Beijing
People's Republic of China
January 5, 2008
Clear and Cold
Dear Family and Friends,
Sorry, sports fans. "Yu Li to Song Na to Xin Ying" is not the double-play combination on the Chinese Baseball Team in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Yu Li (Lily) and Song Na (Jasmine) and Xin Ying (Elsa) are my never-let-me-out-of-their-sight girl-guides in this capital city of 15.2 million.
Beijing
People's Republic of China
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
In New York City, the exquisite white marble, Neo-Gothic St. Patrick's Cathedral sits on bustling and narrow Fifth Avenue and not in the middle of Central Park. The venerable French Gothic Notre Dame de Paris sits on the Île de la Cité and not in le jardin des Tuileries. But in Beijing where The Son of Heaven prayed for good harvests, the Temple of Heaven sits in the middle of a 267 hectare (660 acre) public park.
Beijing
Bandaling District
China
Monday
January 7, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
Here’s what I thought: “Book a tour. Ride a bus. Buy a ticket. Climb up on to the Wall. Then, take a leisurely stroll along the Wall.” I was correct, except for that last part. Listen . . . .
Jasmine went back to work but she enlisted her former colleague and good friend Elsa to be my guide for the day.
Beijing
China
January 8, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
“The rich are different from you and me.” They have homes and compounds in Palm Beach or Palm Springs, or Beverly Hills or Pocantico Hills, on Cape Cod or Cape May, or in Oyster Bay or South Hampton on Long Island.
Royalty are very different. HRH the King of Thailand owns a palace on the seashore and one in the mountains as well one in the capital. South of Thailand, the Sultans of Malaysia collect Rolls Royce motorcars. And the Maharajas of India? Do they collect everything?
Drawn by the curiosity of a bourgeoisie, I eschew the public bus of the hoi polloi and engage a driver and automobile for an excursion to the imperial retreat of “my betters” in Beijing: The Summer Palace of the Emperors of China.
And today I am alone. I am the sovereign of my day.
Le Retour
Beijing
People's Republic of China
January 29, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,.
When I was a boy, one of my favorite piano works was a set of short studies called "Twenty Five Progressive Pieces," the Opus 100 of Johann Friedrich Burgmuller. I played all the pieces, including the vigorous "Arabesque," Barcarolle" and "Tarantelle," and the melodic and lyrical "Innocence," "Pastorale" and "Tendre Fleur." One piece had a lasting impression. It is called "Le Retour" or "The Return."
"Le Retour" is written in a short sonata form. One theme is introduced and then repeated; then another is played and repeated. The piece closes with the original graceful theme that is both melancholy and hopeful.
Like "Le Retour," my return to Beijing is a little sad but filled with the expectation that the final days of this trip will repeat the vigorous and melodic themes of my initial visit.
January 30, 2008 Clear and cold
Leaving China Today
Dear Family and Friends,
Today, the CNN weather reporter announced, "In China, it is the coldest winter in decades." Beijing is unusually cold. Earlier this week there was a big snowstorm in Shanghai in the south, also unusual.
Thick white clouds of steam drift skyward from the tall brick smokestacks of the coal furnaces that are working overtime to keep up with the increase in demand.
There are coal shortages and water shortages and brownouts and blackouts.
At the height of this Spring Festival travel time, transportation is disrupted in many places.
Despite the delays and the chilly restaurants and hotel lobbies, I admit I am beginning to enjoy this winter season.
Beijing
China
August 7, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
From Bangkok, en route to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, I decided to stop over in Beijing. I wanted to see my friends and to visit one or two sights I had missed two years ago.
Actually, my first stop was a return to the small village of Chuandixia. My friend Diego, his friend Miland, and I rode the Beijing Red Line subway for almost an hour to the last stop. Diego then negotiated with a driver and we took off for the 90km ride through the hilly green countryside west of the city.
Wanping City
Wanping County
China
August 9, 2010
From the book: Sights with Stories in Old Beijing *
Editors’ Note:
There is virtually no sight in Beijing that has not a fascinating story or legend attached to it, whether to do with its founding, its architecture or the historical figures associated with it. This time-honored local lore, still very much alive in the city, weaves marvelous tales around the natural wonders and architectural showpieces of the capital, peopling them with miraculous immortals and imaginatively embroidering their history.
Apocryphal though most of then are, they embody in their story of honest toil and talent and their condemnation of wickedness, a historical reality that all too often is missing from the history books themselves.
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