China 2009, Part 4

Part 4 of our June 2009 trip to China with the Speizmans.

Thursday, June 11 – Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Shopping

I woke up early and took a walk on my own for an hour or so to take some pictures and see a bit more of Tiananmen Square and a few blocks beyond. Chang’an Avenue in front of the hotel was amazingly quiet for a Wednesday morning at what should have been rush hour. I knew authorities restricted vehicle traffic in the inner core of Beijing but this was astonishing. In years past there had always been a steady stream of official cars and especially bicycles.

Many chunks of the sidewalk were removed for repairs, though no one was working at that hour. I figured this street already scrubbed and polished for the Olympics the year before so I was surprised to see so much of it needing repairs. But I don’t really know what they were up to, do I?

There was a bit more traffic as I approached Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen itself was also quiet and actually looked quite lovely with its splash of green lawn. I strove for some artistic shots.

Just beyond the Great Hall of the People there loomed the new Opera House, or officially the National Centre for the Performing Arts. This space ship of a building opened in 2007, an interesting and quite beautiful design but looked completely out of place on the edge of Tiananmen Square. I had not seen pictures of it before and did not expect to see anything like it so close to China’s cultural ground zero. I passed it first from the north side of Chang’an Avenue then later crossed the street for a closer look.

The west side of the Forbidden City is adjacent to the Zhongnanhai compound that houses the offices and residences of Communist Party officials. It’s generally off limits to tourists. I was able to get one photo of police/military officers on a “fun run” along the outside walls of the Forbidden City on Nanchang Street leading into Zhongnanhai.

I went a couple of blocks further on Chang’an before crossing and heading back. I suppose before the Giant Egg of the National Centre for the Performing Arts opened, Beijing’s premier concert facility was the considerably less imposing Beijing Concert Hall built in 1985 but looking 20 years older, at least. The latter looked like a

I took a closer look at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. It was even prettier with the reflecting pool surrounding it like a glassy moat. I circumnavigated the giant space pod, snapping photos from many angles. I found the building fascinating but profoundly odd, a metaphor of some sort for modern China.

I returned back to the hotel, ready to officially start our day of touring. I enjoyed my little jaunt on my own.

The official itinerary for the day included visits to the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, and some time for shopping.

We drove to the Summer Palace, some 20 kilometers to the northwest of Beijing through thick traffic. As we sat in the jam I began to realize that most of the drivers of all these cars and trucks were technically still learners. They had not grown up riding or driving in cars; most of them had only been behind the wheel for a few months or few years at best. The fact that traffic moved at all was a small miracle. On the other hand, traffic fatalities in China were among the highest rates in the world. I was glad when we arrived safely at the Summer Palace and wary for the rest of the trip each time we were in a vehicle.

Our guide, Henry, was with us for this final day in Beijing. I was pretty sure he was required to file a report each day on our doings, and I’m pretty sure there’s still a report on me somewhere in China’s vast archives. The Chinese government probably has a bigger file on me than the U.S. government…but none so vast as Google or Apple.

Barb and I had been to the Summer Palace in 1988 on our tour with Kate. I mainly remembered the Marble Boat and looked forward to seeing it again. The palace site has imperial connections going back more than a millennium but was notably rebuilt by the Empress Dowager Cixi in the late 1800s after parts of the palace were destroyed by the British (under Lord Elgin, son of the Elgin Marbles fellow; this is the one that added the Kowloon peninsula to the British colony of Hong Kong Island) in the Second Opium War.

First we made our way through the very busy entrance area. When we visited in 1988 the palace was undergoing renovations, especially repainting. It was good to see the buildings still looking vibrantly colorful. There were many more Chinese tourists, presumably from other parts of China, than I recall seeing in the the 1980s. This was entirely appropriate and reflected both a loosening of restrictions and the rise of a more affluent middle class that could afford to travel. The quantity and mix of Chinese tourists was more pronounced and noticeable at the Summer Palace than it had been at the Forbidden City or the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.

Our first stop was the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity which was the main building for government activities when the Emperor or Empress were in residence. We took note to take care of the cultural relics and the railing which evidently were of equal importance.

We went through the carriage house with antique cars, carriages and sedan chairs. Unlike the refreshed buildings themselves, many of these artifacts seemed untouched (and undusted) from the Dowager Empress’s day.

There was a demonstration of Beijing Opera at one of the pavilions. We didn’t stay for it very long…not my most favorite form of entertainment and we had lots of other things to see.

There was a bit of a museum exhibit including many photos of the Dowager Empress and her court. These were fascinating but there was not much explanation of the different photos and artifacts, nor could Henry add much depth.

We came to a room where we were invited to try on Imperial style robes for photo opportunities. Allie and Sydney were up for it and we were happy enough to take their pictures. I was glad that the adults passed on the opportunity. I was still embarrassed that Barb and I fell for this type of cultural appropriation/ridicule back in 1988 in Hangzhou. Not to mention Barb was very suspicious there would be lice or other critters in these robes and headdresses. But the girls survived.

We headed onward through the gardens of the Summer Palace toward Kunming Lake, including a stroll through the Long Corridor, an open-air hallway of painted scenes from Chinese literature and mythology. The Long Corridor was somehow less impressive this time than in 1988, possibly because it was more crowded and hard to take in the length of the walkway at once. Or maybe because Henry wasn’t much help explaining the various stories depicted on archways.

