China Again Part One
So we were watching Samantha Brown’s travel show - and this episode was China. We used to watch her shows and would be relatively entertained. This one? Painful. Maybe it’s from watching too many episodes with Anthony Bourdain and his cynicism, or mock excitement or just… maybe it was the fact that Samantha Brown seemed to think that everything was amazing, or ancient/centuries old. Or just… wrong. While I have generally always appreciated most of her shows in the past, this one was almost unbearable.
Sure we did our share of touristy things that you just have to get out of the way - but come on - when Samantha Brown is asking for the price of a rickshaw ride thru the hutongs and is told it’s approximately $25 - AND she says, “I think that’s a good deal” - it’s just embarassing. Anyone who pays that much is clearly the epitome of an American tourist that’s just looking to get ripped off.
When she shows up at one of the most touristy spots of the Great Wall of China - and laments on how if she just sits still and takes it all in that maybe she can feel the centuries of history and blah blah blah - does she realize that she’s sitting on a completely reconstructed portion - which is about as real as any of the replicas built in Las Vegas?
Ok. I know that the same people who watch Samantha Brown are probably the same people who prefer Rachel Ray over Anthony Bourdain. So okay. I’ll just leave it alone. At least watching this poor show did cause me to go through our China photos/video again and start working on them and uploading them to Flickr in a more complete manner.
We visited before the Olympics on purpose - because the country is changing rapidly and Beijing in particular is going to be very different after the Olympics in a few weeks. But that won’t stop us from going back and enjoying everything we can. China is a BIG place and there’s no stopping it. We had a great time and I’m sure we’ll revisit all of this again, a little at a time.
Finally tonight. Here are some clips I threw together of our trip.
