A Third of the Speed of Sound

Guest Blogger, Elizabeth L, is a member of the Disney Mom's Panel and serves as an Adventures by Disney Specialist.  Elizabeth is planning on participating in the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10 miler.  You may ask Elizabeth questions at disneyworldforum.disney.go.com/ask.aspx  Be sure to also read Elizabeth's blog  on "Adventures by Disney... Giraffes Meet You at the Airport" in the guest blogs section of this site.

A Third of the Speed of Sound

Swept along with a sea of Chinese tourists carrying brightly colored umbrellas, I passed under Maoʼs portrait into the Forbidden City.  This iconic scene where I had seen TV reporters broadcast stories about thawing East-West relations, Tiananmen Square and the Beijing Olympics was finally in my sight. I had longed to visit China since reading The Five Chinese Brothers and The Story About Ping over and over as a child. Now seeing Maoʼs larger-than-life eyes gazing over the Gate of Heavenly Peace and standing amongst thousands of Chinese people, I was overwhelmed with the reality that, after 40 years of wishing, I was in China.

      Our family in front of the 9 Dragons mural in the Forbidden City.  The restaurant in the Epcot China pavilion at Epcot is named after this work.

During my youth, the background of the NBC Nightly News reports from China was a mass of bicycles ridden by men and women with identical haircuts and dressed in colorless Mao jackets. Now we pass by Ferrari and Rolls Royce dealerships and our hotel lobby is packed with designer shops containing luxury goods too expensive for me to even window shop for. Slightly stunned by this modern, wealthy, commercial capital city Beijing, I am relieved when we hop on a pedicab to tour an ancient Hutong neighborhood. Here we encounter traditional courtyard houses and classic craftspeople who introduce us to knot tying, paper cutting, and yo yo acrobatics.

                              Door in a traditional Hutong neighborhood in Beijing .

Throughout our trip to China we continually see the juxtaposition of ancient and
traditional with contemporary and state-of-the-art. In Shanghai we zoom to the airport on the worldʼs fastest commercial train at 268 mph, a third the speed of sound. But then once on board our plane we sit for several hours due only to the mire of traditional bureaucracy that handles air traffic. On our way to see the two millennium old terracotta warriors we travel across ribbons of smooth, new asphalt passing herds of dinosaur size cranes building fields of skyscrapers. In Shanghai, we eat lunch in the elegant Jin Mao Tower, the worldʼs fifth tallest building, whose design is based on the traditional pagoda and the number 8, a symbol associated with prosperity in Chinese culture. 

                                                          Beijing bicycles.

Crossing 12 time zones to land in a country where strange swooping characters serve as letters, the language consists of clipped tonal sounds quickly spilling out of mouths, and the food emphasizes textures strange and unsettling to Western tongues with your four children is not a simple task. Thanks to Adventures by Disney we were able to pull this off almost with ease. Our hotels were spectacular and luxurious, the food was kid friendly and fabulous, and our amazing Adventure Guides escorted us on an engaging journey through China. One of my favorite aspects of this trip, besides meeting pandas, was the openness of the local experts. They spoke honestly of the conflict in modern China between the desire to own a BMW and follow Maoʼs teachings on equality and shared resources.

                                                          Li River

Are you interested in an exotic, foreign adventure with your family? Please contact me at the Walt Disney World Moms Panel if you are just considering an adventure or if you have a specific question about one you are planning. disneyworldforum.disney.go.com/ask.aspx

While in Beijing our Adventure group had a session on Chinese calligraphy and mask making. Two of our children are goofing around with the masks they created.

Our youngest Emily on our first night in China. During our welcome dinner the kids could dress up in Chinese Imperial costumes.

 On the Great Wall of China