We're going to CHIII-NA! We're going to CHIII-NA!! We're going to CHIII-NA!! Woo-Hoo!!!! I can't believe that we are going to China!!! That's basically how I felt during the entire planning process. I finally decided on a company called "Travel China Guide". We picked their 12 day tour: Beijing, Xian, Chongqing, Yangtze River Cruise, Yichang, Shanghai.
We left Singapore on Tuesday, Oct. 11. Changed planes in Guangzhou (population aprox. 13 million – remember that TN’s population is about 6 million) , and landed in Beijing (population aprox. 20 million!) around 10p.m.
In Guangzhou, we began to learn a little about Chinese customs and behavior. We had to go through customs and immigration and then hand our bags back over to the airline. We did the first two and then found the line for handing bags in. At first we waited patiently in line, then people kept jumping in front of us (sometimes using elbows if necessary). Finally I told Scott to just jump up there next. We did get our bags in, but we felt very rude behaving the way everyone else was. The same thing happened getting out of that line and past the next ‘bottleneck’. At first we thought we were just in the midst of a bunch of Chinese yankees or something. But later in the trip we figured out this was more normal than unusual.
Anyway, we made it to Beijing (whose name means “Northern Capital”, and is sometimes called Peking by outsiders) and drove 45 min. or so to the Holiday Inn Central Plaza. The name makes it sound like it’s right in the middle of downtown or something, but the neighborhood was quiet and humdrum. We ended up not going out of the hotel to explore the neighborhood at all.
Wednesday, Oct. 12: We got up early, ate breakfast at the hotel (buffet of Asian and Western foods), met the guide in the lobby and headed for Tiananmen Square. We noticed something that we couldn’t see the night before: smog. Beijing and lots of other places in China have a terrible smog problem. It reminded me of Los Angeles in the 1970’s (granted, I was never there, but I’ve seen pictures and heard stories). Frankly, it was very depressing. I read that 30% of Chinese people die from lung disease or lung cancer. I can believe it after seeing the smog. Adam had an allergic reaction to it and his eyes were looking bad. I noticed when I blew my nose that there were black flecks in the tissue. Not good. For the first time in my life I thought the EPA might not be entirely evil. The visibility was cut to about ½ mile. Ugh. You can see the haze in the pictures.
So we arrived at TianAnMen Square. First of all, this place is HUGE. It is something like 880m x 500m which is roughly ½ mile by 1/3 mile of wide open space in the middle of a huge city. Surrounding the square are large and important buildings like the National Museum, the Forbidden City, Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, and the Great Hall of the People. You have to go through an airport-type security check to get in, and there are security cameras everywhere literally on every lamppost. There were definitely a lot of soldiers there keeping an eye on things. I had planned to ask the guide if we could see Chaiman Mao’s body, (I saw Lenin’s body in Moscow, and thought it would only be appropriate to add Mao to my ‘dead foreign dictator’s bodies’ count.) but when we got there at 8:30 in the morning there were already thousands of Chinese people in line to do that. She said they start lining up at like 4:30a.m. or so. Clearly the line was several hours long and we didn’t want to spend that much time to do it. But maybe some day…. By the way, I think most Americans do not understand how the Chinese feel about Chairman Mao. We tend to think of him as a crazy man who killed off millions of his own people and lump him in with Stalin or Lenin. This is radically different from how the Chinese see him. The Chinese people LOVE Chairman Mao. He is their George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. They are fond of saying something like ‘Chairman Mao made some mistakes, but overall he was very good.’ “Mao was a great soldier and military genius, but not as good at running a country” Or “Mao was right 70% of the time.” (Never mind that his ‘mistakes’ killed millions!) So, yes the propaganda machine is alive and well in China. I’ve been told (and couldn’t verify because of the long line) that in his mausoleum/museum, there is almost no mention or picture of his wife. It seems that she is blamed for Mao’s ‘mistakes’ and is truly vilified by the Chinese people. (O.k., yeah she deserves it, but it’s amazing how Mao gets away with stuff.)
