Cailin Reid: The China I Experienced
When my grandparents visited china back in the 80s things were
very different, I grew up listening to their stories about flocks of bicycles
and streets with no cars, people going about their daily lives, some with their entire life
teetering atop a rusty old bike zooming through the streets, majority living
within their means.
The China i arrived to was quite different at first. In Hong Kong i was blown away with how modern it was with fancy cars everywhere and few bikes. Guangzhou was similar, quite modern but a tad more rugged.
It wasn't until i reached Beijing when I was totally blown away. It is what I always pictured china to be like from my grandparents stories. Beijing has preserved the culture quite well from what I could see from all the traditional buildings and hutongs (which we stayed in!) that were scattered
amongst the new buildings. People going about their daily lives, cooking dumplings on the street, seniors playing roadside mahjong underneath round red lanterns, kids running around laughing, the boys with long rattails or a buzz cut with a round patch of hair. There were crowds of bikes in the intersections mixed in with the heavy traffic of glitzy cars (which was a nightmare, they should have just stuck with bikes!) My highlight from the trip was visiting the Great Wall, I am glad to be able to tick it off my bucket list!
Over all my trip to China with the study tour was BEYOND amazing and I can not wait to travel back to China in the future to see more places.
The China i arrived to was quite different at first. In Hong Kong i was blown away with how modern it was with fancy cars everywhere and few bikes. Guangzhou was similar, quite modern but a tad more rugged.
It wasn't until i reached Beijing when I was totally blown away. It is what I always pictured china to be like from my grandparents stories. Beijing has preserved the culture quite well from what I could see from all the traditional buildings and hutongs (which we stayed in!) that were scattered
amongst the new buildings. People going about their daily lives, cooking dumplings on the street, seniors playing roadside mahjong underneath round red lanterns, kids running around laughing, the boys with long rattails or a buzz cut with a round patch of hair. There were crowds of bikes in the intersections mixed in with the heavy traffic of glitzy cars (which was a nightmare, they should have just stuck with bikes!) My highlight from the trip was visiting the Great Wall, I am glad to be able to tick it off my bucket list!
Over all my trip to China with the study tour was BEYOND amazing and I can not wait to travel back to China in the future to see more places.
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