HT Home / Blogs Home > Middle Order / Rest of Asia / On the trail of Kublai Khan

The Mongol warrior Kublai Khan would have approved of the location of the financial district in China’s capital.

Even over 700 years ago, this present-day version of Wall Street in western Beijing was a business hub when Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai founded the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). His capital Beijing was then called Dadu.

Over 700 years ago, the white dagoba was Beijing's highest structure. (Photo by: Reshma Patil)

If foreign investors trooping here duck into the district’s bylanes, they will discover a slice of history in everything from the centuries-old narrow alleys (called hutong) to the stuffed steam bun shop (1 yuan or Rs 7 a piece) that once served the imperial palace. This weekend, after three days of artificially induced snow had melted away, I was ready to leave my 42-storey apartment tower to walk these backstreets where Beijing’s tallest structure during the reign of Kublai Khan still stands.

Today, the tallest landmark that I pass by daily is the upcoming 73-storey (1,082 feet) China World Trade Centre with a five-star hotel planned on the top floors. Grey business towers also dwarf old Beijing’s tallest landmark, which was designed by a Nepalese architect and built between 1271-79.

I didn’t notice it until my taxi stopped opposite the entrance of a 119-feet-high white dagoba (pagoda) shaped like an inverted alms bowl in the courtyard of a restored Buddhist temple and monastery.

In a 500-year-old hutong (alley), this is how the elders take their pet birds for a 'walk'. (Photo by: Reshma Patil)

The monks have disappeared. It was a Saturday but there were neither tourists nor locals except the China Culture Centre group I was out walking with. Many of the Yuan dynasty relics here were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and were later replaced by replicas or look-alike versions from other dynastic periods.

So you won’t really be able to imagine Kublai Khan’s era but you will find unexpected stillness and open space in a city of 17 million people and 1,500 new cars added on the roads everyday. Next time you are in Beijing, come here for a getaway into an undisturbed old world inside the Buddhist halls, one of which holds 10,000 little Buddha statues dating back to centuries ago. But these days, the offerings placed before the Buddha are generous slices of plain cake.

If you see this sign lit up in a hutong (centuries-old alley) at night, you know you've found kebabs. (Photo by: Reshma Patil)

The real culinary adventures are available deep inside a 500-year-old hutong beside the monastery. I observed tourists who seemed to find the hutong’s poverty as fascinating as a potential Chinese setting for Slumdog Millionaire. Those with cameras clicked photographs of scenes I found ordinary…dingy, dilapidated one-room quarters and T-shirts drying on clotheslines. We chatted with a hutong cleaner who told us he sweeps the streets thrice a day from 5 am to 8.30 pm, while the public toilet cleaners work from 6 am until 10 pm.

For me, the curious highlight was a stall selling a basket of fist-sized grey eggs. “Goose eggs!” pointed our Chinese guide triumphantly. Nobody could guess why he was excited, so he explained: These eggs are covered in cement and soaked in salt water for a special salty flavour”.

(7 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Posted by Reshma Patil on Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 6:44 pm 
Filed under Rest of Asia · Tagged Kublia Khan, Mongol, Wall Street

  · Comment (RSS) · Trackback