The Forbidden City is an ideological problem. It's clearly class-based and so not in line with Communism. On the other hand, after the Great Wall, it is one of the most iconic pieces of history extant. I read in the guide book that the government calls it the "Palace Museum." Fair enough. I admire a euphemism if it solves an otherwise thorny issue. As another example, my flight to Beijing was delayed. The reason announced (in both Mandarin and English : ), "Flight xxx is delayed due to aircraft delay." You have to admire the brazenly tautological.
I sleep in again. My body is reaching the end of its limits for now (I can feel being on the edge of sick). Being in a hurry, I stop by the baozi (stuffed bun) stand some folks mentioned last night at hostel happy hour. Ahhh, even more local. Each bun is 0.6 yuan. Four fill you and then some. So for 2.4 yuan (about 37 cents), you can have a decent, healthy meal. The spicy bean paste (tofu) is really good and has the texture of egg: it's like a little spicy omelette in a bun. I am a huge fan.
I take the Metro to Tiananmen East. It's about 11:30 am on a Sunday and the trains are packed. As we are about to do our boarding surge, I hear a Chinese guy behind me say, satirically, "Welcome to China." Next, as I ascend to northeast corner of Tiananmen Square, I brace myself mentally for the vendors/gambits. The big one is otherwise fine art students invite you to look over their artwork at a neighboring studio with a lot of social pressure to buy something. Also, people offering guide services.
I make it about 100 yards when a woman a yellow coat asks me if I speak English. I ignore her. "Where are you from?" she ventures again. Somewhat coldly, I say, "I just want to see this alone." Somewhat hurt, she says, "I just want to practice English." My shields are up - even if she is the one in a million that actually just wanted to practice English - I repeat, "I'm sorry, alone" without making eye contact. She leaves me alone. I get two more offers to view artwork and two offers for tours, but both are very polite and I am happy to smile and say, "Bu yong. Bu yong." Which reminds me that the "practice English"-shtick is more of a lead into the karaoke bar/$100-bottle-of-wine scam, not the artist soft-sell, which would account for the difference in emotional tone. A fellow traveller I met fell for the "practice English"-one. Two girls, end up at a bar, suddenly it's her birthday, a couple of bottles later, they give him a bill for ~4000 yuan (~$600). He doesn't have that much, but two large and helpful guys escort him to a cash machine. Back at his hotel, he mentions this to the receptionist, she immediately calls the police, they raid the place, and get him his money back. I mention this so you know how the scam works and that the Chinese government is very serious about tourist safety.
The first time I went to a game at Notre Dame football stadium, my first thought was, "Huh, looks bigger on TV." Tiananmen is a big square, I think the biggest, it just, well, kind of, looked bigger on TV, you know? To the north of Tiananmen, is the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which leads into another square that eventually leads to the Forbidden City. Guards in military uniform line the bridges into and out of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, under the gaze of Mao's portrait.
The Forbidden City, on the other hand, is huge, looks huge, and feels huge to your feet: about a square kilometer. Narrowing it down for my first visit, I wanted to see the main palace, from where China was ruled for 500 years, the Clock Hall (I'll explain), the Well of Concubine Zhen, and the Room of Three Rarities, the three being extremely rare works of calligraphy.
The City is awesome in its breadth, detail, and beauty. Every tiny corner is ornamented. Here is the square before the main square with the Gate of Supreme Harmony in the distance, which is the entrance to the main square before which court was held, and a detail from the Gate.
The Clock Hall, per the guidebook, has a lot of clocks from Europe in the 1800s that were given as gifts (tribute?), and they are rung at 11 am and 2 pm. Eh, I thought it would be cool. I was hoping there would also be exhibits on time, as in how it was kept, but the only old, old clock was a huge water clock. The science of time-keeping was not the point of the Hall. However, I did learn from observation that clocks 
are what led to computing machines: these things, while gilded beyond all belief, are amazing works of miniature mechanization and early robotics. This one, which was rung at 2 pm, had a drummer whose arms would move to hit bells of different pitch, while all other sorts of things were spinning and dancing. The tour de force, however, was this clock that would write eight Chinese characters automatically. The 200-year old forerunner of robotic assembly lines... Of course, my personal favorite: the clock with a working model of the solar system on top of it. I forgot to check if it had Neptune (not discovered until 1846).
Next, the Well of Concubine Zhen. (The picture is from wikipedia - it's clearer than the one I took at Zhen's shrine.) She was, according to the material provided, a vivacious, progressive, and well-loved Concubine of the Guangxu Emperor. She encouraged contact with the West and even wore men's clothes at times. Her final mistake, however, was to encourag
e her love to be independent. The Empress Dowager Cixi (mother of the emperor and with whom real power resided) did not take kindly to this. There is debate as to what actually happened, but when the Eight-Allied Powers invaded in 1900, in one way or another, Zhen was murdered before the Imperial Court fled Beijing. The current belief is that she was thrown down this well by eunuchs on the order of Cixi. For some reason, I was really torn up by all this.
