Beijing Travel Notes (Part 1)

The reason for coming to Beijing is very simple . I want to go to the capital again before going abroad to experience the stories shaped by history in this land. I can’t say I’m familiar with Beijing. After all, I didn’t grow up here, but I can’t say it’s unfamiliar either. I’ve been here four or five times when I was a kid, but it seems like all my memories are stuck in Uncle Zhongliang’s courtyard house. The steaming noodles and the scene where he and his sister made the family laugh while pretending to be waiters at a roast duck restaurant. In other words, the heavy history of this city has never left any weight in my heart; in other words, I don’t know much about Beijing.

 

I always believe that the impression of a city is related to the people you meet and the things you experience. So perhaps, now the image of Beijing is gradually becoming fuller and more three-dimensional in my world.

 

 

The picture shows an old book found in Zhengyang Bookstore. I wanted to buy it but couldn’t move it home, so I could only take photos as a souvenir.

My memories in Beijing always seem to be related to my father’s friends —— Aunt Zhang Wei, Uncle Wang Lei, Uncle Bao Jing, and many other names that vaguely appear in my mind. I once asked my father how he got to know these people in the "Beijing Circle", and he told me that all of them also got acquainted with each other through books.

 

I haven't seen Aunt Zhang Wei for many years, but when I think of her, I always think of Princess in the late Qing Dynasty . Later, I heard someone talk about it, saying that she was indeed related to Manchuria. Qing has some origins. Maybe because she is a Manchu, in my memory she always loves those bright red and green costumes with ethnic characteristics. I was very young when I met her, so her appearance has gradually faded over time, but her very distinctive dress and the unique accent of northerners The round and sweet sound became vaguely clear after everything receded. Later I heard my dad tell me that I was once taken to Ocean Park by her. It is a pity that this time, due to my own schedule, I did not go to see Aunt Zhang Wei with others. Later, I learned from other people that Aunt Zhang Wei seemed to have short hair, was very young, and wore ethnic costumes that still had a distinct personal style.

 

Uncle Bao Jing is also a very familiar name. I seem to have heard my father mention it from time to time. When I asked my father , he always said he was an old friend of his, who may have been with him for more than ten years. of friendship. My father told me that I should know him, or maybe I had seen him when I was a child, but I really had no impression of him. Fortunately, I saw him when I went to Beijing this time, and I think I will not forget it in the future. Uncle Bao Jing should be from northern Jiangsu. He has the subtlety of a southerner but also has the kind of enthusiasm and straightforwardness in his bones that he got from staying in the north for a long time. On the third day in Beijing, it can be said that he took a group of us walking around the streets for a whole day. Until the end of the day, I still told my parents about his enthusiasm. But it is said that they have changed their careers now. Aunt Zhang Wei used to own a famous educational bookstore in Beijing, but now she has entered the field of education and training, and her husband, Uncle Wang Lei, is compiling teaching materials for the People's Education Society. Uncle Bao Jing used to work in a publishing house, but now he has also switched to import and export trade. Although I have not had much contact with this field before, it seems that after meeting, parting, and talking, I finally felt a kind of melancholy that things are different and people are different.

 

From Sanlian to Halloween; from the Imperial College, the Great Hall of the Capital, to the former site of the Red Building of Peking University; from alleys to new book launches and book exhibitions, my memory of this trip is firmly tied to "books" and "history". At the same time, I also discovered for the first time that the city of Beijing is much older than I thought.

 

 

The picture shows Beijing Sanlian Taofen Book Center

 

1. The story of the flyover

 