From there we went under the street to the gate of the Forbidden City. Going through the tunnel impressed us again with just how many people are in China! Most of the tourists we saw were Chinese. Only occasionally in Beijing did we pass a small group of foreigners. Tiananmen Square, the tunnel, the entrance to the Forbidden City as well as the Forbidden City itself were all jam-packed with people. It felt like we’d picked a bad day or a bad time to come, but our guide said it was like that all day everyday.
Here is an excellent link to learn about the Forbidden City (aka Imperial Palace Museum). Click on the labeled names to see pictures and descriptions.
http://www.drben.net/ChinaReport/Beijing/MapsofBeijing/Forbidden_City-Gugong_Maps/ForbiddenCityMap1.html
The Forbidden City is every bit as cool as you think it will be. First of all it’s also gi-normous. It covers 7,800,000 sq. ft.! Like many of the touristy things I’ve gotten to do, I’d like to have a lot more time in the Forbidden City. (Maybe the day after I stand in line to see Mao….) There is a prescribed route that 99% of the tourists take straight through the F.C. We started at that famous gate with Chairman Mao’s picture above it. That gate is known as the “Gate of Heavenly Peace” or “Tian An Men” (Tian = heaven, An= peace, men = gate) Next you walk through a wide and long courtyard. At the other end of the courtyard, maybe 200 yards away is the next gate called DuAnMen. After you walk through there, there’s an even bigger square or courtyard that extends down to the actual gates of the Forbidden City. Nowadays this space is filled with souvenir hawkers. We bought (and I kid you not): a knock off pair of sunglasses, a hat shaped like a panda, a Chairman Mao army cap, a cheap glass necklace, and a small China flag on a stick. Hey. We know how to do this tourist thing! I’m sure our guide was rolling her eyes and dreading the rest of the day already.
To go through the next gate (the WuMen) as a commoner in ancient times meant you would be killed. This gate is where the emperor would make announcements or ‘interact’ with the people on special occasions. Kind of like that balcony where British royalty wave at the crowds.
At this point I should mention that Erin decided not to shave for our entire trip. The photo shows 2 days of not shaving.
Now you get into the more beautiful parts of the F.C. We crossed over the bridges over a small stream (The WuMen is where you cross the moat.), and then through the beautiful Gate of Supreme Harmony.
Crossing the bridge we saw the cutest little kid. I said “Your son is very cute” in Chinese to his Mom and she asked if she could take a picture of my boys with her son. So this would be a good place to tell you about what is now known in our family as “car wreck”. Erin said he was going to nickname Owen “car wreck” because everywhere we went in China people stopped and stared at him. This experience truly was like escorting a couple of movie stars around. Owen and Adam both got a LOT of attention from the Chinese. (Hannah doesn’t like attention anyway and didn’t seem too put off by the Chinese preference for boys.) Normally we didn’t walk more than a hundred yards or so without a group of people either asking for a photo with the boys, taking photos without asking (rare), or pointing and smiling. Owen eventually got annoyed with the whole thing and started wearing his hood up over his hair – which effectively put all the attention on Adam who didn’t mind. (BTW, I LOVE this boy’s boots [you can see them in the photo on my facebook page) and spent the rest of the trip on the lookout for a pair in my size. I found some for $2000, but obviously I’m still looking. Maybe with fake fur…..)
The Gate of Supreme Harmony is where I first fell in love with the ancient Chinese style of painting the entryways and ceilings. Check this out:
I’ve got to work that in to some part of my house so I can just sit and stare at it.
After you get through the Gate of Supreme Harmony you come to the big Harmony Square, which is where all those movies of the F.C. are filmed. (Shanghai Noon comes to mind. Yeah, I’m goofy.) This is a very large square, which would hold 90,000-100,000 officials for ceremonies. I can believe it, but it would be crowded.
So, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is probably the main attraction of the F.C. It’s very beautiful to say the least. You can just imagine the emperor sitting in there in all his glory. But first you have to make it into and out of “THE SCRUM”. At least that’s what I called it. Remember how I said the Chinese people at the airport weren’t afraid to throw around some elbows? Well…. I wanted to see this throne room, but there was a very tight pack of about 30 people fighting for a view. I stood and watched for a little while and it was not getting any better. Now in Europe people would’ve lined up and walked past in some sort of orderly fashion. But we ain’t in Europe, honey. Owen wanted to see it too and I said, “well, why not, let’s go for it”. We started pushing and generally being as rude as those around us. At one point I got genuinely scared for Owen’s safety. He got separated from me by a thickness of one person, which in that scrum was a lot, -with a potential for even more separation. Plus the pushers weren’t looking for short people at all. All joking aside, if he had gotten knocked down he would’ve been seriously injured. The potential for a soccer-crowd-style trampling was very high. But we did make it to the rail, and snapped some pictures of the throne room as proof. Fortunately, there was a Chinese man in there with us who also thought the whole scrum was ridiculous. He decided he was going to get out quickly. He used the “raise both arms, yell and run” technique. I yelled, “Follow your blocker, Owen!!!” and we went in his wake. We came out doubled over laughing. The whole thing was so ridiculous. I wish I’d thought to take a picture of that scrum. Adam took a far away picture, but you can’t tell the scrum is there. The doorway of interest is directly under the blue-background characters. You can make out the people at the back of the scrum with their cameras raised. (wimps)
So after the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the “Hall of medium Harmony” just doesn’t have the same panache –huh? We did see some more beautiful buildings in the F.C., but honestly, in my mind they all sort of blur together. After a few more truly amazing buildings and huge marble slabs with carvings (including the famous one that’s 16 meters long, 3 meters wide and 1.7 meters thick!!) we got off the main tourist trail and went down some quiet corridors to see some of the treasures. We saw some beautiful gold things and silk robes and a pair of silk slippers for some poor woman whose feet had been bound.
We did some more shopping at the gift shops near the back of the F.C. These were much more upscale than the panda hat touting places at the front. I bought my Christmas present there…..
(picture on facebook)
Near the end of the tourist trail you come to the Imperial Gardens. This was our first encounter with traditional Chinese Gardens, and it wasn’t all what I expected. There were not many flowers (o.k. it was October, so that’s to be expected), but there were many rocks. So this is one area where the general Chinese population (or at least Ancient Chinese Emperor’s) and I have a difference in taste. I can appreciate that these rocks are BIG and that they have unusual holes in them. But I can’t appreciate them enough to say that I want a huge one in my backyard. But these rocks were prominent in many places we saw in China and the Chinese people were all getting their pictures made in front of them. Hmm. After the exit, we walked past the moat and encountered our first Chinese gauntlet. (See Cambodian blog) These guys had Chairman Mao’s little red book, more panda hats, more Chairman Mao hats, etc. etc. Why do they think we want another panda hat when we clearly have a kid wearing one now?!? Go figure.
So after this we went to XiHe YaJu Restaurant. You’ll be wanting to write that down in case you ever go to Beijing. Call ahead and tell them you want the roast duck or “Kao Ya” because it takes about 40 minutes to prepare. Ours was ready about 10 min. after we got there. Let me just say…. YUM!!! I learned on this trip that duck is my favorite meat. We talked about how the food in Cambodia and Thailand was good, but not something we looked forward to necessarily. The food on this trip was an unexpected highlight! We live in Singapore, so there is Chinese food everywhere. But we don’t necessarily know where to go to get the non-seafood variety. If you want stir fry here or even fried rice, it’s going to have shrimp in it. But where we went in China, seafood was more rare and more expensive. Yea. Anyway, back to the roast duck. They brought it out and sliced off the papery-thin skin and we dipped it in blueberry sauce (sorta like blueberry pancake syrup) or crystal sugar. Very good. Adam thought it was greasy, but I thought that was the point. ☺ Then they sliced up the duck meat and we put it in papery thin crepes and rolled it up with onion or cucumber with a little soy-type sauce inside. I don’t remember how many of those I ate, but I’m wishing for some right now! Our guide told us we should order a few more dishes because there were five of us and the duck wouldn’t be enough. She was right, but we over ordered. Our tour price included 150yuan each for this meal, which is crazy because the average plate of stir fry chicken with veggies for two people was like 48 yuan. We ordered peanuts, spring rolls, beef with sesame seeds, and green beans, and probably something else that I can’t remember. They asked if we wanted the duck bones put in a soup and we said, sure. Oh, how we ate! And we left food on the table, which should be classified as a crime. Erin and I were working hard in our minds at how we could take the leftovers with us for later. But our hotel rooms didn’t have a microwave, so we didn’t want to eat spoiled meat after 24 hours. Sigh. I HATED leaving that food there. It was soooo good.
