Well it seems I've found time to do another post before leaving Xi'an tomorrow but clearly not enough time to come up with a more imaginative title :-(. There isn't a lot to report because I haven't done anything particularly exciting today - just getting a few last minute things sorted out and having a wander around the town. I don't know how we'll go for weight. I haven't bought much and I only came over with about 14kg but Laura seems intent on taking half the gross national product of China back with her so I hope we don't end up to far over weight. We're trying to juggle our stuff aound to make it work out as well as possible which will mean a trip over to her place to resort everything when we get back to Christchurch. Family members in Auckland who were owed birthday presents might have to wait as they won't be in our hand luggage so even if we do decide we've got time in Auckland to leave the airport, we won't have our main bags because we'll check them right through to Christchurch.
I've really enjoyed the time I've spent here and it's been interesting matching my observations against things I've heard or read about China by other people who've visited or who study the place. There are a couple of things that I sense from being here for over five weeks. Firstly, I'm not convinced that China is about to overtake the USA in the near future. There is simply too much here that is still third world. I realise that we tend to get a distorted view of the USA as well, but a huge amount of everyday work here seems to get done in tiny streetside workshops about the size of a single garage. Things like welding or gastorch cutting of steel takes place out on the footpath. I wasn't quick enough to get a photo but I saw a woman preparing a fish for sale (gutting etc) on a board on the footpath too. That doesn't strike me as an image of the world economic leader in waiting. Yes, there is a lot of dynamism, but China has so much catching up to do, and ordinary people are still pretty poor. Which brings me to my second observation (which I made in an earlier post), that there doesn't seem to be much socialism here. The gap between the rich and poor is huge and the wealthy have a confidence that suggests to me that whatever the Party calls itself, those wealthy people know they have the whip hand. The economy runs for them. They have all the trappings that the wealthy have in the West, except when it comes to housing. Housing, even for reasonably well off people, can still be quite basic by New Zealand standards, and not very spacious. Of course these are only the impressions of one person and they do tend to confirm what I already thought so may be suspect!
The only things I'd grizzle about iin terms of my observations of Chinese culture, and they aren't major, are these. Firstly I've really come to appreciate workplaces and public buildings being smokefree. I went to the bath house the other day and felt really clean after the shower etc, then went upstairs to the dining area. Despite a token, and unenforced, no smoking sign, people were lighting up so in no time the place smelt of tobacco smoke. It seemed to defeat the purpose. The other is the continual spitting in the street and out of vehicle windows etc. I don't get that. But still, they are minor niggles and when weighed against the generosity and helpfulness, pale by comparison. I've wandered around all kinds of places at all hours and never felt unsafe. I've never felt that my things were at risk of being stolen, although there are police notices warning people to be careful. This despite there being beggars in the streets and a bustle of street vendors etc everywhere. Apparently (according to guide books for China) women are safe here walking alone etc, and my observations support that. I've seen loads of women walking around by themselves, including after dark, and none appear to have any concerns for their safety.
So I leave tomorrow. I think the flight to Hong Kong leaves at about 7.30 so we'll probably be heading to the airport mid-afternoon. Then we have a really long (about 13 hours) wait in Hong Kong before the 11 hour flight to Auckland, and finally get home on Wednesday afternoon. While putting our watches forward 5 hours should mean I'll be wide awake, I suspect that nearly two days without much chance for proper sleep means I'll be pretty knackered. We'll see.
If there's internet access available at Hong Kong airport I might log in again but I don't know if that'll happen or not. Laura thinks China Mobile cell phone coverage excludes Hong Kong too, so I don't expect to have a phone again until I get to Auckland.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
My Funny Valentine . . .
I wish!!! Just that it being Valentine's Day it seemed the appropriate choice to continue my lame "theme" of heading up some of my posts with song titles!
Anyway, I commented recently that I was onto the lower tier of places to visit in Xi'an. It seems I was wrong. Laura must have been saving one of the best for last. We went to visit the mauseleum of one of the Han Emperors - Jingdi I think his name was. I'll have to go back and check all the Chinese names that I've been writing. The Han dynasty was from around 220BC to about 200AD; I'm not sure of the dates, but comparable with the height of the Roman Republic and Early Empire. They traded silk with Rome and I think that's when Xi'an (then Chang an) assumed its position as the start of the silk route. It was a great trip. The whole museum is under the tomb. The Han built huge artificial hills over their tombs so they're easy to find (and most have been robbed over the centuries) but there was lots to look at in this display. They did the same sort of thing that Qin Shi Huang did but at about 1/3 scale, so there are thousands of miniature statues of people and animals. The people's bodies are terracotta but the arms were wood and they were dressed in silk, so the only thing left of most of them is the naked bodies. I had to chuckle when I noticed that the looks on the eunuchs' faces were definitely sad compared to the others!!!
Much of the museum is glass floored so you're walking over above the actual trenches where the excavations have taken place. There was also a good audiovisual display explaining some of the significant points, with a headset giving an English translation of much of it. All in all, very cool.
Today I finally fulfilled my ambition of walking right around the city wall. I got up on the South Gate (Nan Men) and walked along anticlockwise, so South to East to North to West, then back along the South wall to finish. It took about 4 hours to walk the 13.8km so I've walked about 8 hours today! Good though. It was interesting to see the different character of the inner city in each direction. The south seems much more upmarket, with swish bars and tourist focused areas. The buildings there are often modern but in traditional style. The East and North seem to be undergoing a lot of urban renewal, but I think the whole of the inner part (inside the wall) is pretty desirable real estate. I took lots of pictures along the way to try to capture the feel of the place.
Last night we went to a bath house. It was an experience like nothing I've ever had before. I don't think I've ever been naked in front of so many people! Still, it was great getting a massage and doing the whole steam and sauna thing. Later I got slaughtered in Ma Jong, as I expected, since the Chinese game is very different to the way it's played in the West, and I couldn't read any Chinese numbers above 4. I can now! Needless to say, I was not the fastest player at the table. Laura's mother was the most skilled but Laura was perhaps the luckiest, coming out the clear winner. I was a poor 4th in a field of 4!
This might be my last post (maybe one more) because I fly home on Monday. It'll be sad leaving because I've really enjoyed my time in Xi'an and in China generally.
Anyway, I commented recently that I was onto the lower tier of places to visit in Xi'an. It seems I was wrong. Laura must have been saving one of the best for last. We went to visit the mauseleum of one of the Han Emperors - Jingdi I think his name was. I'll have to go back and check all the Chinese names that I've been writing. The Han dynasty was from around 220BC to about 200AD; I'm not sure of the dates, but comparable with the height of the Roman Republic and Early Empire. They traded silk with Rome and I think that's when Xi'an (then Chang an) assumed its position as the start of the silk route. It was a great trip. The whole museum is under the tomb. The Han built huge artificial hills over their tombs so they're easy to find (and most have been robbed over the centuries) but there was lots to look at in this display. They did the same sort of thing that Qin Shi Huang did but at about 1/3 scale, so there are thousands of miniature statues of people and animals. The people's bodies are terracotta but the arms were wood and they were dressed in silk, so the only thing left of most of them is the naked bodies. I had to chuckle when I noticed that the looks on the eunuchs' faces were definitely sad compared to the others!!!
Much of the museum is glass floored so you're walking over above the actual trenches where the excavations have taken place. There was also a good audiovisual display explaining some of the significant points, with a headset giving an English translation of much of it. All in all, very cool.
Today I finally fulfilled my ambition of walking right around the city wall. I got up on the South Gate (Nan Men) and walked along anticlockwise, so South to East to North to West, then back along the South wall to finish. It took about 4 hours to walk the 13.8km so I've walked about 8 hours today! Good though. It was interesting to see the different character of the inner city in each direction. The south seems much more upmarket, with swish bars and tourist focused areas. The buildings there are often modern but in traditional style. The East and North seem to be undergoing a lot of urban renewal, but I think the whole of the inner part (inside the wall) is pretty desirable real estate. I took lots of pictures along the way to try to capture the feel of the place.
Last night we went to a bath house. It was an experience like nothing I've ever had before. I don't think I've ever been naked in front of so many people! Still, it was great getting a massage and doing the whole steam and sauna thing. Later I got slaughtered in Ma Jong, as I expected, since the Chinese game is very different to the way it's played in the West, and I couldn't read any Chinese numbers above 4. I can now! Needless to say, I was not the fastest player at the table. Laura's mother was the most skilled but Laura was perhaps the luckiest, coming out the clear winner. I was a poor 4th in a field of 4!
This might be my last post (maybe one more) because I fly home on Monday. It'll be sad leaving because I've really enjoyed my time in Xi'an and in China generally.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
More places to visit
Yesterday I went to see the Qin palace. Actually, given that the Qin palace was mainly made of wood and built about 2200 years ago, there's nothing of it left but they've built this replacement. It's a bit run down and dilapidated and it isn't really on the tourist trail the way the terracotta warriors are, so it's a strange place. I felt that they weren't sure whether it should be a museum, a theme park or an amusement park, so it's sort of a bit of each. They've built this whole palace structure that you can walk around and there are areas which have held exhibits of real artifacts in the past, but if you go upstairs there are picnic tables and plastic chairs on the long covered walkway. I can't imagine Qin Shi Huang having been too keen on that. Up into the tower and there's this woman giving you the option to get dressed up for a photo in Qin imperial regalia. There was a middle aged woman there dressed up as an empress with her (I presume) husband taking photos and I have to admit it looked pretty impressive from where I was. Out the back there's an artificial lake with an island, complete with an ancient style pavilion. But on the lake are these tacky fibreglass 'dragon boats' in gaudy colours to take people for wee excursions and a heap of peddleboats for hire, like you'd see at the Groynes. Oh, and these crazy mirrors like you'd get at a funfair! There were quite a few informative boards with aspects of the history of the Qin dynasty, which actually didn't last very long; they were a pretty cruel and unpopular bunch of rulers, and a bunch of fibreglass replicas of Qin warriors standing in alcoves, looking a bit the worse for wear.
The place was virtually deserted so it was weird when I heard this voice floating in the ether, in English. I looked around but couldn't see anyone. Later as I was leaving, I heard the same voice and looked up to see a Chinese guy and another guy who looked like a PI. Sure enough, he was from Sigatoka, in Fiji! He's in China for 5 years on a Chinese government scholarship studying agriculture. As an undergrad, he had to do a 6 month course in Chinese because all his lessons are in Chinese. After 2 years, he reckons he can understand stuff pretty well but still can't speak much.
Last night Laura and I went into town - to the Muslim quarter (where I must have eaten the thing that made me sick the other day) to meet her friend Helen, whom I'd met a couple of times in Christchurch. They toured me round the various eateries in the area - it's "the" place to go and get snacks and stuff and also it's where Helen (who's of Hui nationality, so Muslim) lives. It was great, even though there was too much food... After that we wandered around some of the market areas looking at stuff.
Today it was off to Banpo, where there's a 6000 year old village site that's been excavated. It was a bit of a mission to get there. Laura gives me these bits of paper with instructions on what bus to catch and to which stop, with the stop written in Chinese script and in pinyin with the tones added. It's great, because I can attempt to give the name of the stop myself and wave the bit of paper at the conductor if I can't make myself understood. It's been really successful up to now. Today was a bit more complicated because I needed to transfer twice, so a total of three busses to get there. It turned out that the third bus didn't actually leave from the place where the second stopped, so I had various people pointing me in contrdictory directions. The stop was in a really poor working class district where English speaking people are as rare as hens' teeth so I was getting nowhere fast, when this guy walked up, said Hello, and put me in a motorcycle rickshaw, paid the driver to take me to the stop, and walked off before I could repay him the money! The rickshaw guy then jumped out at the end and made sure the bus conductor knew where I was going. Sometimes people are just so nice.
I made it to the museum, which has a brand new building covering the site, and various things that have been excavated on display, including some awesome (considering it's 6000 year old neolithic) pottery and a bunch of remarkably error free English labels. There are also a whole bunch of skeletons of people there, still half buried - or possibly re-half buried - for people to look at. It's not a bad display all told, with computers running little graphical representations of how the huts were built etc although they were funny too. The narrator (presumably one of the archaeologists) sounded German, so the English errors are German errors instead of Chinese ones. Then out the back, there's this "reconstructed village" you can visit. It hasn't been maintained for years; overtaken by the new display I suppose, but never closed, and these sorts of things (thatched roofs etc) have to be maintained or they look pretty sad pretty quickly. But weirder still, if you look inside the huts, they are being used to store all kinds of stuff, like old building materials, windows etc.
They had a side display of "farmers' art", a movement that began in the 50s in the Xi'an area, and got a huge boost during the cultural revolution when educated people went out into the countryside to teach literacy etc. It's a kind of bright coloured folk art, with scenes of rural life in a kind of caricature style. Some of it was pretty cool, other stuff less so. I talked to the guy there and it was interesting to hear him saying something positive about the cultural revolution. I suppose that is what it was supposed to be. It got out of control for a whole bunch of reasons but had some good objectives too.
So another couple of full days, although I definitely get the feeling that I'm onto about the third tier of exhibits now. Still, with only 4 days until I leave, that's not too bad, and bits of Banpo definitely wouldn't fit that disparaging description.
I've got a few things still left to do - including buying a few deferred birthday presents, although that's proving harder than I thought - and walking around the wall; I still haven't done that. So I don't see myself sitting around with nothing to do in my last few days.
The place was virtually deserted so it was weird when I heard this voice floating in the ether, in English. I looked around but couldn't see anyone. Later as I was leaving, I heard the same voice and looked up to see a Chinese guy and another guy who looked like a PI. Sure enough, he was from Sigatoka, in Fiji! He's in China for 5 years on a Chinese government scholarship studying agriculture. As an undergrad, he had to do a 6 month course in Chinese because all his lessons are in Chinese. After 2 years, he reckons he can understand stuff pretty well but still can't speak much.
Last night Laura and I went into town - to the Muslim quarter (where I must have eaten the thing that made me sick the other day) to meet her friend Helen, whom I'd met a couple of times in Christchurch. They toured me round the various eateries in the area - it's "the" place to go and get snacks and stuff and also it's where Helen (who's of Hui nationality, so Muslim) lives. It was great, even though there was too much food... After that we wandered around some of the market areas looking at stuff.
Today it was off to Banpo, where there's a 6000 year old village site that's been excavated. It was a bit of a mission to get there. Laura gives me these bits of paper with instructions on what bus to catch and to which stop, with the stop written in Chinese script and in pinyin with the tones added. It's great, because I can attempt to give the name of the stop myself and wave the bit of paper at the conductor if I can't make myself understood. It's been really successful up to now. Today was a bit more complicated because I needed to transfer twice, so a total of three busses to get there. It turned out that the third bus didn't actually leave from the place where the second stopped, so I had various people pointing me in contrdictory directions. The stop was in a really poor working class district where English speaking people are as rare as hens' teeth so I was getting nowhere fast, when this guy walked up, said Hello, and put me in a motorcycle rickshaw, paid the driver to take me to the stop, and walked off before I could repay him the money! The rickshaw guy then jumped out at the end and made sure the bus conductor knew where I was going. Sometimes people are just so nice.
