Beijing Morning After Night Train from Shanghai

Welcome to China. Now Get on Your Bike!

Crossing the street in China is like playing Frogger.

Tibetan Lama Temple

The transition from Marxism to a planned market-based economy opened up a hole for faith. There is a growing number of Christians in China, but Buddhism remains an important aspect of Chinese faith. With the materialism of the hyper-commercialism that has come with China’s rise to success, a return to spiritual roots has come as a way to escape the money worship. We were just a handful of Westerners visiting the temples. The rest were Chinese coming to light incense, spin prayer wheels and perform genuflections in front of the massive Buddha statues, one of which stood more than 80 feet tall, supposedly made from one gigantic sandalwood tree. Tibetan monks recited prayers from scrolls and Tibetan women paid homage in their colorful braids looking a lot like the Quechua and Aymara cholas of the Peruvian and Bolivian altiplano.

Confucian Temple

The Confucian and Lama temples are quiet escapes, repose from the absurd masses of people in the Beijing streets and subways. We popped out of a rush hour subway trip from the train station in the Lama temple with our suitcases and were blown away by its spiritual activity. Then a man on the street pointed us in the direction of the Confusion temple, which we later discovered was Confucian.

Guozijian Street

Nestled between the Confucian and the Lama temples, this little street had so much life and character that it was hard to capture with my camera.

Land Rockets

Napoleon: Let China sleep, for when she wakes up she will shake the world.

Mao Idolatry

The image of Mao will always be associated with toilets for me. After taking this photo of Mao by Tiananmen Square, I started reading The Great Shatsby and had to run to find the nearest squat toilet and I missed my target leaving a peanut butter smoothie all over the bathroom floor.

It must be said that Mao had a great vision for China, which in many ways has lived up to his vision. It just achieved its greatness through means very different than those that Mao would have preferred. Deng Xiaoping’s embrace of a more market-based economy and his Open Door Policy of 1979 basically lifted somewhere between 250 and 300 million people out of poverty, which is a lot to be said.

“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history” Mao 1945

Tiananmen Square

The site of the June 4th incident aka the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in which the Chinese government assassinated hundreds, if not more, pro-democracy advocates, this is the largest public square on the planet. Traffic is stopped every day at dawn and dusk so that some soldiers can goose-step in to raise and bring down the Chinese flag.

Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is not so forbidden after all. It’s encouraging to see the multitude of internal Chinese tourists. They have much to be proud of.

Forbidden City Gardens

Hall of Clocks

The Hall of Clocks is full of clocks that were gifts to the Emperors of China. Mostly from England and France and the odd one from China, they are works of art more than timepieces.

Street Musicians

Doors

Courtyard 7 Hotel

Located in one of Beijing’s hutongs (alleyways), this hotel was more like a concubine’s palace than accommodation for weary wanderers like us.

Temple of Heaven Park

Subway Dog

Drum and Bell

The Bell Tower and the Drum Tower loom over Beijing’s hutongs as timepieces that marked the events of the day.