Today is the first full day of our tour. At breakfast and at the orientation meeting
that followed we met our fellow travelers.
Lena, our trip leader, is from Xian.
She speaks very good English and is easy to understand. There is a group of seven (6 women and 1
husband) who have been friends for years and who travel together frequently. Four of the women are doctors, one having
immigrated from Iran many years ago.
Most are from the New York City area, although one couple lives in
Florida. Grace, who is traveling alone,
comes from Arlington, VA and was a corporate lawyer. Another couple is from Southern California –
he is a lawyer and president of a high tech company and she is a doctor
(psychiatrist) The last couple is from
Florida, but I did not catch what they do (I know she is a native of
Argentina). They seem like a very
personable group, however the seven traveling together do seem to stick together.
After the orientation meeting we met our local
guide, Alex, and left to visit the Temple of Heaven. It was built in 1420 and was used by the
emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties to worship heaven and pray for good
harvests and rain. The Temple symbolized
the relationship between the human world and God’s world – earth and
heaven. It is China’s largest and most
representative masterpiece among China’s ancient sacrificial buildings. It is larger than the Forbidden City as
Chinese emperors (known as the 'Sons of Heaven’) were precluded
from building a dwelling for themselves that was greater than the earthly
residence dedicated to Heaven. The main part of the Temple is known as the Hall
of Prayer for Good Harvests. It is round
in shape with blue (represents Heaven) roof tiles, yellow (the color for the
Imperial ruler) on the sides, and green (Earth) at the base. It is interesting to note that no nails were
used in the building of this temple.
This was where the emperor held the worship ceremonies to pray for good
weather and abundant harvests. Located
in the southwest of the Altar of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Palace of
Abstinence is where the emperor fasted before the Heaven Worship Ceremony
began.
Many senior citizens come to this park area and
spend the day playing a card game that as far as I can figure out, just entails
throwing your cards in a large pile; playing Chinese Chess (pretty much like
our chess except they have no queen and the pieces are just like checkers with
a drawing on the front that corresponds to the piece), or crocheting. There were also quite a few school children
in the park (most of them drawing pictures of what they saw). Today is only a half-day for them as tomorrow
is the start of a 3-day holiday known as the Mid-Autumn Festival. We all practiced our hellos in Chinese while
they answered with their English version of hello.
As we entered the Temple Area we walked down a long
corridor which originally was the path where the sacrificial animal was
transported from the Butcher Hall to the Kitchen. We then walked around the Temple site. You could only go in one of the halls – the
one providing a little history of the Temple to help the visitors better
understand the ancient worship of the Heavens.
After our lunch at a local restaurant – all the
meals are served family style with the dishes placed on a large lazy susan in
the middle of the table. You then just
spin the lazy susan to get the dish you want.
You do have to be careful that you don’t spin it when someone else is
trying to get food from the dish in front of them. We had about 8-9 different dishes – cooked
Chinese cabbage and celery, pork dishes, orange chicken, watermelon, but the
best dish was the caramelized apples.
After lunch (and a quick stop at a nearby Starbucks
so I could get my mug) we headed to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Near the southern end of the square was a
Watch Tower. These towers used to connect
the city walls but only two remain today.
The city wall (not to be confused with the wall that surrounds the
Forbidden City). was constructed during the Ming Dynasty and used to be 20
kilometers long and surrounded what was known as the Imperial City. Today only 2% of the wall remains. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Mao (as part of his
Cultural Revolution) ordered that the wall be torn down. What today is the 2d
Ring Road was once the City Wall – there are a total of 6 Ring Roads around
Beijing.
When we got to Tiananmen Square we found out that it
was closed to visitors as there was some sort of political ceremony going
on. Our guide gave us a brief history of
the Square and a description of the buildings and monuments found in and around
the square. Today the square looks very
peaceful and on most days you find families walking around it, visiting Mao’s mausoleum,
or flying kites. Quite a different scene
than the one most Americans remember from the 1989 student pro-democracy
protests with one student standing in defiance of a large tank.
