Melinda's Japanese Adventure: Beijing

After Hong Kong we all looked forward to our journey into mainland China. I especially looked forward to Beijing since I teach about imperial China and really wanted to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City. But, the combination of having recently left Kyoto with its perfectly manicured imperial palace and being exhausted from more than a week on the road took some of the shine off the trip.

The first thing that struck us in Beijing is that everyone smokes. I had always heard about Japan that everyone smokes, but the Japanese are very good at following the rules so they don't smoke everywhere or all the time. The Chinese, ironically (since they live in a rigid communist state), don't seem to follow any rules and this applies to smoking and smoking etiquette as well. At our hotel, the Beijing International, a state-owned and operated hotel, we found the lobby full of smoke and our rooms (yes--in China, it's a two person per room limit and so you rent two rooms--with adjoining doors if you are lucky) were full of smoke. It took a little over an hour but we finally managed to get moved to a no-smoking floor. There, as one of our guides later pointed out, people still smoke but can't be as obvious about it.

The next day we headed out to Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, and various other places.

Tienanmen Square was really interesting. You basically go through airport security to get in and then walk through tunnels like subway tunnels to get to the square (which is fenced off so you can't enter from the street). Our guide mentioned that the roads used to run to the square and that when the emperor left Beijing he had to run through the square and down the road to a particular city gate (the emperor-leaving gate). I did not find Tienanmen Square all that interesting. It was a big open area, but more devoid of interesting things than I thought it would be.

Looking out across the square toward the Forbidden City. Notice the gynormous picture of Mao (that would be Mao TseTung) on the wall.

Now, I have to mention that Tienanmen Square is where we first discovered Sam's rockstar status. Many, many people wanted to take pictures with Sam here.

After Tienanmen Square we went to the Forbidden City. For those of you unfamiliar with Chinese history, the Forbidden City is where the emperor of China lived with his wives, concubines, young children, and eunuchs (men who had their testicles removed--these were basically administrators who could live onsite as there was no danger of them dallying with the emperor's women). The Forbidden City was interesting for many reasons. It was much larger than I had imagined. Also, our guide told us about the "spring rolls." In order to pacify the imperial wife, emperors drew the name of the concubine who would spend the night with him out of a jumble of names (to prevent him from spending too much time with any one concubine). Then, to prevent her from murdering the emperor (if so inclined) the concubine was brought to the emperor's quarters naked but wrapped in a rug--so, a female sex spring roll. Having been at Kyoto so recently, however, I have to say that my first thought upon seeing the Forbidden City was "Wow, this place really needs a new coat of paint!"