Still Not Dead
We’re safely home. More data after much sleepliness.
I’m still sick but eating meals now, so it’s under control.
Hasty Reflections
This is the post where I talk about China and how it looks to my mind now I’m in Indonesia. It’s hasty because we’re going to go out to a fancypants restaurant soon (Indonesia is a bit like Aslan – “I call all times soon”). The fun events of today are at http://twittertales.wordpress.com
Right now I’m sitting in the study of an Aussie family I’m calling Mr and Mrs Baik. Behind me there is a frenzied mass of trees and vines and bushes and bamboo and flowers and mountains. The sun is setting, shining golden through the chinks in the clouds (it’s wet season).
China VS Indonesia:
Weather:Beijing is horrid. Indonesia is humid and hot and often very very rainy, but at least it’s consistent. And I like wearing T-shirts, and not constantly having to put on and take off Winter clothes (going in and out of subways, homes, and restaurants).
Internet:China is sooo much better. I know there’s the Great Firewall issue, but with a proxy server you’re fine. Indonesia’s internet is astonishingly slow – it can take several minutes for a page (each page) to load. And then sometimes it doesn’t work. Right now hotmail doesn’t seem to work – I can open my account and see my 22 messages, but can’t do anything else. So Mum (and Mum-in-law), please keep an eye on the blogs if you’re worried about our safety. We’re flying Lion air to Denpasar on Wednesday afternoon, and you have the rest of the itinery.
Food:China wins. By lots. But then, I hate chilli, and love fried food. (Fried food is very typical of Beijing – there’s PLENTY of other types of Chinese food.) There’s lots of fried food in Indonesia too, and sweet food – but Chinese food is better.
Pollution:Indonesia is MUCH nicer – even in Jakarta.
Streets/Walking around/transport: Beijing is a (predominantly) wealthy urban landscape, beautifully and efficiently done. Indonesia is very, very messy. Every journey takes hours (no matter what form of transport you take, and no matter what time of day it is). Poverty is obvious wherever you go. In general, people are smaller and thinner (and much darker).
Reactions to Westerners:In Beijing, foreigners are reasonably common – as they are here in Java. In Beijing, people rarely look at you much, and even more rarely dare to talk to you. When I spoke in Chinese, people exclaimed to their friends (never to me). In Indonesia, everyone wants to talk to me, and as soon as I open my mouth I have a best friend. Our taxi driver (from the local airport) invited us to come hang out with his family. That kind of friendliness is absolutely typical of Indonesia. Two Indonesian ladies along the way -and this is in airports (not friendly places) were clearly keeping an eye on us, and making sure we were okay. Beggars and roadside salespeople are more strident in Indonesia, but not by much. China was slightly less caring than Australia – Indonesia is infinitely more caring of strangers.
Language:Indonesian is one of the easiest languages in the world. Possibly the easiest. Mandarin Chinese (selected as a national language because it was the easiest of several possibilities) is one of the hardest. Both have very easy grammar, and when Chinese is written in pinyin it’s just as easy as Indonesian to spell (although some sounds are difficult for English speakers to distinguish).
Health:I’m already sick (and recovered – it was no big deal). Not sure how, because I’ve been careful. Beijing people don’t drink the water, but Indonesians usually do. Health-wise, Indonesia is more hazardous.
Wherever you are, a roadside stall is more hazardous than a restaurant (and you’re more likely to see a squat toilet than a western-style toilet – and you must never flush the paper).
Sheer wackiness: China has a government that controls the weather, and the number of children you have. It also has colossal monuments (which beat a castle-style mansion, I’m afraid). Indonesia, however, is insane from the ground up – literally. In China (for us at least), the landscape was elegant; starkly beautiful and mostly white. In Indonesia, it’s a hysterical series of greens. You don’t get greens like that out of the tropics. Disorganisation and corruption are rife and blatant. The roads are desperately disorganised (much more so than Beijing, which is merely quirky), and you never, EVER know what is going to happen next.
So Indonesia wins on friendliness and weather, and on sheer insanity. Beijing is much better for national monuments, for getting around, and for food.
