A couple months ago, you heard from WildChina travelers Jan Heininger and Jamie Reuter saying that they were thrilled with [their] tour company, but not seduced by China.  Their journey in October of 2010 took them through Beijing, Tibet, Yunnan Province. Guangxi Province, and finally to Hong Kong. Here is the second part of a series of articles detailing their experience.  Stop 1 – Beijing…

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We flew to Beijing via Toronto on Air Canada.  Our plane was equipped with lie-flat, business class seats.  OK food.  Great lounge with free dinner in Toronto.  The tickets were half the price of other airlines.  Definitely recommend Air Canada for anyone travelling to China or other points in the Far East.  12 hour flight with 12 hour time change meant we didn’t have to reset our watches which was sort of weird.  It took both Jan and me several days to get past the time shift.  12 hours is tough (though Jan thinks it’s easier than 8 hours).

Oddly, we arrived a full day early.  We had figured: depart on Thursday (10/14), cross international dateline and arrive Saturday.  So our hotel and ground arrangements all were set up to begin on Saturday.  I’m still not quite sure how or why we went wrong, but we actually arrived on Friday.  So there we were in the Beijing airport: no Chinese money, no one to meet us, and few people with any English to help us sort out what to do.  After an hour-long comedy of errors (cell phone with locking key-pad and no instruction booklet, low volume on cell phone, receiving text message instructions in Chinese characters, etc.), we finally convinced our tour company that we were actually in town and received their instructions.  We were asked to take a mass-transit “airport express” train into town because it would take too long for our actual guide, Andy, to come pick us up.  We didn’t really understand this at the time but our subsequent experience with traffic jams demonstrated the wisdom of this suggestion.  Eventually, we managed to get our luggage, get money, find the train, buy tickets, get off at the right stop (the last one) and meet up with our guide who then took us to our hotel.  By this time, we had finally sorted out that the timing screw-up was actually our fault, and not an error by our tour company.

Our hotel in Beijing was the Opposite House (don’t ask about the meaning behind the name; I don’t know it), an ultramodern, minimalist-design hotel in the embassy district.  Very, very nice—the kind of lovely boutique we prefer.  In fact, tourists (both Chinese and western) routinely came in to photograph the interior spaces.  Good bed, wooden sinks and bath (a little odd), good shower, great service, and a very good breakfast.  The breakfasts were fairly uniform (and excellent) across all of our hotels.  By a large, they were based on large and diverse buffets with egg stations, bacon, cheeses, breads, rolls and muffins, cereal, yoghurt, etc.  In addition, they had a whole range of stuff for oriental breakfasts.  If you’ve never seen this, it includes broth, noodles, and a wide variety of meats, vegetables, fish, seaweed, sprouts, tofu, etc that are combined in a big bowl as a sort of breakfast soup to be eaten with chopsticks.  The broth itself is simply “slurped” down.  We looked at it.  We tried it and poked around a little.  But basically we stuck with the western fare for breakfast.  We excused ourselves by saying that two good Chinese meals a day was enough and who wants seaweed for breakfast?  There were no really good breads or hard rolls anywhere in China until we got to Hong Kong.  Maybe it has to do with the types of wheat they grow or something?

Once settled in Beijing, we did all the usual things.  We went to Tiananmen Square (covered with tourists).  We toured the Forbidden City.  We had Peking Duck (greasy).  In the rain (on our third day) we visited the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace.  We drove past a couple of Olympic sites (the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest Stadium).  We took a pedi-cab tour of a hutong, a traditional Beijing neighborhood jammed in between all of the various high rise apartment buildings.  The hutongs are sort of like old, single story, traditional ghettos that are slowly being consumed by new high-rise construction.  But the Chinese who live in them love their traditional way of life, though they have no private baths or toilets.  The pre-Olympic destruction of several hutongs caused such a fury that it seems that the local “Central Committee” is trying them out as tourist attractions to see if showing them off can provide a positive financial return.

