Quiz Time

OK, let's see if anyone is reading and has time to spare...

When exactly did I take this photo. Date & Time ?
Click on photo to enlarge. It's not as difficult as it sounds



Click on Comments section below to add your answer please..

Choice of prizes for the winner:
Beijing 2008 panda / Chinese chopsticks / Pack of Longjing tea.

What else is going on in Beijing ?

So what else has been going on here in China's capital... Well, I've been taking it easy recently, studying some Chinese, reading and generally just recuperating and contemplating, getting ready to switch back into travel mode and head off to some new and exciting places... or maybe get a job... or maybe something else. Meanwhile I popped into the Imperial Palace better known as the "Forbidden City", visited the Dongyue Temple and revisited the Sanlitun area and the Workers (Gongti) Stadium where I stayed in 2002, to see what had changed around the area. This was quite sad in some ways. While the stadium is being redeveloped ready for the Olympics, across the road where used to stand some nice cafes where I ate a few times, there now stands a building site.. Further into the old and full of character Sanlitun South area which used to be a maze of winding streets, full of local traders with little stalls or shops, kids running around, many homes and some foreign oriented cafes and bars, there now stands just piles of rubble for hundreds of metres around, the cafes I used to visit for a beer in the evening, the homes of the previous residents, all long gone.

Last time in Beijing I met a Norwegian called Torborg with whom I saw many of the sites. Something that amused us was when she spotted a toilet in the Forbidden City with a star rating, jut like you would have on a hotel, we had never seen this before and found it funny. I saw it again on my recent visit, the Forbidden City toilet had a 4* rating.

I also went along to another city temple called Dongyue. With spring festival holiday period now over, it was nice and quiet until a large tour bus of Chinese tourists arrived, but I managed to stay ahead of them and enjoy the peaceful surroundings in relative quiet. There were thousands and thousands of red new year cards, whose proper name I do not know, hanging around every railing and some stands around the grounds. This and a few other decorations made this a very colourful temple. I noticed though the toilet there had only a poor 1* rating, they must do something about that !!


Left: Red Chinese New Year decorations hanging at Dongyue temple.
Centre: Forbidden City's **** toilet.
Right: Dongyue Temple still have some work to do on their toilet, just one * rating.

Crossing Tiananmen Square, you can be sure of being approached by various people trying to sell you a kite, a Chairman Mao little red book of quotations (no other colours available ;-)), a Chinese flag, a map of Beijing, their services as a tour guide to the Great Wall/Forbidden City or maybe they just want to speak English, some unfortunately also want to take you to an 'art gallery' or have a chat over a 'cup of tea' with you, which are scams intended to relieve you of the loads of money they believe all foreigners have in abundance. Each day I walk past the square you can see the clock outside the Chinese National Museum showing how long until the start of the Beijing Olympics, now just around 500 days away.


Left: Something that hasn't changed, Mao Zedong still watches over the gateway to the Forbidden City.
Centre: On Tiananmen Square, everyone tries to sell "Mao's little red book" of quotations.
Right: More red New Year card/decorations at Dongyue temple.

Finally on my wanderings I found just off the main shopping street a newish tourist street,selling typical Chinese souvenirs. Often on my travels, I have mocked souvenirs available in various places; bizarre Soviet items such as cosmonaut's helmets in Kiev, Bush/Blair/Hussein matryoshkas (Russian nesting dolls) in Moscow, freaky masks in Transylvania, but here it's different. There are some oddities; I wonder why they sell Russian matryoshkas, CCCP (USSR) slogan t-shirts and Saddam Hussein playing cards (which some guy shoves in my face every time I walk past his stall), but there are many attractive and interesting items. Silks and traditional Chinese clothing which are really nice, if you like tea, there are all sorts of tea pots and tea-cups available, cuddly Beijing 2008 Olympic pandas, beautifully painted snuff bottles, jade carvings, Chinese scroll paintings, calligraphy and other art, decorative chopsticks and jewellery all of which are quite appealing even if sometimes of dubious quality. If I had space in my rucksack I could easily have bought a load of things.


Left: Here I am in the first main courtyard of the Forbidden City.
Centre: The Hall of Supreme Harmony, is not as attractive as last time I visited !
Right: Cute pandas in the markets.

What's going on in Beijing now.

Over the last 2 weeks the NPC (National People's Congress) and the CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) have been taking place in the Great Hall of The People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, not far from where I am staying. Each morning and evening a cavalcade of cars and buses arrives and departs the square carrying the thousands of representatives from around the country who have come to discuss the shaping of China's future.

