Day 14 - Tuesday, Oct. 29 - Beijing

Daybreak from my Beijing hotel window

Up early and down to a sumptuous breakfast.  Choices galore.  There’s an advantage to not speaking the language:  you don’t get distracted by conversations.
       Waiting for the guide, I explore my room and find a “running map” of the area for joggers - they think of everything! - which confirms what I suspected as we approached the hotel last night, driving past big “homes” with walls and guards:  this is the embassy district right by Ritan Park, which is book-ended by the British Embassy and the Residence of the U.S. Embassy.  This district also includes the embassies of Poland, Colombia, Finland, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Singapore, Bulgaria, Ireland, Cuba, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and the Philippines.
       A bit before 9, my guide Ling Yun - aka Garry - arrives.  He informs me that the zipline off the Great Wall and across a river valley is no longer in operation, thereby rescuing me from a glorious demise.  (Evidently it was owned by two people, one Chinese and one foreign, and the foreigner pulled out.)  Instead we will see two things not on the National Geographic tour that starts tomorrow.
       We'll start with the Ming Tombs north of Beijing, in the Swallow Mountains.  Traffic is heavy in this city of 20 million plus.  (Shanghai is bigger at 25 million and Chungking is the biggest at 34 million.)  And yet to buy a car you have to win a lottery with names picked randomly by the government; only one in 2,570 applicants wins.
       As we drive, we pass a pagoda.  I ask what religion it is and Garry says it’s not a pagoda, it's a mosque!  But there’s another one, more traditional-looking, in Beijing... complete with a minaret.

Ming Tombs

About an hour later, we arrive at the tombs.  The Ming Dynasty lasted almost 300 years, from 1368 to 1644, and the first of the thirteen tombs here was that of Emperor Changling.  He chose this spot for its good fengshui:  water in front (a river now dammed upstream), hills behind.  Changling is the emperor who moved the capital from Nanking to Beijing and built the Forbidden City.  Its colors are red for happiness and yellow, a color only the emperor could use.

        After a giant turtle monument, which represents long life in China, we walk the Sacred Way, mostly straight but curved a bit at one point to fool the evil spirits, who apparently move only in straight lines and also can’t pass thresholds.  (A threshold is what caused China’s very last emperor to fall; he had them all removed so he could ride his bike indoors... and the evil spirits got him.)  Along the path are pairs of animals, first seated, then standing - lions, elephants, camels - and then pairs of warriors and courtiers.
       We climb the pagoda from where we can see some of the other tombs in the distance.  This is a sort of Chinese Valley of the Kings.  There are many dragon symbols here and Garry explains that the royal dragon has five toes while the commoner‘s has only three.  (It’ll be on the quiz.)
       Signs here are also in English - not the case in the city.  I particularly enjoy the one of a cigarette lighter with a diagonal red line through it that says “prohibition of fire”, but I was perplexed by the one that said “cellphone prohibit during thunderstorms”.  And I especially like the admonishment that “fighting, gambling, superstitious or erotic activities are strictly forbidden”.

Under a lovely crisp autumn sun, we head back toward Beijing to the Summer Palace, which dates from the Qin Dynasty.  The emperor built it to get some cool air in summer, something the Forbidden City has little of.  It lies on the shores of turtle-shaped Kunming Lake, which was created from nothing and the earth removed used to build Longevity Hill behind the residence.  (Remember the Ming Tombs fengshui?)  The hill is shaped like a bat, whose name in Chinese has a sound like that of the word for happiness; the bat shape is found elsewhere also.

The marble boat

       The lake is beautiful in the sunlight.  Garry tells me he used to swim here as a child, but now that’s forbidden.  There are paddleboats here though, many being used, and then there’s the big Marble Boat at the end of our walk.  Its hull is made of real white marble but the rest is wood painted to look like marble.
       As our driver takes us back to the hotel, Garry tells me a bit about his family.  His parents, now retired, were journalists.  In 1968, when he was two, they were sent to separate camps out in the country for re-education.  He went with his mother.  They were “lucky”; their banishment lasted only three years.  No wonder he worked so hard in school, learning excellent English.  As I say good-bye at the hotel, I wish him well.  I’ve given him my card so he can send me a copy of the photo he took of us.  Maybe we’ll stay in touch.

This evening there’s a reception for all my fellow travelers.  (I arrived one day early, for the zipline.)  I thank Stanley for finding me Garry.  Then Stanley gives a presentation, with do’s and don’ts.  Our expert, geography professor Alec Murphy, gives a bit of an introduction and hands out a chart (with map) for the various dynasties.  Very helpful.
       Then it’s off to shower and bed.  Tomorrow, the Great Wall!

The Summer Palace