I made it to the museum, which has a brand new building covering the site, and various things that have been excavated on display, including some awesome (considering it's 6000 year old neolithic) pottery and a bunch of remarkably error free English labels. There are also a whole bunch of skeletons of people there, still half buried - or possibly re-half buried - for people to look at. It's not a bad display all told, with computers running little graphical representations of how the huts were built etc although they were funny too. The narrator (presumably one of the archaeologists) sounded German, so the English errors are German errors instead of Chinese ones. Then out the back, there's this "reconstructed village" you can visit. It hasn't been maintained for years; overtaken by the new display I suppose, but never closed, and these sorts of things (thatched roofs etc) have to be maintained or they look pretty sad pretty quickly. But weirder still, if you look inside the huts, they are being used to store all kinds of stuff, like old building materials, windows etc.
They had a side display of "farmers' art", a movement that began in the 50s in the Xi'an area, and got a huge boost during the cultural revolution when educated people went out into the countryside to teach literacy etc. It's a kind of bright coloured folk art, with scenes of rural life in a kind of caricature style. Some of it was pretty cool, other stuff less so. I talked to the guy there and it was interesting to hear him saying something positive about the cultural revolution. I suppose that is what it was supposed to be. It got out of control for a whole bunch of reasons but had some good objectives too.
So another couple of full days, although I definitely get the feeling that I'm onto about the third tier of exhibits now. Still, with only 4 days until I leave, that's not too bad, and bits of Banpo definitely wouldn't fit that disparaging description.
I've got a few things still left to do - including buying a few deferred birthday presents, although that's proving harder than I thought - and walking around the wall; I still haven't done that. So I don't see myself sitting around with nothing to do in my last few days.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Blue skies smiling at me . . .
Nothing but blue skies do I see, for the first time since leaving Beijing 10 days ago. The cloud has been so low that it was reduced visibility to only a couple of hundred meters at best. But today, the sun is shining and the weather is sweet, as Robert Nestor Marley put it. And I'm off to Huashan at last. This is the trip that was postponed at the last minute because of my getting sick. Actually it couldn't have worked out better because it meant I could see the mountain in all its glory, instead of a sea of cloud. Huashan means Flower Mountain. There are five “must see” mountains in China and this is the most western one. You're supposed to see them all during your lifetime, although there is an escapre clause. There's one in Anhui province, wher Laura's father is from, which apparently has all the features of the five and if you see that one you don't need to see the others. Having seen that one, Laura is using it as a lame excuse not to visit the others. That wasn't about to stop me though so the bus arrived and off I went in it.
I was promptly approached by a highschool student who offered to be my translator for the trip, which was good and bad. Good becase he was able to interpret the menu at the ‘restaurant’ – more like a diner really, or perhaps like the kind of communal dining areas they used to have in Maoist times. I paid my money and got a receipt, then went up to a counter and was served from a baine marie (sp?). Actually if that is how people ate before Comrade Deng got his hands on the levers of power, I don't know what the problem was! I had the cheapest thing on the menu and it was rice and four different accompaniments. And quite yummy. After that, immediately preceded by a sales ppitchj about various Chinese medicinal herbs, complete with a doctor who'd look at your fingernails and prescribe for your ills, it was off to the mountain. It's quite a sight. It's not that tall really; more like Banks Peninsula but comprised of sheer cliffs and deep gullies. Of course having been inhabited for thousands of years, it's also comprised of religious sites for the Daoist or Buddhist communities and the whole route is a constructed walkway with guard rails and stairs. So much for the danger I was warned to be careful of. However when it had rained in Xi'an it had snowed on Huashan so some of the steps and shaded bits of path were quite icy so a bit of care was required.
The downside of sticking with the student and his parents was that they were really slow, due mainly to undue caution – they kept warning me to be careful at the slightest opportunity. It meant I was only able to climb the first of the five peaks and get most of thew way tro the second before they decided it was time to return. On my own, I would have made it up to the top of the second (and highest) peak because I would have travelled quicker and not returned so early. Overall though, I think it was probably OK to do what I did. If I ever return to China, I'd like to go back to Huashan and spend a few days there climbing all five peaks. And maybe go to the other “must see” mountains as well.
The biggest disappointment for me has been the whole New Year thing. I'm not a big one for festivals. Since I got over the whole anticipation of Christmas presents thing, it's been a nice day, exchanging gifts with the family and getting together for a meal, but that's it. I could never get excited about the Muslim festivals either. I think I thought that it would be different in China. Chinese students, people who talk about China, and everything you see about the place, go on about China's festivals, one of the biggest being New Year. I expected big street parades with those long dragon things and fireworks displays to put anything in New Zealand to shame. Actually, I found nothing of the sort. There were people lighting fireworks on the street and that was about it. Laura said people are either at restaurants with their family or at home watching the New Year variety show on TV. It all wraps up with the first full moon of the new year heralding the beginning of spring. I got back from Huashan at 8.15pm and the fireworks were all over. I sat at home with nothing to do. It was all a bit weird. I think I'd had this idea that in China things would be different. I'd get caught up in a collective excitement and actually enjoy a festival. Maybe it says more about me than about China. I did comment to Laura though about how I didn't really have a sense that Xi'an is 20 times bigger than Christchurch (8 million people) and she said “Oh, you would have if you'd been on East Street last night for the end of the new year celebration!” Hmmm. I would have liked to have known that before rather than after the event.
Yesterday I decided to go and see Xi'an's Lama Temple. I decided I'd take a photo of the Lamas in their funny hats. Sadly there were no funny hats to be seen, but I did wander around the place. These Buddhists remind me of mediaeval Catholics – there's always some dodgy miracle on display. So here, where Cixi (the Qing Dowager Empress) reputedly poked her hair pins into a tree to hang her hat and coat, the tree now miraculously has holes all over it. Occam's razor would say it's more likely someone put holes in the tree. Kind of like the giant “footprints”, complete with Buddhist engravings in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Do people actually believe this stuff or is it just part of a collective myth people like to hold onto?
I was promptly approached by a highschool student who offered to be my translator for the trip, which was good and bad. Good becase he was able to interpret the menu at the ‘restaurant’ – more like a diner really, or perhaps like the kind of communal dining areas they used to have in Maoist times. I paid my money and got a receipt, then went up to a counter and was served from a baine marie (sp?). Actually if that is how people ate before Comrade Deng got his hands on the levers of power, I don't know what the problem was! I had the cheapest thing on the menu and it was rice and four different accompaniments. And quite yummy. After that, immediately preceded by a sales ppitchj about various Chinese medicinal herbs, complete with a doctor who'd look at your fingernails and prescribe for your ills, it was off to the mountain. It's quite a sight. It's not that tall really; more like Banks Peninsula but comprised of sheer cliffs and deep gullies. Of course having been inhabited for thousands of years, it's also comprised of religious sites for the Daoist or Buddhist communities and the whole route is a constructed walkway with guard rails and stairs. So much for the danger I was warned to be careful of. However when it had rained in Xi'an it had snowed on Huashan so some of the steps and shaded bits of path were quite icy so a bit of care was required.
The downside of sticking with the student and his parents was that they were really slow, due mainly to undue caution – they kept warning me to be careful at the slightest opportunity. It meant I was only able to climb the first of the five peaks and get most of thew way tro the second before they decided it was time to return. On my own, I would have made it up to the top of the second (and highest) peak because I would have travelled quicker and not returned so early. Overall though, I think it was probably OK to do what I did. If I ever return to China, I'd like to go back to Huashan and spend a few days there climbing all five peaks. And maybe go to the other “must see” mountains as well.
The biggest disappointment for me has been the whole New Year thing. I'm not a big one for festivals. Since I got over the whole anticipation of Christmas presents thing, it's been a nice day, exchanging gifts with the family and getting together for a meal, but that's it. I could never get excited about the Muslim festivals either. I think I thought that it would be different in China. Chinese students, people who talk about China, and everything you see about the place, go on about China's festivals, one of the biggest being New Year. I expected big street parades with those long dragon things and fireworks displays to put anything in New Zealand to shame. Actually, I found nothing of the sort. There were people lighting fireworks on the street and that was about it. Laura said people are either at restaurants with their family or at home watching the New Year variety show on TV. It all wraps up with the first full moon of the new year heralding the beginning of spring. I got back from Huashan at 8.15pm and the fireworks were all over. I sat at home with nothing to do. It was all a bit weird. I think I'd had this idea that in China things would be different. I'd get caught up in a collective excitement and actually enjoy a festival. Maybe it says more about me than about China. I did comment to Laura though about how I didn't really have a sense that Xi'an is 20 times bigger than Christchurch (8 million people) and she said “Oh, you would have if you'd been on East Street last night for the end of the new year celebration!” Hmmm. I would have liked to have known that before rather than after the event.
Yesterday I decided to go and see Xi'an's Lama Temple. I decided I'd take a photo of the Lamas in their funny hats. Sadly there were no funny hats to be seen, but I did wander around the place. These Buddhists remind me of mediaeval Catholics – there's always some dodgy miracle on display. So here, where Cixi (the Qing Dowager Empress) reputedly poked her hair pins into a tree to hang her hat and coat, the tree now miraculously has holes all over it. Occam's razor would say it's more likely someone put holes in the tree. Kind of like the giant “footprints”, complete with Buddhist engravings in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Do people actually believe this stuff or is it just part of a collective myth people like to hold onto?
Take Me Home Country Road
I headed out to the countryside to visit another of Laura's father's friends; that guy really does have a lot of friends! It's the first time I've really managed to get more than just a passing glimpse of the countryside from a vehicle window, so I was pretty interested to see what I would find. The standard view is that China's modernisation has left the countryside behind and that conditions there are much poorer than in the cities. That’s certainly what I observed. Get off the main roads and you’re pretty quickly onto dirt tracks and (after one day of rain – mud). The houses are much more basic and designed in the traditional way. That does involve some quite ingenious design features mind you – like heat being piped from the kitchen wood stove through to the space under the bed. The bed itself is on a base of brick and tiles and it’s the cavity underneath that's heated. The place I visited had a separate fire to do this but backing the kitchen space onto the bedroom area is a common practice. Where we sat to eat lunch was heated by a tiny coal fire in a pipe attached to a pipe chimney venting outside into the courtyard. Hot water was produced through a tank welded to the side of the fire box.
The people we visited are Christians so we trotted down to have a look at their church, an optimistically huge construction built a few hundred years ago when the missionaries presumably believed it would only be a matter of (a short) time before they had converted China. Of course, as we know, it was not to be, so there's this huge church in this small village . . .
When we got back it was off to dinner with another of Laura’s father's friends at a Hui (Muslim) restaurant. I can't complain about the food! I was feeling uncomfortable though about the fact that I keep being hosted at – often quite expensive – restaurants but never get to contribute. On the other hand, I couldn't afford to go if I had to pay. I raised my concerns over this with Laura and she insisted that it is the Chinese custom that the host pays for everything – no one else pays anything. As a visitor I'm not expected to contribute anything; it's an honour for them to have a foreign visitor there. It feels strange and I still feel a little uncomfortable about it but that's how it is. I suppose if her parents ever come to New Zealand I can shout them to a nice restaurant – I'll have to start saving as soon as I get home!
The people we visited are Christians so we trotted down to have a look at their church, an optimistically huge construction built a few hundred years ago when the missionaries presumably believed it would only be a matter of (a short) time before they had converted China. Of course, as we know, it was not to be, so there's this huge church in this small village . . .
When we got back it was off to dinner with another of Laura’s father's friends at a Hui (Muslim) restaurant. I can't complain about the food! I was feeling uncomfortable though about the fact that I keep being hosted at – often quite expensive – restaurants but never get to contribute. On the other hand, I couldn't afford to go if I had to pay. I raised my concerns over this with Laura and she insisted that it is the Chinese custom that the host pays for everything – no one else pays anything. As a visitor I'm not expected to contribute anything; it's an honour for them to have a foreign visitor there. It feels strange and I still feel a little uncomfortable about it but that's how it is. I suppose if her parents ever come to New Zealand I can shout them to a nice restaurant – I'll have to start saving as soon as I get home!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Faux Tang
There's a place in Xi'an called the Tang Paradise garden. It's actually worth a look as it's a pretty garden even though none of it is actually Tang era. It's an entire reconstructed Tang era garden based on what they know from the written record, archaeology etc, a kind of Tang Dynasty theme park. The entry fee is meant to be 68Y but the guy at the desk kept asking me something I couldn't understand and eventually charged me 34 instead. I think maybe he thought I was a student studying here. It must be that dashing new haircut that's taken years off me!!! I spent a long time yesterday just wandering around the park looking at stuff and thinking about how they'd done the whole thing. They have life sized bronze statues at various points, even bronze Western-looking tourists with camera and drink bottle! They're looking up an artificial crag which is covered in Tang era poetry; did I mention how obvious it is how much the Chinese respect poetry? There are famous poets from the Tang period (618-907 if memory serves me) who kids are learning to recite before they even get to school. In fact there's a whole genre of poetry (I'm not sure which periods it dates from) which is a collection of 4 characters each. I was at dinner yesterday (again - it really is the dining out season) and a one year old was completing the 4th part of a whole heap of them when her mother gave her the first three - this is no Hickory dickory dock. Even the children's playground has bronze sculptures of the poets playing and learning as children themselves.
Today I went to a place near there called Qu Jiang park. It's sort of similar in that it has recreated Tang buildings or modern things inspired by the Tang descriptions etc. The Chinese really revere the Tang period as a high point of Chinese culture, international influence and contact, Xi'an even moreso because it (as Chang an) was the Tang capital. Qu Jiang is built around a lake that's been recreated to match as closely as possible the artificial lake the Tang created in the same place. Again, it's actually a nice place to just walk around, although yesterday was officially the first day of spring so we got spring showers today - just drizzle and it didn't feel cold, but not exactly 30 degrees like Christchurch - I think I picked the wrong summer to be away...
One minor irritation - my cellphone ran out of money about three days ago, and not only could I not send messages, I couldn't even receive them. And because I bought my simcard in Changchun, I couldn't even get a normal top up; I had to go into a proper China Mobile branch and get them to do it. Hardly the end of the world but a bit weird I thought. Anyway, I think that brings me right up to date. I'm not sure what I'm doing tomorrow - quite possibly my planned circumnavigation of the city wall. Then on Monday the plan is to go to, and climb up Huashan, one of the five famous mountains in China that you're supposed to see. Apparently it is well worth the visit.
Today I went to a place near there called Qu Jiang park. It's sort of similar in that it has recreated Tang buildings or modern things inspired by the Tang descriptions etc. The Chinese really revere the Tang period as a high point of Chinese culture, international influence and contact, Xi'an even moreso because it (as Chang an) was the Tang capital. Qu Jiang is built around a lake that's been recreated to match as closely as possible the artificial lake the Tang created in the same place. Again, it's actually a nice place to just walk around, although yesterday was officially the first day of spring so we got spring showers today - just drizzle and it didn't feel cold, but not exactly 30 degrees like Christchurch - I think I picked the wrong summer to be away...
One minor irritation - my cellphone ran out of money about three days ago, and not only could I not send messages, I couldn't even receive them. And because I bought my simcard in Changchun, I couldn't even get a normal top up; I had to go into a proper China Mobile branch and get them to do it. Hardly the end of the world but a bit weird I thought. Anyway, I think that brings me right up to date. I'm not sure what I'm doing tomorrow - quite possibly my planned circumnavigation of the city wall. Then on Monday the plan is to go to, and climb up Huashan, one of the five famous mountains in China that you're supposed to see. Apparently it is well worth the visit.
