Today was our Temple of Heaven day. The name might sound unfamiliar, but I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the round temple. In Chinese architecture, round buildings represent heaven, while square structures represent the mortal world or man. Often these round temples sit on three round, tiered bases, which represent, the mortal world, then man, then heaven.
If you’ve heard that the Forbidden City is big, then you’ll be shocked to learn that the Temple of Heaven grounds cover an area three times larger than the Forbidden City. We decided to take the long way and go around the outside edge to find the smaller, outlying temples and buildings. However, we didn’t realize what a long walk it would be.
Actually, the grounds are very beautiful. Because Beijing has a much drier climate than Macau, there are a lot of pine trees that grow here. It reminded me a little bit of the forests of Flagstaff, AZ I used to play in when I was younger in the summertime. But it was so cold and windy that day!
The grounds are actually a park, and I think that the locals don’t have to pay the entrance fee we had to pay. Our ticket got us in the gate, but it also allowed us to see the three main temples in the Temple of Heaven. There were people jogging around the outside perimeter of the grounds, and there were some interesting exercise groups that we saw. One woman, who was by herself, was just standing in one spot hitting her arms, legs, and backside. I think it has something to do with targeting your muscles, but it was very strange and I’m not sure what the point of it was. I mean, who hits themselves? There was also a small group of women doing what Iris and Margarida called “Chinese Square Dancing,” even though it really wasn’t. They were blasting country music (in Mandarin Chinese) while doing a bit of a box step kind of dance. It was amusing to watch, and they seemed like they were having a good time with it.
Before going to the main temple, we wandered around the grounds a little bit. It was really beautiful, and there were lots of tiny pavilions around that didn’t have too many people around. We just sat around and enjoyed the sunshine a bit before finding the main temple.
We found a cool place called “The Divine Music Administration,” which was a museum of Chinese music history. I really wanted to go, but it was an extra admission fee. I was a little irritated that I had already paid my entrance fee for the Temple of Heaven, but it didn’t include these smaller museums. We tried to get into another museum, but of course our ticket wasn’t made for that one either. Annoyed, we continued on to the main temple.
Quite a few people asked for our pictures today. A pair of Asian girls saw us taking jumping pictures at the gate, and they asked if they could have pictures with us. A big group of Asian boys walked by and said “Hello.” When I replied “Hello” back, they got so excited and asked for our picture. Three of them rushed into the picture, while their friend took group photos with everyone’s camera.
At last we found the main temple, the iconic image that everyone sees of Beijing. I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t actually THE Temple of Heaven, but rather its name is “The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.” Kinda lame, actually. It was a really cool structure, but you couldn’t actually go inside. You could take pictures from behind a gate of the inside, but it was super-crowded with tourists.
Our next stop was the Imperial Vault of Heaven. It was really just another circular temple, like a mini-sized version of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. But the cool part about this place was the Echo Wall. A round, curved wall surrounds the temple, and you can stand at one part and talk to someone on the other side of the temple, and you hear them clearly! We had lots of fun talking to one another, but continued on to the next stop.
This structure had no temple, but rather was just a series of three tiered walkways. In the middle of the top round disk was a raised bump, which apparently is where you stand to be closest to heaven (since circles represent heaven).
Afterward we actually found a metered taxi to take us back to Hong Qiao Pearl Market, where we hung out and shopped some more before meeting Camelia at our hostel for dinner. There was a really yummy restaurant next door which served good Mandarin-style Chinese food. Back in the US, when we eat at a Chinese food restaurant or get take-out, it’s usually Mandarin-style, which is what they have in Beijing. In Macau they have Cantonese-style (southern China-style), and it’s not really to my liking.
After dinner we went back to our hostel. We had bought tickets to see some Peking Opera through our hostel’s tourist desk. A woman and a man met us and hailed a taxi. Because only four of us could fit, the man went with Iris and Camelia, while the woman met her friend, who had his own car with him. Margarida and I got in, even though I wasn’t too sure about this informal method of getting there. But I trusted my hostel, and knew they wouldn’t scam us like this.
We finally got to the hotel where the opera was at, and I walked around the souvenir shops and read some of the tourist info about Peking Opera. When we took our seats, the lady who had accompanied us gave us money for a taxi back to our hostel and left.
