June 2022

You can’t go to China without visiting Beijing’s Forbidden City and Great Wall. At least, that’s the conventional wisdom.

But if you go to China in the middle of a pandemic, you might find that the authorities are paranoid about travel, and the city keeps getting locked down, giving a whole new meaning to the idea of a forbidden city.

That was my situation: several times I was scheduled to go there for visa purposes, and planned to take a day or two of leave to do the above. And each time something came up.

Finally, six months after I arrived, I got my chance. I had my plan: see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, and then take a trip up to a section of the Great Wall.

First problem: Tiananmen Square was basically under lockdown. I got dropped off by my Didi driver in the middle of some restricted zone, and spent half the day wandering up and down trying to find a way out that didn’t involve going through the checkpoints that all required an ID card (which I didn’t possess).

One thing you learn about Chinese checkpoints is that while they are overstaffed and officious, they also want to get rid of annoying foreigners as quickly as possible. If you refuse to leave, they generally will wave you through sooner or later.

So it proved sometimes, but with checkpoint after checkpoint, I was worried my luck was going to run out.  Mission Abort.

As so often, I found my best bet was to take a tour rather than try to solo it. My tour guide met me at my hotel and found my story amusing: apparently there was some meeting of the communist party the day before, hence all the additional security. But I was in the wrong place anyway, and there was no way in to Tiananmen Square, especially not for a foreigner. But never mind, I should just follow her.

So that’s what I did. She persuaded the driver to cruise up and down a couple of times, so I could snap a photo of Chairman Mao, then we abandoned the square and went to the Forbidden City behind it, via another entrance.

It’s surrounded by a moat and high walls, and is “forbidden” in the sense that normal people weren’t allowed inside during the 500 years or so of its operation as an imperial palace. The only ones allowed through its gates were the Emperor (of Ming and Qing dynasties), their servants or families, and foreign dignitaries that were granted an audience.

It’s also huge: over 1000 buildings are inside, many of them bearing evocative names such as Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿) , which was the throne room, essentially, and Gate of Divine Prowess. They reminded me of the evocative names that Bethesda used to give to dungeons in Dwemer ruins in Morrowind or Skyrim.

From Jingshang Park behind you can get a nice panorama of the whole complex, from a hill made from the excavations used to dig the moat.

The tour also took me to the Temple of Heaven. In order to maintain the Mandate of Heaven, the emperor needed to provide stability in the land, and one way to achieve this was through good harvests. Every year, therefore, appropriate rituals and sacrifices had to be made, following strict protocols. These were done here, in Spring and Autumn.

The layout of the Temple of Heaven is highly symbolic. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is a circular building, while the Circular Mound Altar is square. This reflects the ancient Chinese belief in the round heaven (represented by the circular shape) and the square earth (represented by the square shape), emphasizing the harmony between heaven and earth.

It was blisteringly hot when I was there. One of the few occasions when I wished I had the kinds of sunhats that all the Chinese seemed to wear with their oversized brims, and the thin shirts that covered your arms and hands.

With the city and temple ticked off the bucket list, only the Great Wall remained.

My assistant back in Xi’an, Cathy, told me that Mr Zhang would take me. He was the company driver in Beijing. An extended debate followed about the protocol here:

“How much should I pay him?”

“No pay him. It is his job”

“It’s his job to drive me to the Great Wall?”

“To do anything”

“Hmmm.. I’m not sure.. I mean, if I don’t go to the Great Wall, he can stay at home, right?”

“Yes”

“So, if I go there, he loses his time”

“But it is his job”

“Maybe I should pay him for his time?”

“No, he is paid already”

“Then who is paying him to take me to the Great Wall?”

“No one. He is paid to be a driver.”

And around in circles. I never did figure out the correct protocol, but for the record Mr Zhang refused my offer of some yuan for the trip.

He was happy enough to drive me to Mutianyu, the end of the road, and parked up presumably to smoke and play mahjong with all the other drivers there. I had to navigate my own way through the various turnstiles, buses and other things one needed to do, to get from the car park to the wall itself.

It was misty, but stiflingly hot. No way was I going to climb up, so I took the cable car. This being a small window in the covid lockdowns it was quiet up there. Some sections of the wall have been restored, others are in a fairly ramshackle state. This section is one of the most impressive that have been restored: it snakes up and down the steep mountainsides covered in bamboo forest. It was originally built during the 6^th Century, but the Ming Dynasty enhanced it to its current state, with watchtowers and guard houses.

The Mutianyu section is popular for hiking: you can go in either direction for kilometres along well-maintained sections, but it is a lot of up and down leg work. It was much too hot for me to contemplate such exertions, so I wandered around a bit, took some photos and then sat down.

Once down (I eschewed the toboggan ride, and just took the cable car) I found Mr Zhang and went back to the city.

I had no real time in Beijing to form much impression of the city itself.. it seemed fairly characterless outside of the main tourist spots. But perhaps that’s unfair: as I say, we were still in the middle of covid at the time.

Out of 18 months in China I spent less than 4 days in Beijing, so don’t come to me for anything but superficialities. If I ever get the chance, I’d like to get to know the place better.