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Published: March 25th 2013
24 March 2013 Sunday. The massage I had the evening before seemed to work wonders, and my knees (sore from compensating for my foot) were feeling much better. I was almost tempted to do without the wheel chair, but in the end decided that two and a half hours of walking through Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City would likely deal me a sever setback. My son Will turned out to be a life saver by pushing me in the wheel chair for the longer distances across the courtyards, and I walked thorugh the palaces. In addition to the Forbidden City, our tour took us to a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. The tour included all the amenities provided in the previous day's tour at a cost of $48/person...another bargain given the aforementioned time, patience, and physical constraints.
Our first stop was Tian'anmen Square and the adjacent Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was designed by the eunuch Nguyen An, from Annam (Vietnam), and the project manager was Emperor Yongle. The work began in 1406 and was completed in 1420. The emperor sent his fleet under the command of the great eunuch Admiral Zheng
He to pick up ambassadors from all the tribute paying trading nations along the Southeast Asian, South Asian, and African coasts to bring them for the dedication of his grand imperial palace. Following the dedication, the fleet returned the ambassadors to their home countries. Admiral Zheng He was instructed to keep on going to discover what lands lay beyond. According to Gavin Menzies in his book "1421," five separate fleets discovered the rest of the world, from the frozen shores of Antarctica to the northen shores of Siberia, and North and South America. But I digress.
The square and the Forbidden City are visually overwhelming, beyond description, and no one can be accused of excessive hype when describing the palace. As with the Ming Tombs, the palace is laid out on a north-south axis pointing, of course, to the North Star. A lot is said of Chinese mastery of navigation in "1421," their work arounds when navigating south of the equator, and their maps which would record their discoveries and show the way home and back; so laying out city walls, palaces, etc. in relationship to the stars was expected. The Imperial Way that runs down the central axis,
and which only the emperor could walk upon, was the original Meridian...the center of the universe. Needless to say, the Chinese were not impressed when an upstart European imperialist power created their own meridian in Greenwich in 1855 just prior to the Second Opium War, which allowed that imperial power to sell all the Indian opium it wanted to the Chinese masses.
The Outer Court was where all official business was conducted. The Inner Court served as the living quarters. Only eunuchs were allowed to go between the two courts...perhaps an explanation why the Chief Architect and the Lord Admiral were in that condition as the emperor would expect them to be available no matter where he was in the palace. The original palace had 9,999 rooms...a very auspicious number...but their method of counting a room is questionable as the area bounded by four columns was considered a room, not the area bounded by four walls. Anyway, it is a very large palace. Rather than describing each area and building in great detail which you can get from other sources (e.g., Google "Forbidden City"), I will let my pictures (most taken by Will under my artistic supervision) speak for
themselves, as in this case a pictures is worth more than a thousand words. While visiting the emperors quarters, we had an interesting experience. We were told about the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, and then introduced to his nephew who was doing caligraphy. We could have purchased some of his work. The money would have gone to charity.
Our next stop was the Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum. TCM doctors were on hand to diagnose ailments and prescribe various traditional remedies. Both Will and I gave it a shot. The doctor would take our pulse, look at our tongue, face, and body. He only mentioned my choleterol, and when I mentioned high blood pressure, Type II diabetes, etc. he pronounced my well. Hmmm. I didn't even mention my healing foot. For my son he prescribed four months worth of pills, three each to be taken in the morning and evening for ~$300. Only time will tell whether the remedies work. I will hold off judging whether this stop fit into the category of "factories" whose only purpose is to milk the tourist dollar and provide the tour agency with a commission. This was followed by lunch...not as good
as the day before.
