bicrom abroad

communist enterprise comrades!

we hauled ourselves out of bed at 7.30am this morning to get onto a minivan with a frencher than french, gitanes puffing, couple and our guide, lily, who would be taking us to go and see the great wall at mutianyu. i'm not normally one for guided tours but this seemed like by far the easiest and cheapest way to access the wall away from the teeming hordes at badaling so, having received a discount in relation to which we were sworn to secrecy from our higher paying copassengers, we set off amongst the weaving buses full of beijing commuters wending their way to work.
after a brief tale of how much harder life was for chinese citizens than for their counterparts in the west, with the absence of welfare and support for bringing up children, vicki had been discreetly wondering quite what separated communist rule in china from sheer authoritarianism. the roads were lined with gleaming new apartment blocks, a legacy of the olympic games, but it seemed as though the vast majority of them lay empty, outside of the price range of the ordinary beijingese. someone had ordered these flats built and someone had no doubt profited from them, quite possibly any number of high ranking party officials. but other than greasing the palms of those blessed with party patronage the benefit to rank and file chinese seemed minimal, no matter how enthusiastically they had waved their hastily bought flags on tianamen square yesterday; the crumbling alleyways of the hutongs, all cramped quarters and communal toilets, remain teeming with life while the twenty first century leers over them, empty and disinterested in the people below.
the first indication of the communist nature of our host authorities, however, came at the first scheduled stop on our tour. in normal free market third world tourist economies, tours such as these are often punctuated with visits to the tat shops of friends and relatives, as the cooperative try and squeeze an extra dollar or two out of tired travellers. here, however, we were presented with an excursion to the government run jade factory and shop. having politely feigned interest at the two minute explanation of process and spent a couple of minutes more wandering around the aisles and aisles of fairly expensive jade trinkets we went to leave of our own accord, only for a very worried looking lily to usher us back onto the sales floor scolding us that we had to spend another twenty minutes there. so it was at the tea drinking ceremony and the silk factory, official government enterprises not advertised on any tour leaflet but to which attendance was mandatory. the party, who i would posit make the addition of these charmless warehouse stores to tour itineraries compulsory, are certainly in a manner generating work for the numerous chinese working on the floors and behind the counters, providing them with a captive audience. questions still remain about who most benefits from the fruits of any sales, however, with a suspicion that it is largely the party members who profit just as richly and exclusively as the money grabbing boss of any capitalist enterprise, hiding their faithful or otherwise subjects away from the corrupting influence of affluence. your filthy dollars and sterling are welcome here, but the chinese government would very much like first crack at taking them off you, regardless of how much it may disadvantage the independent shopkeeper hawking his souvenirs around town. it may not have failing banks but this is no utopia, as hierarchy ridden as anywhere else.
as for the wall itself, after the slightly muted reaction to the forbidden city expectations were dimmed, but it did not disappoint by any measure. mutianyu was surprisingly secluded with other tourists relatively scarce and, having been unleashed by our guide, we spent a happy, sweaty couple of hours stuttering up and down sheer, uneven steps and playing soldier in the imposing ramparts. as well as its size which truly is awe inspiring every time you peer around a corner to see it stretching off into the distance and disappearing into the clouds, it is also set at the top of a number of peaks, adding to its air of grandeur and moreover providing an unexpected opportunity to get into a teatray on wheels and rocket down to the car park in a metal tobbogan at the end of your wander.
all in all a good, if tiring, second day in beijing. another foot massage now before a quick jaunt around the summer palace tomorrow and then off to three internal flights in three days, starting on the way to xian. here's hoping we can spend our time at the sites, and not stranded in airports...

posted by bicrom @ 9:00 pm