But only just; I'm going home tomorrow. Am I ready? Ask me next week!
I crave spinach and simply cooked salmon, and wholegrain rice, and perfectly boiled eggs,
and chocolates that Their Excellencies wouldn't dream of Spoiling Anyone with, but rather keep for Themselves.
But, on the other hand, you see, I'm spending the last few days on my own in a traditional courtyard hotel, where it's quiet (no drilling, no huge holes in the ground ...) and the staff treat me like a long-lost favourite granny. They speak English and love to try it out as often as possible. I've walked up and down the hutong outside (narrow lane bordered by ancient walls and houses, shops, restaurants) where the residents smile and nod. The renovation work going on means a ton of rubble heaped against a wall, and a bit of half-hearted banging, but mostly its bustling at its slowest. It's dusty, and the trees choke on it, leaning limply against their bit of wall. They have to contend with the scooters, mopeds, bikes and trailers, rickshaws, cars, vans, big and small, police cars (the station is 30 yds from the hotel), but my room is tucked away in the corner of a back courtyard. I can sit at a table with my coffee when it's sunny, or relax in the cosy room watching Chinese opera on tv with the volume down! I'm hooked after a month! I can't listen to it for very long, but I can't stop watching the intricate movements and body language; every one is meaningful, if I knew what it meant. I particularly like the male lead, usually wearing a false beard so you can't see his mouth, with his eyebrows painted into a fierce arc, making him look like an angry wasp. When he's wearing the most imposing headdress, with silver wobbling baubles that tremble with every warble, just the tiniest twitch of his head sends two impossibly long peacock feathers jutting from the top into writhing, flicking whips, and then he stands on one leg! Oh magic! And there are other masterpieces of drama -- the army serial which has captains and generals as the main characters, being challenged to make the right decision in Difficult Circumstances and, after gazing manfully into the distance, usually burst into tears in the process, and there's one beautiful young woman in it, who spends her time being quiet and looking wistful, her eyes lumimous with Unrequited Love underneath the lumpy army cap she's wearing. And this being the 60th anniversary of Mao's "reign" there's a docu-drama being shown daily about his life. He was a handsome chap when he was young, wasn't he, and obviously a great wit, for every time he makes a Pronouncement to his young colleagues they all slap their thighs and say "Ha ha ha" in manly tones.
Have I got any work done since I've been here in Beijing? Well, yes, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I was made welcome at the British Embassy and shown round the Consulate's green and lovely garden which has garden statues and stone pots and things brought from the old British Legation when they relocated in 1950. And there was a large iron bell hanging from a Chinese red and green wooden frame. I swear the holes in it were bullet holes, and the bell was clearly very old ... could it be the bell which was rung in its own small belltower as a warning of imminent danger such as fire, or fire-power about to be unleashed from across the Legation wall in 1900? I think so.
My grandparents lived through the siege that summer, with Granny's world shrinking suddenly to one bedroom when their only son, Murray, was terribly ill with scarlet fever and diptheria. The worst night was during a storm, with the rain lashing down and thunder and lightning adding to the sound of rifle-fire, shouting and the clash of steel weapons. Murray lay asleep in his cot and had just turned tail, with his feet where his head should be, when a bullet smashed the window, cut through 2 layers of curtain and fell, spent, at Granny's feet, just inches from where Murray's head should have been. She pulled her mattress from her bed, shoved it into the window and stood all night holding it in place.
The siege lasted for 55 days and there was no good food to help Murray recover. He died six days after the relief and Granny describes in a letter home how his little coffin was wrapped in the Union Jack, and laid to rest between 2 of his favourite people, Capt Strouts, and a young student interpreter, Henry Warren. So bravely did Murray fight for his life she called him Little Soldier.
I was shown a memorial corner of the garden, and the first plaque I looked at was from the old Legation. It was a memorial to those who'd died in the siege. There was Capt Strouts' at the top and there was Henry Warren. And near the bottom: Also of Murray Ker, aged one year and ten months who died six days after the siege. Son of W P Ker Assistant Chinese Secretary HBM Legation.