Our favorite things were the Ceramics Museum within the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall.  The museum was a quiet, deserted haven away from all the crowds with very good signage in both Chinese and English.  The Great Wall looked exactly like all the pictures you’ve seen of it.  But actually experiencing it was special.  We visited the Mutianyu section, which is a partially restored but far less touristy section of the Wall.  Jan and I took a long (2.5 hour) hike along its top.  The Wall actually just follows the crest of a mountain ridge.  The path along the top of the Wall can be extremely steep in places.  We both ended up with sore thighs and calves from climbing up and down some really steep and long stretches of steps, but loved the experience.

The food in Beijing was very so-so.  They seem to use a lot of oil so the food was very greasy and not all that flavorful.  Even when we went to a restaurant that specialized in Peking Duck, we were pretty underwhelmed.  We were not terribly adventuresome in our choices, so we probably missed a lot of what a real “foodie” would find interesting and good about Beijing food.
One of the oddities of being in China was the Chinese tourists’ fascination with us.  It started in the Tiananmen Square where this nice couple asked if they could have their picture taken with us with the Forbidden City in the background.  According to our guide, this was due to the inherent weirdness of westerners in general, and a tall, bearded westerner like Jamie in particular.  While this first incident was unique in that it included Jan, 10 or 12 times during the trip some couple or group of giggling girls or whomever wanted Jamie to pose with them for a photo – more or less to prove to their friends back home that they had seen, and even touched, a foreigner—but mostly because Jamie was so tall and looked even taller with his Australian Tilley hat.  Another tall American that we met on the trip had similar experiences.  After a while, the whole thing became a bother and bit irritating.  It was, in some small way, like having paparazzi chase after you.  It eventually made me feel like a creature in a zoo that people gawked at.  Weird.  And yet, despite such experiences and our reaction to the hordes and hordes of Chinese tourists, we found the Chinese, as individuals, to be friendly and welcoming.

We spent hours in traffic going to and from the Great Wall, and trying to get around inside the city.  Drivers are crazy there.  They push and shove in traffic using cars, trucks and buses pretty much the same way they push and shove in queues.  As one guide told us, there is no concept of personal distance in China (unlike in Japan where they create their own).  It’s not rudeness; it’s simply cultural norms. However, they always beep their horn when passing (they are taught to do this).  And when passing, they pull back into the right lane when the front seats have barely passed the front of the car being overtaken.  Several times, I was sure that we would clip the front of a car being passed but we never did.  Crossing a street on foot was also a challenge.  Initially I thought that cars were aiming at us on purpose.  Later, I realized that there just wasn’t any concept of pedestrians having the right of way.  A car making right hand turns just keeps going.  It was up to the pedestrians to get out of their way.  Given that the city was laid out in huge squares, Beijing was not a walkable city anyway.

Beijing was clearly an example of the “new China.”  Designer stores were everywhere.  Many young people clearly had lots of money and were stylishly dressed.  There was a long line outside an Apple Store near our hotel, as people waited to buy iPhones at five times the US price.  High rise condominiums and office buildings were everywhere.  Some brand new, some older and clearly showing their age.  Construction cranes were everywhere.  Our guides quipped that China’s national bird was the crane (i.e., steel crane, not feathered; get it??).  But the old neighborhood (hutong) near our hotel didn’t have a sewer or clean, public water.  Beijing was clearly a city of contrasts, with rapid change being driven by the “new” China economy.

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Stay tuned for more tales from Ms. Heininger & Mr. Reuter’s journey.  For more information about adventures in Beijing, see a sample itinerary here or contact us at info@wildchina.com.

All photos by Ms. Heninger & Mr. Reuter. To see all of their photos, visit WildChina’s flickr page here.

It’s been 2 weeks since I landed in Beijing, with the whole family in tow, pursuing my dream of another startup in the land of opportunities.

Welcome to Beijing

Since when, China replaced the United States to be the land of opportunities? I don’t think I am alone with this view.  Someone from Mars Bar candy company rented my house in the US, and as it happened, he just relocated to America after a 4 year posting in Beijing. He and his wife looked at me with eyes of envy, and said, “oh, you’ll love it there in Beijing.  There are so many opportunities; it’s a lot easier to make money there. The US is too mature and steady, hard to find a break in the market.”

