Beijing

Wow. The past two days have been jam packed. I have lots to talk about! So here goes:

Saturday morning we went to a cloisonné factory. Cloisonne is the art of decorating things with copper wire, filled in with colored enamel—think J. Crew enamel bracelets but usually on much larger items like vases and plates.  We went to the factory and watched women hand paint vases. Then they took us briefly to the kiln room, where they fire each piece 5 times at around 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. When they opened the kiln the whole room immediately heated up at least 10 degrees! Honestly, it was mostly an excuse for them to take us to a GINORMOUS show room full of art and push us to buy things, but it was still really cool to see. We got in a big debate about whether the women who do the painting find it fun and creative or just tedious. I tended to think more on the fun side but was pretty outnumbered.

The afternoon was taken up by going to The Great Wall. They took us a little farther outside the city so we could get to a part that hadn't been rebuilt and wasn't so touristy. According to Mao (nbd but I'm kind of on a first name basis with the guy by now), anybody who climbs to the top of the wall is a Chinese hero. So we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. My legs were finally recovered from all that biking in Friesland too! Our guide, of course, was running circles around all of us as we wheezed our way up the stairs. Here is the thing about The Great Wall that I didn't realize: most of it (and ALL of our part) is just stairs. Nothing flat. All they're all different heights so you really have to pay attention to where you are going if you don't want to fall on your face. We climbed a total of 800 of them, give or take 20. (I counted on the way down).  Reaching the top was definitely worth it. The view was incredible. I know this is obvious, but the wall just goes on and on and on. For me at least, seeing it gave me a much bigger appreciation for the work involved in creating it than just hearing about it.

That evening we went to an acrobatic show that was generally like Cirque Du Soleil but not quite as well funded. The tricks were still incredible though. I was really impressed by how young all the people were, but I was told afterward that the minimum age was 13. I thought they were 10 at the oldest!

This morning, our first stop was "Beijing Number 1 Carpet Factory (2nd)." No joke. That was the name. And it actually is one of the biggest and oldest silk carpet companies in Beijing, employing around 1500 people to hand make silk rugs. 2 fun facts about silk carpets:

1) One silkworm cocoon (approximately the size of a walnut) can be unwound to make about half a mile of silk.

2) A large, 800-count, silk carpet can easily take someone 2 or 3 years working full time to make

After the silk factory, we went to the Summer Palace, which is where old Chinese emperors and empresses used to spend time in the summer. The parts that we were in were mostly full of tourists, but according to our guide, there are many quiet parts where people living in Beijing (Beijingites? Beijingers? Beijingeans?) go. Not a ton to say about it though. It was very pretty to wander around, and then take a pagoda boat through, but nothing very exciting happened.

In the afternoon we went to one of the local Kung Fu schools. You know how in the US we have language immersion schools? Well this school is like that but instead of intensive studying a language along with regular subjects, you practice Kung Fu 4-5 hours a day along with regular subjects. First we saw a demonstration, which was awesome and pretty much exactly like the movies. There were lots of flips and sword play, breaking wood on people, and then somebody threw a needle through glass to pop a balloon. After the demonstration we had a tutorial from the students, which we all failed miserably at, though a lot of the poses were very similar to yoga poses.

Finally, tonight we went to the opera. Now, this is not at all like anything anybody in the US would think of when I say opera. The place was set up more like a nightclub, with everybody at tables instead of in rows of seats. We had dinner in the theater before the show started, and then once it started the entire audience continued to eat, drink, smoke, and talk while little kids ran around. The show itself literally consisted of one woman in traditional robes, fake hair down to her ankles, and her face completely covered in makeup standing on stage for 30 minutes singing (in a high pitched voice) eeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeAAAAAAAAAAaaeeeeeeeeEEEAAEEAEAEAEEEEEAaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeee. I am dead serious. Everybody (not just the American tourists) was laughing the entire time. We had been warned by our guide ahead of time that 30 minutes was plenty long, but I didn't take her nearly as seriously as I should have.

Alright. I have a lot more general stuff to write about, but this is getting long I think tomorrow I will have a lot more time to write, as we are taking a 12-hour overnight train. It should be interesting…