Taste of the day: We ate soto (Javanese chicken soup) but it wasn’t great (I’ve eaten really excellent soto, and this wasn’t it). However we also ate dodol, a lolly served in individually-wrapped rectangles that is made from sticky rice (plus much sugar, cocoa, etc). I think they’re kind of like giant, subtley-flavoured jelly beans. They’re squishy inside but slightly tough on the outside (like jelly beans). I love them (although only the chocolate flavour. Picnic brand is the best).
Lair Shopping
If my husband and I ever become billionaires, we’re going to build an underground lair. Every so often we embellish the lair, leaving taste and plausibility for another lifetime.
Today we encountered the stellar work of the Empress Cixi – specifically, The Summer Palace. It was RATHER large, and stamped with the kind of genius that marks true insanity. I took careful note. Because maybe someday I’ll have a lake, and a hill, and a national budget, and an infinite number of servants.
If I’m like the empress, I’ll honour the cash-strapped navy by building something a little bit like this:
It might not look too hydrodynamic, but that’s okay, since it’s made of marble. (For some bizarre reason, the navy didn’t appreciate it).
If I get sick of people gaping at me when I shop, I’ll follow the empress’ lead once again and build me my OWN, much BETTER, shopping zone (preferably with a river. Rivers are fun, right?)
No-one likes a boring ceiling.
Ooh! And I like rocks, so I’ll get several tonnes of those and arrange them all pretty-like, here and there.
With, ya know, staircases and caves and subterranean bits and stuff:
Lakes are fun. I can have twelve or so barges (wooden ones this time), and go skating on it in Winter. Of course, if I’m gonna have a lake I should build an island. And bridges are pretty, too. I’ll get one of those. (And, since I live in Canberra, several snow machines and a SERIOUS refrigerator unit).
This is the seventeen-arch bridge, which has 500 unique hand-carved lions on it. Why not?
The Summer Palace in Winter is starkly beautiful and utterly elegant.
Crazy people make the best lairs, and that’s all there is to it.
My feet hurt.
Today’s taste of the day is an easy choice. We finally had Beijing Duck.
The duck was traditionally cooked in a wood oven, and the chef sliced it up in front of us. It was crispy and moist and wonderful, and I ate it hand-wrapped in super-thin rice pancakes with sauce ( a little like a sweet barbeque sauce) and shallots. It was exquisite, and probably the best thing I’ve eaten here (that is a tough call). It cost us around $15 each, including other dishes (all good), and dessert. The restaurant was called So-and-so’s Bistro (I can’t remember the name right) and the wallpaper alone could have kept me entertained for days:
At the end of the meal they gave us a fruit platter and individually-wrapped sticks of gum. They also gave each girl a long-stemmed red rose.
The moral of this blog is: Go to China. See stuff. Eat.
We’re travelling a bit over the weekend (to Indonesia, where it’s ever so warm), so don’t freak out if you don’t read anything new until Monday (or later).
Despite the excellence of the day, it wasn’t done with us yet. . .
Mature Content
So things got a little weird tonight after church. Bil was meant to have a gig at an African bar, but his French gypsy jazz band friend called and asked if he was free. He called the Africans, and that gig was cancelled (not that they’d mentioned it to him). So gypsy jazz it was. My husband had particularly wanted to hear them play, so he was delighted.
We left church early and caught a taxi to the approximate location (the gypsy jazz band works through an agent, which means they never know exactly where they’re playing until they get there – agents keep the mystery alive so they can be sure they’ll still get their cut). We were met out the front by – oh, let’s be stereotypical and call him Jacques, and the other band member Pierre. Pierre plays guitar, Jacques plays guitar and sings, and Bil plays bass. It’s a moderately well-known group here.
Jacques was clean-shaven and very French looking. He had a slightly hesitant look about him, and a lovely accent. We were in the Russian district, so there was heaps of Russian writing on the buildngs, and people kept walking past (through the snow) in fur hats. I wished I knew more Russian than, “Vodka, da!”
“I’m not too sure about this place,” Jacques began. “I do not believe it is a nightclub. I believe it is a whorehouse.”
