Category: Culture

Built in the early 15th century during the rule of Emperor Yong Le (永樂帝 Yǒnglè Dì), 3rd Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Temple of Heaven (天壇 Tiāntán) is internationally recognized as the symbol of Beijing.  The cobalt blue tiles which make up the roof of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests are earthly manifestations of heaven and the sky. The nail-less structure of the wooden building, supported by “dougong brackets” https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/forbidden-city/architecture/chapter_02.html) further compel anyone who visits to celebrate this monument, and to wonder and to smile at its magnificence. Like beautiful mosques, amazing cathedrals, and temples of faith around the world, the Temple of Heaven aspires to be a conduit between heaven and earth. Emperors of both the Ming and the Qing Dynasty would visit the Temple of Heaven at least once a year to pray for good harvests. After briefly wresting power from Sun Yat-sen in 1913, the last imperial wannabe, Yuan Shi Kai visited the Temple of Heaven in 1914, in hopes of moving from provisional President of the newly established Republic of China to Emperor of a new Hongxian ( 洪憲) dynasty. He actually declared himself Emperor of China on January 1, 1916. Unfortunately for Yuan Shi Kai, neither heaven nor the masses smiled at this usurpation of power. 83 days into his rule, he abandoned his emperorship, and by June 1916, Yuan Shi-Kai succumbed to a natural death from uremia at age 56.

20 kilometers to the west of the Temple of Heaven lies another famous landmark in Beijing, the Summer Palace. Only about 3 kilometers square, once you’re inside the park it seems much larger than that. About three-quarters of the park is occupied by Kunming Lake.

During the reign of the Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong, the original natural lake was dredged and sculpted like the park itself. When I go to the Temple of Heaven, I like to walk around the lake. Like so many places in China, if you walk away from the center of the action, the crowd diminishes by about one half after ten minutes. Continue for another 10 minutes and it starts to feel quiet. 30 minutes out from the focus of main tourist areas in China, you can be by yourself. At the Summer Palace, there is the Long Corridor stretching along one side of Kunming Lake, hand painted from top to bottom with landscapes, temples, flowers, birds, musicians, and figures from China’s history, Suzhou Street with its Qing Dynasty like shops, the pagodas on Longevity Hill, and the Marble Boat that could never float. A connection that not everyone makes, however, is between the Summer Palace and the Dowager Empress Cixi. It was Cixi who actually renovated the already existing marble party boat using funds embezzled from the Chinese navy.

A “dowager” is a widow who assumes a title from her deceased husband. Although never technically China’s “empress”, the “Empress Dowager” aka 慈禧太后 Cíxǐ Tàihòu, assumed the mantle of leadership for nearly 50 years in China during the waning years of the Qing Dynasty (late 19th and early 20th centuries) as the “Empress Dowager Cixi.” Cixi was actually one of the many young imperial concubines of the Xianfeng Emperor (咸豐帝 Xiánfēngdì). Her son, Zaichun (載淳 Zǎichún) became the Tong Zhi Emperor (同治帝 Tóngzhìdì) from 1861-1875. Zaichun died of smallpox (or possibly syphilis) in 1875 leaving no male heir. Cixi then appointed his three-year-old cousin as successor in the new Guangxu (光緒) era and so, was able to continue her rule. The new emperor’s mother mysteriously died soon after, thus securing Cixi’s rule and continued dominance. As the Guangxu emperor grew up, although he was emperor by name, the Empress Dowager Cixi was the de facto ruler of China. In 1898, Cixi actually had the Emperor removed from power and imprisoned in the Hall of Jade Ripple (玉澜堂) in the Summer Palace, where he remained until his death at age 37, just one day before the death of Cixi in 1908. Cixi had already named Puyi, her two-year-old nephew, as the new (turned out to be “the last”) emperor of China.