After lunch we went to the “Temple of Heaven”. Here’s a quote from the Wikipedia article: The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations..." as the "symbolic layout and design of the Temple of Heaven had a profound influence on architecture and planning in the Far East over many centuries."[2]
The basic idea is that the earth is square and heaven is round. So the temple of heaven, (which is round) sits on the square marble platform (representing the earth). In the Temple complex there is an area known as the ‘echo wall’. Inside the wall are three buildings, and a couple hundred people milling around. So this ain’t no little dome echo chamber we’re talkin’ ‘bout here. We split our group and my half went right and Erin’s half went left. We whispered, talked, and finally I shouted, “echo!” At one point I thought I heard Adam’s voice say something. After a bit, we walked around and found Erin’s group. He said, “did you say “echo”? He’d heard me! Cool.
The Circular Mound Altar (圜丘坛) is the altar proper, located south of the Imperial Vault of Heaven. It is an empty circular platform on three levels of marble stones, each decorated by lavishly carved dragons. The numbers of various elements of the Altar, including its balusters and steps, are either the sacred number nine or its nonuples. The center of the altar is a round slate called the Heart of Heaven(天心石) or the Supreme Yang(太阳石), where the Emperor prayed for favorable weather. Thanks to the design of the altar, the sound of the prayer will be reflected by the guardrail, creating significant resonance, which was supposed to help the prayer communicate with the Heaven. The Altar was built in 1530 by the Jiajing Emperor and rebuilt in 1740.
So the kids fought their way through to stand on the middle stone and raise their arms in the air (that’s what all the Chinese people did when they stood on it, so why not?). The rudeness was disappointing, because the kids had stood in line for a while with other Chinese people. When the rude ones showed up and jumped line, the polite Chinese people told them there was a line, but they ignored the line and just jumped up on the stone anyway. At that point I told the kids , “When in Rome….” Like Wikipedia says, the number 9 was everywhere. It was the emperor’s special number. Multiples of 9 were used whenever 9 wasn’t practical. No way was anyone going to hear an echo in that place because there were just too many people.
On the way back to the van, we passed a man practicing his calligraphy. He had a set of special brushes and was just using water and the walkway. I have studied calligraphy long enough (it took about 2 weeks) to figure out that this is really hard – it is truly an art. He was just writing away like it was nothing. I’m so impressed by this. He offered Owen the brush (see “car wreck” above), but Owen turned it down. I wish I’d given it a try, just so all the Chinese people standing there would go , “oooh, an American who can write Chinese!” I would’ve written, “I am American. I know how to write some Chinese Characters”. But the opportunity slipped away forever.
After the Temple of Heaven we were driven to the Legend of Kung Fu show. It was a cool show with lots of acrobatics. The boys loved it and the girls were impressed with the skill level as well. There were a couple of times when the “monks” in the show snuck up on us in the audience. They’d turn the lights on and there was a monk standing next to us!
After the show we were, in theory, supposed to go on our own to get supper, but we were so tired from all the walking that we just wanted to sit. So we went to the little café inside the hotel and bought desserts to share. We ate them while we watched gymnastics on t.v. (world championships??)
