More Beijing thoughts and pics during the National Holiday period.

Some views showing the huge crowds visiting Tiananmen, The Forbidden City and other typical attractions. Several subway stations remained closed, supposed to be for crowd control, forcing visitors to walk one station far to reach Tiananmen, the Zoo and other.
I limit myself to the safe area of Sanlitun. See a typical laowai tourist self-portrait in First Floor (good hamburgers and more).

And showing a bit more what a Japanese KTV looks like. Contrary to Chinese style KTV, those are typically one big room (some few KTV have one or two private rooms), where all patrons sit together, in sofas or at the bar. So, one can go there alone. Girls sit with you, but no pressure to buy series of drinks: I usually pay one single drink for the evening for one to three girls (30 kuai each). No tips for the girls, no extra charge and no way to take them out for “extra activities”. So, no pressure and no funny business. The only charges are the door fee (typically 180 kuai for the whole evening) and, if you want more than free water, drinks. A bottle of whisky goes for some 500 kuai (or more, depending). They keep the bottle for you for your next visit. There is one set of microphones, a huge list of songs in English and one waits his turn to sing.
Sometimes big fun as the Japanese can be a bit excited and invite me to sing along, all in a relaxed way.

In the meantime our Chinese friends roam the world and upset the locals by being a bit “uncivilized”. The government is not happy about it and has now published a guide book. Problem, it seems the tourists have no time to read it or ignore it, continuing in their path of destruction, littering, spitting and leaving graffiti. See here what the SCMP reports about it.

“Guidelines on civilized travel abroad”, released by China National Tourism Administration: a 64-page rulebook containing regulations forbidding mainland tourists to behave in “uncivilized” ways while overseas. The rules urged travelers to “behave” and “abide by the norms of civilized tourist behavior”.
General guidelines include not spitting on the streets, not shouting in public areas, not forcing locals to help take pictures, not throwing rubbish and not picking their noses.
Tourists were reminded that all air-conditioned places in Hong Kong and Macau were no-smoking areas. According to the new guidelines, mainland tourists will have to “observe public order and respect social morality in tourism activities, respect local customs, cultural traditions and religious beliefs”.
The rulebook also included a designated section listing behavioral guidance for specific countries. It reminded mainland travelers in Britain for example, that asking Britons whether they have eaten is deemed impolite (I guess because the food is not that great?). And in Spain, any females not wearing earrings would be teased and considered “naked”.
It also added that travelers should also avoid giving chrysanthemums or any yellow flowers to dinner hosts in France.
Other behavior mainland tourists should avoid included occupying public toilets for too long and taking excessive amounts of food at buffets, the guidebook said. Not sure it also urges the men to take a better aim when facing urinals (they overestimate their instrument).

Mind your manners: some of the rules

Do not

•     Give a handkerchief in Italy as a gift because it is deemed inauspicious
•     Discuss the royal family in Thailand
•     Touch people’s belongings in Nepal with the foot
•     Ask for pork in Islamic countries
•     Call Africans “Negros” or “black”
•     Use the left hand to touch other people in India
•     In general, touch antiques or draw graffiti on heritage structures
•     Expose the chest or back, or look dirty in public areas
•     Eat a whole piece of bread in one mouthful or slurp noodles noisily inside an aircraft

Do

•     Use shower curtains in a hotel
•     Keep quiet when waiting to board a plane
•     Keep mobile phones turned off until the aircraft has come to a complete stop
•     Be punctual if taking part in a tour group
•     Arrive at a banquet hall 15 minutes early and adhere to a formal dress code

Now just wait they read that and maybe start doing the same when visiting Beijing.

Before heading to the show in the Bird’s Nest (21 September) we walked around a bit in the Olympic Green. A lot has changed, let’s say improved, as there are many more attractions, especially food outlets. We tried one and Valerie volunteered to be the one to eat a crispy bit spider – I declined.

See also the Olympic Torch that was removed from the top of the stadium and now sits on the north side of the stadium.
Also, quite a lot of people walking around though it was already dark.
Going back home I am still confused which metro station to take. We walked quite a bit to the “Olympic Green” station (Line 8), a station that is really hard to find: the sign are nearly invisible and misleading. Was good for us because arriving at the Olympic Sports Center station a flood of people came in; seems that was “the” station for the Bird’s Nest and the Watercube. To explore next time.

