Lama Temple and the Heavenly Palace

Lama Temple

Doors at Lama Temple

Heavenly Palace

By the animal sacrifice altar at Heavenly Palace

Peking Duck

I am still pretty jet lagged, so I didn't eat dinner last night. "You need to resist the urge to sleep," said my Asian friends. "Stay up at least until 11."

But I was tired and kind of grumpy, so I announced that I was out for the count, and went to the bedroom. They followed me, both giving advice on how to stay awake, but I covered my eyes with a towel, shooed them away, and fell into a really deep sleep.

And woke up at 3:30 am, regretting that I didn't listen. The nice thing is, my friend left dinner for me on the table. I was starving, so I was happy to find a small feast waiting for me. She had proudly shown me these "organic peaches" that she had bought by the crate, which were the ugliest peaches that I have ever seen in my life. They were small, like the size of a plum, and green like a Granny Smith Apple, and with peach fuzz. Nevertheless, she had left a bowl of eight of them for me. I decided to try it, and it was amazing. It was as if a peach and a guava had a baby. The texture was more firm than a normal peach, but softer than a guava, and tasted like an exceptionally sweet guava that had been dipped in peach juice. I think I ate four of them, before falling back asleep around 6:30 am.

I was a bit disoriented, so after everyone woke up, I asked them, "is today thursday?"

"No it's tuesday," said my Chinese friend.

"No it's Wednesday," said my Korean friend. 

I guess we are really getting old, because we had to have a discussion before we all settled into agreement that it was Wednesday.

We arrived late for breakfast, which was great because a lot of lunch food had come out. I've been so happy with the food here. Americans are not good with vegetables. I think in general, Americans have two ways of serving vegetables--raw in salad form, or steamed. Sometimes they are roasted or fried I guess, but never with anything but salt, or at best butter and garlic. In comparison, Chinese do vegetables like conducting a symphony. With set array of ingredients, they can make so many combinations and they get very creative. I had bamboo with mushrooms, then tofu skin with wood ear, and some green leafy thing that was really good, and then porridge with carrots--all with different sauces. After this trip I plan to make porridge at home more often; it has been a very undervalued dish in my life. 

The Beijing subway station is really awesome. I love the Beijing subway. For one, it is incredibly clean, but I am speaking from a New York perspective. In some ways, as much as I do love New York, the city is really like a 2nd or 3rd world country. In general, Beijing is very clean. On the streets there are constantly workers hired to clean up litter so there isn't much trash, and for the most part, Chinese people seem to be good at obeying major rules, so there isn't a lot of littering. Or maybe there is, and it just gets cleaned up really quickly. So far, I haven't had to wait more than 2 minutes for a train. They are constantly coming, and pretty quick too. On the train however, getting a seat is a bit like playing musical chairs. When something frees up, people dive for it. Also, even though it is much hotter in Beijing than New York, the subways are ventilated well enough so it's not so bad inside. New York subway platforms are so dirty and hot, like a sauna: trash is everywhere, and half of the places smell like pee. Although, despite how gross it is, everyone takes the subway in New York. Lawyers, bankers, artists, actors, maids all take the subway. My Chinese friend told me that in general, only poorer people and students take the subway, and most professionals drive. New York is a lot smaller though, and I guess subway is much faster than driving in most cases, so that may be why it transcends class. 

We took the subway to Lama Temple, the biggest Tibetan Temple in Beijing. This subway line goes in a circle, so we ended up taking it the wrong direction and going the longer route. As we got out of the station, we both took out our guidebooks to try to figure out where to go. Neither of us had any idea where the temple is. As soon as we crossed the street however, we realized it had been right behind us the entire time, but it loomed over us so that we were unable to see it until we were a bit farther away. There, I saw the most ornate KFC I have ever seen. It was built like a small temple. There are a lot of KFCs in Beijing. I said to my Korean friend, "Chinese people really love fried chicken. Do Koreans too?"

"Yes," she said. "We eat fried chicken with beer."

"We eat fried chicken with everything," I said.

"Yeah I guess us too," she replied.

McDonalds in Taiwan serves fried chicken. 

