Beijing, More Than Olympic GamesPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
It’s going to be a busy few months in Beijing during the coming Olympic Games. There’s no question about it, the Games are the big attraction, but what does one do between the events or when the Games are over? It would be a pity to leave Beijing without taking in the sites. It’s always a disappointment to return from a trip, say from Beijing, when you think you have seen and done all the things there are to see and do, and someone says, “You mean you didn’t see the Temple of Heaven! You didn’t see Beijing then.” To avoid falling into that trap, let me give our readers a few suggestions.
But first let me say Beijing is one of the great cities of the world. I love the place and often, when I tell people about the city, I forget I am being over zealous. I have my reasons. I was a very young man when, just after the war, I went there to study Chinese. I was given Chinese clothes to wear, a slate to write upon and only chopsticks to use. I learned then it was a city of excitement and drama. What young man wouldn’t like it? And what history. Each conqueror, each ruler, and each emperor in turn added to its splendor from Kublai Khan to the Dowager Empress. It has gone by many names, Cathay, Peking, Peiking, Beijing and perhaps a few more. Travellers who visit the city should not miss the major sites—Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Ming Tombs, the Alter of Heaven and, for certain, the Great Wall of China. Indeed, each one is worth a visit.
But these sites only scratch the surface of the countless things there are to see in and around the city. To really get to know Beijing one would need weeks, no, months and maybe years. It’s that vast, dramatic and mysterious.
I have a copy of a small, paperback guidebook that I prize very much. It’s only 26 pages long, and very tattered, with the inscription PEKING on the cover. Inside is the date: 1946. It is the guide I used when I was in Peking studying Chinese. What makes this small guidebook so unusual is that I can use it today. The reason, of course, is that it lists only historical sites and places, not restaurants, hotels, or shopping plazas. In 1946, there were few restaurants for foreigners, even fewer tourist hotels, and certainly no shopping plazas.
Perhaps that’s what makes the city so fascinating. Many things don’t change, like the Great Wall of China, only a short drive from the city. It’s a must for any traveller. I don’t think there is another phenomenon like it in the world. We can talk about the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the ruins of Machu Picchu located in the lofty mountains of Peru and so many others, but none can compare to the Great Wall. Tourists who visit it on excursions from Beijing see but a fraction of the wall, a minuscule portion of it. Imagine, it stretches for 4200 kilometres; it’s 9 metres wide and in some places 15 metres high; and then try to figure out what it took to build such a wall. Was it built to keep out invaders or to bolster the ego of emperors. For certain it was not one emperor who built the wall but many.
The Imperial Palace is another big attraction. For the Chinese it was, and to some extent still is, the center of the world. Twenty-four emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties lived in the halls, pavilions and courtyards of what was called "the Forbidden City." Only seldom did they leave the enclosure of the wall and venture out into the city.
This impressive city is a masterpiece of architecture. Between 1406 and 1420, over 200,000 workmen were involved in the building of the complex. Burnt almost to the ground during the Manchu invasion of 1644, the buildings have been restored, repainted and rebuilt many times since. However, the basic design remains.
You enter the Forbidden City through the famous Tiananmen Gate. But stop here at Tiananmen and linger awhile. Tiananmen Square is one of the most famous squares in the world. Yet, in my student guidebook it was hardly mentioned. The reason? Tiananmen is a 20th century creation. During the Ming era the site was contained within red walls and partly filled with buildings. The walls were pulled down during the 1911 revolution and gradually most of the buildings were cleared to make way for a vast concourse that has served as a venue for some momentous occasions, beginning with the 1949 proclamation of the People's Republic. It was patterned after the Red Square in Moscow.
The square occupies 44 hectares (108.7 acres) at the southern end of the Forbidden City. It can hold a million people, and it’s the place to go to watch them. People come from afar and every district of China. Tibetans and Ugurs, Kazakhs and Mongolians, soldiers and civilians; they come in their tribal dress, in bright uniforms, in strange costumes. I have watched a Kazakhan carrying a ram's head with great horns and peasants from somewhere wearing straw sandals driving a few sheep before them.
Leaving Tiananmen we enter the Imperial Palace. Walking north through the Upright Gate, we arrive at the large Meridian Gate from where, each year, the emperor used to announce the calendar. We then cross a small stream, go through another gate, and are faced with the largest and most impressive building in the palace, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, within the palace. Or is it the Forbidden City?
The name Forbidden City is the evocation of a secret, exotic world. If we had but one word to describe it, it would vastness. It's huge. It had to be, for here the Ming and Qing emperors were served by 9,000 maids and 200,000 eunuchs in a complex of 800 buildings with 1,900 rooms, great courtyards decorated with carved marble and secret gardens where lovers and conspiring princes met. It was forbidden to all but the imperial court and the only foreigners permitted were Jesuit scholar-priests who resided here in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the ambassadors who sought in vain to trade peacefully with Qing China.