The theater was a type of dinner theater, with the front half full of tables and the back half (where we were) with traditional movie theater-style seating. We watched some of the people being served tea by a guy with the strangest teapot I’d ever seen. It was normal sized, except the spout was long than his arm and very skinny. He did really fancy tricks with it, and it was a very entertaining way to pour tea.
I had already learned about Peking Opera in my world music class last semester, but my friends had no idea what was in store for us. Poor Iris, bless her heart, couldn’t stop laughing as soon as the first mini-performance started, which was titled “Goddess of Heaven Scattering Flowers.”
This performance only took about fifteen minutes. The plot line is simple: The Goddess of Heaven is ordered by Buddha to scatter flowers over the mortal world. Pretty simple.
The next performance, “Eighteen Arhats Fighting Wu Kong,” filled up the next hour and fifteen minutes. It is about a monkey who enters heaven, which makes Buddha angry. Buddha sends eighteen of his warriors after him, and the performance shows the monkey beating up all his warriors in a very comical way. It was interesting because it showed off their martial arts and acrobatic skills on stage.
It wasn’t until after the performance when I found out we’d seen two separate plays. I was very confused as to what the Goddess of Heaven scattering flowers around had to do with a rebellious monkey.
Instead of going back to our hostel, we took a taxi to the Night Market. We had no idea what was there, but when we got there we were definitely shocked by what we found.
The Night Market is a row of about 60 booths that serve nothing but food and beverages. And by food, it’s more like a bunch of nasty things on a stick. I saw everything I never wanted to see, like scorpions, sheep penis, bee cocoons, seahorses, lizards, and even silkworms…on a stick. Iris, Camelia (who’s a vegetarian), and I stayed far away from all that stuff, but our adventurous Margarida was excited to try everything…even the nasty silkworms.
I stayed safe with a fruit kabob and an ear of corn, while Iris had this really cool pineapple drink that fizzed and emitted smoke!
Margarida was sad when they started closing down, since she had yet to try the scorpion. Me, I was glad to go.
We got lost trying to find the subway, so we tried hailing a cab. We stood in the same spot for half-an-hour, and all the taxis drove right on past us. There was another Western guy across the street, and all the taxis passed him up too. Most of the taxis were full, but some just passed on by us for no apparent reason. Some even switched off their vacancy lights as they drove past us, only to turn them on again when they were a bit further down the road.
It was incredibly frustrating, and it was apparent that we were being discriminated against for being Westerners. Finally, the guy was able to get a cab, but we had no luck and went to find the nearest hotel to call a taxi for us. One taxi stopped for us, but he tried to bargain the price with us. We’d discovered that bargaining the taxi fare was against the law in Beijing, and that they were required to use their meter. We threatened to call the Taxi Bureau if he didn’t use his meter, but he just laughed and drove away.
The first hotel we went to was a small boutique hotel. We asked the front desk if they could call a cab for us, and we explained our situation and how no one would stop for us. They claimed they couldn’t call us a cab because they didn’t have the number. It didn’t make any sense, but we just left, even more frustrated. The next hotel we tried was much more accommodating, and they were able to call us a metered cab.
At last we got back to the street of our hostel and were let off. We entered the lobby and stopped at the tourist info desk to get our discounted refund for our Great Wall trip the next morning. Originally we had signed up to go at 11:00 am, so that we could sleep in a bit, but they convinced us to go at 8:00 am for a discount. I was under the impression the discount was 60 Yuan each, but in fact it was total, meaning Iris, Camelia, and I would only get 20 Yuan back (USD $3). We also learned that it would be to another part of the wall, the tourist-crowded one, and we began to argue with the desk girl. We were already frustrated with our taxi problems, and her broken English and their deception only made it worse.
After arguing with her for about ten minutes (I’m sure we looked like total witches to everyone else in the lobby), she finally figured out all we were saying, and told us that we would be going to the same part of the wall as originally planned. She couldn’t give us any more of a discount, but at that point we were just so fed up with dealing with people that we didn’t care.
Unfortunately, our day ended on a bit of a frustrating note, but it was all forgotten the next morning when we went to the Great Wall of China!!!
Coming up next, “Beijing: Day Four!”
Kati
P.S. Learn "thank you" in Mandarin: Xie-xie! (Pronounced "shee-ay, shee-ay.)
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