On 21 September 2013 we were all invited by my former boss, Li Aiqing, President of Beijing State-Owned Management Co., Ltd. to Show in the Bird’s Nest Attraction, the stadium we worked on together.
We were picked up outside of the stadium and then driven inside, through the service road that goes around the stadium on the inside. We then met Mr. Li in a VIP room.
We had a very nice view on the show. OK, for us, spoiled brats having seen so many of those shows, we saw a bit too many of the familiar features, like all that flying in the air. That flying stuff started well before the Olympics, and was part of the opening show of a large athletics event.
A lot of dazzling technical stunts, with water jets, a swimming pool, and so on. But the distance to the audience is a bit too much to clearly see the actors.
Obviously the stadium is still struggling to survive, as I had predicted. A lack of mass sports, as well as a lack of a really professional operator are not making things easy. And the only soccer team in town went back to Workers Stadium, next door for me.
Interesting was to see the (real!) moon slowly emerge in front of us and be an unexpected part of the show.

China Daily gave some comments on the show, see extracts:
“Outdoor attraction” dated 27 September 2013
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2013-09/27/content_16997963.htm

A show tailored for the Beijing National Stadium turns the venue into a huge wonderland — flying men fighting in the sky like Spider-Man, mermaids dancing in the pool and snow falling through a colorful cloud.
The ongoing large-scale outdoor show, Attraction, combines music, dance, acrobatics and technology.
It’s the second year running for the resident show.
Attraction tells a romantic love story between a human and the goddess of nature. A devil, who is envious of their love, tries to break them up by tempting the human but her efforts fail.
Attraction is “a visual feast combining performances on air, land and water. It’s China’s O show.”
Before the show, the production team visited Las Vegas to watch the O show by Cirque du Soleil. It’s easy to identify O show’s influence from the aquatic performance, stage design and acrobatics. But Bird’s Nest is a larger venue and open-air.
The dancing mermaids are from China’s national synchronized swimming team. More than 10 flying men fighting in the air for about five minutes — the most thrilling part of the one-hour show — are martial artists from a martial arts school in Henan province.
Five LED screens around the stage create the different vivid backdrops for the show, such as cascading waterfalls and a scene of a metropolis.
As the main venue for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the Bird’s Nest has to deal with common problems facing other Olympic venues in cities across the world — generating profit to sustain the tens of millions of yuan in expenses every year.
“The Bird’s Nest is a legacy, but we have to admit it’s also a financial burden,” says Li Aiqing, president of BSAM and producer of the show.
“We want to build up the brand of the Bird’s Nest rather than just a venue for sports and tourism,” says Li.

After really badly polluted days, we are having some very nice blue skies in Beijing. My friend James has been running in the Summer Palace where he took the pics of the floating duck (real or fake duck, I give up by now!).

Others head to Tiananmen Square, to face the long queues to pass security checks, then to find the recycled big flower pot: seems the fake flowers are leftovers from last year. Oh, tastes differ.
Then having my usual “pit stop” in The Den, the pretty well-know pub in Sanlitun, mostly frequented by aging expats (like me? except I don’t have a beer belly). One table was preparing for a birthday drinking party, all Chinese. They made such a ruckus, shouting and screaming that most guests tried to move away from their table (or left). For Chinese, consideration for others: ZERO. I imagine a bunch of expats doing the same in a Chinese restaurant. That would be a source to lambast them. Reminds me of the following quote from the local news:

The image of Chinese abroad
“They make loud noises in public, scratch graffiti on tourist attractions, ignore red lights when crossing the road and spit everywhere.”
You could think this was said by a Chinese-hater. Nope.
Said Mr. Wang Yang, Vice Premier of China, September 2013

But, we are facing a major problem during the holidays: my favorite KTV is closed. See how it looks like, it is Japanese style. Sitting with one of the girls who is an old friend. Just during a quiet moment before the Japanese customers came in. Usually I sing 15 or more songs (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Chinese…)

We will try to survive the holidays. In the meantime, will play around with my new toy: a SONY NEX-6 digital camera. Looks great, some of the pics here taken with it in low light conditions.

Every year I plant the tiny seeds of the previous year’s chilies.
This year they have grown very well, thanks to Belgian insecticide and soil with worm poo (yes!). And daily care.

The first harvest of the year, more to come in the next weeks. And they are VERY hot…