The France brother felt China most directly, and received beer, liquor, apple and chicken 10 minutes after getting on the train

Modern middle class

2024-07-12 10:30Published in Beijing

The first step in finding common ground while reserving differences.

One

The Great Wall Hotel in Beijing, there is silence outside the door, and the heaven and earth in the annex building have also turned into smoke early.

The hotel has been closed for more than half a year, and the fallen leaves have survived last year, and the left-behind employees said that "they can't go out of business, and they have to wait for notice."

China's first Hotel International has spent its lonely forty years old, and looking back, it connects the starting point of opening.

In 1981, the Great Wall Hotel was built at a cost of $75 million, and two years later United States President Ronald Reagan visited China and hosted a thank-you dinner here.

At the dinner, Reagan raised a glass of wine:

"We hereby assure you of our full cooperation in the process of modernizing your country's economy."

In the following 13 years, more than 70 heads of state stayed here, and countless dignitaries and celebrities lived here.

Bush Sr. organized a group to eat Texas barbecue here, and the Japan Prime Minister repaired the China-Japan Youth Exchange Center next to it.

The Great Wall Hotel is not only a hotel, but also a window of openness, with more than 2,000 visitors in a single day.

Haiyan, who was 29 years old at the time, once walked through the lobby with the flow of people, took the sightseeing elevator straight up to the revolving restaurant, and overlooked the Third Ring Road under the shadow of the clouds.

He remembered this scene and wrote it into "Never Look Away" many years later.

After the return of the visiting groups from all over the world, they began to cottage the Great Wall Hotel, and most of them set up 360-degree restaurants on the top floor, whether they can rotate or not, they are called "revolving restaurants".

That's the commanding height of every city. People look into the distance here, waiting for visitors.

Visitors don't come easily. When the Berliner Philharmoniker visited China, the musician fell down the 6-meter-high gangway, because the capital airport had not received large passenger planes at that time, and the gangway was made of wooden planks.

After getting off the plane, the Beijing Hotel could only provide ten rooms, and the family members were triaged to the front door in a panic.

At that time, there were only seven foreign-related hotels in Beijing, and many foreign guests had to spend the night in the lobby. In Guangzhou, foreigners participating in the Canton Fair slept on canvas beds on the lawn, garden, and aisle canvas beds of the Dongfang Hotel.

Visitors from afar finally see the real China.

Italy photographer Lao An, who took an airboat from Hong Kong to Guangzhou on the Pearl River, was empty and silent after going ashore.

After traveling most of China, he was always watched everywhere he went, saying that the Chinese were kind and hospitable, but they didn't understand the language.

In the end, when he visited Hainan, the guest house did not dare to receive him, and after many communications, he vacated a room. He said that he realized the way to survive in China:

"A lot of things are not stipulated in advance, they are all expanded little by little, and they cross the river by feeling the stones."

The veil was lifted little by little, and foreigners understood that wearing masks was to prevent the flu, and bicycles on the streets were really private property. The Chinese also understand that ripped jeans are fashion, not embarrassment.

In the following years, Lao An said that in those years, Beijing had taller buildings and more cars, and their titles had changed from foreign guests to foreigners. Foreigners clink glasses in Sanlitun, and the music in the bar is noisy.

Visitors from afar began to help the economy roar. Wuhan Diesel Engine Factory was appointed as the first foreign director, and Shanghai Automobile Plant welcomed Germany engineers.

McDonald's rolled out all the way, Walmart cut ribbons everywhere, and NBA commissioner Stern stood outside the Media Center, carrying a box of NBA videotapes.

In 1989, Merck & Co. charged $7 million to transfer the most advanced recombinant hepatitis B vaccine technology to China, and the cost of training staff and engineers for this purpose exceeded the price.

In Suzhou, the then mayor went to Japan, held investment promotion conferences in various places, and at the invitation of the first Japanese company to settle in Suzhou High-tech Zone in 1994.

Since then, more than 30 years, Panasonic, Canon, Epson and other well-known Japanese companies have successively settled in Suzhou, and continue to increase capital and expand production. There are 768 Japanese enterprises in the high-tech zone, helping Suzhou to become the sixth largest in terms of GDP in the country and the first in the economy of prefecture-level cities.

In 1985, the Great Wall Hotel welcomed a special guest, magician David Copperfield. After he went to Beijing for an investigation, he decided to perform across the Great Wall.

Under the autumn moon, inside the white curtain, his shadow passed through the ancient Great Wall and completed a magical crossing.

Two

In 2003, 18-year-old Kato Kato went to Peking University to study, and he said that the dormitory was like a small United Nations, and there were people who spoke any language.

He chatted with the doorman, chatted with the commissary aunt, wrote a column in the newspaper, and finally talked about Qiang Qiang threesome.

Foreigners have become more and more comfortable in China. Daesan also spoke English and sang at the Spring Festival Gala, and Korea said that Wangjing barbecue was as authentic as Seoul.

Lonely Planet officially opened an editorial office in China, and the first issue wrote: Standing on the central axis and looking into the distance, under the majesty of the imperial capital, there is an interesting old soul.

In 2008, after the Beijing Olympics and the United States NBC released the "Insider's Guide to Beijing Consumption", foreigners flocked to Guijie and Sanlitun.

The bar's owner, Xiao Fei, still remembers the crowds that year, with people of different colors drinking and partying together, "a Turkey champion holding a gold medal and shouting for a new bottle of whiskey." ”

The melody of "My door is always open" echoes through the streets, and inside the Bird's Nest, Bush Sr. serves as the honorary head of the United States Olympic delegation.

He had lived in Beijing for many years, and 34 years ago it was a monochromatic place, but now it is full of energy:

"The only constant here is eternity changing."