The three band members were all willing to go home if any one of them wasn’t willing to play, but they decided to battle through, which delighted me no end. There were a few subtle clues about the club as we made our way in: six burly security guards at the entrance; almost no-one buying any drinks (and the drinks were insanely overpriced); lots of fake furnishings including warped mirrors and semi-exposed plumbing; a huge display of mindless flashing neon; and of course, the whores. That was a pretty strong clue.
I saw lots of long bottle-blonde hair, and lots of tiny skirts and tiny shirts. They all seemed to get on fine, which is nice in any workplace, don’t you think?
I was too scared to use the bathrooms, especially after the boys told me that when they went, they were followed in by a bouncer. After doing what was necessary, they were underwhelmed when their follower pressed the button for soap, then waited pointedly for a tip.
Apart from anything else, I’m pretty sure I was the only woman in the bar who wasn’t working. It’s possible the female bathrooms were just for staff.
I was pretty nervous. I happened to be wearing red and pink (everything else needs a wash), and most of it velvet, with see-through windows on the sides (to the shirt below). Probably not the best outfit for fading into the background. What was the safest thing for me to do? Should I “do as the Romans do” and drape myself over my husband as if he was a high-rolling customer? Would ANYONE believe that?
(You’ll notice this photo is somewhat blurry. I can only assume it’s because my husband was laughing too hard at my hooker face to take the shot. We were too scared to take photos inside the club itself.)
Clearly, that plan was out. So I should be all demure then, and clearly NOT a whore. But what if someone came in with a mad fetish for blue caterpillar women, or for intensely scarf-staticked hair? What if they took a shine to me, and wouldn’t take no for an answer? What then?!?!
Fortunately no-one approached either of us – although I don’t think I let go of my partner the whole time. A girl’s gotta mark her territory these days.
Back when we were all outside discussing whether or not to simply leave, I specified that a whorehouse was okay but a strip joint was not (if badness is out of sight, there’s no long-term scarring). Jacques remembered that condition vividly between the second and third set, when the lighting suddenly got a LOT better and a girl emerged from backstage wearing stilettos and a shiny gold bikini. She proceeded to dance with lots of hip movements and much tossing of her long, bottle-blonde hair. Bil and my husband studied the table, and I kept them informed as to what was happening. I confess I was a LITTLE disappointed when she strode away, still wearing all the clothes she’d started with. (Such as they were.)
No one else ventured onto the dance floor at any point in the night.
My favourite part of all, though, was the little wall running alongside most of the inner booths. Each table had a lamp screwed to the wall — all fake brass and flourescence, covered in sheer red cloth and dangling with plastic beads. But the wall itself. . . oh, the wall! You know those old fashioned plush armchairs – overstuffed and studded, and sewn into diamond shapes? It was like that, but made of deep red velvet (fake, of course).
Best. Padded Wall. Ever.
The band took rather short breaks, and we were out of there by midnight. As Jacques picked up their money, the proprieter said, “Couldn’t you have played some rock?” I suppose he was as surprised by the night’s events as we were.
I think every holiday in Beijing needs a French gypsy jazz band playing in a Russion brothel. Don’t you?
The Heroic Sidekick
Today’s Beijing adventures will be posted around 9pm Canberra time at http://twittertales.wordpress.com . Our plans for today are just too cool to share here and spoil the surprise. I will say that (a) I’m wearing pants today – no dress. (b) There’s a chair involved. A very special chair.
——————————-
Not everyone should be a hero. Some people are made to be the heroic sidekick. A mum or dad is a hero of their family story, but a marriage often has an epic member and a supporting member (which tends to work better than two heroes). Or, outside of the home, the story of a mum or dad might be a sidekick story eg they’re the support staff for a politician running for office (we’re assuming here that the politician is worth following). Most of us are a mix of heroic sidekick and hero, with a weighting toward heroic sidekick.
I’m a rubbish sidekick, which is unfortunate. Sidekicks made the world go around, and they are necessary to every hero. Nothing actually gets done without sidekicks. Sidekicks are perceived to be less attractive (usually – although Legolas is a heroic sidekick), and they don’t wield as much influence as heroes do. (One reason I need to be a hero – if I’m going to inspire others, being a hero works much better than being a sidekick.) They’re also more adaptable than heroes (something I observed in psych class many years ago), MUCH happier, better company, and much funnier. They usually get the girl – certainly more often than the hero, because the hero is so wrapped up in their epic they rarely touch the earth. Plus I think the girl can see that the sidekick will treat them better than the hero ever will (he’s too busy saving the world).
