* Beijing - Day 4 - More Taken by the Living than the Dead

Today we decided it was finally time to hit one of Beijing's bigger, more significant attractions, and headed out to TianTan(天坛), the Temple of Heaven. There's a great deal of historical signigficance to the place, most of which I'll leave you to suss out on your own, but it was the largest of the temples at which the Emperor would pray to the gods, and so, was appropriately ornate.

And by ornate, I mean, gorgeous - especially as the largest temple building had just been restored the previous year to its former sparkling glory. There's a lot to be said for restoration work, and I appreciate its value, but, nonetheless, it's rather annoying when two-thirds of the famous temple you came to see are closed due to it - I certainly received a large number of shocked looks from my mom upon my return to Canada with the words "oh, no, I didn't get to see that either, it was under construction".

The construction meant that after the main temple, a gorgeous sacrifical stage-thing (altar, I suppose, to be proper about it), and its associated historical/museum counterparts, we were left only with minor exhibits to check out (animal-killing pavillion, anyone?) - though I shouldn't complain, since it meant we had time to wander through the musical instrument museum while it rained.

More importantly, while the temple is gorgeous as anything - you'll notice I haven't many things to say about it. That's mostly because, though it's one of the most gorgeous buildings I've ever seen... when it comes down to is that a building is a building is a building. HOWEVER, everything else about the place completely took me in in a way that it seems only China can. For one, it was my first time on public transit here, and, thus, the bus-love (which I'll talk about again later) began. More importantly, though Tiantan (天坛) is a major tourist attraction, it's also located in the middle of a large and well-maintained "public" park.

Now, public parks in China are rather different than they are in Canada - for one, in Beijing, many of the larger parks charge admission, which, in turn, pays for maintenance and landscaping work therein. Admittedly, I'm not such a fan of the idea, since I figure that parks ought to be free... but... I will say that the amount of maintenance that goes into these places might merit it. Unlike the usual grassy playgrounds or wooded spaces we're used to in Canada, "park" in China defines an extremely well-manicured green space, with paths, pavillions, and neatly placed rows of trees and flowers or shrubbery. More of a "Keep off the grass" space than the places I used to run around in as a kid, or lay in the sun as an adult.

Be that as it may, though, parks in China also have more LIFE in them than almost any I've seen in Canada, and the median age of the people in it is substantially higher. While neighbourhood parks in Canada are often akin to children's playgrounds, their Chinese cousins are the centre of Chinese adult exercise and life. There are groups line-dancing in the courtyard, tap dancing, doing tai chi, singing en masse, playing games (from the chinese version of hacky-sack to diabolo-esque trick juggling and racquet sports - the most entertaining of which is certainly one we saw again in Beihai Park, often played by older folks, consisting of balancing, spinning, tossing and catching a small ball in a slightly curved racquet - Garrett wasn't all that impressed by the two people we saw tossing and catching a ball back and forth until he realized that neither the ball nor paddle were velcro, and that the only thing keeping the ball on the paddle was its carefully manipulated angular momentum), etc. There were even small Chinese string quartets (by which I mean classical chinese instruments, not european) and wind ensembles playing in the pavillions, surrounded by strangers, each engaged in their own social activities.

Every park we went to (Beihai, Summer Palace, Fragrant Hills) had hundreds (I don't even exaggerate) of people, non-tourists, who were spending their time practicing, playing, and exercising in public. The amount of activity in these places astounds me, even now, and I love it to pieces, even more than the actual attraction, the piece of history, that we were there to see.

The funniest part though is that the reason that you'd never see this sort of thing happen in Canada - above and beyond the simple reduced number of people in a given area - is that I can't imagine people in North America being unselfconscious enough to be exercising in public in that way. Sure, people go for a run, or go to the gym, or play sports, just the same. But, all across China, there are pieces of exercise equipment outside, and everyone ACTUALLY uses them, whereas, back home, people complain that their gym doesn't have frosted glass windows. The idea of being self-conscious just doesn't come up when you do tai chi or line dance in a group of people in between the trees in a busy public park. It takes some getting used to, I'll admit it (my only experience was learning some tai chi in Xi'an, and I'll come back to that), and there are some things even I think I'd feel a little awkward doing. There are people you walk past who are just standing around smacking a tree, or walking along a busy path, doing high kicks every few steps. It is simply not POSSIBLE not to look completely silly while doing it. At the same time, I think everyone in those parks was 40-60 years old and probably twice as fit as I am. That feels pretty silly too. :)

I'm not saying we should be building these things, or having groups sings in the park (though, if you do, call me - I'm totally up for a little group sing in public), but... there's something inherently lively about them, and I loved it.