Beijing 1

These blog entries were written a while back while I was in Beijing. Although I had access to the internet, China being a communist country, I was unable to access certain websites freely. My blog site was one of them. I could not access the english version of Wikipedia either. China's people still live under a great deal of censorship. The following is taken from Lonely Planet;

Internet censorship is draconian, known as The Great Firewall Of China, with an army of 30000 censors working non-stop to stem the tide of undesireable electronic data from corrupting Chinese minds. Pornography is censored but not as rigourously as politically taboo subjects as Taiwanese Independence, the Tainanmen Square massacre and outlawed groups such as the Falun Gong. By some estimates 10% of websites are blocked.

Censorship exists in the televised media too. Of the 60 odd channels I could get, only one was in English and it lacked any real debate or objectivity (the same can be said for some of our channels I know !) I have heard that there was talk of relaxing these restrictions for the Olympics but if that is the case then it hadn't started then.

Speaking of the Olympics, I doubt whether Beijing will be ready for them. They are only 5 months out now and I fail to see them being ready in that time. The venues may be ready, but I doubt the city will be. Recently laid paving is all warped and lifting - I was luck not to twist my ankle on many occasions. The transport system is unlikely to be able to cope too. The new airport terminal is ready and a successful trial conducted only last week - but this information came from reports from my 'news' channel. I didn't experience the subway in full peak hour but it was very busy - people ;iterally pushing, shoving and cramming themselves in and out. The trains only stop for a specified time, once the buzzer goes for the impending door closure, look out !! If you don't like crowds, germs or are claustrophobic then the subway aint for you.

Ok, now to what I was doing. First day just settled in to my room at the hostel. Splashed out and got a private room - double bed, private shower and toilet, all for $30/night. The room was as good as some $150-$200 rooms I have stayed in in Brisbane. I was in Dongchen which is just NE of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The Lonely Planet maps I have show it to be a short distance to both those sights - so I decided to walk. I have mentioned these maps before, haven't I ? Boy were my feet sore when I got home. I am sure they made a mistake with their scale: something I completely ignored the following day but more on that later.

Tiananmen Square is huge. It can hold 1 million people. I tool some fotos but I doubt they will convey the size. Standing in the Square, one stands at the symbolic centre of the Chinese Universe. I mentioned the massacre before. Some of you may remeber the images of the lone pro-democracy supporter standing/lying in front of the tank in the Square. Some of you reading may be a little young so ask your parents or Google it (but not while in China !!) It is actually unlikely that protesters were slaughtered in the square itself though - it is more likely to have happened outside the square (so I have read)

The Forbidden City was a bit of a let-down. It really is a tourist place these days. Entrance fees and souvenir markets/stalls just seemed to detract from what it should have been. I took a few fotos so I hope you can see what I mean. On all my fotos, I am still having difficulty finding a pc that allows me to attach my external hdd (and it might be safer not to, virus-wise anyway) When I can find a wi-fi connection and use my own laptop I will upload them.

The following day I hadn't learnt my lesson from LP maps and decided to walk the short distance to some shopping places. I still hadn't replaced those jeans. Took forever to find a pair of plain jeans as the styles are cammo pants or jeans witth fancy stitching. It was then late in the arvo and my feet were acting independantly from my thoughts - they had had enough. I guess Cons aren't the shoes for this. So I bought a decent pair of hiking boots.

The folowing day (Sunday) was a quiet day. Did hit the shops again and did a bit of walking to wear in the boots. THe main reason for that was that the following day I had a 4hr hike along the Great Wall planned.

My time here is about to run out so I will continue this later

bye