The Forbidden City

November 15, 2009 (continued)

As we left Tiananmen Square we headed to the Tiananmen Gate for entry to The Forbidden City. The Square was a huge area and covers 109 acres and reportedly can hold 10,000,000 people. That's a really big square. Must be interesting when the big gatherings and celebrations are held there and the long columns of military soldiers and equipment come marching through with thousands of spectators watching.

As we passed through the Tiananmen Gate and into the Forbidden City there was a large courtyard and across the courtyard was the Hall of Supreme Harmony seen below. Quite a sight!

The Forbidden City was named that because only the Emperor could invite guests in and all others were forbidden to enter.



Yellow or gold was the color of the emperor and hence these were the prominent colors for roof tile and architectural details of the buildings in the Forbidden City.

And I thought that painting the detail on our Victorian house was a pain. Painting the detail below would be really a challenge.

The Chinese find beauty in nature and below in the emperor's garden you can begin to see the beauty in the natural stone brought to his garden. This garden area is considered a real treasure. The Forbidden City has been listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden strutures in the world. The Imperial Palace consists of the buildings within the Forbidden City perimeter, an area of 7,800,000 square feet, and consists of 980 remaining buildings with over 8,700 rooms. The construction of the Palace took from 1406 to approximately 1420 requiring a million workers for the project.

For five centuries this was the home of the Chinese emperors, notably the Ming emperors. The Palace housed the emperor's concubines numbering well over a thousand and the eunuchs required to run the whole operation. After all it probably took a lot of scheduling of all the business dealings let alone of the concubines. Those Ming guys were really something I guess.

Below a Chinese girl is posing for her friends.

When we left the Forbidden City Brian, the tour leader, had arranged for lunch in a private Chinese home. The home was in the historical Hudong area. This is an area still containing the homes built up in more recent history surrounding the old city. The streets in the area were narrow and quite a bit of construction work was being done in the area putting in electrical services to the homes to convert the old homes from heating with coal to electrical heat. The coal heat created a lot of pollution. The home owner told us that he paid for a third, the utility company paid for a third, and the government paid a third of the cost.

It was nice to actually visit a home in this area and talk with the homeowner through an interpreter. His son was an expert kung foo and karate trainer and is currently teaching in Texas. His son had followed in his footsteps and the dad had been in some movies as a stuntman.

Raising fighting crickets in China is apparently a popular sport and we were treated to a show and tell by one of the most famous local purverors of the sport. The man brought with him numerous magazine and newspaper articles about himself to verify his credentials. He was also quite a comedian of sorts. He bought him the tools of his trade and described them as to their function including the tiny "pooper scooper". He breeds and raises his collection of crickets and grasshoppers. Apparently they only live around 90 days so he can't get too attached to them but the blood lines may be important.

The home consisted of a small kitchen and then a dining room where we were seated at two tables for lunch. A very steep stairs led to a bedroom upstairs and that was basically it.

Below is one of the prized crickets.

The cricket man below-

Above and below we were treated to a rickshaw ride through the area on the way back to the tour bus.

It could have been a warmer day but still fun.

Below we were having a Peiking Duck dinner and the chefs were carving the ducks at our table.

The whole process of raising the ducks and preparation is interesting. The ducks are free ranged for 45 days and then force fed 4 times a day for 15-20 days ending up weighing around 15 lbs.

The ducks are roasted in a special oven fired by hardwood from peach or pear trees.

The meat is served with steamed pancakes and scallions and a sweet bean sauce along with cucumbers and carrot sticks. You take the pancake and put the sliced pieces of duck on it, pour some of the sweet sauce over it, add the vegetables and roll it up to eat. Pretty good!

Outside of the restaurant below.

A sign seen in a men's restroom over a urinal. Should have some of these in the states! Of course more of the restrooms there should have toilet paper like in the states.

Another interesting day spent in China.

A Really Big Square

November 16, 2009

Our second day in Beijing.
Yesterday was a busy day in Beijing and after climbing on The Wall and visiting the Ming Tombs, etc., I don't think anyone had the energy to go out on the town last night.

A couple of places that we visited yesterday but not mentioned included a Traditional Chinese Medical examination with prescriptions for any malady's that were found. This was done at a 400 year old Chinese pharmacy.

Last evening at the last stop of the days tour we went to a Chinese Acrobatic show that everyone enjoyed. We think that it was a training school for acrobats and most of the performers appeared to be teenagers and they put on an entertaining show.

