Looks like meat's back on the menu

Travelling north involved more than just a change of scenery, it also meant eschewing the Jiangsu people's love of seafood.

Certain aphorisms never cease to ring true. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Beijing, eat Peking duck. I made sure to adhere to the latter on no less than four occasions, three of them on consecutive days.

The Beijing duck is an especially fat animal which, following its inevitable demise, is dried and roasted in a hot oven. It is then cut into very thin slices and put in a wheat wrap similar to a tortilla, together with spring onions and a special thick, slightly sweet sauce. Additional condiments are sometimes added. Cucumbers may provide extra crunch. Chinese eaters consider the crispy duck skin especially delicious.

Speaking of food, I heard an expression in Beijing. Let's make it into a quiz. Finish the following sentence: In Heaven, they eat dragon meat. On Earth, we have...

A) Snake
B) Eel
C) Dog
D) Donkey

I've been moving ahead of things. The trip to Beijing started on a Friday evening, in a town hitherto unknown to me called Taizhou, located some miles north of Shanghai. The distance between Shanghai and Beijing is almost 1500 kilometres, making the train ride from Taizhou last over 13 hours. The beds didn't exactly provide the comfort I hoped for so I arrived in the gigantic Chinese capital in a less than perfect condition.

It's hard to estimate exactly how gigantic Beijing really is. One source lists the population as 15 million people (Shanghai: 17 million) while some persons I talked to while in Beijing mentioned a population of 17 million for Beijing, 18 million for Shanghai. I'm not sure if the number of tourists is included somehow in those figures but temporary visitors alone would easily fill up any Swedish town.

Arriving at Tian'anmen square (the square of heavenly peace) late Saturday afternoon I was once again humbled, but not in the same way as in Shanghai. Beijing's buildings aren't as tall as the skyscrapers of Shanghai, nor are the major pedestrian lanes as busy, but there's something about the sheer immensity of the entire city planning that leaves a very strong impression. In the old days of the Empire, no building was allowed to stand taller than the imperial main hall of the Forbidden City, or its architect would be decapitated. Some of that mentality prevails, so buildings tend to take on rather huge proportions in the other two dimensions instead.

Mandatory Mao picture:


One week in Beijing was more or less enough to see the major tourist attractions but didn't leave very much time for less obvious destinations. The schedule was something along these lines:

1. Go to the Forbidden City, home to the emperors of China's last two dynasties. Trying to fathom the influence those emperors must have had is pretty difficult. My guide for the day told me that the total number of houses is 9,999. The city is kept under constant renovation, especially now, two years before the Beijing Olympics. More on that subject later. This meant that not all of the 9,999 houses were open to the public but there was certainly enough to keep someone with an affinity for overblown palaces entertained.



2. Visit Tiantan, park and former centre for yearly sacrificial rites in order to bring good harvests, fronted by the emperor. The main attraction is a giant pagoda built completely without crossbeams, instead relying on pillars for roof support. Why, one might ask, in a park with such an impressive construction did I choose to pose with a rock shaped like a cloud?



The park is also home to a rather interesting museum about old Chinese musical instruments, for example at least five ones that would probably get translated into English as "big red drums".

This one's called a se:


Pavillion in Tiantan:


3. The tombs of the Ming emperors, located north of Beijing. This area houses 13 old imperial graves. I went to the two best known: the Chang Ling and the Ding Ling. Chang Ling is a roughly 400 years old burial area with a tourist density possibly rivalling that of the Forbidden City. It is the largest of the tombs in the area although the actual grave, which is underground, hasn't been located. Ding Ling is an excavated tomb constructed during the 16th century. It is definitely less impressive than Chang Ling but still interesting. The construction of the tomb started when the emperor in question was 20 years old.

