By NICHOLAS KREBS, 6/21/2012. I’ve always considered myself to be a well traveled person from all my visits to North American major cities and a global person because I follow global news and politics. The last 48 hours have soundly rid me of those notions!
On Tuesday, I flew out of JFK using Aeroflot, the Russian national airline. Although I had worries about flying a Russian airline given the recent Sukhot Superjet crash and other recent TU aircraft disasters, I think it helped provide a good transition in route to Beijing. Almost everyone on the plane thought I was Russian and spoke to me as such. It was lonely, yet provided 16 hours of good practice to communicate slowly and with gestures. It also was a good introduction to how many cultures insist on lovingly providing food and having a person eat it. I made the mistake of eating in the airport for some of my meals, and then being unable to refuse any of the meals on both flights. Tried to return the food tray back to the cart once after it was handed to me, only to have the flight attendant smile and place it firmly back in my lap. It had good chocolate cake at least!
After almost a day in airports and planes, I finally arrived in Beijing a bit late at 1:00am on Thursday morning. Was relieved to find out that customs was not a big deal at all. Thought that I’d have my bags inspected and that inspectors might quibble about the value of electronic items or gifts I had, even though all were clearly under the value required to declare. Instead, I just picked up my bag and walked through customs with no inspection at all! The only remaining hard part was finding the hotel shuttle that was waiting to pick me up. Because I got in so late, I reserved a hotel near the airport to crash at for a few hours before I traveled to the hostel in central Beijing. The shuttle operator didn’t speak English, but thankfully the terminal is well marked with floors and waiting area numbers, and after 20 minutes I was able to hunt down the shuttle with the english name of the hotel on it.
Until I pick up a little more language, numbers are definitely going to save me on this trip. It was reassuring to find out that although almost everything in Beijing is written in Chinese characters, numbers are represented the same way as they are in America, and everyone seems to know the English pronunciation of them. Was able to haggle a decent price with a black cab from the airport express train station to my hostel, although I’m hoping that legal taxis are more prevalent when I need a ride somewhere. I feel the best I’m going to negotiate is like 2x the cost of a normal taxi after they start with 5x the price.
The Hua Fang Youth Hostel where I am staying is quite nice and a good choice by my step-mom, who aided me in my lodging selections. The staff speak enough English that my needs can be met, but not so much so I’ll also be encouraged to practice my Chinese in order to have better conversations. They have a bar on the 2nd floor where I met many people yesterday, some European, some Chinese, and I think I will have a good support system while I am here trying to take in and learn everything. The room itself is also nice. For $30 US a night I get a private room with bathroom that has air conditioning (although I hear it is somehow colder in Beijing than New York, sorry folks!).
One thing I’ve noticed in both my hotels is that they are making an effort to be environmentally friendly by conserving water and laundry, with similar announcements that hotels have in the US. I also like the system where you have to insert your room key into the wall in the room in order to provide power to the lights and AC. This means you can’t waste power when you leave the room, as everything is automatically shut off. While I wander around Beijing the next few days, I’ll be looking for more of these design elements as I seek to learn more about how Beijing, Xi’an and Chengdu promote sustainability in their housing stock. It seems that in some ways they are ahead of the US with technology like the room key power switch, but these articles in the NY Times also show what challenges lie ahead for China, India and other rapidly developing nations:
Although I worry greatly about the global warming impact of the rising adoption of air conditioning on a global scale, I feel that it would be awful of me to treasure air conditioning so much in New York, and then argue against its adoption in China (where it is so hot!). Even if developed countries stopped using air conditioning now, those citizens were able to enjoy it for decades, and are in a better position to adopt new technologies to replace air conditioning. Questions of this kind will be motivating me this whole trip.