Day 41

1 June 2013

Big brother

Big brother is here, I have no doubt about that. If something was to happen and I needed to be found, the authorities would find me in a day if not sooner. How is that possible in country of over a billion people>? Easy! . Everyone has an identification card and mine is my passport. The tracking system is simple. When you go to a hotel /hostel whatever, your details are recorded from your passport and given to the local police. When you buy a train ticket the i.d. number or in my case, my passport number is printed on the ticket.

On the ticket you find you bunk/seat number, once the train leaves the attendant comes around with a big folder where she keeps plastic cards with all seat/bunk numbers. She exchanges the tickets for the plastic card. After she has collected all the cards she goes to her tiny office at the front of the carriage and inserts every name in her computer. No doubt this is linked to the authorities. Before leaving the train you get your original tickets back again.

When I got off the train this morning and arrived at the hostel they would know that I am there now. In a few days I will collect my ticket for Mongolia and they would do the same again at the office and in the train going north until I get to the border. I think the only way to escape from this is when you stay at a private house with friends, but as I have been told , the owner of the house is required to register/notify the police or whatever authority that you are there.

When you see all this you really appreciate it to live in a free country, where the only registrations happen at birth, when you start paying tax or when you leave/exit the country. I speak for Australia. In Holland you must be registered wherever you live and cannot freely move (change address) from one

I arrived in Beijing early in the morning and spend half an hour looking for the bus stop, which I finally found right in front of the station and not in the area where all the busses are. All signs in Beijing are in Chinese and English so travel on a bus is simple. 20 stops cost 1 Yuan or about 17 cents. Inside is a sign with the bus stops and announcements are made in Chinese but at least you can understand the names and see them in the bi-bilingual sign near the exit doors. As soon as I arrived at the hostel I had a shower and left for Tiananmen Square which I found to be exciting as this is the heart of China.

Many people took pictures of me or just stare. A young mother had her daughter take a picture of her, then spotted me and moved next to me and asked her daughter to take another picture ,;she then placed her daughter in front of me and took another shot. We had a laugh about it all. Funny people these Chinese.

On the way back I crossed a market and at last felt like I was in the real china. The food area was interesting, Fried scorpions (offered life but then where fried after ordering) snakes , sea horses, centipedes, beetles, cuttlefish, small birds etc I bought a small bird, perhaps a sparrow or something larger and had it for dinner. It tasted like chicken .

My first day in Beijing, I have to pinch myself to believe that I am here.