Journal Summary
A trip to China, a country on the other side of the globe, mysterious east until a few years ago, represents for us Brazilians an adventure. The Eastern is thought to be sinister, from what we know of old-customs movies, even pre-II World War stories. They all had that mysterious air, full of smoky surroundings, misery, malice, dark crimes, and so on. Anyway, we were all worried about a trip around this far country.
Today, distances have been shortened by jets, communications systems that are modernizing and spreading around the world. With this, a trip to China today is about 30 hours of flight, interrupted in the middle, to give our body a chance to adapt to the time difference.
This mystery is also over because of the Chinese relationship now with the rest of the world. There is an opening of the country with others and vice versa after the Cultural Revolution. With this, since 79 the number of foreigners visiting China each year grows so that the country has difficulty accommodating this contingent of people who have sought to know tourism, agriculture, industries and the Chinese people today.
Arriving from the north, Pekin is the first city. The Chinese call it Beijing and are campaigning to be known like that all over the world. From the airport to the center, it takes an hour and a half, depending on rush hour. The road is beautiful, surrounded on both sides by three rows of trees (poplars, pines and plantains); they close up on a vault, making the trip a ride. In some places there are flowers and beyond the trees there are apple orchards, full of fruits.
At the entrance of the city, we were amazed at the amount of flowers in the squares, corners and avenues. Looking back, we see that they are not planted on the ground: there are thousands of pots together, along the roads, dividing the car lanes of the bicycle forming clumps of flowers with various designs. Beyond them, arrangements in the form of kiosks, towers, monuments, and animals, like a dragon shaped by uniquely yellow flowers. They explained that they were placed for the commemorations of the revolution on the 1st. October, completing 37 years of liberation and seizure of power by the Communist Party, which would be removed after a few days.
We were also surprised at the number of apartment buildings under construction, as it seems that the whole city is being rebuilt. Dozens of them are scattered everywhere, 10 to 15 stories high, erected in a peculiar way. First the structure (pillars and slabs) is made and then a huge crane takes care to take prefabricated concrete slabs of about 3 x 3 meters to the top. These plates are placed in the spans of the columns, already having a hollow space in the center where the windows are fixed, forming the outside of the building. The inside, Guo said, is later built with bricks. They do not use wood siding, which is rare, but a mat made of bamboo, abundant material, or wire mesh close to scaffolding.
The goal is the speed to meet the demand for housing in the city. A Brazilian who has been living in Beijing for a year told us that she once had to go to a certain location, having marked the building under construction on the corner to orient herself to the desired address. Three months later he had to return to the site without, however, being able to locate the corner, with its appearance entirely altered by inhabited buildings where she thought it was the landmark that time.
In the city center, besides trucks, buses and bicycles (they say that there are about 500 million of them in China) there is still a lot of animal-powered transportation. And also carts pulled by men or women, where they carry all kinds of cargo, from mats, logs and lumber to precast concrete plates, boxes, furniture and people. On bicycles they take all these things and more the family child in a side-glazed or simply in a car seat on the board. But in this case the child’s head is wrapped in a generally colored thread to avoid insects or speck in the eye. But the most common transport for heavy load is the small two-wheeled tractor with a trailer hitched across the country.
The main street only allows bus and bicycle traffic, and cars are forbidden while its sidewalks are crowded. On avenues, 2/3 of its width is occupied by bicycle parking lots, since the distances are long and most prefer to use them or face the mass that is used by the huge buses, almost always overcrowded, whatever be the time of day.
Taxis belong to the government as well as cars. Otherwise they are from embassies or foreigners, and very few are private individuals, mostly German or Japanese manufacture. Exceptions are a limousine and another smaller vehicle, both used as taxis, trucks and small tractors, produced in the country.
Concerning business houses, they look like old townhouses, with one or two doors and windows. As we walked, the Chinese look at us with cheerful curiosity, examining us from head to toe. If we stop to buy something, they’ll get around 10 to 15 around to watch us, and when we pull out our wallet to pay, they just stick their noses in it to poke around better.
