Journal Entry #33: Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Tuesday was the start of our vacation portion of this trip.  Donna, as usual, had researched many of the sites she wanted us to visit and had done her usual due diligence. We had made arrangements to Meet Tina in the lobby of our Hotel at 9 o’clock this morning.  We had also planned to sit for a few minutes with Tina to see what she wanted to do for the week and to see what she could, or was willing, to help us with. 

Tina, Liu Nia, was one of my best students at Harding in Searcy.  She had high English TOEFL scores and could have been in any Freshman Speech class, but I recruited her to take the ESL class I was offering to help me with my Chinese students who were not so fluent in English.  Ever since I had announced my intentions to travel to Beijing, Tina had been offering her assistance to show us around her hometown when we arrived. 

To our great delight she wanted to spend every day with us!  Now that we were checked in and ready to start the next portion of this adventure, I wanted to contact Eileen in Tianjin and find out what she had planned for the week.  After doing so she suggested that we train to Tianjin on Friday, spend the day with her there and then train back the same evening.  Sounded perfect with us.  That way we were not going to have to check out of a hotel and back into one on Friday or Saturday.  We didn’t know what we were to do in Tianjin, but Eileen assured us that we would not want to miss this city!

With our Tianjin schedule now in the plans I knew we could plan the next few days. In the mix of things to do or visit was visiting the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall and, as important to me as any, visiting Tina’s family.  We laid out a tentative schedule for the week and we were off to the Forbidden City!  Tina was a great hostess.

The Forbidden City is the best-preserved imperial palace in China and the largest ancient palatial structure in the world. It is recognized as one of the most important five palaces in the world (the other four are the Palace of Versailles in France, Buckingham Palace in the UK, the White House in the US and the Kremlin in Russia). Donna and I have seen or visited three of these sites.  (We only have Buckingham Palace and the Kremlin to see in the future.  Hmmm, sounds like a future vacation/mission trip to me!)  The splendid architecture of the Forbidden City represents the essence and culmination of traditional Chinese accomplishment.  

In 1961 the Forbidden City was listed as one of the important historical monuments under the special preservation by the Chinese central government and, in 1987, it was nominated as World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. The Palace Museum is a real treasure house of Chinese cultural and historical relics.

The Forbidden City, situated in the very heart of Beijing, was home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The construction of the grand palace started in the fourth year of Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty (1406) and ended in 1420. In ancient times, the emperor claimed to be the son of Heaven, and therefore Heaven’s supreme power was bestowed upon him. The emperor’s residence on earth was built as a replica of the Purple Palace where God was thought to live in Heaven. Such a divine place was certainly forbidden to ordinary people and that is why the Forbidden City is so named.

The Forbidden City covers an area of about 72 acres with a total floor space of approximately 150,000 square meters. It consists of 90 palaces and courtyards, 999 buildings and 9,999 rooms. To represent the supreme power of the emperor given from God, and the place where he lived being the center of the world, all the gates, palace and other structures of the Forbidden City were arranged around the south-north central axis of Beijing.  It was also directly across the street from Tiananmen Square.  

Tina suggested that we take the subway, which was OK with me, but Donna had looked on the map and said, “It’s only a few blocks from here, let’s walk.”  So we walked, and a lot farther than we first thought that we might.  We finally arrived and the place was very crowded.  Of course everything in China is crowded relative to what we are used to but this scene was particularly crowded.  I recognized The Forbidden City as soon as I saw it because of the many images I had seen over the years through the media.  The most predominant image was a large portrait of Chairman Mao at the front entrance.  The lines to buy tickets and enter were long.  We got in line to buy tickets.  The tickets were ¥60 each or ¥180.   As we were waiting in line we were offered some scalped tickets that were the face value of the price of tickets plus what amounted to about $3.00 USD more.  I took that deal instead of waiting what looked like a 45 minute or more wait.

We wandered around the grounds all day long fascinated by the many wonders of this palatial royal habitat.  The people were fascinating.  The families, the gawkers and the very interested ranged in age from the very young to the very old.  Surprisingly there were not as many non-Asian foreigners as I thought there might be.  As a result, we were still quite an anomaly. The fact that we had Tina with us led people to believe that she was our hired tour guide.  She certainly could have been.  Many folks were asking her questions about the city, or about her services.  She kindly explained that she was a student and I was her professor from America here to visit her.  It was one of my prouder moments!