More and more foreigners are integrating into the changing China.

David Du, a foreign teacher who lived for 7 years, was keen to make spelling mistakes on street signs, and eventually became an Olympic torchbearer. William, who has lived there for 20 years, established the Great Wall Protection Organization and organized the collection of garbage from the Great Wall at his own expense.

United Kingdom youth Johnson Hai, selling T-shirts in Nanluoguxiang, the aunt of the neighborhood committee helps to look after the store.

One year, he rose up, bought a cart of cabbage, and gave one to each of his neighbors, "The sun was very good that day, and everyone was very happy."

In Shenzhen, Obama's brother has lived there for 20 years. When he was laid off in the United States, he was depressed, and he read a magazine and found that Yunnan was recruiting teaching assistants, so he came to China.

He opened a trading company, married a Henan wife, and was familiar with Chinese calligraphy. He said that he likes an open, inclusive, and opportunity-filled China.

After China became the world's factory, more foreigners came and went to China. After Cook took the helm of Apple, his first stop on his trip was China.

Since then, Musk, who has just built a car, has also visited China. He ate the old Beijing shabu and pancake fruits, delivered the first batch of eight Model S, "we will do a lot in the Chinese market in the future".

Since then, foreign-funded enterprises have contributed more than 1/6 of the country's industrial and commercial tax revenue, provided nearly 1/10 of urban employment opportunities, and covered about 40 million employed people with less than 3% of the country's enterprises.

In 2011, there were more than 60,000 foreigners living in Beijing.

Japan student Mifei Suzuki lives in Beijing Hutong, is rated like a Beijing girl, once bought fruit, aunt said, "Listen to your accent to know that it must be an ethnic minority."

She likes the kindness of the Chinese:

"If the Chinese accept you, they will really treat you as family."

United States sinologist Bill · Porter, since the 80s, he has translated 2,000 ancient poems into English, and also wrote "The Bag of Zen", which set off a boom in Sinology.

In 2012, he returned to China with two bottles of the most expensive whiskey in United States to find the traces of ancient poets he admired.

In Xi'an, he followed the old peasants, walked through the farmland, and found the ruins of Du Mu's cemetery on the ground.

He poured wine, handed it to the old peasant, drank a cup of his own, took a sip, poured the rest into the earthen pit, and then read desolately, "During the Qingming Dynasty, it rains a lot, and the pedestrians on the road want to break their souls." ”

The wilderness of the East, the spirits of the West, the old man of United States and the old farmer of the Northwest, we are on a lonely planet together.

Three

In April last year, 82 Indonesian tourists arrived by bus outside Suzhou Coupling Park, the first group of overseas tourists after the epidemic.

Miss Manners lined up to greet her and presented a delicate Su fan.

Six months later, the Canton Fair opened, with more than 150,000 overseas buyers attending, and there were suddenly many foreign faces in the shopping mall of Guangzhou Metro, "returning to the pre-epidemic period in a trance".

A week after the closing of the Canton Fair, the Philadelphia Orchestra visited China, and in Shanghai, musicians and children played a song "Friendship Lasts Forever" with children.

This is the Philadelphia Orchestra's 13th visit to China, and the visit spans half a century, and the 73-year-old pianist said:

"We are important to each other, and our lives are intimately connected, perhaps even more so than the government would like to admit."

At the end of that year, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced visa-free access to many countries. Since then, the 144-hour transit visa waiver has covered more and more countries, and as of July 1, 54 countries have been covered.

As a result, a large number of foreign tourists have poured into China, and social media has begun to circulate that "China is overgrown with foreigners".

Beijing tour guide took foreigners to visit the hutongs in groups, and Henan tour guides took foreigners to see the Longmen Grottoes. Foreigners who go to Xi'an to watch ancient music and dance performances, in front of the Nitang feather coat, a piece of blonde hair and blue eyes, back to the Tang Dynasty.

Koreans are obsessed with "filial piety to their parents, send them to travel to Zhangjiajie", Canada are obsessed with visiting the Shanghai vegetable market, "bullfrogs are actually alive in the vegetable market".

Foreigners who rushed to Chengdu filled their hearts with giant pandas, and ate a bite of spicy pepper ice cream before parting.

Due to the large number of tourists, Sichuan small language tour guides are no longer enough, and travel agencies urgently train college students to expand the number of tour guides.

In the first half of this year, the number of foreigners crossing the border was 14.63 million, and the traffic of videos with the label "China Travel" soared, and the more widely circulated was "city not city".

This hot meme came from United States blogger "Bao Bao Xiong" chatting with his sister, to the effect of "Urban not urban? Later, it was extended to "fashionable or not?" ”。

Foreigners travel through cities and observe the current China.

Germany bloggers shocked hotel delivery robots, United States couples were surprised that Beijing was full of greenery, United Kingdom couples stormed Beijing at night, eating Shaxian noodles and shortbread, and the barrage was full of "some are better than this".

Those "China Travel" videos often start with "We arrived in China in shock" and end with a series of reversals, with the scenery, food and kindness far exceeding expectations.

In the video comment area, someone left a message in English:

"China is not our enemy, our enemy is ignorance. Clearing up misunderstandings will not happen overnight, but such exchanges are a step towards achieving common ground while reserving differences. ”

In the spring, there is a France brother who travels on a green train, and the sleeper takes more than 20 hours.

After getting on the bus, there was a lot of noise, and in less than ten minutes, he received 2 beers, 1 glass of liquor, 1 apple, and some chicken from different passengers. He felt China most directly.

……

In 1984, at the appreciation dinner at the Great Wall Hotel, Reagan quoted the famous words of the United States poet Emerson:

The way to make friends is to treat people as friends.

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