Interviewing a Buddhist at Tongjiao temple in Beijing

September 13, 2010

Last Sunday, I went to Tongjiao temple to visit Vicky, a friend of my wife’s who regards herself as a devout or pious Buddhist. Vicky spends one morning a week volunteering her time at the temple. When I told her I wanted to interview her about Buddhism for the Traditional China class, she invited me to her temple to see where she volunteered and worshipped.

I went to the temple on bike and took some snapshots of my trip over. I live east of the East 3rd Ring Road, and the temple is located just inside the East 2nd Ring Road in the old city (the 2nd Ring Road marks the perimeter of Old Beijing), so my trip took me west.  Here are some pictures of the traffic circle which marks the 2nd Ring Road. 

 

It was a beautiful morning, and I saw two weddings on my route. One had an old fashioned wedding procession with dancing lions. The other was more of a modern day wedding with a limo waiting outside the restaurant.

There also some pictures of people getting ready for work -- restaurant workers lined up for the morning drill, chefs getting a last puff of their cigarette before heading back inside.

Some familiar signs....

This is the street the temple is on, and here is the main entrance to the temple which is under construction.

Below are pictures of the inner courtyard of the temple which was also under construction.
 

When I got to the temple, Vicky was waiting for me in the Bookstore (see left) where she was working that morning.

 She was also responsible for taking donations from visitors. In the front of her desk, you can see two red donation boxes marked in Chinese, gongde xiang, which literally means Box of merits and virtues. Visitors can put donations in these boxes for the upkeep of the temple. They can also make donations for specific purposes (see the first podcast). I made a donation on behalf of Marist of 200 yuan (about U.S.$30) to save animals from being killed.

To the right is a sign that tells you not to speak, which Vicky explained really means not to engage in idle talk, but only chant Buddhist texts and talk about Buddhism.  The volunteers at the temple were pretty good about ignoring this sign.

While I was talking to Vicky, various people would come through, some of them volunteers who -- yes, engaged in idle chatter -- others visitors, so you may hear talking in the background of the podcasts. One elderly gentleman who volunteered in the temple, had lived most of his life nearby and knew the history of the temple. He told me that there used to be 3 temples in this area, but two were torn down to make way for residential buildings. Of those two, one temple was for monks and the other was for nuns. Vicky explained that monks and nuns were segregated and could not live together in the same temple. The Tongjiao temple is for nuns.

To the right and below, you can see the nuns living quarters, and a room used to burn envelopes in memory of the dead.

The elderly man also told me that during the Maoist period, the Tongjiao temple was turned into a police station. He told me an interesting story of how police would detain suspected criminals in this temple, and every so often you'd walk in and see the police beating or kicking one of them.  During this time, the main entrance which you see above was closed and only the side entrance (see below) was used. I took some pictures of the cars parked by the side entrance and you can see a number of police cars and vans from the police station which is relocated next to the temple. The temple was reopened for use in the early 1980s when the Communist Party allowed religion to be practiced again.

The Chinese Military History Museum

March 20, 2008

Today I decided to take a second trip to the Chinese Military History Museum (or more accurately, the Military Affairs Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution) which is located on the western side of Beijing. I wanted to refresh my memory about the exhibits and take a few more pictures for this blog (see my Flickr site for all the pictures).

To get to the subway, I had to take a taxi from my house. On the way down, I got into an interesting conversation with my driver who asked me what I thought about the recent protests (or riots depending on which perspective you’re taking) in Tibet. I said I didn’t trust the Chinese government’s reports and wish I had more information about what was going on. I didn’t doubt that there was violence on both sides, but said the government had all the firepower and should be careful how they handled these protests. Being a good Chinese citizen, he tried to defend the government’s actions. He said, the Tibetans were causing a lot of disorder, burning and looting. I went back to my point about the Chinese government’s lack of credibility, especially in the eyes of the international community, but I don’t think I persuaded him. Before we could get any further in our discussion, I was at the subway station.