I'd found little Murray at last.
I was introduced to our Ambassador who showed me some old photographs of the legation; could I identify any of them? A couple I was sure of and another couple I was nearly sure of, so now I'll go home and check. He told me that there was an effort being made to build up their historical archive which has been lost, one way or another, over the years. So I gave them a start; the photo of Murray I was carrying and 2 photos of my grandparents standing alongside Pu Yi. I think they'd like that idea, being the start of a new archive. I was invited to attend the Remembrance Day service tomorrow, but I'll be in the departure lounge again, sipping endless cups of lemon tea ...
PS The Summer Palace was fogbound yesterday, and so was the Forbidden City today, though the sun struggled into view for a little while and I took lots of photos. It's difficult to show the size and power of those buildings. And the red of the walls looks wrong in photos. It's somewhere between a darkish rose pink and brick red. It's not apricot, and its not peach, or pomegranate, or water melon. I love the roofs and the decorations under the eaves best, and the patterns in the stone pathway leading to the outer halls. I started at the back of the place and am glad I did because I wandered on my own (well, give or take a few hundred others) along the alleyways leading to the living quarters. I took photos of neglected corners and corridors because you can almost feel the presence of all those people running around.
My favourite opera character is on. Sorry, but you know how it is ...
Monday 9 November 2009
Monday 2 November 2009
Sophia's Mum has a Premonition
Off we went to Beidehe (28th Oct) in hot foggy weather. No wonder they dreamed up steamed dumplings in this country; that's what my skin is beginning to resemble.
We travelled light, just for a couple of nights, and I was wearing a chunky long cardigan over a thin top and had a woolly thing in my bag. Sophia's mother had insisted it would be cold so I'd added my scarf and vest.
More blasts of horrible music on the train, which my iPod lost its battle with (try listening to Bach's concertos for 3 and 4 pianos with Chinese Kylie Minogue-a-like. Go on, just try!), so I arrived hungry (this is my permanent state now, and am more or less Imodium-free) and not a little taxed.
A colleague of Sophia's father's picked us up after the 4 hr journey and drove us about a hundred miles to our hotel. On the way he pointed out the President's holiday home, a huge European-style mansion, near the road and behind vast, presidential, black iron gates. Near it were slightly smaller houses, and down the road huge estates of white or stone villas adorned with balconies and turrets. What did it all remind me of? Ah yes, my only visit to Torrivieja in Southern Spain! The same but bigger, mucho mucho bigger.
All these belonged to members of the government; for their hols.
Someone had told me before I came to China that Beidehe was now full of government elite, and fat wealthy Russians. Well, there was the evidence, a lot of hotels and shops and restaurants had Russian names. They were closed after the summer. They'd all gone home. In fact everybody had gone home. The streets were almost deserted apart from a couple of bikes heaped with sacks of Stuff which, presumably, the put-putting tractors were too rickety to carry.
We turned left up a small lane uphill to our hotel at the top. "Mmm," I thought, as we drew up beneath the huge portico held up by ten fat pillars, "This is better than Butlins!" I must have been very very tired!
We trooped across acres of cream and black marble to the tiny figures at the far reception desk. Unsmilingly, they gave me the keycard to our room, and the static crackled from their acrylic suits.
This cheap deal was cheap because it was the end of the season and the breakfast was disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Cold fried egg, cold pre-boiled greens lying in their water, a doughnut-type of croissant was grey and limp, the teacup was dirty on the inside, and unrecognisable things lay in despondent heaps on the lidded "hot" plates. Oh Imodium, My Imodium ...
We went for a walk down to the beach in hot foggy twilight, and looked at all the fun people might have had a few weeks ago.
Next morning, walking out on our breakfast and deciding on an early lunch in town later (if you see what I mean) we set out for the beach again. The fog rendered the horizon null and void, and most of the coastline, but I took photos anyway from a rocky place on the end of a spit of sand that divides the beach into 2 small bays, both safe for swimming and pedalloes, judging by the rows of them. We paid 80p to walk on the sand, and joined a platoon of soldiers practising ... shooting at targets! I smiled and nodded for all I was worth and we did that silly sandwalk past them.