From the Square we crossed the road to the Forbidden
City. It was built over a 14 year period
(1368-1644) and served as the imperial palace for 24 emperors
during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 - 1911). Ancient Chinese astronomers believed that the
Purple Star (Polaris) was in the center of heaven and the Heavenly Emperor
lived in the Purple Palace. The Palace
for the emperor on earth was so called the Purple City. Today it is known as the Palace Museum. During the Ming and
Qing dynasties it was forbidden for people to enter this palace without the
special permission of the emperor. And
even then they could only enter the outer courtyard.
We entered in the south gate known as Wumen or
Meridian Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) with its large picture of Mao handing
from the center of the gate. Today our
tour took us along the central north-south axis to view the main gates and
halls. Although we had seen them two
days ago, it was nice to be able to walk again through the Forbidden City and
enjoy the views and explanations without trying to take pictures. In all we viewed the three main halls – Hall
of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Central Harmony, and the Hall of Preserving
Harmony. These were the halls where the
emperor would met with his high officials or preside over ceremonies. I just love the names the Chinese used for
these buildings. We also walked around
the area reserved for the emperor and his immediate family and concubines. It was, however, a very hot day and by the
time we exited the Forbidden City most of us were physically drained.
Dinner tonight was at another Peking Duck
Restaurant. I did try some of the duck
(not my favorite meal), and thankfully, they had other dishes to eat.
Thursday,
15 Sep Great Wall
Today is the start of the d3-day Mid-Autumn Festival
which celebrates the Goddess of the Moon and usually coincides with the full
Harvest Moon. Schools and shops are
closed and families head out to parks or attractions to enjoy the day. There are four major holidays in China – the
Chinese New Year or Spring Festival; the Mid-Autumn Festival (September); the
Dragon Boat Festival (April); and the Tomb Cleaning Festival (early
April). We are traveling to the Great
Wall, and Lena thought traffic might be heavy, so we started early (7:30). Traffic was on the heavy side, but we did not
encounter any huge back-ups on the road.
Before we arrived at the Great Wall, we stopped at a
Cloisonne factory, the beautiful enamel artwork that predates the Ming Dynasty
and is known for its colorful glazes and patterns. The work is tedious and time-consuming, but
the results are fantastic. To begin the
process, an artist draws a pattern for the piece and it is then copied (by
using carbon paper) on to the surface of a rough cast of vases, dishes, jars,
etc. Next women fashion thin copper wire
into the intricate shapes and designs of the pattern. These wire shapes are then pasted onto the
rough cast vase (using a natural glue, no chemicals added). The piece is then given to the painter who
will paint the vase, using her own imagination as to which colors will be used
inside each small copper wire design.
However, she must remember what color (and what shade of color – there are
57 shades) was used as the subsequent paintings must be identical. The paint used are all natural minerals (no
chemicals) and within each color may be several different variations of
shading). The color is applied to each
of the little designs using an eyedropper, not a paint brush. After the first painting, the piece is baked
in a kiln. After it cools, it is painted
again (using the exact same colors) and then fired again. They do this six times. Each piece is then inspected by the head
painter and if she notices that a different shade was used in one of the small
areas, that paint in that area must be chipped out and repainted – six more
times! How a person could see that a
different shade was used is beyond me.
Some of the shades look so similar in color that it would be very hard
to tell the apart. After the final
firing, the piece is polished and gold plated.
For some of the more intricate pieces it can take weeks or months to
complete. The workers are paid by the
pieces that they complete – about $300 US dollars per month.
Once we got outside of Beijing and closer to the
mountains, the smog was almost non-existent.
As we drove toward the Great Wall, we passed by two of the more popular
Great Wall locations. Just passing by in
the bus, you could see that they were very, very crowded with locals and
tourists. We continued on to the Wild
(Ancient) Section of the Badling Wall section.
