The Forbidden City

An early rise got us to another of China’s great treasures before tourist traffic picked up for the day – the great Forbidden City. There is no way to convey the scale of the place, except to say that you can spend a day exploring all of its nooks and crannies and still leave not having visited all of its buildings. Our Great Wall tour guide from yesterday mentioned that there are 9,999 rooms in the Forbidden City - the number nine is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture. Not sure if there really are that many rooms, but it would soon become apparent that this number was feasible, given the size of the compound.

The buildings are all beautifully decorated, and the sheer number and function of each is mind-boggling. Some were meant for the emperor to change clothes in, others were meant for him to worship in, and others still for him to sleep in. Not to mention the quarters for each of his 1,000 concubines, and the eunuchs that served everyone. Given the weather and low-tourist season, certain parts of the Forbidden city were devoid of any tourists. The quiet helped convey the majesty of everything that much more effectively.

The weather was freezing, but it was easy to keep going, because as we moved further into the complex, the buildings and courtyards just got grander and more impressive. When we finally arrived at the Hall of Supreme Harmony, we stood looking out on an immense courtyard the size of several football fields, flanked on all ends by massive halls and gates. To think that this place was meant only for the emperor and his entourage, and remained prohibited to anyone else, boggled the mind.

After a quick lunch we headed to the Temple of Heaven, a few miles south of the Forbidden City where the emperor would hold ritual sacrifices at the winter solstice, asking for a bountiful spring and summer for the coming year. While walking around here, admiring the immense structures built without a single nail, we kept being approached by youth that claimed to be art students. This had first started in Tiananmen square two days ago, but by now it had become obvious that at the first sighting of a tourist these kids would approach claiming to be art students holding an exhibit, and asking you to come see the paintings they had made. These paintings, of course, would be high-priced knock-offs. Since this had been happening pretty much non-stop to us, I took to taking the offensive: whenever approached by someone that started explaining that they were an art student I would enthusiastically claim to be one myself, and tell them I was in town to promote my own exhibit, and that I'd like them to come see my work. This confused them enough that they'd smile and leave me alone.

Our final destination for the day, cold and tired though we were, was the Ox Street mosque – the largest in Beijing and a spiritual gathering place for the city’s 200,000 Muslims. This place proved harder to find than we thought, as our cab driver deposited us in front of a green domed building which, despite its Islamic architecture, proved to be the wrong place. Maps in hand, we trudged around until we found the real mosque, which looked much more like a Chinese temple than a traditional mosque. The people inside were a little confused when they saw us, thinking us to be regular tourists, but a few gestures indicating we were looking to pray soon cleared things up, and we were warmly welcomed. We were shown to halls where we washed ourselves, and Saeeda was shown by an elderly lady to a separate prayer hall. Without speaking a word of the language, I had found others who were delighted to host my wife and I – a testament to the bonds of religion.

The prayer halls were beautiful and like no other mosque that I had ever seen. Red dominated, but was broken with Arabic calligraphy in gold letters, as well as intricate designs that were clearly Eastern Asian. I wanted to linger, but it was getting dark, and Saeeda and I were pretty tired by now. The warmth of the hotel room called, and so we begrudgingly smiled goodbyes and caught a taxi back to the Sheraton.

We decided to have dinner that night at the Pakistani restaurant that Michael, our Great Wall tour guide, had recommended. It turned out to be very close to our hotel, and had a live entertainment section that was meant for belly dancers (that’s what all the pictures inside depicted – not sure what part of Pakistan belly dancers are from.) This night, however, the entertainment stage was occupied by an Asian lady, probably in her mid-twenties, who was perfectly belting out Bollywood pop songs. The effect was quite jarring.

The food was good, and the entertainment remained fun, because once the singer finished, a group of desi guys took the stage and just randomly started dancing. Ah, desis will be desis, no matter where they are.