Tiananmen (Heavenly Peace Square) is Beijing’s main square, where are the monument to the leaders of the socialist revolution and the embalmed tomb of Mao Zedong, visited daily by more than twenty thousand people since his death in 1976. Formed in lines of 4 by 4, Chineses follow in perfect order, passing the room where it is exposed and leaving the other side with an expression of that they saw God. Led by Guo, we know the huge square, where families, usually from the interior of China, in Sunday costumes, take pictures from all angles, with their own cameras or through the numerous vintages cameras scattered around the area. They gather in groups as they cross the access avenue, divert from bicycles, buses and trucks.
Beijing reminds Brasilia. Wide boulevards cut the city from north to south and east to west, one of them with 40 kilometers long. Each has four lanes, two central, separated by a flowerbed at some points, or just with the traditional yellow dividing lists for vehicles, and two sideways, separated by flowerbeds with grids, for bicycles.
They were opened after the demolition of old houses that looked more like slums. In some places, new buildings, with balconies full of clothes on the clotheslines and vases on the windows, line one side of the streets while the other remain old houses, miserable, without any comfort or hygiene, still inhabited. Next to both are hotels for tourists, with all the characteristic luxury of Westerners. The avenue separates two distinct ages: before and after liberation.
Through our guide I learned about the main historical facts of China, starting with the 1949 revolution, made mainly by the peasants, representing over 90% of the population of 500 million people at the time, to get the country out of feudalism. It was actually begun in 1911 when the doctor and popular leader Sun Yatsen deposed the Qing Emperor of the Xin Dynasty and established the Republic. Exploited by eight imperialist powers, which remained there after the deposition, the agrarian reform did not materialize and the country lived in internal wars between different factions and external, with western countries (England, France and Germany), beyond Japan , which invaded it in 1935, only retiring a decade later.
Victim of all sorts of vandalism, it went through various hands and forms, always adopting the capitalist line, until, in 1949, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the unification of the country was established, beginning the process of reconstruction. First they took care of guaranteeing the population the five basic things: food, clothing, housing, education and health. School became compulsory and medical care free. Today they are proud that, with 1 billion and 200 million inhabitants, they have food, housing, education and health for all. In addition to producing and exporting various products (from food and textiles to oil and coal) to the rest of the world.
By guaranteeing the basics for everyone, the government has created a bigger problem for itself. The population, which is one-fifth of the planet, doubled in one generation, which led, quite late, to the establishment of a strict birth control program. By government determination, only one child is allowed, at most two per couple, a standard that has been obeyed and produced the expected results.
Currently the authorities are dedicated to a project of enrichment of the country, by training and increasing the productivity of citizens. It is said that the richest people today are the peasants, and the concept of peasants in China is peculiar: anyone who consumes cereal produced by himself and who buys cereal for their consumption, the first representing 80% of the population. However, many are not legitimate peasants, for although they have their planted area and live in villages, they work most of the year in various industries. Several are cooperative properties made up of families whose members work in the countryside for two to three months a year and the rest on them, their members’ main source of income.
Beijing, for example, has an urban population of around 12 million, some of them also called peasants, who use all the available area on the outskirts of the city to grow rice, vegetables, etc. Each morning, they bring their products on bicycles to the city center, parking on the sidewalks where, within hours, they sell all the merchandise. The Chinese prefer these fresh products, even slightly more expensive, than those from stores, sometimes harvested two or three days ago. For this reason, few Chinese have refrigerators, although the country already manufactures them in agreement with Japanese firms. Popular appliance is the radio with tape player. These are the huge ones with bright metal speakers on their sides, placed in the most important place in the room. Then comes television, an item present in a large number of families. And just below, the increasingly sold washing machine.