From there we went to the Temple of Heaven (and Earth). Emperor Yongle, not occupied enough building the Forbidden City and his final resting place at the Ming Tombs, took into account what might happen to him in the afterlife. Not intending to become immortal like Qin Shi Huangdi in Xian, Yonle set about building a temple that is considered the finest example of Ming architecture, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The Circular Alter was a return to the sacred practices that preceeded Qin Shi Huangdi's abandonment of those rituals in 221 BC. If one were to subscribe to the theories propounded in the book "Finding God in Ancient China" by Chan Kei Thong the ancient Chinese had the same understanding of God as the ancient Hebrews...and their animal sacrifices were very similar. Indeed, the first Jesuit missionary to China, Father Ricci, wanted to use the Chinese name for their god, Sheng Di, in his translation of the Bible. The Vatican nixed that one! Again, I will let my pictures do the talking.
We then proceeded to a pearl factory (this one had no cultural significance, other than we did have a
bathroom break), and spent about 40 minutes at the Summer Palace, the largest and most beautiful imperial palace. Originally built in the Quing style between 1749 and 1764, it was destroyed multiple times with the current one being built in 1888 for Empress Dowager Cixi, otherwise known as the Dragon Lady. The site is on Kunming Lake and the grounds are mostly forested, with paths linking the various pavilions. However, most of this was off limits, so we only visited the eastern side of the lake with the bridge to an island. WIll left me at the end of the bridge while he went to see the island. Soon I understood that this was the prime spot for couples to take pictures of each other. I backed up a bit, and enjoyed time people watching! Not being able to visit the entire gorunds was a disappointment as I really wanted to see the Marble Boat, which was neither marble or a boat, but since the funds originally intended for the construction of a naval warship were misappropriated for this purpose by the Dragon Lady, the name is appropriate. But this would have taken a whole day, and I wasn't in
the best condition to see it anyway.
We returned to our hotel by 6 pm, turned in the borrowed wheelchair, picked up our bags, and took a taxi to the West Beijing train station. There was a huge crowd waiting to catch their trains...everyone was in the VIP lounge. We saw some foreigners sitting next to a seat occupied by a bag. I asked if anyone was sitting there. They moved the bag so that I could sit down. It turned out they were from various Eastern European countries. We caught the 8 pm overnight soft sleeper express to Lanzhou, our hopping off point for Xiahe. We shared our four berth compartment with a nice Chinese couple.
25 March 2012 Monday. In the morning we started conversing. Although neither of us spoke each other's language, I learned that he was a bus driver and she was a teacher. The lived in Xian and were on their way to Lhasa, Tibet to visit their son and daughter in law and grandchild. She is a doctor with the PLA. Soon we both had our computers out showing each other pictures of our familes, etc. They shared with us from a
large basket of goodies...one was like shortbread and the other was like an Italian cornetto.
The train arrived in Lanzhou about 1:30 pm. I had noticed a dark cloud on the horizon and though we might be in for a thunderstorm. Instead it was a sandstorm...our first one. We could hardly see on the taxi ride to the hotel and were glad to get inside. After lunch we started on our list of things to do...get an adapter plug for our computers, get and international calling card (which there are none), find out where to catch the bus to Xiahe, and what the schedule was, buy the two remaining train tickets from Dunhuang to Jiayuguan and Turpan to Urumqi...I refused to pay the $25 fee per ticket to the tour company when the tickets were only $8.92 and $3.92 respectively...inquire about doing laundry and storing some of our bags which we would pick up upon our return from Xiahe, and find an ATM. Anyway, after bothering the receptionists, who didn't speak English, with all these requirements, the Assistant Manager, who did speak English, came to our rescue. He went with me to the train station to buy the tickets,
and took care of all the other issues!
By then it was 7 pm. so we had dinner and then sacked out. Breakfast is at 7 am and we hope to catch the bus at 8:30 am. The next blog will be about our visit to Xiahe, where my parents were married in 1949, and the Labrang Monastery.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
AMAZED
Amazed you managed 3 sights and two factories in one day in Beijing. 40 mins at the Summer Palace says it all. You need a full day to see it properly. Hope you had longer at the Temple of Heaven. From north east to north west by train...must have been interesting. Xiahe next...definitely exciting.