The Military History Museum looks from the outside like a piece of Soviet-inspired architecture and inside it’s appropriately dim and dreary until you get to the exhibits. Today, entrance was free and there were crowds of schoolchildren traipsing past the exhibits.

The purpose of this museum is pretty clear, at least to an American who is cynical about these kinds of things, and that is to instill pride in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and China in general. The third floor which is about the People’s Liberation Army today is one big propaganda ad, full of glowing, colorful displays of shiny weaponry and smiling soldiers and politicians contributing to China’s development. Perhaps it’s appropriate that the gift shop is located on that floor! After leaving that exhibit, who wouldn’t want to buy a medal with Mao’s picture on it, or a shiny tank made out of bullet casings!

The first two floors, which is where I spent most of my time, is more interesting. The display, particularly the socialist realist artwork, are still meant to instill nationalist pride (as you can see from the pictures) but there is more attention to history in the form of photos, documents and other artifacts. The first floor tells the story of how the CCP and the PLA developed after the split between the CCP and KMT in 1927 up to the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The second floor continues the story of China’s (meaning the CCP’s!) resistance against the Japanese, and the civil war between the CCP and KMT that ends with the CCP’s victory in 1949.

There are several things I took away from this visit:

One is that the displays drive home the fact that the CCP and the PLA developed hand in hand. The party and the army, politics and the military, were one (and you could say the same about the KMT). All the important CCP leaders after 1949 had their formative experience in the PLA. Conversely, the PLA was not just a military machine. It played an important role in the CCP’s ideological and social campaigns to recruit support from the peasantry. This close relationship between the party and army is still important to understanding the CCP today.

Second, the exhibit gives you an appreciation for how long, arduous and precarious the process of building an organization like the CCP was. When the CCP began to strike out on its own in 1927, it’s survival was by no means guaranteed. There was infighting among its own members (something only hinted at in the displays), attempts by the KMT to eliminate the CCP, the Long March which decimated the Communist forces, the Japanese invasion, and then the KMT again. One nightmare after another. Yet the CCP was able to overcome all these obstacles and grow stronger in the process. Even for hardened cynics like myself, the displays do inspire admiration for what CCP leaders were able to accomplish in the face of incredible odds. I can only imagine what the Chinese feel after leaving the museum.

Third, keep in mind that this is a military museum and thus it leaves out much of the social and cultural changes taking place during this very turbulent period. As I said earlier, the PLA (or Worker and Peasant Red Army as it was initially called) was as much a military force as it was an organization for carrying out the ideological and socioeconomic experiments of the CCP in the countryside. In this sense, the CCP was built to “win the hearts and minds” of the peasantry and did so much more successfully than the U.S. troops ever were able to do in Iraq.

The Foreign Legation Quarter in Beijing: a virtual tour

September 17, 2007

One of the more interesting walks through Beijing is the former Foreign Legation Quarter which lies to the east of Tiananmen Square. The Legation quarter was the area where the Western powers and Japan had their embassies during the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th. Manchus, Mongolians and Koreans also resided in this area. It stands as a vivid reminder of foreign occupation and the site of one of China's most humiliating episodes: the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers belonged to a religious society that called themselves the "Righteous and Harmonious Fists" (Yi He Quan) who believed they could use a combination of martial arts and animistic magic to fight and expel foreigners from China. The Boxers slaughtered Christian missionaries and Christian Chinese converts throughout north China, and their attacks reached a climax in Beijing in the spring of 1900 with attacks on missionaries and Chinese Christians in and around the city. By June, foreigners and Chinese Christians took refuge from these attacks in the Foreign Legation Quarter where they held out for 55 days waiting for help. When the Qing imperial court refused to suppress the rebellion, the foreign powers responded by calling in an allied expeditionary force known as the "Eight Nation Alliance" (baguo lianjun). The alliance started in the port city of Tianjin and made their way into Beijing by August 14 where they broke the seige of the Legation Quarters and occupied Beijing. In the following year, the Qing imperial court signed the humiliating "Boxer Protocol" where they promised, among other things, to pay a staggering indemnity to the foreign powers that is estimated to be about 333 million U.S. dollars.

