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Monday 2005-09-19 - Bejing, China
Imperial Palace
I wake up with a fever: my cold is getting a hold. I still want to go out though: I’m not feeling that bad. Together with Carla and Gwendoline I go to the Imperial palace today (also known as “The Forbidden City”; officially it’s the Palace Museum), right in the center of Beijing. Once we step outside, we find it’s chilly, quite a change from yesterday: we go back to our rooms to fetch a jacket and note most Beijing citizens are wearing long sleeves today as well. The atmosphere in the streets today is clearly different from yesterday when it was a holiday: now we see people going about their business instead of whole families strolling about lazily.
To my surprise we don’t have to pay right at the first gate (the one with the big portrait of chairman Mao above it) but walk right through onto an enormous courtyard, then on through another gate onto another courtyard. Only there we have to pay (60ұ) to go on into the complex.
What follows is quite impressive: one courtyard after another, all large or very large, with marble bridges over a little river and beautifully carved marble stairways; the buildings surrounding the courtyards all have brick-red painted walls and elegant roofs of yellow-glazed rounded tiles, topped by beautiful animals on all corners; the woodwork (especially below the roofs) is beautifully decorated with multi-colored paintings. The effect is quite pleasing, in spite of the enormous size of it all. Lots of potted plants stand around, there’s a pond full of lotus plants, here and there big bronze and marble sculptures of mythical beasts, and big bronze vats (purpose unknown). A few halls have impressive thrones but unfortunately you can’t go near, only peer at them from the entrance of the halls, and it’s rather dark inside.
It’s rightfully called the forbidden city: not only were ordinary Chinese citizens not allowed inside the walls of the palace grounds, but the whole complex — itself just a small part of metropolis Beijing — is indeed big as a city: I reckon he whole inner city of Groningen would easily fit in this area.
It’s a pity the restoration of the complex is still going on: many buildings are still in scaffolding and whole areas of the complex closed to the public. It will surely all be ready before the 2008 Olympics: maybe we should come back in the spring of 2009 to see it in its full glory.
Mask
On the way back from the Imperial Palace we decide to have lunch near Qianmen (south of Tian’anmen square), where Carla and I had lunch last year. I’m not hungry since I already had a bowl of noodles at the Forbidden City so I only have a beer while Carla and Gwendoline share a dish of sliced duck with onions (a kind of long, thin leek, actually).
From our table at the window we watch Beijing coming by.
I note a man coming from the underpass wearing a green surgical mask: not such a bad idea in Beijing with its polluted air, where the sky is rarely blue because of the smog. The sight of the mask reminds me of a comment from a Chinese I noted on an online forum that the TV news coverage of the SARS epidemic was rather biased: we were shown images of people walking around in masks, as if that was all because of the epidemic, while in reality it was already quite common. That brings to mind how the Chinese have had several campaigns to promote hygiene, for instance to discourage spitting in public: it used to be quite common just a few years ago but it’s rare now; no doubt the SARS epidemic helped bring that message home.
Having just arrived at this point in my musings about Chinese hygiene, I see the man unhooking the mask from his right ear, holding it aside, spitting a thick wad onto the pavement, and smoothly putting the mask back into place. It’s an exception. Really.
Sweeping a waterfall
A while later I note two young men standing outside, laughing, looking up: a waterfall is coming down right in front of the restaurant entrance but we can’t see what’s causing it. A girl from the restaurant goes outside with a mop and starts sweeping the water off the steps — rather futile since the water keeps coming down. Soon she’s joined by a colleague with a broom. Gradually the flood eases a bit and together they manage to sweep away most of the water from the entrance steps — only to have the waterfall start all over again. By the time we leave it’s almost stopped, but the steps are still slippery wet.
To the Opera
In the evening we go with most of the group to the Beijing Opera. Unlike last year, we go to the actual Beijing Opera house: a small building that’s over 400 years old, with quite beautifully decorated woodwork inside. A pity we have places on the balcony, on the side: we don’t have a very good view of the stage; also the explanation of the performance is not as good as we had last year. The performance itself is sublime though and the piece after the intermission is especially interesting for us: the star is the Monkey King — after whom our travel organization (Koning Aap) is called.
I know the film in my camera is not fast enough to be able to take pictures in the theater so I didn’t bring it. But a digital camera usually has a much wider range, so I try to do something with my brand-new camera phone. It’s just an experiment, but you never know: just one good picture would be nice to have.
Afterwards we all go and have a beer together in the hutongs before returning to the hotel. All in all a nice and interesting evening out.
