Beijing: The Usual Suspects

Among the experiences we’d promised ourselves in Beijing was a duck dinner. Since our guidebook suggested Quanjude Roast Duck as the place for this delicacy, we took ourselves off to the restaurant one evening. Quanjude has several outlets in Beijing, but the one closest to where we were was the Hepingmen branch.

We arrived at the massive restaurant just around 6pm, arriving at the Hepingmen subway station (exit C from the station is labeled `Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant). The restaurant’s right behind the station, a sprawling edifice that spreads over four stories and seats 2,000. They say the location of the Hepingmen Quanjude was picked by Zhou Enlai; the list of patrons runs the gamut from Zhou Enlai himself to Henry Kissinger. Quanjude, by the way, has been around since 1864: long enough to know what they’re about.

The ground floor waiting area was crammed with waiting guests when we arrived, and four hostesses were trying to maintain some semblance of order. We were told we’d need to wait about fifteen minutes, and at the end of that time were directed to the fourth floor, where a table had just got free. We were escorted past a show kitchen with crispy golden-brown ducks on display, and into a large dining area crowded with tables. The hall was clean, but with the somewhat tacky decor one associates with budget banquet halls in countries like India: plaster scrolls along the windows, an abundance of red and yellow upholstery, not much aesthetic sense used. But we were here for Beijing kaoya – Peking duck – so the decor was really rather incidental.

We were swiftly seated and handed our menus (fortunately bilingual). A soft-spoken and sweet waitress, who understood basic English, soon came over to take our order. Duck, of course (though the menu offers much more); jasmine tea; a refreshing and cool kiwifruit juice for me, and a light Yanjing beer for Tarun.

About fifteen minutes later, our duck was wheeled in on a trolley, and the chef expertly carved it up even as our waitress placed a bamboo steamer full of pancakes on our table, along with bowls of spring onions and plum sauce. When the duck, neatly sliced, was served, she showed me how to 'do’ a pancake: pick up a piece of duck, dip it in the sauce and use it to liberally brush sauce across a pancake. Pile pieces of duck and spring onion onto the pancake, roll it up, and – heaven! It was very basic and delicious. The duck was crisp, gloriously juicy (though obviously oozing with calories!), and was perfectly complemented by the sweet-sour flavour of the sauce and the crisp pungency of the spring onions. The pieces of skin, thick and crisp, were pure melt-in-the-mouth. The only disappointment was the soup: it was a weak, insipid broth that we left after a couple of sips.

Overall, though, it is very enjoyable despite the fact that it’s pretty touristy. The 302 RMB bill was well worth it, in our opinion.

The Great Wall of China needs no introduction, but anyway: it stretches 6,700 km from the Yellow Sea to the Gobi Desert. It was originally constructed (the first sections built around the 7th-6th century BC) as independent walls between different states; later, it was consolidated to repel Mongol invaders. The last bit of construction happened between the 14th and 17th centuries A. D.

The section closest to Beijing is Badaling, approximately 70km away. There are other sections too, most notably at Simatai and Mutianyu, but they’re farther out, Simatai being 3 hours one way. I’d been warned that Badaling was commercial, crowded, and not authentic (it was reconstructed in the 20th century, so what you see is modern). Mutianyu, we decided; but we missed the last bus to Mutianyu simply because our guide book had the timings wrong. We couldn’t think of not seeing the Wall – and we were down to the last day of our trip – so Badaling it was.

We bought tour bus tickets (90 RMB per person, including return fare and entry) at the Beijing Sightseeing Tour Center at Qianmen, and got into one of the buses that leave every ten minutes for Badaling. Our tour guide was an efficient girl who quickly began her spiel – unfortunately only in Chinese. Thankfully, she knew enough English to be able to give us vital information: where to find the bus once we’d finished with the wall; what time to get back; and so on.

An hour or so later, we were in Badaling. It was as bad as everybody said it would be: shops, tour buses by the score, food courts, a huge Beijing Olympics 2008 sign across a hill. The worst part is that you can’t avoid it; the route up to the wall is lined all the way with commercial establishments. We refused offers of Chinese fans, fake jade, I climbed the Great Wall T-shirts and much more before finally making it to the Wall.

