Beijing, October 2, 2008, Thursday
Trip Start
Sep 26, 2008
1
7
31
Trip End
Oct 18, 2008
Beijing,
China
Monday, March 2, 2009
So we had to cross the square again and go on to the Tiān'ānmén Dong, same as yesterday. The Square was already crowded. But as the days passed by, I grew more accustomed to it. Of course, it would amaze and amuse me every now and then, particularly in underground passages when you'd have a feeling that a huge river of people was spilling out on all sides. But on the whole, I was increasingly taking China and its huge crowds in stride.
Our first destination was Jiànguómén Zhàn, or station, and nearby Chang'an Culture & Entertainment Centre, or Chángān Dàjùchăng in Chinese
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. That's where PingPing decided we should go and see an opera tonight. She had checked it on Internet, the tickets were still available and now we were headed to buy ourselves two. So we entered a large, modern building, a new site of the former Chang'an Grand Theatre with all the state-of-the-art equipment you can expect in any developed spot in the world. In the lobby there was a huge souvenir shop with usual array of items a visitor can find anywhere else, but also things you could probably find only here like CDs and DVDs featuring some of the most famous and acclaimed operas. There was a teahouse, there was a bar and there were other things which I couldn't quite register in such a short time.And there was a ticket booth where PingPing and I bought ourselves tickets for the seven-thirty evening show.
Our mission accomplished, we were back outside on the Jiànguóménwai Dàjiē.
"What do we do now?" PingPing asked me.
"How about Flower and Bird Market?" I suggested.
She liked the idea. However, before we would hop back on an underground train, I had another request. People liked receiving postcards from foreign countries, or at least they claimed so. Therefore, as we seemed to have quite a bit of time on our hands, I wanted to use the opportunity when our schedule was not so tightly packed to find a post office and send those postcards. It seemed PingPing was no stranger to this area and she claimed she knew about one branch office nearby. Even if she expressed her reservations about whether it would be open today or not.
"Why wouldn't it be?" I asked.
"Because it's holiday time."
Interesting
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. Essential services like post office, well, at least I thought it was essential, might not be open because it was "holiday time", and those utterly non-essential ones like common shops were because, as Maggie had put it, this was "the best time for business". But then again, when you give it a good thought, it was also logical. Who in their right mind would even think of going on without at least one pair of new shoes or bottle of perfume, or at least a bunch of pirated DVDs during holidays? And what would be so important in the post office that couldn't wait until next week when everything would open up again? But the cynic in me was not going to have his day today. By the time PingPing got me to the post office, and it was near, we were just a minute or two away from ten o'clock. And this outlet was opening its doors at ten sharp. Even if it was holiday time. Our timing couldn't have been better.
With only a few people inside this large post office, it meant there were no queues and I was done with sending my postcards pretty soon. Most of the time was taken up by sticking the stamps to the postcards, even if I didn't necessarily use a painter's brush as I had two years before in Nanning. OK, the glue was still there, but I guess the technology of applying the glue to the back of the stamp and sticking it to the postcards evolved a bit. At least here in Bĕijīng.
And then it was time to go to the market. It meant going back underground, going through another security check, taking another short ride and going out at the Fùchéngmén Zhàn
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. The market was in its vicinity. They used to have one of those historical gates around. Hence the name Fùchéngmén. By now I knew that whenever you had this "mén" thing in the name, you were dealing with a gate, either a still-existing are a torn-down one. This one was a goner. But the name was still there. With an intention to stay.Guayuan Flower & Bird Market was located just off the Fùchéngmén Bĕidàjiē, a thoroughfare boasting two parallel carriageway strips and a pedestrian, tree-shaded one in between. This middle strip was where we were on our way to the Market, passing along the way people taking nap on benches, playing mahyong, selling talking birds and all sorts of other things.
The Market itself squeezed into a maze of tiny and relatively dark side streets which led me to believe that once it must've been a hutong. I had nothing to bear out my assumptions except the cramped feel and look of the area. It wasn't exactly on the scale of what I had seen in Nanning in 2006, neither in terms of size nor splendour. This one was pretty drab and dour. I would say it was a bit of a let-down on what I had expected, probably still under impression of that first one I had seen. And as for the animals, well, I can't say those back in Nanning were exactly pampered and spoiled. In China they somehow don't seem to think that animals are entitled to much of a leg room. But this one in Bĕijīng was even more depressing. If you are an animal, of course.
