art of being up close and personal in Beijing

I guess China really is the most populated country in the world.

I anticipated that before, but honestly, I was unprepared for the masses. For example, Heidi and I decided be foreigners, so we touristed Beijing (Tianamen, Forbidden City). To get the full effect, you must imagine yourself in a crowded platform, everyone pushing and pulling to be first in line to the subway. Not that it matters, because the subway is so full of people, you can't imagine how anyone else could get on.

And then the doors open, immediately the warning bells sound, and you feel a panic about not getting on in time, because Heidi is already on (If you don't have a Heidi, you can substitute a name), and just yesterday you watched the subway doors close with her on one side and you on the other waving good-bye sadly.

Suddenly, you are riding a wave of people that almost lift and propel you inside. You didn't even feel your feet touch the ground. If you are a little shocked and disoriented, and wondering how in the world everyone just fit in, you are in the same subway car as I was. Heidi told me later that a security guard pushed from the back and stuffed the twenty people behind me onto the car. I have never been touched by so many people in my life. Ever.

You think Disneyland in summer is bad? LA on the freeway? Midnight showing for Twilight? Boston on the Fourth of July? I've been stuck in all of those places (minus Twilight), and I am still astounded.

And it really didn't help that our trip was during Moon Festival. In Beijing, there are so many people, that you couldn't possible imagine anyone coming "out of the woodwork," so to speak, but mix in a festival and the crowds grow by fives. Duh, there is going to be traffic.

Actually there was so much traffic, even on the subway, that we missed our train home. Ticket exchange is masses of lines, and since we don't read Chinese characters, we spent hours in the wrong places. Now the only thing I can say in Chinese is "bang bang wo" (Help me) with a pitiful look. They speak exasperated Chinese in return, but the pitiful look gets things done.

I'll give you one sentence of our misfortune: We took the wrong subway exit, We were 9 minutes late to our first train, we stood in the wrong lines, we lost our new ticket, we walked up to policemen and motioned them to talk to our Chinese friends on the phone so we could find a bus, and we were refused rides and help by taxi drivers and security guards because, apparently, we have the leprous disease of too much english, not enough chinese. And we were astonishingly late to work, which is hard to do, since it starts at 6 o'clock at night.

Can you say that in one breath?

And on top of that (please remember that this is about being up close and personal), something is rotten in Beijing, and I couldn't eat anything without severe abdominal pain.   And even though the Olympic subway is new, they only have squatter toilets, much to my horror. So if you are still imagining yourself in the subway, please stop, because you CAN'T imagine the panic I felt when we got lost coming out of the subway and couldn't find the apartment where I knew had a western bathroom.