My 3 words to describe Beijing? The people are rude, loud and unfriendly!
Beijing gives out a very mixed signals, as if it couldn't decide whether it wants to be modern or remains old (ancient). The process of trying to remain ancient (in order to attract tourists) by refurbishing old buildings but with new (fast) technology without a thought to maintain it ancientness resulted in characterless structure built with standard sized blocks trying to pass off as 'ancient'.
A good example is the Beijing Putong, the 'old' city of Beijing which was the most disappointing part of our holiday. The ancient city's surrounding walls are currently being rebuilt using standard-sized, ugly grey blocks with no thoughts of what bricks or stone blocks might look like during ancient times. Even the door knobs, instead of wooden ones or metal ones used during olden times, were the current, cheap goldcolour-coated type which we get from our neighbourhood stores! These same ugly grey blocks were being used in the other touristic places where patch-up work are being done, like the Summer Palace.
Nevertheless, Beijing still has it's saving grace, one of which was the chinoiserie cottage industry that we came across while on the way to the Great Wall. Seeing the workers patiently working on each piece of artwork, which is so labour-intensive, and each piece being produced so exquisitely makes us appreciate why such art pieces are so expensive. Sadly, we could only salivate over each one, but cannot afford to buy...
Other beautiful pieces:
Having seen what we should see of Beijing, I doubt I will want to go back there for holiday again although what we saw were indeed impressive.
November 2012
