Tiananmen – The Gate of Heavenly Peace

You didn’t think we’d leave Beijing without marching you through the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, did you?

Truth be told, neither spot is among our favourites on the Beijing Tourist Trail. Too much concrete; too many tour groups with bullhorns, hawkers with souvenirs, predatory art students. It’s not a good choice for a relaxing afternoon. People-watching, on the other hand . . .

Say “qiezi”

Tiananmen and the Forbidden City are, however, two of those places you can’t go to China without going to. Tiananmen Square is the birthplace and symbolic center of the People’s Republic of China; the Forbidden City was the symbolic heart of imperial China. The first time you visit them, they will inspire you – with awe, or fear, likely both.

I don’t know but I’ve been told, standing still gets kinda old

Tiananmen Square goes on, and on, and – it can seem inhuman, but it is, well, big. If you’ve managed to forget you were in a Communist country while sipping Starbucks coffee and shopping at all the high-end boutiques in Oriental Plaza, Tiananmen Square is always there to remind you.

Now, what are the party colours again?

This year they even displayed nice floral representations of the Three Gorges Dam and Potala Palace in Tibet specially for National Day. Subtle, guys.

A miniature Potala Palace, just like in Lhasa!

And a miniature Three Gorges Dam, making the desert bloom

Lest you think the CCP stole their impulse toward monumentality from Stalin, the Forbidden City will reassure you that it’s just a Zhongguo thang. Here the hard edges of socialist architecture are replaced with curves and flying eaves, but you’ll see the thread from past to present in the expansive courtyards and imposing buildings.

Unlike Tiananmen, though, the Forbidden City does have its quiet side. If you can elbow your way past the crowds, the gardens and smaller buildings on the north and west sides of the palace complex are worth a visit no matter how many times you’ve been. Here, you actually have the space and time to pay attention to the finer details of the gardens.

And when you want a bit of reflective quiet time, you can find that, too (if you’re patient enough to let the wave of tour groups move past you).

But don’t just jump into one of the waiting taxis when you leave the gates of the Forbidden City. The ancient site is right next to a beautiful residential area of alleyways and canals, where old men fish, play chess, fly kites, and stroll along huge red walls in the afternoon light.

Homing pigeons stretching their wings in front of Zhengyang gate

It’s 4 pm and the skies above Beijing are filled with more than a dozen flocks of pigeons swirling in large arcs over the city buildings. Round and round they go, as far as you can see. Dozens of groups of maybe 20 or 30 pigeons each. We were watching them out of our hotel window, wondering what was going on. Then we realised – 4 o’clock must be exercise time for the hundreds of homing pigeons living in lofts all around Beijing.

The much-maligned “rat with wings” is a common pet here in China, and keeping homing pigeons seems to be a popular hobby, especially among men. After all, older men are the ones who fly bird kites and walk around carrying little bamboo bird cages. Maybe keeping homing pigeons is where they start.

A pigeon owner calling his flock back home

Intrigued as we were by all this commotion outside, we watched to see just exactly how a pigeon owner calls his flock back after their afternoon constitutional. All in all, the birds were in the air for about half an hour, with their owner watching from his ladder next to their roost. After 20 or so minutes, he began to swirl his stick in the air in large circles, bang it on the roof or clap his hands. You’d think this would scare the birds away, but gradually their arc got smaller and smaller, and their altitude lower and lower. With each circuit, a few pigeons would land on the roof and waddle back into their cage, until finally all the pigeons were safely home and locked away for the night (much to the displeasure of the two cats slinking along the rooftops, waiting for that one hapless pigeon to land in the wrong place).

All clear – the first lot of incoming pigeons

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest

. . . so we headed over to another of our favourite spots on the Beijing Tourist Trail, the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven is actually a large park, 273 hectares of gardens, ancient cypress and lawns surrounding a temple compound built along a north-south axis. The compound’s centerpiece is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, where each year, from the first incarnation of the temple in 1420 to the last Emperor’s abdication in 1911, the Emperor would come on the winter solstice to pray for a successful harvest the following year. The architecture of the entire compound is based on elaborate symbolism and numerological principles to assist the Emperor in his prayer. For example, within the main Hall, there are four posts representing the four seasons, 12 posts representing the 12 months; and 12 posts representing the 12 shichen (there are 12 two-hour shichen in a day).

