2002-12-05 - 11:04 p.m.

The Temple of Heaven

Beijing, Nov. 15

Continuing the story of our trip to China

You know, the purpose of me writing all this down is to remember, but the process is going too slow, it's taking too long. The events I'm writing about are getting further and further in the past and my memory of them is getting jumbled. Did I see this thing in Shanghai, or Nanjing? Was this temple in Beijing, or Xi'an? I have to get a move on before it all fades away.

After I finished the last entry I remembered more about the Forbidden City.

Behind the city is a mountain, but it is an artificial one - another symbol of imperial extravagance, although it had defensive purposes as well. Vivian told us the story of how in 1644 the last Ming emperor awaited the army coming to take his throne. He got drunk, ordered all the women in the palace to kill themselves, killed a couple of them himself, then climbed up the mountain and hung himself from a tree. Talk about a sore loser!

We also saw the imperial gardens, but while they were nicely laid out there wasn't much to look at since it was the beginning of winter and all the plants were bare. That's the problem with visiting these sights in November - brown is the dominant color. However, visiting them in November means that they aren't utterly overrun with tourists, so you pay your money and you take your choice. I doubt we could have set things up like we did off the cuff if it had been the height of the tourist season.

I also forgot to mention that I got an eyeful of what also became one of my little obsessions, Chinese guardian lions!

In front of a lot of the imperial buildings there are two lions, one a female, the other a male. The male has his paw on a globe symbolizing dominion over the earth. The female has her paw on a baby lion, symbolizing dominion over the family. I keep imagining the following dialogue:

Male Lion: I rule the world!
Female Lion: I rule the family which means I rule you. Now shut up and take out the trash.

Here is a picture of one of the Forbidden City lions. Actually you see lions like this all over China, standing guard all over all sorts of buildings like hotels and post offices and car dealerships. How the mighty have fallen! "Well, it's a living," rationalizes Papa Lion.

Anyway, after the Forbidden City we went to see the Temple of Heaven, which wasn't too far away - a park where the emperors performed religious ceremonies. Once again, it was serious piece of real estate - the park is right in the middle of Beijing and twice the size of the Forbidden City.

As we were walking toward the main temple compound, a loudspeaker system was playing a Musak version of Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now." If that's not authentic Imperial Chinese, I don't know what is! I felt transported back to Olden Days.

One of central features of the Temple of Heaven Park is the Round Altar, which is another example of Chinese numerology in action - there are three levels (representing Hell, Earth and Heaven) with nine steps up each level and a geometric pattern of marble slabs at the top.

Not far from there is the Imperial Vault of Heaven which is surrounded by the Echo Wall. There's two amusing features of the Wall. First, there are three stones you can stand on in the middle of the courtyard where if you clap you'll either get one, two or three echoes. The other feature is that due to the (accidental?) acoustical design of the wall, a whisper at one end of the wall can be clearly heard at the other.

Of course the problem with getting these amusing acoustics to work is making sure bunches of stupid tourists aren't standing in your way. I couldn't get the Echo Wall to work and only managed to get one echo while standing in the middle of the courtyard. However it was amusing to watch Asian guys in business suits clapping and shouting like schoolboys, trying to get the trick to work.

We were supposed to see Tiananmen Square next, but due to the Communist party congress the square was closed so Vivian suggested that we should try it after lunch.

We had lunch at a restaurant within walking distance of the Temple of Heaven Park, and the place fairly screamed "tourist restaurant." Without exception the places we had lunch on these CITS junkets seemed kind of dubious so all I generally did was nibble at some of the dishes that looked okay, and drink a lot of tea. That's one of the reasons that I managed to lose six pounds in two weeks.

Continued...