4. Only a duck meal away from the valley of the Ming tombs lies a section of the Great Wall called Badaling. This segment is particularly scenic and therefore attracts a large number of visitors, even on hot afternoons like the one I chose for my pilgrimage. I didn't set my expectations very high because I had a feeling that the Wall wouldn't be that impressive in real life. However, upon approaching and seeing the first outline of wall against the hills a sense of what might almost be described as trepidation came over me. It might sound cliched but the wings of history did actually seem to flap louder over those hills. Not even the big sign advertising the upcoming Olympics (as seen in the picture below) could completely erase the feeling that there might be a horde of Mongolians waiting just out of sight behind that ridge.



Ah, the Olympics of 2008. I don't think there was one single scenic spot in Beijing that didn't announce the upcoming event. Everywhere repairs were going on to make the city look as appealing as possible once the eyes of the world are upon it. Parts of Beijing are definitely in need of repair though, especially the road network. Stories of traffic jams so dense that travelling a few metres takes over 20 minutes were easy to believe even as I went around the city on its less busy summer days.

Having passed through the less severe traffic jam upon the Great Wall I could thusly entitle myself haohan, roughly translated as "good man". Walking away from Badaling one of the many shop keepers selling shoulder bags bearing Mao's portrait and fake Rolexes instead chose to hail me with his "hello, BB boy". I definitely prefer haohan.

Haohan at Great Wall:


5. A short visit in Yuanminyuan, an old imperial park not far from the big universities of Beijing. Chinese people can be quite nationalistic, at least by Swedish standards. The park represents one occasion where such feelings easily turn into ire against other nations, in this case a group referred to as the "eight thieving nations". Yuanmingyuan was built after European fashion, sporting a big pool reminiscent of ancient Rome and a stone labyrinth. In the events following the opium wars of the 19th century most buildings of the park were destroyed by the allied French and English forces, two of the more prominent members of the thieving eight.

Today the park is somewhat of an overlooked spot but definitely worth visiting. Walking around the marble ruins in the evening provided some well needed rest before it was time to once again enter the fray with thousands of other tourists.

6. This was done at the Summer Palace, a well known resort for the emperors of old and yet another testament to their awesome influence. The focal point of the park is Kunming lake, an entirely man made lake complete with an (artificial) island. Parts of the area that makes up the Summer Palace was closed for repairs. Some big sports event in 2008 may have been the reason.

Tower that might be a training camp for Chinese Olympic athletes:


A fascination with stone figurines reaches alarming levels:


7. The same night I went to visit the old town, made up of small one-floor stone buildings known as hutongs. They are under constant threat of demolition as the local government wants to reshape the cityscape in preparation for a certain athletic competition. Some parts have been saved as the area is considered a must visit tourist attraction by many foreigners. I was more amused by a guy in the hutong bar district offering "Chinese beer, Chinese hamburger, Chinese potato, Chinese girl" in that order, than by the actual buildings themselves.

8. The Beijing city museum, by contrast, is hyper modern and newly opened. The vast collosus offers many insights into the history of the city. One such insight is that people like to make toys out of insect shells covered in some kind of fur.



9. My last day in Beijing was partly spent at a Tibetan buddhist temple. Chinese buddhism can be very confusing as Buddha takes many forms (oftentimes referred to as different gods by the people I talked to) that are very different from the two images of "thin guy meditating under a tree" and "fat guy happily slapping his belly" most known to us in the West. Some Buddhas look more similar to the Hindu goddess of death Khali whereas others display a thousand hands and numerous heads. The main attraction of the temple is a very impressive wooden statue. Unfortunately picture taking was forbidden.

I'm not exactly sure how all this ties together but this guy unfortunately wasn't able to explain since he didn't speak English. He still gets heaps of cool points for being a lama though:


It should be noted that all of the above places charged fees upon entry, even the temples. Luckily enough most of them accepted my Swedish student card, reducing the price considerably.

Since leaving Beijing I've had time to visit the pretty nice town of Yangzhou but that will have to wait until the next update, there's some kind of students' military parade going on (for the second day in a row) outside that I don't want to miss. Everyone who's made it all the way here gets my warmest appreciation. Please leave some comments if it was too much to read and you would rather have more pictures instead.

Oh right, I almost forgot about the quiz. The correct answer is obviously D, donkey meat. It wasn't as tasty as the proverb made it out to be...