Friday afternoon, as some friends sat in class and others
continued on the never-ending quest to find cheap fake goods, I decided to embark on a solo expedition to one of Beijing's few large tourist attractions that I'd yet to see: the Temple of Heaven, or Tiantan. After a lengthy subway ride I walked to the large, leafy park where the temple sits, about a mile due south of Tiananmen Square. Upon entering the complex, I briefly expected it to be another Disney-world like attraction in China, with hordes of flag-following tourist groups and Coca Cola sponsored refreshment stands on each corner. It turned out that I was very wrong. There were some small groups of tourists near the temple itself, but in walking around the rest of the park I saw caught some of the most authentic, revealing glimpses of Chinese and Beijing life that I've seen yet. A long covered pathway that stretched for about 200 yards (in Chinese, literally called the Long Corridor) was filled with elderly locals playing dominoes and card games. I walked silently through the throngs of Beijingers as they gossiped, laughed, and sang traditional Chinese hymns. Several small groups huddled together and played old-looking Chinese instruments, and as the sun set behind the corridor, I felt like I was a world away from the dirty streets of crowded Beijing. I eventually wound my way to the center of the complex, where I snapped pictures and sat down to read about the imposing Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. A short walk away were the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Circular Mound Altar, in the center of which sits a stone that was once thought to be the holiest place on earth, literally the center of China, Earth's Middle Kingdom (Zhongguo). The Temple of Heaven is now one of my favorite places in Beijing. The park is large enough that it seems to push away the skyscrapers, taxis, and the loogie-spitting public, leaving a romantic piece of old Beijing there to fill the void.Friday night was a standard night of bars and clubs.
On Saturday morning about 25 students journeyed to the 798 Art District, a portion of Beijing known for its rapidly growing art scene. Laid out amongst a series of once-abandoned factories, the district boasts dozens of tiny art stores and galleries, mostly filled with odd modern artwork. I'll admit that I personally did not understand much of what I saw on the trip, as most 'modern art' seems to go sailing right over my head (a network of interconnected, white paper-machet human bodies hanging from a ceiling as if they had been killed by some sort of communal gallows didn't really do much for me, nor did the giant steel monkey with glowing red eyes). We made our way back to Beida in the early afternoon and were happy to take a much-needed nap.
On Saturday night a large group set off for an area of Beijing called Hohai, a collection of bars and restaurants set around a lake and a series of canals. It was a cold night, and we imagined that come summer-time it will be a great place to go walk around and eat outside. We began our night at a small bar that claimed to be a "Football Bar" and had hung all manner of English Premiere League flags around the building. When some friends and I requested that they turn on the TVs to show the English soccer games that were happening at that very moment, they laughed and acted as if we had each just requested our own Aston Martin. We eventually worked our way to a live jazz bar where we heard a great band tear through a set of old Coltrane and Dave Brubeck standards. A group of the more musically-inclined of us stayed until the band quit a little bit after 1, and we decided we'd love to come back on a weeknight sometime to hear more.
On Sunday, Elizabeth, Morgan, Emma, Andrew Ni and I set out on yet another excursion with Professor Chapman, this time to a city called Tianjin, south of Beijing. From Beijing South Station we took one of the world's fastest commuter trains, that topped out around 340km/hour (that's fast. You do the math). We arrived in rainy Tianjin around 11am, and walked along the city's moderately scenic waterfront. We found a small city square where a group of elderly citizens appeared to be swinging deals and bargaining with each other; we eventually figured out that they were all parents, attempting to find suitable mates for their twenty-something year-old children. A laundry line full of potential mate-listings confirmed that we had stumbled upon an ancient version of Match.com.
After a good lunch of local Chinese delicacies, we arrived at the Tianjin Fabric Market, well-known for its high-quality, low-price fabrics. We all loaded up on materials to take back to Beijing to have professionally tailored into whatever we want, for next to nothing. I bought material for a new suit, an overcoat, and a couple dress shirts. Including the labor in Beijing, the total cost of the suit, coat, and shirts will be a little under $200 USD.
We had a great western-style dinner (on BC's tab...thanks Office of International Programs) and enjoyed another alarming/entertaining set of
Chapman stories, which included:- attempting to instigate an altercation with Boston policemen who had blocked off Kenmore Square prior to the Red Sox' World Series victory in 2007
- castigating the president of a major South Korean university for commenting on a book that he had not yet read, and
- his missed opportunity to single-handedly prevent the 9/11 attacks due to the presence of a complex terrorist network in his Boston apartment building
Whether the stories are to be completely believed we never quite know, but it's always interesting to listen. After watching Chapman wipe out on a set of icy steps (he was okay, and, in fact, jogged away) we made our way back to the train station and were back in Beijing in what seemed like no time.
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