with access to great subway system, modern shopping malls, and entertainment.

Beijing

Ah yes, what can I say about the capital of China? It has a long history, but the place is somewhat miserable!  There are nice areas like the newly revitalized downtown and Olympics 2008 sites.  Other than that, the city hasn’t changed much.  Most of the people are still rude. Our biggest peeve is they cut in line wherever they want to. The bathrooms stink. Quality of goods (souvenirs and stuff) are shoddy. Customer service sucks, perhaps due to mostly government run enterprises.

Have I mentioned the weather?  It was mostly smoggy, hot, and humid.  Temperatures reached 100F during the day.  We sweat like a factory worker in a warehouse!  Climbing the Great Wall and walking on Tienanmen Square weren’t fun at all.

I also found something weird: My iPhone 3G would not geotag any photos I took in Beijing.  It was as if the mobile phone GPS was blocked in the city. I read this article about foreigners getting arrested, accused of doing illegal mapping of the country. It made sense, China always infringes on personal freedom.  Case in point, their internet access blocked all social networking sites!  So I had no direct access to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. I guess they don’t want the population to complain about the country!

Shanghai

We arrived in the city to attend the Shanghai Expo 2010.  We instantly loved the city. The government had boldly spent millions to renovate the old buildings², and built more high rise hotels to accommodate visitors to the Expo.  It has a wonderful skyline, with modern and unique skyscrapers.  The amenities are complete and modern, with a very functional transportation system. The people are more pleasant than those from Beijing. Overall, it’s a great city to live – if one can afford to rent or buy a condo there.

Also, the food is significantly tastier here than Beijing.

Hangzhou

I also like this city. It’s a little city located two hours away³ from Shanghai.  It’s near a body of water called West Lake, that’s both legendary and beautiful. Along the lake side, there are restaurants and coffee shops, for those who want to enjoy the view.  The streets are well kept and clean, so walking around the area was a pleasure for me.

I attended the showing of “Impression of the Westlake“.  Breathtaking dance performance, using the lake as the stage.  Click here for the promotional video. As it’s an outdoor event, I have one advice: Go during Spring or Autumn, when it’s neither super hot nor cold.

The Emperor of China, during Qin Dynasty, visited Hangzhou frequently. He also made the “Dragon Well Tea” from the nearby Longjing village famous. We went to a near by tea house called “Feng Qin Yuan”, enjoyed the scenery, and listened through their polished sales pitch for tea packages.

Overall, the trip to China was great. It was a sweet time for family bonding. The travel was pretty smooth overall since my parents and sister can speak Mandarin, so we knew and got exactly what we wanted.  I didn’t have to do much research before the trip because they had local knowledge. I’m glad we went.

1. Shenzhen is my parent’s second home. [↩]
2. At least the roofs and walls. [↩]
3. By bus. [↩]

Tags: china, vacation