This city is forbidden, baby...
Mike and I did the tourist thing today. Our guide, Jill, took us to the Temple of Heaven, the Lama Temple, Tiannamen Square, and the Forbidden City. Wow. Each place was amazing in its own way. Unfortunately, the hotel internet room doesn't allow us to upload pictures (they're also charging me two yuan a minute for the privileg of writing this, so I'll make it quick).
Where to begin? Beijing is bloody huge. Really big. The word "sprawling" comes to mind. It is smoggy. It is busy and crowded and people drive like they're in the bumper car ride at Cedar Point. It's awesome. The Temple of Heaven is a 273-hectacre park that is now used as open meeting space. People come there to exercise, sing, dance, do tai chi, play cards, play dominoes, play music, knit, or just talk. It's mind-boggling. Imagine literally hundreds--thousands--of people in groups big and small all engaging in some sort of playful activity, and all right on top of each other. We walked in the front gates, and there were women doing a ribbon dance--dancing while holding a wooden dowel that has a 20-foot colored ribbon attached to it. It's a beautiful, graceful thing. Directly behind them, two women were playing paddle ball. Across from and almost in their midst, probably 40 or 50 people are doing tai chi with a paddle and ball. At first, I thought the ball was somehow stuck to the paddle, but it's just the slow, graceful movement of the body and the turning of the paddle that keeps the ball on it--unless their tossing the ball in the air with the paddle and catching it behind their back.
Across from them were about 20 couples dancing. And a large group of people doing tai chi. And then a group of people dancing and clapping along to the music (I noticed some generic version of The Locomotion as part of the soundtrack). And then there is an informal choir singing. You walk on, and there is a man telling jokes (I think that's what he was doing--he had a crowd and they were laughing). The Long Corridor is what the name implies-- it's about the length of a football field, and it's open on the sides. You walk inside it or outside next to it and hear a choir followed by a guitar and harmonica playing a traditional Chinese song followed by a man singing along with a boom box followed by a very old man with only half his teeth who is mouthing the words to the song the previous man is singing and dancing along to it.
I haven't even told you about the Temple for the Prayer of Good Harvests--which is part of the Temple of Heaven. I haven't told you about the Lama Temple, which consists of a series of open buildings with statues of different buddhas who are prayed to for specific needs and the fires of burning incense in front of each one (I'd consider each of these its own temple, but what do I know? This is Beijing, we build it big and sprawling). I haven't told you about Tiannamen Square, which is most impressive for its sheer size--supposedly one million people can stand on the squar at the same time. And I haven't told you about the sheer vastness and unending quality of the Forbidden City, which at one time was closed only to the emperor and his concubines and servants. I'm told that if a baby growing up in the Forbidden City (okay, an emperor) slept in a different room each night, he'd be 27 years old before he had slept in every room).
I can't wait to post pictures. It's just incredible.
More later.
Where to begin? Beijing is bloody huge. Really big. The word "sprawling" comes to mind. It is smoggy. It is busy and crowded and people drive like they're in the bumper car ride at Cedar Point. It's awesome. The Temple of Heaven is a 273-hectacre park that is now used as open meeting space. People come there to exercise, sing, dance, do tai chi, play cards, play dominoes, play music, knit, or just talk. It's mind-boggling. Imagine literally hundreds--thousands--of people in groups big and small all engaging in some sort of playful activity, and all right on top of each other. We walked in the front gates, and there were women doing a ribbon dance--dancing while holding a wooden dowel that has a 20-foot colored ribbon attached to it. It's a beautiful, graceful thing. Directly behind them, two women were playing paddle ball. Across from and almost in their midst, probably 40 or 50 people are doing tai chi with a paddle and ball. At first, I thought the ball was somehow stuck to the paddle, but it's just the slow, graceful movement of the body and the turning of the paddle that keeps the ball on it--unless their tossing the ball in the air with the paddle and catching it behind their back.
Across from them were about 20 couples dancing. And a large group of people doing tai chi. And then a group of people dancing and clapping along to the music (I noticed some generic version of The Locomotion as part of the soundtrack). And then there is an informal choir singing. You walk on, and there is a man telling jokes (I think that's what he was doing--he had a crowd and they were laughing). The Long Corridor is what the name implies-- it's about the length of a football field, and it's open on the sides. You walk inside it or outside next to it and hear a choir followed by a guitar and harmonica playing a traditional Chinese song followed by a man singing along with a boom box followed by a very old man with only half his teeth who is mouthing the words to the song the previous man is singing and dancing along to it.
I haven't even told you about the Temple for the Prayer of Good Harvests--which is part of the Temple of Heaven. I haven't told you about the Lama Temple, which consists of a series of open buildings with statues of different buddhas who are prayed to for specific needs and the fires of burning incense in front of each one (I'd consider each of these its own temple, but what do I know? This is Beijing, we build it big and sprawling). I haven't told you about Tiannamen Square, which is most impressive for its sheer size--supposedly one million people can stand on the squar at the same time. And I haven't told you about the sheer vastness and unending quality of the Forbidden City, which at one time was closed only to the emperor and his concubines and servants. I'm told that if a baby growing up in the Forbidden City (okay, an emperor) slept in a different room each night, he'd be 27 years old before he had slept in every room).
I can't wait to post pictures. It's just incredible.
More later.
posted by SusantheMommy at
8:59 AM
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