At the end of March, I spent a weekend in Beijing with Mary Warpeha who was teaching at a school in Beijing for a month. This was the first time that I had been in Beijing, so after taking the overnight train from Xi’an, which was clean, comfortable, and easy compared to India, I went directly to Tian’anmen Square. It seemed the most appropriate place to start a visit in Beijing. It’s huge, but with more buildings and monuments on the square than I had expected. There were thousands of middle-aged peasants in tour groups in their identically colored baseball caps being led by their flag waving tour leader. The people of China are becoming tourists and they are everywhere touring the country. Beijing is a primary destination. They lined up in a long winding line with 6-8 people deep to pass by quickly the body of Mao, not me.
The next day Mary and I went to the Imperial Palace or the Forbidden City where the imperial court lived, called this, because ordinary Chinese were forbidden from approaching it. It is very impressive, but also overwhelming with many many buildings (800). All the tour groups were there elbowing in to get glimpses of the interiors of halls and chambers. Most of the buildings date from 1403 when the capital was moved to Beijing. We did not spend the whole day there, but walked around exploring different courtyards, buildings and rooms until we were exhausted. Then we went to the old section of town with Hutong alleyways, small old homes with courtyards that are being renovated, many into shops, cafes and restaurants. It is a fun area of town to explore. It was bright and sunny and we had lunch and later stopped for coffee and drank it outside in the sunshine - a taste of spring. We also walked by several of the artificial lakes, again with restaurants, cafes and bars.
It is really easy, but sometimes crowded getting around Beijing on the subway, and since the Olympics, everything is in English. Everyone says Beijing has been spruced up, and the new subway stations are beautiful. The first afternoon I went to the Olympic Park and saw the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube, which are incredible structures. It was very exciting to be there.
The first night we met friends of Mary for a splendid meal in a lovely old building that had once been a temple. One young son was along, and we asked about the white pasty substance in his ears, some special kind of seed we were told, ground into a paste and applied to the ears to improve his eyesight!
Sunday, we went to the Temple of Heaven, which is a series of structures and temples. Unfortunately it was cloudy and very cold that day with snow flurries in the air. It is a spiritual place with a very satisfying design - the place where Heaven and Earth meet. Heaven is represented with circles and Earth with squares and they are combined in various ways; the emperor, the Son of Heaven, is the intermediary. Cosmologically 9 and multiples of 9 are considered powerful odd numbers, and these are found throughout the temple area. Every year the emperor went there on winter solstice to make animal sacrifices and pray for a good harvest. A great deal of ceremony was involved and the common people were not allowed to see any of it.
Later I went to an exhibit of 50 years of Tibetan Liberation. It was informative with lots of photos and information. Then back to Xi’an on the overnight train after a full weekend. At least I got a taste of Beijing, a huge bustling city, and enjoyed being with Mary and her friends.
http://picasaweb.google.com/darlene.kunze/Beijing?feat=directlink
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