In one section of the huge complex of palaces known as Beijing’s Palace Museum is a hall of jade sculptures. It used to be a hall of abstinence (from concubines and general pleasures) and now it is full of delicate things: bowls, chess sets, ink stands, lit up, shining. Most of the signs were written in Mandarin with minimal English translations. But I finally spotted the evidence I’d been looking for: a map of the Silk Roads. Beijing was marked, and Kashgar, and Constantinople. 

Partway through our trip, I realised that we had unintentionally planned a Silk Roads journey: Türkiye, Ladakh and Beijing were all key nodes on that sweeping inland trade route, the likely pathway of the bubonic plague in the 14th century and the domain of the Mongol Empire and its offshoots in the Yuan Dynasty and Golden Horde. (Admittedly, it’s a huge area – we could have gone to Turkmenistan and Mongolia and Armenia and equally done a Silk Roads trip). Nonetheless, this appealed to the part of my brain that likes narrative coherence. 

We carried our goods in aeroplanes, not camel caravans. But we have returned to Aotearoa with richly coloured fabric and a (A2 paper sized) carpet, novel spices (Taste’n’Taste ‘Flavour Forever’ MSG, not for sale in Uttar Pradesh) and fine Chinese china, novelties from unheard of places (the Jianying Jinying Stainless Steel Factory) and coffee. Amazingly, all these things fit into our panniers and we were able to bike back from the airport without being stranded on a horrible motorway exit. The coffee has been traded for baked goods and other goods are awaiting distribution or a place in our new flat.

In our five days in Beijing, I looked for evidence of the Silk Roads, wanting a neat ending to three months moving east. I wanted to extend the metaphor of trading, of weary travellers, of encounter. But it’s been years since I studied world history and I never did read that Peter Frankopan book. The giant shopping mall of off-brand clothing and electronics (tea and dried fruit on the lowest floor) didn’t seem like what I was looking for. I didn’t know enough to be sure that a sweaty walk along the undulating Great Wall of China was anything to do with trade networks; it seemed more like a foretaste of the rigid borders and nationalism we had seen defended and created in India, Turkiye and China with visible police and army presence in public places, and wild places too. I’m not any kind of historian, so I won’t extend the metaphor too far. This was the first time I had been to China since wandering around Guangzhou with Shar seven years ago and I was very curious about what it would be like. 

It feels churlish to complain about taking flights given how resource intensive it is. We had opted for VeitJet, the cheapest flights we could find from India to China, but the combination of an unusual itinerary (hopping around India then going to China then Aotearoa), the bikes, and booking only a month or two in advance all added to the cost. Flights were over half the cost of our trip as a whole (and extra baggage and fees for the bikes made the flights at least $1000 more, not to mention extra big taxis for getting to the airport etc.). And flights aren’t just individually expensive, but incredibly resource intensive and demanding on the planet, adding to the feeling that they must be appreciated. 

As much as I wanted to make the most of our five days in China, two consecutive nights of overnight flights meant that what I appreciated most about the country in the first day was a quiet corner of the airport floor to sleep on. At 5:30 am, two soldiers arrived and told us we couldn’t sleep there. They walked in lockstep then were alert in their soldier box, peering around at different angles like meerkats. 

Outside, it was 35 degrees. Apart from a bed to sleep on, the best discovery was some cold noodles being sold at a nearby deli. We were given tahini, chilli oil, and some kind of broth, and we mixed them with the noodles, julienned cucumber and foamy tofu. I truly believe this is the perfect hot weather savoury meal. 

There was a storm that first night, lightning flashing and water shimmering into the courtyard far below, too far away to hear. It was purple and dark. At midnight, Rohan called me and I ran downstairs to help him and Lin find the apartment. It was the first time I had been with my brother in a country that didn’t have the rest of our family in it.

---

---

Stuff I read and listened to about China which made being there more interesting

(mostly from a Global North perspective and in English so caveats apply but still worthwhile imo)

• Drum Tower (Economist podcast – most episodes paywalled unfortunately)
• Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang (my favourite kind of reported nonfiction about ordinary people)
• Rest of World’s reporting on Chinese tech
• Interviews with Hu Anyan the author of I Deliver Parcels in Beijing (which I haven’t read)
• Now finished newsletter Chaoyang Trap House about the Chinese internet
• Articles of Interest episode about historical fashion in China tugs at lots of threads
• I also read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Wild Swans as a teenager, not sure how they hold up but definitely interesting and focused on the Cultural Revolution

---

---

The Beijing metro has dozens of lines, meaning that AMap (a Google Maps equivalent) sometimes offers several different routes to the same destination, depending on where you would like to change lines. You can choose between ‘cool’ (25 degrees or so) and ‘cold’ (20 degrees) carriages. Inside, everyone is quiet and looking at their phones. Compared to India, where it was so easy to communicate with people, having slow translation apps and only the ability to point, say thank you and yes, I felt like the people around me were behind a blank wall I didn’t know how to break. The spaciousness of time in Türkiye and language in India had made me feel like I was seeing something most tourists in those places didn’t. (Of course, the meaning of authenticity in travel is necessarily contested, and not always an achievement). In China, I didn’t worry about any of that: we were just tourists, there for a few days, like millions of other tourists. 

