Thinking of China

An eleven hour flight brought us to Beijing aboard Ethiopian Airlines. Altogether, it came to fifteen hours, if I include the four hour flight to Addis Ababa from Abuja. All of a sudden I began to feel the strain of the trip, and was wondering how far China was from the point we were in […]

An eleven hour flight brought us to Beijing aboard Ethiopian Airlines. Altogether, it came to fifteen hours, if I include the four hour flight to Addis Ababa from Abuja. All of a sudden I began to feel the strain of the trip, and was wondering how far China was from the point we were in the sky. It was then I noticed the change in the sound of the engines which always indicates that the plane has commenced its descent. The pilot soon confirmed this. I always love to experience a planes gradual descent. If this occurs in daytime, it’s a marvelous experience. Sunlight falls upon the white clouds, and almost seems to give them life. They become both golden and white. Then golden again. It was early evening, and I looked through the window to get a glimpse of this Asian giant, which by the end of 2009, had 251 Radio Stations, 272 TV Stations, 173.98 million Cable TV users, and 62 million digital Cable TV users nationwide. The Beijing Airport, built in a record three years, to  facilitate the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is a massive edifice, and   confesses to Chinese architectural genius. You can’t get lost at the Beijing airport. There are boards conveying notices in both Chinese and English which guide you to your next point within the airport. The airport is also a very neat one. You won’t find litter anywhere, and discoloured or defaced surfaces are nonexistent. At the Beijing airport there are many belts from which you collect your luggage. The headache over luggage collection which was mastered elsewhere is avoided in Beijing, owing to a system which works very well. There’s a lot to learn here. There are also 148 airports in this country.

Summer met us at the airport. She is one of the two very competent ladies who were to be our guides for the two weeks we were in China. Summer turned out to be as warm and cheery as the season after which she is named. Ivy, the other guide, was another very competent lady. A thirty minute drive in a large airconditioned bus soon got us to our hotel, the 21st Century Hotel, where we were lodged for our first week.There were 46 of us, and this number included journalists and information officers from 18 African countries.

Augustine Ehikioya of The Nation, and Iwejim Julie Jacobs of the Federal Ministry of Information, Abuja, were also part of the team from Nigeria. The drive to the hotel showed us that Beijing is a city of skyscrapers, bridges, massive plazas, canals, and a people who are keen to make a mark on the world stage. No doubt about this. Everyone is walking smartly, or reading in a bus, or riding a bike. Movement has a purpose. People wear clothes that aid rather than hinder movement. There is so much to observe and be happy about here. The Chinese have a profound sense of humour, as this reporter found, but for these people there is time to laugh, and there is also time to work. This is quite clear. People are generally slim and do a lot of exercise and drink nice herbal teas. I never saw a fat Chinese until the last night in Beijing.  I couldn’t confirm that he is actually a citizen of the country, I must add.  Every day, we receive a wakeup  call in the hotel and then breakfast follows at about 7.00am. By 9.00am we would go for a seminar, which would be followed by a tea break and a question and answer session.

After lunch the next seminar would hold, usually followed by another question and answer session. People generally keep to time. Here, punctuality is the soul of business. Sometimes, instead of the afternoon seminar, we would be taken to a part of the capital to experience the history and culture of the Chinese people. I always found these outings memorable events. These were rich seminars and excursions which gave a clear insight into the history, economy and politics of the country. For instance, we learnt from Chinese scholars that China is a developing country. They also gave reasons for this. This turned around the conviction among many of us that China is a developed economy. This was something new. Also, China has had only one Empress in its 5,000 year history. This, again, was new and refreshing to some of us. But I wondered about the social conditions that led to her emergence, and why the rule by women seemed to have fizzled out. One thing I quickly noticed at the seminars was the sense of duty and organisation there. Our coordinators or guides were alive to their duties, and always stressed punctuality. When you get to the venue of the seminar which is usually a very nice hall, you identify your seat by your name tag which is placed at the top of the table where you will sit. Your name is typed out in both Chinese and English. It all looked so nice, so beautiful. I began to regret that I can’t read or speak Chinese, especially when references were made to some ancient philosophical texts written in Chinese. But maybe, I shouldn’t have. As the seminar commences, a Chinese Lady goes to each participant and pours tea into a cup initially placed   on the table. She faithfully refills each cup with Chinese herbal tea.

Dawn comes early in Beijing and sunset is a bit late too, at least going by Nigerian standards. One day I woke to see daylight streaming through the windows. I went downstairs only to find that it was just 4.00 am. I and the receptionist now had a good laugh. On another morning when this happened, I went for an early morning stroll within the immediate area around the hotel. This was 5.00am. Already, men and women were sweeping the streets, and a big vehicle was busy clearning debris. One thing I won’t forget about Beijing are the everpresent Rickshaws, and the endless bicycles. The bicycles have a special lane in China, and the visitor needs to realise this in time to avoid any accident .There are the great traffic snarls as well. But the government is doing something about this.  One morning, we were taken to the 100 year old Tsinghua University. This University draws tourists every day, and they arrive by busloads. The University has a magnificent gate and many other interesting places to visit, including a lovely bridge, and a serene Pagoda which sits by a pond.The architecture of the buildings there also fascinates the visitor. One learnt here that a University can be so designed that it can attract both scholars and tourists. China provides 150 billion Yuan of new funding each year for tourism alone. The Great Wall of China which rises upwards and stretches some 6,000 kilometres, testifies to the engineering genius of the Chinese people. We also visited the Hangzhou Bay Sea Crossing Bridge which is 36 kilometres long. The bridge shortens the land distance between Ningbo and Shanghai by 120 kilometres. It is the longest bridge in Asia and is designed to last a hundred years. It cost a total of 11.8 billion Yuan. The paper work that was done before its construction is longer than the bridge itself. Somewhere about the middle of the bridge is a platform where visitors can go and view the bridge and enjoy the cool breeze. The bridge itself is a wonder to behold and is the longest sea crossing bridge in the world.

