That’s All Folks

8/12/15

Our departing flight wasn’t taking off until late afternoon and we had planned on taking the morning to visit some of the sights we had missed as a group – mainly Mao’s tomb. Needless to say, after staying up at the bar with our group mates until 2am in an elongated farewell, no sightseeing occurred. Instead, we decided to take it easy and enjoy a lazy half-day instead.

It was a really great experience and as cumbersome and highly scheduled as the group tour was at times, I really appreciated having our tour guide not only translate everything for us, but provide us with informative and entertaining history and culture lessons. China is a vast and beautiful country with such an abundance of history and regional differences that it’s well worth multiple visits. However, there’s no telling if and when we’ll ever get back here, but I certainly hope we do. I will miss the food most of all but I certainly won’t miss the blanket of smog, the plethora of cigarettes (6 billion cigarettes sold a day in a nation of only 1.4 billion people), or the Great Red Wall that is online censorship. Unlimited internet access (and what would turn out to be a surprisingly brutal 9 days of incapacitating jetlag) here we come! [NN: Man what was up with the jet lag!? It is definitely easier on the body to travel to the west than east. However, China was quite a great experience and the country is obviously so full of emerging power energy. The massive crowds everywhere really brought home the huge population and must say traveling with a guide is about the only way to do it.]

The Big Finale

8/11/15

I feel a reference map (courtesy of chinahighlights.com) is in order to help put the photos & descriptions into perspective. The southern/front portion of the Forbidden City (palace grounds) was where the emperor conducted affairs of state; the northern/rear portion was for his private life. 

We were not actually allowed to go through the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the Tiananmen Square gate) – the original, entrance into the Imperial City; we had to walk around it into a separate tourist entrance. [NN: They were preparing the square for a festivity to be held in a couple of days.] I needed a little lesson into how to keep the different cities straight and to understand their separation. Essentially, the Forbidden City is where the emperor and his wives/concubines resided. This was, as the name indicates, off limits to anyone else. Surrounding and somewhat protecting the Forbidden City was the Imperial City, where only the elite, upper class (think Chinese noblemen/aristocrats) lived. Walled off from and surrounding the Imperial City was the common people’s city (referred to by some as the outer city). These people would never see the inside of either the Imperial or the Forbidden City, which of course fed into the mythos and legendary reputation of the Forbidden City. 

Meridian Gate - southern entrance to the Forbidden City

But since we aren’t commoners in imperialist China, we’re fortunate enough to be able to go inside and see what all the hubbub was about…and of course, it most definitely lived up to the hype!

Nick walks through the central doorway of the Meridian Gate - formerly, only the emperor could pass this through gate (or the empress but only on her wedding day); everyone else had to use side doorways

Meridian Gate roof detail

Meridian Gate roof detail

The Chinese Imperial Palace was built over centuries, begun in 1420 during the Ming dynasty and continually added to and in use until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the palace was home to an astonishing 24 emperors! Expanding over 180 acres, of which we only saw a small fraction in our lightning fast walk-thru L, the palace grounds contain 980 buildings with supposedly 9,999 rooms (one short of the kingdom of heaven since the emperor was considered the son of the king of heaven and couldn’t be so brash as to match the number of rooms his holy father had) but in actuality only had a “mere” 8,704 rooms. ;P  And yes, as our tour guide excitedly wanted us to know: the movie “The Last Emperor” really was filmed here.

From Meridian Gate, standing on the Golden Water Bridges & looking out onto the Gate of Supreme Harmony

 Gate of Supreme Harmony

Gate of Supreme Harmony Detail

One thing I’m always excited to do on our trips is visit UNESCO World Heritage Sights, of which the Forbidden City is one. UNESCO lists the City as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. And holy crap were they impressive!! Again, just like the Summer Palace, every inch of structure was covered in beautifully ornate hand-painted or carved decorations. Many of the buildings were restored and repainted for Beijing Olympics but there were some that historians argued needed to be keep as-is in their original, unrestored condition to represent and preserve the history that is there so they kept some building unrestored – even those were beautiful in their rot and ruin.

