Approaching the top o' Beijing Ma!
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The big story coming out of Beijing 北京 recently is the election of Xi Jinping 习近平 to a third five-year term at the helm of the People's Republic. I don't claim to be a "China watcher" or "Sinologist", so don't expect this paragraph to be the lead-in to an expert analytical piece on what this means for China, Taiwan, Asia, the United States and just about anyone and anywhere else you can think of. If you're curious, you should already know the significance of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party 中国共产党第二十次全国代表大会, and have read/watched at least some of the many articles/news reports on the event that have appeared in the media in recent days and weeks. Seeing as it appears Xi is going to stubbornly cling to the zero-COVID strategy, I've lost what little interest I had regarding this "hot topic" in the first place.
OK, I should care more, not least because I'm expected to converse in Mandarin on Chinese politics as part of my lessons. But I have far more important things to concern myself with, namely my 健康. Recently those feelings of lightheadedness and disconnectedness that I had suffered through for most of 2021 have recently returned, along with a few disconcerting moments related to my 心脏. I've even felt at times like I was being pulled to one side (my 右边, to be more specific), an issue I've had periodic bouts with for more than a decade. I had thought that the surgery I underwent last November had taken care of these problems, but apparently not.
Back to 政治. One way the party congress did effect our 生活 (I promise to stop now), at least in a small sense, was that it led to our deciding to spend the weekend the shindig opened close to home, and sticking to the mundane rather than explore the unknown. To wit:
Shu-E took this nighttime shot with her more-up-to-date iPhone (I'm still using an 8, as you can no doubt deduce from the quality of my photographs in comparison):
An exhausted Amber following back-to-back-to-back swimming races (50-meter freestyle; 100-meter individual medley; and 50-meter backstroke) on a Saturday morning at her school. We had to wait for her outside while she was taking part due to, you guessed it, COVID restrictions (though I suspect the lack of sufficient seating inside the pool building also was a factor):
Sometimes you just have to give in to the novelty of things, like when we had lunch at Spacelab. Nobody goes there because of the food; rather, it's the experience of watching your pub grub delivered to your table via a series of rollercoaster-like tracks suspended from the ceiling that draws in the punters:
Spacelab naturally appeals to a childish clientele, but at least there was beer on the menu for the adults:
Baker & Spice is one of those urban coffee shop chains that appeals to China's many (at least before the coronavirus epidemic started) Western residents. Nevertheless, the girl and I struggled for more than twenty minutes with the phone app, trying to decipher the Chinese on the menu. It wasn't until near the end of the meal that I realized we could've just gone up to the counter, and ordered directly off the bilingual menus kept there. And then after that, discovering that the phone app did have English translations, after all:
With the girls kicking back at the house, I went for a walk on a sunny Sunday in Beijing's expansive
Chaoyang Park 朝阳公园:
Kite-flying is a popular activity in China, including this massive monster:
Can you identify the building in this skyline scene that serves as CCTV Headquarters? Hint: it's known by its nickname 大裤衩, or "big boxer shorts":
A container crane that has found a new home in a flower garden:
This photo of Chaoyang Park as seen from the opposite side of the Liangma River was actually taken on a Monday when I should've been in class. Except that my rapid heartbeat and all-around lightheadedness that morning meant I was in no condition to sit in classrooms for six hours. Except that the beautiful weather pulled me outdoors for a walk when I should've been resting in bed. It's difficult to describe the sensations I was feeling (a sense of not being part of my surroundings, along with a seeming lack of full control over my right arm), but the sunlight filtering through the trees as I walked along the riverside started taking on hallucinatory overtones, as if I were micro-dosing. Somehow I found my way back to the house and sensibly stayed indoors for the remainder of the day:
My daughter snapped this pic of one of the several feral cats that call her school their home. I'm beginning to feel my resistance give away in the face of Amber's repeated pleas that we add a 猫 (sorry) to our small family unit, especially since her mother is now appearing to side with her. Stay tuned...:
Speaking of my offspring, following another swimming event at her school this past Saturday morning, she was finally persuaded to visit a hair salon to see to her split ends. This was the result:
I, on the other hand, am letting my 头发 (oops!) grow out, as you can obviously discern from this shot taken just as we were about to partake of lunch at a
málàtàng 麻辣烫 (hot spicy soup) restaurant not far from Chaoyang Park:
The three of us walked off the meal with a stroll through the park, where the leaves were beginning to change color:
There'll be dancing in the park:
With the aforementioned
shindig finishing up this weekend, however, we decided to go into central Beijing this afternoon (Sunday), but not before having lunch at a Thai restaurant close to the facility where we had our throats swabbed in the morning (an every-other-day chore that has to be undertaken, rain or shine):
Our destination would be
Jingshan Park 景山公园, which we reached by taking the subway to Nanluogu Xiang Station 南锣鼓巷站. The neighborhood behind the metro stop was vaguely reminiscent of Kyōto's 京都 famed Path of Philosophy 哲学の道:
We then returned to China by wandering through a warren of traditional
hutong 胡同 neighborhoods, which seemed to confuse Apple Maps at several points:
We love you, too, キティちゃん:
After around twenty minutes of meandering through various alleys, we eventually reached the south gate of the park, directly across the street from the rear of the Forbidden City 紫禁城:
Jingshan Park is the site of one of the very few hills located within the capital's inner rings (making Beijing a good place to ride a bicycle). This particular mound was created using the sediment excavated to make the Forbidden City's moat:
A few of the trees were in the process of changing their hues, though most of the vegetation within the park remained stubbornly green in the eyes of my wife:
This stele marks the spot where of the tree from which
Chongzhen 崇祯帝, the last Ming dynasty 明朝 emperor, hung himself in 1644 as rebellious peasants approached Beijing. The tree was cut down in 1971, during the stupidity known as the Cultural Revolution 文化大革命:
It was short walk uphill to the top, with my heart being completely cooperative (unlike at home, where several times recently I've been short of breath just going up and down our short set of stairs):
It should come as little surprise that Jingshan Park is laid out along the
Central Axis of Beijing. The dictates of feng shui 風水 required that the imperial residence be shielded from any evil spirits approaching from the north (the direction in which the below photograph was taken). Hence, the need to construct an artificial hill in the center of the city:
The result for modern-day visitors is an excellent view of the Forbidden City when looking to the south. I could insert a snarky remark or two at this point as to how certain white folks, no matter how hard they try, still remain clueless as to the inherent ridiculousness of Chinese geomancy, but the weather was nice this day, so I won't:
Actually, the views in all directions from the top make the park a worthwhile stop on any Beijing itinerary:
You may recognize the White Dagoba 白塔 of Beihai Park 北海公园, which
we visited earlier this month:
I wouldn't exactly say we worked up a sweat coming down from the hill, but the afternoon was pleasantly warm, and therefore merited an ice cream break:
The final stop on our tour of the park was Shouhuang Temple 寿皇殿, built in 1749 by the
Qianlong Emperor in honor of his royal ancestors:
Shu-E captured these images of fall foliage on the temple grounds:
And so we enter the next stage of the Xi Jinping era, but that's a topic I'll leave to others on which to pontificate (which so many in the State Department love to do). Instead, I intend to devote my time outside of class pondering on this world as a place to learn, and on taking better care of this body that I've earned. For I'm in no great hurry to embrace the void. Not just yet. There are still places in Japan I haven't visited...
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