In Beijing, we stayed at the Wanshulu Hotel, where the China International Understanding Association, our hostess, operates. Older hotel, a little out of the nerve center of the city, in the style of the old mining hotels, with high ceilings, large rooms, very comfortable and clean beds, refrigerator, sofas and a reasonable bathroom. As everywhere we visit, the hot water thermos is a must for tea anytime in cup mugs with lids. By the time we arrived, our bags had already been placed in the bedroom. A good bath and well deserved rest. The next day at 7:30 am we began what would be our program during the 26 days we circulated among those people who were no longer mysterious to us.
What a feeling, analyzing our fears of before and now, there, all so simple, so hospitable, so smiling. We visited temples, palaces, schools, museums, as tourists do, and we also visited collective farms, rural industries and peasant farms. We were in contact with various plantations and agricultural systems in the interior of the country, in flat and mountainous areas, from the irrigation process to the crops. These were joyous days, being welcomed everywhere with joy by the most diverse inhabitants of this vast and populous country. We left after almost a month, unharmed, light, happy, feeling like masters of the world, having smashed all our old fears.
Chinese food
The food in this region of the country is very tasty. They use sliced pork almost as a sliced noodle mixed with bamboo shoots or other vegetables. A lot of roast chicken, chopped with butcher’s knife, leaving all bones, roast or smoked duck, fish of various qualities, almost always cooked whole, quickly. Beef is rare and when it appears it is slightly smoked, more like an appetizer.
Among these meat dishes or at the same time, there are always cooked (they do not eat any raw) vegetable dishes of various qualities: cabbage, napa cabbage, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.
Peanuts are often used as a seasoning for poultry dishes or pureed in a sweet sauce. They use potatoes, carrots, Irish potato, yam, lotus, turnip and others.
But the food is light. Even a meal serving 18, 20 dishes, we do not seem to have eaten much.
The huge round tables have a rotating part in the center where the first 6 appetizer plates are placed. Then come the others, one at a time, which we use with traditional chopsticks or small spoons. Then comes a small bowl of rice and finally the soup, which indicates the end of the meal. It is common between one main course and another taking a short break to smoke a cigarette, letting out huge puffs.
They drink a lot of beer, which is weaker than ours and not cold and also fanta orange sodas. The toasts are made at the beginning and end of the meal with a tiny glass of a type of very strong brandy (7 cereal maotai).
In general, the host leaves the restaurant first, but only when he is an important person. Otherwise, they take the guest to the restaurant door.
Bicycles in China
Nowhere in the world there are so many bikes. Not only because of the larger number of inhabitants, as well as the topographic situation of the most inhabited areas and, mainly, the low cost, compared to motorcycles and cars.
In Beijing there are about 10 million of them, of all types, sizes, uses, etc. Children under 10 years old are prohibited from riding bicycles in the city center.
It is also forbidden for people to sit in the back, but in spite of this one occasionally sees a girl in the back of a boy riding a bicycle.
They use the tricycle a lot as transportation in many ways: as transportation of people as the old rickshaws (a kind of sofa with a roof, where two people fit).
Also a plank where they carry all kinds of cargo, from precast concrete pieces, to logs, boxes of all kinds, vegetables, pork coming from the butcher shop, building material, mounds of straw, mats and also people, who go seated.
Parents often bring small children in small, glazed slide cars or in wheelchairs attached to the bicycle frame. In these cases, they wrap the child’s head in a generally colored thread to prevent specks or insects.
At crossings is a pandemonium: here, to make a change of direction to a transverse we considers a point in the middle of the crossing. There is no point there, because they cross at any angle and even on the big avenues bicycles have priority. Sometimes there is a car in a hurry forcing, honking and some cyclists are forced to stop letting the hurry pass. They are always very straight on the streets, because as they are hundreds, if they leave a little of the line they can bump into others. And despite this large number, we have not even seen a bump between them. Only a couple of times we saw a fallen bicycle crashed by bus or truck, but the cyclist suffered nothing.
By the way, when a driver runs over a cyclist, he bears all hospital expenses and compensation for the time that he is without work. If the cyclist dies, the one who ran over goes to jail for two years. Thus, they are very careful always giving preference to bicycles.
