It was a freezing day as I walked across the biggest public square in the world towards the big portrait of Chairman Mao on the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The North Wind in my face nearly blew my resolve and sent me scampering for a warm coffee shop but I huddled into my coat and continued. As I crossed the moat and walked through the tunnel below the vast gatehouse I thought of all those who could never have dared make this trip. Any attempt to enter the Forbidden City would have cost them their lives.
Jing Shan, the artificial hill sitting behind the Imperial Palace, failed in its purpose to ease the extremes of temperature that forever assailed the residents of the sacred precinct and I fought nipping in the ears and numbness in the hands as I sought to understand and appreciate the subtly planned beauties of my surroundings. It was good to be away for a while from the clamour of vendors that follows one through too many Chinese marvels. The government has wisely chosen to maintain the dignity of the world’s biggest and most opulent royal residence and forbid all but the most discreet merchants from operating within, and even the chosen must tout their wares in a quiet way. But watch out for girls or pairs of girls. They might quietly invite you to their college’s nearby art exhibition. Buy if you want but don’t go checking to see where your ‘contributions’ to student scholarships went to.
The home of twenty-four Emperors of China is exquisite. Every decoration, every tint, every object, every sculpture, has a purpose to serve in a complex intellectual unity that only scholars now understand, but the beauty and harmony is accessible to all. A sunbrella here, a scratched yellow wooden chair there, stand out amusingly as being ridiculously out of place but workers are workers the world over. Though you would never have guessed the amazing incongruity I spotted as I was about to drop onto a bench from tiredness.
Gu Gong, the Palace Museum, another name for the place, is big, very big. It takes a lot of walking and a lot of energy in a cold wind to see it all. Coincidentally, or not, just as you begin to flag and think wearily of that coffee shop you didn’t run to from Tiananmen Square, a miracle appears. Or is it a temptation spawned by the devil to turn you from the divine words in your Bible of Political Correctness? STARBUCKS!!! At one end of a discreetly located tourist shop in the middle of the Emperor’s Palace. I must confess that I yielded and was glad to participate in this travesty. My soul was further embroiled in the doom of acceptance and even gratefulness for the abomination when a customer rose to leave and I appropriated the fleshly delight of one of the ten chairs. I wonder who would frown more severely on this encroachment, the Last Emperor or Chairman Mao? Someone could check if the maintenance costs on the cadaver in the glass box at the other end of Tiananmen Square have increased since the opening of Starbucks’ Forbidden City branch. How much is it costing to remove the scuff marks made by the Chairman’s revolution in his grave. China is full of anomalies and the Imperial Palace is almost free of them. I am torn within at my easy acceptance of the one that was permitted.
Modern China is as it is and was waiting for me outside. As I left through Tian an men gate again I was approached by two pleasant girls who were delighted to make my acquaintance. They invited me to walk with them through the old district of Dashilar and I was glad of the company. We looked around at the old establishments for a while. One was a Chinese pharmacy which catered for the very rich. A large and old ren shen (ginseng) root was for sale at a million yuan! In a country where an employee with an engineering degree can be paid two to four thousand yuan a month! After this one of the girls asked me if I had seen a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. I had not, and agreed to go in to a tea house which had stood in the same spot for at least a couple of centuries and survived the twentieth century’s revolutions and war. A pretty waitress described the qualities and history of an assortment of special teas and we sampled four of them in tiny cups. It was a pretty procedure, but casual compared to the art form the Japanese have made of it. When we had had enough we were invited to buy tea but I declined. The teas in this shop were definitely like expensive wine compared to the varieties I buy from tea shops around China but they were very much dearer too. After the sales pitch we were presented with a bill and the bill was over a thousand yuan, highway robbery in China! Of course I was obliged to pay and luckily I had enough cash. I made a big fuss about not being told the charges before the ceremony. Ok, so I’m daft for not checking. Days later I was browsing the net and learned this is a common scam and the two girls most likely set me up very professionally. Another Australian told me, a year later, that he was taken the same way, for three thousand. That’s six hundred Aussie dollars! It’s a shame because it makes one wary. It is a common and lovely experience for a foreigner to be approached by young men and women in China who genuinely want to have the experience of meeting a ‘laowai’ (respected foreign person) for no motive worse than improving their English. I would hate to lose the innocent pleasure of this superb part of the Chinese experience because I have been burnt by two Beijing-trained vultures. I was better off in Starbucks.