On the way to the temple, there are a lot of little boutiques that sell incense and Buddhist trinkets. My Korean friend is also Buddhist, which was nice because we could both spend time actually praying, since Lama temple is a functioning temple that is used for worship. It managed to survive the cultural revolution under the protection of Zhou En Lai, and today is quite carefully taken care of by the Chinese government. As we approached the entrance, there were recordings, probably by the Government, saying, "fortune telling and predictions are lies and scams. Do not fall victim to this!" I thought that was interesting, since fortune telling is a part of Buddhism. Although, I understood this warning later, because all along the street, there were people offering to tell our fortunes. "Free gift!" They would say, and some were quite aggressive about trying to convince us to stay. 

Lama temple was once the residence of Prince Yong, 4th son of the emperor. After Prince Yong because emperor, he had it converted to a palace. His son later had it converted to a Lamasary. It is a very ornate temple, with several buildings. As we entered, we received complimentary incense. There were several signs saying to offer only three at a time. I asked one of the workers why we offer three, and he said it was to symbolize religion, law, and the body. 

There was one statue of "the world", which featured a temple on the very top, a bunch of hills and little houses below, and what looked like ocean and wild thrush under that. I overheard one guide explain, in English, to a group, "the top is for the Gods. The middle level is for people, like you and me. Below that is for Devils. Like Hitler."

I didn't see many signs, and I wanted more explanation, so I asked one worker whether there was a difference between the dieties in the first hall and the second hall. "Of course they are different," he said.

"What is the difference?" I asked.

"Well, I guess they have the same goal, just different names."

There were prayer wheels that people spun. You have to spin it clockwise. "Do you have to spin it a certain number of times?" I asked.

The man before me shrugged and said, "I really don't know, but definitely make sure it spins clockwise!"

The places to offer the incense are massive, since so many people burn them. There is a sign saying you should not burn incense on smoggy days, but I'm not sure how they determine that. When you stick the incense into the ash, more ash spurts up because there are so many sticks burning below. It is easy to get burned if you are not careful. There are places for you to kneel and pray, which have ash on them too. I ended up with quite a bit of ash on my knees and legs. 

Towards the end, there is a massive buddha that is 18 meters tall, and carved out of a single piece of white sandalwood. It is in the Guiness Book of World Records. 

After leaving Lama Temple, we walked by Confucius Temple, which was full of students. There was a nice building beside it, and I was curious so I went up to the guard to ask what it was. Before I could open my mouth, he waved his hand at me to shoo me away, as though he was warding off a devious spirit. 

"What is this building?" I asked.

"A library," he replied. Now go away, his eyes said.

Well neither of us can read Chinese, so I guess he was right to shoo us away since we don't have much purpose there. I speak Mandarin well, but I often feel like a peasant in the old days because I can't read anything. "Where is X street?" I ask people. 

"Over there," they say. "Don't you see the huge sign?"

"Oh yes, of course, silly me," I reply, pretending that I can read. I don't like telling people that I'm illiterate. They hand me menus, and ask what I want. In those cases, I do say, "Sorry...I can't read, can you please read me the options?" They are normally pretty nice about it. I feel a bit like Adam Sandler in "50 first dates" when he starts crying at the restaurant and pretends he can't read to get Drew Barrymore to help him with the menu. Except unlike him, I really can't read.

You do need a good command of Chinese in Beijing, since the majority of people really do not speak English. They don't have to--China is so large that they have their own market for many things. 

After a nice break at a cafe, we headed to the Heavenly Temple. This was where emperors prayed to the heavens for good harvest and other concerns an emperor might have. Animals were sacrificed there. Speaking of which, my Korean friend brought us all this very nice hand cream as a gift. I never asked her why there was a horse on it, but today she proudly told me, "this is made with horse oil."

I paused, and said. "Wait...so dead horses are in this cream?"

"No no," she said, "just the fat from horses."

"Ah okay," I said. "Wait...so horses were killed to make this cream."

"Yeah I guess so." Then she thought about it, and said, "I think it's horse milk. I'm not sure."

We examined the ingredients, and it said, in chinese literally, "horse oil." Not sure if that literally means oil made from horses, or something else entirely (again, neither of us are really literate in Chinese). 

The main tower in the Heavenly Palace Gardens is round. Apparently, ancient Chinese believed that heaven was round and earth was square, so earthly buildings, like the structures in the forbidden city, were made to be square or rectangular, and holy places were circular. We got lost trying to go back, and ended up going around in circles. There is one area called the echo hall, which supposedly is built in a way that amplifies sound. My friend had her photo taken in Chinese traditional dress. 

We ended the day with Peking duck, which my friend's mother treated us to.