Today was a Saturday excursion to the West Qing Tombs. However, this was no ordinary excursion due to the miserably rainy weather. It was pouring on and off all day and the sky darkened to look like late evening and night when it was the peak of midday. That said, the tombs were a piece of history that was really amazing to explore.
We started with a two and a half hour bus ride southwest of the city. The first tomb we visited was for the fourth Qing Emperor. This was a complex similar to the Forbidden City, but smaller and more austere. There were about three layers to this place rather than the infinite ones from the first excursion. We saw the kitchen, the well, some outer buildings, and we walked on the building that is above the burial chamber, but since the technology to prevent the oxidation of hermetically sealed relics has yet to be developed, the underground portion is not open.
At this tomb, I talked to our Bei Da representative a little bit. Lee is a grad student who works with the administrators who coordinate our program, so he has been on all our excursions. He said he had never been to the Qing tombs before, but he liked them better than the Forbidden City because none of it has been refurbished, so it's the original materials. That's very characteristic of how Chinese people like to explore and experience history: the realer the better. I think that I enjoyed the Forbidden City for it's freshness and accessibility, but hearing from Lee as well as other natives that the originality was what made the place special changed my perspective on our activity and made me find it a lot more interesting.
We took a lunch break at a nearby restaurant that was surprisingly good for all the circumstances. My table ordered scallion pancakes, corn cakes, white rice, fried rice, two eggplant dishes, green beans and chicken, kung pao chicken, potatoes and soybeans, tomato and egg, and mushroom and egg. I liked each of the dishes, and I think my favorite was the first of the two eggplant dishes we tried.
I really love Chinese eggplant dishes. In the US, eggplant tends to be parmesean, but here it is made in sauces with garlic, ginger, and soy such that there is a wonderfully savory-sweet flavor to the hearty vegetable. I also love the cabbage dishes and the cold cucumber dishes, but the eggplant is by far the best AND I know the Chinese word for eggplant, so that gives me a great advantage.
In the early afternoon, we visited the ninth Qing Eperor's tomb which does have the underground component open to the public since it was initially raided by thieves. That was a really cool place to visit and had an Indiana Jones type feel to being there. It was a tunnel with a series of carved doors leading to two coffins, that of the emperor and his wife. The concubines had their own tomb.
I walked out of that area with Gu Laoshi, and he told me that he had been reading about these emperors, so it was completing his experience of their history to be there in person. I am really happy to have had that conversation because it was a moment to easily share expertise and excitement at doing our activity.
While we were visiting the ninth emperor's visiting hall, the rain picked up enormously. To get back to the bus, however, we were forced to walk through an ankle-deep moat that ran along the entire width of the exit. At that point I spoke up about needing to go back to the dorms before the planned Peking Opera because I was soaked and there was no way that I could make it with wet feet, and I knew that I wasn't the only one. We did end up heading back, but not until after I was entirely soaked (like jumped in a swimming pool soaked) on the way to the bus.
Due to traffic and weather conditions, we have postponed our trip to the Peking Opera, and, honestly, I am glad for it because it was too miserable to be in that rain. It was beyond the help of rain gear, and to try to do one more activity today would have been too much. I am glad that it's a reschedule, though, because my theater nerdy self does not want to miss such a stylized form of performance.
When we got back, I went to my dorm room and did not leave because I was tired and cold and not willing to brave the rain any more. I had a nice skype with my parents and played around with a photo-sharing website for a while, so it was definitely time well spent, particularly because my life here has been lacking in time to simply relax.
Today is awesome because
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