Preparation For My Trip to China
By Red Sox Steve
VagabondGuru.com
On October 10, 2010, I left New York for China, with a plan to return to the US just before Thanksgiving. I'd been paying attention to the Chinese economy for years, finding it difficult to ignore the growth numbers coming out of there and wanted a closer look. About 6 months prior to my trip, I gave China more attention - I took Chinese (Mandarin) lessons, read up on cities other than Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, got my visa, and started to network, hoping to make connections in China before I got there.
Just like I had for India, I was able to rustle up a few contacts to help me get a sense of what I was getting myself into. I sought advice on the food, climate, transportation and accommodations. I had a ton of questions across a variety of topics: "Were the cities really that big and crowded?" and "What is the attitude towards foreign tourists?", all the way to "What do Chinese people eat for breakfast?". I read everything I could get my hands on from the decades old Will Durant book "Our Oriental Heritage" to the months old "Lonely Planet: China". I learned as much as I could, but in retrospect, it was the tip of the iceberg of information about this massive, modern AND ancient society.
I wanted to get an idea of how the nation worked - was the economy as impressive as the outside world thought? How do Chinese cities compare to others? How much does its millennia of history affect modern China? What is it like in a nation of over 1 billion people? What is it like being on the fastest trains in the world?
As I was contemplating these questions, I was also thinking of my itinerary - I broke the cities I was interested in visiting into two categories: "must-sees", and "possibilities".
Here are my "must-sees":
1. Beijing - capital city, seat of power for the CCP, and home of Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and access to parts of the Great Wall
2. Shanghai - China's crown jewel, the home of international business in China, its most populous city at the mouth of the Yangtze River, site of the 2010 World Expo and Pudong, the newly constructed business district on the eastern side of the Huangpu River.
3.) Xi'an - the eastern terminus of the land-based Silk Road, home to the Terracotta Warriors, and a city wall surrounding its city center.
4. Guangzhou - the third of China's three "Tier One" cities, at the Pearl River Delta, home to the 2010 Asian Games, and a major center of Cantonese culture in southern China, very close to Hong Kong.
5. Macau - the gambling hub of China, outside the mainland territory (its official name is "The Special Administrative Region of Macau), and a connection to Europe via 16th century Portuguese colonialism.
6. Hong Kong - the Chinese city with the largest amount of western culture of any city in China, a collection of European, American, and Australian white-collar workers, south Asian immigrants mainly from the Phillippines, Thailand and Indonesia; uniquely Cantonese cuisine; corporations from all around the world employing workers from all around the world; all this and only about 20% of its landmass is considered urban.
7. Changchun - my tutor's family lives here, it's the "motor city" of China producing automobiles since the 1950s, and is in the Manchurian region, which borders North Korea on one side and Mongolia and Russia on its others; it's the infamous home of China's last emperor, Pu Yi.
These made the list of possibilities*:
1. Harbin - farther north than Changchun, but seemingly has more for tourists - St. Sophia Church, the Annual Ice Festival, and a history of European, Russian and Japanese immigrants.
2. Datong - it's close to Beijing, but from here I'm able to see an unmaintained section of the Great Wall
3. Tianjin - very close to Beijing, but more closely resembling Shanghai, it's a special economic zone facing Bohai Bay and the Yellow Sea. The Lonely Planet sizes it up as having over 40 million people.
4. Chongqing - a major inland city on the Yangtze River, this place is famous for Sichuan food, most notably a fiercely spicy dish called "hotpot". It's also a launching point for Yangtze River cruises which bypass the Three Gorges Dam and end in Shanghai.
5. Chengdu - notable in ancient history for the 3,000 year old Shu kingdom and its position along the southern Silk Road, it is now home to a massive Panda Reserve
6. Wuhan - a massive industrialized city downstream from the Three Gorges Dam, it is one of China's major inland cities and the capital of Hubei province.
7. Nanjing - just outside Shanghai, this was China's capital in the early 20th century, and is also the location of the most vicious attacks by the Japanese in mainland China during the 1930s.
*there were numerous others, too long to list here
Beyond my arrival and stay in Beijing, the route was open-ended. Generally, I thought it wise to go north from Beijing first, then head southwest, then east, then south, ending in Hong Kong. Weather was really the major factor in that decision, and the climate is very similar to the United States - I wanted to head north before it got cold, and be in the south around the early part of Chinese autumn.
I didn't visit a travel doctor - the climate wasn't tropical and I had most of my vaccines up to date anyway. I got my Chinese visa after a little back and forth with the embassy (was this just a preview of the scrutiny I'd be under?), and I arranged all my personal affairs here as best I could. I made sure to bring an umbrella, a winter coat, as well as a computer and cell phone - it's not 1910, it's 2010 and from what I understood these cities have adopted modern technology.
I packed two bags, headed off to JFK, and although I prepared, my experience with overseas travel kept telling me I had no idea what I was in for.
