China Walk Man

by Neil Woodburn on


I’m always fascinated by walk/don’t walk signals when I travel. Sometimes they are just simple stick figures cut out of a piece of black board that is lit from behind. Other times the figures are elegantly shaped and intricately lighted. You can tell a lot about a country by the workmanship of their crosswalk figures.

Certainly the most famous is the East German Ampelmännchen, a portly figure with a top hat. Even to this day visitors can tell which part of the former divided city they are in by simply looking at the crosswalk figure (although many have been replaced with rather boring EU characters).

I certainly wish I had started taking photographs of my favorite crosswalk figures when I first began traveling; I’d have a great collection by now.

Recently, I spotted the above animated walk man while crossing the street in China. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an active walk signal. And, with such a wonderful gait! I wasn’t about to let this one go by undocumented and so I stood in the middle of the street and shot a short video of this fine example of China moving up in the world.

Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 3

by Neil Woodburn on

This is Part 3 of a three part series exploring the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since the author last visited as a tourist in 1995. To start reading from the beginning, click here.

On my most recent visit to China a few weeks ago, I noticed that Chinese communism is becoming increasingly schizophrenic. On the one hand, capitalism is alive and well in China as businesses boom and entrepreneurship thrives. On the other hand, the government stubbornly holds on to communist ideals and iconography that has been stripped from the rest of this planet. As a result, it was a bizarre disconnect to see an animated hammer and sickle icon appear every night before the evening news while a capitalist free-for-all was simultaneously occurring everywhere around me.

In addition, the government continues to idolize Chairman Mao, the country’s legendary communist leader. Statues of the former ruler remain in prominent locations throughout China, including a massive one I came across in Shenyang. And yes, fresh flowers appear every day to pay tribute. In this respect, China has changed very little since 1995.

Be sure to visit our gallery featuring detailed photographs of this amazing statue. %Gallery-10067%

Censorship and the Internet

Naturally, the internet did not exist in China 12 years ago. Today the world’s most populace country is indeed wired, but only to a limited extent.

Although the government has allowed the internet to develop within China, they have not allowed it to do so freely. Censors ensure that anti-government sites and negative content is kept from Chinese web surfers. In fact, the Chinese government operates what is undoubtedly the world’s largest and most thorough attempt to censor and monitor the web: the Golden Shield.

The Golden Shield is a $700 million firewall through which all Chinese internet traffic passes. Servers electronically monitor suspect sites and deny access when content is not appropriate. In addition, human censors surf the web in search of additional sites the computers may have missed.

And so one afternoon I found myself in an internet café in Shenyang. It was crowded, but no one was really online; the entire café was full of gamers. Out of curiosity, I did a quick Google search for the most sensitive of Chinese topics: Tiananmen Square. Up popped the typical links you might suspect for such a search, but something was slightly wrong; I was not able to click on a single one of them.

I switched to Google Image Search to see if I could find any man-standing-in-front-of-tanks photographs. In a non-censored country, nearly 75% of images that pop with a “Tiananmen Square” search are of that iconic photo. In Shenyang, only two photos appeared. I was shocked that even this many got through the censors. When I clicked on the links, however, I discovered why; there was no text about the demonstrations. It was just a photograph with no description of what was going on. Until censorship technology is able to recognize “dangerous” photographs, random shots of that brave, but now very dead protestor will continue to surface occasionally.

Lastly, I tried accessing Wikipedia. I was hardly surprised to discover this simply wasn’t happening. And I found it rather poetic: Just like some of the less scrupulous contributors to this online encyclopedia, China also writes its own version of history and politics.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, Gadling is indeed accessible in China.

Final Thoughts

Looking back on my recent time in China, I am left with a conflicting opinion: so very much has changed since 1995, while at the same time, nothing has changed at all. In other words, China has always been an enigma to the Western world and it continues to be so.

The Olympics, however, may be just what China needs to pull its head even further out of its shell–although there is still a lot more that needs to come out. In the meantime, the Summer Games are going to be very interesting times for this confused, schizophrenic nation.

Yesterday: Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 2

Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 2

by Neil Woodburn on

This is part two of a three part series exploring the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since the author last visited as a tourist in 1995. To start reading from the beginning, click here.

China was, and still remains, the most challenging country I have ever traveled. Of course, when I say this, I mean the China I wrestled with in 1995. At the time, it was a given rule that a person must set aside at least one day for logistics for every two days of travel. Nothing was easy. Simply buying a train ticket in the “Foreigners Only” line, for example, was an all day affair in which the salesperson might refuse to sell you a ticket to Chengdu but have no problems selling one to the person immediately behind you.