Iron water vats for fire fighting in front of Hall of Middle Harmony, in front of Hall of Supreme Harmony

 Hall of Supreme Harmony marble dragon water spouts

Hall of Supreme Harmony roof detail

Hall of Preserving Harmony - original paint job (un-restored)

Hall of Preserving Harmony Roof Detail

Hall of Preserving Harmony Throne

Tourist posing for shots with replica throne

The Forbidden City is encased in an imposingly high wall, with watch towers at the four corners, and surrounded by a moat. The Front/Outer Court where we entered was used for ceremonial purposes. [NN: This is called the Meridian Gate and you might remember there are three small tunnel entrances (compared to the huge wall at least); as you enter it opens up to a massive square with the imposing Palace Museum sitting atop intricately carved steps. The impact of entering a relatively small tunnel to the HUGE square of the interior is truly astounding!] The Inner Court or Back Palace was used as the residence of the emperor and his family, as well as for day-to-day government affairs. There are countless ceremonial gates and courtyards, receiving rooms, prayer rooms, libraries, private gardens, and concubine quarters. The women (wives or concubines) were not allowed to travel outside their quarters unless expressly given permission. The courtyards and concubines quarters were really the only places were able to go (partly due to time and partly due to preservation and closed off areas), so we got a lot of info on the life of a concubine. As expected, it was a competitive life, not only to seek/stay in favor with the emperor but also to stay alive among all of those jealous, fearful and competing women. Most of the furniture and portable decorations had been removed long ago, but we were able to see some large statues and preserved vases on display. The concubine quarters were all marked with the symbol of the phoenix, which denoted to anyone around at the time that only the emperor and eunuchs were allowed in these areas of the palace.

Only quality "happy rooms" for the emperor & his guests

Side gate to the Gate of Heavenly Purity (entering west/left-hand side of emperor's private quarters within Forbidden City)

Detail of the Gate of Heavenly Purity

Inner Gate

Western palace quarters

Western palace quarters

Western palace quarters - some artifacts on display, not normally how the room would look, though

Historical time periods were only romantic and beneficial for powerful, wealthy men, but as horrific as these time periods were for everyone else and as oppressive as the forced labor that built these gorgeous structures and supported these civilizations was, that kind of dominating power and money sure as shit left some amazingly impressive historical art and beauty behind. My father would have loved to see this. 

Within the concubine's quarters, the dragon was the ever-present symbol of the emperor (a mark on his property)

Palace of Gathered Elegance

Bat mosaic

Kneeling elephant

Imperial Garden gazebo

Gazebo roof detail

Hall of Mental Cultivation (read: library)

Inner courtyard behind North Gate

Outside of the Forbidden City - looking back at the North Gate

Our “farewell dinner” was quite the event – our tour guide made us reservations at a restaurant that specialized in Peking duck. We were told Peking duck was the emperor’s favorite way to eat duck, and thus it became the imperial food and quickly became famous, as it was the ONLY way duck was prepared in the late 1800s in China. Supposedly.

Northeast watch tower

The duck was delicious and endless! I lost count of how many ducks they brought out for all of us, I want to say close to 10! Sadly, Nick couldn’t really eat anything at dinner, while I probably devoured at least one and half ducks all on my own (if not more). The tour guide was most excited to share with us his favorite Chinese hooch: one of the most unpalatable sips of fire water I have ever had the displeasure to taste. The Mexican teenager next to me, however, took it upon himself to live up to his underage machismo and drank mine as well as a few other heavy-handed shots throughout the evening. The group then put on a talent show, whose awkwardness I can’t even BEGIN to describe. Nick and I tried to feign talentlessness but to no avail. So we ended up singing Monty Python’s “Philosopher’s Drinking Song”, since it seemed to fit the inebriated mood of our traveling companions. To my surprise, none of the senior citizens seemed at all familiar with Python’s oeuvre. [NN: And the non-native English speakers basically could not understand a word. Maybe they were wondering what a Schopenhauer or a Hildegard were.] I can claim, however, to have won the chopsticks contest, as I was the best at picking up more peanuts than anyone else with my adept skills. ;)

