Archives for 2005

We awoke Sunday to another glorious day. After breakfast, we boarded our buses and drove through Beijing to the Temple of Heaven. The Chinese have many beliefs about what is fortuitous and some of them have to do with placement of buildings. The Temple of Heaven, to which the emperor would travel, was in a direct line six kilometers south of the Forbidden City where he resided. He would go to the Temple of Heaven every winter solstice to worship heaven and to solemnly pray for a good harvest. Since his rule was legitimized by a mandate from heaven, a bad harvest could be interpreted as his fall from heaven’s favor and threaten the stability of his reign. So, the emperor fervently prayed for a very good crop. When the emperor traveled to the Temple of Heaven to offer his prayers, citizens were not permitted to watch. Were they unlucky enough to be caught along the path when he was making his way, they had to lie prone and avoid looking up for the entire duration of his journey.

We arrived expecting to see buildings, but in fact, the most interesting sights at the Temple of Heaven were the people we saw. Each day hundreds of Chinese people, mostly over the age of sixty, come to exercise. They were doing Tai Chi individually, or in groups with fans or swords. They were playing hacky-sack. They danced, sometimes ballroom-type dancing. But the most amazing sight was the area that was most like a children’s playground. Instead of equipment geared for children were all sorts of devices designed for adults to chin, to do sit-ups, to climb, and to stretch. There were paths with rounded stones embedded in them over which they walked in thin-soled slipper-type shoes. One older woman held a pole behind her neck that stretched over her shoulders. She gently raised both of her legs and placed them behind the pole, effectively bending herself in half. Ouch! It hurt me to watch, but not enough to keep me from taking pictures.

As we walked through the gardens and structures, we heard beautiful music, either being played on instruments live in the garden or from mechanical devices people had brought with them. The people seemed very happy and content. It seemed such a wonderful way to start a day, out in nature with friends, doing healthy exercise. I asked what they do in winter and our Chinese guide told me that they are there in winter as well.

At the edge of the park there was a store that sold fresh-water pearls. We saw a demonstration where a man took an oyster and opened it up to show us the pearls inside. He had a charming sales pitch, but not charming enough to convince me to buy something that I didn’t need.

Outside we met some Malaysian women and they were so attractively adorned that I asked to take their picture. They then took mine!

When we got back onto the bus and headed straight to the airport for a flight to Xian (Shi-Yan). Xian was the capital of thirteen Chinese dynasties and is its only walled city whose walls have survived until today.

There we saw the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. We took a walk through the Muslim Quarter and saw a Muslim Temple that is said to resemble quite closely the synagogue that used to exist in Kaifeng. It was of traditional Chinese architecture in that it consisted to entrances and gardens one after the other. It was very tranquil and very beautiful.

We then visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda which is a Buddhist temple. You can read about it at http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/bigwildgoose.htm

Back at the hotel, we had dinner and when we left the dining room, we saw some very lovely young women in long purple taffeta gowns with nametags and little purses. We didn’t know if they were to be in a show or if they were at some sort of conference or what. One said something about dancing. I took a picture and one looked at me and motioned not to take pictures. Later I learned that these women dance with visiting gentlemen.

We then left the hotel and went to the Tang Dynasty Show which consisted of beautiful music and dancing. The costumes were exquisite. It was a feast for the senses. A tired crew, we returned to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep before the next day’s adventures.

My husband and I joined friends who were taking a 17 day tour of China with Shai Bar Ilan who runs tours to China and other locations for Jewish people who observe the dietary laws and the Sabbath. In general, a Jew who is ritually observant has to be very careful in planning a trip to a place where there is no established Jewish community, so Shai had solved those problems. There was a minyan of men, kosher food, and we did no traveling on the Sabbath. Instead, we spent late Sabbath mornings and early afternoons on walks that enabled us to see sights that were close to the hotel. He even arranged for us to be able to have a drink of cold water on our way.

Our tour was to have begun on Wednesday afternoon, August 31 with a flight to Istanbul from where we were to fly to Beijing, arriving in the afternoon. Our flight to Beijing, however, was delayed by 12 hours and so were we! We flew to Istanbul and stayed the few hours we had at a hotel near the airport. Since we arrived after dark and left before it got light in the morning, we didn’t actually see anything in Istanbul.

The flight on Turkish Airlines was pleasant and we arrived in Beijing safely.

Although I knew China was a big country, I was surprised to see how big and modern the airports were. Unlike experiences in Israel and New York and Dallas and Oklahoma City, the baggage arrived quickly and within about 15 minutes, we had gathered our belongings and were moving along.

