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Published: July 13th 2010
Travel Books
Tourist Alert !Sunday July 11, 2010
Today Rich and I are alone, no interpreter, no driver just the two of us and two bright Red Guide books that say Beijing. I think they also say in Chinese: Lost Traveler, Money, Westerner, Gullible! Honestly you would think Frommer's and Fodor's would start making travel books that look like Pride and Prejudice written in Mandarin.
They would be hot sellers.
So we get going around 9am and grab a cab outside our hotel and head towards Tiananmen Square. The weather was overcast but honestly it is hard to tell what is weather related and what is pollution related. Those great little guide books had told us to enter the Forbidden City from the Tiananmen Square side. Since we also wanted to spend some time in the square we felt this was good advice. The cab dropped us off at one of the entrances to the square and we quickly realized that we would have to go through security before entering the square. This did not seem to be at all unusual to us, what was unusual to us was that even though there were guards looking very official and a conveyor belt to
lay your handbags on people just rush the belt literally throwing their bags on top of each other and then proceed to push you out of the way through to the other side. Rich had to push himself in the middle of this mess to grab my handbag. The comical part is you are walking into the largest open square in the world, what is the rush? It just seems the Chinese people other then those you interact with in hotels and business have the attitude of every man for himself.
We spent sometime walking around the square which is truly amazing. The square contains The Memorial to Mao Zedong where he is entombed it also contains The Monument to the People's Heroes which is guarded. Families come to have picnics, take pictures and enjoy the sites. We have begun to notice that when ever they take pictures one or two of them make the peace sign in their photo. There are also many folks following flags wearing color corresponding hats to stay within their tour groups. Rich and I are hoping we made the right choice proceeding on our own
We cross under the street to
Guard
The Monument to the People's Heroes the Forbidden City Gate. We proceed through the Gate Of Heavenly Peace we have no idea where we purchase tickets but figure we will just keep going until we see a sign or someone asks for a ticket. We proceed into The Outer Court where there are crowds of people eating, drinking, smoking and littering. We see off to the side the off duty Military Guards playing basketball. Just a little beyond we see a large line to purchase tickets. We get in line and proceeded to wait our turn. I think it is important for you to realize that you seldom hear English spoken nor do you see many Westerners. You honestly start to crave just the sound of your homeland, I find it interesting how short of a time goes by before you miss even hearing your native language. We now have tickets in hand and follow the signs to the area to pick up the English speaking headsets. We are told the headsets will turn on automatically when we reach the correct area.
Once again we proceed through a security check point where handbags are thrown, people push, and the only way for you to get
Entrance
Forbidden City your handbag is to push as well. Rich proceeds to grab my bag and we are now on our own with a little more breathing room. You have the sense that all social graces that we take as normal protocol at a World Heritage Site do not exist in this country. I said to Rich many times the Emperor's must be rolling over in their Tombs. People spit, liter, push and every other thing you can imagine within the walls of the Forbidden City. We compared this to having your child relieve themselves on the Washington Monument.
The architecture is amazing, to think these walls were built in the 1400's without the use of modern day tools is truly unbelievable. Animal ornaments decorate the corners of many roofs - the more animals, the more important the building. The Emperors building has eleven animals. On each side of the Inner Palace are six western and six eastern palaces - the former living quarters of concubines, eunuchs, and servants. The selection process of the concubines was such an amazing part of this history. These young girls were selected at a very young age to be part of the Emperor's inner circle.
It was perceived as an honor to be selected. There were also different levels of concubine, the china they ate out of all was ornate but different colors based on their status.
They were very well taken care of, they wore beautiful head pieces, and had wonderful living quarters. The emperor was the only non-castrated male allowed in the eastern and western palaces. This served as proof that any pregnant concubine was carrying the royal one's baby.
The city is so massive and contains so much history there is no way I can do this World Historical Site any justice. I have read there is a virtual tour available on the internet that actually allows you to create an Avatar and walk through the site and talk to people along the way. I am not sure of the web site but I am sure a google search would bring it up.
We continued on with our self guided tour with headsets that worked when they wanted to. We tried to time our entrance into areas between the pushing of crowds. I must say Rich had much more patience with this system then I did. It had begun
to rain now so we attempted to find areas that were out of the rain. Rich said to me at one point, "Did you eat garlic, something really smells" I said, "Honey is that the first time you have smelled it, that is not Garlic that is China!" It smells, probably since children pee in the streets even though there are facilities around the corner.
We had now been touring for about two and half hours and my aversion to crowds was starting to set in. Rich said coming to Beijing probably wasn't the smartest thing I did, since I dislike crowds so much. I can take them in small doses and right about now I felt extremely over dosed. So we proceeded through the rest of the tour with a quicker pace, I figured once we got to the Imperial Gardens at the end of the tour it would seem more serene. Not sure what I was thinking since all these people in here also go out that way. I couldn't help to feel sad as we walked through these gardens that to me looked unkempt and at this point pretty muddy due to the rain. We turned
Golden Drum
Drums contained water over fire...used as fire protection during Winter in our head sets and headed out of the Gate of the Divine Warrior. This seemed to be accurate name since we were about to hit the streets as Warrior's of Beijing with our little red books!
