Impressions of Xi'an - the Dayan Pagoda and Xuanzang

Call me a snob tourist.  I go to a place I'm familiar with, Ooty let's say, and look down with more condescension than is really appropriate at those doing Ooty by the book.  The Lake: check.  Botanical gardens: check.  Doddabetta: check.  The spot where actor x embraced actress y in film z: check.  Tourism by numbers; tourism by the book; tourism meant to assure your neighbours and relatives that yes, you saw everything the guidebooks said there was to see.

And so here I was in Beijing.  Tiananmen Square: check.  The Forbidden City: check.  The Great wall: check.  And justifying ticking off boxes on a checklist by the fact that I wouldn't be visiting again anytime soon.  But isn't that how everyone justifies by-the-numbers tourism?  And isn't there a reason why those tourist checklists exist?

I'd been to Shanghai, in 2011, to attend a conference.  Shanghai isn't a tourist city; it is a place where people do business.  Yes, the Bund has a series of well-preserved art deco buildings, the Pudong skyline is something to behold, and the city boasts a fine museum, but a tourist city it isn't.  Even the murky river is a vehicle for commerce.  The city's aesthetics are all in the service of commerce.  Not so Beijing.  And, most emphatically, not so Xian.

Our flight from Hong Kong was delayed due to bad weather in Beijing.  It was murky when we landed and we assumed that the weather was responsible.  We learned the next day that the famous Beijing pollution was at least partly to blame.

Beijing awes with its sheer size and scale, starting with the airport.  We had to take a train to get from the immigration counters to the baggage claim area, and the ride must have been a good kilometre or more.  The drive into the city is on broad expressways.  We thought of Chennai and felt like country bumpkins visiting the big city.

The area around our hotel could have been in any first world country.  Fancy malls, luxury goods outlets, Audis and BMWs on the streets.

Beijing West Station, though, was large, very crowded and distinctly second world (unlike the posh and super modern airport).  That said, it was functional and, given the crowds, surprising orderly and clean.  The crowds using the loos are as large as any in India, but the olfactory assault was much less in evidence.  There was no incentive to search the neighbourhood for a suitable wall/tree to commit nuisance against.

The uncrowded platform

Our tickets were checked against our passports (you need an ID to buy a train ticket, and the ID number is printed on the ticket) and our baggage scanned.  You cannot get into the concourse without the ticket/baggage check.  The crowds notwithstanding, the process was efficient.  We then found that each train is assigned one of several large waiting areas, each with stalls selling snacks, newspapers and magazines and the like.  The passengers varied in looks from country bumpkin to sophisticate, their luggage from Samsonite to cloth bundles slung over shoulders.  Apart from eateries serving Chinese dishes, McDonalds and KFC had outlets, and we settled for the known over the unknown: McDonalds.

There were trains to various cities in Western China including Lhasa.

Our train was eventually announced about half an hour prior to departure and we queued up for another ticket check before being allowed onto the platform where our train was waiting.

A simple idea this: passengers (and only passengers) are allowed onto their designated platform a short while before their train departs.  This means that the platforms themselves are uncrowded, that people can get into trains without pushing and shoving and, perhaps best of all, that the platforms are clean. 

It occurred to me that the station had been designed keeping this flow of passengers in mind.  Someone, somewhere, had thought about this, perhaps studied stations and airports both in China and elsewhere (other than India!), and worked out one way of handling large numbers of passengers.

Our own Central Station, grand edifice though it is, is a nineteenth century building functioning without alterations in the twenty first century.  While new airports are coming up around the country, our stations remain firmly anchored in the past.

Our train, the Z19 non-stop to Xian, was nothing fancy (something between our 1st and 2nd AC in terms of amenities) but clean, well maintained and functional.  There were friendly nods from our co-passengers.  They spoke no English, we spoke no Chinese, and, nods done with, we settled down to mind our own business.  The 1200 km was covered overnight in 11 hours and the ride was smooth; we left exactly on time and got in to Xian exactly on time.  Impressive.  There were no unscheduled stops: no waking up in the middle of the night to find the train stationary and the horn blaring plaintively.

Our first sight of Xi'an - the old city wall abutting the station!

