Beijing; November 25
We left Beijing Friday night (it is currently Sunday morning) and are now in Shanghai, about 2 ½ hours south by plane. The weather is much warmer than Beijing (yea!), but just as gloomy. Right now, the fog is so bad that I cannot even see past our window ledge. We are staying at the Hyatt in the tallest building in Shanghai. We are on the 78th floor which is so high up. It is good neither of us is afraid of heights.
I left off in our blog entry after we had visited the Summer Palace. The next thing we planned was a visit to Hutong, the historic part of Beijing. We were very fortunate to get to take this tour because the government is planning to tear down all but around 100 houses in the next years. Our tour guide was directly affected by the government’s decision because he was forced to leave his Hutong home. Families like his are given a price for the land and basically forced to take the price and leave whether or not they want to leave. It is very sad and even stranger to think that eminent domain, the name for this practice, also occurs in America. In China, all the land is government owned and the people must always lease the land. Life in Hutong has not caught up to life in the rest of Beijing. Forty percent of the people who live there still use public bathrooms. They still use coal to heat their homes. We got the opportunity to visit with a man nicknamed Mr. Cricket who was gracious enough to serve us jasmine tea, roses, crabapple chips, and nuts. He lived in a courtyard with several other families but was considered affluent because of his many pets. Mr. Cricket had birds, crickets, a turtle, fish, a dog, and cats. In China, you need a permit to own a dog. Just ten years ago, owning dogs was illegal because of the safety hazard but now you may own one if you pay the fee for a permit. The fee has decreased significantly and is now around 150 U.S. dollars. You still cannot own big dogs though. One of Mr. Cricket’s fish could spit water up out of the tank and hit Dave on the shoulder one time. A few of his birds could talk and our tour guide told us that Mrs. Cricket had taught them poetry. If she started saying a poem, the bird could finish the poem. We actually spent quite a bit of time here until heading to the Bell Tower for more tea at a tea house. Here, we learned about a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and were able to try jasmine tea and lychee tea. They were both very good. After the tea ceremony, we climbed to the tops of the Bell Tower and Drum Tower. It gave us a nice view of the Hutong area from the top and we got the opportunity to chat with our tour guide a bit more on the way up and down. His views were much more progressive than our other tour guide whose mother was a member of the Communist Party. He seemed upset about being forced to move out of his house in Hutong and the general deception of the government. He joked about a sign that said “Biggest Drum in the World” on a big drum in the Drum Tower being symbolic of the exaggeration of the government about many subjects. He said that many people in China desire the lifestyle they see Americans living but aren’t certain how to attain it.
We both felt our time in Hutong was worthwhile and interesting. It was neat to see the way people in Beijing lived before the age of high rises apartment buildings and tourism.
Our last tour took us to the Temple of Heaven, Tian’anmen Square, and Forbidden City. As those of you who receive the photos could probably tell, I enjoyed our time at the Temple of Heaven very much. We didn’t spend a lot of time visiting the actual temple since you could only look from the outside, but instead enjoyed the activities that take over the Temple every morning. Retirement age in China is 50 for women and 55 for men. After retirement, the citizens are allowed to purchase a pass to all the historical sights for a very small price. In order to occupy their time, many people come to the Temple of Heaven to participate in all the interesting and free activities that take place during the morning. Dancing classes, tai chi, card games, choir practice, knitting, crocheting, and hackey sack were just a few of the activities going on while we were visiting. It was quite interesting to see the community developed here. The Temple of Heaven is the largest temple in the world built just to worship the sun.
After visiting the Temple of Heaven, we went to Tian’anmen Square. The experience of being in such an infamous place was very interesting. It was especially interesting because our tour guide wouldn’t mention at all the 1989 massacre that made the sight so famous around the world. She told us that she has a very hard time believing what foreigners tell her happened really happened because she was raised believing something very different. She was about our age and I believe most Chinese don’t deny the massacre, they just don’t talk about it. The memory is probably different for the younger generation who weren’t alive or were too young to remember much about it though. There is a lot of police around Tian’anmen Square since it is near the government buildings (although there are just generally a lot more police than I have seen anywhere else). Tian’anmen Gate, which is where Tian’anmen Square got its name, leads into the Forbidden City, the imperial palace. Oddly enough, a two-hour special on the Forbidden City was featured on the National Geographic channel the evening before we went to the palace. The Forbidden City was built out of sandalwood, a wood that is very difficult and time-consuming to get to Beijing. The saying goes that 1,000 men went into the forest to cut down one sandalwood tree and only 500 came out. The problem with sandalwood is that it catches fire very easily and so the Forbidden City’s buildings were burnt down many times before lightning rods were invented. The emperor lived a very lavish life, but no civilians were able to get a glimpse of the lifestyle because the Forbidden City was not open to the public. The emperor had one empress and many concubines who lived in the inner court of the Forbidden City and were never allowed to leave. In fact, I had always heard that the reason the Chinese bound the women’s feet was for beauty but, in fact, it was also to make it difficult for the women to walk so they could not find any lovers or escape their husbands. Even in the life of the commoners, the women had their feet bound at three years old to prevent them from meeting men other than the men they were ordained to marry. The only men allowed in the inner court of the Forbidden City were the emperor and the eunuchs (who could not act out on any sexual act with the emperor’s women due to a surgical procedure done before employment that made it impossible). I found it very interesting to imagine that the last emperor was not kicked out of power until the early 1900s. It is hard to imagine a working imperial system in such recent history. Although the main buildings in the Forbidden City were under renovation (expected to be finished for the 2008 Olympics), the sight was still very interesting to learn about and visit.Overall, Beijing was an extremely fascinating and educational city to visit. We learned a lot about Chinese history and culture while we were there.Shanghai seems very different from Beijing. The city’s buildings are colorful at night and the whole city is more modern and seems more prosperous. One of my parents’ friends called Shanghai the “New York City of China” which I believe may be an accurate description.
