Trip To China, City of Handan

Part I
Part II
After spending four fun days in the capitol city of Beijing, we said a temporary good-bye (we'd be back in a week) to friends, family and The Bird's Nest and made our way to the West Beijing Railway Station. The drive from our hotel on the NE side of the city took around one hour. We were fortunate enough to be given a ride to the railway station by a friend (Pang) of my wife's sister (who was with us in Beijing), who had a Jeep that was large enough to fit our three large suitcases along with four passengers. The railway station, more so than most other buildings in Beijing was huge. It was a large four story building, with an ornate Chinese architecture to it. If you hadn't known it was a railway station, you'd most likely wonder what this place was. The traffic both auto and pedestrian out in front of the railway station was buzzing. There were large lines to get through the screening area and the seating area inside was packed. The inside of the railway station looks more like an airport and might possibly only be rivaled in the US by Grand Central Station in New York, but I think it is still bigger.

The train ride was very pleasant. Our train was a "bullet train", which reached speeds of up to 205 KPH (or 127 MPH) which got us to Handan in just under three hours. The first two times we made this trip in the past, the train took five hours and was rather uncomfortable. This train was cozy. The train ride took us into the province of Hebei, south through the province's capitol city of Shijiazhuang (I didn't need to look the spelling up!). What stood out as we passed through Shijiazhuang was all the high rise construction that was going on. There were large cranes almost everywhere. As our train sped closer to Handan, I began to take notice of the ticker display at the front of our carriage. The ticker along with all announcements was in both English and Chinese. The ticker was saying that the outside temperate was 40.5C. I did some quick math in my head and came up with 105F degrees. I figured there must have been some kind of error and maybe the thermometer was stationed incorrectly. Upon arrival in Handan, when we exited the train and stepped on to the platform with our three heavy suitcases and various carry on baggage in tow, I realized that there was no error and that we had just stepped into a furnace. It was indeed 105F degrees.

As we stepped off the platform and into the small railway station in Handan, a city of 2 million people (small by China standards), we were met by a large welcoming party of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, nieces, nephews, neighbors - you name it. It is one of my favorite parts of travelling to China and especially Handan where my wife's family lives. All of the wonderful hospitality just warms your heart. Our suitcases and heavy baggage were whisked away into one car, while we were seated in the "most comfortable" car, which was likely the one with the best air conditioning and driven through the dusty streets of Handan to my wife's parent’s house where we would be staying at for the next eight days.

During this China trip, my daughter would be turning six years old. Obviously, she was a bit concerned about not being able to celebrate her birthday with a big party at Chuckie Cheese or Jolly Jumpers, but when we arrived at my wife's parent’s house there was a big birthday party celebration waiting for her. My nephew had done his best at cooking a couple of pizzas for us. They were actually pretty good considering it is not easy to get the ingredients that we are us to having in our pizzas back in the states. Another group of relatives had worked hard making a huge stack of yummy dumplings and someone had actually gone out and bought a nice birthday cake. It was a nice touch.

Our days in Handan were mostly filled with eating, visiting friends and family, eating and finding something fun for my daughter to do. The food is great in Handan. Everyone was always "meeting" us for lunch or dinner. There was a different face at almost every restaurant. Everyone was so generous and hospitable and eager to make you feel as comfortable as possible. Many people wanted to show respect to me by drinking lots of beer (genbei is the Chinese word meaning cheers in English. When given a toast and the words "genbei" spoken, you must drink your whole glass of beer). I had to make sure I set my limits on beer consumption, otherwise I'd end up sleeping or doing who knows what. The beer in China is good, the only problem I had with the beer, soda, water and all drinks in general is that they drink them at room temperature and you need to ask to have a cold drink and a cold drink is usually just a few degrees cooler than the room temperature ones. But when in China, do as the locals do and don't complain. My favorite meals in Handan, were the home cooked jiaozi (pork dumplings) and the dan dan mian (Spicy noodles), which I luckily ate two times at my favorite restaurant and lastly the huo guo (hot pot) dinner, even though it was 95F degrees outside, I was kindly taken to eat hot pot. Xei Xei! (Thanks!) It was during this second dan dan mian meal that a person in our dinner party informed me that, yes indeed the Lakers had defeated the Celtics in Game #7 of the NBA Finals. I immediately stood and raised my glass and gave a toast. :) It was this family friend that invited me to play in a soccer game with his travelling adult team. I was leant a uniform and soccer shoes, I must've accidentally forgot to pack my cleats. :) The game was played at 8AM so it was only mildly hot. The game was played in the Handan College Stadium on an astro turf field. We scored the first goal, then ended up losing 3-1. I didn't get to play much as the team had 18 rostered players. But now I can say that I've played in an organized soccer game on three seperate continents (USA, Germany and China as the countries).