The Wall’s a combination of steps and ramps, grey stone and steep in places. Climbing isn’t much of a problem unless you’re woefully out of shape, but the descent can be dangerous. What bewildered me was the number of stiletto-wearing women who were gamely climbing up – and down. How do they manage it?

Fending off hawkers (they’re up there on the Wall, selling souvenirs, mineral water, even ices), we toiled up far enough to shake off most of the crowds. Some appreciative admiring of the view – the Wall is impressive – and then we edged our way down, holding on to the rusty railing along the parapets, stopping for a break at a watchtower. We were down at the bus parking with an hour to spare, which we (in classic touristy style) spent buying cheap trinkets as souvenirs.

Verdict: attempt the Wall at Badaling only if you have no choice. It’s the Great Wall of China, yes; but there’s a superficial and irritatingly commercial feel to it that’s hard to get rid of.

Tiananmen –Gate of Heavenly Peace – is an inappropriate name for such a blood-soaked area. When I was drawing up our Beijing itinerary, I thought: not Tiananmen. Memories of the cold-blooded way in which protestors were massacred in 1989 were still vivid enough to make me regard Tiananmen with dread.

Despite a resolve to not go to Tiananmen, we ended up visiting this vast central square – simply because it’s the heart of Beijing. In a city swamped by symbols of private enterprise, the forbidding expanse of Tiananmen Square, hemmed in by blocky Maoist monuments, is a very visible emblem of Communist rule. But private enterprise, from kite sellers and hawkers to McDonald’s, is alive and kicking all along the fringes of the square. Tourist buses bound for Badaling begin from the corner of Tiananmen, and crowds visiting the Forbidden City approach through the Tiananmen Gate. So we went to Tiananmen too, and walked from one end to the other.

The facts about it are pretty basic. One of the world’s largest city squares, Tiananmen spreads across 440,000 square metres and was laid out in 1417, during the Ming period. It was renovated in 1699, when it acquired its present form.

We began at the south end of Tiananmen. This end’s dominated by two gates of grey stone, decorated with glazed tile eaves and paintwork. The Qianmen Gate and the Zhengyanmen Gate are imposing, and even in the blazing afternoon sun, two soldiers stood ramrod straight and unblinking in the middle of the broad stretch that separates Zhengyanmen from the Mao Memorial. The only time I saw them relax was when a peon with a squat aluminium kettle brought them some tea.

The Mao Memorial, the leader’s mausoleum, occupies a large portion of Tiananmen. After Mao’s death in 1976, his body was embalmed and placed in a subzero vault at the mausoleum. The body’s mechanically raised for public viewing every morning. When we visited, the Memorial was closed for renovations, so we spent some time looking at the group statues outside – depicting the Long March – and then moved on.

North of the Memorial stands a square-sided stone pillar, the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Chinese characters in dull brass march down one side, and lotuses bloom in flowerpots round the base. In the backdrop, stretching from north to south down either side of Tiananmen Square, are staunchly Communist buildings: the Great Hall of the People on the left, and on the right, the National Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution. Both museums were closed for renovation, so, somewhat disappointed, we walked on to the northern end of Tiananmen Square. The red gate here – a familiar sight in photographs of Beijing and the Forbidden City – is the Tiananmen Gate. Large Chinese characters are emblazoned across the facade, and the centre holds a picture of Mao. A long way beyond lies the Forbidden City.

Final analysis? Not beautiful; somewhat unsettling; but worth a visit, if only for its history.

Gugong – the Forbidden City – was at the top of our list of must-sees in Beijing. Unfortunately, it seemed (though I must admit, with justification) to top everybody else’s list as well. We arrived at Wu men, the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, at about 10 in the morning, to find long queues snaking their way across the courtyard from the ticket windows. Working our way to the front, battling beggars, guides, and sellers of pamphlets, ice lollies and mineral water, we finally bought our tickets (a steep 60 RMB per person) and followed the crowds through the main gate.

