Monday, January 7, 2019 HOUSTON/BEIJING Depart Houston Flying Overnight to Beijing, Crossing the International Date Line
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THE KINKAID SCHOOL January 6 – 22, 2019 BEIJING, PINGYAO, XI’AN, CHENGDU, HANGZHOU & SHANGHAI Day 1 ~ Sunday, January 6, 2019 HOUSTON Late evening gathering at Houston Intercontinental Airport for “just after midnight” flight. Day 2 ~ Monday, January 7, 2019 HOUSTON/BEIJING Depart Houston flying overnight to Beijing, crossing the International Date Line. Day 3 ~ Tuesday, January 8, 2019 BEIJING Arrive Beijing. Meet, assist and transfer to the Grand Mercure Beijing Dongcheng, situated in the heart of the city. Breakfast and time to freshen up before heading out for an introductory orientation tour of Beijing. Beijing has a population of approximately 20 million, ranking it third in population behind Chongqing (33 million) and Shanghai (15 million). As the capital of China, Beijing is the most important city in the country and a great deal of government investment has been poured into developing the city’s infrastructure and preserving what remains of its imperial past. This melding of the new and the old represents the continuum of the ancient Daoist concept of “Yin” and “Yang”– opposing forces in balance to preserve harmony. Beijing is an apt example of this belief. Chang An Boulevard (the longest street in China) is full of glittering high-rise office and apartment towers. Yet just minutes away are neighborhoods that reflect another time and place when emperors ruled from deep within the Forbidden City. Beijing was once described as less a real city than “a series of villages” and in spite of the rapid transformation of the city’s façade, there remains the scatter shot charm of the Chinese village. Neighborhoods (those that remain) retain strong ties to the traditions of Chinese life by preserving the feel of village life where houses stand side by side, people meet at the local market, and the Buddhist temple is open to all. The first stop is Tiananmen Square, the central plaza that has become synonymous with Beijing. The Square is the largest public plaza on earth holding an estimated one million people at one time. Surrounding the square in each of the cardinal directions is a noted city landmark. At the north end of the Square is Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall, the mausoleum built to hold the body of the late paramount leader, Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976), who was the first communist leader of China and the man credited with “making China stand up”. Despite many terrible mistakes which led to immeasurable suffering for his people, Chairman Mao’s contribution to China’s modern identity is still highly regarded by the Chinese. There is a popular saying that Chairman Mao is “70/30” – 70% good and 30% bad – in other words his contributions to the building of a modern China outweigh the negative aspects of his administration. That considered, the population still recognizes that it was Mao who led the country to its independent status and ended years of corruption and desperate poverty that afflicted the country prior to the communist victory of 1949. At the northern end of the Square stands Tiananmen (literally, “the Gate of Heavenly Peace”) the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644) Gate that marked the entrance into the imperial and Forbidden cities. Today its imperial grandeur has a modern sensibility – a large portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong hangs for all to see and on each side of the portrait are slogans proclaiming long life to the People’s Republic of China and solidarity to the working people of the world. On the east and west sides of the Square stand two remarkable buildings built in the year 1959 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On the western side is the “Great Hall of the People”, where China’s National People’s Congress meets each March and where visiting heads of state are often received and feted at banquets, while on the eastern side is the Museum of Chinese History. 1 In terms of Chinese history the Square is not old; it was expanded and developed under the Communists after 1949. Since its construction it has become a focal point of activity. On October 1, 1949 Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of the “People’s Republic of China” before tens of thousands of cheering Chinese. During the months of July and August 1966 hundreds of thousands of young students paraded through the Square pledging their allegiance to Chairman and becoming his “little Red Soldiers” in the war against the old order. This signaled the onslaught of the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), one of the most chaotic and destructive periods of modern China. From the Square, go through the Gate of Heavenly Peace to The Forbidden City. Take a walk through history exploring the palace that was once home to the ruling families of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Ming (1368 – 1644) and Qing (1644 – 1911) were the two final royal periods in Chinese dynastic history. Much has been written about the Forbidden City; today, learn about its illustrious and infamous history. The palace was first built between the years 1406 – 1420 during a crucial period of Chinese history. The Ming dynasty had overthrown the ruling Mongols (the descendants of Genghis Khan) and set up their capital in Nanjing (which lies along the banks of the Yangzi River far to the south of Beijing) but civil instability and the continued threat from the Mongols caused the third ruler of the Ming, Yong Le (ruled 1402 – 1424) to move the capital back to Beijing. He wanted to proclaim the power of the new dynasty and impress upon people the end of the Mongol period. He initiated the construction of a new palace, one that would surpass anything that had existed in the past. His palace, the Forbidden City, became the defining symbol of Ming (and later Qing) China. Although it is steeped in legend and lore, the Forbidden City remains an overwhelming site. It embodies the spirit and tenets of traditional Chinese thought becoming a potent symbol for many Chinese concepts. The palace covers 72 hectares (approximately 200 acres) and is divided into an outer and inner court. The Outer Court is comprised of the main entrance (the Wumen or Meridian Gate), the Gate of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Halls of Middle and Preserving Harmony. Here the emperor presided over the daily workings of royal administration – receiving dignitaries, reviewing troops, and attending to the business of governing. The Inner Court, hidden behind towering purple walls, housed the residential quarters for the royal family, which would include not only the emperor and his chief consort (the empress) but also the residences of the concubines, children and royal attendants. Symbolism plays a pivotal role in the design of the Forbidden City and it is worth remembering the following symbolic numbers and items that figure prominently in the palace layout. Nine brass knobs on the main palace doors is a symbol of the emperor – the number nine being the number before ten, symbol of perfection. There would be no more perfect being than the emperor. Nine in Chinese has the same pronunciation as “Longevity” and so represents a wish for the emperor’s longevity and good health. Five as in five windows and doors is also a symbol of imperial fortune and good luck and was also believed to be a balance for 9. Legend holds that the palace has 9,999 rooms ensuring the emperor a long life and security. A room in Chinese palace design constitutes four pillars or columns that may support the belief in the number of rooms. Notice the eaves on all the roofs – they are decorated by small guardian figures that are believed to be water spirits providing protection against fire, the most destructive force on the Palace. The roof tiles are a rich yellow, the color being the symbol of the earth – the emperor the “Son of Heaven on Earth”. The general population could not use the imperial yellow shade and violation of this edict could result in serious punishment. The red columns supporting the roofs of each building represent good luck and fortune, while the other colors: the green and blue–the royal colors of the Ming–represent heaven (Tian – blue) and wealth and prosperity (green). The symbolism of the palace design was supported by a life of strict adherence to ritual – the emperors became prisoners of their own world strictly adhering to their beliefs. Tour the palace from the south to the north entering into the outer court and exiting from the inner court. The last emperor to live in the Forbidden City was the emperor Hsuan Tong (1908 – 1911) better known as Henry Pu Yi (immortalized in the 1988 film The Last Emperor). After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 he was allowed to reside in the Inner Court until 1924 when he was ejected from the Palace by warlord troops, which had taken over control of Beijing. Following lunch, set off to explore one of the older Hutong neighborhoods of Beijing. The “Hutong” is residential district unique to Beijing. As the city continues to develop and modern office and apartment towers are built the Hutong districts are being lost forever. Hutong is a Chinese term for an ancient Mongolian or Manchurian (remember the last rulers of China during the Qing dynasty were not Han Chinese, they were Manchurians who came from the northeastern region of China) term that means, “water well”. Residential districts of Beijing probably grew up around a source of water (e.g., a well) and grew into a network of alleys.