To say the least, this was an amazing venue for tourism and history.  The architecture, the color, the people, the scenic beauty and the wonder of what might have been in a day long ago kept us intrigued for many hours.  Tina had been there before but she readily admitted that you couldn’t see this entire palace in one day, so she was enthralled as well.  Donna got the walking audio tour and I took the photos.  That’s usually our plan.  If there is something particular that she wants me to record, she just tells me and I take the pictures.  We strolled about the grounds until we could do so no more.  I wanted Donna to stay and see as much as she wanted.  This was one of the venues Donna really wanted to see when she arrived.  I wanted to see it too but after four or five hours it all started looking the same.  Someday we’ll go back and see the other 90 percent that we did not see on this day.

We left the Forbidden City in the late afternoon and took a taxi back to the room.  Tina stayed with us and while I was getting a quick rest/Chinese nap, Tina surfed the Internet to find our restaurant and her plans for our evening of shopping!  

For dinner we went to a new seafood restaurant that Tina’s dad has referred us to.  The Chinese name was whatever it was… but it translated in English to, “That Little Restaurant.”  The food was different than what we had experienced since we had been there with a few very distinctive menu items.  We had some small pork spare ribs.  Not that unusual, I suppose, but try eating those with chopsticks!  I was laughed at when I gave up and picked up the meat with my fingers to finish them off.  We also had some of the best shrimp I’ve ever had.  They had a honey like glaze over them and later I found out it was the house specialty.  They were wonderful!  The other fish was a Shark Fin soup!  This soup was quite a delicacy in China. In addition, we had sea cucumbers, green vegetables that resembled spinach or some other sort of “green,” and finally the food selection included a dish made up of scrambled eggs, green peppers and some sort of white bean vegetable.  Tina had not eaten there before but she quickly said that she was coming back and bringing more friends and guests.  I tried to pay for dinner but Tina had already taken care of that!  It was very relaxing and I was ready to head back to the room.

Heading back to the room was not on Tina’s or Donna’s agenda!  Tina had other plans that Donna also had been planning for weeks upon her notice that she would be in Beijing.  We were going shopping at the Silk Market!  The silk market was a large building with several floors of clothing stores and freestanding stations selling all sorts of clothing and other wearables.  The most unusual element was the aggressive sales staff.  The mainly young, teenaged girls and women were openly shouting at you as you walked by to come and see what they had to offer.  If you showed any attention to them or made any eye contact, they were all over you even to the point of grabbing you by the arm to come and see what they had to sell.  It was almost comical to see them work.  To be sure, there were a few items that we definitely wanted to purchase but because of their selling style it became very difficult to shop for those items. 

I wanted a red, Chinese style, men’s dress shirt; one that I could wear to Harding’s Chinese Moon Festival in the fall.  As I started to look, I realized that I could easily get what I wanted, but I had been warned about the escalated prices to foreigners, and the ability to bargain with these people to the point that I did not want to get started unless Tina was with me to help me do so.  When I had Tina by my side I tried on a few shirts and found just what I was looking for and let Tina bargain for me with a few winks and nods from me to continue or walk away.  The initial price was ¥650!  That’s about $95 USD for the shirt.  I’ve never paid that much for a shirt in my life.  As I was walking away the sales clerk told me to make an offer.  We went back and forth on a price until I finally bought something that I think I will be very happy with and I paid about one-third of her original asking price!  I am anxious to wear it with Gavyn and the little Chinese outfit that I had previously bought for him in the Miao Minority Village.

Now it was Donna’s turn to find what she wanted. She was mainly looking for some silk material with which to do some sewing.  She was not as amused with the sales clerks as I was.  I wanted to continue having fun with the sales clerks so I was running interference for her to distract the sales clerks so that she could look without them grabbing her to show her what they had to offer.  I had my camera, and often the showing of it, and taking pictures, would turn away a young clerk long enough to let Donna escape their attention.  She finally found some materials that she was excited about the possibilities of what might be later.  Tina was not a seamstress, and seemed to be enthralled by the fact that Donna could actually sew her own clothes.  I took a photo of the materials with Donna, Tina and the sales clerk, and promised Tina that when Donna had finished her project I would take another photo of the finished product.

This was our first entry into shopping at the Beijing markets and it was as promised: big, fun, plentiful, colorful, exciting, and bargains galore!  The prices, if bargained properly, were great!