First Impressions
William Ellis School Summer School trip to China, 2005
First impressions of China - pictures and diary
China pictures and diary contents | Read introduction | Fuller account of school trip to China
2. Street sights / life
Beijing. One of the main gates in to the Forbidden City
dwarfing the plazas stretching out before them.
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The Great Wall of China was absolutely amazing! Very difficult at first but nearer the top you get into a stride and it becomes easier, although you’re completely exhausted. Beautiful views - shame about the smog though as it cuts off a lot out the view and its humidity makes the climb a lot harder. It’s an experience everyone should have and, thanks to the stallholders at the bottom, I can now say “Been there got the T-shirt”!
- Major cities such as Beijing or Kunming are more or less like any other city in England; however, the street life is far more chaotic. I completely despise the law where pedestrians don’t have priority over traffic and every driver is very aggressive. Once out of the cities the sites are amazing, I’ve never seen so many fields or mountains stretching for over a 3 hour coach drive.
Inner city Beijing – the old 'hutong' district.
Much of this zone is now being replaced
by huge modern developments.
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The juxtaposition of the old and new is amazing – huge skyscrapers covered in neon lights next to old decaying houses with grass growing out of the roofs.
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Basketball is really popular, there are courts all over the place and there are always young people playing on them. I didn’t see anyone playing football in the street.
- The sports hall of the Normal (Teacher Training) University. The first international basketball tournament between the Kunming University team and UK school students was resoundingly won by the Chinese team!
The sports hall of the Normal (Teacher Training) University.
The first international basketball tournament between the
Kunming University team and UK school students
was resoundingly won by the Chinese team!
- In the market we watched a customer select an eel from a huge mass of them squirming in a tank. The eel seller grabbed it, hit its head against a piece of wood and then impaled the head on a nail at the top of the piece of wood. Taking a knife, she sliced the meat off the eel while the blood dripped in to a container underneath. The eel fillet, blood and eel remains were then all placed in a bag for which the customer happily handed over 5 Yuan (35p).
In the market; our students, with Chinese partners,
stand bewildered before a huge array of freshly made noodles.
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In the market; our students, with Chinese partners, stand bewildered before a huge array of freshly made noodles.
- On every street corner there are stalls but while the women work hard to sell noodles or ‘Chinese burgers’ the men selling fruit or flowers spend most of the time playing cards and pay little attention to finding customers.
Street scene in the old district of Kunming.
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At the end of the day all the shops and cafes emptied their rubbish on a street corner and then people appeared to look through it.
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Overall, the streets were quite clean and the parks were well looked after but the ponds/lakes were often dirty.
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Have the Chinese never heard of disinfectant? Their toilets are so smelly you can smell them from the end of the street.
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In every shop there was a shop assistant for each aisle of goods and they kept asking if you were OK or needed help. In England you are lucky to find someone to help you anywhere in the whole store.
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The traffic seems to be louder in China because they are always sounding their horns.
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The food always smells so nice but why do the toilets everywhere always smell so bad?
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What’s wrong with the bus drivers in Beijing? They are always shouting.
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All the flowers in Kunming meant that often we smelt wonderful scent on buses, in the street and the jasmine flower necklaces were amazingly fragrant.
