One big reason why Temple Fairs are a popular family outing here in Beijing is that they feature lots of entertainment and fun activities. The fun activities include being carried about in a traditional, red-colored sedan (轿子). While carrying sedan around a small circle, the carriers (轿夫) will rock it back and forth once or twice. The rocking brought back to my mind that memorable opening scene in Zhang Yi Mou's (张艺谋) early classic film “Red Sorghum” (红高粱). Fellow Zhang Yi Mou film aficionados will remember that the movie opens with the lovely Gong Li (巩俐) being taken to marry the local winemaker. She does not love this man, who is old and a leper to boot, but her father has been promised a mule if his daughter marries the winemaker.
On the way over to the groom's house, the sedan bearers rock the sedan and sing raucous songs. When they get to the sorghum field—the local wine is made from sorghum—the area's most notorious bandit holds up the party and abducts the bride from the sedan. She is then rescued by one of the sedan bearers, only to then be raped (被强奸了) by him.
This fellow, incidentally, is the narrator's grandfather both in the film and the Mo Yan (莫言) novel. The film just draws upon a few incidents and parts of Yan’s novel, which is a big, complicated and sprawling work of fiction. The novel's narrative style is also quite a bit like the “magical realist” fiction done by Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende (at least in her first novel, THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS), Jose Donoso, and the like.
Well, time to get off that tangent and back to the Ditan Park Temple Fair. At last year's Ditan Park Temple Fair, I saw young kids having loads of fun on an ice slide (冰滑梯). As the photo below shows, there was an ice carving (冰雕) of the five circle Olympic logo (奥运五环标志). However, this particular ride was missing in the 2009 Ditan Park Temple Fair.
There were also plenty of games (游戏), particularly around the fenced area below the worship alter (more on that in the next post). Lots of stuffed animals (布娃娃) were hanging down from top of these game stands. I would be willing to bet a month's salary that these stuffed animals were prizes (奖品) for winning contestants. These animals, I might add, included teddy bears (玩具熊).
In addition to all the games, this part of Ditan Park had a number of outdoor stages (户外舞台). Visitors to the Temple Fair could watch performers (演员) sing (唱歌) (at both the 2008 and 2009 Temple Fairs), juggle (玩抛杂耍) (2009 Temple Fair), toss tall wooden poles (扔木柱) to each other, and dance (跳舞). Speaking of the latter, the 2008 Temple Fair featured scantily clad (穿的衣服很少) Xinjiang (新疆) female dancers (女舞蹈演员). However, I didn't see such ladies dancing at this year’s Temple Fair; perhaps they performed (表演) another day. The performance in the photo below was a two person act. A young woman sang folk songs, while a Mao (毛泽东) look alike walked about the stage and smiled and waved to the crowd. I suspect, my readers will have a hard time recognizing this fellow in the photo below. It is times like these that make me really regret not having a telephoto lens for my camera.
And last but certainly not least, both this year and last year's Ditan Park Temple Fair featured an entirely different kind of entertainment. Needless to say, I didn't go in, as it seemed like a complete rip-off. But the posters (海报) provided me with some rather interesting and good photo opportunities.
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. 地坛公园 (di4tan2gong1yuan2).
庙会 (miao3hui4).
文娱活动 (wen2yu2huo2dong4).
轿子 (jiao4zi5).
轿夫 (jiao4fu1).
红高粱 (hong2gao1liang5).
巩俐 (gong3li4).
被强奸 (bei4qiang2jian1). The first character is used in Chinese passive voice sentences, typically when something bad happens, as in “My bike was stolen” (我的自行车被偷了; wo3de5zi4xing2che1bei4tou1le5). 我的 is the word for my, 自行车 is the word for bike, while 被偷了 means stolen. This, of course, occurs routinely in Beijing.
冰滑梯 (bing1hua2ti1). 冰 means ice, while 滑梯 is the word for children's slide.
冰雕 (bing1diao1). The city of Ha'erbin (哈尔滨), which is way north of Beijing and has bitterly cold winters, holds a famous ice sculpture festival (冰雕节) every winter.
奥运五环标志 (ao4yun4wu3huan2biao1zhi4). 奥运 means “Olympic”, 五 is “five,” 环 is “ring”, and 标志 is the word for “symbol.”
游戏 (you2xi4).
布娃娃 (bu4wa2wa2). The first character has several meanings, two of which are “cloth” and “cotton.”
奖品 (jian3pin3).
玩具熊 (wan2ju4xiong2). Translated word for word, this means “toy (玩具) bear (熊)”.
户外舞台 (hu4wai4wu3tai2).
演员 (yan3yuan2).
唱歌 (chang4ge1).
玩抛杂耍 (wan2pao1za1shua3). According to a very good Chinese friend, since juggling isn't that popular in China, this English word is almost impossible to translate into Mandarin. 玩 means play, 抛 is one Chinese word for “throw,” while 杂耍 means “acrobatics.”
扔木柱 (reng1mu4zhu4). 扔 is one word for “throw” or “toss”, while 木柱 means pole.
穿的衣服很少 (chuan1de5yi1fu5hen3shao3). Translated word for word, this means “worn” (穿的) clothes (衣服) very few (很少)”. One problem with learning Chinese is getting used to a very different word order!
女舞蹈演员 (nü3wu3dao3yan3yuan2). 女 is the Mandarin word for “female.”
表演 (biao3yan3).
毛泽东 (mao2ze2dong1). The 泽 in the Great Helmsman's name can be either the noun “marsh” or the verbs “enrich” or “favor.” The last character means “east.” I think everyone can figure what Mao's parents had in mind when they choose this name for their son!
海报 (hao3bao4). For those readers who are curious, the Mandarin word for snake is 蛇 (she2) and a poisonous snake is a 毒蛇 (du2she2). These snakes were 缠绕 (chan2rao3)—wrapped around—these attractive and scantily clad women. I remember that one issue of China's closest thing to a Western style skin magazine, 男人装 (nan2ren2zhuang1), “For Him”, magazine did this kind of photo spread (I didn't buy it, a Chinese friend showed it to me!)
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