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Walking in the Winter

It’s one of the good things in publishing that after you get off deadline for this or that publication, you can take a break and re-connect with the life you’ve sacrificed for the greater glory of being a writer and editor.

Such a break came for me a few days before the Spring Festival began, and I leaped on the opportunity.

It occurred to me that I had not been to the Temple of Heaven in a long time and that since it was just down the street from my office and the skies were blue and the temperature moderate, it was a good day to take a long walk during a long lunch and check out this landmark of China’s capital.

I am so happy I did.

Contrary to the travel brochures, I find winter a great time to be in Beijing, especially around Spring Festival time. First off, the skies are routinely deep blue in colour at this time of year and with the sun low in the sky, the winter colours of Beijing leap out at the photographer just begging to be snapped, whether new spring couplets on hutong residents’ doors, the red cheeks of children or the deep reds and gold colours found at the ancient temples.

It’s a perfect time to visit the Temple of Heaven. The crowds were small on the Thursday I went there and the grounds were so quiet, you could hear the people singing old songs or playing their flutes or erhu from far away. Resting on a park bench, the sounds, far from noisome, provided a perfect moment of rest from modern life, interrupted only by the incessant chatter of magpies that are found everywhere among the cypress trees.

There are tourists, of course, but they are far fewer than in the spring and summer, giving you more time for reflection on the significance of the park, surely one of the best and most historic urban parks anywhere in the world. The people in the park practicing taiji playing their instruments or just sitting and enjoying the warm sun have more time to chat with you and to get to know you. It’s more relaxing all the way around.

Looking to the east from the round base of Beijing’s architectural marvel of the 1420s, you could see the marvels of the new millennium, the towering skyscraper of the China World Trade Center Phase III, the new CCTV Tower and the three towers of the Yantai Center in the distance.

These views, this experience, these wonders were all within easy walking distance of my office or as close at the Tiantan Dong subway station on the capital’s new Line 5 for the rest of you.

Get out of your office and take a walk in your neighbourhood; you’ll be glad you did.