Of course, one couldn’t help but notice the staff at the four or five hotels we stayed at. They always give you a warm greeting whenever they notice you coming.They stop a few meters from you, give a curt bow, and then greet you with a smile. The   greeting comes from deep in the spirit. It is profound, uplifting and childlike. Such is rare. Whenever our group arrived a new hotel, some of the staff would be at the lobby to welcome us warmly. When we depart, some of them also gather outside the hotel in their nice uniforms to wave and say a happy goodbye . This is new and pleasant.  It’s impossible to forget such beautiful conduct. I think that this genuine warmth is part of the greatness of the Chinese mind. The hotels themselves were fascinating places, and can inspire the visitor to plan a return trip to China. They certainly had this effect on me. I will return. Each hotel has a unique quality. One thing common to all is the fact that they give you a broad view of the city in which they are   located, and then there are those Chinese meals which I am already missing. One of the hotels, I believe it was the Marriot, was located just by a river, and from my room I could look down into the river. You could also look over the city itself from the room. Mealtimes are memorable moments in China. The preparation of meals, and the consumption of a meal, are both perceived as arts. You usually have several courses in a typical Chinese meal. These could be up to eight or ten. There’s a lot of sea food, as well as vegetables and much else. Chicken is also cooked in countless ways. A specialty here is Roast Duck, a popular Chinese meal. Dinner time usually reveals the best of Chinese etiquette and manners. If you are being served in a hotel or resataurant, for instance, the staff are uniformly dressed, and they work as a team. This country looks inwards for a truly homegrown response to foreign models and standards. This is why Youku is the Chinese response to YouTube, and Weibo is the counter to Facebook. These are the popular social networking sites in the country.

I was impressed by the Chinese bow. The individual clasps both hands, and bows before another, as a mark of respect. Having observed this and loving it, I then began to teach David Yarboi-Tetteh, the journalist from Ghana, how to do the bow. He failed initially, then I joked that he was executing a West African, rather than a Chinese, bow. Finally, he got it right. Now, I am wondering whether I should begin free classes in Abuja, where I will teach people how to do the Chinese bow.  I also grew to love the Palaces, and we saw a lot of these at the Forbidden City, as well as the Temple of Heaven. These are two unique places which a tourist must visit when he gets to China. The colours, architecture and roofs in all these places, are simply marvelous. There was this huge throng of visitors, and it wasn’t holiday season when we visited, and this showed me that tourism is a significant part of daily life in this country. This, I think, is a great cultural lesson. There are many bridges in Beijing as well as the country as a whole, but each bridge has its own character or style. The previous bridge is not quite like the next one you are seeing. So, there is great creativity and variety in engineering efforts. Thus, the country can afford to dazzle the visitor, and it does. Even rooftops are different, bringing much character to parts of each city. It’s so great to visit. One day we drove along a road along which Ambassadors from various countries reside. The remarkable point is that in front of each residence was a uniformed securityman standing erect, vigilant with only his head turning left or right. Every single one of them had the same watchful posture. It wasn’t staged for us. The men were just doing their work .This told me a lot about the Chinese sense of duty and the inherent discipline in each man. In China, there are countless corporations which are doing very well, and owned by the government. This is a significant departure from some African countries where government involvement in an enterprise, means that such outfit is bound to collapse.

China always prepares for the future. It has a plan of creating low income housing for a significant percentage of its population. Between 2009 and 2012 the country intends to spend 900 billion Yuan on low income housing, thereby alleviating the housing needs of some 13 million low income citizens. Each year the country has an additional workforce of some 10 million persons. According to the General Review of China,’ From 2006 to 2010,China has provided jobs to 900 million people a year in average, keeping the unemployment rate in the urban areas within 5%’. Today, China is the third largest automobile maker, and the second largest automobile market in the world.

There is the Museum of science and technology in Beijing. Here, the basic elements of science are simplified so that a child can enjoy visiting the museum, and also learn about science in a happy, practical way. Science is made to look like big fun, and it is. There were countless children joyfully moving around the museum, rejoicing  over one scientific object or the other, and pretending to be a cosmonaut, or going into a make believe cock pit to see how a plane lands .There were also imitations of space rockets on display. Thus little children are being prepared to play great roles in the country’s scientific and technological development. What looked like the skeleton of a giant Dinosaur was on display, as well. One section of the Museum is aptly called ‘Children’s Science Paradise’. It couldn’t have been better named. The country also has over 1,593 Museums. Under all these circumstances, doesn’t China have every reason to be great?

The trip to China was sponsored by the government of the People’s Republic of China.