I was interested to know how China's leaders are trying to build China's future, how they plan to generate a "harmonious society" in a land of various ethnic groups with differing backgrounds, cultures, languages, standards of living, economies, education and much much more besides.
So I watched some on TV and for the first few days, it was quite interesting following proceedings, but after two or three days it became simply a repetitive sequence of reports and interviews, packed full of regurgitated buzzwords, that had recently been introduced by Chinese political leaders, in their communications regarding the future development of China.

It reminded me of a game we used to play in meetings when I was in my first IT job at IBM. We soon discovered that any meetings arranged with managers or business/marketing departments were always packed with a heap of IT and business buzzwords. So someone found a game called "Buzzword Bingo" which was a bingo card filled with management/marketing buzzwords instead of numbers. I think it's well I know these days and a game card looked something like this..




Watching CCTV for a day or two during the NPC/CPPCC sessions reminded me of this game and if you replace the words with those listed below you can make your own Chinese political Buzzword Bingo ! ;-)

"harmonious society",
"new socialist countryside",
"one country two systems" (this is an old favourite),
"private property rights",
"level playing field",
"peaceful reunification",
"macroeconomic controls",
"agricultural modernisation",
"five year plan",
"socialist market economy",
"social harmony",
"economic and social development",
"opposition to secessionist activities",
"equal education oppurtunities",
"independent innovation".

Back in Beijing for Spring Festival

I came back to Beijing again as it was necessary before heading to my next intended destination Datong.. But after a couple of weeks I am still in Beijing. It was Spring festival so I had a look around a little more of the city, visited a temple fayre, which was a busy, bustling, noisy affair, with lots of stalls selling Buddhist souvenirs and loads of other typical Chinese things, as well as loads of types of foods from all over China. The most noticeable items were some round whirly wind wheels (no idea what they should be called) that make lots of noise when the wind blows and it was a very windy day! I also bought a diabolo which I still can't master.


Left: Diabolo master demonstrates.
Centre: A local boy holds one of those colourful, noisy wind wheels.
Right: This lady played me a song on this odd-shaped instrument.

The Baiyun (White Cloud) Temple is the home of the Chinese Taoist Association in Beijing. On this day it was incredibly busy due to it still being holiday time, thousands of people heaving their way through the grounds from hall to hall. I spotted some interesting New Year activities there too; On the way in, everyone had to stroke a carving of a monkey on the archway to the entrance, it brings good luck. Inside there were tables full of old coins; people purchased bags of them and then threw them at a large hanging coin which hung from a archway over a kind of well. Everyone furiously joined in attempting to strike the coin as many times and as hard as possible. Other activitied involved people took their turns to walk three times around a Taoist symbol (the famous balck and white ying and yang symbol) on the floor near the cente of the temple grounds while a long queue formed for people to touch the carvings of a particular vase situated in the grounds


Left: Chucking coins at the lucky coin hanging below.
Right: Locals worship in front of a burning incense burner.

Five years ago on my first visit to Beijing, I visited the most important sites, but I decided to head back to the Temple of Heaven (TianTan) which is one of the best sites in Beijing and also later re-visited the Forbidden City, just so I can include a photo or two of these places here. An entry on Beijing would seem odd without mentioning either of these two most famous sites.
Construction of Tiantan, Temple of Heaven was finished in in 1420 and its architecture is based on elaborate symbolism and numerology. It's original design of round buildings in square- shaped areas, were designed in accordance with ancient Chinese beliefs that imagine Heaven as round and the Earth as square. Well worth seeing again despite the hordes of Chinese tourists, due to its original design which offers some variety from other temples.

The Forbidden City however, is currently being renovated (in time for Beijing 2008 Olympics of course) and sadly the two main halls are both covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin and entirely closed to the public, which left me with a pretty unfulfilled feeling when I left the grounds. Signs outside do state that the Hall of Supreme Harmony is currently undergoing renovation, but do not mention that the second main hall is also closed. I'm glad I had been there before or I would have felt disappointed with the visit. But it is still an enormous, amazing site, full of interesting halls and pathways which meander on for ever through the museum's 720,000 square meters, which can keep you occupied for many hours. However, if you must see an Imperial Palace in China and can make it there, at this moment in time, I would recommend the one in Shenyang instead !!