Not to be missed is the Summer Palace. The original Summer Palace, the “Garden of Gardens,” was built by Emperor Yongzheng between 1723 and 1735 but was completely destroyed by British and French troops in 1860. The present Summer Palace, the “Garden for Cultivating Harmony,” was created by the Emperor Qianlong and rebuilt by the Dowager Empress.
Now it’s to Zhoukoudian, the site of Peking Man, one of the biggest mysteries of our times. The bones of Peking Man are missing. What happened to them? We know for certain, in 1941, that the fossils from some 40 individual bodies, collectively called Peking Man, were under study and kept at Peking Union Medical College. However, when the Japanese were invading China, there was an attempt to smuggle all of the fossils to the United States for safekeeping. When the ship arrived in the US the bones were missing. That’s one version, that the bones never arrived. Another is that they were lost at sea after being put aboard an American vessel and Japanese bombers sank the vessel, and others believe the bones are still in China. Nevertheless, to this day, they are still missing.
Zhoukoudian is on the tourist map but, compared to the Great Wall, it doesn’t have many visitors. Royal Orchid Holidays, however, does have it on their special tour. Don’t miss it or the Great Wall.
Another site I would like to mention is the “Hutongs.” I first began exploring the Hutongs in my student days. Other students would not go with me. They insisted the Hutongs were Peking’s underworld where anything could happen. I was surprised when I returned to the city this last time and my guide had the same thing to say. “You can’t go there; it’s too dangerous.” I went anyway and learned it’s more superstition among the Chinese than anything else.
“Hutongs” is really another name for “back alleys,” a Mongolian word meaning “passageway between two tents. Hutongs stem from the original plan of the city that allowed for the construction of enclosed courtyards hidden down small lanes. There are some 3,000 Hutongs in the city. The Hutongs I favour is located outside the southern gate. It’s perhaps the largest, and the most confusing. Even the Chinese cannot find their way around the Hutongs and who could while following such street names as Close-Washing Lane, Red Lacquer Lane or Wet-Nurse Lane. Walking or riding a bicycle is the best way to get around. If you see an interesting compound you can peer in and there’s the chance you might be invited in.
What excitement to walk through these crooked, narrow streets and meandering alleys that have no order or direction. It’s truly a maze of narrow lanes with timeworn doors, sagging lintels, shutters hanging on bent hinges and with light filtering down in shades of yellow. The shops are tiny cubbyholes in walls. Food stalls are counters with space for only three or four stools. The food they serve in the Hutongs is some of the best I have ever had in China. Street-side chefs prepare freshly made djow-dzes and noodles rolled and cut before you. The delicious smells were wild and daring and you can’t resist a bowl of noodles here and a sweetmeat there. Where is the horror of the Hutongs that everyone talks about? Here is the soul of the city. Indeed, what horror is this, little old ladies sitting by the wayside warming themselves in the sun that manages to break through the clouds? What harm are they, the old women of Peking, in somber dark clothing, with gold teeth that flash when they smile, bouncing their grandchildren and their great grandchildren on their knees. I found myself sitting with them, talking to them. They laughed and threw up their arms when I spoke Chinese to them. “This foreign devil speaks our language,” one lao tai tai said and they all picked it up and joined in the laughter. It was the funniest thing she could have said.
Whenever I return to Beijing I am always thrilled that remnants of old Peking are still there. Modern Beijing continues to be one of the greatest and proudest cities in the world. It's clean, safe and with little crime. No graffiti mark building or temple walls. The cleaning force that maintains the city are the people themselves—school kids, office and government workers, young and old, all who gather with buckets and brushes and literally scrub the streets and monuments. And once a year, every citizen is bound to plant a tree. It wasn't that way at all when I was first there.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q; Dear Mr. Stephens, Thank you very much for answering my question about how the Chao Phraya got its other name, River of Kings. It was very, very informative.
I hope you don't mind but here is another question for you. Why are some of the images of the Buddha swathed with a saffron colored textile while others are not? It was the same with the chedis.
Again, thank you for your help. Sincerely, Marlyn from the Philippines
A: Dear Marlyn,
I could reply to your question by saying with the hundreds of thousands of Buddha imagines around Thailand there is not enough cloth in all the land to cover them all. But, that’s not the reason. Robes placed on images of Buddha are donated by devotees who are seeking merit, asking for blessings or want to give thanks. The devotee selects the image he or she wants robed and gives a donation for purchasing the cloth to the monks at that temple. Usually chedis are robed by families who are descendants. I hope this answers your question. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
