Forbidden City

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.  Located in the middle of Beijing it was the home of Emperors and their households (including concubines), as well as the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government, for almost five hundred years.   The complex covers 7,800,000 sq, ft. consisting of 980 buildings with 8,707 rooms.  It was built around 1406.  The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture.   When I walked in I noticed the buildings were brightly painted and rambling to the end of the horizon.  One building after another.  It was just the most amazing place, I kept imagining myself as a little emperor playing on the stairs, hiding behind walls, and climbing the most delightful shaped trees.

One of the trees had gnarled elbows with long branches hanging downward which looked like dragon claws.

I love this tree and want one in my yard!

I found a couple artisans, one carved me a chop mark that says su san, maybe su shan.  Su means family name.  San stands for the number three and they seem to prefer Shan which means mountains.  Personally it means family of twin peaks, my play on words.   Then I meet a teacher from the local art university.   He was selling his work along with other professors to help generate money for scholarships.  I am a sucker for helping kids go to art school and  bought a black and white oil panel with the four children holding red yarn stars and a traditional tiger painting.  Love my art finds.

Inside some of these rooms we found mini-museums of pottery, jewelry, weaponry and ceremonial attire.

Then a trip to the hutongs or alleyways of Beijing to eat and shop.  I ran out of memory on my card but here is my find at a propaganda store.

My OBaMao T-shirt “Man who serves the people!”

Yuejiang Pagoda, Lions Gate Temple

FIELD TRIP…..  I took my senior IB students to the Yuejiang Tower or Lions Gate Temple for an art outing.  We had a lovely afternoon.  The focus was on photographing patterns, architecture, people, light and shadows.  Mike, Anna and Ophelia accompanied me along with the economics teacher, Michael. When we got to the steps to climb the hill to the pagoda  Michael took a leave (something about nap-time) and it was just me and the students.  The temple was part of a Buddhist monestary built in 400AD.  Much was destroyed, rebuilt and opened to the public in 2001.   Being new, there are no Buddhist monks to be seen.  More of a tourist attraction, it still represents the Ming Dynasty when Zheng He sailed to the Atlantic. It includes complex architecture lines in traditional Chinese style.  Housed inside is information such as ship building, scientific sailing, how to conquer the ocean, peaceful diplomacy, good-neighborly relationships, transmission of civilization, equal trading and culture exchanges as well as local customs and practices in western countries. (This last sentence I copied from a tourist guide!)  Since I can’t read the Chinese characters I enjoy the museum visually.

This tower can be seen from my office window and I look at it daily.  It is fun to be standing on the top balcony and see my building for a change.  I can see the Yangtze river bridge, the vast array of apartment building, old and new, hi rise and small old hutongs.  It is miles and miles of building, so unbelievable, bigger than New York City, so awe inspiring.

Frogville TV

September 3, 2010

Nice big thunderstorm, after I got home from my one class of three students.  Turned the TV on and have about 25 channels, of course it is all in Chinese.  There are no western programs or English.  On occasion you might hear seconds of English on a news broadcast, but it is nothing important.  I saw a water buffalo fight tonight; concept was like a cock fight in America.  Water Buffalo 48 was doing really good, they run head on into each other and try to kill the other, till he met up with number 15.  Water buffalo 15 knocked him to the ground and they hauled him off in a paddy wagon, poor 15. The owner of 48 got a red scarf which they put on the back of the buffalo.  Everyone cheered.  Then I flipped it to a show about frogs, looked like a place where they raised them, like a Frogville.  The weather was too hot and the little guys were dying of heat exhaustion.  So the owner was showing how he grew plants with large leafs to create shade for the little guys.  He even had cabbage plants for them to crawl in.  Then as it got hotter he made little wooden plank bridges so they could crawl under. The frogs had a mud moat to swim in and seemed to love the slime.  Then the owner showed how he took raw meat and let it set out and catch flies and in turn created maggots.  The maggot worms were gobbled up by the frogs, creating a very efficient business.  What he did with the frogs I do not know.  After thirty minutes I switched channels.

The channels are all called CCTV- Central China TV.  CCTV 1, CCTV 2 and so on, no diversity like in the US.  Although there is CCTV-MTV, now that’s a hoot.  Saw a guy that looked like Wayne Newton, ok sort of, with glitter in his puffy hair singing a Chinese Celine Dion song.  She would have been proud.  His voice was higher than hers!  Then a Michael Jackson rip-off was performing, and a Yanni piano guy. Yes, I liked the Yanni guy!  Remember it is all in Chinese!  There is a lot of Drama- with Ming Dynasty costumes, which is fun to look at for about five minutes.  Lots of love stories, boring.  Tonight I saw a Color Splash/Devine Design HGTV type of show.  The designer redid a Chinese apartment.  She had gone to IKEA and got some cheap shelves, which she arranged on the covered balcony, and then made a vase with popsicle like sticks.  GEEZ.  Not real impressed with the style.  Hey I found “Family Feud” in Chinese, just can’t read the answers!

Commercials are interesting; saw one today that was made of smoke that changed from a mountain, to a butterfly into a man, to a dragon, to the Great Wall of China and back to the mountain.  That was actually artistically cool and got my attention.  Don’t have the foggiest what it meant.  Cartoons are about the same, just Chinese-esque.

Speaking of smoke, the Chinese can smoke in motel rooms, cafes, taxis and at school.  My motel room occasionally will smell from next door smokers’ waking me up causing breathing problems.  Pollution is bad, yesterday morning was one of the first times I actually saw a blue sky.  It is humid, so mixed with the pollution seems smoggy most of the time.  I imagine in the country side it is cleaner.