Forbidden City

Beat the wake-up call by two hours. Went around to try to take a few pictures of the hotel entrance without people in them. We are meeting for breakfast and then we are off to see the Forbidden City.

The bus rides takes us through a very modern and clean city, full of bicycles and incredible modern buildings. Communism, at least as we know it is gone here. A capitalist economy is bursting at the seams. The city and its people certainly took serious their commitment to the Olympics. Everything is clean and orderly. The avenue of Eternal Peace is lined with ginko bilova trees. They use ginko to take away the “heat” of the body. Something that is necessary to keep things "in balance". More that 10 million flowering bushes have been planted in well manicured gardens and avenues. The city fathers decided that 51% of public areas had to have trees and flowers for the games and they accomplished this drastically, doing away with shopping areas, buildings and others areas to reach their goal. We are dropped off a few blocks away from the entrance of the forbidden city because, well…., it is forbidden to get any closer. We walk along a shady street lined with small neighborhood shops on one side and a park along the other where older men (retirement age is only 55 here) sit around tables playing some kind of game while their pet birds in their gilded or bamboo cages hang from nearby trees singing the morning away. It is quite respectable for your bird to be a good singer and men take their birds out walking daily. Dogs on the other hand are not allowed to go in the streets except at specific hours in the early morning and late evening. Lots of constipated dogs must live in secluded happiness.

We enter the forbidden city which is surrounded by a 52 mts wide moat (repeated three times by Sonia to make sure we got it). It is quite impressive and huge! We learn that Chinese doorways always have a wooden beam on the bottom and you are not supposed to step on it. Men are to enter with their left foot first and woman with their right. (Not sure if you have to reverse this for left handers). Once inside, you learn about life in the Forbidden City. Everything was forbidden. Women that went inside to be part of the selected 3000 that were made available for the emperor, were forbidden to ever leave the city again. The people were forbidden to enter it. And we were forbidden to fall behind of the group so as not to get lost. We also learned that no nails were used in construction, that the emperor had one wife, 14 concubines and the rest of the three thousand available to play around. They were places where men had to get off their horses as they were.. you guessed it, forbidden to ride on the inside. The tiles on the floor took two years to make and they were called golden tiles not for their color but for their price. Many palaces have been restored and many other will be. Once restored, the color on the ceramics, lacquer painted surfaces and columns and rooftop tiles is intense and the intricate woodwork and painting speaks of people with lots of skills and time to build exquisite buildings for the emperor (or else!). According to the guide, it was really easy to “lose your head” around here. One bad plate of soup served to the emperor and swooosh! There goes your head. Wish the hotel people heard about this.

We went through many doorways and many squares and buildings. The number of ceramic mythical animals on the rooftops bespoke of the purpose and importance of each building. The numbers were very important as odd numbers are masculine and even numbers feminine (or vice versa), some numbers were not used while some other were favored due to superstitious reasons.

We exited the city though a different door and walked to the second floor of Ching Pavillion’s Restaurant for lunch. Ching’s must have been a disco at one point in the awakening of the people as the decor was in the early discotheque tradition that predated the modern karaoke joint. The bathrooms (men and women shared common wash basins) were particularly telling (please see picture, I cannot decently describe the facilities). The food however was good and plentiful. First drink (soda, water or beer) included. After that, 23 Yuan for whatever.

That is until we had a few and our host found out about their charging us. A heated discussion between our guide Sonia (eagerly cheered by the peanut gallery) and the staff ensued and was won by her on our behalf. By this time, we were almost ready to go back to the stifling humidity of the hot and mercifully overcast day.

Back in the air conditioned bus, we headed for a bit of shopping at our leisure around a centrally located street that had been blocked to traffic for shoppers to walk around for a mile or so of modern foreign brand stores. Prices were expectedly not good on imported foreign merchandise. In particular electronics and clothing were expensive as a good part of their price goes in taxes to the government. On a side street toward the back we found “hunger street” with many stalls where all kinds of food were being enjoyed by locals. They skewer everything from caramel covered grapes and peaches to some roach-looking fat insects, fried silkworms and the hearts of heavens know what small mammal. The fact that I had yet to see a cat or dog came to my mind. Around the corner we found what I had envisioned as a typical Chinese open air trinket market. Bargaining was the rule of law and you started your bid at around 30 percent of the asking price and ended up settling the deal for around 40% if you stood your ground. A calculator that was passed back and forth was the only means of communication between the bargaining sides. Chinese don’t believe in bags or napkins. Both you have to ask for and sometimes they want to charge you for them. I guess, as I had recently observed in Spain, this is a way to reduce litter on the street.
Met the bus, Sonia and the rest of the party to head to Tiananmen Square to hear all about Mao and the students riots there which at least according to Sonia, nobody remembered anymore because they were troublemakers that died for their leaders who went ahead and left the country to live in peace somewhere else. This has such a familiar ring! Anyway, we kept hearing that during Mao, the Chinese people were “intellectually very happy” even if physically deprived. In modern “capitalistic-quasi-communist but certainly socialist China", people now have better life but at the expense of traditions, values and education. Now they need cars to get to work as cheap housing is far from the workplace because of the price increases caused by the economic growth. Take your choice!
An interesting feature of all sidewalks in Beijing is the blind lane. Specially textured tiles are used to create a lane where the blind can walk by feeling the tiles. At corners, intersections, manhole covers and any other obstacle, the tiles change textured from raised lines to raised circles to let the blind walker know that he should take care. An intelligent and effective way to assists the poor of sight. Also of interest is the Chinese belief that all health problems find their origins in the food they eat. All dangers and threats invariably originate on the things you say and think. So stop thinking and eating and you’ll be ok.
Its late, I better get to bed as wake-up call is at 6:00 am. I am going to see beach volley ball with six others, most of the rest are off to see basketball and a few others water polo.

Interrupted by a knock on my door (it is 12:10 in the morning). The manager from the front desk accompanied by two policemen and the bell boy want to check my passport. They do, and go on to another room down the hall. Ahhh, such is life in a communist, if modern, country!