Friday, February 6, 2009
After the haircut it was off to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. By the way, it’s amazing what a bit of a snoop around the internet can reveal. Evidently the Wild Goose thing relates to a story that describes the origins of the Ci’en temple complex. At the time (early Tang) there were some sects of Buddhist monks who ate meat and others who didn’t. A bunch of the carnivorous ones were feeling a bit peckish and wondered whether or not the divine powers were going to provide them with a snack. At the time a flock of wild geese just happened by. Just at the point when the monks were praying for some divine intervention in the way of a bite to eat, the lead goose suddenly fell from the sky with its wings broken. The monks saw this as a sign that it was time to get a bit more seriously pious and give up eating their flesh eating ways. The pagoda was built and has carried the name “Wild Goose Pagoda” ever since. When the small one was built later on, it was given the name “Small Wild Goose Pagoda” to link but also distinguish it from the other one.
A short bus trip and I was at the temple complex where the pagoda stands. It has an interesting history. It was split down the middle but not destroyed by an earthquake several hundred years ago, creating a crack from top to bottom. A subsequent earthquake pushed the cracked bits back together, leaving a scar. Another major earthquake caused the top three levels to collapse and they have never been replaced. The pagoda itself sits on a semi-spherical dome, which spreads the shock when earthquakes hit, Xi’an being in an eartquake prone region. Obviously it hasn’t worked perfectly but it is this construction technique that is credited with saving it from destruction in the many earthquakes it has endured.
Unfortunately the pagoda itself was closed - a shame as you can normally climb right up and it gets really narrow at the top. The temple area had quite a bit of activity going on though, with performers playing music and wandering about. There’s also the new Xi’an Museum, which had a hologram theatre (no photos allowed) and various exhibits of Xi’an’s history, with a lot on the Tang era and on the design of the city itself. That was worth the entry charge itself. The building itself is also quite cool, with a big circular atrium and the displays in wings leadin off and curving around it. The same pattern is repeated for the basement display area, where the centre is filled with scale models of the old city.
From there it’s a short walk back to the South Gate of the city wall, the Ming rebuilt circuit that still completely encloses the old city. The Ming were very energetic builders in their early period (from about 1368 on I think). That’s great if you want to see stuff built by the Ming and to be fair to them, it’s possibly the only reason some stuff still exists at all, but it did mean that a lot of older stuff was covered over or replaced. The wall is a case in point. The Ming wall replaced the Tang wall that had stood for about 800 years already. Another point I suppose is that if they hadn’t rebuilt the wall, Xi’an might not exist . . .
Having said that, the wall itself is a pretty awesome piece of engineering, and really gives a unique character to the city. I climbed onto it at about 5 in the evening and was there as the sun went down (I caught my first hazy glimpse of the Xi’an sun this afternoon – it’s been heavily overcast since I arrived) and the New Year light show went on. The wall and all its towers are all lit up and there are all kinds of wire and fabric displays on the wall too, lit from inside. There’s quite a festive atmosphere with people bringing their kids to play sideshow games and just walk along it, looking at all the displays. It’s quite likely that the wall has always been used like this in peacetime. I wanted to walk right around but had been walking all day already and hadn’t really eaten since being sick the night before so I’ll try and make that a mission for another day. Tomorrow I’m off on another all day trip out of town, to visit some other notable places. There’s still so much to do and only 12 days left to do it all, including the day I leave.
A short bus trip and I was at the temple complex where the pagoda stands. It has an interesting history. It was split down the middle but not destroyed by an earthquake several hundred years ago, creating a crack from top to bottom. A subsequent earthquake pushed the cracked bits back together, leaving a scar. Another major earthquake caused the top three levels to collapse and they have never been replaced. The pagoda itself sits on a semi-spherical dome, which spreads the shock when earthquakes hit, Xi’an being in an eartquake prone region. Obviously it hasn’t worked perfectly but it is this construction technique that is credited with saving it from destruction in the many earthquakes it has endured.
Unfortunately the pagoda itself was closed - a shame as you can normally climb right up and it gets really narrow at the top. The temple area had quite a bit of activity going on though, with performers playing music and wandering about. There’s also the new Xi’an Museum, which had a hologram theatre (no photos allowed) and various exhibits of Xi’an’s history, with a lot on the Tang era and on the design of the city itself. That was worth the entry charge itself. The building itself is also quite cool, with a big circular atrium and the displays in wings leadin off and curving around it. The same pattern is repeated for the basement display area, where the centre is filled with scale models of the old city.
From there it’s a short walk back to the South Gate of the city wall, the Ming rebuilt circuit that still completely encloses the old city. The Ming were very energetic builders in their early period (from about 1368 on I think). That’s great if you want to see stuff built by the Ming and to be fair to them, it’s possibly the only reason some stuff still exists at all, but it did mean that a lot of older stuff was covered over or replaced. The wall is a case in point. The Ming wall replaced the Tang wall that had stood for about 800 years already. Another point I suppose is that if they hadn’t rebuilt the wall, Xi’an might not exist . . .
Having said that, the wall itself is a pretty awesome piece of engineering, and really gives a unique character to the city. I climbed onto it at about 5 in the evening and was there as the sun went down (I caught my first hazy glimpse of the Xi’an sun this afternoon – it’s been heavily overcast since I arrived) and the New Year light show went on. The wall and all its towers are all lit up and there are all kinds of wire and fabric displays on the wall too, lit from inside. There’s quite a festive atmosphere with people bringing their kids to play sideshow games and just walk along it, looking at all the displays. It’s quite likely that the wall has always been used like this in peacetime. I wanted to walk right around but had been walking all day already and hadn’t really eaten since being sick the night before so I’ll try and make that a mission for another day. Tomorrow I’m off on another all day trip out of town, to visit some other notable places. There’s still so much to do and only 12 days left to do it all, including the day I leave.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Buddha's finger and other exotica
Actually it doesn't really come much more exotic than that I suppose, unless you rate various officially fake Buddha's fingers up there as well.
On the 5th I went on another organised tour, but without engaging the services of an English speaking guide. I decided after last time that I was better to just muddle along. it turned out for the best as an 18 year old student and her father stepped up and offered to help me out. They were fantastic. She had a really good overall knowledge of the history and of the places we were visiting; in fact one - the tomb of one of the Han emperors - was her primary reason for wanting to visit Xi'an. One of his generals, who's remembered there too is her hero sort of. Her father is a practicing Budhist so was able to fill me in on lots of the specifically Buddhist history, tradition etc.
So we started out with a visit to a museum of Han stuff, including hundreds of terracotta figures. The Han ones aren't life sized like the Qin ones; they're about 30cm high and not as individualised. There were three basic faces to represent the different regional origins of the people. They still retain lots of colour too, unlike the Qin ones, where it mostly faded when exposed to the environment. From there we went on the Han tomb that my guide was so keen on. That included a small museum as well - this country is coming down with museums - as well as stone carvings and the tombs themselves - huge artificial hills that surround you as you walk around. With the weather as it was it was a bit of a case of "Fog on the Barrow Downs" for the Tolkein fans.
On the minibus again and we were off to visit a sort of reconstruction of an ancient village, with donkeys grinding meal and ancient looking women weaving on ancient looking looms. It was a strange kind of a hybrid of a place, with dioramas of prehistoric (neolithic and earlier) mannekins and reconstructed houses, through to a tunnel complex with exhibits of Chinese 'folk culture' I suppose you'd call it; dioramas of villagers celebrating a wedding, eating moon cakes at the Autumn Festival etc. Why a tunnel complex I hear you ask? Because in this part of Shaanxi province, people have traditionally lived in caves. Up north of here some people still do, but there are certainly lots of caves cut into the sides of banks and cliffs in this region. Oh, and they had a bear in a cage. Apparently they used to raise bears there in large numbers - I'll leave it to your imagination why they might have done that. The government of the PRC have deemed it cruel (or been convinced it's in their interests to) and banned it. Now they've only got one unfortunate beast so I suppose the cruelty has been reduced by several degrees of magnitude.
From there, it was off to the tomb of Wu Zetian, the only ruling Empress in Chinese history. (Cixi doesn't really count as there were nominally Emperors in charge, even if she had them under house arrest!) She was an interesting character, hitched very young to the aging Emperor, in an unconsumated marriage, becoming a Buddhist nun to avoid death when he heard a rumour that his line would be replaced by another named Wu, then given a reprieve after he died when one of the new Emperor's two wives conspired to get her in as a third wife in a power struggle with the other wife! I bet she regretted that decision... She ended up surviving the Emperor and ruling in her own right. When she was preparing for her own death, she began her tomb construction but whereas the tradition was to have a memorial erected covered in script extolling the virtues of the late Emperor, Wu Zetian instructed the craftsmen to leave hers blank, declaring that it was for those who survived her to write their opinions when she wasn't around to vet them. Quite remarkable really. There are a few inscriptions on there now, all of them flattering . . . Oh well, nice try. There's a monument there that she had erected for her late husband number two, the completely forgettable and forgotten (no one in the room can even remember his name) Emperor. However when the Qing Emperor put up a memorial there it was only to him. The new government has put up another recognising them both.
Which brings me to the finger of destiny. At Famensi, the Famen temple, they allegedly have one slightly crusty digit from the man himself. Actually it's only one bone, a falange. The temple itself is pretty impressive with a pagoda about twelve floors high and an underground museum. In the depths of the museum, although due to be relocated to an almost finished new building, resides the finger bone, along with three fakes. How they can possibly prove the veracity of the other one I can't possibly guess. But there it is.
Oh, and somewhere along there we also saw the underground tomb of a Tang prince, long since looted but still worth a wee look if you're in the neighbourhood.
Back to Xi'an and I got to eat the local specialty, a noodle. Actually two, but they're about 50cm long, like eating a long strip of lasagne in a yummy sauce - chilli, corriander etc. Yippee.
On the 5th I went on another organised tour, but without engaging the services of an English speaking guide. I decided after last time that I was better to just muddle along. it turned out for the best as an 18 year old student and her father stepped up and offered to help me out. They were fantastic. She had a really good overall knowledge of the history and of the places we were visiting; in fact one - the tomb of one of the Han emperors - was her primary reason for wanting to visit Xi'an. One of his generals, who's remembered there too is her hero sort of. Her father is a practicing Budhist so was able to fill me in on lots of the specifically Buddhist history, tradition etc.
So we started out with a visit to a museum of Han stuff, including hundreds of terracotta figures. The Han ones aren't life sized like the Qin ones; they're about 30cm high and not as individualised. There were three basic faces to represent the different regional origins of the people. They still retain lots of colour too, unlike the Qin ones, where it mostly faded when exposed to the environment. From there we went on the Han tomb that my guide was so keen on. That included a small museum as well - this country is coming down with museums - as well as stone carvings and the tombs themselves - huge artificial hills that surround you as you walk around. With the weather as it was it was a bit of a case of "Fog on the Barrow Downs" for the Tolkein fans.
On the minibus again and we were off to visit a sort of reconstruction of an ancient village, with donkeys grinding meal and ancient looking women weaving on ancient looking looms. It was a strange kind of a hybrid of a place, with dioramas of prehistoric (neolithic and earlier) mannekins and reconstructed houses, through to a tunnel complex with exhibits of Chinese 'folk culture' I suppose you'd call it; dioramas of villagers celebrating a wedding, eating moon cakes at the Autumn Festival etc. Why a tunnel complex I hear you ask? Because in this part of Shaanxi province, people have traditionally lived in caves. Up north of here some people still do, but there are certainly lots of caves cut into the sides of banks and cliffs in this region. Oh, and they had a bear in a cage. Apparently they used to raise bears there in large numbers - I'll leave it to your imagination why they might have done that. The government of the PRC have deemed it cruel (or been convinced it's in their interests to) and banned it. Now they've only got one unfortunate beast so I suppose the cruelty has been reduced by several degrees of magnitude.
From there, it was off to the tomb of Wu Zetian, the only ruling Empress in Chinese history. (Cixi doesn't really count as there were nominally Emperors in charge, even if she had them under house arrest!) She was an interesting character, hitched very young to the aging Emperor, in an unconsumated marriage, becoming a Buddhist nun to avoid death when he heard a rumour that his line would be replaced by another named Wu, then given a reprieve after he died when one of the new Emperor's two wives conspired to get her in as a third wife in a power struggle with the other wife! I bet she regretted that decision... She ended up surviving the Emperor and ruling in her own right. When she was preparing for her own death, she began her tomb construction but whereas the tradition was to have a memorial erected covered in script extolling the virtues of the late Emperor, Wu Zetian instructed the craftsmen to leave hers blank, declaring that it was for those who survived her to write their opinions when she wasn't around to vet them. Quite remarkable really. There are a few inscriptions on there now, all of them flattering . . . Oh well, nice try. There's a monument there that she had erected for her late husband number two, the completely forgettable and forgotten (no one in the room can even remember his name) Emperor. However when the Qing Emperor put up a memorial there it was only to him. The new government has put up another recognising them both.
Which brings me to the finger of destiny. At Famensi, the Famen temple, they allegedly have one slightly crusty digit from the man himself. Actually it's only one bone, a falange. The temple itself is pretty impressive with a pagoda about twelve floors high and an underground museum. In the depths of the museum, although due to be relocated to an almost finished new building, resides the finger bone, along with three fakes. How they can possibly prove the veracity of the other one I can't possibly guess. But there it is.
Oh, and somewhere along there we also saw the underground tomb of a Tang prince, long since looted but still worth a wee look if you're in the neighbourhood.
Back to Xi'an and I got to eat the local specialty, a noodle. Actually two, but they're about 50cm long, like eating a long strip of lasagne in a yummy sauce - chilli, corriander etc. Yippee.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
It must have been something I ate . . .
I suppose it had to happen but I thought that after lasting this long - over three weeks now - I might have avoided the dreaded Chinese equivalent to Delhi Belly. I presume there is a name for it but I don't know what it is. Anyway, I was invited to dinner with some of Laura's father's friends at this really flash hotel restaurant - he has friends who are business people, on the state Chamber of Commerce etc - and when I got home it was all on. I don't actually think it was something at the restaurant; that would not have had time to affect me. It's more likely something from earlier. Still, I can't complain. I slept OK and feel alright so far today.
I didn't do too much on the 2nd. I went and bought a pair of jeans and a shirt, and had dinner at the home of a different one of Laura's father's friends. He has lots of friends and being new year, it's the visiting season. One of the other people there was an 18 year old (actually it was her 18th birthday) who's studying Chinese Traditional dancing. We didn't get a demo though. Another was a young guy who's studying classical double bass in Malaysia of all places!
Yesterday I went to see the Drum and Bell Towers. The Bell Tower is right in the centre of the old city and it took me just under an hour to walk to it from Laura's place. I was lucky enough to time my visit to coincide with a performance of traditional instruments, including a reconstruction of a Qin dynasty (200s BC) array of bells. That was cool, although a bit tacky when they finished with Auld Lang Syne. Then over to the Drum Tower where they also have a display of old furniture. They used to beat the drum at about 9pm to signal the closing of the gates, again at about 11pm to inform everyone that all was well, and finally at about 7am to indicate the reopening of the gates. Daytime signalling was from the Bell Tower about 200m away.