This is one of the most authentic sections of the wall and hasn’t been
rebuilt for tourism. When we got there,
there were only a few locals climbing the wall – we were the only
tourists. The climb up to the wall was
fairly strenuous. Once we reached the
wall (at one of the Watch Towers) we then walked up the wall to the next watch
tower – not a long walk, but a steep climb up about 100 steps. I stopped there and came back down, but most
of the rest of the tour climbed to the third tower before coming back
down. Coming down was so much harder
that the climb up! Once on the top of
the wall you could look out and see Beijing in the distance – enshrouded in a
cloud of smog.
The Great Wall qualifies as the world’s greatest
civil engineering feat and one of the new 7 wonders of the world. The massive ramparts were begun in separate
strategic sections between 403-221 BC.
During the reign of China’s first Qin emperor, Qin Shihaung, some
300,000 men were put to work connecting the segments into one huge, snaking
fortification. Archaeologists estimate
that the wall once ran for 6,200 mile through an expanse that now covers 16
provinces in China. Today, only 3,750
miles remain, stretching from the Bohai Sea to the Gobi Desert. In addition to serving as a defensive barrier
from enemy armies, the wall also served as an elevated highway not only linking
the defensive forces along China’s rugged northern frontier, but also providing
a means of rapid communication and deployment of troops, arms, and food.
Following our trip to the Great Wall, we stopped in
a small village for a home-hosted lunch.
The family where we ate grew all of the vegetables that were served
here. They have a small garden in the
front of their house and a 2-acre farm nearby that they are converting to fruit
orchards. The family consists of about
13 members, spanning 3 generations. The
grandmother was the one who prepared the meal, while her granddaughter, nearly
married a month ago, served the meal.
The food was absolutely delicious.
There home, by a lot of Chinese standards, would seem large. They had a big, modern kitchen and a
western-style toilet. The shower however
was over the toilet so you could accomplish two tasks at once! The house was still decorated with messages
of love and wedding symbols. And the
grandmother said they already have a bedroom for a baby they hope would be
coming soon.
After dinner tonight we went to a Chinese
opera. It was rather different. Before the show started, there was a man on
stage applying face paint and then he was helped into an elaborate costume of
what I suppose could have been an emperor.
We fully expected him to be in the performance. But we never saw him again. Instead we had 3 short little stories, done
mainly in mime and something akin to singing, but sounded more like high-pitch
shrieking. They did provide an English
translation on screens on either side of the stage, but in many instances
something must have been lost in the translations because they did not make
much sense.
Friday,
16 Sep Summer
Palace
Today was a brutal day weather-wise – the temperature
was in the high 90’s, the humidity was 100%, and the smog index was very, very
high. Because of the Mid-Autumn
Festival, the Opera School we were supposed to visit was closed, so we started
our day’s tour at the Tibetan Lama Temple.
This temple is part of the Yellow Sect of Tibetan Buddhism and is the
second largest temple of this sect in China (the largest is in Tibet). Before it was a temple, it was the palace of
several emperors Qing Dynasty. After the
last emperor departed for the Forbidden City, he declared this area to be a
Temple. As we walked into the temple,
our guide told us to get a box of the complimentary incense candles so we could
partake in the incense ceremony. You enter
the Temple Area through a gate building that has the name written in four
languages – Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchurian, and Mandarin – on a blue sign in
the middle of the archway. Our guide
also pointed out two buildings on each
side of the Temple; they are the Drum and Bell Towers. Each temple has a drum and bell tower that
was used in ancient times to tell the time (in 2 hour segments – the bell tower
for the day and the drum tower for evening).
As we neared the main temple, the strong odor of incense was
overpowering. The Buddhists that come to
this temple to worship can perform the incense ceremony at any one of about 12
different temples on the grounds – and some light their candles at each
one. Bill and I participated at the
first temple. You light three incense candles and then you stand in front of
the temple and pray and then you throw the burning candles into a big vat where
they eventually burn up. The second
temple that we came to was the main temple and had three sitting Buddhas. The Buddha in the center was the present
Buddha, the one to the right the future Buddha and the one to the left, the
past Buddha. By this time the burning
incense was really beginning to bother me – my eyes itched, my throat was
raspy, and I was starting to get a headache.
