On the road again
The students left yesterday in a burst of OMG activities. Before leaving for the airport, we:
1) Visited the Confucian temple and the Imperial College, both founded in the Ming period to train and honor the scholars who successfully passed the exams and became the ruling elite of China. Until the exams were abolished in 1905, the system of learning the Analects of Confucius was one of the surest ways to wealth and power. The top three scholars were honored by the emperor at the Forbidden City, and were allowed to march through the same middle gate as the emperor. All the scholars who passed the exams had their names inscribed on the steles, and I said that anyone whose name was on them would get an A in the class. Unfortunately for them, only my name and Professor Sikora’s were on the stele. At least that’s what I told them. Though the complex is not usually on the tourist main route, I thought it would be useful to see the “mother church” of Confucian education since we’d see one of the “satellite” campuses in Hanoi, an indication of the power of Chinese civilization (I’d seen the equivalent in Seoul). As luck would have it, there was an International School graduation that day, so the college was set up to be a college that day. The Sage of Qufu (Confucius’ home town) would have been pleased.
Interestingly, the qualifying exams for universities today are just as competitive—and just as useful. When we went to Beijing University (the IWU of China), they boasted about the number of top student qualifiers the school had attracted from the Chinese provinces. And In Beijing several years ago, we had the president of Motorola speak to us. When she was done, she asked, “Any Questions?” She was Korean, and so I asked, “Did you graduate Seoul National or Yonsei University?” “Seoul National,” she replied, surprised. “But how did you know?” I knew because Confucius still lives in Asia.
2) The second must-do in that area, an area still marked by the dismount stones and other trappings of old Beijing, is the Yonghegang, the Lama Temple. Originally the home of Yongzheng (who will play a role later in this narrative), it was converted by Qianlong into a Lama temple to honor his mother (a stout Buddhist) as a place for his loyal subjects from Tibet and Mongolia who followed the Lama version of Buddhism. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing today, with a crowning hall housing a 23-meter standing Buddha made of one piece of wood (everything is the largest, biggest, tallest, etc., but you do have to watch the qualifiers). What I love most about it is that it incorporates the Tibetan/Mongolian gods, too, that are terrifying in their demonic postures, especially the blue demon that I think should be the DePaul mascot.
3) The third item (yes, we were busy—this was all before noon, and probably seemed an eternity to those who sampled the nightlife as a personal farewell to the trip and to Beijing) was a tour of the hutong area around Houhai, one of the artificial lakes the imperials created for themselves north of the Forbidden City. The hutongs were the old-style homes with four square units surrounding a garden; it’s a Manchu word. Once the predominant housing in Beijing, they’ve been replaced by high rises, and maybe it’s not a bad thing. The units once had no electricity, water, or sanitary facilities, except what was common. Today, the area has gentrified and is now the playground of young Chinese, and the residence of older ones. We stopped at one for lunch, where a woman and her retired husband preside over an empty nest (children get married and want privacy) together with same-generation elders.
When I took the students to the airport and checked them to security—free at last, and convinced that the experience had been transforming—I returned to the city, where I’ve been busy ever since. Yesterday afternoon, I walked for about three hours. My main goal was to climb Coal Hill and take pictures overlooking the Forbidden City. At one time the highest location in the city, Coal Hill was constructed of dirt dug out of the moat to build the Palace. It offers the best view of the Palace, and I was delighted that it had been reopened since I was there two years ago. I realized I had not been there late in the day before (I like to get there early in the morning and watch the tai qi and line dancing and ballroom dancing, and calligraphy, etc., but couldn’t entice any night owls to join me). One note of history there—supposedly, the last Ming emperor went there when the Manchu armies seized the city in 1644 and hanged himself. Interestingly, the Manchus had him buried in the same valley with the other Ming tombs, and carried on the burial traditions themselves, becoming more Chinese than Manchu by the end of the dynasty (they came and were transformed). I went around the Forbidden City to Sun Yatsen Park, which had been part of the Palace when the Emperors lived there, when it housed an altar for earth and grain. Another stupendous architectural wonder—and proof that the Middle Kingdom, or its rulers at any rate, was wealthy beyond belief. I emerged just in time to witness the lowering of the flag over Tiananmen Square, which had a larger “crowd than in the morning (after all, 7:30 at night is preferable to most people over 4:50 a.m.), the same snappy military detail, but no inspiring anthem, or any music.
Today was my “OMG, I’m outnumbered by how many to one?” day. I left early this morning for the thing I’ve never had time to do—visit the Qing tombs. There are two sets, one in Eastern Hebei province, which were ravaged during the warlord period, partly because one of the graves is of Cixi, the wicked Empress Dowager who poisoned emperors to keep power, the other in Western Hebei; I went to the west, where we visited the tomb of Yongzheng, the 3rd Qing emperor, and supposedly the most resplendent. He set up the first tomb in the area (supposedly, he killed his brothers when he became emperor; it wasn’t always primogeniture, making succession one of the problems in any dictatorship, or even an entrepreneurial company. Consequently, he did not want to bury himself near his father). Yongzheng designed the sacred way after the model of the Mings (who copied earlier dynasties) with some differences; most notably, the scholar/officials had the “pigtail,” the Manchu hairstyle that the dynasty made every Han Chinese copy. The tomb was every bit as impressive as the more well-traveled Ming tombs, but being 70 miles or so from Beijing, much less visited by tour groups. They told me I was the only Westerner to have been there that day.
Fragrant Hill was similar. Another imperial park, it is on a hillside in another playground (my guide thought the problem with the Qing emperors was that they had too many playgrounds and did not spend enough time on government; after all, they permitted the century of humiliation!), this one built by Qianlong. With a charming man-made lake (and a natural mountain, of over 1,200 meters, which we did not have enough time to climb or to ride the cable car to the top), the site houses the Azure Cloud temple. It’s another lama temple Qianlong built (partly to honor his mother), with Tibetan stupas; Dr. Sun Yatsen’s body rested here while the Republic prepared the elegant tomb in the capital (between the late 20s and 1949). Again, it was a park full of local people (it was Sunday afternoon), and I was the only American around. Beijing abounds with imperial sights, just as impressive as those on the tour, but more enjoyable because they’re not.
Right now, I am the only Westerner on a train headed (for me anyway) to Shanhaiguan, the mountain-sea pass where the Great Wall comes down to the sea. I’m spending tonight there, and visiting the pass, Qinwangdao (the only city named for the first emperor in his lifetime) and Beidahe, playground along the ocean of old and new elites. The car is a second-class sleeper (6 people, 6 bunks; fortunately I’ve got a bottom bunk), and if I speak English, I talk only to myself. I am, after all, In China.
I hope you’re enjoying your holiday as much as I am mine.