|
|
|
 |
| |
 |
Beijing |
 |
|
| |
If your visions of
Beijing are centred around pods of Maoist revolutionaries in
buttoned-down tunics performing taichi in Tiananmen Square, put them
to rest: this city has embarked on a new millennium rollercoaster
and it's taking the rest of China with it.
Today's youth are more interested in MTV than Mao, rhetorical
slogans from the Cultural Revolution have given way to butchered
English splashed across designer-copy T-shirts, and expats,
tourists, foreign investors and a mobile phone-toting hip-oisie are
mixing it up with the bureaucrats.
With preparations for the 2008 Olympics well under way, old hutongs
(alleys) and buildings are being demolished, new buildings are going
up, small things are giving way to big things and big things are
giving way to even bigger things. This fast-paced,
two-minute-noodles lifestyle doesn't please everyone - the old
comrades are complaining about uppity youths and loss of values -
but the capital of the People's Republic of China doesn't look like
it's slowing down any time soon.
Area: 750 sq km
Population: 13 million
Country: China
Time Zone: GMT/UTC +8 (Standard Time)
Telephone Area Code: 010
|
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Orientation |
Beijing is located in the
northeastern corner of China. Its city limits extend some 80km
(50mi), including the urban and the suburban areas and the nine
counties under its administration - in other words, it's huge.
Though it may not appear so in the shambles of arrival, Beijing is a
place of very orderly design. Long, straight boulevards and avenues
are crisscrossed by a network of lanes. Places of interest are
either very easy to find if they're on the avenues, or impossible to
find if they're buried down the hutongs (narrow alleys).
The Forbidden City acts like a bull's-eye, surrounded by a network
of roads, including five ring roads which cup the city centre in
concentric circles. The First Ring Rd is a mapmaker's fiction and
just part of the grid around the Forbidden City. However, the
Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth (opened in 2002) are multi-lane
freeways. Roughly within the Second Ring Rd are the four central
districts: Xicheng, Dongcheng, Chongwen and Xuanwu. Outside the
Second Ring Rd are the so-called 'suburban' (now urbanised)
districts of Chaoyang (east), Fengtai (southwest) and Haidian
(northwest). Then there are the 'villages' (li). Beijing was once
surrounded by many tiny villages, though over time these have in
fact become neighbourhoods within the megalopolis.
|
|
|
When to Go |
Of the shoulder seasons,
autumn is optimal - the weather is gorgeous and fewer tourists are
in town. Local Beijingers describe this short season as tiāngāo
qìshuăng - literally 'the sky is high and the air is fresh' - with
clear skies and breezy days. Spring is less pleasant - not many
tourists but lots of wind and dust.
Summer (June to August) is considered peak season, when hotels
typically raise their rates and the Great Wall nearly collapses
under the weight of marching tourists. Winter is the extreme
opposite but makes for pretty surrounds if you can stand the
freezing temperatures; you'll have Beijing to yourself and many
hotels offer substantial discounts. Everything is chock-a-block
during the Chinese New Year (usually in January or February).
|
|
|
Events |
Chinese New Year, or Spring
Festival, starts on the first day of the first moon according to the
traditional lunar calendar (usually between late January and
mid-February). Although it officially lasts only three days, many
people take a week off work. The Lantern Festival is a colourful
time to visit Beijing. People walk the streets at night carrying
coloured paper lanterns. It falls on the 15th day of the first moon
(two weeks after the Spring Festival starts). Tomb Sweeping Day is a
day for worshipping ancestors; people visit the graves of their
dearly departed relatives and clean their gravesites. They often
burn 'ghost money' (for use in the afterworld) for the departed. It
falls on 5 April in the Gregorian calendar in most years; 4 April in
leap years. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the Moon
Festival and is the time families gather to eat tasty moon cakes.
The festival takes place on the 15th day of the 8th moon (around
September or October).
Public Holidays
1 Jan - New Year's Day
Jan/Feb - Chinese New Year
8 Mar - International Working Women's Day
4 May - Youth Day
1 Jun - Children's Day
1 July - Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party
1 Aug - Anniversary of the Founding of the PLA
1 Oct - National Day
1 May - International Labour Day
|
|
|
Attractions |
Forbidden City
The Forbidden City, off-limits to most of the world for 500 years,
is the best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. The old
world of beautiful concubines and priapic emperors, ball-breaking
(and broken) eunuchs and conspicuous wealth still hovers around the
lush gardens, courtyards, pavilions and great halls of the palace.
