all data refer to year 1995
|
| Off the beaten track |
| China Beijing - The Capital City all data refer to year 1995 |
Beijing dialect - putonghua - is spoken;
and places such as Tibet and Ürümqi are forced to refer to the central
government on all matters.
Peopled some 500,000 years ago, the area that makes up today's Beijing sprouted
a frontier trading town for the Mongols, Koreans and tribes from Shandong and
central China around 1000 BC. Burnt to the ground by Genghis Khan in 1215 AD,
the resurrected city was passed on to Kublai Khan (Genghis's grandson) as Dadu,
or Great Capital. The mercenary Zhu Yanhang led an uprising in 1368, taking
over the city and ushering in the Ming Dynasty. The city was renamed Beiping
(Northern Peace) and for the next 35 years the capital was shifted to Nanjing.
When it was shunted back again, Beiping became Beijing (Northern Capital) and
up went such foreboding structures as the Forbidden City.
Under the Manchu invaders, who established the Qing Dynasty in the 17th century,
Beijing was thoroughly renovated and expanded. From the beginning, however, it
was obvious that any city proclaimed China's heart was to endure a tumultuous
existence. While invaders have dwindled since the days when Anglo-French troops
were razing the Old Summer Palace or the Japanese army was in occupation in the
1930s, internal power struggles will always dog this fiery nation's capital.
With Mao Zedong's proclamation of a `People's Republic' in Tiananmen Square in
1949, the Communists stripped back the face of Beijing. Down came the commemorative
arches, along with several outer walls, in the interests of solemnity and traffic
circulation. Soviet town-planning know-how was employed at the time, which explains
the Stalinesque features of many prominent buildings and landmarks.
Beijing's darkest modern moment came in 1989 when a massive pro-democracy student
protest in Tiananmen Square was brutally, bloodily crushed by Deng XiaoPing's
government forces. That such an atrocity could happen while capitalist-style reforms
flooded the city with shopping malls and foreign money typifies Beijing - a moody
city of contrasts and contradictions.
The city's most famous gem is the Forbidden City, the largest and best preserved
cluster of ancient buildings in China. Off limits for 500 years, the complex was
home to the Ming and Qing dynasties. Its basic layout emerged in the early 1400s
and it was from here that successive emperors ruled China. Burnt to the ground
several times, the palace has been restored and restocked with treasures (old,
newly discovered and fake) from all over the country. On the city's outskirts,
the Summer Palace is one of Beijing's finest sights, and includes an immense
park and Kunming Lake, which is spanned by a 17-arch bridge. Forever
sullied, Tiananmen Square lies at the heart of Beijing, and is a vast
desert of pavestones and photo booths. Nearby Tiananmen Gate is a national
symbol, having been a place of proclamation since imperial days.
At Mao's Mausoleum you can purchase some Mao memorabilia and catch a glimpse
of the man himself (when his mortuary make-up isn't being refreshed). Tiantan
Park's Temple of Heaven is Ming architecture at its most perfect, and has
come to symbolise Beijing. The charred remains of the Old Summer Palace
are set in immense grounds - a great place to picnic and soak up some peace and
quiet after you've legged it through the Chinese Revolution History Museum
and the Military Museum. The Great Wall passes within 70km of Beijing
at Badaling. Increased tourism has turned the sight into a bit of a circus, with
a cable car, a film amphitheatre, tacky t-shirts and camel rides on offer. Mutianyu,
90km from Beijing, is a slightly less crowded vista.
While the tourist masses tend to head for Badaling to grope the Great Wall of
China, there are more challenging stretches of this historical and architectural
marvel within an easy day-trip from Beijing proper. One of the least developed
(for now) is Simatai Great Wall, and it's not for the faint-hearted. The
19km section is very steep, with a few slopes built at a 70-degree incline but it's
worth it to see the Wall au naturel, in contrast to the heavily-touristed
Badaling and Mutianyu sections, which are so well restored they could have been built
yesterday.
The Ancient Observatory
is mounted on the battlements of a watchtower which
was once part of the city walls. This observatory, just east of central Zhongshan Park,
gives an interesting perspective on Beijing. Today it's dwarfed by embassy housing blocks
in a wilderness of traffic loops and highways but the sky-gazing dates back to Kublai
Khan's days, when it was north of the present site. It was here that the Great Khan,
as well as later Ming and Qing emperors, consulted the stars before making any major
decisions.
The Underground City
is dated back to the late 1960s. With a Soviet invasion
looming, Beijing's citizens started to go underground. The shadow-city which resulted was
constructed by volunteers and shop assistants living in the Qianmen (Front Gate) area south
of Tiananmen Square. About 2000 people with simple tools and 10 years of spare-time work
created this subterranean network which has now been put to use as an unofficial tourist
attraction and site for everything from warehouses to hotels, restaurants and even a
roller-skating ring. There are roughly 90 entrances to the complex, all of which are hidden
in shops along Qianmen's main streets. A fluorescent wall map reveals the routing
of the entire tunnel system.
Accommodation is expensive in Beijing, but some bottom-end accommodation can be scrounged near the city centre. By Beijing's pricey standards, a hotel with rooms for less than US$100 a night is considered `mid-range'. There are still plenty of back-alley cafes offering bargain (but nameless) dishes; parklands and night markets are also good places to try anonymous meats.
Some daily costs in US Dollars (Beijing and all around China):