Beijing Spring - 2009
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
1
142
157
Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
Beijing,
China
Friday, May 1, 2009
So, what has happened over the past couple of months? Nothing much, really. I hibernated over the Beijing winter, which saw me watching a handful of movies and reading lots of BJ magazines, and some books such as "Walden", "The Piano Teacher", and "The Last Eunuch of China - Life of Sun Yaoting," who told many stories of his life with Puyi to close friend and author Jia Yinghua, who has written other biographies about the last emperor. Sun Yaoting (1902-96) was a eunuch who served the royal family and accompanied Puyi, China's last emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), through his final years as "emperor" of "Manchukuo." In addition, I went to the NCPA and other performing art venues to soak up international and Chinese modern dance performances.
Work wise, I am still with the same company but transferred to another location. I like the idea of rotating through different centers, its part of professional development and offers a chance to get to know a different part of Beijing a bit better (by scooping out the neighborhood for cool places to wine and dine the Chinese way). My Beijing Explorer Life Club is still meeting once a month exploring places I haven't been to (and in most cases the students haven't either). Over the past few months we went to a couple of interesting places among them the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall which is designed to introduce the long history of the immortal city of Beijing, display the great achievements of the modern urban planning and development, and exhibit the splendid future of Beijing's urban development. The 16,000 square-meter floor space is distributed on 4 floor levels in the Hall, with 8,000 square meters for exhibits.
Our next trip went to the former residences of Lao She and Mei Lanfang. Located on the north side of West Dengshikou Street, the Former Residence of Lao She (renowned modern novelist and playwright) is a traditional quadrangle home with two central courtyards. Lao She bought the house in 1949 upon his return from the United States and spent most of his last 13 years at this house. It was here he wrote 23 works including a famous drama Fang Zhenzhu. Lao She's wife moved out of the house and donated it to the state together with great amounts of his manuscripts. Soon, the house was turned into a museum and listed as one of the historical and culture sites under the state protection.
Lao She (1899-1966), a native of Beijing, was a novelist and playwright. He went to America to teach and write after the Chinese people won the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1945, but was called back in 1949. His works are strongly influenced by his life in Beijing, and their language is familiar to Beijing.
The former Residence of Mei Lanfang (renowned Peking Opera star), located on 9 Huguosi Street in the West City District, was originally part of Prince Qing's Mansion. In 1965 Mr. Mei's wife donated her husband's collection of art works and materials to the country. In 1984, the Society for the Study of Mei Lanfang was established and his former residence turned into a museum, one of the historical and cultural sites under the state protection.
Mei Lanfang was born in 1894 into a family of Peking Opera performers. He began his stage debut at 11. In his 50-year stage career, he maintained strong continuity while always working on new techniques. His most famous roles were those of female characters; skillful portrayal of women won him international acclaim, and his smooth, perfectly timed, poised style has come to be known in opera circles as the "Mei School." Mr. Mei was the first artist to spread Peking Opera to foreign countries, participating in cultural exchanges with Japan, the United States and other regions.
On a cold March day, we ventured to the Red Sandalwood museum. This museum is fascinating as it has about 4 floors filled with magnificent furniture, mostly made of red sandalwood. The museum is owned by Ms. Chan Lai Wah, chairlady of Fuwah International Hong Kong, honorary humanity doctor and director of the college directorate of the Savannah College of Art and Design in America. It's the first and largest private museum in China specialized in collecting, researching and displaying red sandalwood works of art and connoisseurship of classical furniture, which fills a vacancy in the field of Chinese museums.
The exhibition room covers an area of 10,000 square meters. Here you will touch the essence of red sandalwood culture. The corner tower of the Palace Museum and the Qianqiu Pavilion in the imperial garden assume an imperial air. 320 dragons carved in the Longquan Temple in Shanxi Province are in different postures. The delicate Beijing quadrangles and the Feiyun Building in Shanxi Province are representatives of red sandalwood arts. They are all artistic treasures in the Orient made of red sandalwood. Numerous basso-relievo, sculpture-in-the-rounds, fretworks give full display to the charms of red sandalwood.
Sandalwood is called the red wood because of its color. Its texture is hard, which makes it excellent material for making furniture. Here, the furniture made in Ming and Qing Dynasties, traditional furniture materials, designs, structures give a brand-new interpretation of the meaning of furniture.
Some of my most frequented websites in Beijing:
www.beijinghikers.com
www.thebeijinger.com
www.piao.com.cn/en_piao/shouye.asp
www.beijingldtx.com/e_aboutldtx_intro.html
www.danwei.org www.beijingpage.com
www.timeout.com/cn/en/beijing/
www.couchsurfing.com
www.artscenechina.com
Comments
I'm so happy to see you are still here with me!
Hey Hey Grizzly,
its been sometime between blogs for you. I have returned to check your Pod many times but never found a new entry so thought maybe you had return home until now. I just turned on my computer and as usual I always click on any new entry for China and I was so happy to find the entry I clicked on was yours.
We both share the same Love Love relationship with this wonderful country which of course can turn into a Love Hate relationship at the drop of a single chipstick....hahaha.
Awesome to see you are still here throwing dumplings around...you have a wonderful blog that I love to follow....a heap of Beers N Noodles toya mate....shane