August 26, 2007
China racing to rid its capital of gridlock and grime before Games
If you go for the Olympics, stay for the sights
By Lorne Mallin, Special to The Province
BEIJING – With the 2008 Summer Games less than a year away, China is running a marathon race to get ready for a tourist onslaught of Olympic proportions. A million visitors will descend from inside the world's most populous country with 500,000 more expected to land here from Canada and around the globe.
Will the capital city of 17 million be prepared? The Chinese sound certain as authorities spend billions of dollars to beautify and clean it up.
"I am confident that our government has the power to make sure it all happens," said the man in the next seat, a 30-year-old Shanghai banker, on a flight inside China last week.
The real answer seems to be up in the air -- literally. Beijing's air quality is atrocious. A World Health Organization expert has warned that Olympic spectators with asthma or heart problems could be harmed.
Three million cars and trucks clog Beijing's roads and an extra thousand more vehicles wedge into traffic every day. Just this past week, Beijing launched a four-day experiment aiming to take as many as 1.3 million vehicles off the streets each day and increase public transportation. While the penalty for ignoring the restrictions was only $14, traffic did flow somewhat more smoothly. And state media reported the test improved air quality, saying conditions were "fairly good" despite the grey haze.
Without some controls, Beijing's gridlock is extremely frustrating. I visited China and Japan this month on a press junket of Canadian reporters courtesy of those countries' national tourism offices to promote Asia travel during the Olympics. Some of the writers took a tour to the Great Wall. Generally 90 minutes away, the drive took about twice as long.
The part of the wall the reporters visited was far from where foreign activists, including two from Vancouver, earlier this month unfurled a banner calling for "Free Tibet 2008." I mention this to raise the ethical dilemma of having my cake and eating it, too: accepting a free trip to China while advising you might want to think twice about going to the Olympics in light of China's human-rights record.
China didn't make it easy to be enthusiastic. For a press trip designed to highlight tourism during the Games, we were given a briefing that revealed little about the preparations. We could see lovely scale models of the venues but none of the real ones from the inside. Only after persistent requests were we given any chance to photograph the two most striking structures -- Beijing National Stadium, known as the bird's nest, and the Water Cube aquatics centre -- from several hundred metres away.
On the other hand, Beijing itself is endlessly fascinating. We saw some of the standard sights, including massive Tiananmen Square, where students were massacred just months before I stood there in 1989 and where hawkers now sell $5 watches with Chairman Mao waving on the face. The adjacent Forbidden City is an extraordinary historical complex to explore. It now features some of the public toilets that officials have upgraded and awarded four-star status to respond to tourist complaints of foul facilities.
I also discovered that China has made great advances in its dentistry. I needed an emergency root canal in Beijing and got immediate and excellent service from Arrail Dental, with follow-up care in Shanghai.
In Beijing, we rode in pedicabs through one of the hutong, or alleyway, districts that are quickly disappearing as the city modernizes. Some of the hutong courtyards offer surprisingly cheap bed-and-breakfast alternatives ($17 a night at one place) to the expensive hotels popping up all over the city.
The most surprising sight in Beijing was the 798 Art Zone. An echo of Vancouver's Granville Island, it's a 23-hectare industrial area with more than 120 galleries. About 80 artists work in studios there, creating an oasis of freedom that you can feel in the air.
The air is radically different in Lijiang in southern Yunnan province, at the foot of the Himalayas 500 kilometres from the Tibet border. After sweating in Beijing, we relished the coolness. And the diversity. Twenty-five of China's 56 ethnic minorities have a presence in the area of about a million people.
That makes Lijiang culturally rich and a magnet for tourists. The focus is the 800-year-old ancient city, a 1.8-sq.-km. area of souvenir shops, cobbled streets and small inns that was largely destroyed in a 1996 earthquake and then rebuilt in the old style, with new ATMs for your shopping convenience. You can sample yak meat (a lot like beef). Or pose for pictures on one of the small but sure-footed horses that are used on the local snow-capped mountains.
The feel of the mountains is recreated in a spectacular outdoor show on the outskirts of Lijiang featuring 500 performers singing and dancing in ethnic dress. Impression Lijiang was created by a team including Zhang Yimou, the acclaimed Chinese filmmaker (Raise the Red Lantern) who is also co-directing the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Games.
If the Olympics bring you to Asia, consider stopping in Japan on the way. With my daughter Lisa, who works in Chiba City outside of Tokyo, I took in a Japanese professional baseball game that featured what was described as "kegs on legs" -- young women with 10-to-13-kg mini-kegs strapped to their backs who run up and down the stands dispensing $4 cups of beer. With the press-tour group, I experienced a morning in a sumo stable where we watched the large but supple wrestlers go through their stretches and practice bouts. Afterwards, we were served chanko nabe, the rich stew that sumo wrestlers consume in great quantities to purposefully put on weight.
A couple hours north on the Shinkansen bullet train brought us to the picturesque Sendai area and the jewel of the trip for me. The nearby Akiu hot springs is home to Hotel Sakan, an exquisite spa that has been in the same family for 34 generations over 1,000 years. I could easily have stayed a week, soaking in the baths and absorbing the serenity. But then I would have missed China.
IF YOU GO
• The Games are Aug. 8-24, 2008. The China National Tourism Office website, www.cnto.org, is an excellent resource, with links to the Olympics. Their Toronto office is toll-free 1-866-599-6636 or e-mail toronto@cnta.gov.cn. Canadians need a visa.
• Explore Lijiang through its tourism bureau website: english.ljta.gov.cn/.
• China's domestic airlines offer the most convenient way of seeing the country. They have greatly improved their safety record but be prepared for inconveniences. One of our flights was delayed almost six hours and another was cancelled.
• The Japan National Tourism Organization's Canadian website is www.jnto.go.jp/canada/. Their Toronto office is 416-366-7140 and e-mail info@jntoyyz.com. Canadians do not need a visa.
• Get a taste of Hotel Sakan at www.sakan-net.co.jp/english_001/index.html.
• For more words and pictures on China and Japan, go to my blog at www.lornemallin.blogspot.com.
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