Jack's Beijing Adventure (4): To Peking University

Ariva Hotel, Haidian Road South, Beijing

So, if you imagine us taking a walk through the streets of Beijing towards Peking University, this is our starting point: the massive Ariva Hotel.

A somewhat Edward Hopper-esque window view

From there you can take either of two routes. Either the subway:

map of the Beijing subway

Or else the half-hour walk along Suzhou Street, through all the traffic and noise:

footbridge

looking north

Haidian Bridge, facing west

In any case, eventually you have to go in by one of the gates, showing your ID to get in. This is the West Gate:

West Gate

And here's the main administration building (no less a personage than Mao Tse-Tung himself was once the librarian at Peking University, but that was when it was still located near the centre of the city):

Administration Building

stone lion outside the Administration Building

It really is quite a spectacular campus. The most beautiful part of it is undoubtedly Weiming Lake:

map of Weiming Lake

Weiming Lake

ducks

bridge

stones from the old Summer Palace

The ruins of the old Summer Palace are a little way north of the campus. They were destroyed by barbarian invaders - i.e. us - in 1860 during the second Opium War. The rebuilt palace is some distance away, and is a celebrated beauty spot (I didn't get the chance to go there, unfortunately).

temple

memorial for Edgar Snow

Here's another interesting sight: a memorial to Edgar Snow, author of Red Star over China (1937), the first comprehensive account of Mao Tse-Tung, the Long March, and other historic details of the Chinese communist party's rise to power.

pond beside the New Zealand Centre

The NZ Centre is fortunate to be housed in a building so near the most beautiful part of the university. My friend Xiaotong told me that all through his childhood he had dreamed of walking by the Weiming Lake as a student of Peking University. Now that he'd achieved that ambition, he felt a little lost.

the pagoda

towards the East Gate

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l-to-r: Professor Lui Shushen, me, A/ Prof Liu Hongzhong & A/Prof Mei Shenyou

My hosts were kind enough to invite me to dinner at a very famous restaurant, Quanjude Peking Duck Restaurant, to sample the celebrated delicacy ("you can't go home without trying it"). It was certainly very tasty, though a trifle complicated to eat.

Discussion time after my second lecture, with Hongzhong & me
& some visiting Kiwi students from Canterbury (28/11/18)

So there you are. It was certainly a great experience. I hope the rest of the course goes well - I've already sent in my exam questions for the students, so now it's all up to Hongzhong and the others. I did get lost once - on the way back from the university, the first time I went there, but luckily a kind English-speaking passerby took pity on me, and gave me directions back to the hotel.

Haidian Road South & the Ariva Hotel (21/11/18)

Jack's Beijing Adventure (3): The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City (27/11/18)

Here I am, just along from that classic view of Mao's portrait, about to enter the Forbidden City: the emperor's private domain, reserved solely for the royal family and their courtiers.

some indication of the sheer scale of the place

"The Emperor — so they say — has sent a message, directly from his death bed, to you alone, his pathetic subject, a tiny shadow which has taken refuge at the furthest distance from the imperial sun. He ordered the herald to kneel down beside his death bed and whispered the message to him. He thought it was so important that he had the herald repeat it back to him. He confirmed the accuracy of the verbal message by nodding his head. And in front of the entire crowd of those who have come to witness his death — all the obstructing walls have been broken down and all the great ones of his empire are standing in a circle on the broad and high soaring flights of stairs — in front of all of them he dispatched his herald. The messenger started off at once, a powerful, tireless man. Sticking one arm out and then another, he makes his way through the crowd. If he runs into resistance, he points to his breast where there is a sign of the sun. So he moves forward easily, unlike anyone else. But the crowd is so huge; its dwelling places are infinite. If there were an open field, how he would fly along, and soon you would hear the marvellous pounding of his fist on your door. But instead of that, how futile are all his efforts. He is still forcing his way through the private rooms of the innermost palace. He will never win his way through. And if he did manage that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to fight his way down the steps, and, if he managed to do that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to stride through the courtyards, and after the courtyards the second palace encircling the first, and, then again, stairs and courtyards, and then, once again, a palace, and so on for thousands of years. And if he finally did burst through the outermost door — but that can never, never happen — the royal capital city, the centre of the world, is still there in front of him, piled high and full of sediment. No one pushes his way through here, certainly not with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window and dream to yourself of that message when evening comes."