I remember it was around one o'clock in the afternoon on the first day I arrived in Beijing. After the plane landed, I looked at the ground through the window - it was wet. Scattered raindrops floated on the window - gray. Anyone who knows me a little bit knows that I don’t like rain, so the beginning of my trip to Beijing was not a happy one. If I had to use one color to sum up my mood at that time, I would use the color gray, which is the color of a hazy day. Being prone to motion sickness when riding in a car, I soon encountered another problem - Beijing's suffocating traffic. It was Friday afternoon, and the journey from the airport to the hotel seemed like an eternity. Just when I was helpless, my uncle who was traveling with me suddenly asked me a question (we should be near Tiananmen at that time, just a few minutes away from the hotel). He pointed to the overpass in front and asked me to see what was special about it. I glanced at it silently without much interest. When I saw the next one, I looked at it carefully, but I didn't see the reason for a long time. Regarding this, he also complained that I, a student of abnormal psychology, did not even have the ability to observe. Later, he told me a story, saying that when he had a friend from a Beijing publishing house who came to Hangzhou, he said that the people in Hangzhou are so happy that they can even have escalators when crossing an overpass, unlike Beijing where you have to walk on your own when crossing an overpass. Down. Later, when I got to the next overpass, I saw that it was indeed the case. Later, when I was walking around Dongcheng District, I paid special attention to this thing, almost without exception. Even when I was taking the subway in Haidian, I observed that I did have to walk up and down the stairs by myself. But I have to clarify. After all, I didn’t travel all over Beijing. I can only say that the places I went to did meet the description. But because we often play separately, it is said that newer urban areas still have elevators and escalators. I think this might be a way to distinguish the old and new urban areas in Beijing?

 

 

The picture shows the Nuo King Building of Beijing Hotel

 

 

 

2. The story outside the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square

 

As I said at the beginning, my first impression of Beijing was indeed gray, and this color lasted until the end of the second day - the ground was gray, the tiles were gray, the red walls of Chang'an Street were gray, and the evening was quiet. The yellow light is mixed with gray, and even the direction where the bare branches cut through the sky is gray. Because we live right next to Tiananmen Square and considering the traffic jams in Beijing, a group of us decided to walk instead of driving, which gave me an opportunity to get in touch with life in old Beijing. On Friday afternoon, surprisingly, there were not as many people in Wangfujing as expected. Pedestrians wearing masks hurried along, and the novelty of arriving in a new city mixed with the gray of Peiping, creating a strange feeling. This kind of low-saturation, low-brightness color unexpectedly does not make people feel bad, nor does it make people excited. It should be said that it is so calm that you can't even feel the change in mood. While walking on the streets of Beijing at night, I felt an inexplicable and restrained feeling of depression. Although there are still a few small shops with lights on on the road, and the sound of electric cars passing by and passers-by passing by can be heard from time to time, the night in Peiping is inexplicably quiet and silent. It's the kind of gray color without emotion, which doesn't reach the bottom of my heart. The dim yellow lights, the few passers-by, the walls, the dead trees, and the rare red edges of the windows all have an invisible deterrent effect. When we went to the Forbidden City the next day, everyone wore masks, had their ID cards in their pockets, and didn't talk much. When we passed Tiananmen Square, there were police officers standing and patrolling armed police, iron railings, and walls. We had to go through about three security checks before we were able to enter. This greatly compressed and restricted freedom made me instantly transparent under the shock of the Forbidden City. An interesting thing happened. An old friend who was traveling with me was carrying a huge black backpack. After going through the second security check, he was nowhere to be seen. He waited for a long time before he came out, looking embarrassed and frustrated. .

 

 

The picture shows a corner of the Forbidden City

 

 

Why, he said: There is a notebook in the backpack, and I copied the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra when I was tired. Because it is a manual security check, everything in the bag must be taken out, and papers and documents must be strictly inspected. (Prevent the spread of ideas that disrupt social order)

 

As a result, when they saw the Heart Sutra, the inspector looked at it for a long time and asked what it was.

Answer: Copy when tired.

 

The security personnel then reported it to their superiors, and then carefully asked for their identity information and investigated their work background before they were allowed to enter.

The listener sighed, remembering an unavoidable topic: if you want to be protected, you have to give up half of your freedom. This is true in relationships, in love, in life, and in society. Where the balance point is, everyone has their own number.

