It was towards the end of November 2004 that I visited Beijing at the insistence of my niece Meera and her husband Gopi Gopalan. It was cold but the taxi we hired at the airport with a heater proved very comfortable.
Gopi took us to Tiananmen Square and showed us where the student agitation took place in 1989, before asking the taxi driver to drop us in Hotel Harbour Plaza. Tiananmen Square seemed to be the biggest public square in the world, all of 4,40,000 square metres that can accommodate at least ten lakh people. Chairman Mao’s mausoleum was close by. A number of government offices, the Museum of Chinese History, as well as the Museum of Chinese Revolution were around.
Gopi left by the evening flight for Shanghai where he lived after asking me to go round Beijing and visit Xion to see the terracotta warriors before reaching Shanghai after a week.
In the three days I stayed in Beijing, the most places I visited were the final resting places of Ming dynasty and Qwing dynasty rulers and a dozen more, calling them ‘Spirit Way’. They were quite unlike the Annadurai or M.G. Ramachandran samadhis in Chennai.
Visits to a Chinese hospital and jade jewelry factory were in the itinerary. But what was astonishing was the visit to the Great Wall of China, via Padaling. “The queen of England and several American Presidents have visited this place,” a co-tourist said. “Why, our Aishwarya Ray has also performed here,” I was about to say.
“Saw the Wall? Are you happy?” asked the guide with broad smile, as if he had built it.
I bought a replica of the Great Wall for the showcase back home. I paid just half the amount the seller had quoted. (After reaching Shanghai, Gopi said it costs just half the money I had paid!) I was given a card at the hotel, marked Bargaining Technique, along with the map of the city which I had ignored.
In the evening, at the Chinese hospital, they welcomed the tourists with a smile. When my turn came, the doctors behaved just as they do in Tamil plays and films. Raised their eyebrows (unnecessarily) and pouted their lips. One said I have hypertension. (Was it wrong to have climbed the steps of Great Wall?) “Also hyperlipemia, yes!” I nodded my head. Let it be.
“Also coronary arteriosclerosis, cerebral arteriosclerosis due to short supply of blood. Your heart is not pumping enough blood!” I knew my heart was beating at that moment. “The blood supply would come down and you will have to suffer sudden stroke,” one of the doctors said. I came out smiling and joined the other tourists.
After visiting the terracotta warriors in Xion, I went to the airport to catch the flight to Shanghai. It was delayed. “No worry. There is a flight coming at 4.30. It touches Shanghai. I will change your ticket” said the courteous airline staff. I got a seat in a flight that reached around seven. I wanted to inform Gopi. A fellow Chinese passenger, director in a semi-conductor manufacturing firm in the U.S., offered his mobile phone to make a call. Gopi said there were two million cell phones in use in the city alone.
Since I already had a replica of the Great Wall of China, I was hunting for a small bust of Mao Zedong. ‘Remember, young men and women, your strength and power are like the sunlight of nine in the morning. We fully rely upon you!’ Mao had exhorted the youth. In the huge Metro shopping centre, I saw women easily driving the forklift and placing suitcases atop accurately.
At last I found an antique shop in the Yo Yuan shopping area. There was a festival atmosphere there. Along with the shops there are dispensaries of Chinese doctors. The sellers were friendly and smiled even if we bargained hard. “Sheshe,” they say, to thank buyers. The antique shop seller was no exception.
I asked him for a Mao statue, either bust or full size. He searched awhile and picked up one from the basket and handed it over to me, as if he had kept it all along secretly. His face was aglow but there was a streak of fear in it. Or was it my own imagination? Thank god, it was not a big brown statue installed in the city’s thoroughfare. I shudder to think now what would have happened if the statue were to be found here in any one of the lanes. I kept the ‘antique item’ securely packed in my suitcase while flying back to India.
charukesiviswanathan@yahoo.co.in