By the time we arrived at our hotel, it was dark. The rooms were clean and attractive. Shai had prepared a “snack” for us which turned out to be a full meal. With a bit more area to move around in, we began to become acquainted with the other people who had come along on the trip.

Although most of the group consisted of Israelis, we had three women from Canada and one from New York join us. In addition, at least one of the Israelis who was formerly from the US had difficulty with Hebrew, and so we were divided into two groups: Hebrew and English. The Hebrew group was larger and filled their bus. We were a group of about 23 and so we were usually very comfortable in ours. Although we were excited, we were also very tired, having missed most of a night’s sleep in Istanbul, so we all went to our rooms and slept.

In the morning, we ate and then piled into the buses for our first outing. As we drove through the enormous city of Beijing, it was hard to believe how urban and modern it looked. We arrived at the cloisonné factory and watched the women who worked to create the beautiful objects by hand. There are no shortcuts and no assembly line. Every work they produce is handmade with intricate designs and brilliantly colored enamels. A showroom the size of a US department store displayed items large and small including vases and jewelry and bells and cups and just about every object one could imagine.

After the factory, we traveled to the Great Wall (or, as one of the Israelis sometimes said, “the Big Wall”). We were surprised by the height of it, the width, and the fact that in this area, one climbed it. The wall has a long long flight of steps—perhaps ending where it ends, but being that it is 4163 miles long, we settled for climbing only part of it. The steps were not easy to climb. They were not of uniform height and some were the equivalent height of two to three steps. I was breathing really hard by the time we got to the landmark we were aiming for. We were told that the area we traversed contained 1200 steps. Of course, once up, the next task was going down. The weather was beautiful and the views were magnificent and everyone was in a mood of elation, and so it was all a big adventure.

We were taken next for reflexology treatments at an institute for Chinese medicine. There they grow medicinal plants, and the reflexology students worked their art on us. Two doctors came to check us all. They claimed to be able to tell our state of health by feeling our pulses in both our left and right wrists. Since everyone had ailments that they had the cure for and since all of the cures were only going to require a one month supply of their rather expensive formulas, we imagined that our diagnoses were all essentially the same: fat wallet.

After the rest and relaxation, we went to the Summer Palace, a magnificent estate with many buildings and a huge lake. The buildings were all traditional Chinese buildings and the lake was large enough that there were boats to traverse it. We saw gigantic lotus plants growing in the water. We walked along the Long Corridor which was painted with hundreds of pictures on its beams and its ceiling. It is simply a covered walkway. The Long Corridor is 795 yards long and parallels the lake. To have an estate so large and so green and so pastoral in a city whose metropolitan area houses thirty million people is nothing less than amazing to me.

Late that afternoon, we took a walk to Tian’anmen Square, but in a move reminiscent (at least to me) of my impressions of the square with the tank headed for the young student, police prevented our proceeding to the square citing the need to clean the area for a ceremony that was to take place the next morning. A number of police marched toward us accompanied by a police car that headed straight for us, albeit slowly. I couldn’t help wishing that someone would take a picture of my standing there with my hands held up.

We walked back to the hotel to get ready for the Sabbath.

No, I am not sick and I am not being held hostage…I returned on Friday from a two week trip to China. There is so much to tell that it is hard to know where to start.

China is a country with a far greater land mass than the US and with a population of 1.3+ billion people. So why is it that I had heard of about two Chinese cities before my trip: Beijing and Shanghai? It would be like someone thinking that the US consisted of New York and Los Angeles. As we traveled from city to city, we were told that the Beijing area has a population of 30 million people and that Shanghai has a population of 17 million. Small cities had “only” 3 or 4 or 7 million people.

We knew about the Great Wall, but were unaware of other cultural and historical treasures that China has. We knew little of the culture and folklore. The language was a mystery to us.

During our trip we took five internal flights in China on at least 4 different airlines. We were impressed with the modernity and efficiency of Chinese airports, airlines, and hotels.

We saw Buddhist and Taoist temples, beautifully landscaped parks and gardens, and people who enjoyed life. We learned how they made fabrics, processed silk, did fine embroidery, and hand-manufactured cloisonné items.

We saw a country running into modernity with its sleeves flapping. We saw modern multi-layered roadways, tens of skyscrapers, and vast urban development. We learned about their one-child policy and how it has become a huge social experiment.

The trip to China was a kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, and action. I hope to share some of it with you in the days to come.