Beijing, Monday, October 10, 2016

We arrived in Beijing at 4:35 a.m. on Monday, October 10, 2016, twenty-four hours after being dropped off at the Twin Cities airport to begin our trip to Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. We had flown first to Los Angeles. I had marched right past Len because our flight was already boarding by the time we arrived at the gate. Behind me, Abby gave Len a friendly greeting, while he gave me a gesture suggesting that he didn’t care about my feelings, either.

Once aboard the plane, I told the flight attendant about my gaffe and asked her to send a glass of red wine back to Len to atone for my thoughtlessness. After she rejected the suggestion of the young men across the aisle that they go out together in Los Angeles, and her other duties were accomplished, she reported back that Len had received the glass of wine graciously and was feeling better. All was forgiven.

Once in Beijing, the line to get through immigration seemed interminable; it took about an hour and a half to wind our way to the front to have our photos taken and our passports stamped. Fortunately, the lie-flat seats on the 12-hour flight had allowed us to sleep, about five hours for me and six hours for Abby, so we were not too tired for the ordeal.

Len was the first of the Road Scholars through immigration, and we were shortly behind him. Our guide, Hu Lin, was holding a Road Scholar sign at a very obvious place in the arrival hall. The three of us were joined by 15 other Americans. Two who had arrived over the weekend would meet us at the hotel.

After very nice breakfast at the Radisson Blue Hotel, which included made-to-order omelets and pork wrapped in bamboo, we gathered in a meeting room for orientation at 10:30. We each introduced ourselves and said a little about our families and how many Road Scholar trips we had attended. Then the rest of the group went off to see a hutong, the Bell Tower and the Summer Palace.

Abby and I had already seen those sights, so we met up at 1:00 p.m. with Lanny Jin, a technical interpreter and tour guide who had interpreted during my earlier business trips to Beijing. Lanny and her driver, Mr. Chang, took us in a black Hyundai Sonata to the Ming Tombs, a tourist site just outside the city that Abby and I had not seen before.

The Ming Tombs had been built to the north of the city within the embrace of mountains that formed an “armchair” on three sides. The entrance to the Tomb area mimics the Forbidden City, also a Ming construction, with a set of gates that the visitor passes through. Thirteen of the dynasty’s 16 emperors were buried here. Ming emperors would journey here annually to make offerings to their ancestors.

Based on Fodors’ recommendation, we asked Lanny to take us on a walk down the Sacred Way, a concrete-and-flagstone walk that passes a series of marble animals and imperial officials. Lanny took a picture of us outside the stele gate, which houses a large tortoise called the Son of the Dragon. On the tortoise’s back is an enormous marble stele extolling the virtues and accomplishes of the Ming Dynasty. Abby pointed out the vestigial wings that were etched on the Son of the Dragon’s carapace. Along the walk that followed, the other animals – lions, horses, camels, elephants, and a mythical Chinese creature that Lanny called a Chinese unicorn with two horns - would be depicted first kneeling, then standing.  The walk was surrounded by mature willows whose drooping branches made it very peaceful and quiet.

Mr. Chang then drove us to the Dingling tomb, the only one that has been excavated. Lanny said it was 29 meters underground and would be reached by descending a series of steps. Abby at first thought she said 29 stories of steps, and declares that descent to be impossible for her. Lanny assured her that it was only 29 meters and would be achievable if we maintained a conservative pace. Fortunately, there were fewer steps going out (up) than in (down).

The Dingling emperor was a cruel man, reviled by both his subjects and by historians. He was over fond of torture, even by the standards of the time, and apparently enjoyed watching his subjects in agony. The emperor’s tomb, entirely underground, was arranged in the Ming style, with a series of doors leading from the entrance through a series of rooms to the final burial chamber. The emperor was buried with two empresses, one a wife and the other a concubine whose son later became emperor, so his mother was made an empress after-the-fact. Upon the emperor’s death, the emperor’s other concubines had been fed a nice meal and then had been required to hang themselves. Their bodies were thrown down a well.

During the Cultural Revolution, the emperor and empresses’ coffins were burned by the Red Guard; the red coffins on display are replicas. Lanny led us past an elaborate gate decorated with blue and green Ming porcelain representing the entrance to the underworld, but she did not lead us through the gate, because walking through the gate would be viewed as bad luck. Even Chairman Mao did not walk through the gate during his visit here. If Chairman Mao is not going to do it, then neither am I.

Our last stop was a museum that displayed solid gold bowls and other gold vessels recovered from the tomb. Jade decorations on the empresses’ clothing would have jingled when they walked. The emperor’s jade belt was on display. Beautiful silks with a golden dragon and lotus-blossom motifs were replicas. When the tomb was opened in the mid-twentieth century, the original silks had turned to dust. I enjoyed taking photos of the elaborate dragon-head waterspouts on our way out.

An online list of the ten best tourist sites in or near Beijing had included the Ming tombs, although Fodors did not rate them as highly. We found them to be quite peaceful and interesting, and not as overrun with tourists as some sites, although there were plenty of tourists.

It was great to re-connect with Lanny, whom I had not seen for about three years. Her eyes lit up when I asked about her American-born son, now in his first year at University College, London. He is in the process of registering for the Selective Service and is studying finance. Lanny described him as a very good student who attended an English high school in Beijing.

We reunited with our group at 6:10 p.m. and walked to a restaurant that catered to locals. I especially enjoyed the soup, a version of egg-drop soup with a tomato base and dumplings.  The food was authentic and very good, although the tea never arrived. Lanny earlier had helped me buy some Chinese red wine called the Great Wall (the only words in English on the bottle), which we sipped in our room with Len while we talked about the events of the day. By 8:00 p.m. we were too tired to talk. Len returned to his room and we fell into a deep sleep in anticipation of the 4:15 wakeup call the next morning.