From the tiny courtyard of the well, I step into a small courtyard, bordered by two story
buildings with open balconies. The late afternoon sun paints them and the tall pines in the pale gold only seen in winter. This is a good place, a peaceful place. The small hall in front of which I take my rest was built by a retired emperor as a study to relax in when tired by state affairs. I'm projecting, but I can see people calling out to each other on the balconies, day-to-day work going on, servants cutting across the small courtyard with laundry and food. I sit a while in this refuge, far in the northeast of the Forbidden City, away from the centers of power and pomp.
Quieter, I
proceed south, into the Treasure Galleries. Jade, gold, and gems: from delicate plants carved entirely of stone, to life-size gold statues of Buddha, gem-encrusted, to huge pieces of jade carved into landscapes. My favorites are a malachite scene of a teacher and student and a gold celestial globe, held aloft by four painfully exquisite dragons, each star a pearl. The names of constellations are inscribed in Chinese. I try to identify a familiar constellation, but it is too hard: I can't ignore the lines forming the Chinese constellations, different from the shapes picked out by ancient Greeks and Romans. Although, much of the Chinese astronomical knowledge came from the same root as the Greeks: the Byzantines and then the Arabian world. Many, many stars bear Arabic names.
It's getting late, and the City closes at 4:30 pm. I make my way back to the south gate. I am going to see an acrobatics show and I'm trying to fit dinner and shopping in beforehand. I give up on shopping, and take the Metro home - I've created too much drama in the past by trying to do too much to attempt it in a foreign land. Some views as I leave...
As I pack a little and prepare to head out to see the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe, I realize I'm missing my last sunset in China (for now). I run up to the roof and the catch the very end. Goodbye, China.
If my motto for the Great Wall is "Defies superlatives," my motto for the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe is "No really, you haven't seen crazy yet." My God! Okay, we'll lie on our backs and kick large drums around like riding a bicycle upside down, spinning them, hitting the beats, reversing them, kicking them end-over-end in different diretions. Cool. Now we'll kick the drums between each other. Now we'll kick them really far between all of us simultaneously, while keeping them spinning and hitting the beats. Whew - what a show. NOW we'll balance people on our legs who are
balancing running drums on their legs. Now we'll kick drums between people at different heights. Wow. NOWWWWW we'll kick people and drums simultaneously between people. Oh for the love of God!
Every time I tried to take a picture I would catch them between one level of craziness and the next, which didn't come out well. So here are two in the early levels of insanity. A woman gripped a glass with her foot on which shot glasses with fluid were stacked in tiers, four high. She started on her belly with the balanced shots on one foot. She then proceeded to this position, handstand with one leg in the air and the other wrapped around her head. She went through all manner of amazing contortions,
adding more and more stacks of glasses to each extremity (one grasped in each foot, one in each hand...ahhh, you're getting it, and of course, one with a bite post so she could hold it in her mouth). All the while moving, moving, moving. In the other, what to call it: pair dancing acrobatics? It was beautiful. This one is actually at a middling level of insanity. She's doing a back bend on her belly so that her hands and feet meet. He then balances on the platform of her feet and eventually does one-armed handstands with a full split. He's working up to it here. It was an hour and a half show and utterly amazing. I will be going to yoga much more regularly.
After the show, I take the cab home. At one point, it looks the night sky is full of kites with LEDs. Back at the hostel, I pack. Tomorrow morning, some last minute shopping, and then I need to be at the airport by 12:30 for my 3:20 flight home. Just like that, it's coming to a close.
I don't know how I feel.
Dan
I sleep in again. My body is reaching the end of its limits for now (I can feel being on the edge of sick). Being in a hurry, I stop by the baozi (stuffed bun) stand some folks mentioned last night at hostel happy hour. Ahhh, even more local. Each bun is 0.6 yuan. Four fill you and then some. So for 2.4 yuan (about 37 cents), you can have a decent, healthy meal. The spicy bean paste (tofu) is really good and has the texture of egg: it's like a little spicy omelette in a bun. I am a huge fan.
I take the Metro to Tiananmen East. It's about 11:30 am on a Sunday and the trains are packed. As we are about to do our boarding surge, I hear a Chinese guy behind me say, satirically, "Welcome to China." Next, as I ascend to northeast corner of Tiananmen Square, I brace myself mentally for the vendors/gambits. The big one is otherwise fine art students invite you to look over their artwork at a neighboring studio with a lot of social pressure to buy something. Also, people offering guide services.