Xian, the capital of China from around 220 BC to around 900AD, is a mixture of the old, the very old, plenty of tired remnants of the Mao era, and the distinctly new.  A well-maintained Ming era city wall (ringed with gardens and a moat) surrounds central Xian, and this was the first thing we saw as we left the station.  Trees line the roads and while the bustle and traffic of a large city was always present, there was equally this feeling of being in a human city.  After murky Beijing, it was a pleasure to be in bright, clear sunshine.  And perhaps because of the sunshine, the people looked more cheerful as well.  I had read about aggressive touts lying in wait for tourists, but getting to the authorized taxi stand was painless.  There was the obligatory five minutes of mutual incomprehension, but the driver eventually figured out where we wanted to go and dropped us off at the hotel.

The old and the new

Clamped!  And on the sidewalk

Walking around, one got the distinct feeling that today's pleasant Xian might soon lose its character and become an anonymous large modern city.  The main roads are already those of a modern city: broad, with huge sidewalks (used quite frequently to park cars!) and manicured trees, bordered by monumental buildings including offices, shopping malls and, in some places, well preserved examples of communist era grandeur. 

Get off these avenues, though, and you enter a different Xian: smaller scaled, more intimate, shabbier and more human.  It is a bit like taking a trip back in time, but time measured in decades rather than centuries.  You see the Xian of the '80s, then, as you poke your head into a smaller alleyway, the '70s and perhaps even earlier.  Little restaurants and shops line the streets, the trees give more shade, there is the occasional bit of broken pavement and uncleared rubbish and there are people standing in the doorways and chatting.  Not quite India, but we felt at home.  

Lunch time worker recreation?

Every now and then, though, something distinctly Chinese happened.  We paused outside a restaurant attempting to make sense of the menu when loudspeakers suddenly burst into life.  The music was familiar, and it took us a moment to place it: the Gangnam Style.  Next, a bunch of waiters in uniform stepped out and started a synchronized dance on the pavement.  We gaped, but no one else around seemed to think there was anything unusual in all of this, and carried on with whatever they were doing.  A couple of days later, we again saw something similar: a bunch of elderly street workers doing stylized dance steps on a busy pavement, this time to revolutionary music from the Mao era.  Once more, passers by carried on as though this was completely normal.

Did you know that?

Dayan Pagoda

 Xian was where the silk route began, and its best known sights reflect that history.  A couple of kilometres south of the city walls, surrounded by a large granite plaza, fountains and shopping malls with mock traditional facades, is the Dayan Pagoda, also known as the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.  In the early seventh century, a monk named Hiuen Tsiang (Xuanzang) made his way along the silk route to Taxila and thence eastward to Gaya, looking for original Buddhist scriptures.  The pagoda was built on his return to house these scriptures.  The 64 meter high structure would be impressive under any circumstance.  The fact that the wherewithal to build something like this existed 1400 years ago, and the fact that it has survived wars, earthquakes and the depredations of age make it even more special.  Yes, it has been repaired and restored over the years.  But today's structure is, in essence, what was originally built in the Tang dynasty.  

Our first views, with the newly added fountains

The walls of the monastery with added historical carvings

Goose bump moment.  Here was a connection between India and China

The massive bell

Equally massive drum

We climbed up and were rewarded with fine views of the modern city.  Only two manuscript fragments (in a script we could not decipher) are displayed in the pagoda; the rest (those that have survived the years) are now housed in museums.

The manuscript fragment

A functioning Buddhist monastery lies adjacent to the towers.  A couple of buildings were being restored.  A fair crowd of respectful worshippers moved through the buildings, offering incense and prayers at the numerous altars.  Godless communism in China appears to be increasingly tolerant of religion.  Or perhaps it was just another manifestation of Chinese pragmatism: do whatever it takes to bring the tourists in.

Something had been bothering me as we walked around the pagoda and its surroundings.  This clearly was an important structure.  Why, then, had it been built well outside the city walls? 

We got the answer later that afternoon in the basement of the Xian museum.  A large wooden reconstruction of the city as it was in the ninth century occupied much of a large basement room.  The city then boasted more than a million inhabitants and the Tang era city walls enclosed a much larger area than the surviving Ming era wall. 

As we emerged out of Dayan, this is what we saw! 

Will be continued...

A secret weapon in the battle to save the snow leopard?: Tibetan monks and endangered cats | The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/09/secret-weapon-battle-save-snow-leopard?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C9-16-2013%7C6629249%7C36394036%7C

A secret weapon in the battle to save the snow leopard?

Sep 16th 2013, 3:54 by K.M. | BEIJING

Do they have a prayer?

