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CHINA...Beijing...The Summer Palace...Walking on Water. When I visit Beijing...David & his wife Pauline are in town.
David took Denise and I to the Summer Palace...special entry...different to other routes I have taken...old men swimming in parts of the lake not frozen...no way I'm crossing the ice this time...no way...so we sit in a tea house...just us...and David tells us his story.
His father was an Admiral in the days of Mao...the Cultural Revolution.
David often visited the Summer Palace as a kid...at night...hiding from the vicious guard dogs with his mates...areas out of bounds.
As history shows...Mao turned those in favour...to those "Not in favour"...and when it was David's Dad's turn...David at age 17 was sent to a village in Inner Mongolia...for re-education.
To break the spirits of the relocated for re-education...the local party boss had them walking around the village square...with a sack of heavy stuff on their shoulders...until they dropped...day after day.
But David refused to drop...refused to give in...and into the night...mind over matter...impressing the populous.
He became the youngest Mayor in the village's history...a pivotal shaping of his character...and when his Dad was back in favour...David returned home.
When David does business in Beijing...he takes his guests to the Summer Palace...with his annual pass through the special gate for regulars...and they walk talking business.
When the deal has been negotiated...he rings his secretary in his Beijing office...who prepares the Contract.
David then takes the other party to an up-market bath-house for massage and a meal.
A boy bicycles a memory stick to the bath-house containing the draft Contract...which when plugged into David's laptop...is put into final form...executed and business successfully concluded.
David led my first trip to Yunnan and entertained us lavishly in Beijing...even had a private banquet in the Forbidden City one night...Palace food...yep...specially for us!
But with many good men...there is an equally good woman...and for David it is his wife Pauline.
Pauline was the daughter of an Admiral...started out as a reporter with China Daily...and works as a translator.
Pauline took us three Aussie guys to the Summer Palace at the end of my first trip to China...early start...snowing on arrival...workers frantically clearing paths of snow...like entering a fairyland of glistening icing sugar and iceblocks...cold as...but with a silence...no wind...not even a fluttering from
the falling snow...just the crunch of snow under our boots.
Turn right through a fortress like gate...the sound of voices singing...I know that tune...a group of about ten Chinese...they're singing
"Danny Boy"...that's Irish...isn't it?
Past the Shanghai lookalike Suzhou Street...supposed to show life as it was...but too much snow...so noone about...Tibetan type temples, one like a giant stupa to the left...down the Long Corridor...unique paintings on every panel...along the edge of the frozen Lake Kunming...to the site I was looking forward to...Empress Cixi's Marble Boat.
There are signs at the Summer Palace indicating Empress Cixi was a bad person...imprisoning an Emperor in one section of the Summer Palace...extorting and spending money set aside for the Chinese Navy to build a marble paddlesteamer like boat that she used as a tea-house...blaming her for the loss in the Opium Wars as a result.
But is that what really happened?
Is that slant that Emperor Cixi was a villian fair?
A concubine of the Emperor in the Forbidden City...reported as seizing power in 1861 until her death in 1902...Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi (Cixi) of the Manchu Qing Dynasty...reported after her death as a sexual carnivore who poisoned
or executed all in her way...blamed for the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 (notwithstanding a massacre by Westerners started it)...reported so history would make her responsible for China's loss of power in the second half of the 19th Century.
How can Cixi be responsible for the Century of Chinese Humiliation?
The First Opium war was from 1839 to 1842...and the Second from 1856 to 1860...yet she didn't have any title or purported power until 1861!!!
Wasn't she a Regent with the real power in the Mandarins feuding for power?
A fascinating book seeking to un-villify Cixi...to expose the accepted slant of Cixi as historical hoax is the book
"Dragon Lady...The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China" by Sterling Seagrave.
I read this after my first trip to China...a period where I also read every book I could lay my hands on about the Cultural Revolution and Chinese History...so in later trips to China I was able to recognise nuances of historical record...have greater empathy with people I met who had lived through the Cultural Revolution...generally became a Sinophile whose real name may have been David Hoo after all..!!!
