Beijing Building views - Pictures



Soho



Forbidden City

Sanlitun Village

2nd Ring Road electricity box

Temple of Heaven

The Egg - National center for the performing arts

Watercube, sun playing with the molecular structure



The Great Wall



The Opposite house - Luxury hotel

Italy 2 - Belgium 3

Sat Aug 16

18:00
Men's Q/Final - Match 26 - D1 vs C2 Italy vs Belgium

Workers' Stadium

Ready for Olympics

Everybody asks themselves is Beijing ready to host the biggest Sports event of the year?

This is a very tough question. I would have to answer yes and no.

Yes because every major infrastructure is of course completed. Beijing even opened 4 new subway lines and 20 new bus lines in one month. It's really unbelievable how fast the shape of Beijing changed. I went to Beijing in May to witness a major change in July. New hotels, new communication buildings, new subway stations in just a period of 2 months. That's really crazy, but that's China's strength. So on this part China will really amaze the world.

Starting from 21 July the government stopped all construction activities and all factories around Beijing for 2 months! Also cars were only allowed to enter Beijing on even or uneven days according to the number plates. This is a way to reduce the air pollution that's poltergheisting the Chinese capital. One of the 3 traffic lines on Beijing's highways is exclusively reserved for Olympic use.

Only one electable party makes it of course easy to control the whole country. If you combine this with the group-thinking any Chinese citizen herited from the time of Confucius, you can start to understand how such preparations are possible.

No because China stays China and people are not really used to foreigners.

I took some taxis in Beijing last month and was a bit disappointed as I heard that most taxi drivers will possess a GPS system to help the foreign guests, but none was available. In every taxi I saw I never noticed a GPS system. Although every taxi driver could follow a free course of Basic English, it is still very hard to converse with them without any knowledge of Chinese. So the obligatory business cards or a Chinese friend's phone number will still be needed.

And that my friends is of course only the taxi drivers. I can already imagine a few chaotic and funny situations in restaurants, hotels, shopping malls, ...

Oh by the way the officially promoted restaurants for the Olympics were forbidden to serve dog meat. All the other restaurants in Beijing were kindly asked to do the same.

Another thing that bothers me is China's attitude towards foreign residents; Most of Beijing's foreign residents were kicked out of Beijing because their visa was not extended. I suppose the Chinese government wants to limit the troublemakers, and troublemakers in Chinese's minds are always outsiders.

Even getting through the security check at the airports is for a foreigner a braver mission than for a Chinese citizen. Any unidentifiable item (so no Chinese on it) will find it's way to the nearest garbage bin.

So my conclusion can be that what you will see on TV will be perfect (I guess if anything happens the Chinese will just cut off all transmission). But all around Beijing a lot of problems will occur for every non-speaking traveler. So better take a guide, gives me more work haha.

Please don't miss the opening ceremony on 8/8/08 at 8 minutes past 8. It's by famous director Zhang Yi Mou.

Pictures taken near the Olympic Green :

Apartments for the athletes. They will become luxurious apartments once the Games end.




Whole set of apartments. The top of the tower symbolizes the Olympic Flame.




Famous new icon of Beijing, the Bird's nest.



View on the Olympic Green. The tower in the middle will support the Olympic Flame.




Watercube, venue for all swimming contests. After the Games it will become a public swimming pool.

Concubines

The Concubines in the Imperial society of China were the woman of the emperor, high ranking officials or rich merchants.

Upon a visit of the Forbidden City in Beijing two parts can be seen. The first part is the Palace area where state affairs were handled. The second part is the living quarters and those quarters have a major part consecrated to the concubines.

Life was hard for these girls as there were many and a lot of jealousy. The concubines were graded in 9 ranks going from “beauty” to “imperial concubine”.

Every part of the court life was regulated and written down. The eunuch were the only (half) man allowed to stay in the Forbidden City. The eunuchs had to serve and advise the emperor and they had to make sure the emperor would follow the court rules. So a normal emperor would have 121 concubines. But of course some emperors enjoyed their God status and didn’t listen to their eunuchs. An emperor of that sort would have 400 to 4000 concubines. But an emperor with so many concubines wouldn’t have time to control his country as he had other preoccupations and so went in history as a bad emperor.

A concubine was selected between the ages of 12 to 14 as this is the age when she was considered the most female. A selection was made in the different provinces. The girl must be a local beauty and still virgin. Then when she passed the different tests she would be brought to the eunuchs, who made further selection and in the end the emperor could select his concubines.

The goal of a concubine was to be able to sleep with the emperor and to please him, so she could be promoted and she and her family would get more fame and richness. But a group of 400 to 4000 women fighting for one man gave a lot of quarrels and more.

So why did the emperor need all these concubines, shouldn’t he be a good housefather and take care of his empress?

