{"id":789,"date":"2014-07-03T09:46:46","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T09:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=789"},"modified":"2014-07-04T00:24:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T00:24:20","slug":"beijing-to-ulan-baatar-across-the-great-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=789","title":{"rendered":"To Ulan Baatar in Mongolia, across the Great Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

My longest train journeys hitherto had been from Mumbai to Delhi, Urumchi (Xinjiang) to Shanghai, Shanghai to Lhasa (Tibet) and Moscow to London. So, this was it. Not just the longest train journey, but one that will take me to some of the remotest parts of the world, namely, Mongolia and Siberia.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

(Daily Times, 3 July 2014)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beijing is an altogether different place now \u2013 a huge city, covered in smog, with multitudes of men, women and children, millions of vehicles of all description, and towers of concrete and glass all around.\u00a0 <\/span>My plane landed at a huge Beijing airport, my taxi drove me to the hotel over fine roads and flyovers, with buildings of all shapes, sizes and heights as far as the eye can see.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At the time of my last visit in 1991, the Chinese capital had many times more bicycles than cars. Now, bicycles are scarce and there are more BMWs, Mercedes Benzes and Audis than in most countries. So many cars, in fact, that even the excellent roads and motorways can\u2019t cope with them and the government is trying to limit their number by various means.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The transformation is utterly unbelievable. As recently as in the 1970s, middle class Chinese would save for months, even years, to buy a bicycle or a sewing machine. There was no upper class, except for the secretive elite of the Communist Party and some of their henchmen, who were too embarrassed to flaunt their ill-acquired richly possessions.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the colorful photos in China Pictorial, China Reconstructs and other such vehicles of Communist propaganda depicting a happy and prosperous nation, which swayed the minds of many a young men and women around the world, including this writer, life for the Chinese people was one of utter misery right until the economic reforms of the 1980s.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Beijing is the capital of China, then Tiananmen Square and the adjoining Forbidden City, the abode of its kings and emperors, together with the massive Great Hall of the People constitute the very soul of the country. It was from a royal balcony here on October 1, 1949 that Mao Zedong announced to the world that \u201cthe Chinese people have stood up\u201d. It matters little that Mao did not utter those exact words and not on that day.\u00a0 <\/span>What matters is that every Chinese has been made to believe that he did.<\/span><\/p>\n

Be that as it may, when forty years later, in 1989, the youth of China stood up in their thousands at that very square to protest Communist dictatorship and demand democratic freedoms, they were brutally suppressed. Tiananmen is where hundreds, probably thousands of young pro-democracy protesters were shot dead by the army. But in China, not many people know or care about it, partly because of the government\u2019s tight control on information, but also because living standards are rising fast.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is generally admitted that the world has a lot to learn from the Chinese, but the Chinese people have a few things to learn themselves. In my travels through many countries, nowhere have I seen such utter disrespect for pedestrians by motorists. <\/span><\/p>\n

On my first day during a previous visit to Shanghai, I was almost knocked down by a motorcyclist. In 2011, a YouTube clip which went viral showed no fewer than 18 pedestrians walk past the wounded body of a 2 year-old girl who had been knocked down by a vehicle and then run over by a large truck.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Shopping for supplies for the long train journey ahead on this trip, we entered a shop, had a look and then moved to another, from where we bought a few things. On the way back, with bags full of shopping, we wanted to buy something from the first shop. As we were about to enter, the woman who was standing outside rudely shouted us out, telling us (in English) to go to the other shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, at the end of our road trip from Lhasa to the Nepalese border, in the town of Zhangmu, nestled perilously on a mountainside and full of Nepalese trucks and porters (both men and women), my friend and I entered a shop with the intention of buying Tibetan shawls, which the shop seemed to have in plenty.\u00a0 <\/span>Hearing us\u00a0converse in Urdu with each other that the shop seemed to have what we wanted,\u00a0 the Chinese shopkeeper told us (in Urdu\/Hindi) that he didn\u2019t have any.\u00a0 <\/span>When we pointed to the shawls, he unceremoniously asked us to leave the shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Western world, the customer is king. In Indian Hindu culture, the customer is nearly an object of worship, being the source of the vendor\u2019s livelihood.\u00a0 <\/span>In China, the customer faces indifference, rudeness or insult.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was finally time to commence my great railway journey. I have a dual affinity for trains. Boarding a train signifies the commencement of a journey, which is exciting enough. But I also spent most of my early life living next to train stations, for my father was a station master. I did see many trains daily, but they nearly always went by, leaving me to stare at them.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I would stand in front of our house with eyes transfixed on the passing trains, hugely impressed with the steam engines as they huffed and puffed, spewing plumes of steam, and full of envy for the countless men, women and children looking out of the train. I must have looked pitiful to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

My longest train journeys hitherto had been from Mumbai to Delhi, Urumchi (Xinjiang) to Shanghai, Shanghai to Lhasa (Tibet) and Moscow to London. So, this was it. Not just the longest train journey, but one that will take me to some of the remotest parts of the world, namely, Mongolia and Siberia.<\/span><\/p>\n

We boarded the train at one of Beijing\u2019s many large stations at eight in the morning, arriving at Ulan Baatar nearly thirty hours later, four of which were spent in the middle of the night at the border, Erlian on the Chinese side and Dzamynude in Mongolia. While the passengers slept, woken up only by border guards to check passports, the whole train underwent a change of wheels. China\u2019s trains run on a different gauge than those in Mongolia and Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

The train headed north-northwest from Beijing, through dry and mountainous landscape, along roughly the same route as that taken from the opposite direction centuries ago by the Mongol\/Manchu invaders on horses. It was to thwart these invasions that the Chinese rulers had built the Great Wall.<\/span><\/p>\n

How power equations change! Historically a victim of foreign aggression, Mongol, Japanese, Russian and Western, China is now racing to the top in the hierarchy of world powers, both economically and militarily. So fast and so comprehensively, in fact, that a number of its smaller neighbours and at least one former regional bully, namely Japan, now feel threatened.<\/span><\/p>\n

(To be concluded<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n

By Razi Azmi<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My longest train journeys hitherto had been from Mumbai to Delhi, Urumchi (Xinjiang) to Shanghai, Shanghai to Lhasa (Tibet) and Moscow to London. So, this was it. Not just the longest train journey, but one that will take me to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":792,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions\/792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}