We boarded the plane a couple of days ago. My youngest, “Z-Man” who’s 7 years old, was so excited, every 30 minutes he’d get out of his seat with mom, walk up the aisle to my seat and say, “Dad, how long before we get to China?”
“Only 11 hours and 45 minutes.”
(It was a 13 hour flight. One of the things I love about living Chicago is, it’s easy to get to anywhere. And not just Cleveland.)
Our oldest, the one we affectionately call The Drama Queen, stayed home with our neighbors ‘cuz she’s in high school. But the three boys came with us. Bryan’s meeting up with us tomorrow in Lijiang.
Meanwhile here we are in the capital of China.
Beijing is a great place but before I get into all the fun stuff, I gotta get something off my chest.
The plane landed. It was 4pm, just starting to get dark. Beijing is a lot like Chicago – same weather etc. The sun was going down.
Laura looks out the window at the murky orange ball in the sky and says to me, “Is that smog?”
“Yeah baby, that’s smog.”
She had this look of mild shock.
It’s not like I hadn’t told her about the pollution in China. Nine years ago I was here, taking some factory tours. The smog in Shanghai was horrible, far worse than anything you’d see in LA. The sky was not blue, it was a murky yellow haze.
But the kicker is, I took a six hour cab ride from Shanghai to Dongyang – which would be roughly like going from Washington DC to the middle of Virginia – and as I went far into the countryside, the smog didn’t change one iota.
Imagine driving through farms in central Virginia and seeing the sky choked with smog.
That’s the entire east coast of China for ya.
I said to myself: “If I wasn’t an environmentalist before, I sure am now.”
This is why I fail to understand why everyone’s arguing about global warming. Why fight about problems you can’t see – like temperatures – while nobody’s talking about the problems you can see, problems so obvious they’re shocking?
Laura had probably heard my China pollution story ten times. But nothing had prepared her for actually seeing it for herself. At night in Beijing, there’s smoggy haze around every street light. This is a picture of the Beijing airport, and the glow around the street lights is smog:
If you want to solve environmental problems, you don’t start with greenhouse gases. You start with coal furnaces belching visible filth and well-known toxins into the sky.
Personally I think witch hunts going after invisible problems are really just ways of distracting people from the obvious problems. Human nature usually favors the imaginary problems over the obvious. I say, always begin with the obvious problem.
Keep in mind that the US outsources a lot of its pollution to China, so this is everyone’s issue, not just theirs.
When you watch Chinese TV, the commercials almost always include a brilliant blue sky with lush green grass. That’s because the average Chinese person rarely sees either blue sky or green grass. The China newspapers have a city by city pollution index that they publish every week.
Like I said, if I wasn’t an environmentalist before, I sure am now.
And if anyone ever tells you our environmental problems are all fabricated, stick ’em on the next flight to Beijing or Shanghai and that’ll shut ’em up permanently.
EndRant.
We checked into our hotel and went outside looking for a restaurant. We ended up going to street stalls (Laura and I were feeling more adventurous than the boys were). Number One Son who’s 13 liked the chicken and I got a bowl of noodles. The younger boys, well let’s just say this was a bit much for them.
Next morning we took a walk around Beijing. It wasn’t long before we walked by this art shop and the proprietor started talking to us about how many kids we had. To Chinese people, three kids is almost incomprehensible. He didn’t know we had four and were about to get a fifth. Not until the kids told him, anyway.
Man was this guy a good schmoozer. Number One Son chuckled as he worked his magic. “What is your name? Marshall? Ah, I show you what Marshall means in Chinese. Ma, that means horse. Shall, that means “Beautiful.” See, this mean “Beautiful horse.” Your family have strength and leadership. Very admirable qualities.
“Beautiful horse means courage and bravery. Ancient Chinese emperors prize these things, give you great honor. You must be very proud.”
Of course it’s hard to tell how badly he’s mangling Chinese syllables in order to come up with this stuff, but I tellya, this was great salesmanship. Number One Son is laughing his butt off. The proprietor says, “For 50 Yuan I draw “Marshall” for you in special Chinese calligraphy and you hang on your wall, yes?”
Number One Son, who has acquired his cynicism from his father, the advertising professional, can’t stop laughing. I say to him, “You learn to sell like this guy can sell, you will never go hungry.”
The guy did manage to levitate some dinero out of our wallets before we escaped from his store. Gotta hand it to him.
Next, the Forbidden City. As soon as you get there you get accosted by tour guides. The US travel service screwed up when they set us up with one so we were on our own. I hate being accosted by sales people but Laura reminds me that if I don’t talk to them we won’t get a tour.
So I negotiate a tour of the Forbidden City, along with a trip to the Great Wall of China, all for one package price. The lady takes us around, shows us everything. We even get to meet the nephew of the “Last Emperor” Pu Yi, who apparently is a famous calligrapher.
