Blue jeans and pink pretties: Hu Tong, Tiananman Square and Silk Factory

At the Courtyard in Hu Tong

Today we went on a tour of Beijing. We started by going to see the old Hu Tong in the center of the city. A Hu Tong is an ancient way of living in China. The family lives in rooms facing into a small courtyard in the middle. The father always lives in the North room, the son lives on the East room, the servants on the south and the daughters on the west. All the Hu Tongs in the area share a common bathroom, there is no running water, no flushing toilets, and very primitive living arrangements. In order to get to this area we had to take a rickshaw, the streets are very very narrow, too narrow for a car. Because of this, the Hu Tong areas are very very peaceful and I felt very safe and focused there. The father of the house gave us a tour and he was so sweet and kind. I loved listening to him explain his way of life and how he has always lived. We then took our rickshaws over to another peaceful river that the Mongolian people found and thought it was an ocean because it was the only water they had seen in China. It was a beautiful river, at the edge of it is a restaurant that has been in China for over 300 years. There were also bars and shops surrounding it and a nice place to walk. It was so quiet except for a little Chinese lady singing into a little microphone on the side of the river. It was a really nice little accompaniment to our little walk along the river. We were then shuttled off to the silk making factory where we got to see how silk worms make silk. it is quite the process for them, and the quality of the silk is beautiful. We saw quilts made by pulling the threads kind of like a cobweb over and over again to make a thick, extremely soft quilt. It was really interesting to see how it is made.

We then went to lunch at a true Chinese restaurant where we got to eat chrysanthemum flower fish, spicy beans and other Chinese food which was pretty normal "American" chinese food like sweet and sour pork and sticky rice. The hardest thing about the food so far is that we can't drink the water or have ice in our drinks.
After lunch we went to Tiananmen Square, which was absolutely incredible. We saw where the communist dictator Chairman Mao is memorialized. He isn't buried,he is in a clear case and has been for over 30 years and every day thousands of people walk past his "tomb". It was really sobering to think of what he symbolizes to the Chinese people and how much of an effect he still has on many who live here in China now. Tiananmen square is the largest city square in the world with an area of 440,000 square meters. I can't imagine what took place here in the early 1980's when the students had their uprising and so many of them died. There is a very obvious presence of government officials and lots of "red guards" and cameras every where you look. It is constantly under very strict surveillance.
We then went to the Forbidden City. This ancient "temple" really consists of hundreds of buildings with over 8000 rooms inside all for the emperor, his wives and concubines. It took over 40 years to build and no-one was allowed in except the Emperor. He believed he was the true son of God and that God had 10,000 rooms in Heaven so he only built 9999 and a half, so he would be less than the Gods. I was really bothered by this because he lived in such obvious wealth and controlled everyone inside and outside of the palace, but he was untouchable within his walls. Most of the people outside were very poverty stricken and poor. It was considered a great honor to be a wife or concubine to the Emperor, I think I would rather have been a peasant! It was beautiful and overwhelming though, there were lots and lots of people. The funniest thing that happened here was when some Chinese women came running up to us and hopped into our picture, they really wanted a picture with Americans so for a few minutes we stood there while their husbands or boyfriends snapped a bunch of pictures of us!!!

We got to visit "Inside a Chinese Walmart" tonight. WOW! That was an experience! We saw a whole bunch of who knows what kind of meat!!! And a lots of packaged pig toes or something very odd and plenty of strange candy like "corn flavored gummy candy". It was quite the experience!
We had pizza tonight at a place called "Big Pizza" the pizza's were actually about 10 inches, I guess in China that's pretty big!!!!!

It's been a very fun day, an exhausting one! China is an amazing place! I am so in awe that I am really here, experiencing this place I've read and learned so much about over the past few years. It is fascinating to me. I am so honored and feel so grateful to be here, to be apart of my daughters heritage even for a few days. I can't wait to see her! Just a few more days!!!!!