#46 Teaching at Taizhou Teachers College, China ( First visit to Beijing)

Upon arrival at one of the 6 trainstations in China's Capitol, it was obvious that a mega-city was emerging. Beijing has been described in thousands of ways and over thousands of years, but a personal visit is the only way to experience a city, which overwhelmed Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer, "...in its size and opulence." Sadly, many of the ancient monuments, city walls, and palaces have been torn down and their materials and stones set for other uses.

When exploring this ancient city, it is still possible to imagine Beijing being developed and constructed by the Great Kublai Khan as his capitol in 1260 A.D. Successive dynasties made it a mission in their life-time to continue thinking of Beijing as the center of the universe and their mammoth construction efforts are visible in every part of this megalopolis, to the astonishment of visitor now and in the future.

Few Westerners then had the opportunity to survive the arduous journey from Medieval-Europe east, past the Great Wall. Their writings about this exotic and enigmatic culture, which was protected against intrusions by "The Foreign Devils" through the greatest contruction site the world has ever seen, will forever make fascinating reading.

There is much to see and much still left unseen no matter how many visits one might make to explore the sights and sounds and smells of this rapidly developing and evolving world class capitol. The opportunity to visit the many wonders, that make up the city of Beijing, was an option to few visitors only decades ago. Now this city is in full preparation to welcome the world in 2008.

To do justice to this wondrous city and to confuse a reader less, it will be best to make the visit to each site an individual journal entry. Commentaries and photos will enhance the singular yet complex story-
content of each gem, that makes Beijing such a treasure of the past and the present.

The few photos shown here are the appetizers for experiences and vistas of a first visit to Beijing by an impressed "traveller", who can only hope, that others will be able to enjoy and ponder the open doors of this new China.

The story of Beijing had its beginning long before recorded history. The village of Zhoukoudian became famous in 1929, with the discovery of the first skulls of Peking Man, that have been carbon-dated to about 600,000 years ago. Stone implements used by Peking Man and additional remains are still carefully un-earthed. The original skulls were lost during the Second World War while shipped to the United States for safe-keeping, and their where-abouts are shrouded in mystery.

For thousands of years, Beijing remained the capitol of numerous conquerors, who established their dynasties in a the city, that has suffered a turbulent history. The city used to be known as "the City of Swallows" (a fisty small city bird). Manchuria's State of Jin was little match for the Great Kublai Khan, who made the city the winter- capitol of his Mongolian Empire back in 1260, over 200 years before Columbus sailed the "Ocean Blue" to find a route to the East by sailing West. Beijing was then known as the City of the Khan (Khanbaliq). Had the American continent not been in his way, China would have been the likely spot for Columbus to meet his destiny. But he didn't, and the rest is history :-).

The great Ming Dynasty defeated and replaced the Mongol Khan and established their capitol in 1368 in Nanjing.
The third Ming emperor, Yongle, made Beijing the capitol in 1421, and gave it its present name "Northern Capital"
or Beijing.

Much of the way Beijing looks today, was conceived during the Ming Dynasty. Unlike most cities of South China, Beijing's grid-pattern layout of streets was conceived through town planning. Roads were build North to South and East to West. By 1553, the new outer wall of the city protected even the sub-urbs.

Between 1407 A.D and 1420 A.D. over 200,000 workman satisfied the confidence and power of the Ming Emperor and build him the Forbidden City. To protect the realm, the finest sections of the Great Wall were also constructed during this period of history. The Temple of Heaven is one of the magnificent examples of Ming architecture.

Understanding their mortality, the Ming emperors planned and prepared their own burial grounds in a methodical and grandiose fashen, the result of which can be visited in the Ming Tombs.

Later, weak and corrupt rulers drained resources and energies, and the last Ming Emperor hanged himself in 1644 behind the Forbidden City bringing the Ming Dynasty to a close.

The new Qing ('pure') Dynasty were the Manchus. They were to stay for the next 267 years, and in 1924 the last Qing Emperor was forced to leave the palace. Two notable Qing Emperors were Kangxi, whose reign was the longest in Chinese history, from 1661 - 1722. He was also a contemporary of Louis XIV of France and Peter the Great of Russia. He had contact with both.

The second, Emperor Qianlong reigned from 1736 to 1795 and under their rule, China enjoyed peace and prosperity. Western travel accounts of the Chinese nobility in 18th Century was, "... a highly cultured people dressed in gorgeous silks and given to splendid ceremonies in a land of plenty."

By the 19th Century, the Qing Dynasty became stagnant. Clinging to ancient systems of thought and rituals, the ultra-conservative officials rejected all original ideas or innovations as seditious. All attempts to modernize China were brutally quashed.

Western methods of war overwhelmed the late Qing empire. Conflicts with the Western Powers (ex. England, France, Germany and the US), who were ready to divide China between them, proved a disaster for the ill prepared Manchu armies.

The sale of Opium by traders from France and England to the Chinese population continued and intensified after the First Opium War.(1840-1842). The weak Chinese government could not impose santions on the "Dealers" from the West, and in a second two-year-war (1858-1860), Beijing was actually captured and looted by England and France.

British and French armies burned down the Summer Palaces and made off with the treasures they found in this amazing city. Disastrous Western influence was now at a peak and secret societies among the Chinese population plotted against the influence of the "Foreign Devils" in their home-land.

The few reforms by the infamous Empress Dowager, Cixi, who ruled from 1861-1908 were too little and too late.
She is reputed to have poisoned her son, the heir, only hours before her death. Instead, her nephew Puyi ascended the throne as the "Last Emperor" at the age of six. By 1912 he was dethroned and was forced from the palace by 1924. Puyi died in the 1967, a retired scholar and quiet resident of Beijing and a citizen of the Peoples Republic of China.

The periods following the 1911 Revolution and the humiliating terms for China under the Treaty of Versailles opened the road to socialism. Conflict and civil war between the Nationalists and Communists stagnated the country and only the Japanese invasion united the two groups for the time.

Beijing fell prey and suffered immensly during the Japanese occupation from 1937-1945. After the victory over Japan, Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) on October 1st 1949 from the rostrom of the Gate of Heavenly Peace. His portrait and his body is still admired by millions of Chinese visitors to the city every year, and viewing lines can be up to 4-5 hrs long as they wrap around his memorial.

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