North side of moat around Forbidden City

A Matter of Historical Perspective

8/11/15

Zhengyang Men Gate - at the opposite end of Tienanmen Gate & the former southern entrance to the Inner City 

In Chinese, Tian’an Men means Gate of Heavenly Peace – that translation alone, hints at the very distinct perspectives we Westerners have of that locale vs. how the Chinese see it. First built during the Ming Dynasty in 1420, Tiananmen Square originally served as the entrance to the Imperial City (not directly into the Forbidden City). It separated the commoners from the imperial court and Chinese noblemen. It didn’t really become controversial (at least not for Westerners) until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 at this very spot by Mao Zedong, commemorated by a giant portrait of Mao hung on the gate. The only reason I know anything about Tiananmen Square – and I assume it’s the same for most Americans – was the protests that took place there in 1989. Eggs were thrown at the portrait, which sent the protestors to prison for 17 years! (Makes me rethink all the times we t.p.’d houses in high school…) But clearly, egg throwing wasn’t the worst of it. Close to a million students are estimated to have occupied the square for a couple months, protesting government accountability, freedom of the press, freedom of speech. The whole thing culminated when protestors blocked the military from entering the square and they opened fire, causing a massacre of an untold number of unarmed civilians (it’s estimated anywhere between hundreds to thousands) and the installation of martial law in the city of Beijing. 

Tienanmen Gate - northern entrance to the Imperial City (which surrounds the Forbidden City)

Guard post in Tienanmen Square 

Love the family of tourists in this photo

The reason I even mention this brief history lesson is to highlight how different historical events can be manipulated and skewed, depending on who’s telling them. Of course, the Communist government in China has controlled the dissemination of information and propaganda in China for a long time, so much so that today in China, the student demonstration and resulting massacre at Tiananmen Square is known merely as the June Fourth Incident. [NN: Well good thing Cat didn’t write this while we were still in China or we might have been in trouble just for using the term “massacre” to refer to the “4^th Incident”.] Just trying to ask our tour guide what his understanding of events were during that time and what he was taught in school made him very uncomfortable. He didn’t want to talk about it, even warned us of talking about it in public (in his defense, there were guards & security cameras EVERYWHERE). But later, on the bus (and out of ear/camera shot), told us that he was not taught much about the protests in school and couldn’t really say what had happened other than students were protesting the corruption, they attacked the military and the military had to retaliate. Now the government refuses to refer to the event directly, nor will it comment on whether it was a good event or a bad one. Interestingly, we did find out that the iconic "tank man" image we’ve all seen about Tiananmen Square didn’t actually happen in the square itself, but rather in front of an international hotel nearby. And the journalists staying at that hotel, including the one who took that picture, were all prevented from leaving the hotel by Chinese military in order to confiscate their film and documentation. The only reason we in the West ever saw that famous picture was because the guy who took it had the foresight to hide it and instead gave up “dummy” roles of film to the soldiers.

China National Museum

Great Hall of the People

Mao's Mausoleum

Mao's commissioned Statue to the People

There were a lot of museums and government buildings surrounding the square – including a mausoleum with Mao’s tomb in it! – which, sadly, we did not get a chance to see. [NN: It is a very popular attraction with locals as well so there were huge lines to see it.] Next trip to Beijing… right? ;P

LOTS of security cameras

And I thought L.A. was Ostentatious

8/11/15

Seriously, we need another week just to scrape the surface of all there is to see in Beijing. There’s so much history and architecture to see here that two hours, walking at a senior group pace is simply NOT enough time! And trying to cram in not one but TWO iconic sights in that amount of time is ridiculous. But here we go – making the absolute MOST of our last day!!