Frodo is the main hero of “Lord of the Rings”. (Aragorn, too, but that’s literally another story. Aragorn is also Frodo’s sidekick. Everyone plays more than one part.) Samwise Gamgee is the ultimate heroic sidekick. He suffers a huge amount for a great cause (because he’s an epic sidekick), which happens to also be a personal cause – I would argue that his cause is NOT actually destroying the ring, but being Frodo’s friend. His story is more beautiful than Frodo’s for that reason.
He also fights really well, cooks well, and ultimately – when Frodo’s strength is utterly gone – literally carries the hero. He is stronger than Frodo, and is never corrupted by the ring. His fight scenes are also more interesting, because a sidekick isn’t quite so deadly serious all the time.
Heroes don’t make good friends. (Mother Theresa, incidentally, was often invited to address influential people, and never failed to offend every single person in the room. She’d also withhold painkillers from her patients, because pain builds character. Betcha didn’t know that.) Sidekicks make the best friends, the most memorable characters, and the most noble heroes.
Yep, still cold
Today I rested (except for going out and having lunch by myself – I didn’t speak a word of English the whole time, yay!), and tonight we’ll go back to Lush for dinner (mostly because my partner and I have about $1 left, and the bar owes Bil a huge pile of free food for all the work he does).
It’s still cold outside, and my face is still attempting to fall off around the nose, but I was perfectly comfortable outside in just my voluminious skirts and down jacket (and gloves, hat, scarf and boots).
I’m still thinking about the “hero” thing, and what I can do about it. It goes without saying that my story MUST be an epic one – I’ve always known that. I have the first half of an epic tale already, with my writing. Thirteen years of trying to get novels published, plus five years of mental illness (while still writing positive, hopeful books) is certainly epic. I’m just not so sure about the self-sacrifice part.
I guess arguably I’m sacrificing good pay to write good books, but I simply can’t stomach doing anything else (oddly, even my tutoring work isn’t satisfying enough to do full-time – but it IS satisfying enough to do for the rest of my life). But I suppose a hero is meant to not be able to stomach an ordinary life – that’s what makes them a hero.
The song “What About Me” (most recently sung by Shannon Noll) tells a story about a pretty girl at a corner shop writing a novel, who has a heart’s cry of, “What about me? It isn’t fair. I’ve had enough and I want my share. Can’t you see?” Even just her desire to break out of the constraints of her small-town existence makes her a hero (at least a little bit). And small towns really aren’t a bad place to live. So it’s her passion that makes her interesting. I have plenty of passion, courage, and determination, which gives me a great start on being a hero. All I need is a deeper sense of purpose. I need to make the world better. When I’m not making the world better, staying alive is a chore. (That has been abundantly clear to me for a long time.)
I hate “Twilight”. I really do. Stephanie Meyer isn’t a bad writer, but the story is worse than hollow, it’s twisted (a 107-year old man picking up a 17-year old girl? So NOT romantic). I’m proud to recognise that my books are, in some ways, the anti-Twilight. The characters have far more interesting goals that to be super-obsessed with one another. When they ARE super-obsessed, it’s always revealed to be a mistake. Relationships in my books fail if the characters don’t have anything in common (and being emo simply isn’t enough. Ever). My characters are heroes – and reading the books has the potential to make readers into heroes, too.
The bit in the Donald Miller book that really got to me was a story about his friend, who I’ll call Frank. Frank’s thirteen-year old daughter was in a dodgy relationship with an older guy, and she’d begun taking drugs. When Frank talked to Don, he realised his daughter was choosing the best story available to her – and exciting and risk-taking one, even if it wasn’t a good one. So he thought hard and then called a family conference where he said the family was going to raise $25,000 to build an orphanage in Mexico. Not surprisingly, this was NOT received well. But after a few days, the daughter came to her parents and asked if they could travel together to Mexico, so she could write about the whole process on her blog, and show pictures of the changes in the orphans’ lives. Some months later, the daughter dumped her boyfriend, because he’d told her she was fat. The book points out that NO girl who sees herself as a hero would date such a loser.