One thing that I decided was that you don't want to drive in Chinese cities, maybe on the city to city expressways but not in the city. Traffic rules seem to be about the same as here in the US but you have to be fearless when negotiating lane changes in solid traffic there and it's not for the faint of heart. Below is the view ahead from the bus. The routes and exits are well marked on their highways and with some high tech traffic sensing and overhead displays drivers have some idea of blocked exits and highways ahead hopefully giving drivers a warning and what to do. The real time overhead graphic highway signs have back lighted portions that were green for open sections, yellow for congested sections, and red for blocked portions.
Left click on picture to enlarge!

As you can see below McDonald's has a presence in Beijing as in most cities around the world. Much to my chagrin I have to admit that Joan and I did have a sundae in one of the Shanghai McD's. My normal policy is to not to eat American fast food in any foreign country. If my interpretation of the sign below is correct then Y15 yuan or about $2.75 US for the meals shown on the sign. Not bad!



The Beijing Crown Plaza where we stayed was a very nice hotel and would recommend it to anyone. I don't know what the cost per night was as it was included in the price of the trip. The bar below was very elegant.

A curious thing about the room was that the bathroom had a wall of glass. I had never experienced that before. For a degree of modesty there was an electrically controlled blind on the bathroom side. I guess with the blind open you could enjoy the Beijing skyline while soaking in the tub.

Today we were excited about seeing Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City because of their significance in China's history.

The Square is the largest public square in the world and has been the site of several key events in Chinese history.

The event most of us remember is the pro-democracy movement and gathering in the square in 1989 when hundreds, more likely thousands of mostly student protestors were killed by government troops. What started as a non-violent protest turned into a really bad confrontation and disaster. And who could forget the "Tank Man" ? One person brave enough to risk his life to face down and stop a column of tanks. Talk about putting your life on the line for something that you believe in - this guy did it. I can't believe it's been over 20 years since this happened.

Below is one of a number of videos of the scene. Quite moving!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyFm2yncnlI

Below is another video describing the uprising itself and some history since then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieND7g2ye0

Apparently the Chinese government has made any public discussion of the uprising strictly forbidden but it is historically well documented. Just walking through the Square kinda makes chills run up and down your back.

Well this is 2009 and a different world exists around us, economic conditions are far better in China than 30 years ago, but China still has a communist government and if given a choice to go democratic what do you think would happen?

On this day the surprising thing to me was that there was very little (at least observable) presence of security in terms of police or army. As we arrived we walked through a scanner but I don't think that everyone had to do that. President Obama was on our heels and arriving the next day and I'm glad that we didn't happen to be there the same day as there might have been limitations on where we could go.

Below is the east side of the Square as we arrived there. It's BIG!

Below is the Chinese Museum of History along the East side of the Square.

Below is the Great Hall of the People on the west side of the Square where the National Peoples Congress meets. It is the political center point of China. It was built in 1959 over a construction area of 42 acres. The Great Hall can hold 10,000 people and the banquet hall seats 5,000 people.

Below is the Tiananmen Gate from which the name of the Square comes from. It is the entry point to the Forbidden City. Although you can't see it in the picture you walk over a ramp or bridge to enter the gate. It goes over the moat that was originally dug around the entire Forbidden City. The dirt from the moat was piled at the north of the City outside the moat and created a large hill upon which was built a large pagoda. The Tiananmen Gate was built in 1417 by those Ming guys.

Tiananmen Square was definitely one of the high points of the trip and of course The Forbidden city which will be put in the next entry. The Square is a fantastic place combined with the historical buildings on all sides. Wow!

We Hit the Wall

November 15, 2009
The Great Wall of China









A cold day in China!
So far we've stopped at a number of places to see various handicrafts made and the Tombs of the Ming Emperors but as we rode the bus into the area of The Great Wall I was amazed at the immensity of it. To see the wall structure disappear off into the distance going up and down over the mountains was for lack of other words - incredible. One thing that struck me immediately was that it didn't just go through the valleys but right up over the tops of the mountains. It was later in the day when we got there and you could see the silhouette of the wall and the guard towers going up and over the mountains. What a project using human labor to build.

Again, left click on the picture to enlarge.