Granny gave no clues about the whereabouts of the bungalow they built at Beidehe. She and the boys, all 3 of them, are photographed swimming there with my grandfather, and they are sitting on a wooden raft with seats on it. I'd seen this raft in a book at the Old China Hand Reading Room in Shanghai, which I didn't buy, damnit, because it was so heavy, but I needed it now. I didn't know where to start. I know! Let's try the museum.
We got there in the end; miles and miles away for under a pound's taxi fare and were dumped at the bottom of its long flight of steps. He drove away. We went to the ticket office. No one there. We called (my best Nihao!). We only heard our echoes. So I took pictures of one of the many "ding"s; huge bronze vessels for good fortune, on the steps, and some of the roof, close-up.
We went into town, via a park, and there was the real Beidehe. Oh what a shame. Another sprawling city but one without grace, and never will have as all the money goes to the beachside villas and roads where the government spends its summers. We walked down a grotty side street on the lookout for a McD's which we'd been told about. The pavement was blocked by 6 rows of bikes and scooters all in their rusty glory, and in front of some shops were street vendors selling Stuff and 3 crates of puppies, some of which look sick. I nearly was.
We entered the haven that was Mc D's (did I really say that?). I had nuggets and sweet and sour sauce and pear drink, and as I sat writing notes an old woman gesticulated to me through the glass door. She came in to beg and was ushered out by the manageress. Seconds later in walked a policeman in cap and shirtsleeves, and Sophia said he was Traffic. Probably in for his lunch. Next thing, he was clearing a table and wiping it down! And then another, and another. His mobile rang and he answered it with his right hand while expertly mopping the table with his left. He sauntered out, swaggering a bit, and then returned 2 minutes later to continue where he'd left off. We reckoned he was married to the manageress because Sophia said his father-in-law had just helped himself to some water from the old drinks machine! Was his office here as well?!
On our way out Sophia spotted this large sign in Chinese above a hardressing salon. It read -- International Designer Of Bird's Nest. Then we couldn't help noticing that a lot of women had just that kind of hair!
And then it hit me. This city must have a bookshop. It did, it was huge, and I bought a couple of cutout and stick-on books for Ji Ji as I looked for maps. And then it hit me again (Granny has not ruled out clubbing my head in her ghostly way!), it might have a book about old Beidehe.
Well it did, and Sophia looked at the photos charting its history and there was a photo of the first building to be built on the British area in 1912. The area was nearly 68 acres. But where? I thought it must have been near the sea, near the centre of that resort, because my grandparents would have visited here in the early days; I imagined from 1910 onwards. 1912! Sophia read out a name of the road. It didn't mean anything. I bought the book (oh, I'll just have to charter my own plane at this rate!!) and she translated it properly for me.
I see. The name of that old road is now the name of the district. Our hotel's on the seaside edge of it! I looked at the photo more closely (it wasn't foggy in there) and could just make out the beach below the wooded hill the building stood on. There was the spit of sand and the rocks at the end of it. I'd already taken a photo of the right area, in the fog. My dear little camera (thank you Jane and Martin) picks up every available light source. And there it was, their wooded hill.
That dark and stormy night meant clear skies the next morning, but with a bitterly cold wind. On went the vest and scarf. We walked along the beach for seconds 5!
It took many many hours to get back to Tianjin, involving cold waiting area at station, so we escaped to McD's again to drink terrible tea and giggle at another Traffic policeman in uniform, younger and bespectacled like, his dad? His big brother? Uncle? What? We wanted to know! He cleared the tables diligently and then puffed off to return pushing a big cardboard box full of Stuff along the floor to behind the counter. As he disappeared round it we could see his ample backside peeking over the top of his belt (I hope you're not eating your lunch or anything -- we were!). The train was cold (the government doesn't switch on the national heating until Nov 10th), the long queue for taxis was in a cold wind tunnel, the first driver refused to take us any further than the car park outside where it was cold and raining hard, and the second took us a hundred yards further and dumped us in a dark street. We were 2 hours standing in the cold rain before Sophia's mum came to the rescue. Why were we dumped twice? Because the drivers wanted double fare because it was cold, dark and raining!
