Moving On

I could have stayed in Beijing for another week. It really is a great city, and I hated to leave. But it was time to search for new adventures, and so I did. Catching an overnight train to Ping Yao, I settled into my hard sleeper and ended up 'talking' with a couple guys in my car, one of whom is in the army and was traveling with his great-grandfather. Despite his obvious old age, he looks to be in very good shape, despite his propensity to hum 'hm-hm-hm-hm' upon every exhale, and I immediately think about how I only have one grandparent left.

Once again, China is a study in contrasts, both within itself and with our own culture. Beijing itself is incredibly polluted, and people in China have a blatantly disgusting habit of spitting wherever and whenever they feel like -- men and women alike -- most likely because of that same pollution. However, they are more active than any people I've seen in all my travels. Wandering around the Temple of Heaven the previous morning, I arrived too late to see the early-risers practicing their tai chi, but in their place were about fifty couples waltzing in the morning coolness while a few older men played badminton nearby. In the same area, about twenty women practice a form of dance routine like I saw a couple days before in Jingshan Park. Go to any park and you'll find people, mainly the elderly, doing any kind of exercise that comes to mind, usually a series of stretching or some form of walking in place. Anyone who isn't doing so is probably out riding their bicycle around the city or walking down one of the many hutongs, just happy to be outside.

What a difference between that and the America I know. We may be the most developed country in the world with the strongest economy, but at what cost? We could take a lesson from the Chinese.

But please, no spitting.