Listless in Beijing
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2007
1
20
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Beijing,
China
Thursday, November 22, 2007
As mentioned in the last entry, I was ill throughout most of our 5 day stay in Beijing. As a result I dragged myself through most of our itinerary with the support of my loving wife. Regine also had to go see a few places on her own. Altogether we had to markedly prune down our itinerary and left with a slightly more sombre impression of Beijing than we would have liked.
We kicked off by attempting to see the Temple of Heaven on our first day which was one of the very few rainy days on our trip so far. This temple comprises a few buildings spread over a vast area. It was only used twice a year for ritual offerings by the emperor to the heavens: in spring to appease the Gods in view to a good harvest that year and in autumn to thank the Gods for the same
Royal Doorknob
. The place was quite nice, but the drizzle and bitter cold as well as my sorry state made it more of a tick box exercise than a truly enlightening experience. The best part of our visit was getting an introduction into Chinese art by a lovely art student from Xi'an who held an exhibition there with her class in the only heated room on the premises.After Regine put me back to bed she went and explored Tiananmen Square. This symbol of communist bombastic architecture and China's ongoing struggle with human rights is very much dedicated to chairman Mao Tse Tung. His mausoleum takes up the centre of this biggest square in the world. You can defile past his open coffin and catch a glimpse of his preserved features. I guess this must be similar to paying hommage to Lenin on the red square in Moscow. It's touching to see some of the Chinese visitors leaving Mao's Mausoleum in tears. It's interesing to go through Mao's biography. Now the official communist party line is that Mao was 70% right and 30% wrong. Sadly the cultural revolution clearly falls under the latter figure: major slashing and burning of anything and anybody related to China's past by gangs of thugs in the name of communism in the 60s. This included the destruction of vast Chinese heritage, cultural and religious treasures as well as an unnecessary end to countless lives. Still, you will be hard pressed to find a peasant's home anywhere in China that doesn't have a portrait of the man adorning the living room wall.
Buildings flanking Tiananmen square are the South and North Gates (the latter displaying a giant portrait of guess who and marking the entrance to the forbidden city). Then there's a grand theare under construction in the east and the massive parliament building in the west. Incidentally the government published a white paper encouraging a multi-party approach to Chinese politics during our stay
Heavily guarded people's heroes
. Any opposition is welcome to have their say to improve the way China is run... as long as what's said follows the communist party line, that is. Great change can be expected...Tiananmen square is probably the best guarded public place in the world. There are patrols of police, army and security everywhere with guards at all entries, also an army of plainclothes security ready to pounce on any whiff of dissent. It was eerie taking some pictures with Bjoern under the close scrutiny of these watchful sentries. After the daily flag lowering procedure the square is completely vacated at sunset with all entrances barred. Weird, and clearly a legacy of the 1988 uprising.
The next day Regine went to see the Summer Palace. This royal summer residence is beautifully located within a lakeside park. She was blessed with a lovely autumn day which, if you subtract the abundant Chinese tour groups and the accompanying megaphone cackle-o-rama, together wih the serene beauty of the park evoked a relaxed athmosphere. Due to the setting Regine is tempted to say she may have liked the summer palace even more than the forbidden city. Of course the peaceful impression was somewhat destroyed by the 2 hour bus ride back through ush hour chaos.
Next stop was to be the great wall on a stunningly beautiful and clear late Autumn day
Gathering for flag lowering
. We walked along the wall for 4 hours between Jinshanling and Simatai together with Vinzenz and Steffi, further German Shanghai expats. The wall was draped in snow which only added to the grandeur of this magnificent edifice. As the wall was pretty steep and slippery in parts it turned out to be a rather sportive stroll. At the end we whizzed down from the wall on a tandem flying fox suspended over a lake. Very romantic (the Chinese have a knack for romance) and somewhat Harry Potter.The following day we tackled the Forbidden City, the imperial palace most recently inhabited by the tragic child ruler Pu Yi (well documented in Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor"). We took along the knowledable Rina as our guide. She filled us in on the functions of different areas of the palace as well as the daily ritual and the intrigues at court, especially under the empress dowager Cixi. This interesing and last truly powerful imperial character effectively ran the country during the reign of three emperors at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. She had worked her way up all 6 ranks of royal concubine to become empress by murdering her predecessor. There could be several hundred concubines chosen by the emperor himself regularly out of an abundance of well-to-do officials' daughters - you might say these were early Miss China pageants. Only the empress herself was not chosen by the head honcho, but rather by his mother. The concubines inhabited vast parts of the forbidden city. With so many ladies at court hoping their son was to become the future emperor you can only imagine the intrigues at court. The future emperor was chosen by the emperor himself. The name of the candidate deemed fittest for the position was only known to the ruler and locked in a box that was only opened after that ruler's death. Lots of interesting facts to be learned. We then climbed up Jingshan Hill for a bird's eye view (as far as the smog allowed) over the palace and Beijing
Entrance to forbidden city
.Next morning we wandered to Panjiayuan art and antique market in the hope of making a bargain for our Christmas shopping. I was glad to snuggle up in the hostel's sofa after that, completely exhausted. Saddly we had to cancel our social plans as I was too unfit to go anywhere in the evenings.
One evening I did manage to attend a cultural performance/tea ceremony at the Lao She Tea House, though. This comes much recommended. You get some whacky waiters serving you tea most artistically by twirling what looks like a long-nozzled flower watering can before filling your cup mid-contortion. You also get the questionable pleasure of chewing on a variety of largely unpalatable sweets. We sat with a bunch of Taiwanese dental students on elective in China. Unsurprisingly they reported not being teated very well in Beijing, but still seemed to enjoy the experience. Same can be said for our performance. Every 15 minutes we were confronted with a new aspect of Chinese stage entertainment, be it traditional opera, kung fu (including breaking an iron bar on a chap's forehead), hilarious high tone singing, a lady singing with a cake in her face, a fascinating face changing performance, oral mimikry (guys imitating sounds), Chinese stand-up comedy, plate twirling acrobatics, magic (not particularly Chinese: most of these tricks my dad can do, too). A great selection.