In the countryside they ride along the paved roads and the cars honk nonstop for passage. They carry lots of vegetables, straw from harvested crops, huge crates with birds, baskets on either side filled with the most diverse commodities.
The peasants use them by going to the workplaces on the crops.
In cities there are huge parking lots on all sides. Some still lock with padlocks to prevent theft, but most don’t even care about it. They claim that in China there is no theft because the thief is punished with jail without appeal. According to the theft, if the object or amount is of higher value, the culprit is shot.
In the larger cities there are special tracks on the sides for cyclists, but at crossroads they cram everything. Because they use little tractors for transportation, sometimes it’s that mess: cars, bikes, tractors, wagons, motorcycles. It seems to us that even with closed road signs, some faster cyclists risk crossing unhindered by the few traffic inspectors.
Crops
They use all the rubbish of the houses as compost and also the straws from the crops already harvested, poultry manure, pigs and few oxen and buffalo. They also use large amounts of government-supplied chemical fertilizer.
In plowing: They try not to turn the soil deeper to maintain the richest manure layer. The fact is that with these measures they get a high grain yield. Not only in each crop, but sometimes up to three annual crops in the same area. They do not understand agriculture without irrigation because Chinese culture has been using this technique for millennia. As they have many rivers, they make good use of the large volume of water available.
Where it rains a little, as in the northern provinces to the center of the country, they make reservoirs where they accumulate water from the few springs and rains. It is the most precious possession. Water left over from irrigation is carried to large reservoirs (each around 2 to 5 ha) where they raise fish and ducks.
China is very hilly inland from north to south. Besides mountainous in these areas it rains a little (around 300 mm / year). Thus what can be used in crops, flat or undulating areas, is reduced to 1/3 of the country which is slightly larger than Brazil but with almost 10 times more than our population. To produce food for 1 billion and 200 million inhabitants, they must make the most of this 1/3 arable land.
There are waterways everywhere, which are channeled straight for better use of the areas. They put small floodgates with which they close the water, raising it to the trays during irrigation times.
In his area the farmer plants what the government determines, having a part where he can grow his daily food (vegetables, fruits, etc.). From his production, the farmer gives a portion to the government (about 10%) as a land tax payment. Another similar amount is given to the cooperative for public benefit (streets, roads, improvements in water supplies, seeds, etc.). The rest, the producer can sell for his own benefit in the market or to the government itself.
When the production is very good, the peasant goes on getting rich, which the government allows. He then acquires a small tractor (2 wheels) that with the implements makes the most diverse services of the crops and in the slack of it, transports materials for the construction, production of crops, etc., which brings to the owner another source of income.
In general some peasants get together and buy the tractor, being the tractor drive only for the service of this machine both in the farming and in the transportation.
If he is an element of one of the families, he receives a salary from the group and still works in the days off in the family farms to help. If he is a stranger to the group, he either get a salary agreed with him, or rent the tractor, also paying a portion of what he earns to the government.
The government subsidizes chemical fertilizer, which today they use a lot in crops. N-P-K is used on a large scale, mainly phosphate, where land in general is most in need. Limestone almost do not use because they have no acidity in cultivated areas. Organic matter is all they can have at hand. They try to buy as little as possible so as not to spend, but make a point of putting in the fertilizers necessary to have a very good harvest. Water for irrigation is used very consciously. Where they have little use what they need to take full advantage of it. There is no waste.
Then the land is plowed: when the area is very small, which is the most common, they use a small hoe with which they dig to a maximum depth of 15 cm. When they have an ox, or a donkey, or a buffalo with a plow, which are also rented to the neighbor who doesn’t have it.
Then comes the railing that is done in many different ways, but mostly very rudimentary. The most used is a wooden grid 2 meters by 70 cm where iron pins are placed every 30 cm, mismatched. This instrument is pulled by an animal, destroying what was plowed. The planting is done by hand: they extend a line in the direction of the width of the ground, which the farmer follows with the small hoe, making furrows where he will plant the seed later, also by hand. There are places where the trays are flooded and rice seedlings are planted in the water. This system is more laborious, but production is faster. Water remains in the field until harvest. The rice plants are so profiled that the production multiplies amazingly.
