12.10.06-24.10.2006 BEIJING
Johannes spends two weeks with his exchange group and I go my own ways.
Berlin - Frankfurt - Beijing
We change plane at Airport Frankfurt.
Pupils of the exchange program
The happy boy in the last row is called Li Chan Jie and he is the friend of Johannes. This year in Juli he visited him in Berlin. Now Johannes visits him.
Boys tussle
Li Chan Jie, Ma Chung und Johannes pit their strength against them by pushing arms
Hot pot
A classical chinese diner: a pot filled with vegetable soup is heated on a flame in the middle of the table. You order vegetables, noodles, meat and side dishes that will be cooked in the pot. That's fun! And delicious!
Korean Restaurant
Barbecue on the table. Yummie!
Jörg picks out a chinese mobile phone card and a mobile phone, although I carry my own with me. Take this, he says, this is cheaper. Then he paints the closest shopping center into the map that he printed out for me, gives me the key of his bycicle right in my hand and wishs me good success. I ride the bike through Beijings busy streets, the traffic is enormous, but when i get into it as flowing as I know it from India, my heart is jumping so high, that I’m nearly afraid, that it jumps away. If I should explain joy, I think this would apply to it the best!
Flea Market
walk-along-wisdom
Tiananmen Square
Forbidden city
emperors yellow
Here we are!
The hospitality that is offered to me is so pleasant. There where people in the past, who measured me with their own behavior patterns. And they resent me personally for my way of being and living. I am still happy, that I did not allow them to unsettle me too much. But nevertheless it is difficult for me to receive airily and without feeling guilty all the presents which life offers me again and again these days. So it seems to be my exercise to remain true to my way of being and to go the way of life that fits to me best. Even if I had to outpace people one my way. Life offers me great stories, which tug at my heartstrings. I thank life humbly!
Beijings Silicon Valley
introduction
I miss Johannes. Ever and anon. Fortunately I know that he is fine. How good! If he felt worried he could call me by mobile phone. Thanks to Joerg who borrowed me his.
way to the great wall
wonder of the world
Summerpalace
Lost in thought about a question I stand there and watch the Summerpalace. Then I ask heavenwards to motion to me an answer. Three minutes later I run across an old grass style calligraphist, who writes with water a story on the floor of the garden. His story tells about the rainbird and the fishermen’s boat. The two of them meet in the middle of the lake. The beholder is a distant prospect, so that he can only see the nice picture very fuzzy. That makes it even more beautiful, because there is left a lot of space for fantasy. Would he be very close to them, the sharpness of the picture would reduce the freedom of his imagination. I think about my question and in this story I find the answer.
We sit on a metall fense and drink tea. I give Wendy a view into the biggest western religions, which, although being so different nowadays, all arised from the same root. Beside us two chinese ladies take place. They both carry her lunch on a filled plate. As one of them pauses eating, or has she already finished, a tiny old lady approaches her. She looks desirous to the still nearly full plate. Then she speaks some soft-spoken words. The young lady passes her the plate without a word. The old lady murmurs something and then walks away slowly. There’s a matter of course in the air that you find seldem in our modern society.
The story of the emperors mother Cixi (pronounced like the austrian emperor Sissi...), who was the inofficial ruler of the Qing Dynasty, is impressive. After Wu Zetian she was the second and last woman in the history of China, who held a position of such importance, where she acted as the inofficial ruler behind her husband and son . While her husband the emperor abandoned himself to vice, she held the office. After the emperor died, she supervised the politicial activities of her and her dead husband’s only son in that way: behind his throne, hidden by a curtain, Cixi was sitting and prompted him all answers. The servants knew about that but noone ever protested. When he started to make his own decisions Cixi set him in housearrest in the Summergarden Palace. After her dead the last Dynasty terminated. On the fotos which were made of her 1903/4, when Cixi was around 80 years old, she was still a beautiful woman, but beside that her face looks hard, adamantine and not really happy. Which price she had to pay for her power?