After one week in China, my son declared one morning. “I both hate China and love China! I hate China, because people drive insanely dangerously, and they don’t stop for you.  I love China, because China has awesome pools!”. Well, school hasn’t started, so the kids daily outing was to try out different fancy pools in different hotels/gyms before we decide which gym to join.  The pools all come with hot tub and fresh towels, and someone forever vigilantly wiping away water dripped on the floor.

Many Chinese friends from years ago have now prospered. Almost everyone has a car, and many have more than one child.  We went with one family to a fancy swimming pool in the CBD area. (Central Business District).  My 8 year old boy jumped into the pool like a fish, and went off with his laps.  He took off with butterfly stroke.  I watched him, with the smile of a proud mother. This is the whole summer’s work with the swim team in our local community pool in the US.

My friend looked at him, and said, “He’s pretty good, he’ll be able to catch up with the swim team after a few sessions.”.  WHAT????  My friend didn’t notice my shock at all, and simply went on to recommend the best swim coach in town.   We signed on with the coach immediately.

After a few training sessions, my son started to whine about going to swim practice, trying to wiggle his way out of it. “He makes us swim more than 500 (ft), and we couldn’t get out of the pool in between laps. We were in the pool the whole hour!”

“Hey, this is China!” I said. “There are a lot of people and you have to try a lot harder to compete.”

“I don’t like China, I like America better.  I like swimming in America.  It’s more fun there.” He continued.

“Well, that’s why China is beating America in everything.” I felt like a Tiger mom/China hater/panda hugger/radical, all at the same time.

I quickly changed the topic, leaving no impression that he could get out of the swimming.  Of course, I chose not to mention that Michael Phelps came through a similar community pool system in Baltimore.

Parenthood exists in muddy water; bi-cultural living is also in muddy water. I’ll let the water be, hoping it’ll clear up somehow, maybe with the force of nature.

The following post was written by Jan Heininger and Jamie Reuter, WildChina clients who traveled with us for two and half weeks in October of 2010.  Their journey took them through Beijing, Tibet, Yunnan Province. Guangxi Province, and finally to Hong Kong. This is the first of a series of articles he wrote detailing their experience.  We begin with their overall impression of China…

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Some people come away saying they “loved” China.  We didn’t.  Don’t get me wrong.  This was a great trip.  China was fascinating.  It had beautiful scenery.  It had lots of history and culture.  We had many very unique experiences.  Tibet was wonderful.  We saw the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.  We saw amazing scenery including the karst mountains in the Li River valley.  We saw and experienced (in our own way) the spirituality of Tibet and China.  We visited towns and areas still dominated by minority populations and tribes.  We had, alas, only a few great meals but we stayed in a number of really outstanding hotels.  We had excellent guides and drivers who gave us meaningful insights into China, its history, its culture and its peoples.  We came away with a much greater appreciation for how some of the more recent aspects of Chinese history (end of the empire, Mao, the Cultural Revolution and the change to the “new economy”) have molded how people live their lives today.  We walked through “old towns” and markets established a thousand years ago.  We got a better understanding of how life works under central control.  But we didn’t “love it.”  We were fascinated.  We will go back to visit other areas of the country.  We were thrilled with our tour company and will use them again.  But we weren’t seduced by the country’s charms.