Thursday, Oct. 13. We ate breakfast at the hotel and met our guide at 9:30 and drove out toward the Ming Tombs and the MutTianYu section of the Great Wall. The first thing we noticed was that the rain over night had killed off most of the smog. Woo-Hoo! Beijing was actually pretty under a bright blue sky. We had to drive quite a ways. On the way we stopped at a jade factory. We all knew that this was a tourist set up, but it was still very cool. We fell for the line that this place had better quality jade with better quality carving. We watched them carving the “Happy Family Ball” which we eventually bought a sample of. So this would be a good place to talk about the superstitions of the Chinese people. At the jade factory, we were encouraged to buy this particular animal or symbol because it means ‘good fortune’ or ‘prosperity’ or ‘longevity’. Now I understand that Westerners like four leaf clovers and rabbit’s feet etc. But the average person does not buy a piece of jade in the shape of a rabbit’s foot, or hang a portrait of a four-leaf clover on the wall. We did not mention that we don’t care one iota that horses “bring prosperity”. I just like horses. Also, if all these things do all this wonderful stuff for people, why are so many Chinese people poor, unlucky, and die young from lung disease?!? Can’t they see it doesn’t work? The salespeople at many shops were sincere in advertising their wares as bringing fortune or longevity, as though this were an added feature (like a stereo in a new car), and not just a side effect.
Anyway, “the happy family ball” starts out as a solid block of jade and is carved into 3 or more balls one inside the other. All three balls can move independently of the other two. All are carved, but the outermost one is the most detailed. The one we bought has a dragon and phoenix (symbols of the emperor and empress, but now signifying the husband and wife) on the outside. Plus you just have to like the name “happy family ball”! ☺
After the jade factory we went to the Ming Tombs. The entrance to the Ming Tombs is known as the Sacred Way. (Actually, each tomb has its own “sacred way”, but the one we saw is the most well-known.) During the times of the emperors, the emperor had to walk down this path on his own two feet (gasp!) to show respect to his predecessors who were buried here. The Sacred Way is about 7km long (4.3 miles), but we only walked down the part with the statues and Willow trees. It was a nice walk with beautiful weather.
After the walk, we drove to the tombs themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty_Tombs - Excavation_of_Dingling_tomb
This tomb is very interesting. Outside the tomb, there is a gate where you’re supposed to stop and shake off the ‘bad luck’ from visiting a tomb so that the ghosts don’t follow you home. The tomb itself is deep underground – about 90 feet down. So we went down many flights of stairs and arrived at what looked like a gigantic bomb shelter. Now I’m not claiming that the Chinese government is trying to pass a 1959 bomb shelter off as an ancient Ming Tomb, but those ancient guys sure did make a modern looking tunnel. See for yourself…. (note the guy looking at Adam in the panda hat) Granted the light fixtures and wiring weren’t there, but don’t those blocks look smooth? I’m amazed at how well it’s held together for 500 years. Anyway…. There aren’t any real artifacts left down there. They’ve all been moved to the museum. But there were some replicas of the coffins and some vases and stone benches.
After the tombs we went for lunch at “the School House” restaurant near the Great Wall. We think it was owned by an American guy because he came and asked us if we were enjoying our meal. The kids all had spaghetti (BOORRRRING!), I had the ‘working man noodles’ which was good, and Erin got the curry (not Chinese, but hey, better than spaghetti) which surprised me.
Finally we were ready for the Great Wall! We had asked to go to the MuTian Yu section because we’d heard it was less crowded. We were very happy with our choice. (Apparently we got lucky because 2 days later people sat in traffic trying to get there and then ended up walking from the School House restaurant – which is quite a hike!) The wall, of course, is up on the top of the ridge, so to get up there we took the cable car. This is another one of those things that you think would be really cool. Well, it is. It was just as cool as we thought it would be. The views were fantastic! We decided to go to the left from the cable cars.
We walked along enjoying ourselves for a while. We started talking about going all the way up there where the characters are written on the Mt. Our guide said if we wanted to do that, she’d wait for us at the bottom. Erin said the curry was disagreeing with his tummy, so he went back toward the cable car to find a bathroom. So, the kids and I decided to give it a go.