A new study of the snow leopard's habitat across the Tibetan plateau has found that Tibetan Buddhist monasteries may be better equipped than formal preservation programmes to protect the endangered cats from poaching, retaliatory killing by farmers and other deadly perils. The key is their ability to extend their influence across administrative boundaries and maintain safe space for the animals. 
The research, led by Juan Li of Peking University and sponsored by the wildcat protection group Panthera, focused on the snow leopard's habitat on the Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve, a 360,000 sq km area in north-western China that holds the headwaters of the Mekong, Yellow and Yangzte Rivers. Researchers found that the region's more than 300 Tibetan monasteries lie close to important snow leopard habitats, and that monks are critical to protecting the cats. About 4,000 snow leopards remain in China, most living in the Sanjiangyuan region.
"Monks on the Tibetan plateau serve as de facto wildlife guardians," Panthera said in a news release about the study. "Tibetan Buddhism considers the snow leopard and its habitats strictly sacred, and the monks patrol wild landscapes surrounding monasteries to enforce strict edicts against killing wildlife."
Until recently Tibet had a thriving trade in wild animal skins. Tiger and leopard skins featured prominently in clothing. Monks were not allowed to kill animals, but they wore the skins. In January 2006 Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, put an end to all that, calling on Tibetans to stop buying, selling and wearing wild animal skins. The displays, he said, were counter to Buddhist principles and within weeks Tibetans were burning tiger skins in the streets and the trade was halted.
Today, conservationists say, land near monasteries provides safe haven and cats tend to stay in close proximity. The monks' habit of sheltering stray dogs does present potential leopard threats in the form of disease, but the overall situation for snow leopards is better around monasteries than on nature reserves in China, Panthera found.
Other wildcat researchers not involved with the Panthera report agree there is a clear connection between religion and species survival: Buddhist monks will not intentionally kill the animals, creating a safety net on the Tibetan plateau.
Li Zhixing, head of a Chinese Siberian tiger protection organisation far across the country from Qinghai, said the endangered tigers are god-like to villagers in the northeastern corner of China they still inhabit. As a result, locals stopped poaching tigers decades ago. Wolves, meanwhile, suffered a different fate. They were considered evil and are, as a result, gone.
Monasteries make for natural protective grounds, but there is disagreement over whether Tibetan monks ought to be made guardians of the snow leopards and given funding or equipment, as Panthera recommends. Ma Ming, a research fellow in Xinjiang with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said there is an obvious link between monasteries and safe space for leopards, but that does not mean Tibetan monks make the best game wardens.
Mr Ma argued that government programmes make the wisest use of funding, and that the Chinese government—as it has proven with giant pandas—can save a species if it wants. But as the Panthera study notes, official efforts can be hampered by the many county, provincial and national boundaries that run through snow leopard habitat areas.
In any case, the priority given pandas is still lacking for snow leopards, which compete for space and attention with other endangered species under threat from China's development and vast urbanisation. China has enacted new schemes in recent years to protect wild cats, including snow leopards and Siberian tigers. But these species remain at risk. Farmers are compensated for wildlife lost to wildcats and poaching is punished, but critical habitat is shrinking.
In the face of calls for greater protective efforts, Panthera says Tibetan monks have been doing all along what is required to protect snow leopards—leaving them alone.
(Photo credit: Greg Wood/AFP)

Delight

 

White flowers on the ground.

I look up in surprise.

My heart fills.

The luxury of empty space - An Emperor's prerogative

9th June 2013 - It was a wet, miserable day in Beijing as I set off on my own to explore the Forbidden City.  (How could one go all the way to Beijing and not go?)



Home to twenty four emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, there isan amazing uniformity to the Zijin Cheng, quite unlike the Topkapi at Istanbul, where each emperor added his eccentricity to the structure!

I've used the Chinese names for buildings, gates and halls.  And so, "dian" seems to mean hall, "gong" palace and "men" gate.   I find the whole Chinese-English translations unsatisfactory, and quite often comic .  I wonder why they do it.  We do not for example, translate Taj Mahal or Mount Kaliash or Kedarnath, so why should they? 

The outer walls, to access the Wu men gate.

The entrance  into the complex is via these little bridges, as Mao looks on.