This illustration (courtesy of kinabaloo.com) might help out the Summer Palace grounds into perspective 

Our first stop was the Summer Palace, an expansive and beyond-lavish oasis built in 1764, in the middle of the city amid a lush one square mile park surrounding the Kinming Lake.  The emperor had the Summer Palace complex (it’s actually many buildings, pavilions, bridges and boat docks, not just a single palace) built to escape the heat of the city during – you guessed it! – Beijing’s sweltering summers. There were multiple ornate gates and halls, designated for various activities of meditation, political or philosophical discussion, female seclusion, and aside from just the private quarters for the emperor. The level of opulence was jaw-dropping. Not only did the emperor require a separate room for every single one of his daily thoughts or activities, his daily meals also had to meet every anticipated whim or hankering he might have. The best chefs in the country were required to prepare every single one if his favorite dishes for each meal, which he would take a few bites of and then move on to the next dish [NN: or he might never even ask for that specific dish on a given meal, thus never even touched]. As you can imagine, most of the food was simply uneaten and wasted; it’s estimated a single meal at the Summer Palace could have fed three different families for a full three years!! (Not that things are much better today, with nearly 1/3 of current global food production going to landfills and nearly 800 million people going hungry worldwide…but that’s a different discussion). 

What not to do in the park

Pretty lotus flower

Pavilion of Flourishing Culture

Water writing

Water writer

Shuimuziqin Gate

According to our guide, the palace complex also boasts the world’s longest covered wooden corridor. Built in 1750 and made of 273 sections linking all of the buildings and pathways along the length of the lake, the Long Corridor is an impressive 728 meters long. Walking the length of the corridor during the height of Chinese summer vacation season felt like maneuvering through rush hour on foot. It did, however, allow me to play one of my favorite travel games: Where’s Nick? Which is played very much like Where’s Waldo but instead of looking for the distinct stipes, you just look for the tallest head in the crowd. Travel across China, this game never got old ;P [NN: Yup, another place where strangers asked to have their photo taken with me.]

Long Corridor east entrance

Long Corridor ceiling detail

Long Corridor ceiling detail

Long Corridor painting detail

Long Corridor painting detail

Long Corridor painting detail

Long Corridor painting detail

The most impressive part of the Summer Palace was how every inch of wall space on every building was lavishly painted with animals, women, warriors, and symbols of all kinds (the Long Corridor supposedly has upwards of 14,000 paintings alone). Another reason the path was so congested: you had to walk slowly in order to see it all and take everything in. Much of the palace has been restored (after being burned down in 1860 during the “Great Humiliation” or what Westerners refer to as the Opium War) so the paint was quite vibrant and the detail impressive. However, even the buildings that had yet to be stored still held a lot of antique charm and beauty with their scorched, soot covered frescos and splitting wood frames. The palace also boasts the world’s largest marble boat – yup, a massive block of floating marble. As you can imagine, it’s so heavy it was never able to sail across the lake – you would think the emperor or engineers would have realized this ahead of time [NN: I’m sure the engineer knew, but when an emperor says jump you jump, or else he’ll cut your ankles off.] – so it just sits docked for you to look at; visitors are not allowed to step foot on it. We were able to take a small dragon boat across the lake before we left, which earned us lots of fingers pointing and giggles from the on-looking Chinese kids. J

Sea of Wisdom Temple

Small Temple

Tower of Buddhist Incense

Cloud Dispelling Gate

Cloud Dispelling Gate Detail

Nick in Long Corridor

Long Corridor Pagoda

The pebbles are foot massage walkways

Tourist dragon boat

Jason demonstrating Tai Chi exercise game

Where's Nick?

Where's Nick?

Southwest corner of Long Corridor

Small House

Marble Boat

Marble Boat detail

Dragon King's Temple

Our day couldn’t end there though – after lunch we hit up another (& our last thankfully!) obligatory souvenir store stop. This one was a pearl store, where we received a thorough lesson in how to tell freshwater from saltwater, real from fake pearls…a subtly which of course I still can’t detect.