{"id":9935,"date":"2013-12-22T12:54:08","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T11:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/?page_id=9935"},"modified":"2015-12-26T16:25:03","modified_gmt":"2015-12-26T14:25:03","slug":"promenade-no4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/projects\/promenades\/promenade-no4\/","title":{"rendered":"Promenade N\u00ba4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beijing Haidianqu \u2013 \u5317\u4eac\u6d77\u6dc0\u533a<br \/>\n26 November 2013<br \/>\nFrom 9h45 to 16h00 (6h15min)<br \/>\n21,20 km<br \/>\n\u5f80\u5357\u8d70 (Wangnanzou, Walking South)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-01.jpg\" \/>Departure 9h45; a beautiful day but very cold and windy.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-37.jpg\" \/>After three hours walking south, I turned west to find the next road that would lead me north to my home. It was 13h00, lunch time almost over but I could still see a lot of people eating &#8220;chuan&#8217;r&#8221;, the Chinese skewers that you can eat almost everywhere in the street. You&#8217;ll find meat chuan&#8217;r, vegetable chuan&#8217;r, fruit chuan&#8217;r, insects chuan&#8217;r, whatever chaun&#8217;r you can imagine.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-03.jpg\" \/>The amount of left over chuan&#8217;r that you can find in the street in Beijing is very impressive.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-04.jpg\" \/>They are everywhere.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-44.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/>And in huge quantity.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-05.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-07.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-08.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-09.jpg\" \/>Apart from being quite disgusting, I found them interesting for two reasons: it&#8217;s a very simple wooden object and you&#8217;ll easily find a good amount of them almost anywhere.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-10.jpg\" \/>I collected one and stuck it in the nearby fence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-11.jpg\" \/>I collected more and stuck them all together in the same fence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-12.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-13.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-14.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-15.jpg\" \/>I made four lines with what I could find around, had a good laugh seeing the leftover pieces of food hanging and left to walk back home.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-16.jpg\" \/>On my way I tried different things that chuan&#8217;r could be useful for, like some kind of secret signals.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-17.jpg\" \/>Obvious and totally useless.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-18.jpg\" \/>Beijing is a very windy city so I though that people, after finishing eating their chuan&#8217;r and cleaning their fingers, could actually stick the chuan&#8217;r into the towel to avoid it to fly away, they will throw both the skewer and the towel on the floor anyway.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-40.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/>I soon came across this beautiful example of how the citizens of Beijing find ways to get around the Chinese officials\u2019 obsession with building walls and fences. In Beijing, every neighborhood is closed with gates. Sometimes, to get to a place that is right in front of you on the other side of the street,\u00a0it can take you up to 10 minutes. You have to walk around the fences, find the gate, find the place where to cross the street (usually there is also a fence in the middle of the street so people can&#8217;t cross where they want) and reach the spot. Here, the owners of the shops below, probably worried about loosing customers, decided to build some stairs that would directly lead to the street. I have documented ton of examples where people sawed the bars of the fences so they can get to the street easily. I even saw bars from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-42.jpg\">a gate close with a padlock being sawed.<\/a> Somebody is interested in not opening accesses. I don&#8217;t know why, political concern I assume.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-41.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-43.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/>I found these other two interesting examples of movement restriction.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-19.jpg\" \/>Then I came across something which is also very common here: to throw little cards with commercial information printed on both sides directly on the floor instead of distributing them one by one to pedestrians.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-20.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-21.jpg\" \/>They were all along the way.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-22.jpg\" \/>On a very windy day, these cards fly away and get out of peoples way and sight.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-23.jpg\" \/>So I though that the chuan&#8217;r, that are free and available everywhere, would be a good solution for that.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-24.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-25.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-26.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-38.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-39.jpg\" \/>After 20 km in the freezing cold weather and with very little inspiration, I was quite happy to finally head back home.<\/p>\n<p>These experiments with chuan&#8217;r continued on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/projects\/promenades\/promenade-no6\/#chuanrp6\"><em>Promenade #6<\/em><\/a> and resulted a little bit more convincing.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-map.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ngg-none\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/wp-content\/gallery\/promenade4\/eltono-promenade4-map.jpg\" width=\"700\" \/><\/a>The GPS track record (click on the map to make it bigger).<\/p>\n<p>&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eltono.com\/projects\/promenades\/\">Back to Promenades Journal<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beijing Haidianqu \u2013 \u5317\u4eac\u6d77\u6dc0\u533a 26 November 2013 From 9h45 to 16h00 (6h15min) 21,20 km \u5f80\u5357\u8d70 (Wangnanzou, Walking South) Departure 9h45; a beautiful day but very cold and windy. After three hours walking south, I turned west to find the next road that would lead me north to my home. It was 13h00, lunch time almost &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/projects\/promenades\/promenade-no4\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Promenade N\u00ba4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9854,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9935","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7sWFx-2Af","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9935"}],"version-history":[{"count":68,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9937,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9935\/revisions\/9937"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eltono.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}