In addition, simple international forms of communication were never understood. Pointing at your wrist would never get the time out of someone. Pointing at a train and asking “Beijing?” would never reveal if that was indeed the train to Beijing. And, ordering chicken from your Chinese phrase book meant getting a cooked chicken complete with head, beak and claws, but without any seasoning or sauce whatsoever. Frankly, I was surprised it was even cooked.

With such little exposure to the outside world, the cultural differences made for some very trying times while traveling in the 1990s.Fortunately, things have changed quite a bit since then. Keep in mind, however, that my observations are a little skewed since both cities I visited will be hosting Olympic events in 2008 and are therefore scrambling frantically to become more tourist friendly.

As a result, I found Beijing and Shenyang pleasantly amicable. Compared to 15 years ago, there were far more signs in English, it was much easier to communicate simple meal needs, and sales staff were astronomically more helpful. Many even spoke English.

The government is trying hard to ensure that visitors during the Olympics have an enjoyable experience. This naturally involves massive training programs for anyone who will come in contact with foreigners as well as new laws prohibiting spitting, slurping soup, and other activities that visitors might find offensive. And so, I had a nice chuckle at the Beijing airport when I ran across the device in the above photograph (sorry for the blurry shot, but it was in the airport and photography wasn’t allowed). It was attached to the front of a counter where a woman was checking my ticket and passport. This is great! Just the slightest bit of attitude and I could reach out with my finger and ding her! If they had this device 12 years ago, the bad button would have broken the first day from overuse.

The Economy

Back in 1995, Beijing was practically rural in its mentality and feel. Today, however, a burgeoning economy has produced a rash of products and a billion plus consumers to swoop them up. Luxury items and international brands are now available in the countless shops which have blossomed in this supposedly “communist” environment. As a result, consumerism is on the rise as products that were impossible to buy 12 years ago are now fashionable must-haves whose attributes are increasingly touted by a rapidly growing amount of advertising which also didn’t exist in the 1990s. Billboards and neon, while not dominating the cityscape, have certainly changed its face.

And then, of course, there is the most ubiquitous symbol of an emerging market: the cell phone. I didn’t see as many people chatting away in public as I would have expected, but the Chinese cell phone market is indeed taking off.

And so, my journey through modern day China was a voyage through a nascent economy which is visibly rising to its feet and, according to some experts, may one day dominate the world market. It’s a strange disconnect from what I witnessed 12 years ago and no matter how much I was prepared for the new China, the sight of an Audi driving, Gucci-clad, Chinese princess gabbing away on her cell phone was an image I would have never thought possible back in 1995.

Traffic and Pollution

Twelve years ago pedestrians stood the chance of getting run over by a bicycle if they weren’t careful crossing the road in China. Today, they stand the chance of getting run over by a car.

The above photo is from 1995 when bikes ruled the road and cars were rare and usually government owned. Bicycles were king in China and the roads literally overflowed with them–some nine million in Beijing alone.

Today, the roads are crammed with private automobiles instead, thanks to China’s expanding economy. Bicycles have become a second-class form of transport and in some places are actually banned from the same roadways they used to rule.

This has transformed cities like Beijing into just another auto-choked Asian capital where traffic jams and honking horns have sadly replaced the more tranquil, iconic bicycle.

As if this isn’t bad enough, the increase in pollution since 1995 was noticeable before I even landed at the airport. Descending from the sunny, clear skies of 30,000 feet into Beijing airspace, my plane passed through a thick, murky inversion layer of toxic pollutants that nearly obscured the sun for the remainder of my stay in the capital, as well as further north in Shenyang. Sure, the region has always received a fair amount of dust storms from the Gobi desert and air pollution from nearby factories, but the addition of 1,000 new cars hitting the streets every day in Beijing has made the air quality far worse.

The thought of an Olympic athlete performing in this pollutant cocktail is simply unfathomable. The city is aware of this problem, however, and has already launched a couple of exploratory “car free” days where private cars were banned from the streets in hopes to clean up the air.

Personally, I don’t think it’s going to work. The air is foul and will only get worse as cars continue to replace bikes.

Yesterday: Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 1
Tomorrow: Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 3

Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 1

by Neil Woodburn on


It’s been almost 15 years since I first visited China in 1995.

Having just returned from my second visit just a few weeks ago, I can now agree with the experts; China has indeed changed at a blistering rate.

My trip to Beijing in 1995 coincided with the capital’s first attempt at landing the Olympic Games. This was only evident, however, by a series of banners along the main road from the airport welcoming IOC officials. Otherwise, the place was such a backwards eddy of incompetence and hermit-kingdom mentality that my travel partners and I continually laughed at the notion of such a place actually hosting the Olympics.

