Temples and Palaces and an Imperial Dinner in Beijing!

Beijing has been an interesting experience…it is not an ancient hub of China, but more a key location for modern and contemporary history.  The city is quite full of people, as every city in a country of 1.4 billion people would be, but was not as  populated as I anticipated.  The inner circle is about 6 million people, and if you include the outer lying areas of Beijing it’s about 12 million or so.  As the capital it is a destination many families from the country side are choosing to visit, so some of the major historical sites have a pilgrimage feel to them and many of the people we have encountered at the monuments are actually not from Beijing.  The smog and pollution has been staggering and I have been in true disbelief of how truly truly thick and ever present the smog can be – at moments I have had visions of the movie Mist…it really can be nearly that bad.  The smog swallows up whole s buildings, trees, even skylines here.  The people have been very kind and many have been friendly…we have been photographed many times, (although not quite as ridiculously as when I went to the pyramids), and the people have been outright helpful.  Today I visited the great wall and was very grateful when a woman picked up the lid to my water bottle (which had fallen off and rolled down fifty or so stairs) and handed it to me as she walked by.  The children are very eager to practice their English and have been very sweet – and the affection parents have for their children has been wonderfully evident in their interactions. 

The WHA conference was ultimately a success for me in that I walked out with new ideas, new contacts, and for the first time since the end of my harrowing school year, some excitement about my courses and students next year as I have started brainstorming new activities for my AP European history students and am steadily evolving the curriculum unit I will be writing for the China Institute and using in my world cultural geography course.         
                                         
 We have spent several days attending the WHA conference in the morning and then spending our afternoons visiting various historical or cultural sites.  One of the days we visited the Temple of Heaven – which was the Imperial temple the emperor would visit to ensure that the Mandate of Heaven was not lost and that he honored the power bestowed upon him accordingly – the most important ceremony was when he would go and appeal for a good harvest – everything had to be done in a precise way.  And he was carried in to the complex up to the certain point.  It was really a beautiful complex and we really enjoyed our time there. 

July 9, 2011 - The Temple of Heaven

The next afternoon we visited the Summer Palace and the palace Yuan Ming Yuan that was destroyed by the British as a byproduct of the second Opium War. The first summer palace was mainly a Ming dynasty creation and its opulence truly demonstrates the corruption of the leadership…the key symbol of this is a marble boat that had been commissioned by the empress dowager. 

The second palace had absolutely gorgeous park grounds –stretches and stretches of Chinese willows, and ponds full of beautiful flowering lily pads…it was stunning and incredibly peaceful.  And then, throughout the gardens there were bright cloth creations that I can best liken to parade floats maybe?  …You’ll see in the pictures.  After that we reached the ruins of the palace the British had razed…and it is devastating.  It’s not just empty buildings…we’re talking chunks and chunks of once ornately carved marble haphazardly strewn all over. 


For dinner that night we went to Baijia Dazhaimen, a restaurant that fully mimics the imperial court during the Qing Dynasty – from the place settings, to the servants and their attire, to the ingredients in the food.  It is all in a beautiful garden – it was amazing!  We had so much fun!  And at various points performers would come in, again with time period appropriate performances – we had singers, another mask changing ceremony, dancers, and instrumentalists, all at different times. 

July 10, 2011 - Summer Palace, YuanMingYuan, and an Imperial Dinner