Right behind the Drum Tower is Beiyuan Men, a Muslim street close to the Xi'an Grand Mosque. You can get all sorts of food there. Actually it's possible that that was the source of my subsequent sickness although I've been being pretty adventurous (read reckless I suppose but what's the point of going to a place with a 5000 year history of food and not trying some of it?) with food generally so it could have been something else. The oddest looking thing so far would have to be the food (I'm not sure what) that comes stuffed inside a sheep's skull. I took a useless photo so I'll try to get a better one on another day.
I had an oil-fried chilli stuffed pancake thing (the culprit?) which was pretty yummy, then went to look at the mosque. It dates back to the 7th Century (Tang) but has been added to progressively ever since. It's the biggest and most significant, as well as, I think, oldest mosque in China. It's a blend of traditional Islamic and Chinese architectural styles, so it has carved dragons and the small animals that you see on the roofs of Chinese buildings, even though it's a mosque, which wouldn't usually depict animals - maybe because they're mythical animals it's OK. I don't know.
From there, I went to see the "Forest of Stone Stelae", really a museum of engraved standing stones. They're all indoors now or at least under shelter, but they started being assembled there in the Song Dynasty (began 907AD) and include stuff from the Han pariod (220BC to 220AD or something) onwards. All the classical Confucian texts are written on these stones. While I can't read the writing, it was worth a visit because I could get some sense of the changing styles over the centuries.
After this pretty full day, I headed back into the city centre where I lurked around just watching people go by while I waited for Laura to meet me. She'd spent the day with friends. I've indicated that I'm more than happy for her to go and do her own thing rather than feel she needs to keep me company. Of course the fact that I then got sick only made her feel bad . . .
Well, I just went and got a haircut this morning at the local, old style, barber. The woman who cut my hair had never had a Western customer before so that was cause for great hilarity, especially when she gave me a shave with a cut throat razor. I know, you can get all kinds of nasty diseases (like Hep B or C) from cuts from these things, but I only thought of that later. Anyway, she did a good job and didn't cut my skin at all, so I should live to see another day. It also turned out that she wasn't a Chinese Sweeney Todd, although I felt pretty vulnerable with my head tilted right back and the chair tilted too so that I was more or less horizontal. Anyway, all good, and I'm off to visit another pagoda with a good museum attached, and then I hope to walk the 13.8km of the city wall. More on that next time.
I didn't do too much on the 2nd. I went and bought a pair of jeans and a shirt, and had dinner at the home of a different one of Laura's father's friends. He has lots of friends and being new year, it's the visiting season. One of the other people there was an 18 year old (actually it was her 18th birthday) who's studying Chinese Traditional dancing. We didn't get a demo though. Another was a young guy who's studying classical double bass in Malaysia of all places!
Yesterday I went to see the Drum and Bell Towers. The Bell Tower is right in the centre of the old city and it took me just under an hour to walk to it from Laura's place. I was lucky enough to time my visit to coincide with a performance of traditional instruments, including a reconstruction of a Qin dynasty (200s BC) array of bells. That was cool, although a bit tacky when they finished with Auld Lang Syne. Then over to the Drum Tower where they also have a display of old furniture. They used to beat the drum at about 9pm to signal the closing of the gates, again at about 11pm to inform everyone that all was well, and finally at about 7am to indicate the reopening of the gates. Daytime signalling was from the Bell Tower about 200m away.
Right behind the Drum Tower is Beiyuan Men, a Muslim street close to the Xi'an Grand Mosque. You can get all sorts of food there. Actually it's possible that that was the source of my subsequent sickness although I've been being pretty adventurous (read reckless I suppose but what's the point of going to a place with a 5000 year history of food and not trying some of it?) with food generally so it could have been something else. The oddest looking thing so far would have to be the food (I'm not sure what) that comes stuffed inside a sheep's skull. I took a useless photo so I'll try to get a better one on another day.
I had an oil-fried chilli stuffed pancake thing (the culprit?) which was pretty yummy, then went to look at the mosque. It dates back to the 7th Century (Tang) but has been added to progressively ever since. It's the biggest and most significant, as well as, I think, oldest mosque in China. It's a blend of traditional Islamic and Chinese architectural styles, so it has carved dragons and the small animals that you see on the roofs of Chinese buildings, even though it's a mosque, which wouldn't usually depict animals - maybe because they're mythical animals it's OK. I don't know.
From there, I went to see the "Forest of Stone Stelae", really a museum of engraved standing stones. They're all indoors now or at least under shelter, but they started being assembled there in the Song Dynasty (began 907AD) and include stuff from the Han pariod (220BC to 220AD or something) onwards. All the classical Confucian texts are written on these stones. While I can't read the writing, it was worth a visit because I could get some sense of the changing styles over the centuries.
After this pretty full day, I headed back into the city centre where I lurked around just watching people go by while I waited for Laura to meet me. She'd spent the day with friends. I've indicated that I'm more than happy for her to go and do her own thing rather than feel she needs to keep me company. Of course the fact that I then got sick only made her feel bad . . .
Well, I just went and got a haircut this morning at the local, old style, barber. The woman who cut my hair had never had a Western customer before so that was cause for great hilarity, especially when she gave me a shave with a cut throat razor. I know, you can get all kinds of nasty diseases (like Hep B or C) from cuts from these things, but I only thought of that later. Anyway, she did a good job and didn't cut my skin at all, so I should live to see another day. It also turned out that she wasn't a Chinese Sweeney Todd, although I felt pretty vulnerable with my head tilted right back and the chair tilted too so that I was more or less horizontal. Anyway, all good, and I'm off to visit another pagoda with a good museum attached, and then I hope to walk the 13.8km of the city wall. More on that next time.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Well I've arrived in Xi'an safe and sound. On the night I arrived we went to have dinner with an ‘uncle’ of Laura's; in China it's standard for people to use terms like uncle, aunt, grandmother etc to refer to close friends of the family. These people were friends who run a restaurant so that's where we went. As usual the food was amazing, with heaps of different dishes. From there we went back to Laura’s place and got sorted out there. Laura spent quite a while trying to apologise for the apartment but I managed to convince her that there was no need. I've never judged anyone yet for not having a “good enough” or “big enough” place.
On Friday we just went to visit another ‘uncle’ for lunch. He's a guy from Laura's father’s home province. The food just kept coming . . . On interesting thing tat Laura explained to me is that because the words for remaining and fish are similar, it's traditional to serve a fish dish at new year, but to then take it away uneaten. It will then be eaten at a later time, when the new year celebration is complete. That's what happened in this case. It was a pretty impressive looking dish too, with whole fish cooked with whole spices including chilli and aniseed. The rest of the food was more than enough without that though.
Saturday saw me on a small tour bus going to see the terracotta warriors and other related (and unrelated) sites, as Laura has been to see them lots of times, including only last month with her boyfriend. The site is about an hour's drive out of Xi'an so we decided getting on a tour bus might be the best way for me to go. It probably was, and was a great day, but not without its problems. The English speaking guide that they sent along had OK English; probably about pre-intermediate level in terms of how they assess people for teaching purposes. That means maybe about the level Laura had in 2004 when she first arrived in New Zealand. He promptly announced that this was his first time working as a guide. He's a student at university in Xi'an. I asked him what he was studying, expecting to hear that he was doing history or archaeology or some other related subject. “Japanese”, he announced, without the slightest indication that he might think I was expecting anything else. He didn't really know much, and his English was not good enough to translate more than a fraction of what the Chinese guide, who clearly did know her stuff, was saying. Still, it was good to have someone there who spoke some English just as someone to talk to and to help fend off the hawkers. He was a very nice guy too and apologetic about his inability to do a better job.
The first stop was Lishan, one of the great scenic mountains in China. I was told we would be waiting a while there and I assumes we were picking up some other people. Later I discovered that some of the group had gone up a gondola and were walking back down the mountain – like I wouldn't have been really keen to go for a walk on one of China’s most scenic mountains!!! So that experience was pretty weird.
From there it was on to a small museum of mostly Tang dynasty artifacts. While Xi'an is now most famous for the terracotta warriors, which date from the Qin dynasty (3rd Century BC), the height of Xi'an's power, when it was possibly the most populous city in the world, and of great strategic importance at the start of the Silk Road, was in the Tang dynasty, which was during the 8th and 9th centuries AD.
Next was what they call the Undeground Palace, which is actually the mauseleum of the first Qin Emperor. The display is a bit garish in places but nevertheless does give a good sense of what the place must have looked like when it was built.
After that it was on to the warriors’ museum itself. Each of the three opened pits is covered by a huge building and the warriors are mostly still there in situ. You can see some restored ones in their original formations and bits of other broken ones as well. The whole thing is really quite amazing, considering that it was all created over two thousand years ago. I took some photos . . .
On the way back, we visited a hot spring where Chian Kai Shek hid out to avoid having to fight the Japanese. It's the site of “The Xi'an Incident” where a couple of his generals apparently mutinied against him (there are bullet holes in the walls) in order to “persuade” him to do the decent thing and actually use his army to oppose the Japanese. All in all a good day, despite a few odd things that occurred along the way.
Yesterday we went into the city to visit the mysteriously named “Big Goose Pagoda”. While Laura did point out a few pictures of wild geese on one wall, she didn’t know and we couldn't find out why it is called the Big Goose Pagoda. And yes, there is also a “Small Wild Goose Pagoda” too, so maybe the answer will yet be revealed. It's more than just the pagoda, but a whole Buddhist temple complex where people still go and pray. I climbed the seven levels of the pagoda but the weather was a bit misty so the view wasn't great. In fact it rained overnight – the first time I've been in a place when it has rained since I arrived in China. It rained again last night. Laura tells me the newspaper had reported that they fired 12 rockets into the sky to trigger the rain.
The other main event of the day was a visit to the province's main museum, where we had to queue for ages to get in! Actually Laura had never experienced that either in the many visits she has made, but it was a strange thing for me to witness. The museum covers human culture and civilisation in Shaanxi province from the earliest neolithic discoveries through to the end of the Ming dynasty with a bit of Qing stuff as well, but the main focus is on the earlier periods before the capital was relocated away from Xi'an, so mostly Qin, Han, Sui and Tang stuff can be found there, including some things I've seen before in books. A great place to visit, and entry was free!
Laura's family have been really good, offering to help me with anything I need to do. They're really making this trip great.
I'm at the internet cafe now and I can confirm that the Carpenters are still big in China; 'Yesterday Once More' is playing as I post this.
On Friday we just went to visit another ‘uncle’ for lunch. He's a guy from Laura's father’s home province. The food just kept coming . . . On interesting thing tat Laura explained to me is that because the words for remaining and fish are similar, it's traditional to serve a fish dish at new year, but to then take it away uneaten. It will then be eaten at a later time, when the new year celebration is complete. That's what happened in this case. It was a pretty impressive looking dish too, with whole fish cooked with whole spices including chilli and aniseed. The rest of the food was more than enough without that though.
Saturday saw me on a small tour bus going to see the terracotta warriors and other related (and unrelated) sites, as Laura has been to see them lots of times, including only last month with her boyfriend. The site is about an hour's drive out of Xi'an so we decided getting on a tour bus might be the best way for me to go. It probably was, and was a great day, but not without its problems. The English speaking guide that they sent along had OK English; probably about pre-intermediate level in terms of how they assess people for teaching purposes. That means maybe about the level Laura had in 2004 when she first arrived in New Zealand. He promptly announced that this was his first time working as a guide. He's a student at university in Xi'an. I asked him what he was studying, expecting to hear that he was doing history or archaeology or some other related subject. “Japanese”, he announced, without the slightest indication that he might think I was expecting anything else. He didn't really know much, and his English was not good enough to translate more than a fraction of what the Chinese guide, who clearly did know her stuff, was saying. Still, it was good to have someone there who spoke some English just as someone to talk to and to help fend off the hawkers. He was a very nice guy too and apologetic about his inability to do a better job.
The first stop was Lishan, one of the great scenic mountains in China. I was told we would be waiting a while there and I assumes we were picking up some other people. Later I discovered that some of the group had gone up a gondola and were walking back down the mountain – like I wouldn't have been really keen to go for a walk on one of China’s most scenic mountains!!! So that experience was pretty weird.
From there it was on to a small museum of mostly Tang dynasty artifacts. While Xi'an is now most famous for the terracotta warriors, which date from the Qin dynasty (3rd Century BC), the height of Xi'an's power, when it was possibly the most populous city in the world, and of great strategic importance at the start of the Silk Road, was in the Tang dynasty, which was during the 8th and 9th centuries AD.
Next was what they call the Undeground Palace, which is actually the mauseleum of the first Qin Emperor. The display is a bit garish in places but nevertheless does give a good sense of what the place must have looked like when it was built.
After that it was on to the warriors’ museum itself. Each of the three opened pits is covered by a huge building and the warriors are mostly still there in situ. You can see some restored ones in their original formations and bits of other broken ones as well. The whole thing is really quite amazing, considering that it was all created over two thousand years ago. I took some photos . . .
On the way back, we visited a hot spring where Chian Kai Shek hid out to avoid having to fight the Japanese. It's the site of “The Xi'an Incident” where a couple of his generals apparently mutinied against him (there are bullet holes in the walls) in order to “persuade” him to do the decent thing and actually use his army to oppose the Japanese. All in all a good day, despite a few odd things that occurred along the way.
Yesterday we went into the city to visit the mysteriously named “Big Goose Pagoda”. While Laura did point out a few pictures of wild geese on one wall, she didn’t know and we couldn't find out why it is called the Big Goose Pagoda. And yes, there is also a “Small Wild Goose Pagoda” too, so maybe the answer will yet be revealed. It's more than just the pagoda, but a whole Buddhist temple complex where people still go and pray. I climbed the seven levels of the pagoda but the weather was a bit misty so the view wasn't great. In fact it rained overnight – the first time I've been in a place when it has rained since I arrived in China. It rained again last night. Laura tells me the newspaper had reported that they fired 12 rockets into the sky to trigger the rain.
The other main event of the day was a visit to the province's main museum, where we had to queue for ages to get in! Actually Laura had never experienced that either in the many visits she has made, but it was a strange thing for me to witness. The museum covers human culture and civilisation in Shaanxi province from the earliest neolithic discoveries through to the end of the Ming dynasty with a bit of Qing stuff as well, but the main focus is on the earlier periods before the capital was relocated away from Xi'an, so mostly Qin, Han, Sui and Tang stuff can be found there, including some things I've seen before in books. A great place to visit, and entry was free!
Laura's family have been really good, offering to help me with anything I need to do. They're really making this trip great.
I'm at the internet cafe now and I can confirm that the Carpenters are still big in China; 'Yesterday Once More' is playing as I post this.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Winter at the Summer Palace (or two)
Today was my last proper day in Beijing. Tomorrow I fly to Xi'an where I'll meet up again with Laura. She's worried that there may not be enough to do in Xi'an for the remaining time so it's possible we'll go somewhere else for a while, maybe even somewhere warm, but not, I hope, so warm that I need rabies shots; I'm deranged enough as it is. One good thing about being in the northg, and in winter, is that rabies is not an issue. But back to more immediate concerns, personally, I think I should be able to fill two and a half weeks in and around a city that's over 2000 years old and was the capital of such significant dynasties as the T'ang and Sui, as well as being right on the silk route and having a multi-ethnic population make up. Laura's friend Helen, whom she followed out to New Zealand and whom I've met a few times in New Zealand, is back lioving in Xi'an. I'll catch up with her while I'm there. She's a member of the Hui nationality, one of the largest Muslim groups in China and the major non-Han population in Xi'an. They are reknowned for their yummy food. You see Hui restaurants all over China.
