(The Great Wall, and the Temple of Heaven)
Hi all,
Wow, a lot happened in the last week. As I mentioned previously, Jennifer and I were set to hop on a plane on the 26th and go off to see China. We arrived at the airport at the painfully early time of 630 for our 930 flight, and got through customs without a hitch.
Why it is that they have "exit" customs in Korea in addition to entry customs is beyond me. I did enjoy the slight thrill of suddenly feeling that I was persona non grata, although this lasted about as far as the gate to the plane.
We were off to Beijing, darnit! We'd both wanted to see China forever, and since we were in Korea, it appeared to have been the best possible time. We arrived in Beijing, and were promptly whisked off by our tour guide, Bai Jing (Bar-jing, not to be confused with the city name) to see Tiananmen Square.
I should point out at this point that, yet, we were taking a guided tour. For those of you who don't know, Chinese "official" tours can be somewhat different from those in other countries. They are contractually obliged to take tourists to factories that make cloisonne, jade, silk, and so forth, where one is politely pressured into buying some things by the sales representatives.
This did not, in any way, spoil our trip. Both of our guides in Beijing and Xi'an did not seem overly enthused to be taking us to the factories, and were quite happy to let us linger in the various tourist sites as long as we both wanted.
Before it sounds like I'm criticizing China too much, here, I will say that I do understand where this is coming from, and that I wanted to get this one mildly negative point out of the way before proceeding to talk about and put up pictures from the best part of the trip:
WE WERE IN CHINA!!!
I can't express in simple words how very excited we both were to be here.
We got to Tiananmen, taking in the sights of the massive plaza. Built, originally, on the site of the first gate to the Forbidden City, and where the Emperor's officials addressed his people in the old Dynastic China, it was the location where Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, declared the creation of the People's Republic of China.
Those of you as old as I may also recall it as the site of a major demonstration, and ensuing massacre, in 1989. It was also the site of a series of other major events in Chinese history after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, and it was one of those places to which I felt it necessary to go to pay some homage to history.
Flanked by the Great Hall of the People and the National Museum of China as well as the Department of Intelligence, it is quite clear who is in charge now. Mao's mausoleum rests opposite the front gate to the Forbidden City, where his portrait also famously hangs.
We ventured into the Forbidden City, enjoying the sites of the old Ming and Qing Dynasty palace. The palace goes on for literally a kilometre in almost every direction, and is well worth the visit. We enjoyed hearing our tour guide talk about the history, explain the significance of the lions and draconic imagery on the walls (most of the latter I knew about, but the lions I was less clear on), and thoroughly enjoyed his presence. Bai Jing was incredibly *happy* to be able to show people around his country's capital.
Before one thinks that I'm suggesting this was forced in some way by the government, let me make it clear that China is rather different than thirty years ago. There are still police on the streets, and the army is still present in places. But one can talk reasonably freely, and one can go about business normally in the country as long as one gets the right permits. While the state remains authoritarian, it is not as brutal as it was in the days of the Qing, nor as brutal as the early days of the 1900s or the era of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward.
The result is that our tour guide was genuinely proud of how far China had come since the old days, and even more proud of the legacy of over two thousand years of history and civilization.
This is one thing that struck me, also, about China: this country is *old.* Don't get me wrong, Korea's old too, and so is the UK, which we saw last year... but China dwarfs them in its history. Things still stand here that were built over two thousand years ago, such as the Great Wall or the Terracotta Army.
In Canada, most things are considered old if they're over the hundred year mark. Here, that sort of thing is just starting to be considered teenaged in comparison to the landmarks.
We moved on from the City into the rest of Beijing, dropping in to a restaurant for dumplings (yum!) and Peking Duck for dinner.
I have to say, Peking Duck is simply awesome. It totally made up for not having turkey for Christmas. While generally, I don't much care one way or the other for Chinese food (I prefer Korean and Japanese, of the Big Three Asian countries) due to the amount of salt and oil, I was happy with the food we were served throughout our trip. No stomach issues this vacation!
Anyway, we wound up our first day with an acrobatics show that was quite cool, before trundling over to the hotel to catch some sleep.
We went out to the Temple of Heaven the next morning, as well as the Ming Dynasty Tombs. Again, the sense of age and the weight of that antiquity is easy to feel like a physical presence in these places. These graves are not as old as the tombs in Kyongju, Korea, but they feel just as magnificent with their size and grandeur.
We visited a few other sites throughout the day, like the Bird's Nest stadium, and the usual factories, before going up to see the Great Wall.
