Another Summer Palace

One of the few tourist trips I did get around to making during the National Day holiday was to the second, more oft-visited Summer Palace several kilometers west of the Old Summer Palace that I visited before school started. Although construction here began in 1750, it took the Empress Cixi's embezzlement of government funds intended for the Chinese navy to build up the palace to its present grandeur. The navy was defeated by the Japanese, but visitors to the park can still benefit from the funds stolen by Cixi. Yiheyuan is in substantially better condition than its older counterpart next to the university, Yuanmingyuan, and the couple of hours I spent here did not allow me to see nearly as much as I could have if I had a half day or whole day to explore. At times over the summer, Chairman Mao himself was known to retreat from the hustle and bustle of downtown to the shores of the Kunming Lake in the city's northwest for a few weeks' reprieve.


The park, which surrounds the massive Kunming Lake (easily locatable by searching "Beijing, China" on Google Maps and by scrolling northwest of the city center), has as its centerpiece the terraced, hilltop Incense Burning Tower, which faces out directly south onto a man-made island containing a temple that looks due north back across the lake. The tall, white temple pointing out of the Xiangshan ("Fragrant Hills") in the distance to the west of the park can be seen alongside the setting, smog-muddled sun that made its way into many of the pictures I took that afternoon. Unfortunately, tourists were swarming all over the park that day, coming from all over the country to see the second-most visited site in Beijing after the Forbidden City. Essentially every non-critical worker in the country had off from Wednesday, Oct. 1 through the following Monday, and at points it seemed as if every one of them had converged on Kunming Lake that afternoon.


After being informed that the "student fee" was only applicable for Chinese students (and that, no, even though I was teaching Chinese students, that didn't matter) I shelled out 30 kuai and passed through the massive series of entranceways into the park. On the bike ride over, a massive wall composed of hedges and concrete had made it impossible for any non-paying passerby to get a glimpse of the windswept, sunbathed expanse of water that greeted me only after I had passed by no less than a dozen stands featuring exorbitant prices for fast food and souvenirs. Bright new paint glistened under the eaves of each temple that I passed by, paint that was just recently applied by hundreds of artisans employed in advance of the Olympics. Hundreds upon hundreds of domestic tourists, taking advantage of China's increasingly-profitable economic reform, now had the cash to spend on all-inclusive trips to Beijing to get some use out of recently-purchased, high-end digital cameras--everyone I saw, including me, seemed to have one glued to their hand.


I passed the food stands and out onto the promenade surrounding the lake, upon which were strewn dozens of paddle and rowboats. Families had taken out massive floaters that allowed six people at a time to pedal the boat along. On the island directly over the bridge in front of me, younger couples had climbed down large boulders to the water's edge, where the girls would test the water gingerly, laughing into hands placed demurely over their mouths. An older woman practiced taiji as the sun set, unaware of the children running around her against their parents' wishes. For about two hours I wandered over bridges and around temples, participating with the throngs in snapping up photos of the experience. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and the wind coming off the lake was buffeting my fleece and turning my cheeks red, but it felt great. Autumn in Beijing.


The next trip will be to Xiangshan where from the summits at the end of October you can look out onto a sea of burning red maple leaves. There'll be many pictures to follow after that excursion. Additionally, I haven't yet been to any kind of haggle-intensive market, which should produce not only a bunch of pictures but a bit more lively story as well. Still haven't been to the Forbidden City or done a proper tour of Tiananmen either, so there'll be much more to come if you're interested in more photos. Until then...

--

Speaking of the Summer Palace, I just read a great bit of fiction by Yiyun Li that appears in the most recent edition of the New Yorker. Mentions a couple's walk along the very promenade I strolled along the other day. Check it out if you have the chance.