April 18, city tour of Beijing

Jack collected us at 9am at our hotel and we set off for a city tour of Beijing. On the way we spotted this example of a road sign. They're electronic and the green roads indicate light traffic, the yellow fairly heavy traffic and the red...well, forget it!

First stop was the summer palace, in the north-west of the city, where the Emperors and the Imperial Court, including all the concubines and eunuchs, would retreat during the summer. It is at a lovely spot on the banks of a lake and includes (according to the Guinness Book of Records) the longest painted corridor in the world, which is actually an outside walkway with a roof. It is beautifully decorated (we learned that many of these historic venues were refurbished and brought up to scratch for the 2008 Beijing Olympics) and a very pleasant walk by the lake. At one point, we could hear music and singing, and Jack took us up a small hill to see a choir singing a mixture of patriotic songs and love songs. Didn’t get any stills, but it was so enchanting that I took quite a bit of video of them. At the very far end of the corridor we embarked on a Dragon Boat to cross the lake back to the car park.

Next stop was the famous Tiananmen Square, probably best known now in the West for the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s – remember the student who wouldn’t step out of the way of the tank? The Square is actually a vast expanse of concrete, bounded on the north by the Ming Dynasty gate where Mao declared the Peoples’ Republic of China on October 1 1949 and on the south by the Zhengyang Men Tower, which now houses the museum of Beijing. In between, towards the south of the Square, is Mao’s mausoleum. We could go and view the body, but apparently the queues are horrendous every day and we’re not sure we can spare the time.

Part of the vast concrete expanse of Tiananmen Square, complete with the inevitable propaganda on giant screens.

Us, more propaganda, and some bloke's picture on the wall of the Ming Gate behind us.

From Tiananmen Square we entered the Forbidden City (forbidden to the public, that is, in the days of the Emperors) through the Ming Dynasty gate which bears the huge portrait of Mao. Again, the whole area is vast and you can only begin to imagine what it must have been like back in the day. Looking after 3,000 concubines must have been hard work in itself! As you can imagine, there are military personnel everywhere, and I shaped up to take a photo of one of them, having been assured by Jack that it was OK to do so. As soon as he spotted what I was doing he raised his hand and shouted "No photo!"

"No photo!" (Too late, shorty, and by the way, your trousers are too long)

Finally, we drove off a short way to visit the Temple of Heaven, which is set in a lovely park. Thankfully, I can report that this is the LAST temple we’ll be visiting. We’re all templed out! However, the park around the temple held some surprises, not least when Jack suddenly said, “Come and see this – it’s Peking Opera!” I know, from Googling it since, that full scale Peking opera is a lavishly presented affair in a theatre, but the Peking Opera we witnessed was just four old guys sitting under a tree. One of them had a single string instrument (picture the old broom handle and tea chest bass, but scaled down to about 18 inches tall) which he played with a bow, two of the others were simply watching and listening, and the fourth chap stood facing the others singing in a wierd falsetto voice. Jack explained that the songs were ancient and used such archaic language that even he did not fully understand the lyrics, but it was fascinating to watch. There was another man sitting about ten yards away on his own, also playing a similar instrument. I asked Jack if the two musicians were striving for harmony, but he said “No, the other player is just a troublemaker!”

Peking Opera, with the "troublemaker" on the right!

We also spotted this sad-looking soldier. It was clear that he'd been crying, and Jack explained that this was a common sight because these guys are often posted far away from home and don't see their families for ages.

Eventually we started off for the exit, and on the way we encountered various other singers, musicians, dancers and people practising tai chi. Some of the tai chi was quite elaborate, and involved balancing a ball on a small racquet.

Then it was time. To our relief, Jack said that it was probably a good idea to go straight to his apartment for an early supper. We were pleased by this, because we didn’t know what to expect and didn’t really want to spend the whole evening at his place. It was only about 4pm at this stage, so we reckoned we could be back in our hotel before dark! We had also enquired repeatedly if the etiquette was to take a gift of any kind, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The driver, Lin, had gone by now and so we got a taxi, which Jack insisted on paying for.

As expected, the apartment block, in the West of the city, was pretty dingy. We climbed up to the top floor (fourth floor) on a scruffy concrete staircase littered with bikes and other detritus. By this time we had learned that Jack’s mother would not be there because she was off looking after her cousin or Jack’s uncle (we’re still not sure which) so we entered the apartment to meet Jack’s father, who was busy in the kitchen preparing food. The apartment was pretty basic and scruffy, but we were made to feel at home. We only saw the sitting room, kitchen and bathroom (well, shower room and loo) and they all had tiled floors and plain walls with a few pictures scattered about. The windows were protected on the outside by metal cages, and when we enquired Jack explained that these were to keep thieves out! Pretty intrepid thieves if they were prepared to scale a four storey building! There was a big flatscreen TV linked to a satellite decoder which Jack proudly showed off to us, saying that they could get 600 channels. Strangely, the TV was left on the whole time, which struck us as a bit odd when you have guests. Jack and I drank beer, while Jenny was supplied with iced tea, and to our enormous relief (more relief!) the food was OK. Some stir-fried veg and tofu was followed by pasta and more veg and it all tasted fine. There was no meat for us to worry about and the only problem was that there was much more than we could eat. Luckily, Jack assured us that leaving food was not considered impolite.

While Jenny and I sat on the sofa, Jack and his dad sat on low stools around the coffee table, and the other odd thing was that no bowls or plates were provided. We just had chopsticks and ate the food directly from the bowls it had been served up in! Also, Jack’s father, who had cooked everything, didn’t eat because he had had a late lunch, and after we’d been scoffing for about ten minutes he put his coat on and left! Jack explained that he was probably going out for a cigarette, and explained what a bad idea the family thought that was, given that he had undergone major heart surgery not too long ago, involving arterial reconstruction.

After we’d eaten all we could manage, we made our excuses and Jack came down to the street with us, hailed a cab, and made our destination clear to the driver. This was helpful, because we had been ripped off by a taxi driver with no meter running the night before. We were back in the hotel by 7.30pm, and here I am closing another day’s blog before bedtime.

Free day tomorrow!

Jenny’s bit: I’d love to have actually spoken to Jack’s father, but we were only able to smile and nod a lot. Just wonder what he thought of his life, dodgy heart, early retirement, dingy flat and a wife and son who nag him if he tries to have a beer or a ciggie! Jx