Most of the buildings are post-18th century; there have been
periodic losses due to an injudicious mix of lantern festivals and
Gobi winds, invading Manchus and, in this century, pillaging and
looting by both the Japanese forces and the Kuomintang. A permanent
restoration squad takes about 10 years to renovate its 720,000
square metres, 800 buildings and 9000 rooms, by which time it's time
to start all over again.
Lama Temple
Beijing's largest temple is an enlightening sight, ornamented with
intriguing statuary, stunning frescoes, tapestries, incredible
carpentry and a formidable pair of Chinese lions. Perhaps most
impressive of all is an 18m (60ft)high sandalwood statue of the
Maitreya (future) Buddha in the Wanfu Pavilion, carved from a single
tree.
The Lama (or Tibetan) Temple, with its beautifully landscaped
gardens, is a temple to die for. The first thing you encounter is
the holy shins - they're at eye level - and from there it's a
head-tipper to the ceiling as the statue soars up and over the
galleries. Flitting around the Buddha's head are what appear to be
spinning prayer wheels, emitting a sweet, harmonious whine. Closer
inspection reveals them to be pigeons with whistles attached. You
can't help thinking the poor things are on one of the lower levels
of samsara - it's a crappy job even for a pigeon.
The temple is a working lamasery so it's closed early in the
mornings for prayer. Some have questioned whether the monks in the
tennis shoes are real monks or government stooges. Most tour guides
will answer that of course they are real Tibetan monks; that the
alleged oppression of Tibet is propaganda put about by the Dalai
Lama; that Tibetans love the Chinese; and that the existence of the
temple is proof of China's good intentions. Take this with a grain
of salt.
Summer Palace
Nowadays teeming with tour groups from all over China and beyond,
this dominion of palace temples, gardens, pavilions, lakes and
corridors was once a playground for the imperial court. Royalty came
here to elude the insufferable summer heat that roasted the
Forbidden City.
The Summer Palace with its cool features - water, gardens and hills
- was the palace of choice for vacationing emperors and Dowager
Empresses. It was badly damaged by Anglo-French troops during the
Second Opium War (1860) and its restoration became a pet project of
Empress Dowager Cixi, the last of the Qing dynasty rulers. Money
earmarked for a modern navy was used for the project but, in a bit
of whimsical irony, the only thing that was completed was the
restoration of a marble boat. The boat now sits at the edge of the
lake in all its immobile and nonmilitary glory. The Palace's full
restoration was hampered by the disintegration of the Qing dynasty
and the Boxer Rebellion.
The place is packed to the gunwales in summer, with Beijing
residents taking full advantage of Kunming Lake, which takes up
three-quarters of the park. The main building is the lyrically named
Hall of Benevolence and Longevity, while along the north shore is
the Long Corridor, so named because it's, well, long. There's over
700m (2300ft) of corridor, filled with mythical paintings and
scenes. If some of the paintings have a newish patina, that's
because many of the murals were painted over during the Cultural
Revolution.
Temple of Heaven Park
Temple of Heaven Park is an icon of such enduring value that it
shorthands the entire city. The park's classic Ming architecture
gives it heaps of symbolic value and the name has been used to brand
products from tiger balm to plumbing fixtures, as well as decorating
a plethora of tourist literature.
The Temple of Heaven is set in a 267-hectare (660-acre) park, with
four gates at the cardinal points, and walls to the north and east.
It originally functioned as a vast stage for solemn rites and
rituals. All of the buildings in the park, including the Round
Altar, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Hall of Prayer for Good
Harvests, are tangible conversations between the gods and mortals.
The buildings are carefully thought out paeans to ancient gods and
beliefs; fengshui, numerology, cosmology and religion all played a
part in their original construction, and the result is an awesome
display of god in the architecture and the devil in the detail.
The park remains an important meeting place where many city dwellers
start the day with a spot of t'ai chi, dancing or game-playing in
the park. By 9am the park reverts to being just a park, so get there
early if you want to see what Beijingers do before breakfast.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall, as a metaphor, has gone through a few restorations
in its time. When it was originally built 2000 years ago by the Qing
dynasty it was a sturdy 'No Trespassing' sign directed at
neighbouring kingdoms. For centuries after that it remained
neglected and forgotten until 18th-century Europeans, infatuated
with progress and artifice, appended a 'Great' to it and sat back to
marvel at man's prehensile capacity to build Bloody Big Things.
Today it's a tourist attraction, half Wonder of the World and half
Kitschville, but to many Chinese it's just a wall. They seem to
reserve for it, and the foreigners who come to marvel, a kind of
bemused tolerance. To peasants in rural areas the Great Wall is less
majestically known as 'old frontier'.