Still life with urn

Still life with door

These days the Temple is a tourist attraction of enough importance to merit a 47 million yuan restoration (about $8 million AUD), completed on May 1 of this year. And as you can see from the photos, they got their money’s worth – the place looks brand-spanking new.

Looking north from the Circular Mound Altar to the Imperial Vault of Heaven (foreground) and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest (background)

Brendan says:

I think I’m finally beginning to understand this.

This morning I took my coffee back because it was cold. “Umm, I’m sorry,” I began meekly. “My coffee is not very warm.”

The girl behind the counter grabbed my mug, cupped her hands around it, and gave it a bit of consideration. “I think it is warm.” She handed the cup to someone through the window to the kitchen and muttered something in Chinese.

“Umm, could I have another coffee, please?”

She flipped on the espresso machine and checked the temperature of the water. “The water is warm,” she said. “It will be the same.”

“Okay.” I conceded the point. “Could I have my old coffee back?”

She retrieved my mug from the kitchen and without a word, gave it to me, smiling. The coffee was steaming hot.

*****

This sort of thing happens all the time in China. If you, as a customer, point out any sort of problem with a product, or service, no matter how politely you put it, the problem will be strenuously denied. It doesn’t matter how obvious the problem is, or how easy it is to correct, how understandable and innocent the error was, or how transparently absurd the denial is. Sometimes the problem will be fixed, usually it will not be, but of one thing you can be fairly confident – “Oops, sorry, let me take care of that” will probably not be the response.

People wiser than I warned us of this phenomenon before we came to China. They also advised us not to throw tantrums in response. Naturally, I have ignored this advice repeatedly, but I can vouch for its wisdom. At first you may succeed in temporarily embarrassing the counter girl, or hotel clerk, or bank teller, but within seconds a crowd will gather round to watch, they will start smiling, then cracking jokes, then laughing openly, and in the end you will have succeeded only in embarrassing yourself. Believe me. I know these things.

A better approach is to apologise profusely and look pathetic. No one will ever acknowledge the problem, but occasionally, as with my coffee, it will mysteriously, silently be solved.

Though often not.

*****

Emma says:

We were in a town called Wuwei, staying at a hotel for one of our breaks. Doing our washing is always one of our first tasks.

I filled out the sheet of paper with the laundry categories, and in the category marked “Handkerchiefs” I put the number 6. Hankies, pack towels, that sort of thing.

I gave the nice lady our bag of clothes and the sheet of paper. She tried to grab all carbon copies of the form, but I managed to keep one. We have learned to always keep receipts.

When they returned our laundry that afternoon, I counted the clothes while the nice lady waited. Hiking pants, check. T-shirts, check. Six pairs of socks, check. “Handkerchiefs”? Five in all. Only five. Something’s missing.

“One of our towels is missing, lost,” I attempt in Chinese. “A red one.”

The nice lady turns and engages in fierce consultation with another woman outside. “No, there is no red one.”

“I know, it’s lost,” I say. “Can you find it? Maybe look in the laundry?” I put my hand across my eyes, shielding the imaginary sun, and turn my head from side to side. Is this the international symbol for looking?

More consultation. “No, there was no other towel. No red one,” she says assuredly.

“Yes there was. See, the number 6,” I say, brandishing the pink carbon copy. “And here,” I say, pointing at the towels, “only five. Yi, er, san, si, wu.”

“Oh!” she exclaims, finally understanding. “This receipt, it’s wrong. This six, it’s wrong.” She points at each item in turn and counts them off: “One, two, three, four, five.”

“See, five!”

*****

How do you argue with that?

Some people might not see much difference between the Chinese Cricket Association and the China Cricket Association – one involves a group of men standing around a field waiting to see which team wins, the other involves a group of men standing around a plastic tub waiting to see which team wins. Easy to confuse the two.