As we drove up the highway we came upon a place where the highway intersected with a section of the wall. In the picture below you can see the parking area of the tour buses on the left side. As we were nearing the parking area Brian was telling us that if anyone wanted to hike up the wall to the top of the mountain it was 4,000 steps and it was OK with him but he had been up there a number of times and he would just stay there at the bus. By the way it was around 32 degrees (but felt like 10 degrees) and some areas of the path on the wall was covered with snow and ice so be careful.




The picture below was taken a little ways up the steps and you can see how steep the mountain was. After going this far it didn't look that far up to the top (Yeah, right! The grand canyon doesn't look that deep either) so I decided to see if I could make it to the top. About 3 or 4 of the others in the group were some distance ahead of me. Most of the steps had an average rise of about 8 inches but then there were those that were worn more or cut not so high and only 4 inches high. And then there was an occasional one that was like 18 inches high. Keeping an eye on the steps is advisable as you climb but stop when you want to enjoy the view in order to prevent skinned shins.




Below is the view looking up ahead. A couple of interesting things I noted was that just as we began to start up the wall from the parking lot a large group of beautiful women were coming down. They were all bundled up with the same coats and had sashes with the names of countries on them. Apparently they were contestants in the Miss World contest and had been there to visit the wall.
At another spot further up there were a whole lot of locks attached to the handrail with short chains. There must have been a couple hundred of them. I think that they were left after filming a segment of the reality TV show "The Great Race" there.



Below are the 4,000 steps, didn't count them - just taking Brian's word for it but I think there was at least that many!




Below you can see that there was quite a bit of ice left from the snow storm that hit that part of China a couple days before we got there. Also, way off in the distance you can see the silhouette of the wall as it disappears over the mountains.



Another view below from close to the top of the area we were in. Brian said that in the days that the wall was in use there would be 2 or 3 guards stationed in the guard towers. There was a place where a fire could be built to keep warm but that had to be a real miserable job doing guard duty let alone getting the wood up there to start with.











There are many websites on the internet to learn about The Wall so won't bore you with many details here. I like the Wikipedia sites for information as they don't hit you with a bunch of advertising. Below is the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

Just a few brief details:
The Wall was started around 7th century BC but was primarily built and rebuilt between the 5th and 16th centuries to protect the northern borders from invaders (the Mongols were particularily nasty that way). It has been surveryed to be at least 5,500 miles long including 223 miles of trenches and 1,387 miles of natural barriers such as hills and rivers.

The most sturdy parts of the wall was built during the Ming dynasty (the Ming guys again) using brick and stone instead of rammed earth used in the early parts. Those Ming's were very enterprising.

Life is good.

Not Quite to The Wall Yet

November 15, 2009

Well we did go to the Wall today but a couple of other things first. Will put the Wall in the next installation.
As usual you can enlarge the pictures by left clicking on them.


Below is a picture inside the Ming Tomb area and inside the Zhu memorial that had the statue of the Emperor on the previous issue. The structure of the building is the interesting thing here. Notice the high decoratively painted ceilings supported by the large wood poles. The poles were the trunks from camphor trees (I think this is right - should carry a recorder or take better notes). It's a large building and of all wood construction.



Below is a typical lunch and evening dinner, Chinese of course. The restaurants we went to all had a good system for serving busloads of tourists very quickly. All had round tables with a lazy susan in the center where the dishes of food were placed. The system was simple, just spin the lazy susan to take what you want. There was always a variety of selections and for drinks hot tea, water, Coke, Sprite, and a Chinese beer. We never went away hungry.



Who would have guessed - Italian Gelato in China!


One of the handicrafts that was demonstrated to us was Cloisenart. This was tedious as were most of the handicrafts that the Chinese do. In the picture below the girl is using pliers to bend pieces of copper about 3/16 inch wide to follow an intricate pattern on the paper. The pieces are then appied to a copper vase or bowl using a slip or liquid ceramic solution.


After the patterns are attached then they us an eyedropper to fill in the spaces with ceramic solutions of different colors to match the desired pattern after which the piece is fired in a kiln.
Since the spaces cannot be completely filled with solution in one step this is done and fired up to 5 or 6 times. The result is a beautiful and colorful vase as evidenced by the couple small pieces in the photo below.

Below is another interesting handicraft that involves painting the inside of hollow glass items with various scenes. This must take a lot of practice and nerves of steel as the paintings are basically done backwards also.

Next - The Great Wall

The Ming Guys

November 15, 2009

A Ming Vase - well I had heard of one but what could make a vase so significant? And what is a Ming anyhow?