A final note on the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was where the Imperial Family would move to as a respite from the summer heat, and the walls of the Forbidden City. Even though the current “Summer Palace” was built in the early Qing Dynasty, until 1860, the real summer palace, Yuan Ming Yuan (圓 明 園; Yuánmíng Yuán), was a complex of a much grander scale and was only a short distance away from the current Summer Palace. It was actually known in Chinese as the “Imperial Garden” (御 園 Yù Yuán).  It contained extensive gardens and was replete with beautiful buildings as well as historical and artistic treasures. When I first visited the “old Summer Palace”, I erroneously assumed that the smashed up statues and destroyed buildings had fallen victim to the Cultural Revolution. That idea was quickly put to rest when our guide told us that this park had been destroyed by the French and the British. In 1860, after the 2nd Opium War, a small delegation made up of British and Indian troops was sent to meet and discuss the Qing surrender with Prince Yi (怡親王). While negotiations were going on, British and French troops took it upon themselves to do a little pillaging and plundering of the old Summer Palace. After it was learned that 20 members of that delegation had been tortured and killed by the Chinese, all hell broke loose. Lord Elgin, British High Commissioner to China, ordered the complete destruction of the Summer Palace. After three days, nearly 4,000 French and British soldiers had turned the summer palace into a war zone. Looted pieces of art that were not destroyed can still be seen in museums and in private collections around the world today.

A Chinese Odyssey 47

The Temple of Heaven’s

dome shone cobalt blue.

We stared at the sky

where dragon kites flew.

Sailed round Kunming Lake

In a grand marble boat

which the dowager empress

could never make float.

In today’s world, it’s difficult to imagine Catholic Jesuit priests introducing scientific principles and laws into China that would merge with China’s mathematics and engineering to transform Chinese understanding of astronomy. But hang on to your hats. These guys did just that! At the beginning of the 17^th century, Matteo Ricci and other priests who followed in his footsteps were convinced that science would open wide the doors to Christianity in China.

The Board of Astronomy became an official part of the Chinese government during the Han Dynasty (right around the time of Christ). Even before that, there are records of Chinese noting celestial phenomena like solar and lunar eclipses and comets. But by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the study of astronomy was definitely on the decline in China. Enter the Jesuits.

Matteo Ricci was not only a priest, but he was also a professor of mathematics whose own professor had been held in high esteem by Galileo. In 1601, upon arriving in Beijing, Ricci was granted an audience with the Emperor Wan Li and he offered his services to the Emperor. During a trip to Nanjing, he had discovered several large antique bronze astronomical instruments which nobody really understood, that had been created by the Chinese astronomer, mathematician, inventor, and engineer, Guo Shoujing (郭守敬) during the reign of Kublai Kahn in the Yuan Dynasty (13^th century).

The very cool thing is that these instruments still can be found on the top of a small square building in Dongcheng Qu on Jian Wai Da Jie in Beijing. It’s called the Beijing Ancient Observatory (北京古观象台 Běijīng Gǔ Guānxiàngtái.) The photo above is from an observatory pamphlet I picked up there in the ’90s.  I still don’t understand how any of these instruments work.

Not far from the observatory, there are hundreds of hutongs (胡同 hútòng). Hutongs are narrow alleys that have flowed through neighborhoods in Beijing since the Yuan Dynasty (13^th century). Like so much of China, what was once a normal way of life has turned into quaint neighborhoods where tourists can rent airbnbs.  All the homes and shops are low-rise in the hutong neighborhoods. The houses have courtyards where families sit on stools and lounge chairs made out of bamboo slats. Birds sleep in wooden cages covered to keep them dark and crickets chirp in tiny bamboo cages being fed and trained for cricket fighting. Most people who live in hutong’s live where their parents lived and their parents before them. It’s said that the term, Hutong, actually comes from a Mongolian word meaning “water well”.

Not far from the hutongs is the Forbidden City, across the street from Tiananmen Square, and only a few blocks from Beijing’s first ever McDonalds. Through a contact in Hong Kong, a former student of mine from Australia managed to get an “internship” slinging burgers and running a cash register at what was once touted as the biggest McDonalds in the world. It could seat over 700 people. I wish I could have witnessed this tall white kid joking with his customers there. By the end of the summer, his Putonghua was better than mine. In 1996, this piece of Wangfujing real estate was determined to be too valuable for McD’s and is now the home of the Oriental Plaza.

Chinese Odyssey 46

We ate food from McDonald’s

near Tian An Men Square,

bicycled through hutongs

climbed Drum Tower stairs.

Saw celestial globes

made by Jesuit priests

for the Emperor Kangxi’s

astronomical feasts.

