Guest fountainhall Posted January 20, 2012 Posted January 20, 2012 On the Harbin Ice Sculpture Festival thread, I pointed out that unfortunately Harbin does not make a good stop-over en route to or from Thailand. Beijing, on the other hand, is certainly worth two or three days if you happen to be travelling via that city – or making a special trip from Bangkok. Beijing has neither the charm of Shanghai nor its cosy corners. Much of it was bulldozed to make way for Soviet-style avenues and ring roads, now almost permanently clogged with traffic. Thankfully, the subway system covers most of what you might wish to see at a cost of 2 RMB per trip (around 30 US cents), although many lines seem packed most of the day. What the city does have, though, is a tremendous sense of history and some amazing sights. It also has a smallish gay scene with a number of bars and clubs which are often packed with a fair number of tall, slim handsome young men at week-ends. Its major sights are at the upper end on the spectacular scale. The Forbidden City in the heart of Beijing (also known as the Palace Museum), completed almost 600 years ago and ‘forbidden’ for most of that time to all but the Imperial family, its courtesans, officials and the eunochs who looked after them, is simply jaw-dropping. Take the subway and enter via Tiananmen Square under the portrait of Mao. Soon you reach the official entrance where you buy the 40 RMB (US$6.25) entrance ticket. Through a vast triple gateway, a series of enormous courtyards and official palaces opens up before you. After 30 minutes or so, these eventually give way near the northern end to the smaller palaces, pagodas and seemingly endless high-walled alleys which formed the living quarters. A visit can take as little as an hour, depending on your schedule. But it’s best to pick up one of the audio guides as you enter and then roam through it more leisurely. As you exit at the north end, you can cross the road into Jing Shan Park. Walk up to the Wanchun Pavilion at the top and you will have an amazing view of the entire Forbidden City complex. Not far away is the enormous Temple of Heaven. Part of another large complex, this is where the Emperors used to come to pray and intercede with the gods. It’s better to visit that first, as it is much closer to the entrance than the exit of the Forbidden City, and you are easily linked to the two by subway. After your visit to the Forbidden City, there are several Temples, including the large Lama Temple complex, the Temple of Confucius, and the mansion of Prince Gong - all relatively close to the north exit. All that will take up most of one day. If you only have two days, I would forget about a trip out to the Great Wall. The reconstructed part that is open to the public is packed with tourists at all times, and the winter winds make it fiercely cold. Better in my view is to spend a morning or afternoon in the extensive grounds of the Summer Palace. Even though this was destroyed by British and French troops in 1860, the Empress Dowager had it almost completely rebuilt. For the rest of the day, go to the Qian Men area south of the Forbidden City and explore some of the old courtyard houses, the hutongs. These are fast disappearing, although a few have been converted into boutique hotels, clubs and restaurants. Qian Men also has interesting little streets and alleys filled with stores selling everything from cheap souvenirs to relatively inexpensive silks, lots of cafes and food stalls. In the summer, the heat and humidity coupled with the masses of local tourists, make sightseeing in Beijing no fun. Spring can be a problem because this is when sand storms sometimes sweep in from the Gobi Desert. One such storm in April 2006 dumped an estimated 300,000 tons of sand on the city! Autumn is the best season, as long as you keep well clear of the National Day Holiday on October 1st. But winter can also be good, since there are far fewer tourists and the temperatures generally do not mean you have to bring lots of extra clothing. Another good reason for visiting in winter is that hotel prices are considerably lower. The Holiday Inn Express Temple of Heaven and the Jade Garden (very close to the Forbidden City) can be as low as US$55 per night including breakfast. From the airport there is a direct train to the main station. But taxis to the centre are more convenient and cost around 100 RMB (US$16), even though you are almost bound to be caught up in one or more traffic jams. Just make sure you get the hotel to send you its exact address in Chinese before you depart. I stayed last week at a Crowne Plaza which only has a map on its website. Like their Bangkok counterparts, few Beijing taxi drivers seem able to read maps even with the streets marked in Chinese characters! Quote
