Beijing Wrap-up

Beijing is a good mix between the old and the new. It has lots of interesting cultural stuff, like the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, opera, acrobats, etc. But, it also has the facilities you expect to find in modern cities. Of course, once you’ve seen the tourist places, you probably don’t bother to visit them anymore, and then Beijing becomes just another modern city, like Shanghai.

I had thought that Beijing was too much of a soulless modern city, until I went to Shanghai. In retrospect, I think Beijing has a decent mix of modern life and tradition. However, I still prefer the smaller cities, like Xi’an and Chengdu.

My posts from Beijing were very light on photos, so I am including a lot of photos in this post.

Beijing is a better tourist city than Shanghai. And, when 2008 rolls around, the whole world will learn a lot more about Beijing, when it is spotlit during the Olympic Games. I can already imagine the cliched stories the television network will air regarding Beijing.

One of the most interesting things was learning about the Empress Dowager: Cixi. She was literally “the power behind the throne” for 47 years and three emperors. She sat behind a yellow curtain, behind the Emperor, and “gave advice”.

Cixi became Empress Dowager when her son was appointed as emperor. He was only five years old, so Cixi was really running things, along with the Emperor’s widow Ci’an. She was a good politician, and everyone in the palace knew who held the true power, so, when her son died and a new emperor was appointed, Cixi retained her leadership. She even had the second emperor placed under house arrest for ten years when she opposed his reforms to the government.

There are lots of stories about Cixi’s extravagant lifestyle. One year, she took the entire Chinese naval budget, and used it to restore and improve the Summer Palace, including building this marble boat:

She also had this “Suzhou shopping street” built at the Summer Palace, so she could go shopping when she pleased. Now, it is a bunch of shops selling overpriced stuff to tourists:

Some say that Cixi’s policies weakened and bankrupted China, and made it easy for foreign powers to demand concessions and partially “colonialize” China. The other complaint is that she stopped reforms from happening, and the sticking to “old ways” made a revolution inevitable.

There are also plenty of Chinese tourists visiting the sights in Beijing.

Beijing has a good number of parks and places for recreation and relaxation. If you get up early enough, you will see the usual groups doing Taichi and ballroom dancing. You may also see some stranger forms of exercise, like whip cracking. This guy has two whips, and alternates cracking them between his right and left arm: