Bookworm Talk

If you find all this stuff interesting, come here me blather on at the Bookworm on Tuesday night, starting at 7.30pm. I think it's free! Besides talking about the project in general I'll be focusing on Republican-era Beijing, Xuanwu District in particular, plus I'll probably stray into my current favorite topic, the Yuan-dynasty Tonghuihe canal. If this stuff gets you excited (you know who you are), I hope you'll come by Tuesday.

June 16, 12:19a.m.  1 comment

Locks

It's probably six times that I've gone to spend time admiring Wanning Bridge (万宁桥) – the great slabs of stone, the tāotiè (饕餮), the way the balustrades go from brand-spanking-new to decrepit and then back again. And yet only now did I realize: not only is the bridge still there, but the Yuan-dynasty locks (闸门) are still there! Right next to the bridge, in plain view – 700-year-old hydro-engineering.

Great slabs of stone once stood out over the canal at an angle, supporting ropes which were used to raise and lower wooden gates in stone slots. There were eleven locks between the springs in Changping County and Tongzhou, where the canal let into the Bai River (白河), but hardly any remnants are left; I can't believe I overlooked these for so long…

June 15, 5:10p.m.  leave a comment

The 'Fangjia Hutong 798'

And like mushrooms after a spring rain, Beijing's 'cultural venues' continue to sprout up in unexpected places, most of them in imitation of successful venues which have come before. And what's the most successful cultural venue in the city? 798. So find yourself a bunch of abandoned factories, preferably closer to the city center, renovate them nicely, rent them out, and you've got the next word in hip.

So go the prayers of the Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park (中关村科技园), which has leased idle factories in Fangjia Hutong (方家胡同) from the China Machine-Tools Corporation (中国机床总公司). This address, just south of Guozijian near the Yonghegong, has hosted factories since 1929, when the Haijing Ironworks (海京铁工厂), funded by the American Presbyterian Church, was opened here (one of their main products was surgery tables for the Peking Union Hospital). The ironworks were taken over by the Japanese, and from 1949 to the present they've been a state-run machine tools company of one sort or another. The existing buildings (there are four or five of them) were each built at different times over the past 50 years, the earliest clearly Soviet, and while they lack the 798 Bauhaus loveliness, they do have 8-meter-high ceilings.

This art zone was meant to open at the end of the month, but they've had to re-build most of the utility infrastructure, and now we're looking at September/October (yes, there will be life after the Olympics). The name of the place is its address: Fangjia 46.

June 12, 11:39p.m.  leave a comment

Bailin Temple

A few months ago, while looking over some maps, I realized there was a fairly enormous temple, called Bailinsi (柏林寺), just to the east of Yonghegong, and nearly as big as Yonghegong itself. It's closed to the public and occupied by several businesses, which was very frustrating, and after a few tries with the guard, I gave up.

Later it turned out that the Cultural Heritage Protection Center is one of the businesses located in Bailinsi (which was somewhat reassuring), and they've got a nice introduction to the temple online. I got inside last week, going to visit the CHP, and took a few pictures.

To be honest, it's not much different from other large Buddhist temples in Beijing, though it's lost its drum and bell towers and all of the statuary and other accoutrements are gone. The trees are still lovely, the buildings mostly kept up, and if there are rather more parked cars than you see in other temples, and no one's bothered to remove the slogans from the walls... well, it's closed to the public, after all.

Last year they opened Bailinsi to visitors for Cultural Heritage Day (June 9, that's tomorrow), and in the future you'll be able to see the temple if you keep a close watch on your calendar. This year, unfortunately – you can see where this is going – the temple will not be open, in honor of the Olympics. See you next year…

June 8, 10:13a.m.  leave a comment

Free lecture on the origins of the hutong

Looks like there's a free lecture on Saturday, May 14 [edit: I meant June 14th, of course, sorry], by Professor Wang Yue of the Beijing Geological Society, on the origins of Beijing's hutongs. Were they actually formed around wells? How did the surrounding courtyards take shape? These and other questions answered...

Capital Museum
May 14, 10-11.30am
Check their website (scroll to the bottom) for more details.

June 7, 6:51p.m.  leave a comment

Somebody Revoke My License

I've just discovered, to my humiliation, that 寺, the character for 'temple', is not pronounced sī first tone, as I've been saying it all these years, but rather sì fourth tone. Were you all laughing secretly behind my back?

