Citylife: Beijing part II

It is hot here. Hot like the southeast in the middle of the summer where even if you are lucky to escape the sun’s powerful rays, the air temp remains the same as moisture floats around every corner. Here in the great city of Beijing the smog and exhaust make this feeling even worse. Men roll their shirts up, revealing rolly-polly bellies. Women wave their fans briskly in front of their faces. But it does not stop them, people move and work and travel in this swealtering heat. Perhaps it is preferable to the other seasons, of which I have not yet experienced.

I escape the heat associated with traffic by spending time in city parks. Here I can see what the people do in their free time, one of my indicating factors of the quality of life in a place. Both here and in Kunming, groups of old men gather together with complicated wheels, thick cords and delicate kites. Using the winds, they fly their kites and smoke their cigarettes, probably grumbling about their wives, the heat or other small annoyances that strike them in their old age.

Other people sit around concrete tables playing cards or Majong, the famous tile game seen throughout China. Some sit alone, playing an instrument or crooning a traditional song. No matter the hour of the day, it never fails that the park is full of people taking part in many different activities, none of which are work related or stress inducing. Buried in a city pumping with business, commercialism and progress, it is refreshing to see people relaxing and enjoying the spaces in between.

One afternoon we swam in a community pool where my friends held a membership to maintain physical and mental stability while surrounded by the concrete and steel of a city. Small children with failing bathing suits and foam strapped to their torsos shouted and splashed. Hearing these kids speak a language as foreign as Mandarin makes my minimal comprehension completely void. How can anyone distinguish their words? One day.

The life guard notified us upon entry that we were to purchase swim caps in order to enter the water. This made me laugh as although they were seemingly required for sanitary reasons, the caps were made from bathing suit materialand frequently failed to cover the majority of the swimmer’s heads. We, however, complied with smiles.

As we bobbed and chatted, breaking to swim a few laps, a young Chinese boy silently floated next to us. Although he couldn’t understand anything we said, he continued to follow us around the pool as if he had come there with us. He simply watched us, not attempting to communicate, not observing any norms of personal space or privacy. We were in a public pool after all.

Now the time has come to travel south to Kunming, where Last Descents’ office and gear is located. Between urban traveling, retrieving kayak from left luggage, checking overweight and oversized baggage and waiting while security double checks our bags, we cut it as close as you possibly can to catching our flight. I vow to never let it happen again. Right.

Here in Kunming we continue the preparation and work. While Adam toils away with design work and trip planning, I struggle with the lack of computer (eventually maguivering a wire job on the power source of an extra laptop I can then use) and read as much as possible. When we are at the office, I spend time down in the street, with local shop owners and friends kicking around a Jienza—a type of hackysack made of metal disks and feathers. It is a wonderful way to pass time in a foreign environment.

We plan to take a train to Qinghai in a few days, once LD’s trip gear is loaded onto a shipping train and Adam has gone down to Vietnam to renew his Visa. While meandering through a local bookstore I came across a Qinghai Province photo essay . Mountains, valleys, colors, people, festivals, monasteries, tradition and beauty filled every image. Excitement elevated off the charts.