In the photo with the characters on the mountain, look about 3/4 way up the mountain. There is a tower there with a red flag on it. That’s how far you’re allowed to go. We got about halfway up the stairs and had to take a break. My heart was really pounding! Note: I have just finished 3 months of some of the toughest workouts I’ve ever done. I’m in better shape now than I’ve been in nearly 20 years and this was a very tough climb! I’m so proud of the kids for making it! The view from the top was so worth it! There was a little old lady up there selling water, snacks, postcards and other tourist junk. First of all, it’s just wrong that this little old lady (she was 70 if she was a day) climbed up there every day, but on top of that, she hauled a table, water bottles and a load of tourist junk up there too! I couldn’t do it, I’ll just tell ya. So we bought some medals from her that say, “I climbed the great wall”. She took a tool and scratched our names and the date on the back. Not a bad deal for $5 ea. (more Great Wall pics on facebook)
We really enjoyed the view from up there, but we needed to go find Erin and the guide, so we headed back down. We rode down the cable car and found Erin in the middle of ‘the gauntlet’ of tourist junk hawkers. We ended up buying some stuff (a book, a shirt, and I think the kids bought some little toys or something). But the best thing we saw was the Obama as Mao t-shirt. The writing says, “Serving the People”. Bwa ha ha. The lady tried to sell one to Erin when he was looking at it. She said, “Obama good! Mao good!” Again, the average Chinese person just doesn’t understand our opinion of Mr. Mao. Still, it seemed disrespectful to buy it or wear it, so I didn’t get one.
It was dark in Beijing by the time we drove back. The traffic on the highway was terrible at rush hour, so our driver cut through part of the downtown surface streets to take us back to the hotel. So as a bonus, we got to see TianAnMen Square lit up at night. We also drove past the night market where rumor has it you can buy all types of strange snacks – crickets, scorpions, starfish…… We were just too pooped to go anywhere. We ended up going to the restaurant downstairs at the hotel and splitting a pizza and a club sandwich. So see, we never went and explored the area around the hotel.
My legs were extremely sore for three days. I can’t believe how much of a workout climbing all those stairs was. Actually, I think coming down the stairs is what made my legs so sore.
The next day, Friday, we ate breakfast at the hotel and went to see the Summer Palace. According to Wikipedia again:
“In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value." It is a popular tourist destination but also serves as a recreational park.”
This is not the same Summer Palace that the British, French et al. destroyed during the second opium war. The Summer Palace was, like TianAnMen Square and the Forbidden City, very crowded. There were several school groups there. Our guide told us that the retired people of Beijing had passes to enter the parks for free, so a lot of elderly people hang out in the parks during the day. They were playing cards or mahjong. One groups was a type of community chorus. They had songbooks and were singing. They had some musicians accompanying them with trumpet, saxophone, trombone and drums.
Part of the Summer Palace is called the Long Hall. It was built so that the Emperor’s mother could walk along the manmade lake in the shade. The lake is huge – 2.2 sq. km (540+ acres). There’s an island in the middle, with a large bridge going out to it.
We climbed up to the top of the highest hill, where the Buddhist temple is. The view was excellent – the rain had really done a good job clearing out the smog. When we got back down, we took a look at the famous marble boat. The Empress Dowager, CiXi had it built to show off China’s glory. The problem is, China was starving to death at the time. This was what I call China’s “let them eat cake” moment. The royalty was just that out of touch with the regular people. It was during her reign that the revolutions began.
All in all, the Summer Palace was a nice, peaceful place. I can certainly see why the older people like to come there to hang out. (More pictures of the Summer Palace on FB)
After the Summer Palace, we went by the Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas. Not much to say there. The pandas were cute and larger than expected. They were all eating bamboo or sleeping. We took a time out to buy an ice cream and eating while watching the pandas. That’s when the only bad thing on our trip happened. Owen lost his camera. ☹ He had set it down once before and our guide saw it as he was about to walk off. This time, no one noticed and he just walked off and left it. Sigh. He was so disappointed! This was my Mom’s camera that Owen had taken as his inheritance. Grrr. He had never transferred his pictures to the computer, so he had 2 years worth of pictures on there. It really was a tough lesson to learn. He sobbed most of the way back to the van.
On the way to the airport, we stopped to take pictures of the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube. (better pictures available online….)
I frankly didn't want to take the time to figure out why the photos are loading into the next paragraph instead of where I left the cursor. I think from now on, I'll just put all the pictures on my facebook page and you can just open two windows at once. Sorry about that.