One big difference, though – the game of cricket has only been played in China for about 150 years, while the cultivation of crickets (invertebrates, plural) has been around for about 3000. Hence the China Cricket Association, the country’s peak body in overseeing the trade in crickets and the annual nationwide cricket fighting championships.

In The Book of Songs, China’s most ancient collection of poems, dating from as early as 1000 BC, the keeping of crickets is mentioned – not for the crickets’ fighting skills, but for their singing skills.

The characters for qu qu (below ground chirpers) and guo guo (above ground fighters). The photo at the top of the page shows qu qu, singing crickets.

Pretty soon, Chinese men discovered that there were some crickets that like to fight each other. Seeing a good opportunity for a spot of gambling, oops, I mean social intercourse, they developed the art of cricket fighting. Not knowing anything about cricket fighting, Brendan and I decided to go to a demonstration put on by Beijing’s Chinese Culture Club.

China Cricket Association secretary Mr Zhao Bai Xian getting the crickets ready for a fight

Keeping crickets is a popular and elaborate hobby. Singing crickets are basically happy in bamboo cages, being fed fruit and vegetables. They live for roughly 150 days. Fighting crickets, on the other hand, need all sorts of paraphernalia to be good at their art. Little wooden houses and transporting boxes, bronze shovels to remove their waste, ceramic food and water bowls, and decorated ticklers to get them suitably annoyed enough to fight. And no veggies for these bad boys – it’s all raw meat, all the time.

Official fighting matches are a big deal. Crickets are kept away from their owners for about three hours before a fight to guard against doping. (You heard right – doping. It’s not just spin-bowlers they’re keeping an eye on.) Then, like all fighters, they weigh in and are matched up with a similar sized opponent. (Here, Brendan had a flashback to his teenage years, standing around naked with a group of other teenage boys waiting to be weighed in before a wrestling match.)

The cricket scales

The two male crickets are then put in an arena, otherwise known as a plastic tub, with a little sliding door between them. The door is removed and the males are then supposed to fight. This doesn’t always happen automatically; sometimes the owner needs to “tickle” his fighter to get the aggression flowing.

Checking out the opponent

Fights start like boxing matches – a few spars with the antennae, getting a bit more aggressive with the front legs, then one cricket, sensing his opponent’s weakness, lunges. After a few seconds of frenzied fighting where the two insects roll around in the air, locked together, the loser retreats and the other, chirping madly, is declared the winner.

This part of the fight only lasts for a few seconds

The losing cricket almost never suffers any serious physical harm. Mental health, sadly, is a different matter. The loser is usually so distraught that he refuses to fight another round for about 24 hours. The Chinese handlers have found a way around this by throwing them in the air and making them fly. A study by neurobiologists at Stanford University found that forcing the motor skill of flying onto the crickets helped bring them out of their depression. Implications for human depression are yet to be determined (see “Will fighting crickets unlock the mystery of human depression?”).

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of breathing in Beijing, it would probably never occur to you to take up an activity, like long-distance running, that forces you to really inhale that Beijing brew long and hard for three to five hours. According to The Guardian, Beijing has the world’s worst air (see “Satellite data reveals Beijing as air pollution capital of world” ).

Which is what makes the Beijing marathon such a unique event. Why, in a city with nearly 3 million cars on the road and 1000 more coming in every day, would 25,000 presumably healthy people choose, choose, to run 26 miles? Why hold one of Asia’s premier marathons, and this year the 10th Asian Championship marathon, in a city whose health clubs have taken to installing indoor running tracks?

But you know what they say – 25,000 Chinese can’t be wrong. So, at 8 am sharp on October 15, the starter’s gun fired and the ANA Beijing International Marathon was underway.

Me first! No, me! The starting line at Tiananmen Square

The elite pool of marathoners looked to number about 30 or so, the other many thousands of runners were just ordinary Beijingers and out-of-towners looking for a good time and a fun jog through the city that is to host the next Olympics. Starting at Tiananmen Square, the marathoners made their way through the north part of the city and finished at the future National Olympic Sports Centre. The first man across the line was Kenya’s James Kwambei with a time of 2 hours, 10 minutes and 36 seconds, while the first woman was China’s Sun Weiwei in 2 hours, 34 minutes and 41 seconds.

