Short visit to the land of the departed

One of the places listed in most guide books for the Beijing area is the Ming Tombs. In the Eyewitness Guide it says “best visited by taxi” – and maybe I should have believed them. But that would be really expensive (it’s quite a distance from town), and there’s the hassle of arguing with the driver about the price for basically a whole day off the meter, so I decided to go the “local” way and use public transportation. After all, there are bus routes that go there. But the simple truth is that there really isn’t a “local” way to visit this place – locals just don’t go there.
As you can see, there are no other passengers on the bus, just the driver and the girl who takes the money, since this bus isn’t equipped with a card reader. The ride all the way to the Ming Tombs cost Ұ2, less than US$1. The catch is that it took well over an hour, and in this picture you can see one of the reasons why. We’re sitting still with the engine off on a narrow road that has a fence along one side and cars parked haphazard along the other, making it impossible for traffic to go in both directions at the same time, even though it is a two lane road. This is apparently a popular picnic spot (there’s a lake at the bottom of the hill on the right side) and there is no proper parking. So the bus and everyone else has to wait for a break in the oncoming traffic in order to grab the available lane. I didn’t see anyone directing the cars, it was just a free-for-all. Previous to this, we’d sat still for a long time at a construction site where they were working on a bridge.
As I said, locals generally don’t go here, but the place was far from empty. It’s a standard stop on many tours that go to the Great Wall at Badaling, since it’s on the way. The bus will swing by here in the morning, let the tourists have an hour or two to look around, and then continue on to the Wall.
As it turns out, 2009 marks the 600th anniversary of the building of the main tomb, which is called 长陵 (Changling) and houses the remains of the Ming Emperor Zhu Di (also called Yongle), who died in 1424. You might notice that 1424 to 2009 does not make 600 years. The tomb was built in 1409 when the empress died, and when the emperor himself died, he was brought here as well.
The main mausoleum is a very large building, the largest mausoleum in China.
Inside, there is a museum of relics from Zhu Di’s time, and this statue of him.
This is an incredibly elaborate crown made mostly of tiny gold wires woven into shape.
And these are some “household” objects carved of jade.
After passing out the back of the mausoleum, you continue on to another building. If you look closely through the arched opening, you can see a group of people stepping over the threshold of a gateway. Tradition has it that when you approach the grave area, you walk around the side of this gate, and when you come back from the grave area, you step over the threshold while loudly saying “I’m back!” so the spirits will know that you belong in the land of the living.
The last building contains a large stele. Zhu Di is buried somewhere in the tree-covered mound you can see out the back. The tomb has never been excavated, and is believed to be untouched since the burial. The tomb of one of the later Ming emperors was excavated back in the 1950s, but the projct was such a disaster that China has shied away from this kind of archeology since. That was in the days when the country was closed to the outside world, and the were quite a bit behind in scientific excavation techniques, and even more behind when it came to preserving the artifacts uncovered. Thousands of precious silks and scrolls were lost because China at the time did not have the means to save them.

The Chinese name for the Ming Tombs is 明十三陵 (Ming Shisan Ling), which means Thirteen Ming Tombs. There are twelve other mausoleums scattered around the area, but the distances between them are too great to be practical on foot, so I wasn’t able to see any of the others. I also missed the famous Spirit Way with its line of statues. I’m told it should have been possible to see it from the bus if you knew exactly where to look, which I didn’t.

As it was, the round trip transportation time was more than three times what it took to actually see what was there. The museum was nice, and would certainly be worth visiting if it wasn’t so hard to get to.

Get ur geek on

In my continuing quest to see everything there is to see in Beijing, today I checked off another of the city’s museums. This time it was the Natural History Museum (北京自然博物馆), which is located near the Temple of Heaven. It took me around an hour to get there on my bike. When I waled up to the ticket office, I was confronted with a confusing sign about how the tickets are free, but you have to call to reserve them five days in advance, and those without reservations will not get tickets. So I rode all that way for nothing?

Well, there was a second ticket office for the Special Exhibit: Mammoth China Tour. I bought a Ұ40 ticket for that, and the kid selling tickets told me I could buy a ticket for the regular museum around the corner. Yes, a third ticket office, this one with no signs pointing you to it, and I know the characters 售票处. The regular museum ticket was Ұ10.

The mammoth show started out rather unpromising.
There were several little souvenir booths and refreshment stands along the outside of the museum building. Note the little toy elephant wandering around in front of the booth.

Inside, you are greeted with a life-size mammoth.
There are some displays about the evolution of the different kinds of elephants that have lived, illustrated with little models or paintings.
You get to see some mammoth bones and tusks, as well as saber tooth cat and other creatures of similar vintage.
The highlight of the exhibit is a display of some actual mammoth parts, with skin and hair still on them.
It’s too dark in this area to get a picture, and anyway there’s a sign that says no photographs along with a guard to enforce it. The guard didn’t look a day over 14, but whatever. I took a picture of the sign as a replacement. The remains are in a glass-walled cold room to preserve them.

And that’s what you get for Ұ40. You exit out the back of the building and go around to get to the main museum.
Outside, they’ve got a couple of small dinosaur statues.
When you walk into the entrance, there are three halls you can go into. I went to the right.
This section mainly had old taxidermy and corny displays about our animal friends.
The part about insects reminded me of a low budget version of the Bug’s Life feature at Disneyland.

The dinosaur part of the museum is much better.
There’s a big central room with a bunch of reconstructed skeletons.
These are mostly dinosaurs that lived in the area that is now China, like the Szechuanosaurus.

Then you go through a dark hall to the other big room...
...where they have some big plastic dinos.
Note that the L and A from __TE have fallen down and are resting on a little shelf of the fake rock. Maybe the missing R from T_IASSIC is there too – can’t tell.

