For five-hundred years the Forbidden City was a huge section of Beijing that was strictly off-limits to common folk. Occupied by emperors who rarely left it’s grounds, it used to be instant death to try and pass through it’s gates. Now it costs a mere 60 yuan, and several hours of your time. I honestly found it to be quite touristy and hoaky, although my view was tainted by the fact that it was our last, and exhausting day of walking, and that because of the 60th anniversary party of the country, it was obnoixsly crowded.
The “city” itself is a maze of walls that has been reconstructed into a two mile long walking museum. Each alcove is outfitted with artifacts behind glass, restored rooftops with fancy imagery, and some buildings that are actual museums specific to a subject. I particularly liked both the calligraphy and the ceramics museum.
Even though it seemed like an endless maze, only about half of the grounds are actually open to the public right now. It would take a very long day to see everything, especially if you wanted to include Tiannamen Square. (If you do both the Forbidden City and Tiannamen Square, they are three miles long as the bird flies, never mind how much walking around you do inside the City to see all the little sites and museums.) Luckily there were tons of public restrooms, and little “hot lunche” being sold inside the City walls. Little boxes full of rice with veggies and chicken on top. They kind of reminded me of airplane food, but they were fun to eat outside in the northern garden.
One mistake we made was starting at the north end of the Forbidden City and working our way south. Since we had spend the morning at the Lama Temple, geographically at first this seemed to make sense. But because of the massive crowed control they were doing because of the influx of Chinese tourists for the 60th anniversary, we were walking against the flow all day, and couldn’t get into Tianneman Square and had to take a tuk-tuk ride around to the south gate. Maybe I’m not a good haggler, but I thought that the tuk-tuks were far more expensive than taxis. Then again, they are pedaling your around as opposed to just driving, and they can do crazy things like go up over the curb and yell at other tourists to get out of the way.
The amazing number of people coming out of Tiannamen Square's north gate.
Filed under: China, Travel | Tags: Beijing, Public Space Beijing, Summer Palace
Summer Palace
If I lived in Beijing, I would probably spend a lot of time at the Summer Palace. It’s in the northern part of the city, and is basically a gigantic public park with a lake in the middle. We had no idea how majestic and truly huge the park would be before we went, and luckily we had our walking shoes on. One thing Beijing has really done right is their parks (and their public bathrooms that accompany them.)
For someone who lived in the congestion and busy-ness of Beijing everyday, this park would be like heaven. For someone who was just visiting such as myself, I found it to be a little too touristy, with a large focus on shops, vendors, and these cute headband things with giant flowers that all the girls were wearing. I wish I had gotten a picture, but I’m more of an architecture snapshot person, I feel weird about nabbing shots of strangers without their permission.
Our guidebook informed us that we could take a boat from downtown Beijing to the Palace, and although this was once a plan, our hostel staff informed us that, “the mountain did not love the lake enough, so it is not possible.” Which I’m taking to mean there wasn’t enough water to pull it off.
We spent almost all of the third day in Beijing just walking around the lake. I took a nap at one point, as many folks were doing, on some rock piles, and lost Michelle, my travel partner. Being the kind of travellers we are, this wasn’t a big deal, we just finished the tour at our own pace and met up when the park closed at the front gate. It’s so nice to travel with level-headed people for once.
There were tons of little bridges and connecting archways, and each one had it’s own name and unique design over the arch. I believe this one is Quan Yin, the Chinese Goddess of Compassion (her name is romanized in many different ways, so you might recognize her name in a different form.)
The palace at the top of the hill is the Buddhist Incense Pavillion, which housed a very old Buddhist statue at the top that I was not allowed to take a photo of. It was a gorgeous building, and yes, I did climb all those stairs.
A view of Beijing from the top.
Filed under: China, Travel | Tags: Beijing, Beijing Rain Machine, China, Lama Temple, Maitreya Buddha, Mongolia, Mongolian Music
I learn things from my kids everyday. One of the best things about the school that I work at is that we have each class twice a week for three hours at a wack. A lot of the English teachers in Korea see their kids once or twice a week for 45 minutes. If a kid misses a class, you don’t even have time to learn their name, never mind that they hate Harry Potter (contrary to popular convention), or what aspect of speaking they may need help with. I love really getting to know my kids, and I love that kids I had last semester come visit me in my classroom this semester.
This week I learned that people can induce rain. I was not aware of this. We were doing a project on the desertification of the Gobi Desert and how that creates dust storms that affect S. Korea and Japan with “yellow dust.” One group asked me what the name is for when we make rain. My eyebrows bunched up, while I was inwardly thinking, WTF? I had no idea.
It turns out that Beijing has the ability to make rain. Or, at least they think they do. They have a giant machine that shoots packets of silver iodide into cloudy skies that is supposed to induce rain. This article says they induced 4/10ths of an inch of rain, the heaviest rainfall at one time in that year.
Although I still couldn’t figure out what we would call that in English, so “rain machine” had to do.
We do a lot of geographically specific projects, so I’ve started loading my classroom computer with youtube videos and music that is relevant to the lesson. While working on the Gobi Desert, I found some great stuff to listen to, that at least some of the kids were enjoying as much as I was. I found these videos at a blog called Mongolian Music.
