THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN

These first two days in Mt.Vernon, I’ve swam, walked the grounds, rested and re-oriented myself to life in a motor home. Today, we will Ferry to Orcas Island and explore. In the meantime, I’m enjoying my pictures from China that I rescued from my old Mac.

As we approach the Temple of Heaven, we see street scenes like this, mobs of bicycles. From our bus we notice tired commuters trying to catch up on their sleep. The Chinese people work very hard under difficult conditions.

Entrance to the grounds is through several gates; an openness the Chinese people  treasure after the ring of three  feudal system walls, the Mongolians erected, were torn down by Chairman Mau. He replaced them by three ring roads, in all the cities that had the walls.

The grounds surrounding the temple is a huge complex with squares, grassy park areas and woods. The first square we come to is filled with ballroom dancers. This is early morning, and nearly all Chinese exercise in the morning, together, in public areas like this. Our guide invites us to join the dancers if we like. One man asked me to dance and I did. Like us, a senior with gray hair, but  strong and muscular. You rarely see a fat person in China.

Michal joined the single dancers on the next square over.

Part of the joy of visiting the Temple Of Heaven was strolling the beautiful grounds and watching the people. Here exercisers perform a  swirling banner dance with graceful ballet like movements.

At this square the people were clapping their hands and changing positions in a very rhythmic  fast-paced way. We enjoyed several groups of  typical tai chai movements.  One group did tai chai while holding balls and paddles. Amazing. Here houses are small so big body movements are only possible  in the parks. They don’t appear to have gyms as we know them.

And, finally, the temple itself. Everything here is so huge, it is difficult to get a picture up close, at least with my camera. This temple is a UNESCO (World Heritage) site. At one time, animal sacrifices were done here and the meat cooked and eaten in the “great” kitchen. The temple is the tallest round building in the world.

Carved column and rail as on the temple stairs.

In the vast interior of the temple, your flash is almost useless. Instead, we were astounded at the beauty of the building; the priceless labors from ancient times that went into building and designing it.  Some things are enjoyable but do not translate to a camera such as mine.
The outer facade of the temple. Not difficult to understand why it is a world-class heritage site. The Temple of Heaven was the province of the Emperor, his family, consorts and servants. The public did not worship here.

And the long hall is really, really long.

A roof corner decoration detail.

We repaired to a Chinese restaurant for lunch.

No matter where you are, the appeal of little children is the same.

But only in China will you find a roof  like this.

GOING BACK TO CHINA.

My tendency has been to forge through life, swiftly, do everything, don’t allow a stone unturned.  Say yes!  Let’s go, let’s do it.  Influenced by my partner, Jim, my new philosophy is stop and smell the flowers.  While home in Murphys these past weeks, an unfinished travel journal of my trip to China in 2006, nudged me. Jim says this summer promises to be slower paced,so I think I’ll go back to China.

I traveled with my friend, Michal Houston. After a long flight, we landed in Shanghai tired and weary only to be  shuffled to another plane that took us to Beijing. Our assigned room had one bed instead of two as requested. Her name spelling, Michal translated as Michael. Exhausted, we tumbled into bed and straightened it out the next day.

Beijing was in the middle of changing from a Socialist/Market Economy to a Capitalist Economy back in 2006. Beijing is a modern city of  only thirteen million people. I say only seriously because Chinese Cities can be,  and are, much larger than this home to International Government, political,  and financial centers of China. You find modern condos and 200-year-old homes side by side. Sixty per cent of the people in Beijing work for the government, kind of like Washington D.C.

Tiananmen Square is so huge it dwarfs any mall we have in the U.S. Soldiers on guard are always visible. And, surprising to us, we saw “modern” Chinese tourists; older people visiting their own iconic places and young people with cell phones in their ears.  This is the infamous spot where protests during National day 1989 led to the deaths of students and gave China a black eye over their aggressive policies. The poster of  Chairman Mau in the background looks small. In reality it stands  about twenty-five feet high. We have a group photo taken here and get our first taste of the new capitalism with vendors selling post cards and junky trinkets. Some of them starve on the new system and intrude, shove things under your nose, begging you to buy their trinkets and post cards.



One side of the square is this lovely government building and gardens, always statues and memorials from every preceding dynasty that governed China except maybe the Mongolians. Chairman Mau tore down the old city walls and opened things up with a ring road inhabited more and more by modern cars but  still madly outnumbered by eight million bicycles on the roads, the most common form of transportation in Beijing.

China has a love affair with dragons.  Their most favored and positive sign is everywhere in China.  As it turned out, I was born the year of the dragon.

We move on the Forbidden City where we see soldiers congregated in the square and their boots lined up outside of their barracks which were built in 1406 and finished in 1420. The Palace has 9,999 1/2 rooms. Nine is the supreme number. So, there are nine gates, each gate is nine by nine and has nine knobs. You can extrapolate that process through out the Imperial Grounds and Palace. It has served Eleven Emperors.

The “building” is actually one of the nine gates we pass through to reach the palace. The emperor has a resting place inside the gate where he emerged to address his people. He stood on a stair high above them.  This complex is a series of high gates, (stairs up stairs down)  and open space between them.

The walls here are made from 15 thicknesses of bricks to avoid tunneling into the Imperial Grounds.  There are 18 water pots around the grounds one for each of the 18 provinces. (Notice the multiple of nine.)

One side of the palace wall is made up of four panels of huge tiled dragons, approximately twenty feet tall.  Among the palace antiquities, marvelous gold, huge jade carvings, a gold Buddha, marvelous crystal, precious jewelry and marvelous treasures. I’m unsure why no pictures inside the palace. We may not have been allowed flash photography inside.  At one place we passed the shrine (inside) devoted to one of the Emperor’s favorite concubine. She was forced to jump into a well by the eunuchs of the jealous empress. Inside the court-yard we had a Starbucks coffee and cookies. The Starbucks was protested by Chinese activists and removed after our visit.

These Chinese lions, one with his left foot on the ball, the other with his right foot on the ball have some significance in their stance which I’ve since forgotten. What I do remember is there are no lions native to China.  Chinese illustrators drew what a lion looked like from verbal descriptions of those brave explorers from “olden” times. Thus lions have fierceness, clawed feet, a mane and a ferocious face that much resembles a dog.

We went on to visit a couple of grouchy, lethargic Panda bears at a very seedy looking facility. We do not wonder why there are only 1,000 of them left in captivity and the wild. The Chinese were not very conscious of environmental concerns in 2006.  We  finished our day with a famous Peking duck dinner. (More tomorrow.)