Woke up today (July 13th) to another blue sky morning with the sun out and no humidity. Its weird how the first week went by without any sun, only clouds and smog; merely seeing the sky makes China feel more like home, the sun also shines on the other side of the world.
We started off by heading to the Winter Palace again, except this time as an entire group. Fortunately, the only section we spent time in was the statuary, which I didn't get to see last time round. Vast rock pillars stand without walls burned down long ago. A stone maze leading to a small gazebo in the middle is the highlight as it is more intact than any of the other stone carvings. Based on how intricately the stone was carved, and what I know about the rest being burned and looted, one can only imagine how awesome the wooden carvings and golden treasures were within this palace.
Over at the Summer Palace, we ate lunch within a pavilion on the outskirts before venturing within. This palace served as a second home to the Emperor, and was abused by one Dragonlady - a babysitter to young Emperors and key advisor to the throne - who put the Emperor on house arrest here. Not that it was incredibly restrictive, hundreds of acres at the very least and a lake to swim in to boot. There is almost a monotonous amount of detail in the designs in the hallways that run around the courtyards, which brought out the more unique murals and paintings at the top of the windows and doorways (there are no windows or doors, but thats the easiest way to describe them). Amongst our group of Ithaca College students are a few Beijing Sport University students; Ivan and Robin (their English names) are two that Steve and I befriended pretty
quickly. I inquired about one particular painting with a monkey, a pig, a horse, and two people riding on a turtle across a stream. Robin explained to me that there's a famous fairy tale about a monkey king who journeys west across China with a monk and the King of the Pigs to find Buddha... sounds like the best story ever! Another story we came across was that of the Bankruptcy stone: once a man came across a beautiful stone and decided to haul it across China to the Summer Palace as a gift for the Emperor. Due to its immense weight, he only took it halfway before he ran out of money, starved, and died. 200 years later, a merchant found the stone and completed its journey to the palace. At the time of its arrival, Emperor Qianlong had lead China to its greatest prosperity to date; after receiving the stone, massive rebellion and embezzlement caused the kingdom to go broke! I was going to take a picture in front of it to tempt fate, but the last thing I want to do is mock the gods; if a rock could bring down an entire kingdom it could probably bring down Stephen Lauer.
We head out for another delicious dinner, during which Robin and Ivan give Steve and I our Chinese names! My Chinese name is Shur Tien Shway (rough pronunciation) meaning Steve Scuba. Steve's is Shur Yo Tai meaning Steve Jew. While they were telling us our names they were conversing in Chinese on how to pronounce each name. We were confused and they told us that initially they mispronounced Shur as Shura, which means "something you do in the toilet." After a moment, we realized the hilarity of Shura Tien Shway (Scuba Crap) or Shura Yo Tai (Jew Crap). Great day for learning Chinese, we learned our names and our first curse word.
Finally, we closed our night at the Peking Opera with the performance The Phoenix and the Dragon. Very interesting with a few funny segments and fighting and plot twists, however one thing stood out: the screeching falsetto of the leading lady. While the men spoke so quickly that the subtitles had difficulty keeping up, she elongated every syllable to the extreme at a pitch so high and loud glass should have shattered. Thankfully we were pretty far back, some of my classmates had premier seats; sitting up front next to the speakers, I can understand why some needed to walk out. Even our tour guide, whose English name is Silver (pretty sweet), admitted that she didn't need to be mic'd up for the performance. So thats how operas are done on the other side of the world. Tomorrow will be the last day of our official tours of China, then we're on our own.
We started off by heading to the Winter Palace again, except this time as an entire group. Fortunately, the only section we spent time in was the statuary, which I didn't get to see last time round. Vast rock pillars stand without walls burned down long ago. A stone maze leading to a small gazebo in the middle is the highlight as it is more intact than any of the other stone carvings. Based on how intricately the stone was carved, and what I know about the rest being burned and looted, one can only imagine how awesome the wooden carvings and golden treasures were within this palace.
Over at the Summer Palace, we ate lunch within a pavilion on the outskirts before venturing within. This palace served as a second home to the Emperor, and was abused by one Dragonlady - a babysitter to young Emperors and key advisor to the throne - who put the Emperor on house arrest here. Not that it was incredibly restrictive, hundreds of acres at the very least and a lake to swim in to boot. There is almost a monotonous amount of detail in the designs in the hallways that run around the courtyards, which brought out the more unique murals and paintings at the top of the windows and doorways (there are no windows or doors, but thats the easiest way to describe them). Amongst our group of Ithaca College students are a few Beijing Sport University students; Ivan and Robin (their English names) are two that Steve and I befriended pretty
quickly. I inquired about one particular painting with a monkey, a pig, a horse, and two people riding on a turtle across a stream. Robin explained to me that there's a famous fairy tale about a monkey king who journeys west across China with a monk and the King of the Pigs to find Buddha... sounds like the best story ever! Another story we came across was that of the Bankruptcy stone: once a man came across a beautiful stone and decided to haul it across China to the Summer Palace as a gift for the Emperor. Due to its immense weight, he only took it halfway before he ran out of money, starved, and died. 200 years later, a merchant found the stone and completed its journey to the palace. At the time of its arrival, Emperor Qianlong had lead China to its greatest prosperity to date; after receiving the stone, massive rebellion and embezzlement caused the kingdom to go broke! I was going to take a picture in front of it to tempt fate, but the last thing I want to do is mock the gods; if a rock could bring down an entire kingdom it could probably bring down Stephen Lauer.We head out for another delicious dinner, during which Robin and Ivan give Steve and I our Chinese names! My Chinese name is Shur Tien Shway (rough pronunciation) meaning Steve Scuba. Steve's is Shur Yo Tai meaning Steve Jew. While they were telling us our names they were conversing in Chinese on how to pronounce each name. We were confused and they told us that initially they mispronounced Shur as Shura, which means "something you do in the toilet." After a moment, we realized the hilarity of Shura Tien Shway (Scuba Crap) or Shura Yo Tai (Jew Crap). Great day for learning Chinese, we learned our names and our first curse word.
Finally, we closed our night at the Peking Opera with the performance The Phoenix and the Dragon. Very interesting with a few funny segments and fighting and plot twists, however one thing stood out: the screeching falsetto of the leading lady. While the men spoke so quickly that the subtitles had difficulty keeping up, she elongated every syllable to the extreme at a pitch so high and loud glass should have shattered. Thankfully we were pretty far back, some of my classmates had premier seats; sitting up front next to the speakers, I can understand why some needed to walk out. Even our tour guide, whose English name is Silver (pretty sweet), admitted that she didn't need to be mic'd up for the performance. So thats how operas are done on the other side of the world. Tomorrow will be the last day of our official tours of China, then we're on our own.
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