Yesterday didn't warrant a post as I was at home most of the day, doing mundane stuff like washing, and ducking out to restock a few groceries, so that the place is more or less as Paul left it. Today though, being my last day, I decided to go and see the two Summer Palaces.
The old Summer Palace is an interesting place. It's a ruin of a whole bunch of European Baroque era and styled buildings that were burnt to the ground by the Brits and the French at the end of the second Opium War. They were pretty keen to torch the Forbidden City as well, but for reasons that I don't know, it survived. From what I've read, Lord Elgin, presumably the notorious tomb robber who stole the marble decorations from the Parthenon, was responsible for this particular piece of wanton vandalism too. Nothing was spared. Even decorative bridges across the little canals were all destroyed in an orgy of vindictive destruction. All that remains of most of it is piles of rubble, some of which has bits of carving on it. One or two bits have been rebuilt - a couple of bridges were rebuilt last year and back in the 80s, the labyrinth and the pavillion at its centre were rebuilt too, much to the delight of many Chinese people, young and old, who were having endless fun finding their way through it while I was there, also having fun finding my way through, I might add. I spent a lot of time in the park where the old Summer Palace is, partly because it was interesting, if also a somewhat sobering reminder of the level of civilisation Imperialism brings in its wake, but also because it was quite hard to find my way back out. The labyrinth was easy compared to finding a gate on the right side of the park!
Eventually I managed to backtrack my way to a path leading out and I started towards the new Summer Palace, just a couple of kilometres down the road. This is a complex built on a 1000 year old artificial lake, rebuilt by the somewhat mad, power crazed and totally reactionary Dowager Empress Cixi (Tsee-hsee) at the turn of the 20th Century after, you guessed it, being destroyed by the European armies, this time the armies of the Eight Nation Alliance that dominated China at that time. Cixi had the Emperor, her nephew, put under house arrest and reputedly had his favourite concubine drowned in a well in the Forbidden City for winning him over to the idea of some constitutional reforms. She backed the Boxers in their 1900 rebellion, and her intransigent adherence to absolutism is often cited as a key factor in the collapse of the Chinese monarchy, although I'm sure it was a bigger issue than one particularly odious individual. She spent the money that had been budgetted for the revamping of the Chinese Navy on the rebuilding of the Summer Palace and the construction of a marble boat, which can still be seen floating on the lake. The upper sections are wooden - marble would have made it too heavy - but they were painted to look like marble. The whole thing is a ridiculoous testament to the excesses of the monarchy. It reminded my of the Macedonian 'Pharoah' Ptolemy IV (or was it III) building his tesseraconter (40er, where a trireme was a 3er). An absurd project which resulted in nothing but an overblown pleasure boat for his trips in the Nile. Evidently Empress Cixi spent many happy hours in her equally absurd creation. Meanwhile, the Chinese Navy must have been singularly unimpressed, especially as they were soon after humiliated by the Japanese Navy in battle.
The whole garden is intended to recreate the environment of Southern China, with various bits inspired by the scenery of different southern locales. This includes a long causway which runs the length of the lake, and is interspersed with six different unique bridges along the way. I may yet regret my decision to walk the causeway. My hamstring had not given me any grief all day and I was thinking this might be my first day untroubled by that annoyance. But part way up the stairs of one of the six bridges, I felt a familiar sensation . . . At the moment it seems alright so here's hoping. I won't be doing a lot of walking tomorrow so it should have a bit more rest.
Well, next stop Xi'an, and as I indicated, I'm not sure how easy it'll be to do updates, but I'll do what I can.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Subterranean Homesick Blues . . .
. . . would be the perfect heading for today's entry if I was homesick. But I'm not. The other two bits of the heading are applicable though, slightly, because I swiped into the subway without really thinking, got half way towards getting on the train and realised, erk, I didn't hear the machine beep and I think the barrier arms were already open. I thought, I hope that doesn't mean I can't get back out again because I haven't officially swiped in. Um, yes, that is what it means. When I tried to exit the card came up as invalid. A staff member came over to investigate. They took my card away for ages before bringing it back and getting me to swipe in again before swiping back out. I must say the evil totalitarian officious rail bureaucrats were nothing but nice and friendly throughout the whole process. So it seems I won't be incarcerated for attempting to defraud the People's Republic of China of their two Yuan. That's a relief!
I kind of decided I couldn't come home from a visit to China without being able to say I'd seen a giant panda so I decided to visit the Beijing Zoo. It hadn't been on my 'to do' list but it's close, cheap, and is a world leader, not surprisingly, in the conservation and recovery of the giant panda. Cooler would be to go to the National Park in Sichuan Province and see them at the centre there (the chances of seeing a wild one are minimal) but going to Sichuan doesn't seem that likely. So off I went. I'm still finding this whole 'sun in the south' thing pretty disorienting. I've always considered myself to have basically no sense of direction, but I must have, because it's totally out of whack now that the sun is in the wrong part of the sky. But I got there in the end. And the panda bit of the zoo is pretty informative, with a couple of purpose built rooms full of information on the conservation programme and the animals themselves. They have a strrangely jointed wrist that serves as a reversible thumb does in humans and they use it to grab the bamboo more easily. If Philip Pulman had gone with that idea instead of an actual reversible thumb for the bears in the His Dark Materials trilogy, they might have been more plausible.
The rest of the zoo was pretty sad. It must be soul-destroying for the keepers when all you've got to work with is a concrete floored concrete box to stick your animals in. It makes you realise how much better Orana Park is, with less animals but something at least approaching humane conditions for them to live in. Still, it was a delight to see the looks on people's faces when they saw some animal they'd never seen before. And the parents playing hide and seek in the trees with their little (three to four year old?) kid was pretty funny to watch too.
I escaped from the zoo with some sympathy for the animal liberationists, if only they were over here, and headed to the Black Bamboo Park adjoining the zoo. I was going to pass through there on my way to the Summer Palace, built overlooking a 1000+ year old man-made lake. However, I found myself getting drawn into the atmosphere of the park and ended up wandering around it for ages. By the time I'd finished lurking in the park, it was about time to start heading back, since New Year means everything's closing early. I arrived back in the nick of time, being able to grab something to eat from one of only a couple of places still open in the food court nearby.
Two more days in Beijing. After that, blog updates may be more infrequent (what a relief I hear you sigh) because Laura's been unable to connect to the net at her parents' place for some reason, so it might require a visit to an internet cafe unless everything's been sorted by the time I get there.
I kind of decided I couldn't come home from a visit to China without being able to say I'd seen a giant panda so I decided to visit the Beijing Zoo. It hadn't been on my 'to do' list but it's close, cheap, and is a world leader, not surprisingly, in the conservation and recovery of the giant panda. Cooler would be to go to the National Park in Sichuan Province and see them at the centre there (the chances of seeing a wild one are minimal) but going to Sichuan doesn't seem that likely. So off I went. I'm still finding this whole 'sun in the south' thing pretty disorienting. I've always considered myself to have basically no sense of direction, but I must have, because it's totally out of whack now that the sun is in the wrong part of the sky. But I got there in the end. And the panda bit of the zoo is pretty informative, with a couple of purpose built rooms full of information on the conservation programme and the animals themselves. They have a strrangely jointed wrist that serves as a reversible thumb does in humans and they use it to grab the bamboo more easily. If Philip Pulman had gone with that idea instead of an actual reversible thumb for the bears in the His Dark Materials trilogy, they might have been more plausible.
The rest of the zoo was pretty sad. It must be soul-destroying for the keepers when all you've got to work with is a concrete floored concrete box to stick your animals in. It makes you realise how much better Orana Park is, with less animals but something at least approaching humane conditions for them to live in. Still, it was a delight to see the looks on people's faces when they saw some animal they'd never seen before. And the parents playing hide and seek in the trees with their little (three to four year old?) kid was pretty funny to watch too.
I escaped from the zoo with some sympathy for the animal liberationists, if only they were over here, and headed to the Black Bamboo Park adjoining the zoo. I was going to pass through there on my way to the Summer Palace, built overlooking a 1000+ year old man-made lake. However, I found myself getting drawn into the atmosphere of the park and ended up wandering around it for ages. By the time I'd finished lurking in the park, it was about time to start heading back, since New Year means everything's closing early. I arrived back in the nick of time, being able to grab something to eat from one of only a couple of places still open in the food court nearby.
Two more days in Beijing. After that, blog updates may be more infrequent (what a relief I hear you sigh) because Laura's been unable to connect to the net at her parents' place for some reason, so it might require a visit to an internet cafe unless everything's been sorted by the time I get there.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
New Year's Eve
I can't imagine I'll get much sleep tonight because all around it sounds like a war is going on. You could invade China on New Year's Eve and I'm sure no one would notice until it was all over. There are huge explosions like artillery rounds going off and 5 or 6 metre long strips of small fireworks that sound like machineguns. People just roll them out on the footpath and light one end. Every so often there is a whistle as some airborne device flies overhead. I went for a walk and watched some people letting their fireworks off. The women huddled in anticipation while one of the men sauntered over and lit it with his cigarette. When it all started, one of the women, in her early twenties I suppose but it's so hard to judge, clapped her hands together and started jumping up and down in excitement. Cynical and obviously far too jaded, I looked at her and thought, grow up woman, it's fireworks. OK, way better than any I've ever had in New Zealand, but just fireworks nontheless. Then I thought, "Listen to yourself. Who's having the better time here, me or her?" She was getting an enormous amount of pleasure from this display, and when a guy with his young (maybe 8 year old) son came along, she engaged with him straight away, even though I'm sure they didn't know each other. I laughed to myself and carried on watching the display.
In Hong Kong and other places in the south, big New Year parades happen, with dragons and stuff, but here in Beijing, it seems more of a massively overscale Guy Fawkes Day, as they were when I was a kid, when every family bought a bag of fireworks and set them off in the yard or somewhere. Like that only on a much larger scale and with way cooler fireworks.
Other than that, New Year in China is about family, so families go out to dinner at a restaurant for a big meal. I thought I can look like a sad bastard sitting in a restaurant eating alone surrounded by big family groups having a great time, or I can go to McDonalds and sit there amongst a bunch of other solitary types. So I did that. I knew the food would be crap and it didn't disappoint on that score. It did in terms of being even worse than I expected though. It's only maybe the second time I've ever sat down and eaten McDonalds. The other time was when Yashmin and I went to Wellington zoo. That could have been before we were even married; it was when Mirla was at Library School there, so 1987? The burger was bland and synthetic looking, feeling and tasting, the chips, sorry - fries - were cold and the drink was flat and too sweet. Why did I bother? Well you may ask, but it eludes me how a chain that sells such an overpriced and tasteless excuse for food could ever make it outside the USA. Surely marketing isn't that all-powerful? And yes, I am going to eat something else later . . .
I was in no hurry to go out this morning but mooched about until about midday. I then headed out to finish what I had started yesterday, going to look at the drum and bell towers. I'm half expecting to learn that there's some Chinese band somewhere playing drum and bell, claiming it to be a Chinese fusion of traditional instruments and contemporary drum and bass. Maybe there is someone already. The Chinese rock, pop and punk music scenes seem to be thriving - in Beijing at least. Anyway, you get a great panoramic view of the city from the bell tower, which used to be used to anounce the opening and closing of the gates amongst other things, and the drum tower includes a display of replica and original equipment, including a reconstruction of the lost water clock that used to be used for official time keeping, and a whole array of drums, since only one original has survived. They were worth looking at but I'm surprised to admit it; I think I'm a bit Minged out. I'm looking forward to Xi'an, where the stuff is more varied, not just the buried army (Qin, c. 3rd Century BC) but also T'ang and other period stuff. I'm not complaining about Beijing though, I've really enjoyed getting to see a bit of it, and I'll enjoy the next three days too I'm sure, especially as the forecast seems to suggest a bit of heat wave for the city - it's going to be six degrees, and only zero overnight. It was zero today when I left the apartment about midday and scheduled to reach three. I went out without my warm hat and was quite OK. Amelia was worred that I might die over here in the cold; I'm more worried that I might die of heat stroke when I get back, or worse still, decide I like the cold!!! It was suddeny really cold up in the bell tower though. About 30m up and the wind chill must have put it well into the negatives again.
I meandered back along the path recommended on the card, through a series of Hutongs, and ended up at an area where gentrification is seriously taking place. The "Hutong" was full of VISA signs outside trendy bars, and there were loads of tourists lurking around. I know I'm a tourist, but the last thing I'd want to do is go and find a bar full of Western people to hang out with on my trip to China. I know, I could have gone to McDonalds in Christchurch and eaten crap served to me by a young Asian worker too, but I don't make a habit of that. The area was pretty heavily populated with rickshaw operators too. When one started hounding me, I said no thank you, I was quite happy to walk. He quickly turned over his laminated sheet to show me the rates for a walking tour. Aaarrgghhh. I had to explain that I was quite happy walking by myself.
It was about 5 o'clock when I finally got inside, so stilll a reasonable outing.
I've thought of a last possible plan to maybe get in touch with the Beijing students Robyn and I taught a few years back, so I'll be putting that into effect tomorrow. I'm not going to hold my breath though.
In Hong Kong and other places in the south, big New Year parades happen, with dragons and stuff, but here in Beijing, it seems more of a massively overscale Guy Fawkes Day, as they were when I was a kid, when every family bought a bag of fireworks and set them off in the yard or somewhere. Like that only on a much larger scale and with way cooler fireworks.
Other than that, New Year in China is about family, so families go out to dinner at a restaurant for a big meal. I thought I can look like a sad bastard sitting in a restaurant eating alone surrounded by big family groups having a great time, or I can go to McDonalds and sit there amongst a bunch of other solitary types. So I did that. I knew the food would be crap and it didn't disappoint on that score. It did in terms of being even worse than I expected though. It's only maybe the second time I've ever sat down and eaten McDonalds. The other time was when Yashmin and I went to Wellington zoo. That could have been before we were even married; it was when Mirla was at Library School there, so 1987? The burger was bland and synthetic looking, feeling and tasting, the chips, sorry - fries - were cold and the drink was flat and too sweet. Why did I bother? Well you may ask, but it eludes me how a chain that sells such an overpriced and tasteless excuse for food could ever make it outside the USA. Surely marketing isn't that all-powerful? And yes, I am going to eat something else later . . .