I first went to Tianjin to see an old friend from Taiwan who was teaching there. Jeff took me to meet a buddy of his who sold paintings and porcelain on Ancient Culture Street. Enter, Harry Liu. Originally from Shanghai, Harry Liu studied at Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College in the early 1940s with Eric Liddell (remember “Chariots of Fire”?) After graduating, Harry went on to study and complete his medical degree in the Japanese and German program at Beijing University. But largely because of a part-time post-war job, Harry never got to practice medicine. Somehow, he had been co-opted by the American Marines in Tianjin where his Scottish accented English changed into that kind of hybrid English found among English speakers today who live between America and the UK.  In addition to speaking Putonghua, German, and Japanese, Harry also spoke Cantonese, Shanghainese, and a smattering of European Romance languages. Harry loved America – or, at least the idea of it. Two things I would often take Harry were Whitman’s Chocolate Samplers and American 20th-century non-fiction books about China. Harry’s work as a Jeep driver and general lackey for the American marines post-WW2 earned him both his nickname, “Harry Jeep”, and a protracted period of reeducation from the “real teachers” in China during the early days of the revolution – the workers and the peasants. Harry loved Kiessling’s Café  (起士林饭店 Qǐshìlín Fàndiàn) a German-Austrian bakery and restaurant renowned for its fine European cuisine. I remember taking Harry there in the late 1990s and treating him to a couple of his favorite dishes that he hadn’t eaten since the 1940s. For years after that,  whenever I would lead a group to Beijing, we would invariably detour to Tianjin where Harry would walk us through the European concessions and regale us with stories of his life in Tianjin.  We would often take kids to 狗不理包子(Gǒubulǐ Bāozi), a 200-year-old local favorite whose name defies translation, but it’s something like “Dogs don’t pay attention steamed buns.” Harry Liu passed away in 2010 at the age of 86, never having fulfilled his lifelong dream to visit America.

Although it is one of 4 municipalities in China (the other three being Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and has been a prominent trading port in China since the 13th century, most  people outside of China know very little about this “Shanghai of the North.” After the French and British gunboats attacked Tianjin and forced the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858, opium was made legal, and foreign trade was opened wide.  Following the British and the French into Tianjin were the Germans, the Japanese, the Austrians, the Italians, the Belgians, and the Russians.  There was also a sizable American population there.  The “Concessions” (公共租界 Gōnggòng Zūjiè) were physical “settlements” in Tianjin, Shanghai and several other cities which were ceded by the Chinese to European countries, the USA, and Japan. Tianjin had eight foreign concessions. Each concession had its own schools, hospitals, stores, prisons, and restaurants.

The flower of the British Concession was the Astor Hotel (利顺德大饭店), located next door to British built Victoria Park. It was the prime address for diplomats and social functions among the international upper crust in Tianjin in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Ulysses S. Grant stayed there in the 1870s. The American consulate in Tianjin was located in the Astor until 1929, and Herbert Hoover stayed there numerous times before he became 31^st President of the United States. Pu Yi, China’s last emperor called the Astor his home for many years after abdicating in 1910 and before becoming the puppet ruler of Manchuria during the Japanese occupation. Starting as a single level hotel, by 1924 it had built up to three levels and later added an eight-story wing with one of China’s first American Otis elevators. Today, the newer portion has been refurbished while portions of the old Astor retain their former Old World décor, memorabilia, and furnishings. The Astor remains one of Tianjin’s finest luxury hotels.

I ran across this interesting description of Tianjin in Isabelle Maynard’s book,  China Dreams: Growing up Jewish in Tientsin: She wrote “Not until I was living in the safety of America did I realize that the land where I was born and raised would now be as inaccessible to me as Russia was to my father. It was then that the dreams began. Tientsin dreams of growing up; of joys and sorrows; of boyfriends and girlfriends; of blood red mimosas in Victoria Park, cerulean blue quilted rickshaw covers, yellow soft-as-powder sands of Pei-tai-ho Beach; of the silvery bridge joining the French and Italian concessions; of murky green water of the Hai-Ho Canal; of white signs that said, ‘No dogs or Chinese allowed’; and of the blackness into which war had plunged us.”

Now, less than an hour from cosmopolitan Beijing by fast train, Tianjin retains both the charm and a feeling of “renqingwei” (warmth and hospitality) that I had not encountered since leaving Taiwan.

Chinese Odyssey 43

Ending up in Tianjin

with my friend, “Harry Jeep”.

An amazing old man

selling art on the street.

Eric Liddell, his teacher

M.D. from Bei Da

worked for US Marines,

unforgivable flaw.