So last weekend, even more than the great wall, my favorite place that we visited was the Lama Temple. For someone who doesn’t study Buddhist philosophy, or who can’t pick out a few of the key figures, I imagine a visit to this park would be interesting for the architecture, but overall would end up being a tedious stroll through an endless number of offshoots, with each temple dedicated to a different group of unknown deities. To me, it was a wonderland of art and familiar images. Highly, highly influenced by Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism, I just loved it. The classic Tibetan mixture of magenta, cobalt, and gold was everywhere, a subtle, but noticeable difference to the colors of Korean spiritual architecture which don’t feature the gold tones.
Unfortunately, but typically, I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the temples. There were some spectacular statues ranging from the Taras, bodhisattvas, with a particular focus on the wrathful deities. Outside, people were lighting incense and praying. Although it is a tourist attraction, it was clearly a place the locals frequent as well.
It was originally built in 1694, and became a monastery in 1744, housing monks from Tibet and Mongolia. It was closed for 30 years during the cultural revolution, but somehow the grounds did not get destroyed.
Notice the woman on the right. Even though there were explicit signs in many languages saying not throw coins at the statue. People just couldn’t resist. The Buddhist version of a wishing well.
The highlight of the temple, which I couldn’t manage to sneak a picture of was the 60 foot (18 meters) tall Maitreya Buddha purported to be carved out of a single sandalwood tree. Although, this pinnacle of the statues was also a reminder of why I prefer to travel alone. Just as I was beginning to feel really inspired and debating whether I was going to risk looking like a fool as the only foreigner to do prostrations to this particular Buddha, my travel partner walked up behind me and said, “Well, what’s so special about him?”. Sigh.
Strangely enough, although it is 2,000 years older, the story of Maitreya Buddha is similar to that of the second coming of Jesus. “The Buddha” as most western people think of him, is believed to be just one of thousands of Buddhas (beings that have reached enlightenment) that exist. Maitreya is believed to be the next Buddha who will appear on earth, supposedly when humanity has destroyed itself to the point of no return, Maitreya will come bringing peace.
Now here is an instrument I could learn. Oh yes, I see myself in Mongolia very soon.
Filed under: China, Travel | Tags: Beijing, Emperor Guesthouse, Temple of Heaven Park
Although I’m really interested in just about every surrounding country, I’ve never been that interested in going to China. Maybe it’s having read about the political horror stories, dissidents, re-education, Tibet, but mainland China just never appealed to me. But as we Americans often feel, the people are not the same as our government policies.
We had a long weekend in Korea for their major national holiday. And while most of the locals were visiting family and paying homage to their ancestors, it seems every other English teacher in Korea decided to head to Beijing. I’d say 80% of the foreigners we met this weekend were also teaching English in Korea. My fellow travelling-teacher and I weren’t the only ones happy to get out for a few days.
Beijing had a lot of the feel of Asia that I’ve been missing in Korea. The gnarly buildings, the winding side streets, the animals wandering around, the smell of shit alternating with the smell of some amazing tofu vegetable street dish. There was a liveliness, an unabashed happiness, and a laid-back feeling that I just don’t see in the area of Incheon that I live in. I was so ecstatically happy all weekend. Part of that was just the glee of travelling and seeing some place new, but part of it was also being surrounded by people who didn’t give off the air of being self-conscious and concerned about their appearance, but rather of just truly enjoying themselves.
But unfortunately, the narrow walking streets are quickly disappearing in the Tianemen Square area as huge touristy developments are being built. I was talking with an older Scottish man who had stayed at the same hostel four years ago, and he said he couldn’t even recognize any of the streets. A new shopping street cut off from vehicle traffic has been put in – with a seemingly endless amount of money, as each building is more ornate than the next.
We stayed in a great little hostel that was still on a windy street. It is a really old building, built in the courtyard style and used to be the residence of Emperor Qian Long. Which I suppose is why it is called the Emperor Guesthouse. It was fantastic and funky. The whole Square area was a madhouse this weekend as it was the 60th anniversary of the founding of the official People’s Republic of China. One relief is that the sheer number of people ensured that we weren’t targeted by street vendors. I think it also added to the sense of pride and elation that seemed to encompass the whole city. People seemed really excited about the events and the day we visited the square, it was obvious that there were people from all different parts of China there to celebrate.
- Emperor Guesthouse
Temple of Heaven Park
It took most of Friday to get to Beijing and to find our hotel, so we didn’t get to do much Friday night. Unfortunately, most of the temples close around 4:30, so an evening stroll and some prostrations to Buddha weren’t really an option. We decided to go to the Temple of Heaven Park, and although we didn’t get to see inside the temple, which I’ve heard is astounding, the park itself was delightful. We felt perfectly safe walking around well after dark, and there were little groups of people playing traditional instruments, singing to portable karaoke machines, kicking around a hacky sack, and just sitting around hanging out. There was even one couple putting on a strange dance number for anyone who wanted to stop and watch. It was some cross between ballet, freestyle, and I’m assuming something traditional. What made it even more fascinating was that the man was wearing cut-off jean shorts, a skin-tight black tanktop, had red ribbons tied around his arms, and a look on his face that was somewhere between peyode high and just plain crazy.
So that was day one, or really half a day. We had a great dinner at a hole in the wall place with a giggling, very pregnant young waitress of wild herb dumplings and wood-ear mushroom and bokchoy stirfry. Tomorrow, the Great Wall…
Ruby Ramblings 