China: Capitalist Communism

This indeed was the view from our deck at Shanghai!

Leaping for joy at the Temple of Heaven.

At the Great Wall

No trip to China can be without a photo of Mao's image at the southern gate of the Imperial City and a tourist with a Panda Bear hat.

Here we are in front of the imperial throne room building in the Forbidden City.

Here we are with some Chinese soldiers at the Forbidden City

In a home at the Hutong area (the meal was wonderful and plentiful)

Danielle and Kathleen in their rickshaw in the Hutong neighborhood

Hong Kong City from Mount Victoria

We arrived in Hong Kong in the morning just after sunrise, allowing us to see the massive city at dawn. Hong Kong, like Singapore, is a maritime city, full of tall buildings. In Hong Kong we met up with a former student of Kathleen’s, who took us to the top of a hill near the city, for a walk around the hill, giving us a panoramic view of the city. We had a great dinner that night at a popular, local restaurant by the port and then we left for Beijing the next morning. We arrived in Beijing’s new and spectacular international airport and quickly taken by bus to an old section of the city (Hutong), were then put on rickshaws and bicycled to private homes in the old area for dinner. It was a wonderful way to be introduced to Beijing. One of our guides, Steven (the guides seem to take on western names for our benefit), told me that his family had a home in Hutong but the government made them move out in order to develop the area. Nevertheless, there are still quite a few homes in this old area of Beijing where a number of families share an inner patio. In the next couple of days, our main guide, David, showed us the key tourist sites: the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, and the Temple of Heaven. We also went to a home for kids whose parents are not providing for them and went to a Kung Fu school to watch a demonstration. Overall, most of us who went to Beijing were floored by the degree of progress that has been made in the last few decades. Rather than finding a communist country devoid of consumer goods, we found a vibrant city that is progressing almost too rapidly – the traffic was horrible, since so many people now have cars. We then flew to Shanghai, since the ship had left Hong Kong and made its way there in two days of sailing. Shanghai is a city to behold. The buildings are tall, unique, and magnificently lit up at night. Our cabin faced a beautiful part of the city so we had a fabulous view of Shanghai for two nights. Overall, China blew our socks off. Chairman Mao must be either turning over in his grave or wondering why he didn’t carry out economic reforms while he was in power. China was a big hit with pretty much everyone on the ship.