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Published: September 15th 2006
This Temple of Heaven is Ming....
Dynasty architecture（AD1530）that is. Beijing 00
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Until we land back in England. Boo Hoo
Hello all and welcome to one of our last (sob!) blog entries! The counter shows how long until we face the dark, cold winter of Blighty. Must say I (Becky) am looking forward to it as the cups of proper tea, Eastenders, fish and chips, roast dinners and cider will more than make up for it!
So, China then...
As you may have gathered, we left Vietnam with a bit of relief and arrived in Beijing, ready for our China odyssey. As China is such as massive country and we have done so much in such a short space of time, we've spilt this country's spawnblog into two; the ancient Central China dynastic cities of Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang and Xian, along with the current capital Beijing, which as well as being home to more recent Chinese dynasties is also home to the current communist government. The second half will be all be about modern and rural China, which you lucky people will get very soon!!!
Well, we had some quite naiive ideas about China. We thought it would be great to travel here now, before it gets all spoilt
Great Hall of The People
Largest public square in the world, Tiananmen Square (Well I never). Beijing and industrialised and overrun by tourists. For some reason I also thought it would be really green with quaint cities which would mostly be the charming old towns with some early steps towards skyscrapers etc. I am not sure where I got this from. Maybe it was the scene of Shanghai on Independence Day. In fact, China has 1.2 billion people (all as keen to see the sights as us foreigners), the fastest growing economy (at least I knew that one!), and loads of massive cities with something like 16 out of the 20 of the most polluted cities in the world being in China. So we were in for a fun on the 1st two weeks of our tour, as it was almost all based upon city visits!
Bustling Modern Beijing
Our tour started in Beijing and our first sights were Tiananmen Square and Chairman Mao's mausoleum. Everyone has a picture in their mind of Tiananmen Square after the massacre of thousands of students after a pro-democracy demonstration in 1989, but now it is the heart of tourist Beijing, indundated by Chinese tour groups queuing to see Mao's body, and loads of hawkers trying to sell us
Monument to the People's Hero
40 m high obelisk with lots of patriotic cravings in Tiananmen Square, Beijing shoes etc. It's absolutely massive and is the largest public square in the world, in case you're interested. At one end is the entrance to the Fordidden City, and at the other Chairman Mao's tomb. There are apparently loads of plain clothes policemen patrolling in case you get a bit rowdy.
We visited the tomb of Mao, his body is sort of pickled now. The Chinese revere him and the queue to file past him is hundreds of people long, at all times. It's a testament to how successful he was at building a cult of personality around himself that built on his success in finally declaring China to be an independent republic, and glosses over his mistakes. They were pretty serious.
The Great Leap Forward in the early 60s was a failed economic experiment that forced citizens to try to make worthless steel for construction in their gardens instead of growing crops and resulted in a famine where 30-60 MILLION people died. Ever heard of this? No - it was hushed up for years. Whilst the rest of the world was loving the Beatles and Mary Quant, the Chinese were dying in their millions. The Cultural Revolution
Gate of Heavenly Peace
Entrance to Forbidden City with Mr Mao and some scaffolding as guardians! also took place in the 1960s, when a play that criticised Mao was released and the government took the opportunity to disappear intellectuals, teachers, political opponents etc, and to destroy everything that embodied China's imperial and feudal past - temples, monuments, etc. Even now, all the TV channels and media etc declare that Mao was 70% correct and 30% incorrect in his rule.
Anyhoo, our next sight was the Forbidden City. We tried to do our homework and watch the Last Emperor but it is soooo long we didn't quite make it. It was amazing to see inside the city, which, until the end of the last Chinese Imperial dynasty (the Qing if you are interested!) was forbidden to all but the Emperor, his court, his concubines (over 2000!) and the eunuchs who attended them. Ironically, the Last Emperor was forbidden to leave the city as China had been declared a republic.
Most of it (like everywhere in Beijing) was being spruced up for the 2008 Olympic Games but the scale of the city is just bonkers. Apparently there are 9,999 rooms in the city - one less than there are in heaven, apparently. Unfortunately, it seemed like
Hall of Harmony
Ahhh how lovely and harmonious with all those tourists! Forbidden City, Beijing every one of China's 1.2 billion citizens were there are the same time we were, and looking into some buildings was impossible unless you were prepared to run the gauntlet with another 1,000 tourists. This was our first experience of excessive tourists and not our last!