Well as every little detail was controlled at the court (and a good emperor would follow these regulations), the emperor had designated times, according to the moon calendar, where he could sleep with his empress and try to conceive an heir to the throne. Those were very select days and the chance of having a child, and especially a boy, was quite small. So when the emperor had a boy with a concubine, this concubine would receive a higher grade and in the end could become the mother of the next emperor.

Because the emperor could only sleep with his wife on these designated days he had to sleep with his concubines. Here we find the concept of Yin and Yang.

Yang is “good”, “sunlight”, “heaven”, “male”, …

Yin is “bad”, “darkness”, “earth”, “female”, …

They represent all the duality around us. And because the emperor was “The son of Heaven” he was absolutely Yang, but everything should be in balance, so he needs more Yin.

He could get this Yin be special food and exercises, but the most efficient way was his concubines. By having intercourse with them he received Yin and especially if the concubine had an orgasm she would release more Yin. The eunuchs developed a way to improve the chance of an orgasm. The used the eyelid of a sheep and that was placed on the penis of the emperor.

In the writing it was also regulated how many ejaculations (losing the Yang) the emperor could enjoy. In spring he could have an ejaculation every 3 days, in summer and autumn only twice a month and in winter, as this is the coldest and darkest (Yin) month, he could have none!

To select a concubine was a tricky business. In the beginning the emperor could choose who he wanted to sleep with, but this custom was abolished by the eunuch as it is not fair to all the concubines (except for the emperor’s favorites). So different systems were tried out. A cart with a goat was set up in front of the courtyards of the concubines. Where the goat would stop the concubine could get in and was brought to the emperor. Concubines weren’t stupid women as they were also selected on their artistic and mental skills. Soon vegetable baskets were put outside some houses and the same concubines kept coming up on the cart, so this system was also terminated.

A tube of bamboo was kept by the head eunuch and inside the names of all concubines was written on separate bamboo sticks. So every day a stick was picked at random. This system was kept for a longer time, as it seemed quite successful in keeping everybody happy.

When a concubine was selected she was washed and perfumed by the eunuchs. Her naked was enrolled in a silk gown and she was brought like that to the emperor. No clothes so no possibility to hide a weapon to murder the emperor.

The emperor was given one hour to gain more Yin. While the emperor was in his bedroom with the concubine, a eunuch would stand outside. He controlled the time after one hour he would hit his big metal staff on the floor, indicating that the emperor only had 5 more minutes left.

Of course “bad” emperors would indulge more on those worldly pleasures and order their eunuch to go away or they just picked another concubine after the first session was finished.

When a concubine died she would be given a funeral according to their rank. An imperial concubine would even be buried not far from the grave of her emperor.

When an emperor would die all his concubines would go to the next emperor. But he never used them as concubines, but as advisers. The new emperor would get a new set of concubines. The old concubines would live in palaces outside the Forbidden City, except for the imperial concubines, who would normally stay close to the new emperor.

Bird's nest

Christmas and New Year coming soon! That means a lot of reviews and lists will be published about 2007. One of those list is published by the famous magazine TIME. TIME compiled a top 10 of architectural marvels. In this list 3 architectures from Beijing were included.

Beijing National Stadium, the new CCTV headquarters and the office building project "Linked Hybrid" represent the modern side of Beijing.

The Bird's nest as the Beijing National Stadium is called will be finished around March 2008. The design was developed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. The 250,000 km² stadium is to be built with 36 km of unwrapped steel, with a combined weight of 45,000 tonnes. It is clear why the stadium gets its peculiar name. Since November last year the stadium can stand on its own without any support. The works started in December 2003 and when it will be completed the stadium will have a capacity of 100.000 spectators. The stadium will be used as the main stadium and most track and field competitions as well as the opening and closing ceremony will take place in The Bird's nest.

As I have seen it, the stadium (most other stadia as well) look finished from the outside. The Olympic green, which includes the Olympic village and the stadia, is well guarded and no unauthorized visitors are allowed.

The CCTV Headquarters is a skyscraper which will be used as the new headquarters of the Chinese Central TeleVision. It is a strange site nowadays in the busy Central Business District of Beijing. Like two towers of Pisa bending towards each other. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas designed the building. It is seen as a architectural challenge to be realised.

The remaining architectural wonders of 2007 according to TIME magazine:


Linked Hybrid, Beijing. Steven Holl's retail/office complex will have sky bridges connecting each of its eight towers.

Heathrow Five, London. Richard Rogers' firm is giving Heathrow a big new terminal under a vast, column-free arch.


Caja Madrid Tower, Madrid.Norman Foster's oil-and-gas-company headquarters will have rooftop wind turbines.


IAC Headquarters, New York Frank Gehry Partners.


The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Sanaa.


Bloch Building, Nelson-Atkins, Museum of Art addition, Kansas City, Mo. Steven Holl Architects.


Federal Building, San Francisco Morphosis.


Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Weiss/Manfredi.