A Tale of Backpackers in Beijing

            “No, thank you, you've given us all the direction we need.” I replied, and we were off, walking across the busy street filled with buses, cars, trucks, and bicycles. Lots of bicycles, but not as many as I had thought, certainly less than in Amsterdam. All the same, it was still a full street.

            We easily entered the a bus, paid our fare, and were once again going East on  Chang'an Jie, albeit much more slowly this time as the bus made constant stops, discharging and picking up passengers. The buildings were not much different from most large cities, until we passed Tian'anmen Gate and Square. These renowned features looked almost out of place, the gate looking as if a skyscraper was laying sideways with Chairman Mao's picture over the entrance on the North side, and the square on the South side is a huge ballfield centered around his memorial hall. As the bus continued its stop-and-go, the cityscape resumed until we came to an obvious train station. We couldn't see any trains, but a huge throng of people scurrying about a large square in front of a squat two-story structure with taxis and bicycles in front showed it was an important transit terminal of some kind. At this point, we got off the bus and went into Jian Guo Men Station to board a subway train on the line to our hostel.

            After paying 9¥($1.09USD) for the three of us and we showed our tickets to the attendant at a gated entrance to the station below. Following the crowd was easy enough, and once on the platform, the trains regularly pulled in for a minute, then out, with great predictability. We would not have a long wait. The subway system was a simple two-line setup, as shown in LP, a blue circle line (#2) that looped around along the second ring road,  and an East-West Line red line (#1) parallel to Chang'an Jie. We had been told that a third line was under construction, but we left from a this station (Jian Guo Men), close to the ancient observatory that served as a transfer point between the two lines. Even more pleasing was that we could easily understand our route—the large route map on the wall was plotted by stations whose names were written in both Chinese and English. It was quite easy to find the Northbound train that would take us three stations before disembarking. It was, though, crowded, but that didn't stop an old woman from selling tourist maps throughout the car. For some reason, she knew to approach me first out of all the other passengers. I admit, I  felt better giving her some money and receiving an item that is normally free at upper-end hotels. Better to have me picking my own pocket than her!

            Keeping our eye on the route map over the doors, the train seemed to move along at an extremely fast clip for what seemed too long. By the time we stopped at the third station, Dongzhimen Qiao (we easily recognized the station sign on the wall, written in English), and pushed out onto the platform. Again, it was an easy walk up and out into the air, where we remembered the motorway junction that our express bus had been on when it came into Beijing. The midday chaos of the streets was phenomenal, only increasing from what I'd observed an hour before.

             With our new tourist map in hand, we began walking toward the Great Dragon Hotel. We walked for a long time, and finally had to ask another woman, who showed us that  we were  too far North, and directed us to walk South. I didn't figure it was such a distance, but we came to another major thoroughfare, Gongrentiyuchang (Gongti) Bei Road (Worker's Stadium Road), and, turning East on it, we passed the Worker's Stadium, an Outback Steakhouse, several other assorted business and apartments, the Pacific Center Shopping Complex, and, adjacent to that, the Great Dragon Hotel, as evidenced by the large marquee just below the roof.

       On the map, it is also known as the Zhaolong Hotel, constructed in 1985 with financing by wealthy Hong Kong businessman Pao Yue-Kong. Wealthy is an inadequate English term describing Sir Yue-Kong Pao. He was born in 1918 in Ningbo (close to Shanghai), where his father was a cobbler, owning his own shoe repair shop. It was there that a youthful Mr. Pao learned  how to trade first-hand, and knew to leave town when the Communists under Chairman Mao took over China in 1949. He  fled to Hong Kong, where he began life anew with a solitary rustbucket tanker, and was able to navigate his company's course to unbelievable success.

          To give an idea of “success”, his fleet dwarfed that of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onasis seven-fold. He was an individual who has had significant impact on world as we know it, having influential access to both the West (he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1978) and the East (former Chinese President Deng Xiaoping was a buddy) who endowed libraries, schools, hospitals, and numerous other philanthropic projects around the world. He never forgot his roots, generously funding the great Ningbo University into an internationally esteemed school.                                             

            I'd like to say I had the pleasure of meeting this worldly man in the late 1970s when my second ship imported Hong Kong for a week, but undoubtedly I had met another businessman who was preoccupied with the restoration of this fabulous city to China. I told him that he probably has the best of both worlds because of his fluency in both Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Despite his dire quandary, Hong Kong has not only flourished since reverting, and it has given China additional stature on its “middle path” to bringing a staggering population into the future. Obviously, I likely did not meet Sir YK, as he preferred to be called by his friends, and I have no end of admiration for this towering figure. 

              We entered his exclusive hotel, and found that it was not to be our temporary residence while in Beijing. We were quickly re-directed back out and around the side, along the third ring road, to a much smaller, drab, gray-colored, four-story building lacking the exquisite features and wait-staff of the grand hotel a few meters away. This was the Zhaolong International Youth Hostel, our home for now. We entered it through double-doors and found a welcoming receptionist at the front desk in a large room. While waiting in a short line of other fellow travelers—all appeared to be explorers similar to us, with their backpacks and less than go-to-church clothes. When I reached the receptionist, Piton Hu, I produced my reservation number, and created what seems to have become a traditional reign of confusion.

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