Day 55 - On Touring Beijing

When you are a tourist in Beijing, sometimes its hard to tell who is on the tour.  Or what is on the tour.  Or even, if you are part of the tour yourself. 

Our second day started off with an morning jaunt through the Temple of Heaven.  The Temple of Heaven is surreal.  Built in the 15th century at the same time as the Forbidden City, it sits close to the center of modern Beijing.  Unlike the Forbidden City, which was just mobbed with sightseers, the temple seemed to be a site of living history; it's purpose was equally dead and alive, ancient and relevant, eerie and celebratory.  

When we arrived, we walked though a hallway that connected us from the East Gate to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.  The hallway was crammed, so that we had to slowly make our way through the crowd.  And we had to strain to hear our tour guide Sandy explain: "Many people come here in the morning for exercise, to play poker together, to sing.  Since the temple is in the city, many locals will buy a monthly pass, and come here regularly.  It's very good for the old people."  I saw grandmas and grandpas playing something that looked like hackey-sack.  I saw them leaning against the railings in the morning sun, with cards dealt out between them.  And most of all, I saw and heard them perform.

For most of the past two months, I have grown over-accustomed to being the audience. Performers at temples aren't uncommon, especially at very famous sites, as its one of the many ways locals capitalize on the tourist industry, and for tourists to capitalize on local industry.   But this morning, the men weren't playing the ehru for me.  Further on, a sixty-something woman, modestly and carefully dressed, stood in front of a small crowd.  Her hair was pulled back in a bun tied up under her hat.  Her hat shaded her petite face. She sang with her eyes closed, her eyebrows arched.  Her hands moved very steady and slow.  She is an old opera singer, Sandy said.  Other groups were larger, gathered around a few men with old looking instruments, and a man with a microphone.  In these groups, everybody joined in, singing songs they all seemed to know.  Like everyone there, these were songs from their past.  Like everyone, but us.

We came to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest.  The temple was round with the roof tiles painted blue, both traditional Chinese symbols of heaven.  In Ming and Qing dynasties, the 

emperor would come to the Temple of Heaven to pray for harvests and it was here that his ceremony would start.  He would then progress, being carried in a sedan, down past the Vault 

of Heaven to the Altar of Heaven.  The altar was a series of 

concentric marble rings, rising towards the center, and open to the sky.  From the top of the altar, the emperor would pray for a good harvest, and oversee an animal sacrifice being carried out on a pyre below.

Having left the temple parks, the locals gave way to tourists, and soon T and I found ourselves amidst a sea of red, yellow or green baseball caps, all trailing behind an umbrella, stick or backscratcher tied with a red, yellow or green flag.  Most of them were Chinese tourists.  

Domestic tourism has been on the rise for quite some time.  Hessler writes in his book about the Chinese tourism industry. In the years he was in China leading up to the Three Gorges Dam project, would-be tourists were exhorted -- see them now before its too late!  Too late, meaning before they flooded the gorges to create the largest hydroelectric dam ever built. Since the late 1990s, however, domestic tourism has increase by 250% - last year over 1.6BN Chinese tourists visited China, spending an average of roughly $70 each. 

And so I found myself in front of other people's cameras as often as they were in front of mine.  

It would go like this.  One of them would approach Sandy, and ask her a question.  She would turn to us, and say "They have asked to take a picture with you." At first, we said "Sure!" and both hopped right in.  Then I would practice flexing one of my two Chinese phrases (Ni Hao and/or Xie Xie).  And next thing you know, other girls would want to join in.  Or the guy taking the picture would trade places with his wife and jump in the middle, resting his hands up on our shoulders.  Xie Xie! Xie Xie, Ni Hao.  Id say.  (Thank you thank you hello).

Then we realized we had a good thing going here, and T started staying out of the frame, taking pictures of the craziness himself.  "People think you are glamorous here," Sandy said.  "They will go home and show pictures of you to their friends and say they met Westerners at the Temple of Heaven."  At one point, our guide even started saying Money, Money when people were approaching to enquire, as if we were getting to the point where we'd charge for taking a picture with us.  Apparently this word translates, because we all laughed.  Even the dude with his hand on my shoulder, tag still on his suit jacket, Beijing medal around his neck.  Xie xie!