So why can’t I (through my books) show girls and boys between 6 and 16 what a hero looks like? One of the best things about the story structure is that the hero doesn’t always win. But they’re still a hero.
I’m also hyper-protective of children and young adults, especially girls. I really like the idea of them having books that are worth reading. If I can internalise what I have felt for years, then my books really are worth building my life around (books, and God, and my husband and future children – but, although I gain more happiness from my husband than my books, I have an innate need for a more unusual story).
And here, for those who are visiting to hear about China, rather than my internal monologue, is another photo (this is made of jade, in a shop full of jade and other cool stuff – but because it was in Badaling, it was all stupidly expensive):
The prince, the princess, and the dragon
PS: I’m just about to go and write up today’s adventures at http://twittertales.wordpress.com and YES we made it to the Great Wall at last.
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I’m reading, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller (the guy who wrote, “Blue Like Jazz”, and who is sort of like the biological biproduct of Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, and Adrian Plass).
It’s about the structure of a story (an interesting character with a serious problem, who fights to overcome their problem) and how to make your life a more interesting story, based on the idea that we’re hard-wired to enjoy stories with the above structure, because God made us that way. (This theory also explains suffering in a way that works for me better than any other – suffering ultimately makes the story better.)
At one point, the author said that the next level up from basic story structure is an epic story – when the problem is VERY difficult, and involves selfless sacrifice.
When I began to feel I wasn’t meant/able to be a full-time aid worker in Indonesia, it broke my heart. I’d lost the epic story of my life, and I knew it. My substitute story for my life is my writing, but it just doesn’t seem as hard OR as worthwhile to me. Plus, being mentally ill, I suddenly can’t do a lot of things that I used to be able to do.
You all know how the fairy tale goes – the dragon has the princess and the prince rescues her. I used to be the prince (rescuing others), I HATED being the princess (dependent on others; the least interesting and least active character of the three), and I felt that with my mental illness I was slowly turning into the dragon – someone who caused harm to the world instead of good.
I’ve always thought of myself in terms of story. Always. It’s wonderful to hear it set out by Donald Miller, because it gives me permission to look at the way my story is now, and see what I can do to be a hero I really admire.
Maybe 🙂
Five minutes until we head off for attempt #2 at the Great Wall. Should probably brush my teeth 🙂
Chillin’
It’s only 2pm. (Photos now uploaded, and another paragraph at the end.)
Today Beijing has smiled upon us once again, putting on a beautiful blue sky that (except for the snow) makes the city look like spring (and no sign of pollution). It’s colder than yesterday, though – the forecast was -9 to -16. Now THAT’S refreshing. But my feet didn’t get wet, so I was fine. This photo is from yesterday, when it was still snowing:
We planned to go and see the Great Wall, but the train to Badaling (the section we planned to go to) was “a little delayed”. We chose to wait an hour, then give up (we gained no information of any kind in that time – for all we know, the entire stock of Wall-oriented trains had been eaten by yeti).
I just did a super basic google search and discovered this article http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/metro-beijing/update/society/2010-01/495913.html saying that, on Sunday, the buses to Badaling were stuck on the expressway for twelve hours because of heavy snow. To me, that indicates that the snow is heavier to the North (which is where rain and snow always come from), and it stands to reason that the high levels of snow also stopped the trains (but will be melted enough to get through by tomorrow).
A pretty building:
At a certain point last night, my initial manic joy suddenly vanished and my mental illness popped back up. It’s always a surprise when I’m having fun and then suddenly want to throw myself out a window. My body isn’t 100% happy with me walking around in the snow, so I decided to look after body and soul and go home. Best of all, I sent the boys off to see the art galleries (I can live without seeing that) and went home – by myself.
Photos my partner took at the galleries:
That was excellent. The boys dropped me at a train station on line 2 (the line that goes to dongsishitian, which is the closest to Bil’s house) and my partner hugged me goodbye in an especially endearing manner (evidently not sure we’d ever meet again). I walked up to the station and was immediately refused entry. The man spoke no English, so it was MY language skills – MINE, I tell you! – that gained me the information that it was closed, but the next station entrance along was fine. I spoke to a Chinese lady (all in Chinese, because I rock) along the way, and double-checked she was heading to the station. She was.