I’d been to China three times before – 2001, 2002 and 2004. I was shocked at how much prices had gone up. A cup of tea at the Forbidden City cost 3 bucks. Last time I was hear it would have cost 75 cents and in some places would have cost 30 cents. China USED to be so cheap you felt like you were stealing.
Beijing has modernized FAST. It is fully a first world, world-class city. I suspect other parts of China are less developed but you’ll hear about those in due time. We’ve got 4+ more cities before we’re done.
Our tour guide took us to the Great Wall, stopping at a “Jade” store on the way. They sold everything you could possibly imagine, carved out of jade.
The boys LOVED the great wall. We walked almost all the way to the top of that particular section, which felt like climbing all the way to the top of the Sears Tower. The weather was good and we got some ice cream when we got to the bottom.
You can see Laura’s pics of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall here:
http://compassionmama.blogspot.com/2011/11/beijing-day-2-forbidden-city-and-great.html
On the way back the driver took us to a Silk store. It was becoming apparent that these guys get kickbacks for adding extra destinations to your “tour.” Then he announced we were going to go to another special place and observe a tea ceremony.
Laura and the kids were exhausted. They didn’t want to go anywhere else. I told the guy I wanted to go to our hotel and skip the tea ceremony.
The tour guide replied that we have to go to the tea ceremony.
I said no, we want to go home.
He says to me, “No, must take you there, otherwise they take away my pay or end my job. Please sir, it only take 20 minutes.”
“Can I talk to your boss?”
“He doesn’t speak English and I don’t know his cell phone number.”
We’re kinda trapped.
We ride for awhile. Finally I say, “I want you to call your boss right now and find out how much the kickback is for the tea ceremony. I’ll pay you the money. But I do NOT want to go to the tea ceremony and you did not tell me I had to go to the tea ceremony when we started this trip. That’s dishonest.”
He calls his boss and tells me it costs 200 Yuan ($30) to not go to the tea ceremony. We pay him the thirty bucks and he drives us back to our hotel.
Welcome to China!
We had dinner across the street from the hotel. On the way back from the hotel, I saw a sign that said, “Foot massage soup.” Oh I just love Chenglish. Apparently they dunk your feet in some magic potion and massage your feet.
I decided to go get a massage. I took the back massage too.
So this guy starts working on my feet and back. Then he brings these glass jars and puts them on my back. It makes this painful pinching sensation. He insists that this is very very good for my back. He leaves the jars on my back for several minutes. This is NOT comfortable. However Chinese massage usually isn’t and I figure they know what they’re doing.
I get back to my hotel room and the kids say, “What happened to your back????” I look in the mirror and it looks like I have huge slices of salami stuck to my back. Giant bruises from “cupping therapy.”
Dang, this is hideous!
The massage guy had told me not to get my back wet, to wait until tomorrow night before showering.
Ummm…. okay. Chinese people sure have strange ideas about health. Laura said, “You look like you got attacked by an octopus.”
Three cheers for my giant red welts!
At least they don’t hurt. I will report back to you about whether I was permanently maimed by my trip to the Chinese massage guy.
Today we go to the Hutong (“traditional historic neighborhood”) and Tiananmen Square, the famous place where the Chinese student had a standoff with a tank in 1989. (This, by the way, is not what most Chinese people associate the place with. In China, Chairman Mao, who killed more people than anyone else in history, is considered a hero. But I digress)
And probably we’ll catch some Samaurai show. The kids oughtta like that.
Tomorrow I and my wife and three kids and my eight welts fly to Lijiang, the most beautiful city in Asia. We meet up with Bryan there. Stay tuned…..
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
23 Comments on “First Day in Beijing”
Perry, I am so happy for you & your new daughter. She is a gift from God.