I make it about 100 yards when a woman a yellow coat asks me if I speak English. I ignore her. "Where are you from?" she ventures again. Somewhat coldly, I say, "I just want to see this alone." Somewhat hurt, she says, "I just want to practice English." My shields are up - even if she is the one in a million that actually just wanted to practice English - I repeat, "I'm sorry, alone" without making eye contact. She leaves me alone. I get two more offers to view artwork and two offers for tours, but both are very polite and I am happy to smile and say, "Bu yong. Bu yong." Which reminds me that the "practice English"-shtick is more of a lead into the karaoke bar/$100-bottle-of-wine scam, not the artist soft-sell, which would account for the difference in emotional tone. A fellow traveller I met fell for the "practice English"-one. Two girls, end up at a bar, suddenly it's her birthday, a couple of bottles later, they give him a bill for ~4000 yuan (~$600). He doesn't have that much, but two large and helpful guys escort him to a cash machine. Back at his hotel, he mentions this to the receptionist, she immediately calls the police, they raid the place, and get him his money back. I mention this so you know how the scam works and that the Chinese government is very serious about tourist safety.
The first time I went to a game at Notre Dame football stadium, my first thought was, "Huh, looks bigger on TV." Tiananmen is a big square, I think the biggest, it just, well, kind of, looked bigger on TV, you know? To the north of Tiananmen, is the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which leads into another square that eventually leads to the Forbidden City. Guards in military uniform line the bridges into and out of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, under the gaze of Mao's portrait.The Forbidden City, on the other hand, is huge, looks huge, and feels huge to your feet: about a square kilometer. Narrowing it down for my first visit, I wanted to see the main palace, from where China was ruled for 500 years, the Clock Hall (I'll explain), the Well of Concubine Zhen, and the Room of Three Rarities, the three being extremely rare works of calligraphy.
The City is awesome in its breadth, detail, and beauty. Every tiny corner is ornamented. Here is the square before the main square with the Gate of Supreme Harmony in the distance, which is the entrance to the main square before which court was held, and a detail from the Gate.
After crossing the first square, resting at base camp, and
continuing on, you reach the main square: and beyond the Hall of Supreme Harmony, from which China was ruled for 500 years ...mostly. It turns out that there are like three or four sub-throne rooms, which certain emperors preferred, and so held their day-to-day courts there. Guess they wanted to avoid the walk...no, they would have been carried everywhere...who knows, megalomania must have set in pretty early. One cute story on the automatic tour guide was an emperor, who when 16, walked into the City library, took a fancy to the librarian, checked out her "books," and made her a Consort of the 5th Level. Wait a minute, they have levels!? And enough consorts to reach down to a fifth level? A favorite, she was unfortunately unable to conceive. Trying to block others, she would order the eunuchs to preform abortions on consorts who had. One eunuch secretly 
snuck a pregnant consort-in-question out of the City, told the librarian cum consort (sorry) the girl had died, and had the emperor-to-be raised in secret. When five years old, he was returned to the City. And then, in a much sadder story to follow, a consort, murdered, was posthumously promoted to Concubine of the 3rd Level in a show of honor. I mean it worked for 500 years, but when you have that many consorts, concubines, etc., clearly governing is not your first priority. But here is the literal seat of power of the last age of the imperialistic Middle Kingdom.
continuing on, you reach the main square: and beyond the Hall of Supreme Harmony, from which China was ruled for 500 years ...mostly. It turns out that there are like three or four sub-throne rooms, which certain emperors preferred, and so held their day-to-day courts there. Guess they wanted to avoid the walk...no, they would have been carried everywhere...who knows, megalomania must have set in pretty early. One cute story on the automatic tour guide was an emperor, who when 16, walked into the City library, took a fancy to the librarian, checked out her "books," and made her a Consort of the 5th Level. Wait a minute, they have levels!? And enough consorts to reach down to a fifth level? A favorite, she was unfortunately unable to conceive. Trying to block others, she would order the eunuchs to preform abortions on consorts who had. One eunuch secretly 
snuck a pregnant consort-in-question out of the City, told the librarian cum consort (sorry) the girl had died, and had the emperor-to-be raised in secret. When five years old, he was returned to the City. And then, in a much sadder story to follow, a consort, murdered, was posthumously promoted to Concubine of the 3rd Level in a show of honor. I mean it worked for 500 years, but when you have that many consorts, concubines, etc., clearly governing is not your first priority. But here is the literal seat of power of the last age of the imperialistic Middle Kingdom.