Part of our difficulties was due to the constant and sometimes overwhelming presence of Chinese tourists.  Chinese tourists are an odd group and not terribly accommodating or pleasant from a westerner’s perspective.  According to conversations with several people, Chinese tourists are less interested in seeing, learning and understanding, and much more interested in taking home pictures of themselves and cheap souvenir gifts to “prove” they had been to the big city and seen the elephant (so to speak).  In the context of China’s economic growth and the spread of wealth down into the middle classes and rural communities, millions of these tourists are on their initial trips out of their local communities.  They smoke a lot.  They spit.  They talk, stand up or even walk around during performances.  They push and shove to get to the front of a line – a survival skill, no doubt, in a country with 1.3 billion people.  In small numbers (anything less than several thousand), they are no worse than any other population of large groups discharging from parked ranks of tour buses.  You ignore their presence and carry on.  But for some reason, we were flooded with them.  Clearly, it was worst in Beijing, and our experience there may have made us hypersensitive to the issue throughout the remainder of the trip.  But our guides uniformly reflected on how they were seeing substantially many more national tourists than expected.  In prior years, the number of Chinese tourists had substantially diminished following their big national holiday (October 1).  This year, they just kept coming.  As an early example, I expected Tiananmen Square to be this huge, open square, just like the pictures I’ve seen.  Instead, all we could see were the heads of tens of thousands of tourists jamming an open space between a few monumental marble structures.  There was a 4-6 hour wait to get into Mao’s tomb (we skipped it).  Given the number of people present, the square itself didn’t even seem all that big.  For communities all across China, hanging out a “UNESCO Site” sign means you’re guaranteed millions of dollars of revenue from tens of thousands of Chinese tourists jamming little historic streets lined with shops selling plastic crap and cheap reproductions (mostly made in Viet Nam).  You can’t fault the Chinese for wanting to visit the hotspots within their own country.  But their numbers and manner definitely reduced our enjoyment and, in some cases our appreciation, for particular sights or experiences.

 
Second, China is clearly struggling with the size of its population, the extraordinary rate of growth in its economy and the rapid changes that are occurring in its distribution of wealth.  Improvements in their infrastructure (highways and airports in our experiences) just can’t keep up.  So in any largish city (and a country this size has lots and lots of cities with 5-10 million people), traffic jams, litter, pollution, clean water, lack of functional sewer systems, crowded public transport, crowded airports and disruptions due to construction are real problems.  I saw more Ferraris in Beijing in 3 days than I’ve seen in Washington D.C. in 30 years.  But most of them probably never get out of 1st gear due to the endless traffic jams there.  They’re like enormous pinkie rings, serving only to demonstrate the wealth of their owners.  Our trip included many, many hours in cars and vans averaging anywhere from 10-20 kilometers per hour – both in urban areas and while driving between rural towns.  Most tourist areas are struggling to deal with the explosion of tourism by Chinese nationals and foreigners, and some sites are, frankly, failing.  For example, we had to stand around for 15-20 minutes waiting for our guide to purchase tickets to get into the Forbidden City.  There was no way to pre-purchase tickets to get into sites.  And it wasn’t just for our small group of two.  Even the large groups stood around waiting, increasing the sense of congestion and crowding around key sites.  They just haven’t learned the secrets of how to move people along.
Finally (and there’s no polite way to say this) but…  Squat toilets were not our favorite Chinese experience.  Particularly when there aren’t any doors or walls between the “stalls.”  And you’d better bring your own toilet paper because you won’t find any outside of luxury hotels and airports (and even some of the airports only had squat toilets.)
I remember when my Grandmother Miller visited us in Germany back in the 1960’s and said something like “Germany would be a great place if it just wasn’t so full of foreigners.”  That’s been an inside, Reuter family joke for years.  I am very uncomfortable with the fact that my feelings about our China trip include even a tiny hint of this incredibly ethno-centric view.  I really do believe that I’m much more cosmopolitan than that.  But it can’t be argued that in the end, we just didn’t really “love” China as a country, and these were some of the reasons why.

Our tour company was WildChina.  We could never say enough wonderful things about how well they actually performed.  They provided everything promised, including cars and beds big enough for Jamie.  Their guides were terrific: very helpful, informed and flexible.  While dealing with our early arrival is the best example of their flexibility, we regularly had conversations with our guides about the various options we had for spending a day.  They quickly picked up on our desire to skip the obvious and crowded and go for things that were more unusual and interesting.  They knew where the shops with “quality” goods were, and took us there.  They were very open about their own lives and experiences.  They taught us a lot about what it was like to live in the “new China.”  We highly recommend WildChina to anyone planning a trip there.  They will work with you to create the type of trip you want, and then deliver it.  A very good friend of ours, who has travelled extensively, went on a 12 day trip to Yunnan, departing two days after we returned, and spent time in many of the same places we visited.  She used one of the “usual” tour companies.  The contrast between the two trips was remarkable.  If you’re going to China, use WildChina.

