A Heavenly Temple

By Ellen Ward@

I arrived in Beijing late one Monday night. I was looking forward to making the most of a full day to myself. I had planned to start the next day at the Temple of Heaven park to observe and hopefully participate in some early morning Tai Chi. I am not an early riser, but jet lag had me awake by 5:30 a.m. After doing a little reading, I was in a cab by 6:45 a.m. and inside the park at 7:00 a.m. Nothing prepared me for what I was about to see. The park was FULL of people engaged in all manner of playful activities: badminton, games tossing colorful puppets, exercise routines, baton twirling, ballroom dancing, and of course Tai Chi. 

Many of the people were older, in their seventies and eighties. It was an amazing site. It was this activity, more than the construction and commercial activity of the city, that impressed me the most about Beijing.  I thought to myself, “Now here’s the real competitive advantage.”  A nation whose people were up at 7:00 a.m., engaging joyfully in exercise and activity, is not one to be taken lightly. 

As I spent the next few hours in the park, my impression grew deeper.  The park is huge, and activity was going on all over the place. I started to hear voices in the distance and went in search of them. I came across a group of about 100 to 150 people singing a repetitive chant, throwing up their arms. They were all Chinese. There was not an American or Western in sight. 

After awhile, I entered the Temple area itself and spent about an hour there. As I was preparing to leave, I heard louder singing from a very large gathering somewhere. I followed the voices and eventually came upon another group of at least 500 people all gathered in a circle. Most had song books, but many were singing by rote. Again, not a non-Chinese in sight. I eventually found a young Chinese man who looked like he might be a tour guide. I asked what the songs were about.  Were they celebrating an occasion? No, he said, they were just gathered here, as they did each morning, to sing ‘old songs’ about China.

I remembered reading about the heyday of Mao’s China, and how the people were encouraged to partake in group singing and exercise. I believe this is what remains of that. While there were some younger people in their forties and fifties most were well into the sixties, seventies and older. 

Later on the trip, I spoke to a member of our group who was born to Chinese parents. We talked about the huge shift within the Chinese culture, and how Mao’s generation was followed by the lost generation of the Cultural Revolution. What the Temple of Heaven showed me is that the generation that that was hard at work surviving those times is now hard at play.

Societies and cultures endure, and China is an ancient and enduring culture.  In many ways, while glitzier and appearing more Western to our eyes, there is much that is deep below the surface that we cannot see.