June 7, 10:47a.m.  leave a comment

The Confucius Temple – Decorations

Following an extensive renovation, the Confucius Temple is looking pretty good these days. It's gotten a new coat of paint, and most of the buildings have been fixed up. But either they didn't look closely enough at the walls, or the brand of paint they're using these days can't hold a candle to the good old 1960s stuff: Cultural Revolution slogans are still all over this thing.

I first noticed the big one on the rear of the back wall (squeeze through the narrow side-alley to the east of the temple, and cut around to the back). I guess it's not surprising they left it there – who really goes around the back, now that Eje is no longer there? But when I told Matthew Hu at the CHP about it, he laughed and told me to look at the front gate. There they are, plain as day, on either side of a gate that must see hundreds of passersby per day; someone didn't bother to scrub hard enough.

June 7, 10:30a.m.  leave a comment

Dagaoxuan

It's no secret that Beijing's well-intentioned plans for preserving traditional culture sometimes fall down in the execution. What is a little more surprising is how ambiguous these failures can be: it's not simply a matter of the municipal government setting lofty goals and then blithely ignoring them. There seem to be battles going on between various powers within the city, and those battles can become semi-public.

The Dagaoxuan Temple (大高玄殿), outside the east gate of Beihai park, is a notorious example. The temple itself, built in 1542, was a Daoist institution for the use of the imperial family during the Ming and Qing. Technically it's part of the Forbidden City and should be part of that administration, but the courtyard is occupied by a military unit, and you can see where this is going. The Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage is pissed because this site, designated as a preservation target of the first order in 1996, is being slowly ruined. The military couldn't care less. The fight has been made public, to some extent, with articles in state media mentioning how shameful this is. Apparently the sticking point now is that the military unit wants a newer, nicer place to live – preferably somewhere centrally located – and the costs are prohibitive. The CHP has some nice background.

In a way, it's nice to see these fights surfacing: it gives you some confidence that there actually are people out there, in high places, who have the city's interests at heart.

May 29, 4:33a.m.  leave a comment

Cultural Heritage Day Events

Preparatory to Chinese Cultural Heritage Day (June 14th, mark your calendars), the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center is arranging a series of trips to Beijing's outer districts, to visit government-protected sites that don't often get public notice. From their press release:

In September 2003, the Beijing Historical and Cultural City Protection Plan, compiled by the Beijing Planning Committee, was approved by the Beijing Municipal Government. This plan is the key constituent to the protection of the historical and cultural districts for the Old City. The plan concerns "historical and cultural protection districts" which are defined as "a specific block, buildings, villages, or towns which have traditional appearances or ethnic character."

The plan designates 33 historical and cultural protection districts within the Old City and 10 located outside. After the plan was issued, several organizations conducted research on the districts within, but there was little investigation conducted for the 10 districts outside the Old City. These districts are more remote in location so public awareness of the need to protect these areas is not very strong.

Seven trips will be conducted over the weekends of May 31, June 7 and June 14. Most are day trips, two are overnighters. Check here for more information, and to register for trips.

May 26, 4:21a.m.  leave a comment

Icy Reception

Among the many esteemed industries once located on the eastern edge of Beihai (Dàshízuò Hutong (大石作胡同) was where most of the imperial stonework was created), was the refrigeration industry: Xuěchí Hutong (雪池胡同, Snow-Reservoir Alley) is just north of Beihai Park's east gate, and this was where the imperial ice-cellars were located, so that the emperor could have cold soft-drinks in July.

Oddly enough, there are no ice cellars (at least none that I could find) on Xuechi Hutong, but there is one just a hop north: get on Beihai Beijiadao (北海北夹道), take the first left onto a teeny spur street, and there it is at the end. And it's a beaut: Magnificent red doors, big gold door knockers, and a sign proudly proclaiming, "Imperial Ice Cellars!!" And can you go in? Of course you can't. What you can do is wait until the guy inside wanders off to the men's room, then stick your camera most of the way into the door and take a picture, and then get yelled at when the guy suddenly comes back from the men's room. Because really, what a disaster it would be if people could just wander in and see the imperial ice cellars any time they wanted…

May 22, 9:08p.m.  2 comments