And then I went home, as easily as if I was travelling in Sydney (easier actually, because the trains are better here).
Before that, I came perilously close to successfully ordering a delicious and very cheap and healthy (ish) lunch for the three of us. I established that we wanted chicken, understood the server’s explanation that it was served in bread, and that it was spicy. I was able to say, “We don’t like spicy food” but not strongly enough (I needed to say, “We don’t have spicy food” – a word that I already knew). Bil took over for me, and the meal was very nice.
I now communicate as well in Chinese as I did in Indonesian after five years of studying (at which point I went to live with Indonesians for six months, and became properly fluent). Fundamentally, with the friends I already have here, I could move to Beijing to live, and would be able to get around on my own. Except of course that only REALLY stoic people can survive here.
All the same, I’m sure that once I’m home I’ll miss the gentle Siberian breezes. If only because. . . well, okay, I can’t thing of ANY possible reason to miss Beijing’s wind.
—–a bit later in the day—
We went to the same local Chinese restaurant (as Friday) for dinner, and ate much deliciousness. The taste for today is pumpkin chips (the same size and shape as fish and chip shop ships), battered in egg yolks and fried in something delicious – again, perfectly crisp and buttery. I’m definitely going to attempt to make them when we get home.
One mroe gallery photo, just for fun:
That’s not a Christmas card, THIS is a Christmas card
Yay! Photo o’clock:
It snowed again last night, and it kept snowing all day. The snow is more than a foot deep all over Beijing, and transport has ground largely to a halt (a huge number of taxis simply refused to take any passengers). But it’s not reverse global warming causing the wacky weather – it’s the government’s cloud seeding program (one girl told me there’s a “Winter Wonderland” set up in the olympic stadium, and that’s why snow was considered a good thing). All the snow is covered with tiny sparkles, like glitter scattered throughout. The whole city is hushed under a white blanket.
People are describing it as “fake” snow, which is perfectly accurate – it just happens to be fake snow that falls from the sky and is made of frozen particles of water. Other than the telltale glitter, it was also too powdery – not matter how much fell, it didn’t hang together like snow does. Even in Canberra (where it snows about once a decade), if you can gather a handful you can make a snowball. That was pretty much impossible today.
Nonetheless. . . snow! Great soft drifts of it! Interestingly, none of the roads were snow-ploughed. The thick snow was salted, turning it to a thinner brown sludge, and that was all. The footpaths were tended by sweepers with brush brooms and pieces of cardboard attached to sticks.
My feet got wet around midday when we went to meet some other Australians for lunch, and my boots, socks and feet stayed wet until we came home – just now, at 4am. (Which is why I shan’t be posting photos until tomorrow. Or later.) The temperature varied between -6 and -9 degrees, and I was cold. As we came home, I was shivering the whole way. But I’m fine now, and I hope the new day will bring (a) no more snow (b) a new shot of excitement.
I is dead.
Our main activity today was the relatively gentle one of socialising, most importantly at the Lush bar in the Wudaokou area. The bar has a lot of students (American, Korean, Chinese, South American, British, Australian, Danish and Swiss – at least, those were the ones I met while sitting at my table), and an artsy atmosphere. It is a genuinely warm and welcoming community.
Seeing Bil (Brother In Law) play was incredible. It always is, because he’s an excellent musician – the kind that not only plays well, but has a joyful psychic connection with other members of his band. I think genuine masculinity is about the most wonderful thing in the world (I LIKE men. A lot), and a band with that kind of connection is one of precious few examples of a healthy expression of masculinity. (“Healthy” sounds so unexciting. A better phrase – and I mean this as an observer of truly fine art – is “an utterly attractive expression of masculinity”). My husband also played bass – and sang “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”. Watching Bil, I felt that he was destined to make his musical home in Lush. He’d already told us it was the highlight of his week. Despite his low (and totally unreliable) income, I am insanely jealous.