Shopping. Handan is a great place to go shopping for things like clothes, which is generally what my wife likes to shop for. I am not a big shopper, but I don't mind coming along for the ride for a little while just see some of the interesting things that are for sale. There are a couple of shopping malls in Handan. They don't look anything like malls in the US. They are basically four or five story buildings with escalators or stairs going up them. The stores are more like large stalls, often just partitioned off from the next stall. And there are many many stalls to look at and visit. There are two or three different malls in Handan all located in the central shopping district. There is the cheap clothing mall, the medium priced clothing mall and the mall with prices like we have here at home. Most of the brands I had never heard of and some of the brands were just slightly different spellings than some western brands I had heard of and I am sure many copyrights were being broken. Luckily for us, my wife has family members that own four children’s clothing stores in one of the malls, one of them was a Disney brand store (I was told it was legit Disney stuff). The family members were so generous, they basically told my wife and daughter to walk through the stores and pick out "anything" you wanted. Clothes, hats, jewelry, shoes... you name it. The funny thing is we didn't know they had opened a Disney store and we had brought their two children as gifts, items from the Disney store in our mall. Oops! :) Needless to say my wife and daughter (mostly my wife) had a field day shopping for clothes in Handan. Who can blame her with those discounts? I ended up buying two polo shirts that I can wear to work and for comparison sakes they cost me $8 each and would've likely cost me double that back in the US.

Having a five year old daughter with you on a trip requires that you find some fun entertaining things for her to do. And luckily there was plenty of things and people to keep her going in Handan. There were the cousins who spoke some English that played with her and took her to the park to play. Congtai Park (Congtai Gongyuan) is probably the best park in Handan. It has both an ancient history (and old fortress and moat from thousands of years ago) mixed in with a carnival area, small zoo, exercise area, garden area and many pleasant walk ways with vistas of the walled fortress. In Congtai Park, my daughter was able to ride small roller coasters, drive bumper cars, jump on trampolines and swing on the monkey bars (her favorite). There was also the kind uncle who took her and me to the five star hotel area where they have these huge water fountains, spraying water 30 feet up into the hot and humid air. This made for great fun for my daughter, running through the water with countless other kids. Wherever she goes in China, the people love to watch her and ask questions about her. It is not often they see too many waiguoren (foriegners) children in their neck of the woods. If I had a dollar for every picture that was taken of her, I'd be a rich man. One nephew took us to an elaborate play area on the top floor of one of the malls. We ended up spending more time at the bowling alley that I discovered up there. We bowled three or four games. The three of us were the only ones bowling and we had a large group of people watching us. It almost made me feel we were on the bowling tour. :) Bowling is the same in China, stinky rental shoes and wobbly balls.

The weather in Handan in mid June was hot and humid. The first day was the hottest, but the temps cooled off to the mid 90s, so it was somewhat bearable and the nights were very comfortable. It was at nighttime that you would see large groups of people doing various outdoor activities. Popular nighttime activities included, watching the World Cup on the huge big screen TV at Dragon Lake Park, Chinese line dancing, tai chi, walking, playing mah jong or exercising. It seems like everyone in the city lives in what we would call a high-rise apartment or flat. It was no different where we stayed. We were on the third floor of a seven story apartment building, with only stairs to take you up and down. If you are handicapped in China, I really really feel for you, but I won't get into that. Outside of our flat was a large common area that was part play ground, part exercise equipment and part general gathering area. In the evening my daughter had plenty of kids to play with. There was a girl who lived below us on the first floor (Chen Chen) who got along great with my daughter and they had various play dates even though they could barely communicate with each other. There was a kiosk near the front entrance gate to the apartment community that sold food, drinks and toys and many of the kids would buy these glow sticks and wear them around their ankles, wrists and necks at nighttime while running around. My daughter was of course, no different. The playground equipment was pretty good, but definitely would not be up to the basic safety standards of a playground in the US. All playgrounds in Handan had concrete and no padding on the ground, which made you cringe a little bit, but we survived with only one small scare/fall from the monkey bars.