Left: Coins lined up, waiting to be bought and chucked!
Centre: Typical temple doorway at TianTan (Temple of Heaven).
Right: The centrepiece 'Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests" at Tiantan.

So, I am still in Beijing, for two reasons. First, the weather suddenly became very cold in Northern China and my next destination, Datong was a stop-off in order to see some hanging Buddhist caves and a series of temples in the mountains called WuTai Shan. Seeing as some of these are at an elevation of 3000m and there has been lots of snow, it is very likely most, if not all of Wutai Shan, would be unreachable in the snow, so I chose to delay. Secondly, this coincided with my getting some infection in my mouth/cheek which was quite nasty and so after a visit to hospital, I decided it best to stay here until everything was clear. Now, despite being better and improved weather, I will still stay a few days more as in my time of rest I found more things I wanted to do/see while here. Then, I will definitely leave Beijing, to Datong or elsewhere.

Beijing - The Start of the Chinese New Year

Out of the freezing cold DongBei (North East) of China and into Beijing for a couple of days. I saw the important sites of Beijing on my previous visit here a few years ago and did not plan to stay long, but a glance through the guide book has revealed a few places I would like to see, places that I did not visit before and some areas that will have changed from last time. It has also tempted me to possibly re-visit some of the more well know places I have seen before. So off I go.....

First visit was to the Yonghe Gong Tibetan Lama Temple. Taking the wrong direction out of the station I ended up in Ditan park, which was as good as closed, because it was being set up with all kind of stalls ready for Chinese New Year's Day and Spring Festival. So, I retraced my steps and headed the opposite direction to the temple. Quite a grand, colourful affair, this temple was built in the late seventeenth century and unlike many is still in it's original form having escaped damage during the cultural revolution, thanks to its status as a national monument and having been closed for thirty years during this time. There are five main halls in the usual Buddhist Temple layout, first there is a large gate, protected by warriors, in the first courtyard a spirit wall, to keep away evil spirits (they cannot turn around corners), followed by each of the halls ordered by importance, the most significant temple halls are at the rear of the complex, furthest from the entrance just in case any evil should enter the grounds. In one of the temples I was lucky enough to find a Buddhist ceremony of some kind going on, exactly what I don't know, but many monks were seated around the large bronze statue of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Yellow Hat Sect of Buddhism, slowly passing around some object(s) from one to another while all the time prayer chants continued unabated. The highlight here is in the last temple, a 26m wooden statue of the Maitreya (future buddha) carved out of one solid sandalwood tree. Although not as high/long as two buddhas I saw some time back in Magao caves, Dunhuang, it was still an imposing sight that sadly, as is usual, you are not allowed to photograph.

Left: Yonghe Temple Hall.

Centre: Incense Burning in front of the halls

Right: Houhai Lake

Next, onto the nearby Confucius Temple, obviously a Confucian Temple this one. This unfortunately is currently under renovation and not such a pretty sight at the moment with scaffolding and wooden boards covering much of the buildings. One notable variation from other temples here is the presence of a number of stone tablets (steles) which celebrate the names of those who studied and succeeded in their examinations here. In the grounds a large pavillion in the centre of a small (frozen) pond, among ancient, enveloping trees soon helps you to forget you are in a busy city of 13 million people

Next day was a "park day". Beihai park, with large lakes, a 'round city' within which is a hall containing a white jade buddha carved from one large and perfect piece of white jade and on the central island a series of buildings on the hillside crowned by a giant white dagoba.

Left: 'Round City' in Beihai Park

Centre: North East corner of The Forbidden City and moat.

Right: Forbidden City's first gateway.

A little way to the East is Jingshan Park, this contains a man-made mound created from the digging of the moat around the Forbidden city which the mound overlooks. The park highlight is therefore the climb to the top of this mound for an interesting view of the Forbidden City, which in case you have forgotten, reminds you how vast the area is.

This day was also Chinese New Year's Eve, the evening and all night long was marked by a barrage of fireworks and fire crackers from all around the city. Fireworks are supposedly used to frighten away any evil spirits at the start of the new lunar year. This though is not just one night of fireworks, it's worth mentioning that this had been happening every night for the last week. A couple of nights ago in Dandong, I was startled by some of the loudest fire crackers ever outside my hotel. It will also continue for the next week!!

Left: Happy New Year Pigs, a common sight on shop fronts.

Centre: Buddha image from Beihai Park's temple.

Right: Beijing Railway station at night