 
Weather wise, we sort of lucked out.  The rainy season was supposed to have ended.  But everyone kept talking about how weather patterns had been delayed this year and that we were still in the tail end of the rainy season.  Weather.com kept predicting rain – with daily precipitation probabilities ranging from 60-80% for weeks at a time.  In reality, we had serious rain for only two days: one in Beijing (when we visited the Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven in our rain gear and under umbrellas) and one in Kunming (when a break in a steady rain let us wander around the Stone Forest without get too wet).  On the other hand, it was generally cloudy, overcast and about 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) colder than we expected.  While Jamie never put on his wool cap and gloves, he only wore his shorts and polo shirts after we got to Hong Kong.  Jan packed too many shirts with three-quarter sleeves and was stuck wearing her 2 long sleeve shirts day after day after day.  Neither of us even got close to putting on our bathing suits.

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Stay tuned for more tales from Ms. Heininger & Mr. Reuter’s journey.  For more information about the destinations they visited, check out our destinations map here.

For transfers between Beijing and Shanghai, WildChina highly suggests that travelers do not take the high-speed railway due to reports of massive delays and the need for improved service standards.

Please note that no WildChina travelers have taken the rail, and we will continue to monitor this transportation project as it develops. Stay tuned to the WildChina blog for continued updates.

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As always, if you have any questions concerning travel between Beijing, Shanghai and any other region of China, please contact us at info@wildchina.com

Beijing boasts a variety of boutique hotels, but many of these are tucked away in hutongs (Beijing’s ancient neighborhoods) and remain secret oases from the frenzy of Beijing’s busiest streets where most of the larger hotel chains are situated.

So for those looking for something a bit more unique than a 5-star standard, here are a few boutique hotels that have piqued WildChina’s attention:

1. Want to experience a Beijing hutong on a limited budget? Shadow Art

Shadow Art Hotel proudly embraces the traditional shadow art culture by providing free shadow puppet shows every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights on their traditional shadow art performance stage (made by craftsmen who restore the Forbidden City and Summer Palace). The English-speaking staff, lovely interior decorations, and modern facilities add comfort to the culture. Shadow Art is also located within a five-minute walk from the beautiful Houhai Lake.

2. Looking for a more relaxed living style in Beijing accompanied by a traditional hutong experience? The Orchid Beijing

Though less culturally traditional than Shadow Art, at The Orchid Beijing the friendly, English-speaking staff, great service, and incredibly comfortable beds more than make up for the Beijing tradition the hotel may lack. The hotel is well designed, with a unique and inviting flair.

The Orchid Hotel

3.  Not on a tight budget and interested in feeling the traditional Zen culture in a hutong? Graceland-yard

Modeled after ZhenJue Temple, a Beijing temple with over 500 years of history, the Graceland-yard hotel presents an exquisite courtyard themed after the temple’s zen characteristics. Stroll the courtyard of the Graceland-yard on the way to your romantic room, where warm touches add to the personalized service the hotel offers.

The Graceland-yard Hotel

4. Need a romantic, environmentally-friendly hideaway in a hutong? Courtyard 7

Courtyard 7 has historically been home to imperial families, social celebrities, and high-ranking officials. Reopened in 2008 after intensive restoration and renovation, Courtyard 7 is the first courtyard hotel in Beijing to adopt a geothermal heating pump system, which allows for guests to appreciate the traditional culture while maintaining a comfortable and environmentally conscious atmosphere.

The Courtyard 7

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To learn more about these properties or to plan a journey to Beijing, please contact us at info@wildchina.com

Photos by The Orchid Hotel, Tripadvisor

Tiananmen Square has been a symbol of Chinese national power since the 15^th Century. Generally a tourist will approach from the South, passing Mao’s tomb and the People’s Heroes monument, briefly noticing the imposing buildings to either side of them as they approach and enter the Forbidden City.  One of these is the Chinese legislative building, and the other is the National Museum of China, which has recently been reopened to the public. It is well worth a visit, especially you are in Beijing during the summer season, where a hot day can demoralize a visit to the unforgiving Forbidden City.

