The night we arrive in Beijing, the city is downcast and it rains the whole evening. Arjun and I spend the early evening reflecting on our travels and ambling around the courtyard of our international hostel. These international hostels are melting pots, little island universes of Kiwi, English, German, French, Danish, American people. At one level it feels great to able to connect and converse with these intrepid travellers as much of China is impenetrable due to the language barriers. On the other hand these 'western' travellers are a little distanced from the place and their experiences only skim the top layer of the landscape as they try to recreate their ‘homes’ in foreign spaces. That said, we make two good friends here. One is a Kiwi called Morgan who plays in a band called Anbaric (derives from the word anbar/an electric substance described in one Philip Pullman novel) and the other is a girl called Ellise who is on her way to work on adolescent issues in Ulaanbaatar!
As we drive through Beijing, the city reminds me of some bastard offspring between LA and DC. Three words come to my mind as I think about Beijing: monolithic, grey, sprawl. Lots of identical buildings and uninspiring communist architecture.
Our first night in Beijing is spent at the opera house. Arjun and I try to make sense of what is going on. We see a women dressed up in an elaborate costume singing to a man dressed up in an equally elaborate and absurd headgear, in a high pitched nasal voice. After the first twenty minutes, we decide to order a jug of rice wine. Seven glasses later, the opera becomes bearable! We learn that there are over 300 types of opera in China, that most opera is composed of four central characters (the man, the women, the clown and the painted face) and that the one we are watching is set in the Han Dynasty. I try to draw parallels between Kathakali and Beijing opera but give up quickly and consume more rice wine!
On the first day here we walk around Tiananmen Square and visit the Forbidden city. Tiananmen square is huge, kites dot the sky and Chinese military men march up and down comically. There is an underlying tension in and around Tiananmen’s environs; a sense of being watched closely. As the kites dance above me, I close my eyes and try to walk back in time to 1948 when Mao proclaimed the existence of the People’s Republic of China at the Square and to the sad events of 1989. The air is definitely charged with history. We walk through the Square and eventually find ourselves at the gate of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is grandiose. I have visited seats of power in Rome, India, Turkey etc. but this place is on another order of magnitude and scale. So strange to think that the place was walled off for over 500 years.
After walking around for hours here, marveling at Ming and Qing architectural structures we walk to Jingshan Park. This was Beijing's highest physical point during the Ming dynasty. The park is green, lush and offers spectacular views of the city. We find a quiet corner and lose ourselves in our reading. I am reading Marco Polo's travels and am disappointed that the book reads more like a merchant’s diary than a colorful historical narrative about the world in the 13 th century. On our way back we see a locust tree where the last of the Ming emperors hung himself as rebels swarmed the city walls. I am struck by a feeling of historical irrelevance, a sudden insight into the insignificance of the self. I become acutely aware of my own cosmic and historical smallness in relation to dynasties that have risen and fallen. The late evening is spent at a bookstore on a street called Wangshu Fujian. We lose ourselves again in the known and familiar confines of a bookstore as the sun sets on the imperial capital.
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