Yesterday I bought a long down coat for 35 pounds in a sale. This morning it was -4C and its been snowing all day and we were a long time outside praying to several gods at a Buddhist temple this morning.So if you don't mind, I'll go and have a nice lie down!
We travelled light, just for a couple of nights, and I was wearing a chunky long cardigan over a thin top and had a woolly thing in my bag. Sophia's mother had insisted it would be cold so I'd added my scarf and vest.
More blasts of horrible music on the train, which my iPod lost its battle with (try listening to Bach's concertos for 3 and 4 pianos with Chinese Kylie Minogue-a-like. Go on, just try!), so I arrived hungry (this is my permanent state now, and am more or less Imodium-free) and not a little taxed.
A colleague of Sophia's father's picked us up after the 4 hr journey and drove us about a hundred miles to our hotel. On the way he pointed out the President's holiday home, a huge European-style mansion, near the road and behind vast, presidential, black iron gates. Near it were slightly smaller houses, and down the road huge estates of white or stone villas adorned with balconies and turrets. What did it all remind me of? Ah yes, my only visit to Torrivieja in Southern Spain! The same but bigger, mucho mucho bigger.
All these belonged to members of the government; for their hols.
Someone had told me before I came to China that Beidehe was now full of government elite, and fat wealthy Russians. Well, there was the evidence, a lot of hotels and shops and restaurants had Russian names. They were closed after the summer. They'd all gone home. In fact everybody had gone home. The streets were almost deserted apart from a couple of bikes heaped with sacks of Stuff which, presumably, the put-putting tractors were too rickety to carry.
We turned left up a small lane uphill to our hotel at the top. "Mmm," I thought, as we drew up beneath the huge portico held up by ten fat pillars, "This is better than Butlins!" I must have been very very tired!
We trooped across acres of cream and black marble to the tiny figures at the far reception desk. Unsmilingly, they gave me the keycard to our room, and the static crackled from their acrylic suits.
This cheap deal was cheap because it was the end of the season and the breakfast was disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Cold fried egg, cold pre-boiled greens lying in their water, a doughnut-type of croissant was grey and limp, the teacup was dirty on the inside, and unrecognisable things lay in despondent heaps on the lidded "hot" plates. Oh Imodium, My Imodium ...
We went for a walk down to the beach in hot foggy twilight, and looked at all the fun people might have had a few weeks ago.
Next morning, walking out on our breakfast and deciding on an early lunch in town later (if you see what I mean) we set out for the beach again. The fog rendered the horizon null and void, and most of the coastline, but I took photos anyway from a rocky place on the end of a spit of sand that divides the beach into 2 small bays, both safe for swimming and pedalloes, judging by the rows of them. We paid 80p to walk on the sand, and joined a platoon of soldiers practising ... shooting at targets! I smiled and nodded for all I was worth and we did that silly sandwalk past them.
Granny gave no clues about the whereabouts of the bungalow they built at Beidehe. She and the boys, all 3 of them, are photographed swimming there with my grandfather, and they are sitting on a wooden raft with seats on it. I'd seen this raft in a book at the Old China Hand Reading Room in Shanghai, which I didn't buy, damnit, because it was so heavy, but I needed it now. I didn't know where to start. I know! Let's try the museum.
We got there in the end; miles and miles away for under a pound's taxi fare and were dumped at the bottom of its long flight of steps. He drove away. We went to the ticket office. No one there. We called (my best Nihao!). We only heard our echoes. So I took pictures of one of the many "ding"s; huge bronze vessels for good fortune, on the steps, and some of the roof, close-up.
We went into town, via a park, and there was the real Beidehe. Oh what a shame. Another sprawling city but one without grace, and never will have as all the money goes to the beachside villas and roads where the government spends its summers. We walked down a grotty side street on the lookout for a McD's which we'd been told about. The pavement was blocked by 6 rows of bikes and scooters all in their rusty glory, and in front of some shops were street vendors selling Stuff and 3 crates of puppies, some of which look sick. I nearly was.
