Hello again folks, well here I am again after my dummyspit on arrival in Beijing. What a culture shock! I have since acclimatised, calmed down and grown wiser to Chinese ways and as a result, I was able to have a moving and memorable experience in Bei Hai park, just outside the walls of the Forbidden City, this morning.
Firstly, I am immensely proud that I was able to negotiate appropriately with a taxi driver when he insisted on going "off the meter" and charging me 10 times the going rate. I made it clear that I knew my RMB from my US dollars, as it were, and promptly set off on foot with only a good sense of direction and a few Chinese phrases to guide me. Amazingly, armed with my umbrella for protection from the sun, a bottle of water, and some Lindt chocolate (Westerner breakfasts in my very Chinese hotel are unpalatable, I'm afraid), I walked to Tiananmen Square, paid tribute to Chairman Mao who is buried there, then strolled around the Forbidden City (not inside, but in and around the environs)and then meandered through various willow-fringed parks.
The Forbidden City is surprisingly small in scale, when one considers what I have already seen, and how everything in China is 'macro' rather than 'micro'. I couldn't help but feel desperately sorry for the Last Emperor Pu Yi (refer Bertolucci's masterpiece THE LAST EMPEROR) who was kept prisoner behind these immense wine-red walls from the age of 3 to the age of 24.
I can only pray that he was occasionally escorted out to a Summer or Winter Palace so that he could partially escape the rigidity of court life, the acres and acres of stone pavers, and the complete lack of natural scenery!Who said being an Emperor was any fun huh???
Firstly, I am immensely proud that I was able to negotiate appropriately with a taxi driver when he insisted on going "off the meter" and charging me 10 times the going rate. I made it clear that I knew my RMB from my US dollars, as it were, and promptly set off on foot with only a good sense of direction and a few Chinese phrases to guide me. Amazingly, armed with my umbrella for protection from the sun, a bottle of water, and some Lindt chocolate (Westerner breakfasts in my very Chinese hotel are unpalatable, I'm afraid), I walked to Tiananmen Square, paid tribute to Chairman Mao who is buried there, then strolled around the Forbidden City (not inside, but in and around the environs)and then meandered through various willow-fringed parks.
The Forbidden City is surprisingly small in scale, when one considers what I have already seen, and how everything in China is 'macro' rather than 'micro'. I couldn't help but feel desperately sorry for the Last Emperor Pu Yi (refer Bertolucci's masterpiece THE LAST EMPEROR) who was kept prisoner behind these immense wine-red walls from the age of 3 to the age of 24.
I can only pray that he was occasionally escorted out to a Summer or Winter Palace so that he could partially escape the rigidity of court life, the acres and acres of stone pavers, and the complete lack of natural scenery!Who said being an Emperor was any fun huh???
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