The majority of visitors climb the wall at Badaling, along with the
tourist packs, the touts, and the sellers of reclining buddhas with
lightbulbs in their mouths. If you want to experience the wall far
from this madding crowd, you'd do better to travel a little further
afield and take a walk on the wilder side of the Huanghua (Yellow
Flower Fortress) section, 60km (35mi) north of Beijing. It's a
classic and well-preserved example of Ming defence, with high and
wide ramparts, intact parapets and sturdy beacon towers.
Tiananmen Square
Forever sullied, Tiananmen Square lies at the heart of Beijing, and
is a vast impressive desert of pavestones where people wander and
fly kites. Though it was a gathering place in the imperial days,
Tiananmen Square is Mao's creation. Major rallies took place here
during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao reviewed parades of up to a
million people.
In 1976 another million people jammed the square to pay their last
respects to Mao. In 1989 PLA tanks and soldiers cut down
pro-democracy demonstrators here. Today the square is a place for
people to wander and fly kites or buy balloons for the kids.
Surrounding the square is a mishmash of monuments, past and present:
the Gate of Heavenly Peace; the Museum of Chinese History and Museum
of the Chinese Revolution; the Great Hall of the People; the Front
Gate; the Chairman Mao Mausoleum, where you can purchase Mao
memorabilia and catch a glimpse of the man himself (when his
mortuary make-up isn't being refreshed); and the Monument to the
People's Heroes.
|
|
|
Off the Beaten Track |
Beijing Underground City.
In the late 1960s, with a Soviet invasion looming, Beijing's
citizens started to go underground. The shadow city was constructed
by volunteers and shop assistants. In 10 years about 2000 people
with simple tools created this subterranean network, which has now
been put to use as warehouses, hotels and restaurants.
There are roughly 90 entrances to the complex, all of which are
hidden in shops along Qianmen's main streets. A fluorescent wall map
reveals the routing of the entire tunnel system. You can visit a
section of the tunnels, although there's not much to see.
Drum Tower
Originally built in 1273, marking the centre of the old Mongol
capital Dàdū, the tower has been repeatedly destroyed and restored.
Stagger up the incredibly steep steps for long views over Beijing's
rooftops. The drums of this later Ming dynasty version were beaten
to mark the hours of the day - in effect the Big Ben of Beijing.
The buildings came close to ruin during the Cultural Revolution,
when they were reviled as artefacts from a feudal past. The Drum
Tower has survived both Swiss engineering and Maoist scorn and are
now protected treasures.
Simatai Great Wall
While the tourist masses tend to head for Badaling to grope the
Great Wall, there are more challenging stretches of this historical
and architectural marvel within an easy day trip from Beijing
proper. One of the least developed (for now) is Simatai, and it's
not for the faint-hearted. The 19km (12mi) section is very steep,
with a few slopes built at a 70-degree incline, but it's worth it to
see the Wall au naturel, in contrast to the heavily touristed
Badaling and Mutianyu sections, which are so well restored they
could have been built yesterday.
Tianjin
Officially a special municipality belonging to no province, Tianjin
is nicknamed 'Shanghai of the North' because of its history as a
foreign concession port, its Europeanised architecture and its
impressive industrial output.
Apart from wandering around imagining you're in Vienna, you should
investigate Tianjin's antique market which is a massive collection
of junk and gems which miraculously survived the Cultural
Revolution. Ancient Culture Street is an attempt to recreate an
ancient Chinese street, complete with traditional-looking buildings
and vendors flogging cultural goodies to the strains of Western
music. Hai River Park is lined with photo booths, people fishing,
early-morning t'ai chi exponents, outdoor opera singers and old men
toting birdcages. The old part of town is stuffed full of lanes,
traditional architecture and dilapidated temples.
|
|
|
Activities |
Hebei's ski resorts offer some
great slopes and are just within reach.
|
|
|
History |
Peopled some 500,000 years
ago, the area that makes up today's Beijing sprouted as a frontier
trading town for the Mongols, Koreans and tribes from Shandong and
central China around 1000 BC. Burnt to the ground by Genghis Khan in
1215 AD, the resurrected city was passed on to Kublai Khan (Genghis's
grandson) as Dadu, or Great Capital. The mercenary Zhu Yanhang led
an uprising in 1368, taking over the city and ushering in the Ming
dynasty. The city was renamed Beiping (Northern Peace) and for the
next 35 years the capital was shifted to Nanjing. When it was
shunted back, Beiping became Beijing (Northern Capital) and up went
such foreboding structures as the Forbidden City.