We entered the haven that was Mc D's (did I really say that?). I had nuggets and sweet and sour sauce and pear drink, and as I sat writing notes an old woman gesticulated to me through the glass door. She came in to beg and was ushered out by the manageress. Seconds later in walked a policeman in cap and shirtsleeves, and Sophia said he was Traffic. Probably in for his lunch. Next thing, he was clearing a table and wiping it down! And then another, and another. His mobile rang and he answered it with his right hand while expertly mopping the table with his left. He sauntered out, swaggering a bit, and then returned 2 minutes later to continue where he'd left off. We reckoned he was married to the manageress because Sophia said his father-in-law had just helped himself to some water from the old drinks machine! Was his office here as well?!
On our way out Sophia spotted this large sign in Chinese above a hardressing salon. It read -- International Designer Of Bird's Nest. Then we couldn't help noticing that a lot of women had just that kind of hair!
And then it hit me. This city must have a bookshop. It did, it was huge, and I bought a couple of cutout and stick-on books for Ji Ji as I looked for maps. And then it hit me again (Granny has not ruled out clubbing my head in her ghostly way!), it might have a book about old Beidehe.
Well it did, and Sophia looked at the photos charting its history and there was a photo of the first building to be built on the British area in 1912. The area was nearly 68 acres. But where? I thought it must have been near the sea, near the centre of that resort, because my grandparents would have visited here in the early days; I imagined from 1910 onwards. 1912! Sophia read out a name of the road. It didn't mean anything. I bought the book (oh, I'll just have to charter my own plane at this rate!!) and she translated it properly for me.
I see. The name of that old road is now the name of the district. Our hotel's on the seaside edge of it! I looked at the photo more closely (it wasn't foggy in there) and could just make out the beach below the wooded hill the building stood on. There was the spit of sand and the rocks at the end of it. I'd already taken a photo of the right area, in the fog. My dear little camera (thank you Jane and Martin) picks up every available light source. And there it was, their wooded hill.
That dark and stormy night meant clear skies the next morning, but with a bitterly cold wind. On went the vest and scarf. We walked along the beach for seconds 5!
It took many many hours to get back to Tianjin, involving cold waiting area at station, so we escaped to McD's again to drink terrible tea and giggle at another Traffic policeman in uniform, younger and bespectacled like, his dad? His big brother? Uncle? What? We wanted to know! He cleared the tables diligently and then puffed off to return pushing a big cardboard box full of Stuff along the floor to behind the counter. As he disappeared round it we could see his ample backside peeking over the top of his belt (I hope you're not eating your lunch or anything -- we were!). The train was cold (the government doesn't switch on the national heating until Nov 10th), the long queue for taxis was in a cold wind tunnel, the first driver refused to take us any further than the car park outside where it was cold and raining hard, and the second took us a hundred yards further and dumped us in a dark street. We were 2 hours standing in the cold rain before Sophia's mum came to the rescue. Why were we dumped twice? Because the drivers wanted double fare because it was cold, dark and raining!
Yesterday I bought a long down coat for 35 pounds in a sale. This morning it was -4C and its been snowing all day and we were a long time outside praying to several gods at a Buddhist temple this morning.So if you don't mind, I'll go and have a nice lie down!
Just Dessert (Tiramisu continued)
After Mr Feng's lunch, which I couldn't eat, Sophia and I went for a wander in the nearby old Italian concession. We sat under an awning of an Italian restaurant, complete with trees in pots and red-checked tablecloths, and Domingo singing his heart out, looking out onto a very ugly modern municipal building (but never mind). The Chinese waiter spoke good English, and they do like to practise. The Italian menu looked tempting even though I don't really like Tiramisu ...
