I like to think of myself as a traveller rather than a tourist - I think a lot of us do, but it can be hard not to fall into the tourist traps - especially when you’re lured in by people who speak the same language as you do in a city where the language sounds lovely but like it’s totally devoid of punctuation. But there are certain sights that both the visitor looking to ‘find’ a place and the tourist looking to ’see’ it will meet up at, and Beijing’s Temple of Heaven is one of those places on everyone’s ‘must do’ list, so there I was standing in awe at the construction of something so entirely original that each piece of its roof fits perfectly together without the need for nails, and around me Chinese senior citizens in red hats are asking to have their photo taken with me. But it’s all fun and I’m quite honoured to have my photo taken with them in front of something so beautiful and strongly tied to their culture. After all this is quite a cool experience for me in itself, as are the rogue temple cats who prowl the grounds, the many security people who seem so relaxed in their roles that one of them was actually hiding behind a stone prayer pillar in the Hall of Echos, and the fantastic woman who began an impromptu set of tai chi moves in the Temple of Heaven courtyard. Without seeing these things I would still have seen a beautifully constructed, in the round on three tiers, carefully decorated, in blues, greens and golds, set on a raised marble three tiered dais, all hand carved about two hundred and fifty years ago, temple, but this was real life. And one of the Red Seniors pointed out to me that each of the many, many gold dragons on the roof had had its eyes delicately painted in to look like the googly eyes on a toy, which was a brilliant discovery and one only available to people with enough zoom on their cameras, or those who have the knowledge passed on to them. Suffice to say that I did check a lot of dragons after that and they all had painted eyes as I was promised.
It’s an auspicious spot, the point where heaven and earth are supposed to meet up and I thought everyone was surprisingly relaxed for something with such a grand cultural story, but despite the people loitering all over the marble stairs and pretty girls having their photos taken by their men - not to mention people having their photo taken with me - there was an attitude of relaxed interest but none of the quiet shushing I heard in my head when I looked at it - it is really very beautiful - so I was touched to see fantastic tai chi woman start up her moves and I’m sure she was at least as impressed as I was with the significance of the things this spot and building represent. All the temples line up perfectly and if you enter from the North Gate like I did you may find that you’ve done the highlight first and only get to see the grand approach to the temple when you’re walking away from it.
Early in the day we’d been exploring the hutongs, the narrow alleyways that used to be the main buildings in Beijing. Think an unplanned city of shanties and one storey houses around courtyards where shops and houses are all mashed in together and the private and public spaces grow all over each other. I was expecting more of Beijing to look like this - it does in the movies - but a lot of it is now wide roads and tall apartment blocks. We started at the art shop end - I have a thing about beautiful stationery and the Chinese do it to perfection - and walked through to the more tourist friendly alleys of ancient tea houses, silk warehouses and Chinese medicine stores. In the best ones no one could really speak any English and though I wanted to buy things from the most authentic stores it was difficult to explain the tea I wanted when there are a choice of over 100 and I don’t know the Chinese word for flower. The street off Tiananmen Square has been flattened and rebuilt in a way that makes it look like European architects trying to copy Chinese design - or else that it’s going to be a China Disney or permanent film set - but that’s probably because it’s empty, it’s another Olympic development that will probably come into it’s own in a few months - or else will be filled with Starbucks and Gaps…which would be awful.
My policy when walking around the city has expanded from crossing the road with the oldest person I can find to choosing to walk up the prettiest street I can see. This means I haven’t always taken the most direct route but it’s been scenic and I’ve seen such delights as a service station called ‘Easy Joy’, a scorpion writhing on a stick in a row of scorpions on sticks ready for cooking in the night market, and been through about five additional security checks - they’re in all subway stations and the guards are cute and pretending to be serious. I also saw the the headquarters of CCTV - China Central TV - and wondered at the brilliant choice of name and why comedians every where haven’t fallen all over it! Most interestingly I’ve seen a lot of people. You hear that China’s strength is in its population but the proof is in the massive workforce. All the people employed cleaning the streets with brooms and guarding random buildings seem like they’re just waiting until they can retire and take their chairs out onto the street and play chess, cards, sing or just people-watch. This nation and civilisation is responsible for some truly wondrous monuments and brilliantly designed buildings and now it seems the older generation is free to relax on the streets watching the world go by or entertain themselves talking to western girls who return their smiles and agree to having their photo taken.