Amazing Beijing

by Tudor Wickremasinghe

What attracts a visitor to modern Beijing is not necessarily a visit to the Great Wall which lies a little West, but its stupendous, vastness, the inspiring sites of old buildings and modern architecture, its solid looking apartment blocks of huge, grey, air-conditioned 'Sahaspura' like structures standing almost every five hundred meters apart around the city.

These are middle class residential buildings impeccably maintained.

Wide roads in downtown Beijing are as broad as local football grounds.

Traffic moves gently on the right side at a steady pace. What strikes a visitor here are the cyclists, the old and the young, men and women who pedal to work and back, some dressed in full attire.

Although cyclists help keep the air clean Beijing is one of the most air-polluted cities caused by its smoke emanating factories and foundries situated in and around industrial Beijing. New cars are aplenty.

One could see models of big German V Ws and Audis Models not seen anywhere here. South Korean Cars appear to be more popular than Japanese makes. Strange, though I have seen only one of these much advertised 'fruity' cars seen around Colombo, in as many as four days in Beijing. The roads may be too vast for them.

I would think that the most visited place here is the Llama Budhist Temple. Tourists and locals throng at the gate in a long queue to purchase tickets. Seeing this temple is a major half a days' journey through about one square kilometer. Pilgrims are seen paying homage with big candles and incense, some on all fours.

Entering the vast complex one would see a brass plate engraved in English, it says, "This temple was preserved on the orders of P.M. Chou En Lai, this is our culture", which means that some others were destroyed during the cultural vandalism of Communists, it was a 'Revolution' they say.

Llama Temple is solid and huge with nothing but thirty foot statues of the Buddhas with altars. Beginning with Bodhisatvas, past Buddhas the present Sakyamuni Buddha and disciples three in a row each, also the futureMaithriya Buddha. One of these thirty foot statues is carved out of a single sandalwood trunk, the Guinness Book records it as the only one of its kind in the world.

Other famous places include the Emperor's sprawling palaces with tall roofs and flat tiles with the rooms locked, all of which being similar, drab and colourless to look at.

These large buildings were constructed to keep hundreds of queens or wives of the Emperor.

It's always fun to walk the streets alone in a strange place.

I walked down He Ping Road and Lane in search of a phone, language was the barrier. However I met an old gent in shorts who knew his English. He led me to a pavement phone and having asked me I told him that I am from Sri Lanka.

'Bandaranaike' he said gleefully, he said that he watched TV regularly to learn all this.

Quite unlike our Chinese Hotels, these hotels were all run by Chinese! One thing common was a big load of fried-rice, served to be consumed on a tiny saucer. The centre dishes on the table rotate giving all a chance to pick what they want.

A horrible 'delicacy' they served was a big fried gourami fish taken from the Hotel's fish tank placed in the lobby, this no one touched.

We had no way of expressing our disgust at this dish but to talk through our Guide, who carried a flag on a pole for easy identification. I wonder how visitors to the Olympics would react to this cruel serving of fish.