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Day 17: Beijing: an imperial peek and a race to the past
Cathy We had a full day ahead of us in Beijing. The first stop was the Forbidden City. I found it fascinating because I love the movie The Last Emperor, and weren’t scenes shot right there?
Lissa Uh-huh. In the Imperial Palace.
Cathy Currently parts of it are under renovation, so some of the beauty was marred by the scaffolding. I guess they’re trying to get as much done as possible before the Olympic Games in August. It was still breathtaking and awesomely huge.
As old as it was, it’s been so well preserved. The parts I found interesting were the inner courtyards, where you could see the rooms where the emperor sat on his throne to meet with his ministers and the empress dowager, who would talk to him behind a screen so that the ministers couldn’t see her.
It was just fascinating to see the beds they slept in and the chairs they sat in. You could see how they lived. A lot of things were replicas, but some were original pieces. To be able to see this real-life setting and hear stories about their lives was better than any soap opera!
Lissa Somebody killed off the first lady because actually there was another concubine higher than her, but the first wife did not have a son and this lady did, so to ensure the other lady didn’t have a son, what did she do, she poisoned him, right?
Cathy I don’t know, there were so many stories they started to run together.
Lissa And when the emperor called for one of his concubines, the guide was saying, they wrapped her up in a blanket nude so she could not have any weapons.
Cathy Well I don’t know if we need to get into that! Anyway, the Forbidden City was exquisite. From there we went to Tiananmen Square. That was just a really quick stop and we were mobbed by vendors selling souvenirs.
It was so funny, my mom bought my dad this Russian hat, and he put it on and all these people walking by started taking pictures of him. They thought he was a Russian dignitary!
We followed that with something all the kids were looking forward to, and that was a rickshaw ride through the hutongs. We got off the bus and there were rows and rows of rickshaws. Darrell, Nicki and I automatically ran to the strongest-looking driver.
We started racing with other rickshaws and telling our driver to go faster! And Kara was giving her guy a tip to beat my parents’ rickshaw! And the whole time our guy was pedaling he would wipe his brow and say, hard work! Supposed to only be two people! I was like, give us a break, we’re not big and she’s tiny. Nicki whispered, you have to give him money, he’s working really hard!
Lissa My guy told us we were light! I’m kidding. It was fun.
Cathy We visited this woman who had lived in her home for 40 years.
Lissa And she opens it up to tourists, that’s the amazing thing. She was welcoming and friendly.
Cathy She had electricity and running water in a small kitchen sink, but what was interesting was that she had no bathroom. The family had to go to a public restroom to use the bathroom and take showers.
Lissa She had a computer and refrigerator, though!
Cathy The house was really quaint and it had original ceramic tiles on the roof. It was your typical Chinese quadrangle, with potted plants in an inner courtyard that was quiet. She had a lot of companions, like turtles, a chipmunk or squirrel—these were her little creatures to love because her children are grown and have left. She was a sweet woman.
Lissa She was so animated. She enjoyed people asking questions about her life. She was like, come on into my house! And how many of us were there? Like 30 people piled into her living room. And she had a bird that was saying hello!
Cathy My mom being there, she said it brought back so many memories of growing up back in Korea. She said a home like this would have been considered wealthy in her neighborhood in Seoul.
Lissa There were a lot of things that took her back on this trip.
Cathy That was a cool experience.