One morning, I went for a run around the park. I had been listening to the new Olivia Rodrigo album and dreaming of making music again, so I thought I was hallucinating the slow scale squeaking out among the trees. But I turned a corner, and there was a saxophone player practicing – not an easy instrument to use in small apartments! – with a cup of green tea beside him. A group of people were playing with a kick shuttlecock, teenage boys were playing basketball, a mum with a baby strapped to her chest was joining the old ladies doing tai chi. It was 7am on a weekday and the park felt like the liveliest possible place to be. Through gestures, I asked a man walking his Shiba Inu (heaps of designer dogs!) if I could pat it and the minute I reached forward the dog growled at me. I didn’t take it personally but I did think it was pretty funny, and both of us were chuckling as he dragged the dog away. 

There is tofu variety like you can’t believe at hot pot, which we decided would be our special, more expensive meal (costing about $10 NZD each). Solid, smooth silken tofu, tofu knots, curled up tofu skin that unfurls in the hot soup. And the mushrooms! Big chestnut mushrooms, oysters with their fluted edges, enokis I ignored. On the conveyer belt, the watermelon and nectarine bowls kept getting refilled. Imminently returning to winter without stone fruit, we pocketed nectarines for the next day’s breakfast. My sesame-coriander-garlic-chilli sauce coated the noodles I was fishing out perfectly. 

Shopping influencers talk fast and, apparently, like to have a relevant background behind them. In the courtyard in front of Beijing’s Drum and Bell Towers, there were a dozen people running livestreams. They had signs made in reverse for the selfie camera’s mirroring effect, tripods and power banks. From the photos, I think they were selling tour packages. Out of shot to the viewers, but obvious to me passing by, were the helpers: someone handing the signs to a woman in black who seamlessly presented the next picture, eyes locked on the screen; a young man holding a pastel lavender battery powered fan, a drop of sweat still rolling down the influencer’s neck.

The Forbidden City didn’t just contain evidence of our Silk Roads pathway. There were animal figures on the corners of all the roofs, and gargoyles with big gaping mouths to drain the marble courtyards. After we had been there for about 20 minutes, the blurry grey clouds in the sky stopped being vibey and started raining torrentially, creating this wild rush where everyone scrambled for the nearest eaves to huddle under. For the next 45 minutes I was about five rows of people back from the sluicing courtyard, engaged in the wordless collective encounter with strangers who do not want to get wet. Every gust of wind or crackle of thunder was accompanied by a movement of shoulders and an ‘oooooh’. Shreyas and Lin were about three metres away but I couldn’t get to them because I was surrounded by other people. I talked to the mum and son next to me, visiting from Vancouver, the son helping translate for his mum. She said that when she had visited the Palace Museum as a child, they were allowed to climb the lions, but now there are signs and rules everywhere. No climbing.

When the rain stopped, everything felt steamy and miraculous, the names of buildings enchanting. Hall of Preserving Harmony. Palace of Earthly Tranquilty. We wandered through archways and the collection of shiny and complicated clocks. On the way back, swaying as the train sped and slowed, the woman beside me was watching a reel about the deluge on Douyin. A sodden influencer was walking through the rain, zooming the camera in: the gargoyles, indeed, had spewed water. 

On our last morning, I walked Rohan and Lin to the train station, their bags heavy with what we had had to offer them: tents and sleeping bags and stoves. How strange and novel to have met up with my brother in this new place, and discover new parts of each other: Rohan’s confidence negotiating with taxi drivers in Mandarin, eating crunchy nectarines for breakfast, swapping ideas about how to eliminate corruption from politics (in theory), discussing our family, speaking in Hindi to each other. I love finding new dimensions of my brother, and the effort it took to intersect the paths of our trips made me even more certain that Rohan, Lin and I have many years of friendship ahead. We hugged on that quiet street, then they went down all the flights of stairs to where the first trains of the morning were humming.

I carried the clothes they were giving away to a donation bin, then walked until I found a restaurant that was open. For breakfast, some eggy bread with spicy potatoes and beans, and warm soy milk with brown sugar stirred in. I hired a bike to ride back, but hit a bump, so the milk spilled across the street. We ate fast, then carried the bikes out to the street. I felt so amazed that Shreyas and I had come so far, working together, my hands full of seeds to germinate. (If a biosecurity officer is reading this – the seeds are metaphorical.) In the warm Beijing morning, the days ahead felt dreamy and inevitable, three planes to Christchurch, tumbling through the air in long metal tubes burning oil, our bikes somewhere beneath us, until we were home.