Mine is the one on the left:
At around 2am (people from the crowd were still getting up and singing, and every single one could sing), a big guy brought in a guitar, sat down, and began to play – with the quiet smile of someone who has been playing for twenty-five years. He was Korean, and didn’t speak much English OR Chinese – but he made everyone else look like kids with plastic toys. When everyone else stopped playing and begged him to continue alone, he did. When he finished, one of the other performers (an American) said (haltingly) in Korean, “I want to have your babies.”
Everyone in the room did too.
Today’s taste sensation is a toss-up between a cocktail I had there – a mix of vanilla vodka, creme de cacao and chocolate shavings – and a lolly called “Piratos” which was like licorice, but condensed and made salty. (Luckily I was able to get rid of the taste with a margarita. Then I found myself wanting another. Such, perhaps, is the lure of Chinese candy.)
Oh Nose!
Beijing is not the greatest place to live. It’s bitterly cold in Winter (but almost never snows), and boiling in Summer (apparently it officially never gets up to forty degrees, but sometimes it stays at 39 degrees from early morning to late afternoon. Suspicious? Nah, who on earth would lie about the weather?!) The whole city is filled with dust storms in Spring, and it has the world’s shortest autumns (which are apparently rather nice – almost always). But it’s a really excellent place to visit. A million times nicer than, for example, Jakarta or Port Moresby. And last night – sometime before 6am – it snowed.
We were going to visit a gallery but because the city was being so pretty we went to the Temple of Heaven instead. Beijing still has all its Christmas decorations, so just walking along was like being in a Christmas card. (An incredibly slippery Christmas card, where the wind burns your face until it’s red and painful to touch – despite the fact I STILL didn’t feel uncomfortably cold, and I wore less layers than yesterday.) Beijing is filled with trees (and birds, and incredible ramshackle nests wherever you look), including a lot of silver birches which do look barren, but in a beautiful way.
It’s also worth noting that the public transport is truly excellent (except for the ten minutes we spent on an intensely crowded bus – too crowded to remove our jackets – when the heat and closeness made me feel like throwing up), with an efficient, clean and organised train system. I also love walking around in Beijing, because there are so many unique skyscrapers wherever you look. One of them is called “the underpants building” because it’s roughly in the shape of a person’s legs if they were sitting in a chair with their knees as wide apart as possible (since only the “feet” touch the ground, no-one seems very confident it’ll stay up).
And now to our feature presentation: The Temple of Heaven.
We’re staying in a flat on the sixteenth floor (or at least, roughly the fifteenth, since there’s no 4th or 14th floor – the word “4” sounds like the word for “death” so is often left out). A million people live within a mile of where I’m sitting.
Which made it even more startling when we walked through the West Gate of the Temple of Heaven area and discovered a park-like area of 273 hectares. We spent a lot of time today strolling along stunning avenues (like the one above) lined with snow-covered conifers, birches, and ancient cyprus (some apparently 900 years old, and all of the old ones heritage listed).
The Chinese are really serious about their architecture. It boggles the mind to see such huge structures made with such intricacy. You probably have a fair idea of what a Chinese roof looks like – sweeping tiles with an elegant upward swing on the lowest part. You’d also be able to imagine such a roof dusted with snow as fresh and fine as castor sugar, highlighting each tile with its own layer of white icing. It’s probably not too hard to imagine dragons carved on the corners, or the bold red, gold, blue and green paintings filling the eaves (and often the inside ceiling). But it’s impossible to put it all together unless you walk around and see it for yourself.
We walked South (past the palace of imperial fasting – the emperor didn’t do ANYTHING, including any work, for three days before peforming the annual sacrifice), to the circular altar mound (three massive circular tiers of carved marble, with stairs up – marble stairs, especially after snow, have slightly less traction than the smoothest ice you’ve ever seen) and looked at the beautiful green stone of the nearby altar.
After that we looked at the Imperial Vault of Heaven (effectively, a fancy-pants storeroom; round in shape, and carved and painted absolutely everywhere), which is surrounded by a wall with the fun acoustic property that a whisper from one side can be clearly heard on the other (this of course means that everyone somehow ends up shouting at a wall, which is even more fun to observe). The wall is also covered in ancient graffiti – Chinese characters carved into the stone. That graffiti is also now of historical value.