 

 

The picture shows the Chinese Opera Experimental Theater in Dongmianchang Hutong

 

 

3. Hutong story

 

When I went out on the afternoon of the third day, I felt that the color of Beijing was no longer gray. The moment I passed the Imperial College and the Confucius Temple and finally walked out of Chengxian Street, the color of Beijing suddenly changed. For the first time, I heard ancient music, crowds of people flowing, and vehicles gathering on the street. The entire Yonghe Street is related to Tibetan Buddhism, so Sanskrit sounds can be heard from time to time in the small shops, as well as the unconcealable golden light emitted by Tibetan Buddha statues from time to time. The sound of traffic, Sanskrit music, red lanterns, flocks of swallows suddenly flying in the sky, and the breath of the crowds of people blended in unconsciously. They were so vivid that they overlapped with the old Beijing in my memory in an instant.

 

Later, when I turned another corner, I saw a very narrow alley, and Uncle Bao Jing took me in. The alley is small but surprisingly deep. He said this is what old Beijing hutongs should be like. When I walked in, I quickly glanced around. There were about five or six houses. The walls were very dilapidated, and they looked like the kind of houses in TV series in the 1970s and 1980s. When we walked to the end, we met an old woman. After saying hello to her, we unexpectedly started chatting with her.

 

Grandma said that she is ninety years old and has lived alone in the alley for many years. It turned out that they had three rooms in that alley, but after her husband left, she was left to live here alone. Originally, the remaining two rooms were reserved for his son, but they were later bought and replaced by other houses.

 

"How can they get used to living in this house?" Grandma smiled helplessly, "I exchanged it for two two-bedroom apartments in the second ring road." "Grandma was very proud when she mentioned her past, and I even saw this smile that went straight to her eyes.

"I was able to work with my wife, and I was admitted to his factory! But when that factory saw that I had two children, they waved their hands at me and said they didn't want me." Later she went to another factory. , the backyard of the factory is like a nursery, with an old lady helping them take care of their children every day.

 

She now lives alone in that narrow and deep alley, and the rooms next to her are empty. I suddenly wanted to take a photo with my grandma. No reason, I just wanted to freeze her. When I walked out of the alley, I thought of what my grandma said with pride and pride, "I also passed the exam for his factory!"

 

 

The picture shows a photo taken with grandma in an unknown alley

 

After that, I suddenly thought of what Shashalong said in his sigh under the moonlight in Lao She's Soul-Severing Gun that I once saw in a literature class: "Don't pass it on, don't pass it on." The glory of the past is gone. Should we adapt to the times or leave calmly? Or perhaps we should find a way to reconcile with the times. There is a lot we don’t know, but in different people we will see these different responses and answers that seem to be floating in the wind. We don’t need to solve the unsolvable questions left by the times. It seems that there will always be people who interpret their answers with the simplest actions and words in urban life.

 

I think maybe the beautiful and peaceful look when anyone recalls the past is particularly attractive. Although there are some things that she may no longer be able to express smoothly, and her era has finally passed, the mark left on her by the era will never fade away. Finally, when I left, my grandma told me that she had recently received a salary increase of 700 (retirement salary will increase after reaching a certain age). I can't forget her smile when she said that. I still hope that some memories that have not been changed by time will not be erased, and those things that time cannot fade away can be left behind. There are really some persistent things and lingering fantasies that make them up. Perhaps the era of effectiveness and convenience no longer belongs to this generation. "Don't pass it on, don't pass it on" may be her way of coexisting with the times.

 

I hope to be able to sort out and share the interesting things from the rest of the trip next week. I sent a private message asking me how I play. I want to say that actually everyone has different ways of playing, and the best way is the one that suits you best.

Here are some places we visited:

The picture shows a night tour of the Capital University Hall. Capital University, the highest institution of higher learning in the early years of the Republic of China

 

 

Imperial College, the highest academic institution in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties

 

 

 

The picture shows the former site of Peking University’s Red Building, the birthplace of the May Fourth Movement. The chronological order of these three places should be that the Imperial College first appeared, the Imperial Academy was a transitional stage in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and finally the Red Mansion of Peking University, the origin of the May Fourth Movement and New Youth. Almost all modern Chinese literature courses will take the May Fourth Movement as the starting point and start with Mr. Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman.