...So says the sign in the hotel room in Beijing. The sign above the toilet says, "Watch the Landslide."
At 6 am, the local park is filled with elderly people doing group aerobics. Groups and groups and groups of them. Old ladies are hiding behind trees secretly moving along to the larger groups. Men chant and slap their bellies in rhythm. Couples of grandmothers ballroom dance in the middle of a path. Two octagenarians play hackey sack. It's cool and green, a respite from the constant haze.
At 11am, hordes of people leave yellow flowers wrapped in celophane outside of the tomb of Mao. He looks peaceful, if a little plastic.
At 2pm, no one can buy plastic replicas of the five cartoon Olympic mascots fast enough. Jing Jing is the panda. He shoots a gun.
At 7pm, a families take their lawnchairs and settles on the side of the street, ensconsed between a stand of watermelons and a dumpling maker. The fathers roll their t-shirts up above their bellies.
The sun is (hazy) like a red rubber ball.
At 6 am, the local park is filled with elderly people doing group aerobics. Groups and groups and groups of them. Old ladies are hiding behind trees secretly moving along to the larger groups. Men chant and slap their bellies in rhythm. Couples of grandmothers ballroom dance in the middle of a path. Two octagenarians play hackey sack. It's cool and green, a respite from the constant haze.
At 11am, hordes of people leave yellow flowers wrapped in celophane outside of the tomb of Mao. He looks peaceful, if a little plastic.
At 2pm, no one can buy plastic replicas of the five cartoon Olympic mascots fast enough. Jing Jing is the panda. He shoots a gun.
At 7pm, a families take their lawnchairs and settles on the side of the street, ensconsed between a stand of watermelons and a dumpling maker. The fathers roll their t-shirts up above their bellies.
The sun is (hazy) like a red rubber ball.
3 comments:
I just read Graydon Carter's Editor Letter this morning in Vanity Fair. He said:
"Beijing has long been on the list of the world's major cities but never on this list of its most spectaculr ones. The Chinese capital is sprawling and choked by some of the worst pollution on the planet, and its central core is dominated by the totalitarian vastness of Tiananmen Square. Preservationists have long lamented the mass razing of the traditional urban clusters of "hutongs" and miles of faceless apartment blocks that replaced them. But in the run-up to this year's Olympics, Beijing has seen an efflorescence of world-class architecture."
Have you seen "an efflorescence of world-class architecture?" Tell me mao! Whoops! I mean, tell me MORE!
I am so impressed by you.
Dad
We admire your tenacious traveling spirit. The pictures are awesome. You should be writing for Nat. Geographic!!
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