We also swung by the Summer Palace, about an hour out of Beijing, where the imperial court would spend - you guessed it - the summer, to escape the scorchio heat of Beijing. It ws being renovated for the Games so some of the buildings were out of action but still a beautiful place. There was this scary mother of one of the Emperors, called Dowager Empress Cixi, who was the power behind the throne for many years. She lived a life of luxury at the Summer Palace (in the style of Marie Antoinette) and wasted loads of money (e.g. she would have over 200 dishes prepared for dinner then just smell them and throw them away). She also had a marble boat built on the lake here. Useful.
That Wall is Rather Great
Next day was our visit to the Great Wall - one of the sights I was most looking
Finding shade by some huge doors
and some solace from the ubiquitous guides with very loud microphones (which it was still forbidden for them)in Forbidden City, Beijing. forward to in my whole trip and definately my numero uno in China. I wasn't dissapointed. Luckily we went to a nice quiet section (some of the ones nearer Beijing are, apparently, like circuses). Unfortunately we arrived bang on midday for our tough climb and so we got nice and sweaty! The scale of the Wall is amazing, and to see it stretching off into the distance like in all the photos you see, was wicked. Rick was a little frustated as the Beijing smog, even 2 hours out of the city, meant that you couldn't see right to the mountains. Sadly I learnt that, when the Chinese finally got a man in space in 2003, he confirmed that you can't see the Wall from space. Boo.
Old Capitals of Zhengzhou, Kaifeng and Louyang
After an overnight sleeper train journey (thankfully China's trains beat the pants off Vietnam's - and there are less masturbating teenagers too) we arrived in a town called Zengzhou to see quite a cool museum on the dynasties which based their capitals near the town, and then on to Kaifeng where we saw a big pagoda. We were knackered and sweaty after our train ride
Some of the 999 Roofs
in Forbidden City, Beijing. and the Great Wall so we powered through. We stayed in Kaifeng - where the streets were literally paved with grime - and looked at the famous night food market which had loads of strange stuff on offer. We ate in KFC. Authentic! Aslo saw thousands of buddist carvings in sheer cliff faces in Luoyang, some were massive statues and dead impressive.
Shaolin Wu-Tang Stylee
We visited the original Shalolin monastery the next day, where the monks invented kung fu to keep their bodies fit whilst they meditated all day. The temple was OK, it had a cool pagoda forrest, where all the monks from the monastery are buried. All the monks were out teaching kung fu at the 85-odd kung fu schools around the monastery. We went to a show by the monks - blimey bill they were hard and amazing at kung fu!
Xian and the Warriors
Next stop was Xian, a really cool city which has actually managed to keep its charm whilst getting built up. We cycled round the city walls on a tandem and visited the bell tower (every old city in China has walls, and a bell tower and a drum tower.
Roofs up close
in Forbidden City The bell or drum, I forget which, would be sounded in the morning to open the city gates, and the other one sounded in the evening to close them). We even got to ring the bell - very satisfying as it was huge.
Thought we'd better pop in and see those Teracotta Warriors. They were created on the orders of the first real Emperor of China, who united all the warring provinces. He was a fearsome warrior and a bit of a bastard. He wanted all the warriors built to be buried with him, to celebrate and protect him in death. I didn't realise but the warriors are 2.5 kms from the actual tomb of the Emperor. Experts believe that the warriors and their pit are just one part of a massive tomb city and that excavations of the 2.5 kms around the tomb (which itself hasn't been excavated yet) will show up loads more amazing stuff. 720,000 slaves created the warriors and the tomb, then were all slaughtered once it was finished. Nice. Bet they weren't the most motivated workers in the world!
So thats the old stuff done with and stay tuned for the next exciting
Crane:Symbol of Lonegevity
like nearly everything object in Forbidden City Menagerie installement of Becky and Rick's Chinese jolly japes coming soon.
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Chris
non-member comment
Holy Dooley!
I just hope that my summary is as good as yours when I get around to doing it.... Look forward to the next installment.