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Friday Photos: Tiantan

By Stan

I first came to Beijing in the beginning of 1999, and at the time, my wife and I made the rounds of the usual tourist attractions: the Great Wall, Tiananmen, etc.

With some chagrin, I will admit that I haven’t been back to many of those places over the past ten years.

One place to cross off that list now is the Temple of Heaven (??).

Let’s get the basics out of the way first:

The Temple of Heaven is located in southern Beijing?It was first constructed in 1420, the 18th year of the reign of Ming Emperor Yongle and was expanded and renovated during the reigns of Ming Emperor Jiajing and Qing Emperor Qianlong?It was the place where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would worship the god of heaven and pray for a good harvest.

Everyone has seen pics of Tiantan, this is a familiar landmark. Most interesting for me, as someone who hasn’t visited for at least six or seven years, is the continuing renovation and upkeep of the park.

Tourist attractions in China are hit or miss, depending on the amount of money available and the folks put in charge of designing grounds. To put it much more bluntly, a lot of parks and museums are run-down, shabby, and boring as hell.

Tiantan is a pleasant exception and deserves to be on the list of top-notch sites in Beijing. My memories of the park turned out to be inaccurate with respect to the general environment (it’s a peaceful island in the middle of the city) and the size (much larger than I thought).

So let’s check out a few things.

1. Before I even got to the park, specifically next door, I found the Beijing Natural History Museum (???????).

My first reaction was “There’s a Beijing Natural History Museum?” Turns out not only is there one next door to Tiantan, but there’s a bigger, better known version across the street from the Zoo. This is further evidence that I need to get out more often.

Anyway, this place has apparently been around a long time, although the building appears to have been given a facelift in the not too distant past. Now that I’ve seen it, I’ll probably need to actually go in and check it out sometime.

2. As we entered Tiantan park, two things became immediately apparent: my memories of the place were way off, and it was much larger than I thought.

However, before we progressed very far into the park, we were sidetracked for about 15 minutes after discovering that just inside the entrance, there were about 15 or so homeless cats living there, most of which were kittens or young adults.

As you can imagine, the cats drew quite a crowd. One of the park staff was helpfully trying to persuade visitors to adopt a cat. A lengthy dialogue erupted over this, with one woman asking the guy what cats ate. His reply was “anything,” while a busybody standing nearby claimed that cats should be fed a diet of corn. This was bizarre, so we moved on.

Needless to say, we shot a whole bunch of pics of the kitties (click on thumbnails for a larger image). Enjoy.

OK, with that out of the way, let’s take a look inside the park.

3. As I mentioned above, this place is quite bigger than I remembered and is not a bad park for going in and getting away from the city. Lots of trees, flowers and places to sit, and after a while, the city (and pollution) tends to fade away.

Really not what I had expected.

4. In addition to the scenery and the historical attractions, there are a lot of places to sit and relax. When I was there, the place seemed to be monopolized by old folks, many of which were no doubt annual pass holders.

5. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few of the historical sites in the park. The first one we ran into was the Hall of Abstinence (??), the original function of which had nothing to do with sex — I know what you’re thinking — but was rather the place for fasting and purification.

A bit later on we came upon one of the park’s signature buildings, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (???), the function of which is self-explanatory.

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Next up were the Imperial Vault of Heaven (???) and Echo Wall (???), both of which deserve a bit of an intro:

Built in 1530, the 9^th year of Emperor Jiajing?s reign of the Ming dynasty, in a round shape with a double-eave roof, and named first the Hall for Appeasing Gods, it was the main hall of the Celestial Treasure House of the Circular Mound Altar, housing the Gods? tablets to be used at the ceremony of worshiping Heaven. It was renamed the Imperial Vault of Heaven in 1538 and rebuilt into the present shape in 1752.

The Echo Wall is the circular surrounding wall of the Celestial Warehouse. If two people stand by the wall behind the East Annex Hall and the West Annex Hall, and speak facing north, they can hear each other’s voice clearly.

The photo below is of the entrance to both attractions:

On the opposite side of this square is the entrance to the Circular Mound Altar (???):

6. Last, but certainly not least, mention should be made of some really nice flower gardens in the park. I recently went to the Beijing Botanical Gardens, and for some reason, the plants and flowers of Tiantan park kick the crap out of the Botanical Garden. Makes no sense, but there you have it. Take a look at some flowers.

All right, enough of this. The weekend awaits. Note that you need several hours to do Tiantan justice, so for most Monday to Friday work week folks, this means going on a weekend and fighting through crowds of zillions of other people. Good luck with that.

On the other hand, if you are fortunate enough to be a tourist, I would suggest going on a weekday. A lot of the charm of Tiantan, in my humble opinion, is the relative peace and quiet. Pushing and shoving your way through hordes of other tourists kind of ruins it.

My favorite pic. Captures the ambiance perfectly somehow.

Tags: China News, Beijing tourism, China travel, Tian Tan

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on May 08, 2009 (boomark / email).