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Published: June 12th 2006
For me Beijing was a fantastic few days of historical culture.... well, Ming and Qing dynasty which is 1368AD to 1911AD ish. I'm writing this in X'ian where everything is Shang - Qin dynasty (1700BC - 207BC) so I'm starting to re-evaluate my concept of old and historical.... but that's another blog ;0) And of course I was meeting Ann who was coming out for a wee visit from Blighty!! I was also keen to see how things had changed - I came to Beijing one New Year with Colette, a friend from work. It was freeeeezing cold then so I was looking forward to seeing how different things looked in the summer.
Ann and I planned to rendezvous at a hostel I'd booked - I arrived on the night train from Suzhou and she was flying in from Blighty in the afternoon... so a perfect excuse for me to laze around all morning catching up on the zzz's that I didn't get on the train! In a bid to keep Ann's jet lag away we hit the tourist trail as soon as she arrived. We thought we'd start with Tiananman Square, according to the map a nice easy walk
up from our hostel through the Hutongs. Hutongs are the old Beijing, a network of ramshackle passageways where people live, shop, play Chinese chess.... these aren't the built up roads that you see, its rubble alleyways which one car can just about get along. Most houses don't have bathrooms, so there's a proliferation of public toilets... which we finally decided might be why you see so many people out in their PJ's at night... after all if you're in bed and nature calls you're hardly going to get dressed again to walk down the road to the toilet are you. Our hostel was on a hutong, one that was still very much lived in and busy all day with people buying and selling everything you need. Our walk to T square took us through some that were really run down and looking like they were marked for demolition. Over recent years the rate of demolition of hutongs (and the way of life) has been increasing, and will only speed up further with the approaching Beijing Olympics. Despite much being boarded up there were signs of life here - a few stalls remained, indicating that some people at least still lived
there, whilst others could be seen 'recycling' bricks for use elsewhere.
After some 30mins of getting lost in the hutongs we found our way out, worked out where we were on the map and walked towards the decorative gates that we could see at the end of the street and which marked the start of T Square... except when we got there they were actually the gates of the Temple of Heaven.... completely the opposite direction from T square. Ohps. As it happened our subconscious change of plans turned out to be the perfect choice! We arrived late in the day and whilst it would have been nice to have a little longer there it was crowd free and we we the last ones out of the main structure, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The hall was originally built in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty but was hit by a lightning bolt in 1889 and rebuilt - amazingly the ceiling is held up by pillars, minus any cement or nails. The colours are bright and vivid and the result of recent 'renovation'. Inside the Hall are 28 pillars. The four posts along the inner circle represent the
four seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter); the 12 posts along the middle circle represent the 12 months; and 12 posts along the outer circle represent 12 Shichen (a means of counting time in ancient China. The total area covered by the temple is much bigger than the Forbidden City and smaller than the Summer Palace - the Emperor's considered themselves the son of heaven so their palace couldn't ben bigger than the dwelling for Heaven.
We didn't get to go into the Round Alter - it was closed by the time we'd finished taking 5 zillion photo's of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (well, Ann had a new camera to play with and I've never needed any encouragement to take lots of photo's!!!). During the Ming and Qing Dynasties the emperors would come here each year on the day of the Winter Solstace to offer a sacrifice to Heaven (the animal variety...) and pray for good harvests in the future. Sooooo many things are auspicious in China (or were in imperial times) - animals (like the dragon or phoneix), colours (yellow, blue and green) and numbers.... here the important number is 9 - odd numbers were
considered heavenly and nine is particularly auspicious as it is the largest single digit odd number. So at the Round Alter there are three tiers of white marble, the top tier, thought to symbolise heaven has nine rings of stone, each comprised of nine stones. After the Round Alter and Hall had closed, the park grounds of the Temple remained open so we had a lovely walk around, watching the locals come in for their evening stroll, to practise tai chi, to use the exercise machines or to listen to the musicians who were still enjoying playing long after the tour groups had left.
Day 2 of the Wendy and Ann road trip saw us making a second attempt at T Square ;0) The 'Front Gate', actually two gates which adorn the south part of T square were under wraps and being 'restored' for the Beijing Olympics so we weren't able to see them. Fortunately for us though the Germans were in town.... I guess they were fairly important Germans because there were red and German flags all over T square. We were back a few days later when the Germans, and hence the flags, had gone and it
looked quite bare in comparison. It was here at T square that Ann and I first had our photo taken... I've never thought of myself a tourist attraction but I guess tall (well, compared to the locals), freckles and pale skin make you a bit of a celebrity!! Or enough so that a couple of Chinese asked to have their photo's taken with the weird looking foreigners!!!
I had wanted to visit Mao's Mausoleum which is in the middle of T Square. Perhaps a little macabre but give his 'role' or 'impact' in Chinese history I wanted to see the guy himself. Last time I was here it was on a tour and Mao wasn't on the itinerary, when I was in Hanoi Ho Chi Minh had been sent off to Russia to be 'redone' and now I was back in Beijing.... it was a Monday and the mausoleum was closed! Pah. Looks like I'll have to wait a while longer to see one of them.
