Bye, Bye Beijing - Bullet Train to Luoyang

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Bye, Bye Beijing - Bullet Train to Luoyang

It seems only fair to make some parting observations about Beijing.  It is emmence!  I always thought that New York was the most intimidating city I'd ever ecountered, but Beijing make NYC look like a non-competitor.  Currently there are 23 million people living in an enormous area which is expanding daily, as new construction of 30-40 story high rises replace traditional and soviet style low rises.  There is so much constructioin underway that the Chinese themselves joke about the craine replacing the crane as the national bird.  In keeping with what we saw in the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games a few years ago, bigness and the spectacular effect seem to dominate all design and planning.

That is not to say that is overwhelming.  Big city living is pretty much big city living no matter where you are.  Beijing, and for that matter, China in general, seems to have made that more enjoyable on a human scale, and common use of cramped spaces more inhabitable than most.  Lots of green areas and public parks and exercise spaces, and all are constantly being cleaned and swept by an army of municipal workers.  Over all, I have concluded that I could live very happily there, if only I had an interpreter at my beck and call!  Not likely, I'm afraid.  I have also concluded that I am so over packed!  The temperature has been over 80 and often in the 90's during the entire stay.  A couple of light shirts and some shorts would have served me just fine.  I've made a pledge to myself be become better at travelling.  I still have much to learn.

We checked out of our beautiful hotel (thinking we'd never have it so good again, after all, this is Beijing!) to catch a 10 am bullet train to Luoyang, a smaller city of a mere 8 and a half million and much older that Beijing. The journey was incredible!  Constant speeds of just under 300 kilometers per hour, that's somewhere around 180 mph, and smooth as glass, no bumps, no swaying no clickity-clack.  It even had western style toilets!  Maybe we should turn Amtrack over to the Chinese!  

The main attraction in Luoyang are the Longmen Cliff Carvings which date back to the introduction of Buddhism in China.  There, an entire cliff of exposed limestone has been turned into thousands of statues of the Buddha, ranging in size from true miniatures to gigantic grottos commissioned by emperors and powerful nobility, leaving a lasting testimony of devotion to their chosen faith.  It was somewhat upsetting to see that so many of these ancient works of art have been defaced and vandalized over the years, mostly by foreign invaders taking souvenirs or museums for their collections.  There is enough left to testify the the importance of the site, and it has been declared an Enesco World Herritage site, so that what is left will be preserved for the foreseeable future.

The evening of our arrival, we had a delightful exhibition of traditional and ancient Chinese instruments, and a little concert on each one of them.  An added feature was the various performances by the young students of the lecturer, offering hope that another great tradition of Chinese culture and art is being preserved for at least another generation.  Following our extended morning at the Longmen Grottos, we stopped at an agricultural village for a tour of a contemporary village home (serviceable but very plain.  It appears that Chinese only decorate their pubic spaces ornately) and then to an English class in the village school.  Chinese students universally start studying English in the 3rd grade!  We attemped some conversation with them, but they were embarrassed and we know too much English, so the experiment in cultural immersion was, in my opinion, less than successful.  There are 14 of us, and each one was assigned a minimum of 5 students with whom to converse, in a classroom that was over 90 degrees .... Who would expect much more?

It seems that pictures or no pictures, no blog is making out of China, so you'll probably get all of these in one blast.  I'm sure many of the sites I've mentioned are also available on the Internet, if you are really courious.  Those pictures are probably better that the ones I've taken.  We'll have to wait to find out for sure.