I was in no hurry to go out this morning but mooched about until about midday. I then headed out to finish what I had started yesterday, going to look at the drum and bell towers. I'm half expecting to learn that there's some Chinese band somewhere playing drum and bell, claiming it to be a Chinese fusion of traditional instruments and contemporary drum and bass. Maybe there is someone already. The Chinese rock, pop and punk music scenes seem to be thriving - in Beijing at least. Anyway, you get a great panoramic view of the city from the bell tower, which used to be used to anounce the opening and closing of the gates amongst other things, and the drum tower includes a display of replica and original equipment, including a reconstruction of the lost water clock that used to be used for official time keeping, and a whole array of drums, since only one original has survived. They were worth looking at but I'm surprised to admit it; I think I'm a bit Minged out. I'm looking forward to Xi'an, where the stuff is more varied, not just the buried army (Qin, c. 3rd Century BC) but also T'ang and other period stuff. I'm not complaining about Beijing though, I've really enjoyed getting to see a bit of it, and I'll enjoy the next three days too I'm sure, especially as the forecast seems to suggest a bit of heat wave for the city - it's going to be six degrees, and only zero overnight. It was zero today when I left the apartment about midday and scheduled to reach three. I went out without my warm hat and was quite OK. Amelia was worred that I might die over here in the cold; I'm more worried that I might die of heat stroke when I get back, or worse still, decide I like the cold!!! It was suddeny really cold up in the bell tower though. About 30m up and the wind chill must have put it well into the negatives again.
I meandered back along the path recommended on the card, through a series of Hutongs, and ended up at an area where gentrification is seriously taking place. The "Hutong" was full of VISA signs outside trendy bars, and there were loads of tourists lurking around. I know I'm a tourist, but the last thing I'd want to do is go and find a bar full of Western people to hang out with on my trip to China. I know, I could have gone to McDonalds in Christchurch and eaten crap served to me by a young Asian worker too, but I don't make a habit of that. The area was pretty heavily populated with rickshaw operators too. When one started hounding me, I said no thank you, I was quite happy to walk. He quickly turned over his laminated sheet to show me the rates for a walking tour. Aaarrgghhh. I had to explain that I was quite happy walking by myself.
It was about 5 o'clock when I finally got inside, so stilll a reasonable outing.
I've thought of a last possible plan to maybe get in touch with the Beijing students Robyn and I taught a few years back, so I'll be putting that into effect tomorrow. I'm not going to hold my breath though.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Lost in Beijing
I got a call from Laura on the night of the 23rd, saying the bad news was that she couldn't get me a train ticket to Xi'an; there just isn't anything available. With the Chinese new year, everyone is busy travelling back to their home town and the trains are really busy. The good news was that she'd booked me on a plane instead. I nervously said OK, what are the details, knowing that the train cost RMB279 when her friend bought one recently and Paul's ticket to Yunan cost RMB2500 (although that may have been return). Anyway, Laura cheerily announced that it was discounted by 80% so cost me only RMB260! There are about 4 or 5 RMB (or Yuan, also colloquially known as Kwai) to the NZ dollar at the moment, so the ticket worked out at about $55 or 60. It was delivered to my door yesterday morning. I don't get how this sort of thing works but apparently picking up such heavily discounted tickets is not at all uncommon. Anyway, it means I'm flying to Xi'an at the very civilized hour of 2.40pm (so it's not even some sort of 'red eye special') but not until the 29th. That means I've got a few extra days in Beijing, which is fine because it's not like there's nothing to do here.
Paul left for his trip to Yunan yesterday morning so I'm home alone, sort of. Not really home but definitely alone in this city of 15 million, or however many it is. He doesn't get back until after I've gone, so I'm on my own until I see Laura's smiling face at Xi'an airport in about five days time.
I decided to dig out a couple more of Paul's 'Beijing by Foot' cards and do another walk. I know, my leg will never really recover if I'm walking on it for six or seven hours every day, but I'm really enjoying walking around the city and it is a bit better each day. I jumped on the subway and got off at the Lama Temple stop, which unsurprisingly, is located at the site of a Lama temple. That was to be the starting point for a walk around a different part of the city to what I've visited before, and which would connect, more or less, with the second card's walk, past the Ming Dynasty Drum and Bell Towers, but it turns out that that will be for another day, today probably.
I don't think I've raved about the subway yet. Basically, Paul's apartment, where I'm staying, is about a two minute walk from a subway station on the Number Two route. The Number Two is a ring route that runs under the number two ring road - the one that necessitated the dismantling of the city wall - so it forms a tight loop around the inner city and half the stations bear the names of the old city gates that once stood there. The Number Two route intersects with every other subway line in the city, so you just jump on and off at transfer stations to get to any part of the network, without paying any extra. You scan in your card as you enter the station and you transfer as often as you need to without ever needing to exit the system, then scan out again at the end of your journey. All for the princely sum of 2 Yuan, or about NZ50c. You could stay on it all day for that price although you wouldn't see much so that might be taking things a bit too far . . .
OK, so I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I took ages figuring out which way I was supposed to be facing before heading off, but I have finally figured out why I have been going wrong. The sun might still rise in the east in China but it doesn't sure track across the northern sky does it . . . I'm in a different hemisphere so the sun's in the south. Duh! Never fear, I managed to get tripped up by that little piece of information again later in the day. Fool me once, call me unaware, fool me twice, call me - well, let's not go there!
Ah, so there's the Lama Temple: that huge thing towering over me looking for all the world like a Ming Palace, which it would, since that's how it started out. In my defence, it was obscured by a flyover when I first got out of the subway. The place was built by an Emperor-to-be and his son gave it to the Buddhists as a Lamasery, a word I didn't know existed but that's why it gets called the Lama Temple. It's still a functioning temple complete with Lamas in saffron robes and those huge mohawk-shaped hats. I didn't take photos of any of them in their hats; I thought it might be a bit disrespectful, like I thought they looked funny or something. Actually . . .
Everywhere you looked there were people burning incense and praying to the Buddha, including the highest proportion of Western people I've seen in China yet. The Chines looked completely normal but most of the Westerners looked like hippies. The place is beautiful, as you would expect it to be, but seeing these places does reveal how inherently conservative the Ming were in their decorative art. The buildings do reveal experimentation with different shapes and to some extent styles, as the various pavilions in the park where the Heaven Temple is demonstrates. But they're all decorated the same way. The walls are all the same red, the decorations are all painted in the same colours and all feature the same motifs. I thought the Confucian and Buddhist temples might have significant differences, but to my untrained eye, they don't. One of the differences that does exist is the colour of the roofing tiles. The Lama Temple has gold roof tiles because it was originally a prince's palace and, by imperial decree, only Imperial palaces were allowed gold roof tiles. Other buildings tend to have glazed green or plain grey tiles.
Just across the road is the Confucian Temple and adjoining examination centre, where would be bureaucrats took their exams to become part of the imperial administration. Inside, there's an interesting and revealing exhibit about Confucius, who lived during the poetically named 'Spring and Autumn' period, about 2500 years ago. While the name 'Spring and Autumn' might conjure up idylic images of peace and harmony, it was actually a period of great turmoil and incessant war in China, named after the 'Spring and Autumn Annals of the Kingdom of Lu', and which led into the more prosaically named 'Warring States' period that ended with the Qin Emperor (of Terracotta army fame) defeating his rivals and uniting the country. Confucius was born into an aristocratic family but his father died when he was three and they fell on hard times. He worked as a labourer but educated himself and started the first private school in China, breaking the state monopoly on education and accepting students of non-aristocratic origins, also an inovation. He developed a theory of 'virtuous government' and 'fillial duty', which he tried to convince the various warlords to adopt, without success.
Interestingly, the Chinese Government has embarked on a programme of setting up Confucius Centres around the world. The map on the wall showed one in Auckland. Their objective is to introduce the great and wonderful ideas of Big C to the world and encourage people, and therefore governments, to adopt Confucian principles of virtuous government, thus bringing about a more peaceful and harmonious world. But wait a minute! I thought the Chinese Government was communist. I thought these guys were Marxists. It seems gone are the days of believing that capitalism was a class divided society and that the solution was to overthrow capitalism, end inequality, and build a world based on production for social need rather than profit. All we need is 'virtuous government' and the ideas of some reactionary feudal monarchist from two and a half millenia ago. I bet Chinese (and all other) women can't wait for his ideas to be promulgated and adopted around the world. Excuse me while I dash to the bathroom.
So that's enough spiritual enlightenment for one day. Onward and along a few Hutongs and I get to the end of walk No. 1. By this time, partly due to starting late - I had to wait for the guy to deliver my plane ticket before I could leave, and partly because I spent a long time wandering around the two temples and reading the displays about Confucius, I realised there was no point trying to do the second walk; I'd be better off going home and doing some photo sorting and writing up the day's activity. I came out onto the second ring road, and being adventurous (that should teach me), I decided that rather than go back to the original subway station, I'd go the other way and cut in towards the centre of town before linking up with the subway again. It shouldn't be too hard eh? I know where the sun is, it's in the north west, right . . .
My little detour finds me at the third ring road. Hmmm, I've been heading out of town. Oh well, that's OK,, I'm in no hurry, I can keep walking with the setting sun behind me, that's unambiguously in the west, and eventually I'll get to a subway line. Furthermore, if I veer ever to the right, I'll be heading north east towards the city centre. So why have I just arrived at the fourth ring road? Ah, because when I stuffed things up right at the start it meant that when I thought I was heading in on the Southern side of the city, I was, in reality already drifting across into the northern suburbs. It's getting pretty dark by now, but surprisingly, quite a bit warmer than earlier in the day, but I decide it's about time to ask for some directions. The first person I ask directs me to continue up the road I'm already on, turn left at the overbridge, and carry on up that road. I'm about ten minutes from the subway. Gratefully, I zoom on, well not exactly zoom, but there is a bit of a spring in my step, on one side at least. I've been vindicated a wee bit in that my theory of heading east and meeting the subway has proved correct. That's as long as he didn't think I was looking for a fast food outlet. I'm briefly overcome with doubt. Surely if someone in a city with a subway asks where the subway is, they mean the underground, not the fast food chain of the same name? Luckily, he did (or there was a subway shop there too.) Either way, I'm home and hosed, more or less. I go up to the food court across the road where Paul and I ate the night before. I'd noticed that at the place where we ate, the names are written in Korean as well as Chinese. Yay, it was worth my while learning how to read Korean. A quick (actually slightly laboured) perusal of the menu board and I recognise something I know, having eaten it before in Christchurch. I go up to the woman and ask for it by its Korean name, as it is written on the board. I'm greeted by a blank stare. Damn! Well at least I know what I'm getting. Various arm waving and pointing gestures follow and I've placed my order. I can't believe that a place selling Korean food, with Korean themed posters, a Korean flag (South Korean of course!), and the menu written in Korean, is staffed by a woman who doesn't even know what the food is called in Korean! Oh well, at least I have a good meal and can come home satisfied with another sucessful day, even if I had an unscheduled extra two hours of walking through an unfamiliar part of town. And I still managed to get some work done on my photos, although I didn't get this written because the internet was down.
Next time maybe I should take a map . . . Nah, it wouldn't be half as much fun!
Paul left for his trip to Yunan yesterday morning so I'm home alone, sort of. Not really home but definitely alone in this city of 15 million, or however many it is. He doesn't get back until after I've gone, so I'm on my own until I see Laura's smiling face at Xi'an airport in about five days time.
I decided to dig out a couple more of Paul's 'Beijing by Foot' cards and do another walk. I know, my leg will never really recover if I'm walking on it for six or seven hours every day, but I'm really enjoying walking around the city and it is a bit better each day. I jumped on the subway and got off at the Lama Temple stop, which unsurprisingly, is located at the site of a Lama temple. That was to be the starting point for a walk around a different part of the city to what I've visited before, and which would connect, more or less, with the second card's walk, past the Ming Dynasty Drum and Bell Towers, but it turns out that that will be for another day, today probably.
I don't think I've raved about the subway yet. Basically, Paul's apartment, where I'm staying, is about a two minute walk from a subway station on the Number Two route. The Number Two is a ring route that runs under the number two ring road - the one that necessitated the dismantling of the city wall - so it forms a tight loop around the inner city and half the stations bear the names of the old city gates that once stood there. The Number Two route intersects with every other subway line in the city, so you just jump on and off at transfer stations to get to any part of the network, without paying any extra. You scan in your card as you enter the station and you transfer as often as you need to without ever needing to exit the system, then scan out again at the end of your journey. All for the princely sum of 2 Yuan, or about NZ50c. You could stay on it all day for that price although you wouldn't see much so that might be taking things a bit too far . . .
OK, so I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I took ages figuring out which way I was supposed to be facing before heading off, but I have finally figured out why I have been going wrong. The sun might still rise in the east in China but it doesn't sure track across the northern sky does it . . . I'm in a different hemisphere so the sun's in the south. Duh! Never fear, I managed to get tripped up by that little piece of information again later in the day. Fool me once, call me unaware, fool me twice, call me - well, let's not go there!
Ah, so there's the Lama Temple: that huge thing towering over me looking for all the world like a Ming Palace, which it would, since that's how it started out. In my defence, it was obscured by a flyover when I first got out of the subway. The place was built by an Emperor-to-be and his son gave it to the Buddhists as a Lamasery, a word I didn't know existed but that's why it gets called the Lama Temple. It's still a functioning temple complete with Lamas in saffron robes and those huge mohawk-shaped hats. I didn't take photos of any of them in their hats; I thought it might be a bit disrespectful, like I thought they looked funny or something. Actually . . .
Everywhere you looked there were people burning incense and praying to the Buddha, including the highest proportion of Western people I've seen in China yet. The Chines looked completely normal but most of the Westerners looked like hippies. The place is beautiful, as you would expect it to be, but seeing these places does reveal how inherently conservative the Ming were in their decorative art. The buildings do reveal experimentation with different shapes and to some extent styles, as the various pavilions in the park where the Heaven Temple is demonstrates. But they're all decorated the same way. The walls are all the same red, the decorations are all painted in the same colours and all feature the same motifs. I thought the Confucian and Buddhist temples might have significant differences, but to my untrained eye, they don't. One of the differences that does exist is the colour of the roofing tiles. The Lama Temple has gold roof tiles because it was originally a prince's palace and, by imperial decree, only Imperial palaces were allowed gold roof tiles. Other buildings tend to have glazed green or plain grey tiles.
Just across the road is the Confucian Temple and adjoining examination centre, where would be bureaucrats took their exams to become part of the imperial administration. Inside, there's an interesting and revealing exhibit about Confucius, who lived during the poetically named 'Spring and Autumn' period, about 2500 years ago. While the name 'Spring and Autumn' might conjure up idylic images of peace and harmony, it was actually a period of great turmoil and incessant war in China, named after the 'Spring and Autumn Annals of the Kingdom of Lu', and which led into the more prosaically named 'Warring States' period that ended with the Qin Emperor (of Terracotta army fame) defeating his rivals and uniting the country. Confucius was born into an aristocratic family but his father died when he was three and they fell on hard times. He worked as a labourer but educated himself and started the first private school in China, breaking the state monopoly on education and accepting students of non-aristocratic origins, also an inovation. He developed a theory of 'virtuous government' and 'fillial duty', which he tried to convince the various warlords to adopt, without success.
Interestingly, the Chinese Government has embarked on a programme of setting up Confucius Centres around the world. The map on the wall showed one in Auckland. Their objective is to introduce the great and wonderful ideas of Big C to the world and encourage people, and therefore governments, to adopt Confucian principles of virtuous government, thus bringing about a more peaceful and harmonious world. But wait a minute! I thought the Chinese Government was communist. I thought these guys were Marxists. It seems gone are the days of believing that capitalism was a class divided society and that the solution was to overthrow capitalism, end inequality, and build a world based on production for social need rather than profit. All we need is 'virtuous government' and the ideas of some reactionary feudal monarchist from two and a half millenia ago. I bet Chinese (and all other) women can't wait for his ideas to be promulgated and adopted around the world. Excuse me while I dash to the bathroom.