Under the Manchu invaders, who established the Qing dynasty in the
17th century, Beijing was thoroughly renovated and expanded. From
the beginning, however, it was obvious that any city proclaimed
China's heart would endure a tumultuous existence.
The Qing dynasty collapsed in the revolution of 1911 and the
Nationalist party ostensibly seized control. In reality, true power
remained in the hands of the warlords, who carved up China into
their own fiefdoms.
In 1937, after decades of struggle between the Nationalists and the
warlords, the Japanese invaded Beijing and soon overran eastern
China. The Nationalist Party retreated west to the city of
Chongqing, which became China's temporary capital during WWII. They
returned to Beijing after Japan's defeat in 1945, but by this time
the Chinese civil war was in full swing and their days were
numbered.
With Mao Zedong's proclamation of a 'People's Republic' in Tiananmen
Square in 1949, the Communists stripped the face of Beijing. The
huge city walls were pulled down and the commemorative arches
followed. (The Circle Line of the subway follows the outline of the
now vanished walls of the Tartar city, a number of whose stops are
named after the gates that stood there.) Hundreds of temples and
monuments were destroyed. Blocks of buildings were reduced to rubble
to widen the boulevards and Tiananmen Square. Soviet technicians
poured in and left their mark in the form of Stalinesque
architecture. This devastation of traditional Chinese culture was
extended in 1966 when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. China
was to remain in the grip of chaos for the next decade. It wasn't
until around 1979 that Deng Xiaoping - a former protege of Mao who
had emerged as a pragmatic leader - launched a 'modernisation'
drive. The country opened up and Westerners were finally given a
chance to see what the Communists had been up to for the past 30
years.
In 1989 a massive pro-democracy student protest in Tiananmen Square
was brutally crushed by Deng Xiaoping's government forces. That such
an event could happen while capitalist-style reforms flooded the
city with shopping malls and foreign money typifies Beijing.
In 1995 Beijing played host to the United Nations' Conference on
Women. Having lobbied the UN hard to get the conference, the Chinese
then denied visas to at least several hundred people who wanted to
attend because they were regarded as politically incorrect. Beijing
continued to frighten the horses when it fired missiles into the
waters just off Taiwan in early 1996 in an unsuccessful effort to
affect the outcome of the Taiwanese presidential election. They
tried a similar stunt in Taiwan's 2000 presidential elections.
The Chinese takeover of Hong Kong soon after Deng Xiaoping's death
in July 1997 was something of an orgy of nationalism. The hand-over
of Macau in December 1999 was a much tamer event.
Beijing's undertaken an image makeover in recent times, which has
included the abolition of the last of the city's official off-limit
areas, established in the 1950s to quarantine the Cultural
Revolution from foreign influences, and the successful pursuit of
the 2008 Olympic Games; with the latter, however, propaganda
benefits rather than sport may be foremost in the minds of Chinese
officials, considering one proposal to stage beach volleyball games
and part of the triathlon in Tiananmen Square.
The mood in today's Beijing seems very different from that of 1989.
China has decided to embrace modernity without evolving politically.
There's a conspicuous absence of protest - it's been consigned to
some deep subterranean level. For all the face-saving intellectual
contortions, everyone knows it's Adam Smith and not Karl Marx at the
rudder of this communist economy. Some of Beijing's problems are
enviromnmental rather than political, however - the Gobi desert is
coming to town and the city is one of the most polluted in the
world. The need for speedy economic expansion, magnified by
preparations for the 2008 Olympics, will put extra pressure on an
already degraded environment.
|
|
|
Getting There & Away |
Beijing has direct air
connections to most major cities in the world, and many travellers
make use of the direct Beijing-Hong Kong flights on CAAC or
Dragonair. Guangzhou and Shenzhen are both near Hong Kong and have
direct domestic flights to Beijing (Hong Kong is treated as an
international flight). Beijing's Capital Airport (PEK) is about 27km
(17mi) north of the city. Numerous buses head into the city centre -
buy a ticket at the service desk inside the terminal. From the city
to the airport a shuttle bus leaves from the eastern end of the
Aviation Building and the west door of the International Hotel.
Major hotels also run shuttle buses. Make sure to take official
taxis, if you take an illegal taxi it could end up costing you three
times as much. International trains to Moscow, Pyongyang and Ulaan
Baatar arrive at and leave from Beijing Train Station; trains for
Hong Kong and Vietnam leave from Beijing West Train Station. No
international buses serve Beijing. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Western
China
