Despite the picturesque observatory and the Dongbianmen watchtower, the whole Beijing Train Station neighborhood isn't one you'd think to linger in. Anyone who regularly takes the train in and out of Beijing is likely to shudder a little when they see the station's demented neon and refugee-camp plaza, but if you steer clear of the station itself, there's some excellent walking in the neighborhood.
What we're calling the 'Ancient Observatory' actually includes a large swathe of land to the south and west. Besides the obvious spots – the watchtower, the Ming wall park – check out the patch of hutongs due west of the station itself: basically west of Beijing Zhan Jie, and north of Beijing Zhan Xijie. There are two nice things about the area. One, the hutongs are extremely lively, and not a major tourist destination, so it's easy to talk to people. Two, there are a large quantity of Republican-era buildings here (from the '20s or thereabouts), for what reason I'm not quite sure. Tidy little two-story structures with smaller eaves and more fanciful brickwork can be found all throughout the hutongs, and there are a couple of particularly good ones right where Beijing Zhan Xijie leaves the Chongwenmen intersection and curves north towards the station. During my idle fantasies of boundless wealth, there are two buildings I imagine I'd buy and convert into a home. One is a two-story thing on Nanluogu Xiang that, to my unreasonable irritation, someone else is already renovating for their home; the other is right at the southern mouth of Beijing Zhan Xijie, practically behind the Ming wall. Very cool.
The Juyili
So far, what I've been able to find out indicates that this was once a factory for the Tongrentang (同仁堂) Chinese medicine company. Apparently the stoves used for cooking the medicine are still in there – I'll have to revisit at a later date and see if I can find them...
February 21, 11:51a.m.
Mumingtang
Donghuashi Dajie (东花市大街) was once a major commercial street (they claim to have once rivaled Wangfujing and Dazhalan) with a bevy of 老字号 (lǎozìhào, historic brands). All that seems to remain are a Chinese medicine shop and a few tea spots, but one of those tea spots is worth a visit. Ten years ago, the Mumingtang Tea Shop (睦明唐茶庄), located at the eastern end of Donghuashi Dajie, formally became the Mumingtang Porcelain Museum (睦明唐古瓷标本博物馆).
It's not an enormous place, but it's got porcelain samples all the way back to the Tang, most from the Beijing area. Granted, most are fragments, but some of those fragments (particularly the Song dynasty ones) are worth tens of thousands of RMB. Some less-valuable fragments are in a "can-touch" area, where you can feel the glaze on a Ming vase. Interestingly, they get the majority of their fragments from construction sites around Beijing: Han Jianhua, the gentleman on duty told me that most of their finds came from old trash deposits; the result of a Song dynasty homemaker throwing out the shards of an accidentally broken plate.
Mumingtang regularly hosts talks and little seminars on porcelain and tea, and will also appraise porcelain pieces. It's ten yuan to get in, but that comes with a cup of tea!
February 17, 3:44p.m.
Observations
I had always assumed as a matter of course that the astronomical implements on the Ancient Observatory were reproductions of the genuine artifacts, which had probably succumbed to the Cultural Revolution, or else been stashed somewhere inaccessible to the public. But Zhou Li, the very nice lady in the information booth at the observatory, set me right.
First of all, how nice is it to have a site of historical value looked after by someone who thinks of it as more than a tea-and-newspaper supply store? Zhou and her colleagues are given fairly rigorous historical and astronomical training – when we stuck our head in to ask about the instruments she unleashed a wealth of knowledge. Not only did she have a notebook with all the names of the foreign missionaries who were masters of the observatory, she even had a brass mini-sextant with which she demonstrated the principles of ascension and declination.
So yes, they are the real things, built between the reigns of Kangxi and Qianlong under the tutelage of foreign missionaries from Matteo Ricci to Adam Schaal von Bell. The stone bases around the instruments are also original, though they were mostly broken off during the Cultural Revolution and re-installed later, and their varying degrees of weathering produce an odd effect. Zhou said the instruments themselves only lost a few bits and bobs to the Cultural Revolution, and hinted that Zhou Enlai had something to do with it.
Apparently, Zhou Enlai also had everything to do with it. When the subway lines were being built, the Observatory was slated for demolition. The trucks had actually arrived to take the instruments away to the Beijing Planetarium (天文馆) when the executive order authorizing the move came back from Zhou Enlai's office with two characters on it: 绕行 ('go around it'). Several million extra RMB later, the observatory was safe. Next time you're taking the subway from Dongdan to Jianguomen and it sways in a way that makes you lose your balance, say a kind word for Zhou Enlai.
NB: In the courtyard below the observatory, where they keep the gnomon and many other wonderful works, they've also got an enormous orange cow, standing in a big open square all by itself, with a note reading: "No Climbing".
February 17, 3:16p.m.
Sleuthing
Once upon a time, there was a Daoist temple called Pantao Gong (蟠桃宫) just outside the city walls, on the southern bank of the city moat. Built in 1662, it was known for its temple fairs. It was torn down in 1987, and supposedly its remnants include this stela (the 太平宫碑记) and some 'glass bricks' (玻璃砖), which were a particular kind of glazed brick.
The stela was later moved to this patch of grass for protection, but I could find nothing of the glazed bricks, or the exact original location of the temple, despite rigorous interrogation of the toilet attendants and a nearby xiaomaibu proprietor. Urban treasure-hunting of this kind is tremendous fun, and I'm going to keep at this one in my spare time – imagine the joy of finding the 'glass bricks' in a nearby bicycle parking garage!
February 9, 9:43a.m.
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