The Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square

Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square

I am EXHAUSTED!!!! We must have walked 20 miles today. Not really but it sure seemed like it. Only about five or six miles but I have a blister on my left foot to prove it! Woke up at 4 a.m. again this morning but we had to get up extra early to beat traffic since most of the day was spent in the city. Traffic was busy. One of my fellow travelers, Harry from the Woodburn, Oregon Chamber of Commerce, and I sit in the front of the bus and I think Harry and I will be bald before the end of our time in Beijing. We have had many near misses with bicyclists and motor bikes. We both gasp a LOT!!!! Frightening but so far, Wu hasn't hit anyone.

Our first stop was at a pearl factory. Monica, our tour guide, was very conscience of her boss the whole time she was talking to us. It was kind of weird; like if she stepped one toe out of line, she would be fired. She talked about how the fresh water pearls were grown and harvested and showed us the difference between real pearls and fake ones -- rub real pearls together and there will be a slight rough sound. If you rub the pearls on your skin, there will be a bit of dust. In the showroom, she took us to the most expensive room, of course, so we could see the beautiful colors of black, pink, white and lavendar. Some of us got to model necklaces, too. I had on a gorgeous set of black pearls -- which can range in color from a deep blue to a deep purple. So pretty. One of the ladies from Woodburn, Sharon, had on a green scarf and modeled a saltwater pearl that was gold in color -- the rarest pearl in the world, according to Monica. The gold pearl picked up the beautiful green in her scarf -- a beautiful color against her skin. It was hard not to purchase pearls but I avoided it as best I could. My personal sales person tried to haggle with me on a strand of pearls that I could use to make my own necklace but I resisted the temptation to spend $50. At one point, she offered me the strand for $15 but I still couldn't do it. I want to save my money for our trip to Shanghai!

Once we left the pearl factory, we entered the Summer Palace. If you have ever seen the film, "The Last Emperor," the Summer Palace was built by the last emperor's aunt. She was apparently an ugly woman who was one of 3,000 concubines of the third to the last emperors. She was a great gardener and also had a beautiful singing voice. One day, asTom told the story, she found out when the emperor was going to be walking in the garden she created and decided to sing a song to him. He heard this song and thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. He took her to bed and they had a son. The son died soon after the emperor did but she did not want to give up her power and influence. They called her The Dragon Lady, but not because she was like a dragon, but because she was so powerful. She built the Summer Palace as a monument to her power. She ended up killing the emperor -- who was her nephew -- by poisoning him right before she died herself. She built the Summer Palace with a huge lake -- it covers three quarters of the total area of the palace and is 0.85 square miles -- using slave labor. The lake had many boats on it and was quite lovely. The garden was not what we Americans would consider a garden -- mostly trees and rocks cover the grounds. There are weeping willow along the banks of the lake and locust trees along the walkways.
Pagodas dot the landscape and in one, an elderly man was playing a stringed instrument. Very discordant sounding but hauntingly beautiful. It was an amazing place. The Dragon Lady was not exactly well-loved and after she put another nephew on the throne before she died, he was the last emperor. Watch the movie, it was great.

After lunch -- which was quite good -- we hit Tiananmen Square. What a huge place and so many people. You have to go through a security checkpoint before you enter but we were waved through, thanks to our guide, Tom. We got a few strange looks as we breezed through the gate. Tiananmen Square is named after the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Tiananmen Gate. It is there that Mao Zedong is buried and where he announced to the Chinese people that the People's Republic of China was founded. There was a huge flower basket filled with 30 foot long flowers in the middle of the square. Families littered the square, children dancing and street vendors trying to get people to buy their wares dotted the landscape. It was an impressive sight -- especially since The Forbidden City entrance was on the other side of the road. Everywhere, police and soldiers watched the people. No subversives allowed here!

The Forbidden City was impressive. Nine thousand, nine hundred ninety nine rooms housed the Emperor, his up to 3,000 concubines, and his soldiers and servants. Parts of the outer gates were covered in green screening due to renovation. There are four gates before you get to the actual living quarters of the emperor. Many parts look shabby, with paint peeling, cobblestones broken and parts of the beautiful wooden decorations on the roofs falling apart. It was still a very impressive place. We were able to see where the throne room was where the last emperor -- only a small boy of three -- sat with the Dragon Lady behind a screen, telling him what to do. We saw a tiny little bed where the boy king slept. The rooms were much smaller than I thought they would be but the garden! Wow. It was truly magnificient! The Suzhou stones -- the ones with the holes in them -- were everywhere and the trees were so beautiful. A pagoda sat in the middle of the garden, all red and golden. It was so spectacular. I took way too many photos but again, will have to wait to get home before I can download them.

There were hundreds of foreign visitors there. We spoke to a few Australians and Americans and heard German being spoken as well as other languages. Considering how many people were there, it was wonderful to see and hear how courteous people were. No one shoved people out of the way or tried to cut in front of you in the narrow doorways. It was very nice.

When we were leaving the Summer Palace, a group of Chinese tourists from a rural area near the Russia/China border stopped us and wanted us to take photos of them with us.One little lady was surrounded by two very tall Americans in our group. She couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall and two of our well over six feet members of our party towered over her. She had her hand over her mouth, trying to keep from giggling out loud. I took their photo and she ran over to me to see the picture. I wish I could have sent the photo to her. She was so delighted to see the picture, it was quite sweet.  
The children are delightful. The Chinese may only have one child unless they want to pay a huge amount of money to have another. Tom said only the rich can have more than one child. Since there is only one child per family unit, the children are treated like emperors. As a matter of fact, Tom said that the children are called Little Emperors. They are denied nothing, it seems. The children in the city were all well-dressed and seemed so happy. Perhaps spoiled like a lot of American only children but so adorable. We watched two little four-year-old girls -- their mothers looked like they could have been sisters so they must have been cousins -- giggle and flirt with us. They playfully pushed each other while they laughed. It was so cute. We watched another little boy -- probably about six -- who tested the laws of gravity with a small stone he found in the Forbidden City courtyard where the last emperor probably played the same types of games, rolling the little stone down the marble steps or the sloping sides of the steps over and over again. So cute!

The air was very smoggy today. It was difficult to breath by the end of the day. My throat burned and my nose dripped down my throat all afternoon. At least I did not cough, just cleared my throat like a lifelong smoker. Dinner again was an excercise in excess -- we left so much food behind but we had no place to put it in our hotel room or did not care for the taste of the dish. Tom says that to not have enough food on the table would be to lose face with your guests. The restaurant where we ate lunch was also a gastronomical museum, giving us a history of the evolution of food in China. It was a fascinating exhibit and our guide was dressed in traditional dress with the funniest platform shoes. How she balanced herself on those things, I have no idea. Lovely young lady who learned English in university and is studying business while working at the restaurant as a tour guide.

We have been treated very royally -- we have a refrigerator on our bus with bottled water, Coca Cola -- Diet Coke is very hard to find, which is just about killing me! -- and TsingTao beer. I have been keeping well hydrated with water but sometimes, I wish I could just have a Diet Coke. At the factories we have gone to, there are little bars with alcohol, soda and water. Thankfully, I get my Diet Coke fix then. The Chinese drink a LOT of Coca Cola.

Tomorrow is a day of seeing how families live. We will have lunch with a family and ride a rickshaw. Then dinner with local dignitaries and then the following day, we leave very early for the airport for our 8:25 flight to Shanghai. This has been such a wonderful experience and one I will not soon forget.