As you probably know by now, China figured out what changes needed to be made for their second pitch and now they are indeed hosting the games in 2008.

The manic rush to upgrade Beijing to Olympic standards and showcase it as a model city of the 21st century has resulted in drastic changes that were immediately evident not only in the capital, but also when I visited the northern city of Shenyang. The Olympics, however, are only a passing catalyst. China is currently experiencing a booming economy that has had a much greater impact on the country at large than the Olympics ever will.

On the next page and over the next couple of days, Gadling will share with you some of the massive changes wrought by the double headed dragon of Olympics/Capitalism and how, as a result, China and its populace is far different from the spitting, gawking, bicycle riding, village-mentality I witnessed nearly 15 years ago.

Spitting

If there was a theme song to China in 1995, it would have to be the elongated spit. Not the simple, pa-too of someone expelling excessive saliva on to the street. No, the Chinese would start with a deep, visceral hack that sought, over an excruciating long moment, to strip the lungs and throat of every bit of phlegm and nasty matter trapped within. Sometimes the hack was repeated four or five times until an acceptable amount of gooeyness was collected into the mouth, at which point the abnormally large loogie was projected downwards where it landed with a sickening splat.

It didn’t matter where someone was standing. Spitting occurred indoors, on buses, standing in line–pretty much everywhere. The very worst condition for spitting, however, was an overnight sleeper train. The cheaper, second-class carriages were like rolling dormitories lined with approximately 40 bunk beds and about the same amount of people all hacking up goobs and spitting them on the floor. In the morning, it looked as though it had rained, with massive drops of spit every few inches. Yuck.

Over the last decade, the government has cracked down on the spitting problem, even going so far as hiring undercover goober police who fined those that spat in public. The efforts have paid off and I am happy to report that I encountered only one spitting episode during my time in China last month. It disgusted me, but it was also strangely nostalgic.

Gawking

Traveling through China in 1995 I was pretty sure that I was a freak of nature. People would stop what they were doing and come over and stare at me. And I don’t mean quick, secretive glances. No, the Chinese would literally drop their jaws, freeze in their tracks, and stare unabashedly without looking away.

If I was looking at something it was even worse. People would crowd around me to see what the foreign devil was gazing at in the store window. Or, if I was reading my guide book, they’d push in close to look over my shoulders and stare at the pages. My favorite activity was to stand in the open area between two train carriages and wave at farmers in the countryside as we blew past them. The looks on their shocked faces were always hysterical. Even simply buying something on the street corner attracted a crowd. That’s my travel partner Rob in the above photograph surrounded by a gaggle of gawkers who appeared out of nowhere to watch the foreigners do something really exciting, like buy food.

This special attention I received was because China saw very few foreign tourists in the 1990s; the presence of a white foreigner was as though a Martian had just landed. And let me tell you, it was very bizarre being that Martian. For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to be a celebrity. It was fun at first, and then quickly became an enormous annoyance. I now understand why celebrities become so rude to the constant mass of strangers treating them like animals in a zoo.

Naturally, I was extremely curious if Westerners would continue to draw the same attention in 2007. They did not. Frankly, I was somewhat disappointed to discover that I had become just another pedestrian on the street that didn’t warrant even the most casual of glances. Sure, I got the occasional acknowledgement–like the thumbs-up sign from some guy at a restaurant in the suburbs of Beijing who had probably never seen a foreigner eat there before–but otherwise China had opened up enough, seen its share of Western tourists, and consumed far too many Hollywood movies for a lone American in 2007 to attract any attention whatsoever. I guess I sort of have mixed feelings about that.

Tomorrow: Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 2

New Chinese Architecture: the “Wild East”

by Iva Skoch on

China’s rise as an economic power has prompted daring feats of construction; China’s getting known as the “Wild East” when it comes to this new construction. And they’re putting up new buildings at a tremendous pace: some 10,000 new structures in all, particularly with next year’s Olympics coming. I certainly witnessed it in Shanghai-Pudong a couple years back.

But now take, for example, the new, $800m, China Central Television Tower in Beijing, designed by Rem Koolhaas. Daring to defy the requirement that all skyscrapers point up, Mr. Koolhaas designed one that loops back on itself. The main feature: it’s got an overhang that’s an amazing 11 stories tall, 250 ft. above the ground. The building will be the world’s second-largest office building, after the Pentagon.

It’s now reaching a very precarious moment: the two halves of the building are being joined soon, according to the WSJ. First, it’s in an earthquake zone, so they had to test a three-story replica on a quake-testbed to make sure it’ll last because it’s like stacking two bridges together. Second, the two halves lean on each other so much that they must join the final pieces at dawn, so that the sun’s heat won’t distort or expand one half more than the other. I just hope the thing holds up.