Beijing: Past & Present


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October 20th 2011
Published: October 20th 2011
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Today we walked up to the Beijing Confucius temple. This 14th century temple was where emperors offered sacrifices to Confucius, the philosopher. It was originally named Guo Zi Jian (The Imperial College). The last Confucius temple we saw was in Shanghai and it was much smaller, but in fact, we liked it more. This Beijing one is 22.000 SQM. The trees in the garden are impressive and again, the colours in the columns, friezes and roofs stand out more than anything: green, blue, golden and red. I also loved the old musical instruments displayed. There was a bride and a groom taking pictures in the temple. This has to be the 11th or 12th wedding we have seen (between Japan and China, in the last month). It must be wedding season, and also, married couples seem to like taking their pictures in historical sites, which is where we always go to! Men dressed in white too, all very young, and all seem very happy 
Walking back towards ‘silver street’ and ‘gold street’ (2 streets which compete against each other, where the trendiest shops are) as always we fear for our lives. If there is one thing that Chinese do not respect AT ALL are traffic rules. There are zebra crossings but no one cares about them, there are traffic lights but cars just jump them. So basically you just have to constantly run and hope that nothing happens. No one seems to care that they’re doing this, and it makes me think about the accident that’s been reported all over the newspapers here. A little girl was run over by a van and a truck; in between one and the other, at least 20 PEOPLE (!!) walked by and no one stopped to help the girl. She is in a coma now and unlikely to regain brain activity. I was reading an article in the newspaper today, where Chinese journalists reflect on the fact that their society lacks moral guidelines, as well as religion, faith and traditional values (and I quote: ‘traditional values disappeared with Mao to be replaced by materialistic hunger’). Apparently sometime not long ago, an American woman jumped in a lake to save a drowning Chinese person, and people are going mad all over the blogs comparing situations. Obviously not all Americans are heroes and not all Chinese are evil. It would be easy to see things in such a radical and simplistic way. Nonetheless, our experience here has been, certainly, that no one cares about ‘community’ rules such as traffic, people push past you in queues (be it the supermarket, a lift, in the street, toilet, anything!) – so it’s basically an ‘each to it’s own’ culture. In the Western world we are materialistic and sometimes cold too, but I think we’re more aware of the meaning and repercussions of denying help to someone who needs it. The newspaper article mentioned how the way in which justice is served in China, does not encourage passer-bys to help their fellow men. For example, someone who helped an old lady who’d fallen in the street was later condemned by a judge as if he’s been guilty of her accident. The reasoning was: if you were there to help her, you must have caused her falling to begin with (!!!) TOTALLY CRAZY!! Let’s hope the little girl gets well soon, and that this does not happen again, in China or anywhere in the world.
Last but not least, our evening-time in Beijing has been filled by watching the fantastic Walking Dead 1st Season (showing this week before the long-awaited 2nd Season starts) – thanks for that! For anyone in China, looking for an English-speaking channel: this is showing in STAR MOVIES, the strangest channel I’ve ever encountered. Not only does it show movies I’ve never even seen in the cinema (and I watch everything, even the bad stuff!) but it shows movies which shouldn’t even have been made (example: a film called ‘Shark in Venice’ - with the blond Baldwin brother as ‘hero’.... terrible, terrible, terrible... much worse than any Steven Segal remake!!).
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B & M xx


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