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 (1): The Course

The New Zealand Centre, Weiming Lake, Peking University

The course is called New Zealand: History & Culture, and it's taught this year by six visiting Academics from Massey University: Associate Professor Kerry Taylor, Dr. Peter Meihana, Professor Peter Lineham (all History), Dr. Gillian Skyrme (Linguistics), Professor Michael Roche (Geography) and Dr. Jack Ross (English).

The New Zealand Centre, Peking University

So the net result of all this is that I've been asked to fly to Beijing to give two lectures on New Zealand literature to the students there: those lucky souls studying at the NZ Centre, at any rate.

It's simultaneously exciting and terrifying for a homebody such as myself. Never mind, we shall see what we shall see. I've divided the lectures into "Then" and "Now" (original!).

Here are some of the writers and books I'll be discussing with the students:

Lecture 1: Then

• Frank Sargeson (1903-1982)


Frank Sargeson: Conversation with My Uncle (1936)



• Ruth Dallas (1919-2008)


Ruth Dallas



• Hone Tuwhare (1922-2008)


Hone Tuwhare: No Ordinary Sun (1964)



• Janet Frame (1924-2004)

Janet Frame: An Angel at My Table

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Lecture 2: Now

• Witi Ihimaera (1944- )


Witi Ihimaera: The New Net Goes Fishing (1977)



• Cilla McQueen (1949- )


Cilla McQueen



• Alison Wong (1960- )


Alison Wong



• Scott Hamilton (1974- )

Scott Hamilton: To the Moon, in Seven Easy Steps (2007)

And here's what I'm roughly hoping to cover:

In the first lecture, covering the early to mid-twentieth century, we will look at two things:

1. Writing by settler Europeans in New Zealand
2. The beginnings of Maori writing in English

The Class (28/11/18)

There are three major topics in the second lecture, covering the late twentieth century to the early 2000s:

1. Witi Ihimaera was the first Maori writer to publish a novel in New Zealand. His work is part of a major regrowth of Maori culture.
2. Alison Wong’s poem about the poll-tax paid by Chinese settlers in New Zealand is an example of the important work now being done by writers from many immigrant groups, Chinese-New Zealanders among them.
3. Cilla McQueen’s poem comes from the late twentieth-century Women’s Movement, which demanded complete equality between the sexes.

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The NZ Centre (22/11/18)

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