Hard to Believe This is Still Beijing

Walking around Beijing on August 25th was like living the day after your college graduation. The signs around you still point to the recent past, yet your friends have started to disperse to all parts of the globe. The motto of the Olympics was "One World, One Dream," but now it seems it's time to wake up.

Though the city is heavily promoting the Paralympics, which take place Sept. 6-17, there is a discernible lack of direction in the air. This is my last week in China, and I too have been beset with Olympic ennui -- that is until I decided to get off my couch, and get on a bus.

The Beijing countryside with the Western Hills in the distance.

For only 10 yuan, about $1.50, I spent today 20-plus miles outside of the city, in the picturesque Changping District, a northwestern suburb of Beijing. One of the area's claim to fame is that the burial sites of 13 Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) emperors are located here.

Just in time for the Olympics, the government significantly spruced up the three Ming Tombs that have been excavated. The tombs are scattered over 20 miles throughout the Western Hills, but their placement was not accidental. The first tomb was constructed in 1409 by Emperor Zhu Di, as the site of his final resting place. For the next 200 years, succeeding Ming Emperors would also be entombed here.

Camels are just one of the animals that line the Sacred Way to the tombs.

The location of the tombs is based on principles of Feng Shui. As Shannon Roy explains for Beijing This Month, mountains to the north guard against spirits from the north wind, the open plain to the south allows the apple and pear groves to perfume the air, and there are many streams throughout the area, as access to water was considered essential to a good location in the afterlife.

Roy writes that the Ming tombs resemble small imperial tombs, as it was believed the dead had the same needs as they did in life. These burial customs are actually rooted in much earlier funerary practices. In 1950, China uncovered an ancient Chinese tomb from the Shang Dyansty (around 1600 B.C.), that included, among other things, 79 slaves that were buried alive for their dead master.

It was hard to believe this quiet countryside was still part of Beijing, whose city center I had left an hour and a half ago. Walking down the Sacred Way, a road lined with pairs of animals and warriors that lead to the tombs, I thought of its builders. Not the imperial commissioners, but the laborers dispatched there to chisel, carve, and construct these monuments to its leaders. What did they think of their country? What would they think of China today? How different were they from the laborers dispatched to build the Olympic Bird's Nest stadium?

A close-up of the hands to a stone-carved "official" at the Sacred Way.

Walking to the bus stop to return home, I happened upon a fruit vendor displaying the biggest peaches I had ever seen. As I waited for change for one of the luscious fruits, a large tourist bus rolled pass me filled with young teenagers dressed in army fatigues.

"Were they in military school?" I asked the vendor's friend who had been chatting with her. No, they were the wealthy children of officials and local leaders in a special program located near there, he said.

Riding the public bus back to town turned out to be highlight of my trip. As the bus rolled and bobbed through the countryside towards downtown Beijing, I caught what seemed to be nearly every glimpse of China along the way. I spotted farmers surrounded by crops, and suburban streets where everyone seemed to know everyone else. I saw luxury homes that resembled Southern-Californian villas, and small roadside hutongs that housed numerous families. I saw well-heeled men playing golf, and children playing in brown water on the side of the road. Everyone seemed to be smiling.

The final stop on the bus was the newly-built Line 5 of the Beijing subway. The line was a key access route to the National Stadium and other major Olympic venues just a few days ago. Though I always knew that the Olympic infrastructure would have profound effects on Beijingers, it wasn't until I saw with my own eyes the many residents of the countryside who were on board the same bus I was, headed to the same subway train to downtown Beijing, did I truly feel the effects that the Olympics has and will have on China.

It is believed that a properly kept tomb by the deceased's relatives will encourage communication between the dead their progeny. The Ming Tombs seem not unlike the Olympic venues of today. What messages will the Chinese send to their future citizens?