About 35 years ago, maybe more I was one of the ‘Holiday Inn’ stay x nights & win a trip for 2 to anywhere in the world people. I traveled a lot in my job & would drive 30-40 miles just to stay in a different Holiday Inn. Wanted to go somewhere completely different than America so picked Hong Kong while it still was part of the’Free World’. Our entire plane was filled with Holiday Inn people. What a change, got off the plane & met by military with BIG guns, never saw anything like it. But really don’t recall any smog. Took a one day trip to China, passed through Portugese Colony(supposedly a big $ gambling area) for brief time on our way to China. Really funny feeling when you have to hand over your passport to authorities, very uneasy feeling. The tour guy pointed out a new hotel being built by, I think Holiday Inn, said they had 10 years to build it & make a profit, then it got turned over to China. You missed a nice event at the tea event. I never drank hot tea before but this was very light & smooth. Have drank hot tea ever since. When they took our Master Card in China something told me they where headed for the big time in marketing. This was while we still had made in America items to buy. We always liked the Chiness restaurant at home with what we thought was Chiness food. Well in Hong Kong it was the worst food we ever had. The highlight of our epicurian delight was finding a MacDonalds. They had ICE & plenty of it. We ate there more than any place once we saw it. What a strange feeling when you stop people to ask if they spoke English. When we were all calling places from the lobby for tours one lady was so irritated because she wasn’t communicating well with the tour guides & said “It looks like they could speak English”. Uh, we’re in their country, remember? The strangest thing were the bamboo scaffolding 10+ floors high. Great trip. But an aside on global warming. I’m still waiting on the 70’s FREEZE. The world has had a zillon temperature swings from ice age to melting heat & it will continue to do so. There weren’t any cars or coal mines back then. That being said we must be good stewards of our planet. But that doesn’t mean we have to eliminate ALL carbon dioxide, remember trees & plants need it to grow & make OXYGEN that we breath. Will we be limited to x no. of breaths a day? Quit arguing about what is the best way to decrease air & water poisons & do them all. We can lead the way but who will make China stop? Our coal plants have been cleaned up, go work on theirs. We have attended churches from ecumincal to Catholic & Baptist, no one has every mentioned global warming, they talk about Christ. So get off the religion rant. And put a plug on the EPA nut cases that stop every possible growth such as oil companies that have the gov’t OK to drill at the Eastern area mountains but EPA keeps us from $1.00 a barrel oil, largest oil field of any where or stopped a school from being built in AZ for over 20 years costing the school millions of $ in law suits because “someone THOUGHT they saw some protected owl. No one has seen one since & they finally decided it was a cousin to the ‘think I saw’ owl. We need to take care of the planet God gave us but we can’t control everything, be a good ‘renter’ & if you want to really make progress in cleaning up the air, start with China. Good luck
Hi Perry,
I am not in your business–I am just a housewife who’s husband is a copywriter/marketer…as we don’t get a lot of time together–he often read’s your emails, your newsletter etc. to me while stroking my hair on our couch. I have enjoyed listening to your business tips, your stories and hearing about your family. I thank you for sharing so much it has been enriching and comical. Your China adventure emails are amazing and I look forward to hearing them–I always get a chuckle. I am praying all goes well with picking your second daughter up–stay safe. Nicole Manley.
Nicole,
Great to have you along. At Planet Perry, we like spouses :^>
Perry,
Brian came in the kitchen yesterday, somewhat out of the blue, and says, “You know what thought I can’t get out of my mind?”
“Right now, there is a little girl whose status in life right now is, effectively, ‘Rejected in China.’ But, in a couple of days, her status will immediately change to ‘Loved and Given-Every-Imaginable-Opportunity in the US.’ I mean, the Marshall family will teach her about Faith and be sure she has an education, and will encourage her to follow her passion in whatever-it-is that she wants to do…”
“And at this moment…she has NO idea what is about to happen to her. Blows my mind!”
We are enjoying your travel stories and are keeping your family -all seven of you- in our prayers.
-Susan
It blows my mind too. We go get her in 7 hours – actually they’ll bring her to our hotel. Excited!
Perry…Maddie brought me a book this evening that is in the same series as the one I gave you in regards to Tom Hoobyar. Book #2 has all of the same children in it. One of them is a small Asian girl. She is in the birthday party picture where Maddie said Tom is now. Book #2 reveals that little girl’s name…Zoe!
Laura thinks that’s very cool.
Thanks for your commentary- as usual, you approach what you’re seeing in a unique way that makes one really think!
I’m happy to see the Chinese prosperr, but I still plan to boycott outsourced Chinese made goods whenever possible because their prosperity (and the outsourcing businesses) has been at our country’s expense.
Intravenous injections — of what??? Yikes. How scary.
Keep up the good reporting.
Very much appreciate your sharing these travel trips.
Couldn’t agree with you more about the whole “global warming” issue. During the middle ages temperatures rose so high you could grow tropical fruit in England and the Vikings were able to cross over to present-day Newfoundland, Canada. Plus, of course, temperatures have been rising on Mars and Saturn’s moons, according to NASA, along with Earth (which suggest it’s really “solar warming” not “global warming.”)
There does seem to be much more obvious and immediate environmental concerns than whether there is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (especially considering plants live off the stuff). Chemicals in the water, pesticides on the food, genetic modification of crops and BPA plastic seem deserving of much more attention.
Looking forward to the next instalment.
Thanks for the update – and I would say the $30 to get away from the tour guide was well worth it. I forget what the herb is that makes those brown marks and mine remained stained for about 2 days – hope that’s the worst thing that happens. Congrats on having this time with the family and meeting Zoe in a few days!
I dearly wish I could see China… seeing it through Perry’s eyes is the next best thing! Thanks for the fun post! Laura’s right about the octopus attack!!