As soon as we were on the sidewalks we were bombarded by woman begging, men on bikes with small capsules around them to fit two people. They offer to take you any where for the right price. All you hear is Lady, Lady, where you go, where you go! So at one point as they were swarming all around us I said, "We are all set, all set, Thank you". This Chinese looking gentleman said " I like that, All set" that is good. Oh my gosh English! I said where are you from, he said Boston! You are kidding me, I said that is where we are originally from, and then I asked which town or city, he said Woburn!! Ok those of you that may not know Rich grew up in Woburn his whole life. His father was somewhat of a local celebrity. He has a school gymnasium named after him as well as Student Government Day which since his
death has been renamed the Donald DeLuca Student Government Day. We could not believe that we were outside the walls of the Forbidden city and met a family from Woburn, MA. They had two adorable little boys that were amazed that Rich knew the names of their schools. We hated to say good bye to them, they were originally from China and had a great command of the language all we had was two little red books.
We opened our books which caused a stampede of people pushing papers in front of our face, where you go, where you go. So we decided to walk a little bit away from the area just outside the Forbidden City. We found a place in the guide book that stated the Courtyard Restaurant was a nice quiet place have a cocktail. It said it offered a lovely view of the Forbidden City, we figured how hard could it be to find this gem. So we pulled out the map which is the hardest map to find anything on and felt we may have located the correct place. All the guide books tell you to have the place you are trying to get
to written in Chinese to hand to the taxi driver since none of them speak English So this handy book has the places written in Chinese in the back of the book, piece of cake. We quickly realize we have two choices go back to where we were to the taxi stand or keep walking to find another one. So we figure, we know where we want to go so we head back. BIG MISTAKE....it was like they all started yelling here comes those two people with the RED BOOKS again! We thought we will just get in line and ignore them, that worked for about a half of second when we started literally getting pushed to the back of the line by all the nice locals. At this point, Rich said let's get out of here. We walked back away from the Forbidden City about a block and a half and found a taxi. Rich proudly showed the driver the little red book. He smiled and started to drive and drive, remember we are supposed to see the Forbidden City from this little gem. Low and behold we are dropped off at the Courtyard Marriott! We paid our cab fare and figured at least someone in the hotel would speak English. The lobby had a nice lounge so we had some peanuts, wine and a beer.
We decide we didn't do so well with finding a nice spot for a drink so lets try the shopping district. Thankfully the hotel desk wrote out the name of the area we wanted to go which was upscale shopping. We got out of the taxi and were impressed with the area, this seemed to be an area where people had more social graces. We walked around for a little while taking in the sites and enjoying the fact that we were not being pushed. As we were walking two young people in their early twenty's came up to us and started talking to us, now I have become a little apprehensive about anyone that talks to us so I just smile and keep walking. I guess Rich hasn't been paying attention, so he begins talking to them. They are speaking English and tell us they are art students at the local university. They have art on exhibit for just two days and this is their last day, how lucky are we? They ask us to follow them to the exhibit two minutes away. So my brilliant husband that obviously has more degrees then brains says sure we wanted to go that way anyway. I am thinking, really then why were we walking the other way?
As we are walking, Rich says "Now, why did you pick me to talk to?" I am thinking, who the heck took my husband this guy has become the most gullible tourist alive...I think that Red book has powers! So I whisper in his ear, I think it was the Round Eyes! So Daisey says, " I wanted to practice my English." So we continue to follow Daisey and her counterpart Jim around corners down allies. Rich says are we almost there as I grasp my purse with my life. Oh yes, just through this door, down four floors into the Art Gallery. We have a look around and there are some nice pieces of art and that haven't rolled us yet so Rich asks how much they want for their pieces it was obvious by this time that we were buying something. So we bought four scrolls for about $100 USD. Rich asked if they took credit cards since we wanted to make sure we had enough RMB's for our taxi ride back to our hotel. They said oh no, so we proceeded to give them cash and then they walked us to the bank to get the rest. They were nice kids, whether they were students or not we will never know. Rich said he was just glad we didn't get jumped!
By this point we had enough fun for one day and decided to head back to our hotel. So we get in line for a taxi, since we are in area of high end stores folks actually wait in queue here. A taxi pulls up, we proudly give him our little piece of paper with our Hotel on and he motions for us to get out! Then throws the paper at us. So we get out and talk with the gentleman that is hailing cabs he looks at the paper and calls a taxi he then fights with the taxi driver to take us there. It is so far out of the city no one wants to take you there. We feel so safe on the streets of Beijing with someone that does not want to take us outside the city about twenty minutes. I keep thinking he is going to pull over and throw us to the street. I look at Rich and say, I will not be going out alone here. He says he is worried that I will bored alone...... I tell him worry if I try to do this on my own!
Tomorrow is a day to rest and get ready for another dinner with the team.
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Irene
non-member comment
Forbidden City
Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City sound awesome! Maybe you could sign up for a tour and follow a flag bearing tour guide to see some other parts of the city. Enjoy! And thanks for sharing your adventures - it's unbelievable!