All around Beijing, the city is preparing for the 2008 Olympics. Historical sites are being refurbished, the taxis are being upgraded, and this Olympic Stadium is being constructed just down the street from Tiananmen Square.
We were in Beijing just before Spring Festival, so we saw many New Years decorations, like the bright red and gold ones displayed here on the front of the National Art Museum.
Another mainstay of Spring Festival is the shooting of fireworks. We found this sign hanging near the hostel door interesting.
We stayed at the Saga International Youth Hostel on the Shijia Hutong, where we got a nice room for a reasonable price. The heavy plastic strips in the doorway help to keep the cold air out of the lobby. Deanna liked to call going through this doorway "going through the noodles."
This is a view of
the Cuihua Hutong from the fifth floor of the National Art Museum.
Hutongs are alleyways that wind all over Beijing. I read that
if all the hutongs were stretched out straight, they would rival
the Great Wall in length. They are a glimpse into life in Beijing
in the past, but are rapidly giving way to more modern buildings.
On the hutong next to the one where we were staying, we discovered this gate. In 1908, a German prince visiting the Qing emperor lived here. Then from 1949 - 1966 it housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The buildings are all gone now, but the gate remains. There are all kinds of historical spots like this, nestled in the middle of modern Beijing.
The
ancient city of Beijing was built as a series of concentric circles,
with a wall around the Imperial City, an inner city wall and an
outer city wall. The inner wall had a middle gate on its south
side, which only the emperor used, but no middle gate on its north
side, creating a solid wall at the emperor's back.This is the
arrow tower of the DeSheng Gate, which stood at the northwest
end of the inner wall. The gate no longer exists, but this arrow
tower would have been a fortress to protect that entrance into
the city. The DeSheng Gate was the one through which victorious
troops returned to the city.
East Church is a Catholic church in the middle of Beijing. It was first built in 1655, and has been through fire and earthquake, been torn down and rebuilt. The current building was rebuilt in 1904, and has been in regular use since 2000.
We went to a performance of Peking Opera at the Chang An Grand Theater. The artwork in front of the theater is a representation of traditional Peking Opera face paint. Characters are identified by the different designs and colors. Lee is striking a pose you will see often in the opera, with his foot forward and his toe up. We also liked the way the long sleeves of the costumes were used to express emotion, like leaving them hanging straight down to portray grief or whipping them around the hand to show anger.
Copyright 2005, Dr. Lee Williams
Last Modified: 15 February 2005
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