Sachin's blog: 2nd day in Beijing

Today was not very exciting, it rained all day long. We went on a trip in Old Beijing and also visited Bell-Drum towers which are more than 150 years old. It was really hard to walk through everywhere and due to that we didn't do many things as planned.

We visited a house of a old man who owned a million dollar house in the middle of old Beijing city. It was really interesting to talk to him and found many issues that occur in this culture. He mentioned 20 years ago they had money but government restrictions on how much you can buy per year. Even they had limit on buying peanuts. This changed a lot with market economy entering in China and now it is very Strong economic Capitalist. There were some negative things that he said about the changes too.

Particularly, my question was "While you see many p;positive changes in your economy (capitalism) and lifestyle, are you worried that the youth in China is losing their culture and traditions?"

He said,"I am very worried about it. It is sad that the Young Chinese are losing their morals and values. It takes few days or months to lose the morals and values but it takes long time to get these morals back". I am sure by long time he meant generations. I agree with him, many places like China and India are facing difficulties dealing with social aspects of free capitalist society. He also said "We have to teach our kids about morals from elementary school age which is very sad". My unanswered question is "Has this happened in the United States and where do we go from now?"

But enough for this serious cultural issues. There are some more picture below that include inside pictures of Drum tower. Before the invention of clock, Chinese emperor built Drum tower and Bell tower which had drums and bells in them respectively. Bells would be rang at interval of 2 hrs each stating at 5AM and drums at night starting at 7PM. These times were known by workers either by Sun's motion or a water based clock. I think this was just an amazing idea at that time to figure out hours wit this water flow.

One of the interesting things that comes up everyday: Water is sign of wealth/money and fish means more. All Chinese businesses have fishes in water tank or some type of water flow in front of their business. I really mean this. I have even seen water in glasses kept in glass cases right nest to rings in jewelery stores.

Enjoy the pictures, I will see you tomorrow.