So that's enough spiritual enlightenment for one day. Onward and along a few Hutongs and I get to the end of walk No. 1. By this time, partly due to starting late - I had to wait for the guy to deliver my plane ticket before I could leave, and partly because I spent a long time wandering around the two temples and reading the displays about Confucius, I realised there was no point trying to do the second walk; I'd be better off going home and doing some photo sorting and writing up the day's activity. I came out onto the second ring road, and being adventurous (that should teach me), I decided that rather than go back to the original subway station, I'd go the other way and cut in towards the centre of town before linking up with the subway again. It shouldn't be too hard eh? I know where the sun is, it's in the north west, right . . .
My little detour finds me at the third ring road. Hmmm, I've been heading out of town. Oh well, that's OK,, I'm in no hurry, I can keep walking with the setting sun behind me, that's unambiguously in the west, and eventually I'll get to a subway line. Furthermore, if I veer ever to the right, I'll be heading north east towards the city centre. So why have I just arrived at the fourth ring road? Ah, because when I stuffed things up right at the start it meant that when I thought I was heading in on the Southern side of the city, I was, in reality already drifting across into the northern suburbs. It's getting pretty dark by now, but surprisingly, quite a bit warmer than earlier in the day, but I decide it's about time to ask for some directions. The first person I ask directs me to continue up the road I'm already on, turn left at the overbridge, and carry on up that road. I'm about ten minutes from the subway. Gratefully, I zoom on, well not exactly zoom, but there is a bit of a spring in my step, on one side at least. I've been vindicated a wee bit in that my theory of heading east and meeting the subway has proved correct. That's as long as he didn't think I was looking for a fast food outlet. I'm briefly overcome with doubt. Surely if someone in a city with a subway asks where the subway is, they mean the underground, not the fast food chain of the same name? Luckily, he did (or there was a subway shop there too.) Either way, I'm home and hosed, more or less. I go up to the food court across the road where Paul and I ate the night before. I'd noticed that at the place where we ate, the names are written in Korean as well as Chinese. Yay, it was worth my while learning how to read Korean. A quick (actually slightly laboured) perusal of the menu board and I recognise something I know, having eaten it before in Christchurch. I go up to the woman and ask for it by its Korean name, as it is written on the board. I'm greeted by a blank stare. Damn! Well at least I know what I'm getting. Various arm waving and pointing gestures follow and I've placed my order. I can't believe that a place selling Korean food, with Korean themed posters, a Korean flag (South Korean of course!), and the menu written in Korean, is staffed by a woman who doesn't even know what the food is called in Korean! Oh well, at least I have a good meal and can come home satisfied with another sucessful day, even if I had an unscheduled extra two hours of walking through an unfamiliar part of town. And I still managed to get some work done on my photos, although I didn't get this written because the internet was down.
Next time maybe I should take a map . . . Nah, it wouldn't be half as much fun!
Friday, January 23, 2009
The still pretty chilly not so far north
January 21st and I decided to avail myself of a useful wee product of Paul's called "Beijing by Foot". It's a set of about 50 small cards, each able to fit in a pocket, with a walking map on one side and a brief commentary on the other. Looking at two of them I saw that I could do one, go from the end of that one to Beihai Park, which borders the Forbidden City, then come back via the other that winds its way through a series of Hutongs, the little alleyways that still make up some bits of old Beijing. A Hutong is basically an alleyway normally built running East/West or North/South and often quite narrow; apparently the narrowest one in Beijing is 40cm wide in places. Along the Hutong on each side is a series of houses built around a central courtyard. In the past, these were the houses of reasonably well-to-do families but over time, population pressure, and presumably the declining fortunes of the owners, saw more and more families building dwellings within the courtyards. While crowded, the upshot of this process was a very strong sense of community where the whole Hutong was effectively a single unit of people and the idea of private outdoor space was not very relevant. As they've been replaced by highrise apartment buildings, that sense of community has gone, and is missed by many Beijingers who remember the old ways. Interestingly, the name is still used to describe a cluster of highrise buildings, built I expect, on the location of an old one of the same name.
So anyway, I set off on my walk, but started by heading in the wrong direction so took a look through the financial district instead. I came back and headed off in another, also wrong, direction. (Don't let that guy get a taxi licence!) I blame the fact that I was navigating from the start point where Fuchengmen Da Jie and the Fuchengmen Subway station exit were marked, but the subway station has four exits and there are four different bits of Fuchengmen Da Jie, North, South, Inner and Outer. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it despite any inconvenient facts to the contrary, like the fact that North was marked on the map!
Finally (after about 2 hours of wandering around other places) I figured out which way to go and got started. I went past a Buddhist temple that was begun under Kublai Khan's auspices, and a shrine to all the dead Ming Emperors, which is apparently not that interesting. I got to Beihai Park and wandered through that before getting lost (and misdirected by a soldier) trying to find the start of the route back. The map was wrong I tell you! (Actually it was). Anyway, by this time it was getting dark so I ended up wending my way home through dark alley ways where people were starting to pack up their wares etc so it was all quite interesting to do. The only annoying thing about the whole exercise, which took about 7 hours, was that at some stage I managed to injure my hamstring, although how that happened I have no idea. It was pretty sore by the end of the walk though, and I still had to go and find something to eat...
The next day was probably the worst one I've had so far. I decided to go and visit the museum of the People's Liberation Army, which is conveniently located right on a subway stop. I set out, but the wind was bitterly cold, and I didn't have my scarf or my warm hat, just a beany sort of thing. But that''s only the beginning. I got to the museum, only to find that it had closed for a week of rennovations just the day before, meaning it'll still be closed when I leave, unless the train tickets are for a later day than planned - I haven't heard from Laura yet. Anyway, undeterred, I decided I'd go to the National Museum at Tiananmen Square instead, so jumped back on the subway. I got there, only to find a security barrier all around it. It turns out that it's closed for rennovations until 2010! Grrrr. All of this while limping around with a dodgy leg. I'd thought a nice leisurely visit to a museum might be a way to give the leg a bit of work without overdoing it . . .
So since I'm in Tiananmen Sq I decide: "Oh well, I might as well go and have a gawk at the mummified remains of the Chairman." I brave the bitter North wind and walk across the virtually deserted square, only to find the staff at the Mauseleum closing up shop for the day - it turns out they are only open until midday! Defeated again, I decided it must be time to go home, thaw out, rest the sore leg, and do some research on other possibilities for tomorrow. I realised I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, but Paul had suggested grabbing something when he finished work. Unfortunately, that didn't happen until about 9.30, by which time I was getting pretty hungry. So we quickly headed down to a Cantonese place in his work building (just across the road from his apartment) to eat. Paul got called back to work - the Chinese government had released annual GDP figures and when New York woke up, they wanted more detail. So I went home by myself. I felt a bit thirsty and by nearly midnight Paul hadn't got back, so I decided the water in the "distilled water" bottle on the kitchen bench must be true to label, and drank some. It tasted a bit odd so when Paul finally got back at midnight, I asked him if it was OK water to drink. "No", he said, "It's tap water I was using to water the pot plants." Ahh, I think. Still, it's about 19 hours ago now and I still feel fine. Amoebic dysentery takes a while to incubate though. I wonder if you retain any immunity after nearly 24 years since the last bout. I think that's enough for one day . . . The leg did feel a bit better though.
The plan for today was to take it a bit quietly again to let the leg recover. Seven and a half hours of walking with only two breaks of about two minutes each wasn't quite what I had had in mind but there you go. That's what happens when you get immersed in something. I decided to have a second crack at visiting the Mauseleum, or should that be Maoseleum? I go there with time to spare after a bit of a late start, and manage to get a squiz (sp?) at the old guy. I kind of expected him to look a bit skody and moth eaten but actually he didn't look too bad for a guy who's been dead for over thirty years. It's all very serious in there; no cameras, ammunition, explosives or bags allowed! And you have to be suitably grave as you file past. Out the other side and the trinket shop is selling Maomorabilia galore, of the tackiest kind. I ducked out the door and went to reclaim my bag and camera. Kind of interesting but the whole personality cult thing just doesn't do it for me I'm afraid. Unless I'm the personality of course.
I'd got out at Qianmen (Front Gate) station at the south end of Tianenmen Sq, hoping that that would put me right at the Mauseleum, which it had, so I crossed back over the street and started down Qianmen Da Jie. Qianmen is one of the very few remaining bits of the old Beijing City wall, torn down in the 60s to allow the number two ring road to go into place. The wall was a Ming era one, designed to keep the residents safe from the ravening hordes outside Beijing -unlike Tianenmen, which was there to keep the imperial court in the Forbidden City safe from the ravening hordes inside Beijing . . .
By walking down Qianmen Da Jie, you eventually get to the Palace of Heaven, where the Emperor used to go twice a year to ask the favour of the Gods and pray for a good harvest. But walking down the street was interesting in itself. It's been turned into a pedestrian only area (although it has a - very slow - tram) and it's very up-market. But it includes restaurants that claim to have been serving roast duck there for over a century. It's entirely possible that they have too because the buildings all look like well restored buildings of substantial age. Anyway, the Heaven Temple was my destination so I continued on until I found it. It's part of a large park, with lots of other pavilions of various shapes and sizes dotted around. I found that I was easily able to wander around the place for hours, despite the cold being really penetrating, especially when I found myself in the shade and the wind at the same time. I don't know how cold it was but it was so cold that even with my gloves on and my hands in my coat pocket, my little fingers started to lose their function. If I ever go to another place as cold as this, I'll be taking a longer scarf too. The one I brought is quite thick, but not long enough to wrap around more than once, so it doesn't stay up around your face. And it really was cold, when I got back and finally remembered to have a drink of water, the water in my bottle was frozen!
I got back about 6.30 and the leg doesn't feel too bad - a bit better each day - so it's time to head out and find something hot to eat!
So anyway, I set off on my walk, but started by heading in the wrong direction so took a look through the financial district instead. I came back and headed off in another, also wrong, direction. (Don't let that guy get a taxi licence!) I blame the fact that I was navigating from the start point where Fuchengmen Da Jie and the Fuchengmen Subway station exit were marked, but the subway station has four exits and there are four different bits of Fuchengmen Da Jie, North, South, Inner and Outer. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it despite any inconvenient facts to the contrary, like the fact that North was marked on the map!
Finally (after about 2 hours of wandering around other places) I figured out which way to go and got started. I went past a Buddhist temple that was begun under Kublai Khan's auspices, and a shrine to all the dead Ming Emperors, which is apparently not that interesting. I got to Beihai Park and wandered through that before getting lost (and misdirected by a soldier) trying to find the start of the route back. The map was wrong I tell you! (Actually it was). Anyway, by this time it was getting dark so I ended up wending my way home through dark alley ways where people were starting to pack up their wares etc so it was all quite interesting to do. The only annoying thing about the whole exercise, which took about 7 hours, was that at some stage I managed to injure my hamstring, although how that happened I have no idea. It was pretty sore by the end of the walk though, and I still had to go and find something to eat...
The next day was probably the worst one I've had so far. I decided to go and visit the museum of the People's Liberation Army, which is conveniently located right on a subway stop. I set out, but the wind was bitterly cold, and I didn't have my scarf or my warm hat, just a beany sort of thing. But that''s only the beginning. I got to the museum, only to find that it had closed for a week of rennovations just the day before, meaning it'll still be closed when I leave, unless the train tickets are for a later day than planned - I haven't heard from Laura yet. Anyway, undeterred, I decided I'd go to the National Museum at Tiananmen Square instead, so jumped back on the subway. I got there, only to find a security barrier all around it. It turns out that it's closed for rennovations until 2010! Grrrr. All of this while limping around with a dodgy leg. I'd thought a nice leisurely visit to a museum might be a way to give the leg a bit of work without overdoing it . . .
So since I'm in Tiananmen Sq I decide: "Oh well, I might as well go and have a gawk at the mummified remains of the Chairman." I brave the bitter North wind and walk across the virtually deserted square, only to find the staff at the Mauseleum closing up shop for the day - it turns out they are only open until midday! Defeated again, I decided it must be time to go home, thaw out, rest the sore leg, and do some research on other possibilities for tomorrow. I realised I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, but Paul had suggested grabbing something when he finished work. Unfortunately, that didn't happen until about 9.30, by which time I was getting pretty hungry. So we quickly headed down to a Cantonese place in his work building (just across the road from his apartment) to eat. Paul got called back to work - the Chinese government had released annual GDP figures and when New York woke up, they wanted more detail. So I went home by myself. I felt a bit thirsty and by nearly midnight Paul hadn't got back, so I decided the water in the "distilled water" bottle on the kitchen bench must be true to label, and drank some. It tasted a bit odd so when Paul finally got back at midnight, I asked him if it was OK water to drink. "No", he said, "It's tap water I was using to water the pot plants." Ahh, I think. Still, it's about 19 hours ago now and I still feel fine. Amoebic dysentery takes a while to incubate though. I wonder if you retain any immunity after nearly 24 years since the last bout. I think that's enough for one day . . . The leg did feel a bit better though.
The plan for today was to take it a bit quietly again to let the leg recover. Seven and a half hours of walking with only two breaks of about two minutes each wasn't quite what I had had in mind but there you go. That's what happens when you get immersed in something. I decided to have a second crack at visiting the Mauseleum, or should that be Maoseleum? I go there with time to spare after a bit of a late start, and manage to get a squiz (sp?) at the old guy. I kind of expected him to look a bit skody and moth eaten but actually he didn't look too bad for a guy who's been dead for over thirty years. It's all very serious in there; no cameras, ammunition, explosives or bags allowed! And you have to be suitably grave as you file past. Out the other side and the trinket shop is selling Maomorabilia galore, of the tackiest kind. I ducked out the door and went to reclaim my bag and camera. Kind of interesting but the whole personality cult thing just doesn't do it for me I'm afraid. Unless I'm the personality of course.
I'd got out at Qianmen (Front Gate) station at the south end of Tianenmen Sq, hoping that that would put me right at the Mauseleum, which it had, so I crossed back over the street and started down Qianmen Da Jie. Qianmen is one of the very few remaining bits of the old Beijing City wall, torn down in the 60s to allow the number two ring road to go into place. The wall was a Ming era one, designed to keep the residents safe from the ravening hordes outside Beijing -unlike Tianenmen, which was there to keep the imperial court in the Forbidden City safe from the ravening hordes inside Beijing . . .
By walking down Qianmen Da Jie, you eventually get to the Palace of Heaven, where the Emperor used to go twice a year to ask the favour of the Gods and pray for a good harvest. But walking down the street was interesting in itself. It's been turned into a pedestrian only area (although it has a - very slow - tram) and it's very up-market. But it includes restaurants that claim to have been serving roast duck there for over a century. It's entirely possible that they have too because the buildings all look like well restored buildings of substantial age. Anyway, the Heaven Temple was my destination so I continued on until I found it. It's part of a large park, with lots of other pavilions of various shapes and sizes dotted around. I found that I was easily able to wander around the place for hours, despite the cold being really penetrating, especially when I found myself in the shade and the wind at the same time. I don't know how cold it was but it was so cold that even with my gloves on and my hands in my coat pocket, my little fingers started to lose their function. If I ever go to another place as cold as this, I'll be taking a longer scarf too. The one I brought is quite thick, but not long enough to wrap around more than once, so it doesn't stay up around your face. And it really was cold, when I got back and finally remembered to have a drink of water, the water in my bottle was frozen!