The most obvious thing that stuck out on this our fourth trip to Handan in the past 5 years was all of the contruction that was taking place in the city. It seemed like everywhere you went there were buildings being torn down and new ones being built or already built. There were piles of rubble all over the place. My nephew let me in on what was going on. It turns out that the city of Handan has a 3-4 year modernization and beautification plan, of which they are more than half way through. I extrapolated this to believe that all the big cities in Hebei were running the same playbook. The city of Handan is getting new portions built, where once stood delapidated buildings. Now, five star hotels, international convention centers, shopping malls, beautiful high rise penthouse apartments are going up. There was one area in Xin Handan (New Handan) where large swaths of land had been leveled and groups of 30 high rises were going in. You new this just by counting the number of cranes that were hanging down over the land, like a large metal tree. The beautification plan is part of the Chinese Governments "stimulus" plan. An attempt to keep the economy rolling during the international financial crisis that we created. Atleast in China, their stimulus plan has some substance to it. You can see progress getting made and people working hard. Not like here where we spent most of our stimulus money bailing out the rich bankers or getting cash for clunkers. My guess is that when I visit Handan again (1-2 years from now), it will look more modern and the skyline easier on the eyes. Though the pace of construction will likely cool off in Handan (it seems to have in Beijing), it is something that will still be a part of most major cities. There is just so much to rebuild and modernization seems to be a high priority for the local governments.

Our second to last day in Handan was spent taking a scenic tour in the nearby Taishang mountains, home to the communist guerrilla troops of WWII, who hid out in these rugged mountains fighting off the occupational Japanese army. At 9AM a family friend picked us up in what must've been the nicest car I've ever ridden in in China, a brand new Nissan Pathfinder. The leg room was great and it had by far the best air conditioner of any car I had ridden in in China. The family friend drove us one hour to the nearby city of Wu'An. Most of the southern portion of the Hebei province (where we were) is a heavy industrialized area. The area is home to the largest iron and steel manufacturers in China. There is mining going on all over the place outside of the city limits. The air quality suffers quite a bit because of this. In Wu'An we transferred to a second driver, who drove us into the thickly wooded mountains about an hour outside of Wu'An. Our first stop was a huge dam and lake that looked like it was made out of something that probably wouldn't withstand a rather large earthquake. We continued on our drive, meandering through many small and primitive villages and passing beautiful vistas of awe inspiring rocky mountain tops. The type of views you might expect to see in a classical Chinese painting. We finally arrived at our destination at the edge of the Longevity Village and its Chang Shuo Shan (Long Life Mountain). Folk tale has it, that the people of the Longevity Village are healthy due to the clean environment and sparkling clear natural spring that runs down the mountain and they live for a long time. I was unable to verify this claim. But I met a local employee at the mountain who explained the folk tale to me in pretty clear English. I was surprised to find someone who spoke such good English in such a primitive village. The hiking trail at the mountain consisted of just fewer than two thousand man made steps leading up the face and canyon of the mountain ridge. The views of the surrounding mountains and valleys were splendid along with the breath-taking trail that was a canopy of trees with screaming bugs. A brief thundershower almost scared us away, but there were areas of the trail that you didn't get wet in due to the canopy. After the hike we ended up eating a delicious lunch in an outdoor restaurant/home. One of the locals had turned the small courtyard in front of their home, at the entrance to the trail, into a small restaurant. That's one of my own idioms of travelling in China. You are never more than a few steps away from a potentially great meal.

After a few tearful good-byes we were escorted to the Handan railway station. Three strong relatives were sent to escort us and carry our luggage for us and to make sure we got on the train without any problems. Another sign of the great hospitality and the family taking care of each other. The people in China may not be anywhere near as rich and in many cases as educated or as worldly as us, but what they are and what they have that is often lacking back here is the no strings attached generosity and feeling of the extended family taking care of each other. Someone living off of $50 per week, buying you something or taking time off work to do you a favor is as common as eating a bowl of rice. The simpler days of life are changing for the people in China. There are a lot more opportunities now for the young kids in China, but somehow they keep to their roots, which is that family is everything. Kids don't talk back to their parents or bad mouth adults. In general people are more humble and aren't arrogant, thinking they are better than others. Kids go to school six days a week, and go to school often until dinner time. Once home from dinner, homework often consumes the rest of the evening. Yes, there are complaints, but parents care about their children’s education and children who don't want to end up as gas station attendants or policemen who chase away kids flying kites realize that they need to do well in school to succeed later in life. Too bad some of those qualities aren't more prevalent here.

End of eight days spent in Handan. Next up. Return To The Bird's Nest.