Wheat is usually planted in the fall, and in winter when it reaches about 40 cm it is cut close to the ground. It remains that way throughout the cold season and as spring approaches these roots sprout are full strength reaching the harvest point much earlier, allowing another crop to be planted in the same area. In many places they are harvesting two to three harvests in a year, which means that no one is hungry in China today.
Chinese Costumes
The Chinese mostly wear clothes that call Mao: looks uniform; pants and jacket all buttoned to the neck with four pockets. In general they are very loose and the sleeves much larger than the arm of the user. They also wear a soft cap, the same color as clothing that is always gray, navy blue, or green.
Young people already like to dress in western fashion and wear shoes with higher heels (around 4 cm). The manual workers wear cotton clothes and according the cold wear up to four shirts under the jacket and always with the traditional Chinese shoes (black, cloth, with rubber outsole).
Across China there are a huge number of housing constructions. In the centers they build ten-story or more buildings, and in the suburbs and villages the peasants when they have a certain amount of savings, the first thing they do is to build the new house. Incidentally this is the dream of everyone who still lives in old houses. After the house, the private bike is the second dream. The 3rd for young people is to have a car, but this they still consider too far away. They want to get rich first. For this they seek to produce the maximum in the crops, gathering the income of the whole family to build the big house, where the couple lives, with their married children and grandchildren. Daughters when they marry will live with their in-laws. They are considered deadweight, so parents often give suitors a good dowry so that they may encourage them to live with their families. In distant places near the border of the country, we still hear of parents who kill daughters at birth. They always prefer male children. As a result, China’s male population is much larger than its female population. The male represents the workforce, increased production, while the female is just another mouth. The peasants prefer that their children live with their families, even if they get married, because the labor force in the fields is very important. The product is divided within the family itself, not dispersing.
When a householder is asked what his income he answers: the family has such income. They are very united and all respect the elders, who are considered even wise.
In cities there are a large number of women working in commerce, street cleaning, and even construction work doing the same work as men, transporting materials, etc. Very rare women walk in a skirt. If you work in any business, trousers are more practical and when cycling to home and work, it is more appropriate. Never wear makeup. Only in the south, where the country has a certain influence from the west, we have seen makeup women. The hair is black and straight. The older ones wear it cut just below the ear. The girls follow the fashion a little: bangs with the rest turned like page, or longer loose and sometimes in huge braids that go to the waist.
Men cut their hair very short, but some are already more vain: as the hair is very straight, they go to the salon to make permanent, in all naturalness.
Travel around China
Travel in China is tragicomic. With a very high population, you can get an idea of what an airport or railway station or even a highway is.
There are not many paved roads yet, but near the major centers they are always of this type, and although they are not wide (usually about 10 m wide) they support incredible traffic: buses, trucks loaded with cargo, not always well tidy, (the danger of falling is great), tractors with overcrowded wagons of all kinds, from poultry vegetables, sacks of grain, stones, coal, etc., bicycles also with their huge loads, wheelbarrows, shoulder rails with a basket or bucket hanging at each end and also pedestrians with bags or baskets.
To drive a road like this the horn is a constant, asking for passage or warning that it is advancing. In addition to wheeled transports there are peasants pulling their ox or horse with which they worked on the farm and are returning home. In the vicinity of cities, the roadsides are often occupied by the peasants who deposit their vegetables there to sell them fresh. The result is that most motor vehicles drive around the center of the road and at the intersection it’s that problem for each one to get a little to the side.
The train station is usually quite large in all cities.
It’s not big only to be a landmark in the city but mostly by necessity. Despite the size there are still plenty of people squatting in the square in front, with their bags, bags, baskets, etc., as if making time to take the train.