The Forbidden City was once taboo for outsiders; the imperial household led luxurious and often unbelievably ostentatious lives within the secluded halls of this vast palace complex. Built in the centre of Beijing during the early years of the 15th century (specifically, from 1406 to 1420), the Forbidden City was occupied over a period of 500 years by 24 emperors. It sprawls in a series of gardens, splendidly decorated halls and pavilions, and vast courtyards, across 720,000 square metres. The Forbidden City, according to a plaque we saw, originally consisted of 9,999 and a half (?!) rooms. Today, it’s down to about 8,000 rooms, but they’re all quite breathtaking. Curving eaves are covered with glazed tile, almost throughout in imperial yellow. Stone, wherever used, is carved in auspicious shapes – dragons, phoenixes, and clouds – and colourful floral patterns are painted onto wood just about everywhere, including the ceilings. Interestingly, all across the Forbidden City, you’ll see huge metal cauldrons or vats. There are 308 of these, made of either copper or iron. Water was stored in the vats for fire fighting (remember that most halls are wooden), and the vats were wrapped in quilts during the winter to keep the water from freezing. When it got too cold, fires used to be lit under the vats – which may, I felt, have been a fire hazard itself. Anyway, an interesting bit of trivia is that you can tell which vat was made by which dynasty simply by looking at the handles on the sides. Ming vats have plain ring-shaped handles, while Qing vats had ornate handles shaped like animal heads.

We walked through the first gate, the wide stone staircase beyond milling with tourists, as was the courtyard below. Having crossed one of the five-stone bridges that span the Golden River (a broadish stream, really), we turned to the buildings on our left, and continued along that way.

A brief word of orientation before I proceed. The Forbidden City is built on a north-south axis, with courtyards all down the centre, punctuated by huge halls that stand at right angles to the central north-south axis. On either side of the central courtyards, to left and right, are more halls, smaller courtyards, gardens, and more. Many of these are still out of bounds for visitors. Since we ended up spending over five hours within the Forbidden City and still couldn’t see it all, I guess this didn’t really make much of a difference to us. We’d not have had time to see them in any case.

Beyond the Inner Golden River Bridges stands the Taihe men (The Gate of Supreme Harmony); on the left of this huge hall and the courtyard beyond are a series of pavilions with exhibitions related to imperial China. The first we saw was Weapons and Armors of the Qing Dynasty, a collection of helmets, uniforms, swords, guns, powder horns, cannon and the like, mostly pretty dusty and poorly labelled. The next exhibition – Qing Dynasty Imperial Music – was housed in the Hongyi gye (Pavilion of Spreading Righteousness), and consisted of outsize musical instruments used in religious and imperial ceremonies. The display here was as dusty, dull, and uninspiring as in the previous pavilion, but beyond this, things started to look up a bit.

Beyond the Taihe men, we crossed a vast courtyard, which is supposed to hold 100,000 peopl

The trip out to Yiheyuan – the Summer Palace – is an expedition in itself: Line 1 of the subway till Xizhimen; transfer to Line 13 till Wudaokou; then a ten-minute trip by taxi to the Summer Palace. We did the trip on a Saturday, and discovered that most of Beijing seemed to be picnicking at Yiheyuan the same day. Just our luck, we thought – but decided bravely to toil on.

The Summer Palace has an interesting history. Built across an area of 290 hectares along Lake Kunming, the Summer Palace was originally called the Garden of Clear Ripples and was built by Emperor Qianlong in 1750 to celebrate his mother’s birthday. In 1860 French forces burnt it down; 26 years later the Dowager Empress Cixi used naval funds to resurrect it. She spent quite a bit of time at the Summer Palace, including occasions when she would organise theatrical performances herself playing the part of the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin.