When I saw this one:
...I realized that they’re supposed to be motorized in some way and move, but are either broken down or on a coffee break.

There was a little kiddie arcade and refreshment stand in the area below the dino world.

The steps up from there took me to the earliest life on Earth. The most interesting part here was the part about the Chengjiang Fauna.
This is the name given to a bizarre group of fossils dating from the Cambrian Period found in Chengjiang County of Yunnan. They are similar to the Burgess Shale creatures found in Canada.
They’ve even got a sculpture with giant versions of some of the creatures.

After that they’ve got some pretty nice fossil displays.
And then a room with Pleistocene megafauna, including mammoths.
That one’s a megatherium, I think, though its neck seems too long.

I guess I was spoiled by the wonderful new museums in Chengdu, but this one mostly seemed kind of old and run-down. As a dinosaur enthusiast, it was cool to see the Chinese species instead of the ones we always see in North America. I’d say the Ұ40 for the mammoth exhibit was a rip-off, but Ұ10 for the main museum was fair – especially considering it works out to US$1.77 or so. And yes, there were some items “borrowed” from the Ice Age movies.

And all the rest

There are so many things to see in Sichuan that four days can hardly scratch the surface. I've covered pandas and Giant Buddha as well as a bit about food and downtown shopping, so this time I'll write about the rest of the trip, which involves various things around the city of Chengdu.

One of the famous sites in the city is the Wuhou Temple (武侯祠), which is not far from the center of town. This complex is built around the large tomb of Emperor Liu Bei (刘备) of the Shu Kingdom (221-263) and mostly honors his premier, Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮), one of the most famous strategists in Chinese history. “Wuhou” means “premier” (in the sense of the government official, not any of the other meanings of the word) or “chancellor”.

Liu Bei's tomb has not been excavated – it's just a large circular mound with trees growing on it, presumably with a burial chamber somewhere beneath it.
That's the burial mound on the right. There is a circular wall built around it, which I think dates from about 1700, when the original construction was rebuilt by the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

In the garden area outside the circular wall is a wonderful garden of miniature trees.
We think of bonsai as a Japanese art, but like many things, the Japanese learned it from the Chinese.
There is also a museum devoted to the arts of the Three Kingdoms period.
And here is the statue of Zhuge Liang.
One of the fun things about this complex is the carved animals that decorate the railings.
Each of them is different, and there are a wide variety of animals represented, both real and mythical.

Immediately adjacent to the temple complex is Jinli Street (锦里路).
This street dates to the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), when it was one of the most prominent streets in the city, but there is virtually nothing left from that time period. It was reconstructed in 2004 for a taste of Old China. I'm pretty sure the Qin Dynasty didn't have Starbucks (新巴克).
There are shops and booths selling a large variety of local handicrafts and other goods, plus some imported things from Tibet, India, and so on.
This man is making elaborate shapes out of sugar.

And of course there's an area devoted to food.
This is the latest entry in the “too cute to resist” category:

Another site in Chengdu is the Yongling tomb (永陵), where Wang Jian (王建 847-918) is buried.
Like Liu Bei's tomb, it features a large circular mound. That's what you see with trees on it above the faded red doorway. The path to the opening is guarded by statues of animals and men. Photography is not allowed inside, so here is a link to a bunch of pictures. You can actually go inside this mausoleum, which was raided over the centuries of many treasures but still holds a lot of history. The most interesting thing is that the sarcophagus is decorated with carvings of 24 female musicians and dancers, providing a wonderful glimpse into the music of the era.

Moving even further back in history, there is the Jinsha (金沙 or Golden Sand) site. In 2001, during some new development, workers stumbled upon many old artifacts, and when experts were called in, they found remains of an extensive settlement dating to the Ancient Shu Culture around 1000BCE. Careful excavations were conducted, and thousands of items were found. Archaeological work has stopped now, and the main site has been enclosed in a large building.
It's only about 5k (a couple of miles) from the center of town.
They've built a raised walkway across the site so you can see many things close up, and there are signs indicating where the most famous items were found.
One thing that is really surprising is that thousands of elephant tusks were found, apparently buried in a ritual manner. It seems that elephants were common in this area 3000 years ago. There certainly aren't any around now.

A short walk from the excavation site is the museum.
The circular skylight at the center of the building is designed to resemble one of the most famous items found there, the Immortal Sun Bird Disk.
At the bottom of the central shaft the design is repeated, for a really lovely effect.

Here's another of the famous artifacts.
This is one of the most artistically designed museums I have ever seen. All of the displays are beautiful, undoubtedly modern but also suited to the ancient items presented. The ambient light is very low, making it really difficult to photograph, with dramatic spotlights on the items.
This beautiful gold foil disk presents such an evocative image that it was chosen as the symbol of China's ancient heritage. It is part of logos you see around the entire country.

The Jinsha site also features a cultural center where there are shows with dancing and so on, but it was closed when we were there. Jinsha is related to another famous site called Sanxingdui (三星堆 or Three Stars Mound), which is even older, but is farther from town, so we didn't have time to see it. Next time... Both sites represent a period of China's history that is not very well understood. For example, it is unknown what happened to the people who lived here 3000 years ago.

The last place in Chengdu we visited was the Wenshu Monastery (文殊). It's located not far north of the center of town.
It dates from the Tang Dynasty and is today the home of the province's Buddhist organization.

I particularly like this statue:
Note the monkey underneath the elephant feeding it. And yes, the elephant is carrying the world on its back. The globe is fairly detailed with the Earth's continents, so I'm sure this is not an ancient thing.

There are beautiful gardens behind the temples, and at the back is this amazing building:
There you go, Chengdu highlights in words and pictures.