We walked up to the top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace - originally built in the 15th Century it is at the north end of T square and gave us some
great views back over the square itself. Inside the gate they were showing old video's of parades and celebrations around the square. Obviously at no point in our trip was there ever any mention of 1989.... and clearly we weren't going to ask. It was from this gate that Mao announced the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China and the front of the gate is these days adorned with a picture of Mao. The gate itself has 5 doors, entered by 7 bridges, the middle one of which could only be used by the Emperor.
From the Gate of Heavenly Peave we walked into the Forbidden City - we ended up having 3 hours there, but I easily could have spent a whole day there and still had stuff left to see. But then I do like history. We hired audio guides which at first we thought were pants but once we realised they were clever enough to pick up where you were and give you the appropriate blurb we were off.... unfortunately we were then both so engrossed in listening to our guides and talking 3 zillion photo's that we lost each other!! I thought we'd catch
up again later given we should have been following the same audio tour... but I'd forgotten to factor in the 10 billion zillion tour groups. Fortunately we both had the same idea and waited till nearly closing time, stuck our heads out of back gate (probably within a few mins of each other!), couldn't see the other one so hot footed it back to the front gate with them closing doors behind us. We met each other back where we'd started... some 3 hours later!
The Forbidden City was amazing - construction of the complex began in 1407, the 5th year of the Yongle reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty and was completed some fourteen years later in 1420. A million workers, including one hundred thousand artisans, are thought to have been driven into long-term hard labour to complete the palace. The complex is huge - it's divided into 2 parts, the southern section, or the Outer Court was where the emperor exercised his rule over the nation and the northern section, or the Inner Court was where he lived with the imperial family. Until 1924 when the last emperor of China was driven from the
Inner Court, fourteen emperors of the Ming dynasty and ten emperors of the Qing dynasty had reigned here..... leaving the city only when absolutely necessary.
We entered from the south, through the Meridian gate into a courtyard which has 5 marble bridges spanning the Golden Stream (an ornamental river). From there it was up to the Gate of Supreme Harmony... the point where Ann and I 'misplaced' each other ;0) Here the Emperor would sit on his throne and grant audience to visiting officials or celebrate important events...of course that was those that could be bothered with running the country... rather a few were happy to leave the finer details of being an Emperor to the officials whilst they were off having fun. The Gate overlooks another courtyard that would hold up to 100,000 people. Infront of this courtyard and unfortunately under wraps (being restored in time for the Olympics) was the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Some of the 'restoration' that we saw looked closer to rebuilding, that said the 'restored' buildings did look good, decorated with bright colours of fresh paint that contrasted vividly with some of the private quarters where the images are more faded and paint
is peeling.
In the Forbidden City we learnt about the importance of numbers other than 9... particularly 11. 11 is the maximum number of animals that you will see on the corner off the roof of a building - 11 indicates that the building was used by the Emperor. The lower the number the less important the people using it.
After the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the Hall of Middle Harmony where the Emperor might practise and make final changes to his speeches or rehearse ceremonies. The Hall of Preserving Harmony follows - with its lack of internal pillars, and hence more space and light, it was used originally as a banqueting hall and then as an examination hall for those taking the Imperial Examinations. The Halls of Supreme Harmony, Middle Harmony and Preserving Harmony are the main buildings of the outer court. Thereafter its the realms of the inner court, where the imperial family lived and the important decisions were probably made. The structure reflected that of the outer court, with three main buildings albeit on a smaller scale. There was one where newly married Emperors would spend their first nights with the Empress, before moving
to other parts of the city. Other rooms were used for ceremonies - in one the Emperor would invite important members of the court to a meal of pork... on these occasions it would just be boiled pork and v bland, but not wanting to offend the Emperor by declining the invitation the officials would instead bribe the eunuchs to smuggle them in some salt.
The eastern and western parts of the court were where the family lived. I just had time for the western part, but it was only when I got to this bit and found a whole different set of buildings and alleyways that I really appreciated how massive the place was. The decoration here was also very different - this was the area where the concubines lived and whereas the buildings used more for imperial rule were decorated with auspicious dragons and phoenix, here they were decorated with pretty flowers, birds and picturesque countryside scenes. It was walking through these area's that a second local asked to have their photo taken with me ;0) After finally meeting again outside the palace we went off to the nearby Zhongshan Park to compare notes on what we
Monument to the Peoples Hero's - Tiananman Square
Dedicated to the men and women who died in the struggles to make China an independent nation in the century before the Communists came to power. The cornerstone was laid by Mao Zedong and Zhu De on September 30, 1949 and it was completed in 1958.had seen... oh and have our photo's taken again by some guy sitting on a bench!!
Next up... the Great Wall and more auspicious places....
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