I’m going to change up the usual “you’re awesome Perry” stuff now though. You’re missing something big.
The standard narrative that’s been passed around the “conservative echo chamber” ad naseum is how stupid global warming is- I’m guessing that’s why you say “why fight problems you can’t see?”
Um, well, “coal furnaces belching filth into the sky” is directly synonymous with “global warming gasses”. With your insights into human nature, you should know that the average American doesn’t really care beans if Chinese people are breathing smoggy air. We haven’t been there like you, so it’s out of sight, out of mind, and it will stay that way because people care what affects THEIR OWN. But if Chinese smog is causing global warming that affects US, then we’ll care more about it.
But unfortunately the real science behind global warming has been destroyed by the pro-corporate elements of the media, that have so effectively created an atmosphere (!) that causes almost visible foaming of the mouth from visceral anger anytime the two words “global” and “warming” are pronounced together. The so-called facts that the anti-global warming folks use sound convincing but are nothing but junk science. The conservative echo chamber has even led a smart guy like you astray.
I know lots of Americans will disagree with me, but I truly believe the next few years are going to demonstrate there is something weird going on with the earth’s weather, to the point that only the members of the Flat Earth Society won’t be able to admit something’s going on.
I bring this up Perry mainly because you are one of those rare people that combine faith and science together. To me it’s a shame if the anti-science elements in our religion -who are very powerful right now- are able to put blinders on you in this one area. You are not afraid to blaze your own trail which is also unusual in a person of faith… too many believers in the church get carried away by groupthink today. Don’t let them do that to you in this area… if we can see a connection between Chinese factories destroying the air of an entire nation, and global warming that’s affecting our weather even now, then people will care more about it.
Keep up the wonderful and insightful posting! This newest thread is a great challenge and example to the rest of us!
I’m not really even commenting on the validity of global warming per se. What I’m saying is that you can sift through terabytes of temperature data (which people are STILL arguing about), or you can spend 5 minutes in Beijing and look up. Whether temperatures are going up or not, something very bad is happening right here and nobody can argue with it.
Hey Perry
The world is like an one huge village.
enjoy you tour.
Great pictures from a very interesting country..I just
wonder what they will do about the pollution as it
seems to me it getting worse and worse.
Wish you all the best out there and praying that
everything turn out just fine.
Blessings!
Actually it’s clear to me that the direction of the pollution problem is reversing. More about that in an upcoming post…..
Thoroughly enjoyable and insightful commentary (as ever) – keep it coming!
“13 hour flight”, my butt hurts thinking about it.
I hope your hickeys turn out to be a non-event.
Have a great trip.
Joe
OMG; I never laughed so hard about the whole story around “cupping therapy”.
Perry you’ll be doing just fine ! You might be interested to know that in North Africa, Algeria at least “cupping” is part of life. My grandma used to do it to my father on a regular basis where actually blood will be oozing out. They say it’s good for health, I don’t know about that. The health benefits are more temporary like a massage then permanent like some therapies. Thanks pal for making me laugh :-) say hello to all and take care of yourselves…
Perry -What an auspicious start to your trip!
A tourist tip for you…if you get a chance, pick up a copy of the Chinese government’s booklet version of what happened at Tiananmen Square. It is a priceless piece of propaganda. Seriously, if you see one pick it up, it’s gotta be a collector’s item.
I was in Guilin for 3 days in the fall of 1989. Tiananmen Square happened in June, I was in Guilin in October. We stayed at the only Western hotel in Guilin at the time, a Holiday Inn that for all appearances was teleported from Akron, Ohio — except for the tiny notice on the mirror of the bathroom saying the water was not potable, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story…
In the gift shop of the hotel, they had said booklet telling the “real” story of what happened at Tiananmen Square, how the outsiders had incited the peaceful students to protest, etc. I nearly bought it but couldn’t quite bring myself to hand money to the Chinese government after what had happened. Been kicking myself ever since for not having picked that up — it would have been a priceless souvenir.
Hope you’re enjoying the trip as much as I’m enjoying reading about it! Cheers — Liz
Maybe I can pick up some of that propaganda. The fact that Chairman Mao’s pic is everywhere is a lesson for marketers everywhere (though not something we should be imitating….)
your back sure looks like it hurts. Thank you so much for the e-mail and pictures to places I will never see. I really enjoy all your e-mails.
Hi Perry,
I LOVED your report on the first day in Beijing. It was a history lesson for me. Lovely pictures of places and your family. I counted 9 welts instead of the 8 you mentioned. -:)Thanks for the lesson on the environment.
I’ll stay tuned for more. Be blessed.
Delores
Wow Perry!
what an adventure and it only just started!
funny looking redbull your boy has….lol
I hope your back is ok and Im looking forward to the next installment.
Hoping you and the family enjoy whatever today has in store for you!
Kym :)