To try to force
the Chinese to accept trade in opium from English, French, USA & Russians...these leaders of western civilisation...gave the Chinese an ultimatum...let us make us rich by drugging your people...or we'll destroy either the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace...yep...that in essence was the threat...and as the Chinese would not concur...the Westerners destroyed the Summer Palace...burnt every pavilion they could to the ground...may have tossed a coin before doing so...bastards.
Cixi is credited with rebuilding the Summer Palace...yet turned to folly with the marble boat.
There it is...as if floating at a jetty on the lake side...Cixi...I'm coming...I've come a long way...to have tea with you.
Over the Jade Belt Bridge...like mounting a parabola...the lake covered in snow...to the end point of the Lake...then to the edge...what's Pauline doing...what?..You want me to step on the ice?...can't see how deep the ice is...its covered in snow!
Here goes!
Gingerly walked towards the Jade Belt Bridge...on the ice...then jumped high in the air...clicked my heels...landed...I didn't go through the surface...then with the other guys...sliding...clowning around...confidence rising.
So Pauline led us down the guts of the length of the lake...the sights on the shore we had been through...distant
and small...the 17 Arch Bridge distant to our right...pity...I also had hoped to see it up close.
As we approached the far shore...the little black ants on the ice...turned into children and adults sliding...walking...and exotic young women...as if parading on a catwalk.
Stepped off the lake at a pavilion among sparse trees...generously lathered in deep white snow...among
milling people...what's that sign nailed to that tree?
"DON'T STEP ON THE ICE"
Wow...there was no such sign where we stepped onto the ice...we didn't see any signs in the middle...obviously those Beijingers on the ice over there are illiterate...or maybe not!
My third visit to the Summer Palace was with Denise & our kids Simon & Anna-Louise...OK then 21 & 18...still my kids.
As this was a
"David Hoo Tours...Your Travel Experts with Minimal Experience and Maximum Optinism"...I was the self appointed Tour Guide.
I tried to trace Pauline's route from my first visit as Denise had not done that part...as it was dark when we exited with David the previous year.
As it was not snowing or no snow on the ground...access was easy...across grassy hillocks...through groves of trees...down to the Long Corridor...then up to
THE CROSSING
with apprehension as the ice cracked as we trodthe top of the main hill to the Pagoda atop...down the other side to the outer fence overlooking Stupa Temples...didn't know these were here...Den & I burrowing around...the kids sitting around waiting.
The view up here amazing
..."Who wants to go to that 17 arch Bridge across the other side of the Lake?...I haven't been to it before." Back to the Long Corridor...then to the Marble boat.
A bit of coaxing and Simon was first onto the ice...Marble boat behind...me following...no snow on the surface...glistening ice patterned with reeds underneath...pretty shallow here...come on ladies...safe as houses.
Once all on the ice I ventured we cross the lake to the 17 Arch Bridge...got us about 40 metres from the shore and the fun started.
"Crack...crrrr...akk"...sounded like a stockwhip...ice cracking as we stepped forward...just keep going...probably safer not to stop...Anna-Lou looking particularly apprehensive...Simon laughing...Den & I simply hoping.
We crossed the width of the lake...no sliding and clowning around this time...measured, careful steps...occasional sounds like a stockwhip...narrow cracks opening where we trod...narrow cracks opening up in front...exhilerating
..."a David Hoo Tour highlight" I observed at the time.
And we got to the 17 Arch Bridge...and while the
THE 17 ARCH BRIDGE
Took three visits to get here...and it had to be over the ice others crossed it...I walked the length of it across the ice...then onto it and over...I've now done it.
Now where???
Relax & Enjoy,
Dancing Dave
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
Snow magic!
What incredible images with words and photos of magical adventures! Sounds as if your friend David conducts business in a civilized way, and treats his guests like royalty. Thanks for the historical insights, too!