Rogie Posted January 21, 2012 Posted January 21, 2012 The Forbidden City in the heart of Beijing (also known as the Palace Museum), completed almost 600 years ago and ‘forbidden’ for most of that time to all but the Imperial family, its courtesans, officials and the eunochs who looked after them, is simply jaw-dropping. I wonder if anyone has seen Secrets of the Forbidden City, a documentary made in 2008 Strewn across the gleaming black floor of the imperial harem like blood-stained butterflies pinned to a board, the beautiful young concubines in Beijing's Forbidden City appeared at first to be sleeping, but the crimson pools of blood around their silken robes told a different story. The palace soldiers had shown no mercy in slaying these fragile creatures on that terrible night in 1421. Acting on the orders of the Ming Emperor Yongle, one of the most feared despots in Chinese imperial history, they had wielded their swords to ensure no one survived. Some of their innocent victims were as young as 13, but one horrified chronicler of the time described how they had been "rent, split, ripped and torn to shreds" alongside the servant girls and eunuchs who guarded them. In all, it is said that 2,800 people were killed in the harem as the Emperor tried to suppress a sex scandal which threatened to humiliate him at what should have been the proudest moment of his reign. Beijing was then full of foreign dignitaries who had been invited to the unveiling ceremony of the Forbidden City, the architectural wonder which is still the largest palace in the world. In murdering all witnesses to the scandalous developments in his own harem, Yongle hoped to keep them secret for eternity, but now the tale of treachery and murderous intrigue which unfolded within the blood-red walls of his palace is told in a dramatic BBC documentary. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-563688/Revenge-evil-emperor-Mass-slaughter-Beijings-Forbidden-City.html ______________________________________________________________ On a loosely-related issue, I wonder why what I grew up to understand as the Ching dynasty at some stage morphed into the Qing dynasty. I always, and still do, pronounce it as spelt with the ch pronounced as in cheese. As I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce a word starting in 'Q' without a following 'u', I wonder if others can tell me why the change in spelling from a formerly easily pronounced word into something only leaned scholars can understand! Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted January 21, 2012 Posted January 21, 2012 I wonder why what I grew up to understand as the Ching dynasty at some stage morphed into the Qing dynasty. The reason for the apparent anomaly is partly the same reason why names of quite a number of cities in India and Africa are also changing. 18th and 19th century European colonialists and educators gave English sounding names to certain places which they found difficult to pronounce or interpret. The Bengali name Kolkata became Calcutta when it was the capital of the British Raj until 1911, for example. English uses inflections largely for emphasis, whereas several languages, including Thai, use a tone-based system. In Mandarin Chinese, ‘Bei’ with an upward inflection, and ‘Jing’ with a flat upper tone literally means northern capital – to distinguish it from ‘Nan - Jing’ meaning southern capital. (Throughout the second millennium, the two cities each had the title of Capital at various times) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GE4dkpOdPw The English could not cope with either Chinese pronounciation or spelling, and so converted Bei-jing into a flat-sounding Pe-king. Similarly with Ching and Qing. The ‘Q’ in Mandarin Chinese is essentially the same as our ‘Ch’ sound. So Qing became Ching in textbooks. You may have sometimes had a Tsingdao beer. The north-eastern city where it is still brewed is today written as Qingdao. (The Germans ran that city, which may be one reason why it was written TSingdao rather than CHingdao) ‘X’ is another example. The base of the first Emperor – Qin, pronounced Chin – is the city of Xi’an – pronounced Shi-an, the site of his extraordinary army of terra-cotta warriors. Re your comments about the Forbidden City massacre, I read that Emperor Qin had all those who designed, built and then buried him and his wives in his enormous tomb massacred so that no-one would ever know its location. He was almost right. It was well over two millennia before some farmers stumbled upon it by accident. Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted December 7, 2012 Posted December 7, 2012 I've brought this thread back to the top of the page because new rules are about to come into force at the end of the year to permit 72-hour visa-free entry to Beijing at no cost for those in transit. Thus, if you are travelling to/from Asia on Air China or any other carrier/s, provided you have inward and outward tickets, you can spend up to 72-hours exploring Beijing without the need to apply first and pay for a visa. The regulation applies to 45 countries including the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all EU countries. The full list is here - http://bbs.chinadail...810875-1-1.html This visa-free access limits visitors to the Beijing area and is similar to the 48-hour visa-free entry to Shanghai that has been in operation for some time. Shanghai includes most of the countries listed above, but with a total of only 29. The key part of the regulation is that you can not travel outside either Beijing or Shanghai. How they enforce that, I have no idea, but I am reasonably certain the Beijing access will permit trips outside to such tourist destinations as the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs.The objective, after all, is to promote tourism. I will try and find more information and post it later. Quote