If you happen to be incarnated as a human being, and if such sights don't get you way too down, then even Guayuan Flower & Bird Market offers some intriguing things, if you look carefully
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. There are relatively normal animals there - speaking from a westerner's point of you, of course - like cats and dogs, birds and fish, but also dippier exhibits like crickets in bamboo cages, or boxes, worms and so on. They don't sell animals of the goat or sheep size, unless you count some really huge dogs, but everything one category below and lower is probably there. One of the cutest - and biggest - puppies was so big that they kept him on top of his cage instead of inside."This one is very expensive," PingPing said.
"How much?"
"Let me ask."
And she did. It turned out the puppy would go for 5000 yuan to whoever was willing to give that money. I thought those 5000 yuan were just a start. Such a mutt would grow to a monstrous size. Almost like a pony. And it had to be fed all along. I could only imagine how much food such an animal could devour. Probably enough to rob someone like me of every possibility to travel anywhere any more.
Once out of the market, the next question was where to go now. We still had most of the day ahead of us.
"How about going to Bĕihăi Park?" I suggested.
So we decided to pick it up where we had left it off the day before. This time we were not sleepy and it seemed like a good idea. As soon as we arrived there, we went to the Yong'an Temple, or the Temple of Everlasting Peace, the one which we had skipped the day before. It is the largest building complex there, composed of several halls, a bell tower and a drum tower and on the whole it used to be a place of worship for emperors and their empresses
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. PingPing herself also wanted to spend a bit of time on worship, so I let her took her time while I wandered around, taking look at and pictures of the things I could see. When she was done, I showed her some pictures and she said:"You can't take pictures of such things."
"Really?" I was surprised. "Why not?"
"It's not allowed to take pictures inside the temple," she said.
I didn't know that, of course. I saw no warning against taking pictures, and even if I had, would it have meant anything in China? Anyway, I would have honoured it if I had seen it. I would never intentionally desecrate a holy place.
"It's OK if you didn't know," she said. "Just don't do it any more."
I wouldn't. Just like I didn't step on those thresholds since PingPing had warned me against it on the first day in the Forbidden City.
We went down to the lake shore and took a stroll to the Five-Dragon Pavilions. Those pavilions are said to be the spot where the emperors went fishing and enjoyed the moonlight. Basically, the whole thing got its name after a convoluted bridge that connects all those pavilions and allegedly resembles a swimming dragon when seen from distance. Or from up above, maybe. Well, the emperors must've been onto something as the pavilions were so crowded that you literally had to stand in a queue to eventually get yourself a spot on one of the low white walls and sit down. The day was sunny, the calm surface of the lake glistening with water reflecting the sunrays and in spite of the surrounding crowd, there was no better place to cast your anchor down for a while.
As usual, most of the people there were the elderly
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. And almost as usual, they were often singing and playing portable music instruments like flutes, harps and the like. As usual, they were just enjoying themselves. PingPing and I sat there, listened to them, took in the lake view, ate some peanuts and basically took it easy. For a change, it was good to slow down a bit and leave the sightseeing pace of places like the Forbidden City and Summer Palace for another occasion. There was no need to trip over our own feet now. What for?When we decided we wanted to go on, it was just a short stroll to where the famous Nine-Dragon Wall was standing. Another thing from the Ming Dynasty era, same as those pavilions, the Nine-Dragon Wall was a 27-metre-long thing, covered on either side with coloured glazed tiles which eventually, with every tile in its proper place, depicted nine dragons of various colours, playing with pearls against the background of cyan. Taking our obligatory photos, by now well into the afternoon, we decided we could have a lunch. So we left Bĕihăi Gōngyuán, considering it now off the list, and started looking for a place to eat. PingPing suggested a place near my hotel where they allegedly had good dumplings. To me it made no difference. So we went there.
It was one of those numerous fast food eateries which in appearance hardly differ from each other. PingPing took over entire thing as to what we would order and eat and I basically just waited. She did a good job, the dumplings were good and after that we finally started preparing to go to the opera
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. The day passed rather fast.We arrived back in the Chang'an Culture & Entertainment Centre generously on time. We were not the first there, but I would bet the majority was going to come after us. They were not admitting people into the theatre yet, so for I while we killed time mostly browsing through DVD and CD titles on the souvenir shop shelves. Every now and then PingPing would exclaim that "this" was a very famous opera. I would politely take it in my hands, flip it over once or twice, but none of it meant anything to me. After judging that enough time had passed not to come off as disrespectful, I got it back into its slot on the shelf. And so that's how it went for a while. But not for too long, either.