Having bought our entry tickets (a steep 60 RMB apiece, including entry to major attractions like the hilltop Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha, the Wenchang Gallery, and Suzhou Street). For another 10 RMB, we got a very pleasing painted map of the Summer Palace. Map in hand, we set off on our tour, beginning at the East Palace Gate – and immediately started having doubts: the place was very crowded. The Summer Palace, as we realised over the next couple of hours, is very pretty indeed: elegantly painted and carved pavilions and palaces, quaint moon doors and elegant bridges, lotuses blooming on Lake Kunming, cool pines and lush green grass, wild strawberries, crickets thrumming all around – and so many people, it isn’t funny. There were picnics by the score around us, people chatting, toddlers shrieking, entire families bingeing on steamed corn, buns, noodles, sausages and whatnot. Finding a place to stop and admire the view (what one could see of it, through the crowds) was a task in itself.

We finally managed to elbow our way through the crowds, to obtain a peek through the windows of the Hall of Jade Ripples, which contains furniture, pottery and other fairly dusty household items that once belonged to the imperial family. Further on, we looked in on the impressive Hall of Benevolence and Longevity, which was the main governmental building in the complex; that done, we moved on to the picturesquely-named Heralding Spring Pavilion, by Lake Kunming. This pavilion was one of the highlights of our trip, not just because it offers a great view of the Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha, but also because the lotuses blooming along the shores of the lake are just perfect.

Past the Heralding Spring Pavilion, we swung back into action, battling the mob as we walked along the Long Corridor. With some 14,000-odd paintings decorating its ceiling and pillars, the 728m long corridor snakes its way around the edge of Lake Kunming, and it is supposedly the longest painted gallery in the world. I only wish we’d been able to enjoy it more; as it was, we soon ended up vaulting over the low parapet on either side of the corridor, so that we could escape the crowds crammed into the corridor. Having made a few forays into nearby gardens and pavilions (including the enticing Hall for Listening to Orioles), we finally came to the conclusion that the Summer Palace needs rethinking. It’s beautiful, it’s historic – there’s no denying all of that – but it’s just gone too commercial. All of the pavilions and palaces other than the first few have been converted into souvenir shops, eateries or toilets; the ones that haven’t been converted have simply been locked up. And the crowds are loud, pushy and so all over the place that even we, Indians used to crowds, felt claustrophobic.

We eventually made it to one of the star attractions of the Summer Palace, the Marble Boat. Made of white marble, decorated sparsely but pleasingly with carvings and paint, the Marble Boat is 'moored’ just on the edge of Lake Kunming, and looks all ready to sail any minute. Very nice, but I couldn’t help giggling over the fact that Cixi made the Marble Boat with funds purloined from the navy!

Beyond the Marble Boat, we chose our path carefully to go along the least crowded parts of the Summer Palace. Crossing the Bridge of the Banana Plant, we moved on below the impressive (and impressively named!) Gate Tower of Cloud-Retaining Eaves, and then doubled back to try out another route. This time we went across the zigzag Jiuqi Bridge, past the painted Boathouses, and down to a cluster of elegant buildings: the Heart-Purifying Pavilion, the Pavilion for Enjoying the Rising Sun, and the Wusheng Temple.

By this time, we were pretty fed up of the crowds – which seemed to have increased – so decided to call it quits. We retraced our steps all the way to the Gate Tower of Cloud-Retaining Eaves, from where we turned right and took a path over cool green wooded hillocks, down to Suzhou Street. Suzhou Street spreads out in a series of souvenir shops and restaurants, along the sides of a narrow canal. It’s kitschy, with shopkeepers wearing faux Qing costumes and nervous tourists trying to stay close to the inside edge of the narrow path that separates the shops from the still green waters of the canal.

We managed to summon up the energy to do only one half circuit of Suzhou Street. The other half, we guessed, would probably be much the same as the first was, and since we weren’t really interested in doing any shopping, we decided we’d finished with Suzhou Street and the Summer Palace. We hadn’t been able to see some of the main sights of Yiheyuan – like the Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha, the Portrait of Cixi, and the Bronze Ox – but I think we can live without that. Or maybe we can tackle them some other time, some other day, when the Summer Palace isn’t quite so hot or crowded.