My first Chinese Temple Fair: Last year's visit to the Chang Dian (厂甸) Temple Fair

While I went to the Ditan Park Temple Fair last year, my first temple fair in 2008—and during my stay in China for that matter—was the one at Chang Dian. This temple fair is held on a small stretch of the Nanxinhua Jie (南新华街). This street is located south of the Nr. 2 subway line's Hepingmen (和平门) subway station. The part of the road closed off to traffic for the temple fair ran south from the subway station to the Luo Ma Dajie (骡马大街).

I went to the Chang Dian Temple with a Chinese friend. This person is a young lady named Li Na (李娜) who graduated last year from the Beijing Forestry University, where she studied human resource management. I got to know Li Na because she worked as an intern (实习生) in our company's HR (人力资源) department. This extremely bright and attractive young lady is now working for a rival company, the French integrated oil well and borehole services provider giant, Schlumberger.

Like the Ditan Park Temple Fair, the one at Chang Dian typically very, very crowded. The photo above shows the “people mountain, people sea” (人山人海) milling about on the Nanxinhua Jie. That shot was taken from an outside stairwell leading up to a Teahouse (茶馆) on the second floor of a building on the west side of the Nanxinhua Jie.

This particular point on the Nanxinhua Jie has two alleys running off it to its east and west. The first alley is home to lots of art galleries (画廊) and art bookstores (美术书店). You can see this alley in the middle of the photo at the top of this blog post. Li Na and I visited a couple of these galleries later on that afternoon. I found that the art and other items they had for sale were way out of my price range. Even the cheapest teacups (茶杯) and small, Chinese style handheld fans (折扇) cost 30 RMB ($4.40 at the current exchange rate). This stuff is a lot cheaper at most normal stores and shops.

The paintings and sculptures were even more exorbitantly priced. A small jade (玉) sculpture (雕) of a miniature lion (狮子) cost 50,000 RMB ($7,300). Most of the paintings Li Na and I saw were what the Chinese call “国画”. This art depicts traditional Chinese landscapes, namely misty mountains, trees, rivers and lakes. The average asking price for these paintings was 360,000 RMB ($52,600).

And of course no Chinese art gallery would be complete without some calligraphy (书法). I remember that the price for one piece of calligraphy that had just four characters (汉字) was 120,000 RMB ($17,500). As the Chinese would say, “这么贵!” or “so expensive!”

The other alley running off to the west mainly had teashops (茶店) and teahouses. Li Na and I walked into a couple of these teashops. In one of them, a Latvian (拉脱维亚人) fellow was trying to communicate with the shopkeeper, or “Laoban”, with hand gestures, as he couldn't speak any Mandarin (普通话). This man also couldn't speak any English, but like most people from the Baltic states he could speak German (德语). So I stepped in and put my rusty German to use and translated (翻译) from German to Mandarin and back. After we were done, the Laoban complimented me on my Chinese, saying it was “挺好”, or “pretty good.”

I bought some “pu'er” tea (普洱茶) at the other tea shop we visited while strolling down the alley. This type of tea is grown in southwestern China, mainly in Yunnan (云南) province. It's a very dark tea and is sold in chunks. I've tried many kinds of tea since coming here and think that pu'er is hands-down the Middle-Kingdom's best drinking (最好喝) tea. It has a really nice woodsy (木头) flavor (味道). I've also heard that drinking it is very good for your health.

Unfortunately, pu'er tea is rather expensive. I bought a not too small chunk for 20 RMB after Li Na informed me that this price wasn't too steep. Due to its good flavor and health benefits, more and more Chinese people are drinking pu'er tea. This consumer trend has made the folks who sell it quite rich.

One of my former Erwai teacher colleagues, tall and thin fellow from Seattle named Scott Searer who sold tea there before coming to China, knows one China's biggest pu'er merchants. Scott calls this fellow the “pu'er king” and informed me once that this merchant has a very rare antique Ming Dynasty (明朝) table (桌子) in his apartment. This table alone would fetch more money if it was sold than would the “pu'er” king's expensive luxury apartment. He could certainly afford to purchase that 国画 and 书法 sold in Chang Dian's art galleries.

The photo above was shot in the teahouse and teashop alley. While there were plenty of people strolling about there, it wasn't nearly as crowded as the Nanxinhuan Jie. I could actually walk up the street food vendors and buy some food. It was past noon by the time we started walking back down the alley and I was really hungry. So Li Na and I stopped and I bought a 煎饼果子, which is a thin pancake wrapped around a vegetable and egg filling. They're pretty tasty snacks and the photo below shows them being made.

