Beijing Your Way

     Candied gourd (“Tanghulu” or “Bingtanghulu” in Chinese) is a traditional Chinese snack. Stringing wild fruits, especially the hawthorn fruits together, and dipping them in maltose porridge, the fruits will quickly dry in a wind. This is the process for making the candied gourd, but different cooks may have secrets for more styles and flavors. Other fruits, such as orange, apple and pear, can be held between a hawthorn fruit. Other food after processing can also be put into the fruits.

     Candied gourd occupies a legend with the Song Emperor – Guangzong. It is said that one of Guangzong’s concubines felt sick and was hard to recover. One of the imperial doctors suggested that taking 5 to 10 hawthorn fruits before every meal in a day would be effective. Emperor ordered cooks to do so and it really worked. The story went to citizens and common people found that putting the fruits together would be a nice way for enjoying the taste. Thus, candied gourd was born.

     Candied gourd is the precious memory of many modern Chinese people. When they were young, a snack like a candied gourd would be a luxury. Eating one of the fruits stringing onto the stick could be a huge satisfaction, like a New Year’s happiness. Candied gourd becomes a symbol of their pure past, and a reflection of the country’s sentimental history.

Candied Gourd – A Memory of Past for Many Chinese

     Beijing Olympic Park adopted “Gong Jian Cao” (work-break exercise) for the first time on September 1, 2010. Loudspeakers at corners of the Park played tunes of the exercise, instead of the song Beijing Welcomes You. Volunteers, Park staff and a few visitors took part in the exercise near the landscape avenue. The Park even played the tunes for another time to satisfy the need from tourists in the area. In future, 10:00 will be the time for work-break exercise. Everyone in the park are encouraged to participate in the activity.

     A few days ago, Beijing passed the motion that work-break exercise would be adopted again in every fields of the city’s social life.

Work-break Exercise is Going Back

     The first A380 of Lufthansa landed Beijing Capital International Airport at 8:35 on September 2, 2010. Flying from Frankfort to Beijing, the gigantic plane took 489 passengers and a crew of 24 people. And this is not its top capacity. This is the first time Lufthansa using A380 on this airline. A few days ago, Emirates became the first airline company adopting A380 in China. This Lufthansa A380 possesses 526 seats, including 8 luxury seats. The advanced business class is on the upper deck, with 98 seats. On the main deck, there are 420 economy class seats. All of these seats are more comfortable than the old Airbus planes.

     A380 is so attractive that if you want to book a ticket in a few days from now on, there won’t be any vacant seats. The huge plane itself becomes a sightseeing and experiencing point. Many tourists are more fond of the plane than their destination. We can say that air-plane-economy are taking shape with the operation of the giant A380 plane.

The first Lufthansa A380 in Beijing

Inside A380

     The first day of September is the day of school opens in China. This year, Peking University has a unique student to check in. Li Kan, Li Ao’s son, entered into the flow of 2,700 freshmen and showed a style a little similar to his father. Wearing black-framed glasses, the gentle Taiwan teenager took out his admission letter with the print “Peking University” on it, and signed his name on the enrollment book. Unlike others carrying big and small cases and heavy stuff, Li Kan just took a bag with him.

     Li Kan, a freshman in Peking University

     Li Kan’s mother sent his son to the university. She said to journalists that she just wanted his boy to have a quiet student life in Beida (Peking University). She confirmed that Li Kan would move into common dormitory, with roommates from other parts of China.

     Li Kan and his father Li Ao in discussion

     Li Kan’s father, Li Ao, left the mainland a few days ago, after a tour to Shanghai Expo. He said he was proud of his son’s choice. Li Kan’s college entrance exam score in Taiwan was among the best group of students. This gave him the opportunity to study in Beida. Actually, before going to Beida, Li Kan abandoned the chance to study in National Taiwan University (N.T.U.). The teenager himself said that he felt that Peking University was better for him, and would like to study in the “great motherland’s best university”.

    Li Kan’s Press Conference,

with his father Li Ao, and the famous female host Sisy Chen

      His father, Li Ao, is the famous Taiwan politician being active for more than half a century. Li Ao is the fighter for democracy in Taiwan. He had been put in prison for long years when Chiang Kai-shek ruled Taiwan. When he was set free, he became an advocate for political diversity, and later elected the representative. He is also an expert on Chinese culture and history. Some of his books are still bestsellers in bookstores after decades.