I snapped a photo of a round Moon Gate we passed. There was no signage for it nor any explanation from Henry. I took note because I’d always thought Moon gates were central motifs in Chinese garden designs, yet here we were in one of the leading imperial Chinese gardens and there was no emphasis on them at all. Nor have I been able to find much about them today, so maybe it was just another of my romantic misconceptions about China and its culture.

Along the way, we encountered an odd animal sculpture that caught my eye and then those of the rest of our crew. Was it a chicken? A pig? A cat (it resembled some of our fat boys)? I don’t think Henry could muster much of an explanation.

We finally made it to the Marble Boat. I must admit it looked much smaller and more ordinary and dingy than my memories from 1988. Having the little police boat or whatever it was tied up alongside didn’t help. We snapped some photos and clambered aboard briefly but there simply wasn’t much to it. Memories are a funny thing.

Our few hours at the Summer Palace at an end, we headed back to our car then drove through traffic again south beyond Tiananmen to the Temple of Heaven. This was our last stop with Henry and by now he was pretty much emptied of narratives or guidance. He got us in the park but we were mostly on our own. We started at the Circular Mound and took turns standing on the Heart of Heaven which Henry postulated was something like Heaven’s Bellybutton, the center of the heavens. It was all quite mystical, and I don’t think Henry got into much detail about the intricate numerology and emphasis on the number 9 built into the whole structure. We just had fun standing on the bellybutton.

We stepped northward to the Imperial Vault of Heaven building, following the route reserved for Emperors a century before.

We made our way to the Hall of Prayers for Good Harvest, the three-story pagoda at the heart of the complex. We were getting weary and stopped to rest in the shade for a bit before completing our touristing duties. I’m afraid we didn’t learn as much about this complex as we should have, but we took a bunch of photos nonetheless. I had not been to the Temple of Heaven on my previous visits to Beijing so I probably should have paid more attention but we were getting pretty worn out. Here is a site that offers a lot more detail, if you or I want to delve into it (I admit I have not, yet).

Also in the Temple of Heaven complex were the Seven Star Stones which again hold a lot more symbolism than I was prepared to absorb. Now I know that it was not only a representation of the Tai Shan mountains, it was also a representation of China and its ethnic groups…with one stone added later for the Manchus.

We exited the Temple of Heaven into a green, shaded park that actually revitalized us a bit. While in the park, we encountered a group of women dancing for exercise. Barb was motivated to join right in.

We needed to get through the park to a shopping opportunity, the Hongqiao Market which includes the so-called “pearl market” of Beijing. Barb was eager to shop at Ru Pei Pei (TripAdvisor), one of many specialty pearl stores in the market. I’m not sure exactly how she came to know that this was the place one had to go, but it was proved to be the right spot. Many pearls were chosen and Barb made sure to return with Leslie in 2003.

I have another specific Beijing memory but I’m hard-pressed to figure out exactly when it happened. Barb and Faith wanted to visit the Beijing Silk Market which used to be an open air market (Mrs. Ireland took us there in 1988) but which had been converted into a multistory mall of stalls. I looked on a map and it seemed to be just five or six blocks east of our hotel down Chang’an Boulevard. I convinced everyone to walk so we set out together. What I didn’t realize was that the modern Beijing blocks were like a quarter-mile each. We walked and walked and walked through a section of Chang’an that was mostly large government and financial buildings…not the most interesting pedestrian stroll. It turned into our own long march and it was not easy to just bail out and flag down a cab. We finally made it, but the multistory mall was a disappointment and not terribly interesting. I think the ladies ended up buying various souvenirs and gifts but it was an exhausting and sweat-soaked experience for me. I recall we took a break and got a snack of dumplings and beer at a streetside restaurant. That helped brighten my mood and we were able to find a taxi back to the hotel. I was not allowed to suggest walks after that.

We had one last, memorable meal in Beijing. Rick picked out the LAN Club, a behemoth of a restaurant, club, lounge and VIP entertainment center with an over the top design by Philippe Starck. We really didn’t know what we were getting in for when Rick made the reservation. The restaurant was on the 4th floor of a modern office building not far from the Silk Market (now I wonder if we went straight there from the market or went back to the hotel to change — I guess it hardly matters now). When we arrived, we were all impressed by the stream of very expensive cars pulling up to let out a stream of very long-legged gorgeous Chinese women/models accompanied by a variety of froggish middle-aged Chinese and European men. It looked like a convention of gangsters and investment bankers (same thing?) with their hired ladies for the night. We felt shabby in our tourist garb as we rode up in the elevator with a few of them, too intimidated to speak. It was good for both of us that we were ushered into a separate area of the restaurant while they headed off to the club or god knows where.

The restaurant itself was a riot of decadently outfitted rooms with all flavors of European and Chinese art, including paintings mounted on the ceiling. The menu was likewise a hodgepodge of Western and Asian fusion dishes. I can’t remember all that we ordered but the highlight was a Szechuan Chicken that arrived with an equal amount of chicken and fried red chili peppers. It was so hot none of us, not even Rick or I, could handle more than a mouthful. Barb could not abide wasting an entire dish so she spent a very long time individually picking out the peppers and isolating the chicken. Rick was amazed she had the patience and willfulness to do this, but by the time she was done we could actually stomach some of the chicken without the peppers…and it was pretty tasty. This was the most expensive meal we had in China and it was the oddest.

Next Post: China 2009, Part 5