At one point they finally opened the theatre and we went in.
The theatre was big. It was difficult for me to pass a definite verdict, but I wouldn't be surprised if the house could accommodate thousand people. OK, later I found out that the official capacity was like eight hundred. But it was big, either way. Though, it was obvious we wouldn't see the capacity crowd tonight. Not just for the fact that the visitors didn't exactly rush into the theatre in a mad dash for the seats. They were more like slowly trickling in. But also for the fact that, as far as I understood, operas were held every night here. And not just at seven thirty. Earlier, too. Also, this wasn't the only place in town to see them. So all in all, by the time the show was to start, maybe half of the seats were taken
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. And by some generous assessment, at that.And as for the show itself, it was absolutely colourful. A real feast for the eyes. Whoever would appear on stage, they were dressed in such a way that they would put to shame even the most flamboyant carnival time parader in Europe. Next to them, a carnival parade in my country would look like a string of beggars. Brilliant multi-coloured costumes, elaborate masks or glaring make-up where faces were visible, it was a sight to see.
And as for the music, well, that was another matter. An endless series of high-pitched, piercing wails emitted by the actors-singers, accompanied by some metallic jangle created by a number of sparsely sounding traditional instruments is what it mostly was to me. Not exactly the most inspiring piece of art for someone whose ear was trained according and used to western, mostly diatonic scale. If I had been alone, I guess I would have either gone out after half an hour at most or clenched my teeth, so that I could pull it through and later say I had been to a Bĕijīng opera. After all, among those few hundred people I noticed only one more western man other than me. It was evidently a Chinese-only affair. Well, almost.
And obviously rightly so. Because much as I would have had to force myself to stay through the show, the locals were extremely enthusiastic about it, often greeting arias with rounds of loud applause and even singing along. PingPing shared their enthusiasm to the hilt
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. Well, at least one of us was having a thoroughly good time.However, all that I just said was in case I had been alone there. I wasn't, though. Which meant that PingPing made sure I could follow the plot and know exactly what was going on on stage. She explained to me who was who and who did what at a time. She even pointed out details like when the actors were "riding horses", which was symbolised by springing around with relatively long coloured and decorated poles in hands. Annoying music aside, things really made sense and I was not bored at all.
The opera we saw was "Zhuang Yuan Mei", whatever that meant in translation. And the plot roughly told the story of a princess who was, together with her entourage, once attacked by a band of villains. However, when the going really got tough and when it seemed that the fair princess would fall into hands of some uncivilised brute, out of nowhere materialised a young and handsome hero, a commoner, and sent the whole horde packing, dispensing some nasty blows around, kicking fiercely some less-than-royal butts and valiantly defending the princess along the way. Of course, the princess fell in love with the young fellow even if she didn't quite see his face because she swooned in short order, as a textbook princess should. There was some more swooning around at the heels of this one by some other members of the entourage, so by the time they all regained their senses, there was an identity switch at play on stage.
The young hero in his modesty disappeared and the spot of attack saw another chance visitor, this time a local joker and prankster
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. So when everybody pulled themselves back together, they were all convinced the arm that had saved their lives was the one that belong to this new funny guy. The reward would, of course, be the princess' hand. The joker merrily played along, for who in his right mind would reject an opportunity to marry the beauty, wealth and social prestige, all in one? The word of his brave feat was brought to the Emperor who was about to bless the whole marriage arrangement.Only the princess felt the guy she was going to marry somehow wasn't the right one. Something didn't smell quite right there. Something was fishy.
The whole opera was a comedy, as it turned out. The people in the audience laughed more than once and greeted every turn of events with hearty acclamation, even if they clearly knew in advance what would come next. PingPing did, too. But it didn't seem to prevent them from enjoying it. Also, the actress who played the princess seemed to be famous in local operatic circles, so whenever she would start singing, no matter what I might have thought of it, she received a standing ovation. It seemed I had got more than I had bargained for.
Anyway, everything ended well. Those who had smelled a rat, proved to be right about it at last. The prankster was disgraced and left the court with his tail between hind legs, and our young and valiant hero eventually won not only the battle against forest bandits, but also the hand of princess. And people in the audience were winners because they had clearly had a good time.
And I was a winner, too, because thanks to PingPing, I had had a privilege to see a Bĕijīng opera with real understanding, and not only to cut another notch as another trophy into my tourist's belt.
