So it looks like I was right. Last week my father was visiting and this week I have started a new job. It's amazing that I 
even have time or energy to right this brief article. Travelling to all four corners of the city with my old man allowed me to revisit places and emotions that for some time now were but faint memories in the back of my mind - and of course I was given completely new experiences as well.
One new experience I want to recall is my third time visiting the Temple of Heaven. At this famous ancient attraction in Southern Beijing (twice the area of the Forbidden City), thousands of tourists stroll through the expansive parks, take photographs of beautiful spiral temples, try to hear their own echo when standing next to a massive circular wall, and spend around 10 seconds standing on a stone that supposedly gives you the power to directly communicate with the heavens. The history of annual animal sacrifice and the divine power exercised by China's emperors is fascinating and unsurprisingly the architecture and amount of open space is impressive, but by far the most memorable part of the Temple of Heaven is the long corridor.
At this long corridor, hundreds of elderly men and women sit on wide wooden railings on both sides of this outside corridor (some bring their own chairs) while they play cards, gossip, sing songs, play musical instruments, play Chinese chess, and sometimes get up to do a few exercises. I must have walked past a few dozen consecutive groups playing Chinese poker (a more entertaining way to play poker in my opinion). The atmosphere was simply amazing. Their is something surreal about being in the presence of hundreds of active and cheerful Chinese senior citizens when you try to imagine the crazy lives they must have lived. If they were born the same year as my Dad, they would have lived through the Japanese invasion and Nanjing massacres, a Nationalist police state, a civil war, Communist takeover, abusive anti-rightist movements, a catastrophic famine, the cultural revolution, Dengs reforms of 1979, the opening of China, the acceptance into the WTO, over a decade of double digit economic growth and soon they will witness the first Olympics ever to be held in China.
I read books and talk to those willing to story tell, but I will never fully understand what they have been through. Of those at the Temple of Heaven many were still robust and their faces were full of color, but their eyes wouldn't lie to me - they have seen the worse of China and then the best of China - and although they have been dealt terrible cards for a better half of a century, they are watching their luck, and those of their families, quickly changing.
even have time or energy to right this brief article. Travelling to all four corners of the city with my old man allowed me to revisit places and emotions that for some time now were but faint memories in the back of my mind - and of course I was given completely new experiences as well.One new experience I want to recall is my third time visiting the Temple of Heaven. At this famous ancient attraction in Southern Beijing (twice the area of the Forbidden City), thousands of tourists stroll through the expansive parks, take photographs of beautiful spiral temples, try to hear their own echo when standing next to a massive circular wall, and spend around 10 seconds standing on a stone that supposedly gives you the power to directly communicate with the heavens. The history of annual animal sacrifice and the divine power exercised by China's emperors is fascinating and unsurprisingly the architecture and amount of open space is impressive, but by far the most memorable part of the Temple of Heaven is the long corridor.
At this long corridor, hundreds of elderly men and women sit on wide wooden railings on both sides of this outside corridor (some bring their own chairs) while they play cards, gossip, sing songs, play musical instruments, play Chinese chess, and sometimes get up to do a few exercises. I must have walked past a few dozen consecutive groups playing Chinese poker (a more entertaining way to play poker in my opinion). The atmosphere was simply amazing. Their is something surreal about being in the presence of hundreds of active and cheerful Chinese senior citizens when you try to imagine the crazy lives they must have lived. If they were born the same year as my Dad, they would have lived through the Japanese invasion and Nanjing massacres, a Nationalist police state, a civil war, Communist takeover, abusive anti-rightist movements, a catastrophic famine, the cultural revolution, Dengs reforms of 1979, the opening of China, the acceptance into the WTO, over a decade of double digit economic growth and soon they will witness the first Olympics ever to be held in China.
I read books and talk to those willing to story tell, but I will never fully understand what they have been through. Of those at the Temple of Heaven many were still robust and their faces were full of color, but their eyes wouldn't lie to me - they have seen the worse of China and then the best of China - and although they have been dealt terrible cards for a better half of a century, they are watching their luck, and those of their families, quickly changing.
No comments:
Post a Comment