I Wanna Be Like You

On Friday a group of my friends went with Aaron and I to Beihai Park.  Beihai Park is one of the better-known parks in Beijing.  Other than the Summer Palace, most are not frequented by tourists.  I really like going to parks because it’s usually so peaceful.  The people are just there to walk around and see the river, lake, tree, statue, etc.  Beihai Park is best known for the Buddhist White Pagoda that stands on the top of the hill.  It overlooks the entire park and can be seen from nearby places.  We didn’t get to spend a lot of time at Beihai, but it was fun, we spent a good 3-4 hours there.  We passed by this circular doorway and had some fun with it.  Circular doorways are ancient Chinese architecture, very recognizable as Chinese as well as aesthetically appealing.  If I was rich, I would have one as my garden entrance.

   

           

Although I have just written about how the Chinese people are hipsters, it doesn’t mean they are exempt from copying.  But let’s be honest, there is no one truly original.  The Chinese often try to copy Westerners.  Some dye their hair, and in the summer, most girls carry umbrellas so they can protect their skin and keep it as pale as possible.  In contrast, girls in Western cultures dye their hair as well.  Maybe not to look like Asians, but for darker hair, and they also try to get their skin as dark as possible; even going to get fake tans to darken their skin.  Comical isn’t it?

Anyway, when we were at Beihai Park, there were a lot of different things to see, a lot of gates and bridges; lots of trees and foliage. There were caves (but we didn’t have time for those) and a lot of paths were left unexplored.  Maybe if we have time we’ll go back.  But it was nice to walk around and see the different things in the park.

   

   

We walked up this really big staircase and at the top there were some gates that welcomed us into another part of the park.  They were beautifully decorated, and hanging from them were these colorful upside down spheres.  My friend Joseph decided that it would be a cool picture to act like it was killing him, so he laid down and my other friend Trenton proceeded to take a picture of him.  Well at the same time, there was a small boy about age eight and a mother walking by.  They thought it was pretty funny; his mom snapped a picture of Joseph, and then her son doing the same thing.

  

Foreigners are kind of like celebrities in China; especially people will light hair and eyes.  It’s pretty entertaining.  Aaron also had a fun experience with Chinese people.  The first week we were in Beijing, we were walking in an underpass, and these people asked him for a picture.  Soon there were swarms of people around they formed a semicircle so escape was near impossible.   I thought it was hilarious so I decided to take a picture of him with this random Chinese citizen too. 

But the lady standing next to me misunderstood and thought I wanted a picture with him.  Imagine their surprise if he kissed me on the cheek or took my hand.  They’d surely think, “Look at this foreigner, so forward with his intentions!” If Aaron and I weren’t with another group of people we probably would have been there all day.  When I think of Chinese people copying others, the song from The Jungle Book always comes to mind.  “Hu-be-do, I wanna be like you!”