After that we walked on to the most famous structure, which is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. The Hall is set on three circular tiers of stairs (marble, again), and is a round building three storeys high (each with its own rim of roof) that is held together by the carvers’ skill (rather than nails, glue, or anything else).
Long view of the Hall of Good Harvest (note the pillar things on the stair rail on the left; they’re everywhere):
The pillar things on the stairs look similar to this one:
Close view of the Hall of Good Harvest:
We couldn’t go inside these beautiful buildings, but we joined everyone else in looking through the open doorways. Even some of the (many) sets of stairs were blocked off. On one of the sets of stairs the snow lay perfectly still and even – except on the left and right hand side, where cat pawprints were clearly visible ascending and descending. Perhaps one of heaven’s creatures had been inside, after all.
The whole area was full of people, but (except in the most culturally important places) it felt perfectly spacious because it’s so much like a giant park. Ordinary Beijing citizens visit just to hang out – we saw many of them singing, dancing, and playing in a saxophone band. There were far more Chinese tourists than Westerners.
Right now both I and my partner are reading “Faith of our Fathers” by Chan Kei Thong, which is all about the Temple of Heaven. The author has an interesting theory about the ancient religion of the Chinese people. It’s impossible to know anything for certain when the buildings were made in the 14 and 15oos, and the religion itself is far older (and already getting mixed up with dragon-emperor-god stuff when the Temple was build). But it’s certainly interesting.
This is some of the Sacrifice song (you’ll see exactly what the author is getting at, along with far greater scholars, particularly in the 13th to 15th century) used in the temple:
Of old in the beginning, there was the great chaos, without form and dark.
The five planets had not begun to revolve, nor the two lights to shine. In the midst of it there existed neither form nor sound. You, O spiritual Sovereign, came forth in Your sovereignty, and did separate the impure from the pure. You made heaven, You made earth; You made man. All things became alive with reproducing power.
You did produce, O Spirit, the seven elements [the sun and the moon and the five planets]. Their beautiful and brilliant lights lit up the circular sky and square earth.
You have promised, oh Lord, to hear us, for You are our Father. . . With reverence we spread out these gems and silks, and, as swallows rejoicing in the spring, praise Your abundant love.
I don’t know much about the historian’s theory, but I know enough to be intrigued. Unlike the core of many other ancient religions, this God is seen as an invisible creator – not an object.
We obviously spent a lot of time outside today – my nose has been running all day, and hates me now – but I don’t feel particularly cold. I noticed when I looked at some photos my husband took today that my down jacket (which is blue and completely encases me almost to my ankles) makes me look rather like a caterpillar.
My Chinese (and my ability to recognise specific things instead of just being overwhelmed) are coming along so well that Chris and I went grocery shopping by ourselves. We bought milk, orange juice, Chinese lollies, some kind of frozen yum cha-ish meal (for me for my breakfasts), and tissues. None of them were labelled in English – or even pinyin (the form of Chinese that uses Arabic letters and lovely phonetic spelling). Hail the mighty adventurers!
My most frightening moment was when I went to the loo at home and almost forget myself and put the toilet paper in the toilet. That’s NEVER a good idea in Asia – there’s always a bin near the toilet (or no toilet paper usage at all). The plumbing just canna take it, captain. But I remembered myself and did the right thing.
Crisis averted.
We haven’t had dinner yet, but my taste sensation of the day was a red bean smoothie (which also contained honey, vanilla ice cream, and coconut milk). I’m sure red beans are related to lentils (sort of nutty and naturally sweet). The staff (the people in this flat almost never cook, because eating out is so cheap and delicious) served it in SERIOUSLY tall glasses – containing about 750mL – and it was very thick. I still finished it, and gladly. It cost about $3. (Just remembered I’m lactose intolerant. Smeg.)
Plus I had some cool Chinese candy while we walked the temple grounds -they were a little like round prawn crackers sprinkled with icing sugar (with a hint of salt making them even better).
Brushing snow from the dragon’s nose:
PS a couple more details and several more photos are located at http://twittertales.wordpress.com
Felicity Banks 