The front of the National Museum

The museum, as much as the square itself, is a towering monument to Chinese national power. As a guest approaches it looms over them, and on joining waiting groups, enters the large security apparatus. Perhaps these are due to recent thefts from the Palace Museum or simply the recent opening of the museum but regardless they move quickly (TIP: You need some sort of ID to enter the museum, but almost anything will work.)

The inner lobby of the museum is as imposing as the outer colonnade. Barren except for a few snack stalls and signs pointing to the various exhibits, it is hard to determine what exactly the function of the museum is.

A few under-trafficked and unfinished looking sections are probably the most worth seeing. Exhibits by a few 20^th Century painters stand out. Particularly, Pan Tianshou’s work looks like an impressionist rendering of traditional Chinese themes, and Li Keran’s work uses western mediums to render Chinese scenes and Chinese mediums to render western scenes. Both interesting takes on the pervasive idea of maintaining Chinese culture in the face of foreign cultural inundation, those with an interest in Chinese art will very much appreciate these.

The history portion of the museum looks sparsely covered with display objects, reminding the reader that a lot of Chinese history has been lost. However sheer area means that many interesting artifacts are already contained within.  A jade burial suit, large Buddhas, and a huge portrait of the Qianlong emperor make up some of the highlights.

Close to the history section, a grab bag of visiting exhibits requires a special ticket for entry.  Not particularly enriching, a few are tantamount to advertising campaigns (e.g. the current  “Around the World with Louis Vuitton” exhibit.)

A small portion of the lobby, viewed from the second floor

In the northern wing, an area that used to contain the separate “Museum of the Revolution” before it merged with the National Museum, is more a tour of the Chinese psyche than a coherent display of historical material. However for this reason alone it is interesting, and certainly an informative experience to follow behind a tour group of policemen being instructed on government endorsed history from now until the present.

The museum, especially for tourists, has a lot of growing up to do. Exhibits are often spotty in providing English translations, and many areas are unfinished or still under construction.  However over the next few years as collections fill out and people realize it is now open, it will get traffic. A trip to this landmark in the future would not be amiss.

WildChina is pleased to announce that guests visiting the Great Wall will soon have one more incredible way to view the ancient fortification.

Soon visitors will have a chance to take aerial shots like this

Starting after July 1, visitors to the Badaling wall will have the opportunity to view the wall from the air, taking flight in as350b3 model helicopters based out of Beijing Badaling airport. Generally used for search and rescue, medical aid, and police air support, these helicopters can fit up to four passengers. The initial pricing, for a time of 15 minutes in the air, is CNY 1,500 per person. If the initial offerings are successful, Those willing to throw down more cash will soon be able to pay CNY 30,000-CNY 50,000 for an hour of charter time.

When searching for contemporary art in Beijing, a tourist is generally told to look no further than the 798 art district. Composed of popular galleries and flashy displays of outdoor statuary, 798 is indeed worth a visit. However Beijing has numerous other art offerings, including the Caochangdi art district.

Caochangdi is just a short cab ride from 798 (or a walk for the more adventurous), but the expansive area merits at least an afternoon dedicated to it. It’s a little hard to find, and there are too few westerners in the area to follow to the art, but any local is completely willing to point you in the right direction of a gallery. These are scattered through a district otherwise home to a variety of apartments, local stores, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

Touristy it is not, but this given the district a distinct advantage. Renowned artist Ai Weiwei was one of the first to move his gallery outside of the area, moving into a new massive compound with a few friends. Soon other artists began to follow his lead, favoring the relative quiet of the area over the notoriety of the 798.

A bare corridor is bordered by gallery buildings on both sides

Anyone visiting the area should be able to find a surprisingly wide and high-quality variety of galleries. The outsides are decorated minimally, with generally only a small sign indicating the gallery. The architecture in itself is worth a visit: Spartan buildings can invoke a modern take on the soviet style, combining itself with the communal feel of a hutong (a traditional neighborhood composed of narrow alleys). The insides reflect the same feel: often no place is safe from art, which hangs from ceilings, emerges from the floor, and the like. In one exhibit, “The Way of Chopsticks,” a giant pair of chopsticks was laid across two roofs.