We start our walk here at Zhengyang ("facing sun") Gate, which was damaged during the Boxer Rebellion. This gate forms the southern entrance to Tiananmen Square, and is the largest of the 9 gates that were part of the inner city walls that were taken down in the 1950s. Take the subway to the Qianmen stop and when you get out, you'll be outside this gate. Walk through the gate into the square, and you'll see Mao's mausoleum in front of you. Turn around and this is the view you should see.


To your left (looking east), you should see this building which is on the western border of the Legation quarter. To get there, take the underground tunnel that leads to the other side of the street.










When you get to the other side of the street, enter into the alley way that leads past this building. This alley is Dong jiao min xiang and is the southern border of the Legation quarter. Continue walking east along this alleyway. To your right, as you walk past this building (which houses the Management Committee of the Tiananmen District government), you'll pass the area that was the U.S. legation. You won't be able to see much because of the walls.








Update: In September of 2008, I brought another group of students to tour this area and we found that the former U.S. legation area had been turned into a posh, upscale restaurant complex that includes a French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese restaurant. I guess you could say it's a form of culinary colonialism!

Below left is a picture of the flyer for the complex, called Legation Ltd. (According to one source, the Americans had a baseball field built on the grounds of this complex.) On the right is a picture of the former U.S. embassy building which now houses the French restaurant.























One thing you'll notice when you walk through this neighborhood (if you can read Chinese) is that it is home to many government and public security (the name of China's police) offices. Many of these buildings are off limits and you'll see guards standing at the gates to ward off any curiousity seekers.


Further up the street you'll find this building to your right. It's used to be the National City Bank of New York, and is now the Beijing City Police Museum. Across the street, you'll see an imposing modern structure which is the Supreme People's Court. It used to be the site of the former Soviet legation. If you go to the entrance of the alleyway just to the west of the Supreme People's Court, you'll see etched on one of the walls "USSR Embassy Compound Lane".



Further up Dong jiao min xiang, you'll come to an intersection. This building will be on the northeast corner. It is the former Yokohama Specie Bank, one of several banks in the Legation quarter, and now home to a Chinese company.









Turn left at this intersection up Zhengyi Road, and on your right, you'll come to this gate which marks the entrance to the former Japanese legation. As the black and white plaque on the gate states, this compound is now home to the Beijing city government. The last emperor Pu Yi apparently holed up here when he was forced out of the Forbidden City in 1924. A little further up, on your left, you'll see the gates to the former British legation.






Go back down to Dong jiao min xiang and continue east. On your left, over these walls, is the site of the former French legation. Go further up and you'll see the gate which is flanked by two stone lions. The buildings in the legation were destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and the lions are all that remains. Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia holed up here in 1970 and again in 1979 when Cambodia was attacked by the U.S. and Vietnam.







Past the French legation, you'll come to an intersection. On the northeast corner rise the spires of St. Michael's Catholic Church. Across the street from the church are the grounds of the former Belgian legation.

Turn left up Taijichang Street and go to the third alleyway on your right. On your left, you'll see the headquarters of the Beijing city Party Committee, the real seat of power in Beijing politics.


On the third alleyway on the right, called Taijichang Toutiao, look for this brick with the words "Rue Hart". This street was named after Sir Robert Hart who was the Inspector General of the Chinese customs service from 1863-1907. Hart had a residence across the street in what is now the Overseas Friendship Association headquarters. Further down Rue Hart, one can find the former Danish legation on the right, and the former Austro-Hungarian legation.



Go back to Taijichang Street and continue north until you get to the next big intersection. Here you see the start of Wangfujing, Beijing's main shopping drag, and a great place just to walk (no cars are allowed for several blocks) and window shop. On the northwest corner is the Beijing Hotel, and a few blocks up on your left, you'll find the Foreign Languages Bookstore, a nice place to browse for English-language books on China and other subjects. Enjoy!



For more pictures of the Foreign Legation quarter, go to my Flickr website at www.flickr.com/photos/theshiehs and go to the collection entitled Beijing, and you'll see a set entitled Foreign Legation Quarter.