Other kinds of food for sale included not only the usual grilled lamb kabobs, but a Xinjian Province specialty, 新疆糟糕, which is nuts and dried fruit, mainly raisins and apricots, held together by jujube paste. The vendors selling this snack did not have their own stands. They instead threaded their way through the 人山人海 and hawked their big slabs of 新疆糟糕—this stuff comes in slabs and the vendors cut off pieces of it for their customers—from pushcarts. They were thus 手推车卖盒饭人.

Like other temple fairs, lots of stuff was for sale at the Chang Dian Temple Fair. The stand in the photo below was selling Beijing Opera Masks (京剧面具). And people looking for a different and special kind of pet could buy live grasshoppers (蚱蜢) in a bottle.

By around 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon, Li Na and I had seen all we wanted to see at the Chang Dian Temple Fair. Rather than going right to the Hepingmen Subway station, we decided to stroll over to Tian’anmen (天安门) square. We first walked north up the Beixinhua Jie and then headed east along the Western Changan Jie (西长安街). While walking along the latter street, we passed by the outer wall of China's equivalent to the US White House, the so-called Zhongnanhai (中南海). This closely guarded compound is where the Middle Kingdom's top leaders have their villas and offices. It gets its name from being located around the small lake that lies just south of Beihai Park (南海 means south lake).

After we got to Tian'anmen Square, I asked Li Na to pose for a photo. She really has a lovely face and this shot got the skin tones just right!

That structure in the background of this photo is Tian'anmen Square's Monument to People's Heroes (人民英雄纪念碑). This particular monument was designed by the brilliant Chinese architect, Liang Sicheng (梁思成). Liang was China's first western trained architect, and he studied at the University of Pennsylvania during the 1920s. He remained in China after 1949 and was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命). Like many other people who suffered during this dark episode in China's history, Liang was subsequently rehabilitated (he died toward the end of the Cultural Revolution).

It was certainly good to go to Chang Dian not only to experience my first Temple Fair since arriving in China, but also to see the area, particularly its art galleries and teahouse and teashops. I look forward to making future visits to this place.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

厂甸 (chang3dian3).
李娜 (li3na4).
实习生 (shi2xi2sheng1).
人力资源 (ren2li4zi1yuan2). The first two characters literally mean “human/person power,” while the latter two are the Mandarin word for “resources.”
人山人海 (ren2shan1ren2hai3).
茶馆 (cha2guan3).
画廊 (hua4lang2). The first character is the Mandarin word for “painting” and looks somewhat like a framed picture.
美术书店 (mei3shu4shu1dian4). The first two characters literally mean the “beautiful arts,” while the latter two mean “bookstore”. 书 is the Chinese word for book.
茶杯 (cha2bei1).
折扇 (zhe3shan4).
玉 (yu4).
雕 (diao1).
狮子 (shi1zi5).
国画 (guo2hua4). The first character means “nation/country” or “national.”
书法 (shu1fa3).
汉字 (han4zi4).
这么贵 (zhe4me5gui4). The last character is the word for “expensive.” If you’re haggling with shopkeepers (老板, lao3ban3), this is a very handy phrase!
茶店 (cha2dian4).
拉脱维业人 (la1tuo1wei2ye4ren2). The last character, which resembles a crude stick drawing of a human being, is the Chinese word for person. It's a classic illustration of what might be called a “picture” character.
普通话 (pu3tong1hua4). These characters should be literally translated as “common” or “universal” language/speech.
德语 (de2yu3).
翻译 (fan1yi4).
挺好 (ting3hao3).
普洱茶 (pu3er3cha2).
明朝 (ming2chao2). The first character means “bright” and is also the given name of China's most famous basketball star, the Houston Rockets center, 姚明 (Yao2 Ming2).
桌子 (zhuo1zi5).
煎饼果子 (jian1bing1guo3zi5).
新疆糟糕 (xin1jiang1zao3gao1). The first two characters form the name of Xinjiang province.
手推车卖盒饭人 (shou3tui1che1mai4hefan4ren2). The first three characters are “pushcart,” the fourth one is the Chinese word for “sell”. When 卖 is combined with the next two characters and the character for person, they together mean “food vendor.”
京剧面具 (jing1ju4mian4ju4). According to a Chinese friend, a more frequently way of saying Bejing Opera Masks, at least in oral speech, is 脸谱 (lian3pu3).
蚱蜢 (zha4meng2).
天安门 (tian1an1men2).
西长安街 (xi1chang2an1jie1). The middle two characters mean “eternal peace.”
中海南 (zhong1hai3nan2). This compound surrounds a pair of lakes just south of Beihai Park.
人民英雄纪念碑 (ren2min2ying2xiong2ji4nian2bei1). Monument to people's heroes.
文化大革命 (wen2hua4da4ge2ming4). 文化 means “culture/cultural,” 大 means big or great, and 革命 is the Mandarin word for revolution. Mandarin word order takes some getting used to!!