A selection from Song Chen's "Dust to Dust" exhibit

Artists in Caochangdi feel in their element, often working in a back room to create art that will later appear in the adjacent gallery. A feeling of authenticity is augmented by advertisements in most galleries for new exhibitions coming soon. Conceptual art abounds, and the artists are engaged in everything from social work (we noticed a gallery supporting a women’s collective in Xinjiang, and employing them to help create work) to employing very experimental mediums (one exhibit, entitled “Dust to Dust” only used dirt.)

Caochangdi is, all in all, a destination for serious art aficianados. If the 798 District is isn’t enough, or feels too kitschy, find an expert, and go on a tour of this art district.

We would like to introduce a new experience in educational travel in China – the WildChina Student Summer Expedition.

Designed to bring together unforgettable experiences and cultural discovery in a safe, professionally managed adventure learning experience, highlights of this program include:

- Experience life in China’s capital of Beijing where Imperial history collides with hyper-modernity

- Trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge, a spectacular natural wonder where we meet local residents cuaght in the midst of China’s struggle to balance environmental concerns with economic demands.

- Journey into one of the spiritual centers of Tibetan culture and experience the daily lives of its residents.

- Retrace an ancient pilgrimage route on a five-day Tibetan style trek amongst the snow-capped peaks of the Tibetan plateau to the 14,500 ft summit of Mount Skika.

- Participants will have an opportunity to give back to the community by participating for four days (roughly 20 – 30 hours) in a community service project.

Quick FAQs:

Q. Who is this expedition for?

A. Students ages 14+ and entering 9 – 12 grade are eligible.

Q. When does the journey depart?

A. There are two programs running in the summer of 2011: July 11 – July 28 and July 20 – August 6

Q. How much is the program fee?

A. USD 3,990. This fee includes domestic but not international airfare.

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Please see the flier below for more details.  To enquire about this trip, please email education@wildchina.com.

On Monday, the Dragon Boat Festival was celebrated in cities throughout all of China.  Myth says that the holiday commemorates the death of a famous poet and statesman Quan Wu, who committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.  Locals who admired him supposedly tried to prevent the decomposition of his body by paddling (dragon) boats in the river to scare fish away.

Today, the holiday is celebrated with jubilant water races that are fun for everyone.  Races in both Beijing and Hangzhou happily welcome experts, beginners, foreigners and locals to partake.  Time Out Beijing found that one can even receive proper training in the sport at the Golden Sail Water Sports Club.

Our local partners in Guizhou province that the festivities will last even longer than the one day because actually, June 6 marked the Han Chinese holiday.  In the minority Miao culture, the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the Qingshui River and commemorates a different folk story – that of a hero named Guya, who killed an evil dragon.

By tradition, there are three dragon boats, one is 17 meters long (mother boat), the other two are 10 meters long (child boat), all the boats are made from fir, each with a carved dragon’s head on it’s prow. Before the dragon boat sets out, somebody sings an auspicious song to the boatmen, wishing them a bon voyage, the crew row the boat from one village to another. When they approach a village, they fire guns to announce their arrival. The villagers set off firecrackers and go to meet them, and then pleas are made to the dragon to bestow happiness on each community.

After lunch, the boats stop ashore alongside the river bank. Pigs, goats, ducks and geese are presented to the crew and headman, the boatmen eat glutinous rice balls and meat on the boats, without the aid of bowls and chopsticks. It is said that after eating food from a dragon-boat, one will be safe from disaster and everything will proceed smoothly.

Throughout this Miao celebration of the festival, horse races and bullfights are held, families gather on the bank to eat and gossip, and the nights are filled with songfests.

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This year, these celebrations will last from June 26 to June 30.  To inquiry about journeys to Guizhou to experience the festivities first-hand, please contact us at info@wildchina.com.

Photo by Time Out Beijing & WildChina local partners