6/10

Forbidden City, Beijing

Frieze, Forbidden City

The Chinese do things big (except for anything you need to sit in or pass through). The scale of the cities, their freeways and malls is massive. So I am not surprised at how big Tiananmen Square and its monuments are. But expecting them to be big does not stop them from being breathtaking.

Forbidden City

Dragon, Forbidden City

Sadly, a lot of the Forbidden City is being renovated. But I suppose that is apt. Sometimes China seems to be just an enormous building site.

Did you say you support the Roar?

Decorated roofline

It still gives me pause to think. Here, within Beijing, the emperors built their own private city. It is an enormous demonstration of power (and its consequent ability to command resources). One thinks of the Saxon kings of England, who built wooden halls and had to ride from town to town to retain the loyalty of their people (and to get the food that would support their court).

Yes, we are enjoying our visit

Forbidden City alleyway

Mao understood what he was. Not a primus inter pares but an imperator. It is notable that his portrait hangs over Tiananmen, and that it is his tomb, not that of any of the previous emperors, that stands at the centre of the Chinese world. Some day soon, they will need to replace his picture with one of Milton Friedman.

Tiananmen at night

The palaces of the Forbidden City seem forlorn and musty. You cannot wander through them so you press your nose up against the windows and peer in at the relics, dusty and faded. These places don’t look comfortable to live in but of course the floors would have been covered and the walls decorated. I suppose they would also have been kept fresh. The emperors rarely left the Forbidden City, and little of China was allowed in. What did it mean to them to rule China? What did China mean?

I think I can understand though. To live in seclusion, with your pleasures brought to you, that doesn’t sound so bad. The ritual and pageantry must have created a comforting routine.

But it seems too massive, too cold. Hermits take to small cells because they are comfortable in a limited world. The emperors escaped the frightening, big, bad world, but into a city of their own, which seems to lack heart, for all its grandeur.

A girl stops and talks to me in Tiananmen Square. I am wondering what she will try to sell me. But she doesn’t have anything to sell, and when, after walking a couple of streets with me, she goes into a teashop, she doesn’t ask me to go in with her. This is how it is in China (or India or anywhere else that we are much richer than most of the local people). You want to learn about the place, meet the people, but when you do, you so often get burnt that you become too wary to trust anyone. But Miguel, a Colombian guy in our dorm, is telling us about the scam that girls run on Nanjing Donglu. A pretty girl will chat with you and say hi, and will chat with you and take you for a coffee. The girl then orders a shot of whisky that costs 4000 yuan. The barman, her boyfriend, will settle for all the cash you have rather than break your leg. A similar scam works in Soho (so I’m told — I never go for drinks with strange women).

City moat, Beijing