As in any marathon, the participants came in a variety of shapes and sizes – the young, the old, the insanely fit, the merely insane. But unlike any other marathon, this one had, pardon the stereotyping, a unique Chinese feel to it. In the ultimate loner’s sport, huge groups ran together. Some runners were clad in the highest tech, most outrageously expensive shoes and gear one could imagine; others wore pyjamas. Well after the race had begun, hundreds of runners were dodging through the crowd of spectators trying get to the starting line. The whole event had an atmosphere of happy chaos.

“Now young man, don’t go doing any fancy stuff”

And what Chinese event would be complete without some people dashing about in utterly inexplicable costumes? Meet the running red gum-drops . . .

“My mum said I should wear a face mask. Do you think this will do?”

”

Joyside

When our friend and old bandmate Mike asked us about the music scene in China a few months ago, we really didn’t have much to offer beyond a few Kenny G and Carpenters jokes.

The Houhai Sharks

The Houhai Sharks

With the Wallnuts in town and a five-band bill at a popular bar for the bargain price of 20 kuai ($3.50 AUD), we figured we should jump at the chance to see some Beijing rock, so we headed out to D-22 near Peking University.

The impassioned Yang Haisong of PK 14

The scene outside the bar could have been pretty much any club in Newtown or Surry Hills, or an American college town for that matter – university-age hipsters smoking and chatting outside, lots of leather, ripped jeans, Converse, piercings and tats.

International indie-rock footgear

We got there an hour early and grabbed one of the few tables – we may be rugged wallwalkers but we don’t have the endurance anymore to stand in a sweaty moshpit for hours on end.

Shang of Joyside

Guan Zheng of Joyside

None of us knew anything, really, about Chinese rock, but it turns out we saw some of the best bands in Beijing. The headliners, Hang on the Box, were nominated as Best Rock Band at the Annual Pepsi Music Awards in 2004 and 2005. Two of the other bands, Joyside and PK 14, have been the subject of film docos. And it was a great show, at least so far as an oldster like me can judge (without the benefit of being able to understand any lyrics). To have a listen for yourself, click on any of names of the bands in this paragraph to go to their MySpace site.

Wang Yue of Hang on the Box

Hang on the Box

If someone had told us six months ago we’d spend October in Beijing waiting for a broken foot to heal, we can’t honestly say we’d have been thrilled. Fortunately, there are consolations.

October is absolutely the best time to come to Beijing. There’s only a narrow window of time between Beijing’s stifling, smoggy summers and frigid grey winters, and it’s right now – clear skies (by Beijing standards), warm days and cool nights. We know that 8 is an auspicious number hereabouts, but we can’t help but wish they’d scheduled the Beijing Olympics for October (the opening ceremony is 08/08/2008).

Yesterday we headed out to our favourite spot on the Beijing Tourist Trail, the Summer Palace. We’ve been there before, but like many of Beijing’s most famous spots, there has been a lot of restoration work going on while Beijing dresses up for the Olympics. So for us, this is the first time we’ve seen some of the most famous buildings when they were not covered by scaffolds.

Most of the buildings and landscaping at the Summer Palace date from the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. Though British and French troops rampaged through the grounds in the 19th century, many of the buildings have been restored, so it’s possible to get a good feel for the place as it once must have been. It was a beautiful, crisp autumn day when we were out there, great for strolling under the willows, fishing or just taking pictures.

Bridge and canals near the West Palace Gate

Mural from the Long Gallery

The Temple of Buddhist Incense

Courtyard, Temple of Buddhist Incense

Ceramic bull roof decoration

Detail, Temple of Buddhist Incense

Glazed Buddhas on the Hall of the Sea of Wisdom

Beijing skyline

The temple catching late afternoon sunlight

Strolling along the causeway

Dragon boat on Lake Kunming