Beijing: The Northern Capital

Reading week here in Hong Kong is similar to many universities’ fall break back in the States and Revision week here in Hong Kong is similar to many (though declining) universities’ reading week. Reading week was last week, with school resuming just this past Monday, and for about half of that week, I was in Beijing, some 1200 miles north of Hong Kong in Mainland China.

For those of you who don’t know (don’t be ashamed), Beijing (北京) is the capital city of the People’s Republic of China and literally means “Northern Capital” in Chinese. According to my reading, Beijing was named when it was fashionable for capitals in East Asia to be named literally as such. Kyoto (京都) means “Capital City” and Tokyo (东京) means “Eastern Capital” in Japanese. Nanjing/Nanking (南京) in the southern half of China means “Southern Capital” (and functioned as such for some dynasties). Seoul and Hanoi both have previous names that mean capital in some capacity.

My journey in the Northern Capital started in Hong Kong, of course. It was to be my second, the first having taken place in the summer of 2007, when my family and I had a China highlights tour. That was my first time out of North America. Now I was heading back, and while excited, I was of course wondering what to expect.

Having been there before, I expected I would see the normal tourist sites: the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square, to name a few. I wanted to make a point to see some new sites as well. Overall I hoped to get an understanding of Beijing more profound and more refined to surpass my first.

And I knew what I was expecting. Pollution, in a word, I thought—gray skies and spitting people, to name some more. When I went there in 2007, they were preparing for the Olympics by building venues such as the Bird’s Nest, improving and expanding the metro, and relaying many sidewalks around the city.

What I expected and what I saw overlapped to less an extent that what I thought as well. Buildings went from being unfinished concrete to painted; pollution, while still present, didn’t embed myself into my clothes. The lake-side hutong (胡同) that I saw over two years ago turned into a well-appointed bar-side lake district—but more on that later.

My journey, as I said, started in Hong Kong, and a three-hour flight. We took the airport bus from in front of Queen Mary Hospital (whose canteen I frequent). The bus ride took about an hour, ending at Terminal 1. Going through the airport and experiencing the clean design coupled with efficiency that is HKG, I was reminded of the false impressions that the airport gave me when I arrived two months ago on August 21 (that fateful night).

Going through immigration, we used the “Hong Kong Residents” line and proceeded through smoothly. Security was simple and didn’t require us to take off our shoes (as we do in U.S. airports), though everyone’s belts set off the metal detector.

After waiting a couple hours in the airport, accompanied by coffee and expensive duty-free stores filled with elitist junk, we boarded our plane, flying direct to Beijing. The security video was double the length (once in English, the international language of air travel, and Mandarin). We had in-flight entertainment consisting of “The Brothers Bloom,” a recent movie with Adriane Brody and Rachel Weiss (with her good acting but bad accent).

Landing at the new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, we found ourselves walking for ages, passing through temperature checkpoint after temperature checkpoint (Swine flu/H1N1 alert still noticeably present), followed by Chinese immigrations, who let us through without a hitch.

We then had to take light rail to the exit of Terminal 3. The entire terminal was decorated with high red-and-white paneled ceilings supported by tall, cylindrical white columns. I personally like the design of Hong Kong International Airport better.

On the way to the airport express train, I picked up some renminbi (人民币)/Chinese yuan (元) from the HSBC ATM and we were on our way.

The airport express train was partially subterranean, but the parts of Beijing that I saw I didn’t recognize. Admittedly, it was dark, but the only thing that told me I was out of Hong Kong was the use of simplified Chinese characters (which I feel more comfortable with).

After transferring lines and getting off at the appropriate station, we had a bit of trouble finding our hotel. One of my friends speaks better Mandarin than I, but being more inclined to ask for directions that most men, I found myself asking everyone, including a different hotel’s bellhop where our hotel was. Finally, we found it on the backside of a building, still in Chongwenmen (崇文门) district.

Over several posts following this I hope to elaborate on and reflect upon my adventures in Beijing.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
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