Beijing Day Four - Temple of Heaven, Chinese Public Health, and the Hutong

Here we are at the Temple of Heaven. Where the 15th Century Emporer came to pray to the "God of Heaven" for a good harvest. It's a stunningly beautiful place and a lot of fun to visit. Some of us had been here before, but in a place this large with such a rich history, you can always get more out of each visit.

Here is a sacred center stone that tourists take pictures on for good luck. Figured we could all use some good luck now and then.

Retired Chinese people gather in public squares, ALL the public squares everywhere in the city are full of retired chinese people exercising - apparently there is a large number of retired Chinese people....who knew. They do this is in the middle of winter. Here is a group of happy dancers spinning away in the 27 degree weather. I believe that this is why Chinese people live longer. Old people don't sit in their houses and watch TV. They go outside and dance.

After the temple tour, we headed out for a "traditional" lunch with minority group dancing. The lunch was excellent, we had rabbit cooked in bamboo, fried melon, fried fish, fried duck balls (yes I said duck balls, and they were delicious!) The only thing we couldn't eat was the chicken because they brought out the platter of fried chicken, which looked delish, completely covered in mayonaise. A note to anyone traveling in China. do not EVER EVER for any reason eat mayonaise of any kind for any reason. Chinese refridgeration and safe food handling practices are Bu Hao when it comes to mayo. Speaking of public health...The 5 pillars of Chinese Public Health appear to be: washing hands, covering your face when you cough, exercise, get immunized, and go to the doctor.

I just had to post this public health poster we saw in the restaurant. A shout out to all my public health peng yos!

The traditional dancing was very beautiful and the very lovely young ladies had us all entranced. Of course the large back tatooo must have also been quite traditional. I believe this one dated back to the 4th century BC when all the ladies in the Emporer's court was sporting similar tatoos.

After a hearty lunch, it was off to the Hutong to visit the traditional urban neighborhood. We got to ride through these neighborhoods on rickshaws, winding through the narrow streets (Hutong means narrow street of course) and stopped to visit with a family whose job it is to educate tourists about the average family who lives in a 3 million dollar urban estate. Actually, here is the scoop on teh Hutongs, for those who don't already know. First, they are single family dwellings build for important officials families and have a wonderful large courtyard and bedrooms on each side. They have been largely nationalized, and 80% of the existing Hutong houses are owned by the government, and rented to the tenants (poor or middle class citizens who have been living there for generations) for a very cheap price - about 60$ per month or so. The other 20% of the Hutongs have been privatized and are worth about 3 million because they are are a)rare, b)close in to the city, and c)historically valuable (e.g., just plain cool). These characteristics you may recognize as exactly the same things that drive up real estate everywhere. Chinese society is more similar to US society than it is different.

Everywehre we have gone, we have enjoyed spending time with the people we have encountered. The grandpa of teh Hutong (yi yi) enjoyed teaching libby chinese chess, and Libby rather enjoyed stacking up the chips and pushing them over. We probably overstayed our welcome here, but we did have to stay to get the traditional wedding pictures anyway. Irv looks like a man sentenced doesn't he?

Ice skating on a frozen lake near the Hutong. I just love these chairs with runners and propelled with golf club shafts. I really wanted to go ride one, but there was no time.

We finished off the day with a very exciting acrobat show, the best one we've seen so far, and an Exhausted Libby and Kris went to the hotel room for macaroni and cheese ( atreat brought from home for just such an occaison) and matt and Irv and Sher went across the street to have a bowl of noodles at a little shop. Of course this little diner had no english menus or signs or english speaking staff. But again, thanks to teacher Fei I was able to ask for Ju Ruo (pork) and Mein (noodles) and we recieved the most EXCELLENT bowl of pork noodle soup. It was an absolutely perfect end to a long day and cost 10 yuan each, about $1.50. This is another reason I believe that Chinese people live longer. In America we have the dollar menu, in China they have very lean pork and vegetable noodle soup.