Sophia, her mother and I had been to Tianjin's museum a few days previously. I had been taken in hand by Sophia's 4yr old cousin, Ji Ji, who recognised instantly that I couldn't join in adult conversations. Therefore she became my tour guide, leading me carefully down steps, warning me of slopes and slippery bits, and leading me to the various exhibits, some of which were in cases too high for her to see into. I was flagging after a couple of hours, we all were, and this little friend kept going, and kept me going until we escaped for tea, but ended up in Mc Donald's. She chomped her way through nuggets, chips, chocolate ice cream (which she spoon fed me like a nanny), sachets of ketchup (sucked, and thankfully didn't offer me any), and drank the sweet and sour sauce straight from its plastic pot. Not in any order, of course, but in true Chinese style; a bit of chocolate sauce, a chip, ice cream, nugget ...
That evening (24th Oct), we'd been home about an hour when an uncle and aunt arrived in their car and we all, plus Sophia's father, went off to the other side of the river, opposite the city rail station (there are 2 others). Ji Ji came too. The fog lent an almost Dickensian air, but suddenly relocated to this extraordinary place. A village-sized area had been built in a year. Huge Italianate buildings soared above us, all lit, and judging by the empty plinths and alcoves, ready for a contingent of gods and goddesses to be delivered. It looked so new that only a handful of shops and estate agents were open for business, but when the rest arrive it will be a huge plaza, well 3. The buildings surround 3 of them and will house very expensive shops. As we ambled about, along with hundreds of others on that balmy evening, I turned a corner and burst out laughing. There was a pastiche of the Bridge of Sighs! It was a walkway linking 2 buildings. I was about to tell Sophia how funny this was when I saw another one. 2 Bridges of Sighs! Beat that, Venice! When we'd all got the joke, Sophia's mother said, "Oh well, but of couse, we can build eight of them if we want to!!"
Sophia, her mother and I had been to Tianjin's museum a few days previously. I had been taken in hand by Sophia's 4yr old cousin, Ji Ji, who recognised instantly that I couldn't join in adult conversations. Therefore she became my tour guide, leading me carefully down steps, warning me of slopes and slippery bits, and leading me to the various exhibits, some of which were in cases too high for her to see into. I was flagging after a couple of hours, we all were, and this little friend kept going, and kept me going until we escaped for tea, but ended up in Mc Donald's. She chomped her way through nuggets, chips, chocolate ice cream (which she spoon fed me like a nanny), sachets of ketchup (sucked, and thankfully didn't offer me any), and drank the sweet and sour sauce straight from its plastic pot. Not in any order, of course, but in true Chinese style; a bit of chocolate sauce, a chip, ice cream, nugget ...
That evening (24th Oct), we'd been home about an hour when an uncle and aunt arrived in their car and we all, plus Sophia's father, went off to the other side of the river, opposite the city rail station (there are 2 others). Ji Ji came too. The fog lent an almost Dickensian air, but suddenly relocated to this extraordinary place. A village-sized area had been built in a year. Huge Italianate buildings soared above us, all lit, and judging by the empty plinths and alcoves, ready for a contingent of gods and goddesses to be delivered. It looked so new that only a handful of shops and estate agents were open for business, but when the rest arrive it will be a huge plaza, well 3. The buildings surround 3 of them and will house very expensive shops. As we ambled about, along with hundreds of others on that balmy evening, I turned a corner and burst out laughing. There was a pastiche of the Bridge of Sighs! It was a walkway linking 2 buildings. I was about to tell Sophia how funny this was when I saw another one. 2 Bridges of Sighs! Beat that, Venice! When we'd all got the joke, Sophia's mother said, "Oh well, but of couse, we can build eight of them if we want to!!"
On the way back to the river Sophia and I bought a red paper lantern each (30p). We lit the firelighter/candle in mine first, as I made my wish (that bit was easy), all holding the lantern until the hot air lifted it up, but we were near the buildings with a large skyscraper behind so the ascent was shakey.Would it make it? Or would my dream come crashing down? Oh no! I was standing in front of everyone and was mimicking blowing at it and flapping my hands. I turned round to encourage the others to do the same, and there was a crowd of Chinese people standing, blowing and flapping their hands! On my behalf! They all laughed and beamed and nodded. I turned back to look up, and there it was, my lantern, soaring up the side of the skyscraper, to the top, where it burned out. Well, that'll do me...
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