By the year 1368 a guy by the name of Zhu (first name) had become a military leader having joined the army as a peasant to fight against an uprising against the established army and then over the years becoming a major leader. In 1398 Zhu had become very powerful and proclaimed himself emperor. This ended the previous Yuan dynasty and was the beginning of almost 300 years of the Mings. The Ming dynasty followed the blood line of Zhu and saw developments in the area of medicine, literature, foreign trade, handicrafts, and ceramics including vases. It also saw the beginning of capitalism and the importation of tobacco from America and other products from Europe. In all there were 16 Mings with the last hanging himself after military defeats.

All of the Mings apparently used the first name of Zhu and Ming. Why, I don't know and so far I don't know where the name Ming came from. If you do let me know.

When we arrived in Beijing we were met at the airport by Brian who would be our guide for our time in Beijing. The tour bus reserved for us was comfortable, clean and our group was the only ones on it. Brian did a really nice job and spoke English well. He knew Chinese history and could answer any of our questions quite thoroughly. He was candid in his answers and explained the development of the Chinese society over the last 20 years or so very well. His personal view is that the country is becoming more and more capitalistic in nature and will be the direction in the future.

Brian shared some of his family history and that his father was a member of the communist party for over 30 years. I think that this was because he had a position with the government. Brian said that because of this his father retired with a good pension and full medical care.

I wish that I had studied up a little on Chinese history before the trip but a country with 7,000 years of history would make it a hard decision of where to start. So for eight days you learn what you can of any history you find interesting and enjoy the modern day China.

Today was the first day of siteseeing for us and the first daytime views of our surroundings. Our agenda for today included the Temple of Heaven, a Jade Factory, Ming Tombs, the Great Wall, and later a Chinese Acrobatic Show.

Below - Brian fearless leader of fifteen Americans.

We had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. It was buffet style with American style food including eggs custom cooked any style you desired, sausages, bacon, pancakes, etc. Also Chinese breakfast selections were available. And then we were off for our first day in China.

All around us now we could see the incredible amount of construction going on. High rise construction everywhere with the skyline peppered with cranes. Travelling through the streets of Beijing the influence of American culture could be seen from the evidence of McDonald's, Pizza Hut, KFC, etc. Could be good or bad I guess.

We soon learned what our day's of touring were going to be like.

One of our first stops was at a jade factory where we had a nice Chinese lady tell us all about jade and how to tell quality from not so good jade. Lighter colored jade is considered better and brings a higher price. High quality jade emits a nice ringing sound when tapped. Everything we needed to know so that we could intelligently shop in the factory store.

Below our instructor is holding a very nice piece worth thousands of US dollars.


Below Joan is looking at a large piece worth tens of thousands of US dollars.

Our next stop was at The Temple of Heaven where the emperors would go to pray for good harvests. It was explained that the emperor was the only one that had a connection to God and this was the temple where he would go to pray. He was the only one allowed to enter the building.

The area around the temple consisted of gardens and open recreation areas. Below is a section of roof that is probably hundreds of years old. It's of beautiful green tile construction.

I had seen pictures and videos on TV of the Chinese practicing Tai Chi and exercising in the park areas and here we were at the real live thing. Brian explained that 30 years ago China was in a depressing time with people having to work into their older years. Dress was plain and dark colors and little social interaction. Now people are able to retire with descretionary income and have a lot of social activities. Below are a number of men playing a board game along an open arcade and sitting on a railing where there was a whole row of games going on including dominoes, some type of checkers, card games (Brian said that poker was popular).

Below people are practicing Tai Chi and along with the help of a boom box taking dancing lessons obviously enjoying themselves. The somewhat incredible thing is that it's the beginning of winter and we were freezing coming from Palm Springs and Phoenix but even though the temperature was around 35-40 degrees they were out in the open really enjoying themselves. This is the retiree generation. An interesting comparison to the large group of retired men hanging out at the local McDonald's in the mornings.

Below is the House of Prayer.
Great panoramic views of the city from this spot.

Our next stop on the tour was the valley and mountainous area where the Ming emperors are buried. Below is a general layout of the valley that is the resting place of 13 of the emperors, 3 of the emperors are buried at other locations. As you come into the valley you can see the pagodas or temples marking the burial spots at various spots at the bases of the mountains spread over thousands of acres.

One of the Zhu's above.

We saw a lot today including the Great Wall but will add that next.