Jade Factory and Badaling
This past weekend I visited a jade factory and the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Badaling is the most popular, tourist-visited section and as you can see in the pictures below it is packed with people.
The jade factory was interesting, but it was mostly focused on selling you jade jewelry. We saw about 10% factory and 90% shopping area. Still, a lot of the stuff was pretty cool. A couple of us managed to get some raw jade from one of the workers, so we got a nice souvenir without having to buy some of the overpriced jewelry.
Check out the photos below.
Shanghai Photos
Hey there Chinarchists (what?) I’m back and I’ve got some vacation photos for you. I know it’s been awhile since my last post and that’s because I’ve been busy traveling and having guests. I visited Shanghai and also another section of the Great Wall.
Below is the gallery of the Shanghai photos; I’ll post the Great Wall photos shortly. Also, I’m hoping to have another podcast recorded tonight, so wish me luck motivating myself to do that.
As far as these photos go, I skipped the normal method of describing each one. Because I took so many I just have them in gallery form, so click each one and you’ll get a short description of what it is.
The only thing that warrants explanation is the creepy psychedelic tunnel photos. They are from a gondola lift ride that goes underneath the Huangpu River. It was so weird.
I’ll talk more about what Shanghai was like in the podcast, but for now, just check out the photos.
Houhai Lake
We recently visited Houhai Lake in northern central Beijing. It’s part of Shichahai, a historic area consisting of three different lakes northwest of the Forbidden City.
You can see it on the Google Map below.
View Larger Map
It’s a nice area and I took a few photos, so here they are:
This is the south side of the lake. There’s a lot of people just hanging out playing hacky sack and walking around. The lake is surrounded by restaurants and bars — most relatively new, from around 2003. If you look at the left side of the second photo, you can see a Starbucks.
Here is a close up:
In the far right window (under the glare, sorry) you can see the standard logo. Starbucks is pretty much the same price in China, maybe a buck cheaper, which really sucks because I have a serious caffeine addiction and I pass one every day on my way to work. It’s so tempting, especially the green tea lattes which are amazing. They taste like the green tea ice cream you get at sushi places in America.
Here is a shot from the western side of the lake:
It’s kind of pretty, but not the kind you think of when you imagine lakes. It’s not serene, at all. China doesn’t do serene.
For example, here is one of the alleyways leading away from the lake:
Oh look, it’s a crowd of people.
Speaking of crowds, I saw a bunch of people gathering around a little bird so I went to check it out. He was the most amazing little guy ever. He would take money from people and drop it in a little birdie bank.
And while we’re on the subject of cute animals. Look at how fluffy and goddamn cute this Chow is: 
Hey guys, there’s a reason Chinese dogs are called chow. I’m kidding! Well, not really. But I’m pretty sure nobody ate this dog.
Let’s change the subject. I found a little shack along the lakeside selling propaganda posters. 
A lot of children were depicted in the posters, not really surprising.
I think this set was my favorite: 
I love the farmer holding the Little Red Book aloft, which is hilarious to me. Look how happy he is to be starving to death! Maybe he’s just happy he found his copy, otherwise Red Guards would be beating him. Next to that we have the red fist smashing some guys, I’m not sure who. If you can figure it out let me know, otherwise I’m just going to assume they are capitalist pigs or members of the liberal bourgeoisie. And finally, a smoking ad! Of course.
Alright, I’m going to wrap this post up on a good capitalist note: 
Llama Temple
Saturday we sent sight-seeing and I visited a Buddhist monastery called the Llama Temple. From Wikipedia:
The Yonghe Temple , also known as the “Palace of Peace and Harmony Lama Temple”, the “Yonghe Lamasery”, or – popularly – the “Lama Temple” is a temple and monastery of the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism located in the northeastern part of Beijing, China. It is one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world. The building and the artworks of the temple combine Han Chinese and Tibetan styles.
I was going to write more about the history and beliefs and all of that stuff associated with this temple, but let’s be honest, it’s all bullshit anyway. And you guys just care about the pictures, so here they are.
The neighborhood around the Llama Temple is pretty cool and has similar architecture, so I took a few photos of the area outside the temple.
The entrance to the temple is a long walkway with trees on both sides. It doesn’t look at cool here as it would in the summer when the trees are green, but it is still pretty sweet.
Inside the courtyard you can see the first temple building. When I took the banner picture Jupiter was in retrograde and the moon was full so the courtyard was magically empty. It normally looks like this:
In the courtyard there is a big bell that a couple kids were ringing. It was kind of endearing.
There were also stone lions outside of the first building. You can see them all over China, usually at gates and entrances. Below is a picture of the female lion with a cub under her paw.
All around the temple there were people praying and burning incense. I’m not really sure what the deal is with incense — I thought it was just something hippies really enjoyed. Apparently it also serves as a sacrifice to certain gods. And it’s used to brand monks heads when they become ordained. I’m sure there’s a reason somewhere, but since this is religion we’re talking about I’m also sure it’s made up nonsense.
I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the actual temple buildings, but I did manage to sneak one of Buddha and some other god.
Sorry Christians, but if I have to pick an imaginary friend I’m pretty sure I’d pick Buddha over Jesus any day. Buddha looks like a party animal; Jesus is all weepy and sad. (And he gets blood on everything he picks up. Clean up those holes, dude.)
Most of the people weren’t actually inside the temple buildings. They congregated in the areas between buildings around incense and weird spinning luck machines.
Okay, time for the last two pictures. Tell me they don’t say something about Chinese culture. I’m not exactly sure what they are saying, but it seems profound. I’m sure it has something to do with how tradition spans generations and keeps the Chinese connected no matter how different they are. Or, it’s that Chinese people really dig beads and incense.
Check Out My Sweet Ride
I’m going to call it Hot Rod. I picked it up for 300 kuai which is only about 44 US dollars. There were even cheaper ones, around 150 kuai, but I figured those would be the most likely to fall apart in the middle of the ridiculous Chinese traffic.
Anyway, after having them tighten up all the bolts, I rode it right out of the store and back home. By the way, the store I bought it from is called Carrefour (spelling?). I don’t know if they are in other countries or not. I would describe it as a store trying to be the way the Chinese imagine an American supermarket.
It’s laid out like a western store, so it seems very familiar. The biggest difference is that it’s like a combination of every store ever. The top floor is massive grocery store with tons of fresh fruit and vegetables and all kinds of weirdo meat. It also has all of the standard food like cereal and soda and cookies and snacks. But then you take the escalator downstairs and thats where you can find pretty much everything in the world. It has furniture, bedding, toiletries, motorized scooters, bikes, electronics, clothing, jewelry, school supplies, like really, everything. I could keep listing forever.
Maybe I’ll go back and take some pictures. I also need to take some pictures of the traffic that I’ll be riding in. Until then just trust me that Chinese traffic is such a retarded clusterfuck it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. There’s 13 million people living in this city and none of them can walk, ride, or drive without getting in each other’s way.
I have a friend who would love it though because he could ride over pedestrians on his bike and nobody would give a shit. Pedestrians have 0% right of way. Buses and cars are king. Bikers are like wiley jesters switching from highway to sidewalk swerving in and out of cars and running down pedestrians. And that’s what I’ll be now.
Update: Apparently Carrefour is a pretty huge and well-known hypermarket chain run by the French. I probably should have just Googled it. But anyway, it’s still an amazing store.