Li Ao, a modern legend of modern China

     Red leaves are one of Beijing’s brands in autumn. Every year from mid-October to mid-November, suburb Beijing will show its main color – red. Among the places, Xiangshan (the Fragrance Hills) is the most famous one. Xiangshan is 577 meters high above sea level. It is a proper height for maple tress to grow up in hills. From the pavilion on top of Senyuhu Peak, one can appreciate different depths of red – bright, pink, scarlet and peach-red, from the bottom to the higher points. Climbers carried away a fallen leaf and placed it in between pages of a dictionary, making it a bookmark. Some tiny souvenirs use the leaves to decorate. Red leaves are indeed Xiangshan’s soul in autumn.

     Actually, in Beijing, there are many other red-leaves-abundant areas. In suburb districts and counties of Miyun, Yanqing and Huairou, red covers more places than Xiangshan does. Especially in mountain-regions built with Great Wall, red leaves can foil the atmosphere more effectively. The temperature is fine. Sunshine is enjoyable. Putting yourself in a pure nature at this time of a year and surrounding by red leaves, you will get the rare relaxation which you can never experience in the city.

     Kids taking trains of Subway Line 4 and Daxing Line (open soon) will be fond of a new poster – a giraffe with scale marks. Those above 1.2-meter will have to buy a full price ticket. Ticket offices, customer service room, auto-ticket-selling machine and entrance gates are all decorated with the poster. The poster is designed without any sharp-pointed edges. Kids won’t hurt themselves when measuring their heights.

A Cartoon Ruler in Subway Lines

     This year, universities and institutes in Beijing have enrolled over 80,000 foreign students, following the statistics from the Municipal Education Committee. This number exceeded last year for about more than 10,000 people. So, it is an impressive growth in number.

     All the famous universities of the city received flows of newcomers. In Tsinghua University, 1,959 foreign students are enrolled this year. They come from 112 different countries, and more of them are choosing post-graduate courses in the university. In post-graduate field, students from the U.S. exceed the former No.1 – South Korea for the first time. You are not surprised to find a foreign student here with a B.A. in Harvard, Yale or Stanford. 

     Universities are facing the trend with more flexible measures. Tsinghua University set many English-teaching curricula, including majors like Chinese law, mechanical engineering, business management, architecture and so on. These majors will receive 407 students this year.

     Chinese is no longer the only hot major for limited students in China. More Chinese-featured majors are welcomed by foreign students, such as Chinese history, sociology, engineering, news, economics, etc. Courses facing foreign students are also modified to fit the current need, with more Chinese characteristics.

Foreign Students in a Chinese Classroom

     The White Robe General is actually not a man. It is a white-skin pine in Tuancheng, part of Beihai Park. It is said that Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) once stayed under the tree, and found it very useful to keep away sun heat. The Emperor was very happy and gave it the name Bai Pao Jiang Jun (the White Robe General).

     The White Robe General is a mark of Tuancheng, serving as a typical landscape of the entire Beihai Park. Its trunk and leaves can be easily seen from Wenjin Street, a east-west street linking the north gate of Forbidden City.

The White Robe General

Its location on the map

     At the crossroad of Fucheng Men Nei Avenue and Xisi North Avenue, there is a two-story Chinese style building. The building is a branch of Xinhua Bookstore.

     The building has a history more than 100 years. When the Empress Dowager planed her 60-year-old birthday celebration, she ordered to build several buildings for her to rest along the way from Forbidden City to Summer Palace. This one and its counterpart next to it were two of those buildings.

     After 1949, the building at the northwest corner of the crossroad was chose as a site for Xinhua Bookstore. From then on, it became a collective memory of an entire generation. Beijing didn’t have too many bookstores at that time. This one located at a busy crossroad, and the scale was to some extent big in those years. The bookstore was famous for selling serial picture story books, favorites of children. Students, workers, intellectuals and outcomers left their traces inside the two-story building. The books they bought in the store reflected an era of China, and even the world.

     In recent years, in order to construct the Subway Line 4, the Xinhua Bookstore had closed for a long time. Its counterpart changed into a branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China many years ago. The store still exists, after a reconstruction.

     The Xinhua Bookstore at the crossroad is a symbol at the heart of Xicheng District. It is the memory of people leaving youth decades ago, and our legacy of knowledge and a classic scene of a city’s development.

Xisi Xinhua Bookstore in old days

The building victims changes of Xicheng area

     Recently, a restriction on moon cake packing came into force. The restriction limited that packing would only take 12% of the total cost, comparing with 25% from 2005.

     Moon cake is a traditional Chinese food enjoyed on Mid-Autumn Day, August 15 in lunar calendar. It is becoming a gift of the festival and the packaging becomes complicated, luxury and showy without real worth. It is a waste of wood and paper. The government makes effort to change the idea of moon cake consumption, but it seems that the policy still needs to be improved.

The Luxury Packaging