The huge courtyard in front of the Wu Men Gate.  This courtyard was used for a lot of royal events, so the emperor came I guess to that balcony above, and observed whatever he had to - royal decrees, prisoners of war, etc, and they did not enter the Forbidden City.  Until this point, the entry is free.  To go through the little "tunel" at the back into the complex is ticketed.

There are five of these towers over the Gate - Wu feng Lou.  This courtyard is basically over the moat that encircles the palace.

We wandered out to see the moat, on the first day.  Nobody comes here it seems, it was quiet and a nice place to sit and daydream!

As the drizzle continued, I walked in to the Outer Court, and I just loved the Golden Water Bridges and the canals that were worked into this Outer Court.  I pictured the royalty of old taking walks across these bridges, and enjoying the water flowing in these canals

A Mallard waddled by in the water, which served as a reservoir and water supply as well (in times of seige I guess) for the complex.

There are five such bridges, and this is the view towards the Taihe Men -  Gate of Supreme Harmony of the Outer Court.  A sea of umbrellas, as the rain refused to let up!  Even with so many tourists thronging the place, the complex looked forbiddingly large.  A pair of bronze lions sit on either side of the Gate.

This is the lioness, with its paw on a cub, and from the Ming period.  See the male from the Qing period here.

Through the Taihen Men, and overlooking the huge Taihe Dian Square.  It is a massive piece of empty real estate - 30,000 sqm I read somewhere!

This Taihe Dian hall is one of the largest woodens structures in China, and sits atop a three-level marble base. 

A roof detail...

As I took refuge from the rain under the eaves of this hall, my eyes were drawn to all the various little details in the decorations all over.

The beautifully painted roof and beams had an amazing collection of motifs and designs.

...dragons on the beams

...and this was the underside of the eaves!

In the large balcony of this hall are a motley collection of animal bronzes, grain measures, and even a sundial!

A pair of cranes for good luck....

...the tortoise for (quite aptly) longevity.....

...and a sundial!!

Zhonge Dian, where the emperor could rest (on his way from the back to the front?!)

And here's where he rested.

The Baohe Dian throne.  (He changed his clothes here, the Emperor I mean before some grand ceremonies.)  The Chinese running full length is a couplet written by Emperor Qianlong.

More dragons everywhere....

Qianqing Gong, with a few of the 308 copper vats that are strewn across the campus, which were the equivalent of fire hydrants for the wooden palace structures.

Eaves, roofs and more details

My favourite English translation.  From the time of Emperor Yngzheng, the third Qing emperor, this hall attained significance as the living quarters of the incumbent.  I wonder what would be a more apt translation of Yangxin.

The Imperial Garden to the rear/north gate

Mosaics on the floor

More ornate eaves

The northern (exit) gate.  Jingshan Park ahead.  So you get out, very far away from where you got in!

The massive moat surrounding the complex is more evident this northern side.

I went all around the complex, left on Jingshan Street and walked all the way down Beichang street.  This is a very tony neighbourhood by the way, and it was an enjoyable walk in the rain, as I made my way to Tiananmen West station and back to the hotel.

Maybe it was the weather or the fact that I was on my own, but the Forbidden City left me cold (and wet!!)  and kind of unimpressed.

The lions of Gir

I saw this article in The Hindu today, and it reminded me of our 2011 trip, and our Kutchi summer. We made our own "lion movie",  and I got a history lesson at Junagadh.


Pride of the jungle - The Hindu

ZERIN ANKLESARIA

AP A lioness at a drinking hole inside the sanctuary.

TOPICS

Come October, and season begins in Gir, the home of the fabulous Asiatic lion. Zerin Anklesaria was there recently and, thankfully, lived to tell the tale.

On a quiet night, so they say, the roar of an adult male lion can be heard five miles away. No such roaring welcome greeted us as we drove into Sasan Gir with the moon riding high, but we were certainly in lion country, with road signs pointing the way to Mane Land Jungle Lodge, Lion’s Paw Resort, Pride of Gir, Elsa’s Lair, and so on.

For me, this was a sentimental journey, for my father had served under the Nawab of Junagadh before Independence and as children we had visited Gir, staying in palatial grandeur at The Royal Hunting Lodge. The Nawab, a great animal lover, rarely hunted and it was chiefly maintained for Indian rajas and British VIPs for whom a lion was a prized trophy.

A party of 20 of us stayed there for four memorable days in sybaritic luxury. This was soon after the then Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, had left. The cellars were still stocked with the choicest wines, and the larders with cheeses, jams and canned fruit from Australia. The chefs cooked up mind-boggling meats, game and desserts.