Now this was worth the price of admission. While I am aware that some parts of the Wall are crumbling (particularly those areas out in areas that are less tourist friendly like the desert), the Wall is still spectacular, especially for something going on 2,200 years old. I hope I look that good after so long!
We climbed up the wall, and, while Jen waited at one battlement, I went up to the top of the mountain on the wall to check out the scenery. Jen's always wanted to see the Stone Army, but for me, the primary appeal of China has always been the Wall and the Tiananmen Square.
They did not disappoint.
We visited one of the old Hutongs in Beijing, basically, Mongol-era (Yuan Dynasty) buildings designed for a whole family to live in together. We finished our last day in Beijing in the big shopping district near the Square, and bought some books--I've wanted a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms for, well, ever, and any copies I've seen in Canada have only included one of the three volumes. Happy camper, I was.
We also bought *way* too much tea, but c'mon, this is something we'll actually use!
We went out to Xi'an, formerly the old capital city of Chang'an, the next day. Compared to Beijing, Xi'an is rather old-looking, but in a very different way. Beijing has ancient structures, and a sense of power to match its age... Xi'an has many buildings that are half-finished, crumbling, or simply weathered by time. In short, Xi'an has not survived as well as Beijing's relics have, and this may be a sign of the disparity between the rich cities of China, like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macau, and the rest of the interior of the country.
That said, Xi'an did not disappoint: we took in the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, first Emperor of a unified China (not counting the more feudal-style Zhou Dynasty that preceeded him). The tomb is a massive mound of earth, trees, and stone, which reminded me very much of the similar structures in Kyongju back home in Korea--and, whoa, I just admitted how much Korea feels like a good home... neat! Also similar are the old dolmens in Salisbury, England, the pyramids of Egypt and the Sudan, and others scattered around the world. It's neat to see the relative commonality of that practice.
We also, of course, saw the Terracotta Stone Army. That was another area well worth the price of admission, as it were. Amazing. Statues that have, despite fires and looting, survived the ages in such form that they can be rebuilt and returned to their original positions... amazing. We toured the facility, checking out all the statues, and retired to a theatre/restaurant to take in a show done Tang-Dynasty style.
We returned to Korea the next day happy, having also walked (biked in my case) around the Chang'an city wall. That bike tour of the wall made me feel like it showed me more of China than many other parts of the tour--inside the wall, old Xi'an is generally poor, and older-style buildings clump together amidst constant demolition and construction work. Outside the wall, modern, gleaming skyscrapers claw at the sky, hazy with the pollution of 7 million people.
China is ancient, and struggling to take advantage of its newly-regained power and strength. It is modern, and yet burdened with history's mistakes. China is on the cusp of being the next great superpower, and I am not sure what direction it will chose to take with such power.
It is such a paradox, and I am deeply moved to have been able to have seen it up close.
-----
New Year's Day in Korea.
For those of you reading this at first publication of the post, it should be about 9 PM, Eastern Standard Time, back home in Toronto and Timmins and Waterloo (our three-point home towns in Ontario). We've just woken up about two hours ago from our naps after going out to a Noraebang and bar for New Year's Eve with a friend, Roger Lam, one of our fellow teachers at our school.
The Noraebang, as you may recall, is the Korean version of Karaoke, where one gathers with a few friends in a small room with some awesome sound systems to bellow out tunes in a semi-drunken or just loud voice while random clips play on TV to accompany the words of the song. It's always a blast, and Roger was great company.
We went from there to Pavox, a local bar, where the bartenders put on a show (think like the movie Coyote Ugly, here). It's a fun place, and it was nice to ring in the new year with friends.
2008 has been a wild year... I never suspected for a moment, last year, that I'd be in Korea at this time. I think that's true of most people, but I was expecting to go on to PhD (a program I am growing uncertain of as time wears on), or to be working somewhere in the NGO field back home in Canada.
How things change, neh? We've seen a new President come, and we've seen things here in Korea almost change entirely, with Kim Jong-Il's illness. We've seen the Iraq War get better, and get worse. We've seen a New Great Depression loom, and the first knells of what may be the change from a unipolar world, where the US dominates, to one of many poles of power, like China/Japan, Europe, the US, and Russia.
Who knows what this year will bring? I hope we will continue moving onward and upward, and resist the urge to fall back into petty squabbling when we need unity on so many issues.
I continue to have hope, which is, I suppose, the whole point of the New Year.
Best regards, Chris
PS: I've linked to Jen's facebook profile, where she's got all of our pictures stored from the trip--with commentary from both of us, of course!
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