July 7: Welcome to Beijing

We land in Beijing in the early afternoon after a thirteen hour flight from San Francisco preceded by a seven hour flight from JFK. We left our home at 4:00 AM the previous day. We are exhausted and our bodies are wrecked from seating for nearly twenty-four hours on United Airline's incredibly narrow and uncomfortable seats. So much for the advice from the tour company literature which urges us to: "start our trip well rested." They, of course, have booked us on the cheapest and most inconvenient flights, guaranteeing that we arrive in Beijing totally exhausted.

Before landing we fill out a health questionnaire for the Chinese authorities focusing on any symptoms that might indicate "swine flu." On this form we must indicate our seat location on the plane and a number where we can be reached for the next ten days. We know the Chinese authorities are very serious about this and we also know that they have become totally and irrationally hysterical. Both Jen and I have taken a Tylenol a couple hours before, knowing from news reports that any sign of temperature will doom our trip from the start and will most likely land us in a very undesirable quarantine location. We shared our Tylenol with some passengers near us and hoped for the best.

Once the plane has landed we are asked to stay in our seat and are then treated to a surreal comical performance. Six white coated, surgical masked and goggled young Chinese men and women move rapidly down both aisles of our Boeing 777 and briefly and systematically point a metal rod to each of our foreheads. I dare not point back my bulky Nikon at these comical grandchildren of the Cultural Revolution for fear of calling attention to myself. Our fate depends on the good will of these post-pubescent clownish goons. I trade the pain of a missed photo opportunity for great relief at passing this first temperature test. But, at this point, my dislike for the Chinese authorities has made a quantum leap upward, along with my great disappointment with US State Department which is totally unable to guarantee the well being of US citizens traveling to China. As we step off the plane we pass by many more costumed figures who check over and collect our health forms ... so serious, not one faint smile passing their masked lips.

After an uneventful immigration check in and the retrieval of our luggage we meet our tour leader, a friendly guy who looks in his mid-thirties (but is actually 42), who introduces himself by his "English name:" Mark. As we step outside the airport our senses are assaulted: it's very hot, it's very humid and the smog is so thick that we can barely see the planes as they land. Welcome to Beijing.

We rode around in our tour bus from place to place in Beijing, always in air conditioned comfort. Although, as a sociologist, I know that the traffic does follow rules these were obviously not easy to observe and apparently many of the natives, newly licensed, were also unable to follow them. In the several hours of bus ride in Beijing and many more hours elsewhere we witnessed at least half a dozen accident and, I exaggerate not, hundreds of near misses. Many time one or more of our fellow passengers made a loud exclamation as a car swerved inches in front of our bus or a bicyclist nearly ran afoul of a truck. For some, anticipating tragedy seemed to have become part of the tourist experience. Driving in Beijing made driving in Palermo, Sicily look like a quiet Sunday drive in the county in 1950 USA. The statistics, if there are any, would indicate a very high death rate.

As I sorted through pictures to try to capture the essence of our little trip I came across "Pepsi Pagoda," taken in Xian, which I placed at the head of this blog. Here is another picture which symbolizes the turbulence of China as it leaps forward into the modern world. The fish are being fed little packets of food that can be bought for a a few Yuans near the pond at the Chengdu panda preserve. The gasping and grasping for "resources" caught my attention.








Although comparative statistics leave a lot to be desired, it's useful to bear in mind that Beijing has roughly more than four times the population density of New York City: 11,500 person per square kilometer vs. 2050. With another 6,000 car being registered every month (if the statistics quoted by our guide can be trusted) then air quality will not improve in the near future. (On line figures suggest that the actual number of new cars on the road in Beijing per month is closer to 16,000 with a government target of 8,000 likely to be implemented when the economy improves.)