Michael,

The first stop on our tour yesterday was to the Ming tombs. It’s an hour bus ride west of Beijing in a national scenic area bordered by green hills. On the way there, our guide told us the history of the Ming Dynasty. Ming I (14th century) had 20 sons, and he chose the first son to be his successor, but the son died before him. So the old man had to pick another inheritor of his throne, and rather than one of his other sons, he picked the oldest son of his first son. (At that time, the custom of the first son automatically inheriting the power was not in effect.) The grandson was only 6 years old at the time, but his grandfather trained him in the arts and guiles of emperorship for 11 years. In the mean time, he appointed the other 19 sons to govern distant provinces of the kingdom and keep them from meddling with his affairs. By the time of his death, the grandson was capable of taking over the kingdom. Ming II ruled for about 50 years, and his successors continued the dynasty for over 250 years. Only 3 other Chinese dynasties were as long lived as 200 years.

In the late 16th century, a huge burial complex was built to accommodate all of the remnants of the Mings. A rumor came down to the 20th century that the builders of the grave complex were all killed and buried there to prevent the location of the burial entrance from becoming public knowledge. In any event, for 3 centuries, no grave robbers or archaeologists ever succeeded in finding the way in. It was reputed that there were Indiana Jones-style traps and misleading entrances in the complex. Finally in the 20th century, the government succeeded in finding the entrance, and reconstructed tunnels for public access. Most of the actual coffins, remains, and artifacts are now in Beijing museums, but some of the original Ming vases and thrones are still there.

Although archaeologists have excavated the entire area, no remains of the original workers were ever found, and it is now widely held that the rumor about their execution was false.

The current Chinese must revere the ancient emperors, since there are heaps of modern Yuan notes strewed everywhere around the coffins, presumably to bring good luck. Funny cautioning signs in fractured English are displayed here and there–“Don’t scribble”, “Luxuriant grassland please don’t trample”, “No smoking. Fireproofing caution”.

–rakkity

(Blogmeister’s note: I’ve fallen way behind prolific rakkity, and I’m posting out of sequence though I don’t think it diminshes his transfixing travelogues. )

Michael,

Today is the nicest one we’ve had all week. On Mon it was foggy, on Tues it rained, on Wed it was smoggy, cloudy and hot, on Thurs it was beastly hot and as humid as a Hungarian steam bath. But today we have a clear blue sky, pleasantly warm temperatures, and light breezes.

For some reason they left the doors open at the conference center yesterday, and it got uncomfortably hot and humid in the poster session area. Every 20 min or so I had to retreat to one of the speakers rooms, which were highly AC’ed, to cool off before going back to my post. By the side of my poster I left a little sheet to request a preprint, and when I came in this morning I found that Dr Asai, who I had met in Japan last year, had added her name to the list. Nice to get some positive feedback.

This morning as I was walking along the main street towards the conference rooms, a young Beijinger asked me what time it was. I showed him my watch (9:00 am) and said that back home it was 9:00 pm.) Then he asked if I liked Beijing (what could I say, but that I liked it, though if he had asked me yesterday in the sauna weather, I might have mumbled something else. Then he said he wanted to practice his English with me. He asked where I was from, and I had to explain where Maryland was. He said he also wants to learn French, because he thought that was the 2nd most important language in the world. (Interesting. The French would say so too.) He remarked that foreigners seemed to walk so fast he couldn’t keep up with them. And I said that I was in no hurry, because my meeting didn’t start for 30 minutes. He wanted to know where the meeting was, and I said the Beijing Information Technology School, right behind that building, so he said goodbye and walked on. His English was actually better than our 2nd tour guide!

–rakkity