Inside the building there are a large number of ticket office. It looks like each for a particular region. But all with queues.
After the purchase of the ticket we are led to a huge hall full of wooden benches in 4 rows: 2 from the center, back to back and 2 to the sides. It was not easy to get a place where we could stay.
The Chinese generally beat the brazilian people from the state of Minas Gerais: they do not miss the train at all, as they arrive with a huge advance on time. Thus there are people lying on the benches sleeping, others eating boiled eggs, peanuts, bread, fruits, always throwing the shells or scraps under the bench, producing incredible dirt. Then come the very clean sweepers, in gloves, in marine uniform and cap, with brooms. They move the work tool under the seats, pulling out all the accumulated dirt, carelessly regardless of whether they are bumping into the legs of the authors of this anarchy. After all swept to the center of the passages, the brooms will lead to the far end of the hall where everything is collected in caster bins. Sometimes the volume of garbage is so large that it must be collected halfway. In one corner of the room there are about 6 cribs, which were once white, with mattress covered by lonita whose color is difficult to know, it was so grimy. They are for young children to sleep while their parents wait for the train.
From time to time an employee comes and puts a signboard in the center indicating that the train to a particular region will leave such a platform. It is then that gathering in the access to the platform mentioned, where is the tickets check butterfly, that although they have marked the place in the train, each one wants to pass first, which is difficult due to the amount of volumes (bags, baskets, etc.) that each one takes. They usually carry a plastic bag with sweet rolls and apples to eat during the trip.
First-class cabins are a luxury for surface watchers: there are two beds below and two on top, covered in very white sheets, bluish embroidery and silver thread, two pillows with matching pillowcases and a duvet on each. Next to the window was a small table where a lamp was placed and beneath it a huge thermos. After the train leaves, an employee comes with the traditional capped tea mug, that are sold.
Cabins are not always sold with criteria. In our case we were two women and the Chinese guide (male). Soon another man of about 50 came, who had bought a lower bed. We then went to the perch after 9 pm, where we slept, while the Chinese guide and the stranger slept below.
The toilets are at the ends of the wagon and on one side is a western toilet, the other Turkish. You can choose. Chic, isn’t it? But the smell is the same as every railway.
Trains always leave on time and also arrive on time. There are usually no delays.
The same is not true of airplanes, which, because they do not have a modern ground-support structure, often the flight is canceled after hours of waiting at the airport. The companies are from the government and the planes have a number. Such number makes the flight from such to such city and so on. If the plane does not come for any reason (technical failure or bad weather) that trip is canceled then staying for the next day. They never say for sure the possibility of the flight. So you have to wait until, in the evening, they inform you that that flight will only be made the next day at the same time (sometimes in the afternoon). If the weather in the city the plane goes changes during the trip, it lands on another and the passengers get screwed. By the way, nobody complains, they don’t even scowl. After all the company is government owned and they are used to being ordered all their lives.
When they announce the boarding of a particular flight is that rush and a cluster of people forms by the door of the determined waiting room, to pass first. There, next to the departure lounge door, a line forms. Not of passengers, but of hand luggage, indicating to others the order of arrival; although the seats on the plane are marked on the boarding pass, each wants to enter first. Not that they like to be on the plane, but because they always carry huge luggage, always large volumes in size and quantity, and want to secure enough space to place this luggage on the shelf on the seats inside the plane.
We note that they do not check luggage for fear of being lost. So take everything in hand and the company sets no limits, so…
After all the luggage and passengers accommodated the flight begins. After about 15 minutes the flight attendant begins to serve a snack consisting of a can of soda, some cookies and candies. After lunch everyone starts to get up to go to the bathroom that is on the tail of the plane. A line is then formed in the corridor that only ends when the plane is already descending.
If the pilot announces that, for example, on the left side you can see such a city, everyone on the right side gets up and bends over the benches on the left side.
As soon as the plane lands, even before slowing down, they are already standing, taking their luggage off the shelf and they do not leaving only because the door is closed yet.