Six of us little girls were allotted the master bedroom where the centrepiece was an enormous double bed with an 8-inch box-spring mattress imported especially for the Viceregal couple. Far from prying adult eyes, we spent our evenings using it as a trampoline to see who could jump the highest. The bed survived the onslaught. The mattress did not.

The world outside presented a harrowing contrast. A single tarred road led to the hunting lodge, and the Forest Officer occupied the only other building. Jeep tracks meandered through the forest and the Maldhari herdsmen merged with the hard, brown earth, living in poverty with their cattle in villages scattered across the 1400 sq. km of the sanctuary. In this semi-desert region agriculture was impossible.

Coming here now what a difference I found. We drove in from Rajkot on ribbon-smooth roads to the peripheral areas of the sanctuary — all neat, well-planned and free of garbage. With tourism has come unimaginable prosperity. Accommodation ranges from dharamsalas and budget hotels to the lordly Taj; canals supply water for gardens and cultivation; and local children study at an English medium school.

Our first safari started off rather tamely. I had the front seat in the jeep and couldn’t hear what the guide was saying. My information came solely from the grumpy driver who pointed out ‘snake’, ‘deer’, ‘mongoose’ and other uninspiring fauna in a single word. ‘Budd’ had me stumped, till he amplified. ‘Peacock’, he said.

It was just half an hour to closing time when we got the exciting news. A tracker came and whispered to the guide, who passed along the magic word ‘lion’. We took our place in a line of jeeps and waited in reverential silence as if in church. At last it was our turn to enter the sanctum and we moved down a track deep into the jungle. There, under the shade of a tree, we came upon them, two lionesses and five cubs, feasting on a nilgai. A thrilling sight but a poor photo-op, for the evening sun cast too many shadows and the lionesses were sitting low in the long grass, while bits and pieces of cub flashed in and out of the frame three-quarters two pointy ears, half a puckered face, a raised paw, a tail tip.

Later we encountered two angry lionesses rearing up on their hind legs, clawing and snarling at each other. Photo-op? Alas no! They were so enraged that our jeep had to keep a safe distance.

Back at the resort, everyone was envious. Some unfortunates had spent a packet on as many as three safaris, and seen only monkey, deer, and, of course, ‘budd’. Tourists often think that a lion sighting is guaranteed and, when disappointed, are vocal in their displeasure. A manager was once rudely roused from his slumbers by angry guests who had been out in vain since 5 a.m. They staged a gherao and shouted slogans, ‘Paisa vasool, paisa vasool’, demanding their money back.

The kings of the forest are as lazy as feudal monarchs. The male has only to guard his territory and propagate, which he does with maniacal zest. Everything else is left to the lioness. She must hunt for prey, feed and train her cubs and protect them from predators, including other lions. An adult male is the lord of his territory and eliminates all future rivals including his progeny, knowing that otherwise they will kill him when in their prime. The ‘sons’ in a pride are therefore highly prized, pampered and protected, both by their mothers and the Forest Officers. Patriarchy is as invidious in the jungle as outside it.

Lions are far more human-friendly than leopards or tigers, but only as long as one keeps within limits. In earlier days, the ‘pagis’ or traditional trackers, ever eager to display their affinity with the animal to visiting dignitaries, would place a handkerchief on the mane of a sleeping lion with the help of a stick, while another would retrieve it. However, one day, legend has it that the lion suddenly woke up, and both entertainment and entertainer came to a gory end.

Then there was the biker on his way to a local temple. Seeing a gorgeously maned specimen sitting quietly by the roadside, he whipped out his phone-camera and edged closer and closer until the lion took umbrage, and with a mighty swipe of its paw dispatched the foolish young man to the other world. In the jungle this lordly animal is king, and mere humans who disrespect his royal status pay a heavy price.

Jill and Johnny

 

I would like to tell you a story if you are free
About what happened in Delhi at Terminal Three
I saw this carpet cleaner
Who could not be any keener
To go on a cleaning spree.

Every crumb did he get
Not one scrap did he forget.
Brought his missus to work
And I think thats a perk,
Made sure high standards were met.

They waddled around on feet red and scrawny
Their bodies blue-grey, and no, not tawny.
You had to admire their necks
But not their poo or their pecks
The pigeon duo that I called Jill and Johnny.