I left off in our blog entry after we had visited the Summer Palace. The next thing we planned was a visit to Hutong, the historic part of Beijing. We were very fortunate to get to take this tour because the government is planning to tear down all but around 100 houses in the next years. Our tour guide was directly affected by the government’s decision because he was forced to leave his Hutong home. Families like his are given a price for the land and basically forced to take the price and leave whether or not they want to leave. It is very sad and even stranger to think that eminent domain, the name for this practice, also occurs in America. In China, all the land is government owned and the people must always lease the land. Life in Hutong has not caught up to life in the rest of Beijing. Forty percent of the people who live there still use public bathrooms. They still use coal to heat their homes. We got the opportunity to visit with a man nicknamed Mr. Cricket who was gracious enough to serve us jasmine tea, roses, crabapple chips, and nuts. He lived in a courtyard with several other families but was considered affluent because of his many pets. Mr. Cricket had birds, crickets, a turtle, fish, a dog, and cats. In China, you need a permit to own a dog. Just ten years ago, owning dogs was illegal because of the safety hazard but now you may own one if you pay the fee for a permit. The fee has decreased significantly and is now around 150 U.S. dollars. You still cannot own big dogs though. One of Mr. Cricket’s fish could spit water up out of the tank and hit Dave on the shoulder one time. A few of his birds could talk and our tour guide told us that Mrs. Cricket had taught them poetry. If she started saying a poem, the bird could finish the poem. We actually spent quite a bit of time here until heading to the Bell Tower for more tea at a tea house. Here, we learned about a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and were able to try jasmine tea and lychee tea. They were both very good. After the tea ceremony, we climbed to the tops of the Bell Tower and Drum Tower. It gave us a nice view of the Hutong area from the top and we got the opportunity to chat with our tour guide a bit more on the way up and down. His views were much more progressive than our other tour guide whose mother was a member of the Communist Party. He seemed upset about being forced to move out of his house in Hutong and the general deception of the government. He joked about a sign that said “Biggest Drum in the World” on a big drum in the Drum Tower being symbolic of the exaggeration of the government about many subjects. He said that many people in China desire the lifestyle they see Americans living but aren’t certain how to attain it.
We both felt our time in Hutong was worthwhile and interesting. It was neat to see the way people in Beijing lived before the age of high rises apartment buildings and tourism.
Our last tour took us to the Temple of Heaven, Tian’anmen Square, and Forbidden City. As those of you who receive the photos could probably tell, I enjoyed our time at the Temple of Heaven very much. We didn’t spend a lot of time visiting the actual temple since you could only look from the outside, but instead enjoyed the activities that take over the Temple every morning. Retirement age in China is 50 for women and 55 for men. After retirement, the citizens are allowed to purchase a pass to all the historical sights for a very small price. In order to occupy their time, many people come to the Temple of Heaven to participate in all the interesting and free activities that take place during the morning. Dancing classes, tai chi, card games, choir practice, knitting, crocheting, and hackey sack were just a few of the activities going on while we were visiting. It was quite interesting to see the community developed here. The Temple of Heaven is the largest temple in the world built just to worship the sun.
After visiting the Temple of Heaven, we went to Tian’anmen Square. The experience of being in such an infamous place was very interesting. It was especially interesting because our tour guide wouldn’t mention at all the 1989 massacre that made the sight so famous around the world. She told us that she has a very hard time believing what foreigners tell her happened really happened because she was raised believing something very different. She was about our age and I believe most Chinese don’t deny the massacre, they just don’t talk about it. The memory is probably different for the younger generation who weren’t alive or were too young to remember much about it though. There is a lot of police around Tian’anmen Square since it is near the government buildings (although there are just generally a lot more police than I have seen anywhere else). Tian’anmen Gate, which is where Tian’anmen Square got its name, leads into the Forbidden City, the imperial palace. Oddly enough, a two-hour special on the Forbidden City was featured on the National Geographic channel the evening before we went to the palace. The Forbidden City was built out of sandalwood, a wood that is very difficult and time-consuming to get to Beijing. The saying goes that 1,000 men went into the forest to cut down one sandalwood tree and only 500 came out. The problem with sandalwood is that it catches fire very easily and so the Forbidden City’s buildings were burnt down many times before lightning rods were invented. The emperor lived a very lavish life, but no civilians were able to get a glimpse of the lifestyle because the Forbidden City was not open to the public. The emperor had one empress and many concubines who lived in the inner court of the Forbidden City and were never allowed to leave. In fact, I had always heard that the reason the Chinese bound the women’s feet was for beauty but, in fact, it was also to make it difficult for the women to walk so they could not find any lovers or escape their husbands. Even in the life of the commoners, the women had their feet bound at three years old to prevent them from meeting men other than the men they were ordained to marry. The only men allowed in the inner court of the Forbidden City were the emperor and the eunuchs (who could not act out on any sexual act with the emperor’s women due to a surgical procedure done before employment that made it impossible). I found it very interesting to imagine that the last emperor was not kicked out of power until the early 1900s. It is hard to imagine a working imperial system in such recent history. Although the main buildings in the Forbidden City were under renovation (expected to be finished for the 2008 Olympics), the sight was still very interesting to learn about and visit.Overall, Beijing was an extremely fascinating and educational city to visit. We learned a lot about Chinese history and culture while we were there.Shanghai seems very different from Beijing. The city’s buildings are colorful at night and the whole city is more modern and seems more prosperous. One of my parents’ friends called Shanghai the “New York City of China” which I believe may be an accurate description.
posted by Lindsay | 10:01 AM
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