I got back about 6.30 and the leg doesn't feel too bad - a bit better each day - so it's time to head out and find something hot to eat!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Frigid North
On the 15th we took a train up to Changchun, the capital of Jiling province. It was a 6 hour train ride arriving late at night. The train was an express and very new. What this meant was that although it was clean, quiet and had comfortable seats, it was also far too hot and dry due to the air conditioning. Laura really suffered. She usually likes train travel but didn't like that journey at all. Her past experience was of older trains where there's a bit of a draft to circulate the air and you can open a window. Anyway we made it OK. Changchun's mainly an industrial town (they make cars there). As with anywhere it's the people that make the place and Laura's relations there, whom she had never met, were really welcoming and nice. The one place tourists might visit is the Imperial Palace occupied by Pu Yi when he was serving as the puppet of the Japanese. While it looks in some ways as grand as any stately mansion in Europe might, it's a far cry from the Forbidden City or other Imperial residences he would have had access to previously. Oh how the mighty are fallen. The commentary notices never let you forget that he was a Japanese puppet or that his administration were traitorous puppets too. All true of course but they lay it on a bit thick.
There's an adjoining museum to te experience of Japanese occupation of the North, including a train they dredged out of the river that was lost when the Japanese blew the bridge to set up the Manchurian Incident by framing the Chinese army and gaining a pretext to invade. I realised that I was in the area described in "The Girl Who Played Go", a novel that tells the parallel stories of a young Chinese woman and a Japanese army officer at the time of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the invasion of China. Interestingly, I was lent "Memoirs of a Geisha" to read on the plane too and it is set in Japan at the same time; nowhere near as good a book though - in fact I'm having to force myself to finish it.
From the Imperial Palace, the next day we went to a kind of recreation area that the locals use to go skiing, dog sled riding etc. I was tempted to have a ski but didn't. Given that I can't ski, all I would probably have done was curtail my trip with some kind of fracture so it was probably wise.
I inflicted more karaoke singing on Laura's unsuspecting relatives and that was it. The family had a big dinner at a restaurant to which I was invited so that was a great experience too.
On the 18th, we drove to Haerbin (Often spelt Harbin, but pronounced Ha-er-bin), reputed to be the coldest city in China and quite a long way north of North Korea. There's quite a big Korean (Chosun Nationality) minority in this region so lots of shops with signage in Korean script. The main thing about Haerbin thoug is its Russian influence. During the 19th Century, when the "Great Powers" were carving up China, Russia put a railway through to Dalian and Haerbin grew from being a small village into a busy city - a "Little Moscow" in fact. There's still a lot of Imperial Russian architecture there including an Orthodox Cathedral, St Sofia. They also have the Ice festival there at this time of year and there are Ice sculptures all over the place. There's also a Disney Ice festival with ice ships, castles etc all themed to the various Disney movies and characters.
I thought Changchun was cold (well it was actually) but Haerbin at night was the coldest I've ever experienced. If I went outside without something over my face, I'd start to feel pain around my cheekbones. Having said that though, it wasn't unbearable. There were locals however wandering around without a hat! And I did see one guy begging without a shirt on...
Seeing Changchun and Haerbin made me more sceptical than ever that the Chinese economy is really on the verge of taking over from the US; I just can't see that when you still have guys transporting stuff down the main road in a a hand cart or a mule cart. There's no doubt that the economy has boomed astronomically but it's very uneven and there are some areas lagging way behind. And I haven't vivsited any rural districts, where people have missed out entirely.
Another thing I have noticed is that for all the gains that the revolution definitely brought for women, young Chinese women seem frustratingly "girly" and subservient to their boyfriends. You'd think that with these young women often being more highly qualified than their boyfriends and with the number of young men outnumbering young women, that they'd be pushing for some real equality, but it seems to me they're trapped in a mix of traditional attitudes and an infatuation with the Western idea of "liberation" being the ability to buy fashion accessories. Althoug I've seen hints of this with my students in New Zealand, it seems more predominant than I had expected, and it's reflected in Chinese TV depictions of relationships too. Women act giggly, petulent and helpless without "their man". Maybe I was expecting too much but I thought that some vestige of revolutionary consciousness amongst Chinese mothers might have rubbed off on the new generation, but it appears not to be the case.
Anyway, I'm back in Beijing for a few days by myself - Laura's off to Xi'an for her Grandfather's birthday, and then I'm meeting her there around the 26th, depending on availability of train tickets. The train trip back from Changchun was better - two hour slower but overnight in a sleeping compartment, and the air-conditioning set cooler. The same price as the express but I'd take the slower option with a bunk any day.
Going up north in winter was an experience well worth doing. I've never experienced that sort of cold before - the snow wasn't really snow, it was small flakes of ice - and may never again.I never got a chance to use an internet cafe while I was in the North but in Beijing, it will be easier for me to do another uppate soon. I'm going to spend the day walking around the neighbourhood; it's an old part of Beijing that's been settled since at least Yuan Dynasty (Kublai Khan's) times.
There's an adjoining museum to te experience of Japanese occupation of the North, including a train they dredged out of the river that was lost when the Japanese blew the bridge to set up the Manchurian Incident by framing the Chinese army and gaining a pretext to invade. I realised that I was in the area described in "The Girl Who Played Go", a novel that tells the parallel stories of a young Chinese woman and a Japanese army officer at the time of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the invasion of China. Interestingly, I was lent "Memoirs of a Geisha" to read on the plane too and it is set in Japan at the same time; nowhere near as good a book though - in fact I'm having to force myself to finish it.
From the Imperial Palace, the next day we went to a kind of recreation area that the locals use to go skiing, dog sled riding etc. I was tempted to have a ski but didn't. Given that I can't ski, all I would probably have done was curtail my trip with some kind of fracture so it was probably wise.
I inflicted more karaoke singing on Laura's unsuspecting relatives and that was it. The family had a big dinner at a restaurant to which I was invited so that was a great experience too.
On the 18th, we drove to Haerbin (Often spelt Harbin, but pronounced Ha-er-bin), reputed to be the coldest city in China and quite a long way north of North Korea. There's quite a big Korean (Chosun Nationality) minority in this region so lots of shops with signage in Korean script. The main thing about Haerbin thoug is its Russian influence. During the 19th Century, when the "Great Powers" were carving up China, Russia put a railway through to Dalian and Haerbin grew from being a small village into a busy city - a "Little Moscow" in fact. There's still a lot of Imperial Russian architecture there including an Orthodox Cathedral, St Sofia. They also have the Ice festival there at this time of year and there are Ice sculptures all over the place. There's also a Disney Ice festival with ice ships, castles etc all themed to the various Disney movies and characters.
I thought Changchun was cold (well it was actually) but Haerbin at night was the coldest I've ever experienced. If I went outside without something over my face, I'd start to feel pain around my cheekbones. Having said that though, it wasn't unbearable. There were locals however wandering around without a hat! And I did see one guy begging without a shirt on...
Seeing Changchun and Haerbin made me more sceptical than ever that the Chinese economy is really on the verge of taking over from the US; I just can't see that when you still have guys transporting stuff down the main road in a a hand cart or a mule cart. There's no doubt that the economy has boomed astronomically but it's very uneven and there are some areas lagging way behind. And I haven't vivsited any rural districts, where people have missed out entirely.
Another thing I have noticed is that for all the gains that the revolution definitely brought for women, young Chinese women seem frustratingly "girly" and subservient to their boyfriends. You'd think that with these young women often being more highly qualified than their boyfriends and with the number of young men outnumbering young women, that they'd be pushing for some real equality, but it seems to me they're trapped in a mix of traditional attitudes and an infatuation with the Western idea of "liberation" being the ability to buy fashion accessories. Althoug I've seen hints of this with my students in New Zealand, it seems more predominant than I had expected, and it's reflected in Chinese TV depictions of relationships too. Women act giggly, petulent and helpless without "their man". Maybe I was expecting too much but I thought that some vestige of revolutionary consciousness amongst Chinese mothers might have rubbed off on the new generation, but it appears not to be the case.
Anyway, I'm back in Beijing for a few days by myself - Laura's off to Xi'an for her Grandfather's birthday, and then I'm meeting her there around the 26th, depending on availability of train tickets. The train trip back from Changchun was better - two hour slower but overnight in a sleeping compartment, and the air-conditioning set cooler. The same price as the express but I'd take the slower option with a bunk any day.
Going up north in winter was an experience well worth doing. I've never experienced that sort of cold before - the snow wasn't really snow, it was small flakes of ice - and may never again.I never got a chance to use an internet cafe while I was in the North but in Beijing, it will be easier for me to do another uppate soon. I'm going to spend the day walking around the neighbourhood; it's an old part of Beijing that's been settled since at least Yuan Dynasty (Kublai Khan's) times.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Beijing
Tuesday saw us heading off to Mutianyu to see the wall. It's a reasonably accessable section but not as heavily visited as Badaling where most tours go. As it turned out it was a good choice. The place was virtually deserted so it was easy to wander around looking at things without having to queue for everything. In fact often there was nobody else in sight at all. It is a pretty stunning piece of engineering and an amazing testament to people's ability to achieve great things; pretty inspiring really. Of course the Mongols could, and did breach the wall plenty of times so I think it was more a statement of imperial power (and a warning not too get uppity) than a real military boundary.
After that expedition we got to eat dinner for free at one of Beijing's most up-market restaurants - something I never expected to be doing and which will probably never happen to me again . . . It all came courtesy of Paul's work. A client for the company he works for wanted a list of good restaurants and Paul had to check some out! The food was pretty yummy!
Wednesday had us heading down to see the Forbidden City, an exercise that took all day. There are about 9000 rooms in the whole complex and it's all pretty surreal but again, an amazing accomplishment. The decadence is hard to take in.
We had dinner with an old friend of Laura's and then went from the sublime to the ridiculous by heading to a Karaoke bar where Laura and her friend were subjected to intermittent doses of my unimpressive vocal prowess.
Tomorow we head to Changchun, where the last Emperor had his residence as a puppet of the Japanese. At -19C it'll be an interesting experience for us.
So far although it has been cold, it has been gloriously clear and easily bearable. I'll be reaching for the gloves tomorrow evening though when we get off the train.
After that expedition we got to eat dinner for free at one of Beijing's most up-market restaurants - something I never expected to be doing and which will probably never happen to me again . . . It all came courtesy of Paul's work. A client for the company he works for wanted a list of good restaurants and Paul had to check some out! The food was pretty yummy!
Wednesday had us heading down to see the Forbidden City, an exercise that took all day. There are about 9000 rooms in the whole complex and it's all pretty surreal but again, an amazing accomplishment. The decadence is hard to take in.
We had dinner with an old friend of Laura's and then went from the sublime to the ridiculous by heading to a Karaoke bar where Laura and her friend were subjected to intermittent doses of my unimpressive vocal prowess.
Tomorow we head to Changchun, where the last Emperor had his residence as a puppet of the Japanese. At -19C it'll be an interesting experience for us.
So far although it has been cold, it has been gloriously clear and easily bearable. I'll be reaching for the gloves tomorrow evening though when we get off the train.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Let the fun begin!
Well, I've arrived fit and well so that's good I suppose. The flight to Hong Kong was uneventful but I did have to avoid watching HellBoy II about three times during the 11 hours as the young Chinese woman beside me surfed the inflight movies - it just wouldn't be the same watching it on such a tiny screen. The only annoying thing is that I haven't managed to organise a phone yet.
The flight to Beijing was delayed but again uneventful. Chinese customs was singularly uninterested in me and my luggage ended up ariving on the same plane as me. So far so good. Now can I find Laura in the sea of Chinese humanity thronging the Beijing International terminal or Paul, whom I'd met once about 8 years ago? Actually, yes I could. There was no teeming throng of humanity; the airport may be huge but it turned out to be about as busy at that time of night as Christchurch International Airport, and Laura had already managed to find and intrroduce herself to Paul. In fact by the time I arrived, I'm pretty sure she knew more about him than I do! I got to bed about midnight, which of course was 5am New Zealand time . . .
Monday saw us jumping on the subway and heading off to look at the Olympic stadia. Laura's pretty much redundant now as the subway is unbelievably easy to use. (I've told her that!) We went into the Birdnest and the water cube. The birdsnest is cool, it's quite a sight, even for my architecturally untrained eye. The cube is more weird; it looks like it's made of thick plastic skinned bubbles, but in fact it's made of thin plastic skinned bubbles - 0.2mm thin in fact. I'd be surprised if it takes off as a building technique; it seems more like a curiosity with the method featuring more as a component than as a whole building. It does enable buildings to go up with a very light frame though.
We had lunch in a sort of snack area in the middle of town and headed to Tiananmen Sq just in time to inadvertently witness the lowering of the flag, which is a daily ceremony in Beijing.
I'd have to say I haven't seen too much evidence of socialism in action! The place seems to be run on entirely capitalist lines to me . . .
I don't have a camera yet so photos will have to wait for later as they are all on Laura's camera and it is morning in Beijing, so the chance of Laura being awake are approaching zero. But at least I've figured out how to navigate the Chinese icons to update the blog so that's progress.
Today we're off to see the wall - yes, I'll be banging on Laura's door soon to wake her up. Predictably, the alarm does not seem to have functioned as intended . . .
The flight to Beijing was delayed but again uneventful. Chinese customs was singularly uninterested in me and my luggage ended up ariving on the same plane as me. So far so good. Now can I find Laura in the sea of Chinese humanity thronging the Beijing International terminal or Paul, whom I'd met once about 8 years ago? Actually, yes I could. There was no teeming throng of humanity; the airport may be huge but it turned out to be about as busy at that time of night as Christchurch International Airport, and Laura had already managed to find and intrroduce herself to Paul. In fact by the time I arrived, I'm pretty sure she knew more about him than I do! I got to bed about midnight, which of course was 5am New Zealand time . . .
Monday saw us jumping on the subway and heading off to look at the Olympic stadia. Laura's pretty much redundant now as the subway is unbelievably easy to use. (I've told her that!) We went into the Birdnest and the water cube. The birdsnest is cool, it's quite a sight, even for my architecturally untrained eye. The cube is more weird; it looks like it's made of thick plastic skinned bubbles, but in fact it's made of thin plastic skinned bubbles - 0.2mm thin in fact. I'd be surprised if it takes off as a building technique; it seems more like a curiosity with the method featuring more as a component than as a whole building. It does enable buildings to go up with a very light frame though.
We had lunch in a sort of snack area in the middle of town and headed to Tiananmen Sq just in time to inadvertently witness the lowering of the flag, which is a daily ceremony in Beijing.
I'd have to say I haven't seen too much evidence of socialism in action! The place seems to be run on entirely capitalist lines to me . . .
I don't have a camera yet so photos will have to wait for later as they are all on Laura's camera and it is morning in Beijing, so the chance of Laura being awake are approaching zero. But at least I've figured out how to navigate the Chinese icons to update the blog so that's progress.
Today we're off to see the wall - yes, I'll be banging on Laura's door soon to wake her up. Predictably, the alarm does not seem to have functioned as intended . . .
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