The Clock Hall, per the guidebook, has a lot of clocks from Europe in the 1800s that were given as gifts (tribute?), and they are rung at 11 am and 2 pm. Eh, I thought it would be cool. I was hoping there would also be exhibits on time, as in how it was kept, but the only old, old clock was a huge water clock. The science of time-keeping was not the point of the Hall. However, I did learn from observation that clocks 
are what led to computing machines: these things, while gilded beyond all belief, are amazing works of miniature mechanization and early robotics. This one, which was rung at 2 pm, had a drummer whose arms would move to hit bells of different pitch, while all other sorts of things were spinning and dancing. The tour de force, however, was this clock that would write eight Chinese characters automatically. The 200-year old forerunner of robotic assembly lines... Of course, my personal favorite: the clock with a working model of the solar system on top of it. I forgot to check if it had Neptune (not discovered until 1846).
Next, the Well of Concubine Zhen. (The picture is from wikipedia - it's clearer than the one I took at Zhen's shrine.) She was, according to the material provided, a vivacious, progressive, and well-loved Concubine of the Guangxu Emperor. She encouraged contact with the West and even wore men's clothes at times. Her final mistake, however, was to encourag
e her love to be independent. The Empress Dowager Cixi (mother of the emperor and with whom real power resided) did not take kindly to this. There is debate as to what actually happened, but when the Eight-Allied Powers invaded in 1900, in one way or another, Zhen was murdered before the Imperial Court fled Beijing. The current belief is that she was thrown down this well by eunuchs on the order of Cixi. For some reason, I was really torn up by all this.From the tiny courtyard of the well, I step into a small courtyard, bordered by two story
buildings with open balconies. The late afternoon sun paints them and the tall pines in the pale gold only seen in winter. This is a good place, a peaceful place. The small hall in front of which I take my rest was built by a retired emperor as a study to relax in when tired by state affairs. I'm projecting, but I can see people calling out to each other on the balconies, day-to-day work going on, servants cutting across the small courtyard with laundry and food. I sit a while in this refuge, far in the northeast of the Forbidden City, away from the centers of power and pomp.Quieter, I
proceed south, into the Treasure Galleries. Jade, gold, and gems: from delicate plants carved entirely of stone, to life-size gold statues of Buddha, gem-encrusted, to huge pieces of jade carved into landscapes. My favorites are a malachite scene of a teacher and student and a gold celestial globe, held aloft by four painfully exquisite dragons, each star a pearl. The names of constellations are inscribed in Chinese. I try to identify a familiar constellation, but it is too hard: I can't ignore the lines forming the Chinese constellations, different from the shapes picked out by ancient Greeks and Romans. Although, much of the Chinese astronomical knowledge came from the same root as the Greeks: the Byzantines and then the Arabian world. Many, many stars bear Arabic names.
It's getting late, and the City closes at 4:30 pm. I make my way back to the south gate. I am going to see an acrobatics show and I'm trying to fit dinner and shopping in beforehand. I give up on shopping, and take the Metro home - I've created too much drama in the past by trying to do too much to attempt it in a foreign land. Some views as I leave...
As I pack a little and prepare to head out to see the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe, I realize I'm missing my last sunset in China (for now). I run up to the roof and the catch the very end. Goodbye, China.
If my motto for the Great Wall is "Defies superlatives," my motto for the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe is "No really, you haven't seen crazy yet." My God! Okay, we'll lie on our backs and kick large drums around like riding a bicycle upside down, spinning them, hitting the beats, reversing them, kicking them end-over-end in different diretions. Cool. Now we'll kick the drums between each other. Now we'll kick them really far between all of us simultaneously, while keeping them spinning and hitting the beats. Whew - what a show. NOW we'll balance people on our legs who are
balancing running drums on their legs. Now we'll kick drums between people at different heights. Wow. NOWWWWW we'll kick people and drums simultaneously between people. Oh for the love of God!Every time I tried to take a picture I would catch them between one level of craziness and the next, which didn't come out well. So here are two in the early levels of insanity. A woman gripped a glass with her foot on which shot glasses with fluid were stacked in tiers, four high. She started on her belly with the balanced shots on one foot. She then proceeded to this position, handstand with one leg in the air and the other wrapped around her head. She went through all manner of amazing contortions,
adding more and more stacks of glasses to each extremity (one grasped in each foot, one in each hand...ahhh, you're getting it, and of course, one with a bite post so she could hold it in her mouth). All the while moving, moving, moving. In the other, what to call it: pair dancing acrobatics? It was beautiful. This one is actually at a middling level of insanity. She's doing a back bend on her belly so that her hands and feet meet. He then balances on the platform of her feet and eventually does one-armed handstands with a full split. He's working up to it here. It was an hour and a half show and utterly amazing. I will be going to yoga much more regularly.After the show, I take the cab home. At one point, it looks the night sky is full of kites with LEDs. Back at the hostel, I pack. Tomorrow morning, some last minute shopping, and then I need to be at the airport by 12:30 for my 3:20 flight home. Just like that, it's coming to a close.
I don't know how I feel.
Dan
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