- Franz Kafka, "The Great Wall of China" (1917)

My guide, Zhang Xiaotong

Xiaotong again

Here's my guide, the intrepid Xiaotong, a student at Peking University who offered to show me around in exchange for the chance to practise his English a bit. Without him, I wouldn't have got very far!

courtyards

dragons

more dragons

stones

Contemplation Studio

ceiling of contemplation studio

crowds

buildings

bronze vessels

bulls

sign

"That's not interesting," said Xiaotong, as I took yet another picture of a sign. He wanted me to photograph useful things such as gold thrones and doors with 81 nails on them (9 x 9 - the imperial number). I just love stuff like that "Book - Cultural and Creative" inscription, though.

Jack

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Tiananmen Square (facing East)

But wait, there's more. Outside the gates of the Forbidden City, all the rest of the massive central area of Beijing lies spread before you.

Tiananmen Square (facing West)

Tiananmen Square (facing South)

Tiananmen Square (North-east)

map

national theatre

national theatre (detail)

Apparently they call this immense structure "the egg" - because it looks like an egg that's been left in the middle of a pond. It's pretty striking, though.

stuff not to do

All in, Xiaotong and I must have walked for hours. After we'd got out the back entrance to the Forbidden City, we had to trek all the way round again to the front, and that took ages.

the way out

Jack's Beijing Adventure (2): The Wall

The Great Wall of China (23/11/18)

I had two lectures to give: one on the Wednesday after I arrived, the other on the Wednesday I left. For the most part, the time in-between was free for sightseeing or "Academic exchange" (i.e. talking to colleagues about this and that).

I found that the one thing I was determined to do was to see the Great Wall. Admittedly there's a lot of it to be seen, but just one of the sections open to tourists would be enough for me. I've dreamed for so long of walking along it, from fort to fort.

Great Wall Certificate

Apparently there's a Chinese proverb that claims that "He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a true man." So, yes, I'm afraid that I did fork out for a certificate to that effect, counter-signed by my guide Zhang Ping, together with an "official" photo of the event (which looks a bit better in its original frame, without the camera flash at the bottom.

wall anxiety

not without reason

it's pretty steep!

the view ahead

the view back

further vistas

It was rather a foggy day, as you can see from the greyness of many of the pictures, but given my general lack of fitness, that might have been just as well. I was certainly sweating after scaling some of these slopes!

the basic layout

it soon gets steep again

floodlights

a typical fort

graffiti

more graffiti

There's a lot of graffiti written up here and there, despite all the signs warning you of dire penalties if you disrespect the rules. There are a lot of them:

rules

padlocks

I presume these padlocks are left here by couples as proofs of eternal fidelity, just like the ones on the Pont Neuf in Paris.

wishing stone

I'm afraid I couldn't resist adding a New Zealand twenty-cent piece to the ones in this little wishing pool. Hopefully it will bring me good luck.

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A long time back - twenty years ago, in fact - I wrote a poem called "Journey to the West," inspired by repeated readings of the four classic Chinese novels: The Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Journey to the West, and The Red Chamber Dream.

The last part of that poem runs as follows. It seems appropriate, somehow:

Is it high?
It touches heaven.
Deep?
It reaches hell.

White clouds surround the mountain
black mists swim
red-blushing plums / jade bamboo
dark-green cypresses / blue pines
_____________________________

Ten-mile pavilion: no travellers leave
nine-faced heaven: stars have set
on eight harbours: boats are docked
in seven thousand cities: gates shut
six palaces: officials gone
five departments: ledgers closed
four seas: fishing lines sink
three rivers: waves subside
two towers: bells resound
one moon lights earth and sky

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