Since I had already seen most of the Temple a few days ago, I walked
back to the entrance area where the air was a little fresher. Bill continued with the tour. At the very end, he said they saw an 80 meter
high wooden Buddha.
After leaving the Temple, we went by bus to a silk
rug factory. Here they make rugs out of
silk that they create from the silkworm cocoon.
They first put the cocoon in very hot water to help separate the strands
of silk. From one cocoon they can get
2,000 kilometers of silk threads. They
then dye the threads using only natural dyes – no chemicals. The rugs are then woven according to the
patterns drawn by their artists. The
most expensive rugs (4’ x 6”) take about 2 ½ years to make and they contain
about 2,500 tiny knots per square inch.
The workmanship is exquisite, and the price can averages about $20,000
per piece. (These pieces are not used as rugs but only as tapestries). Most of the rugs are of lessor quality
(although still beautiful and out of our price range), but they do not have as
many knots per square inch and only take several months to make.
We then headed to a restaurant for our noodle
lunch. We each had a bowl of noodles
(just like our spaghetti), with small bowls of condiments (slivered carrots,
cucumbers, cabbage, peas) that you added to the noodles and then we had two
sauces to choose from – minced pork and an egg and bean sauce. Then you mixed them all together and tried to
eat it with chopsticks. They also had
dishes of cooked cabbage, cooked vegetables, a spicy pork dish, a tofu dish and
French fries. Not sure where the French
fries fit into a Chinese meal, but we all enjoyed them. Desert was deep-fried pumpkin with a sugar
coating and watermelon slices. The meal
was very good and I am getting better at using chopsticks. Bill just keeps dropping his chopsticks on
the floor – I think it is his way of getting to use a fork!!!
After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. I am so glad that we had gone on Sunday. Sunday was a nice cool and sunny, clear
day. We were able to see the true colors
of the buildings and to see many of the buildings that line the lake
shore. Today, the smog was so bad that
you could barely see the buildings, and the heat and humidity was taking its
toll on all of us. And because of the
Mid-Autumn Holiday, the grounds were wall-to-wall people. I felt sorry for the rest of our group
because they could not enjoy the true beauty and serenity of the Summer
Palace. Our last act at the Palace was a
boat ride from Longevity Hill to the South Gate where our bus was waiting for
us. The ride was cooling with the lake
breezes, but you still could not see much through the smog. We then returned to our hotel where we had
the rest of the night free. Bill and I
are going to eat in the hotel restaurant and have a quiet evening to
relax. Tomorrow afternoon we leave
Beijing and take the high speed (bullet) train to Xian.
Some thoughts on Beijing. In some respects it is a cosmopolitan city,
although it is not really ready for large scale tourism. The traffic is horrendous – the worst we have
ever encountered and that includes LA, Washington, DC and Rome! Bicycles, hop tac drivers, and motorcycles
seem oblivious to any sensible rules of the road and the pedestrian has to be
on the alert. Even when you have the
green walk sign, they will never stop for you.
Cars travel on the shoulders of the major highways (illegal according to
our guide), and then just push the nose of their car into a lane of cars as if
they have the right-of-way. On any
normal day, the highways are jammed with cars – rush hour lasts about 12
hours. And taxi drivers will not stop
for tourists. According to our guide,
they do his because they do not speak English and are afraid that they will not
be able to understand where the passengers want to go. Most people in Beijing (and China also) do
not speak any English. Even in hotels
frequented by non-Asians, their English is limited. However, they are generally very friendly and
seem fascinated with Americans. Several
times on our visits to the various attractions, I have been asked if I would
allow someone to take my picture with his/her mother. And when we do try and use our rudimentary
Chinese (hello and thank you) they seem genuinely pleased. Beijing is a very clean city – everywhere we
walked we saw motorized street cleaners or just two employees using brooms to
sweep the streets.
