Wandering Weavers: Beijing -- Temple of Heaven (outer park)

Our first stop in the midst of this 9000 square mile city and its 20 million residents was the beautiful and peaceful
Temple of Heaven.

Rodney and me with our travel buddies, Brian and Diane

Our tour guide, Sunny, led us through the fabulous park surrounding the actual temple grounds.

Each morning retirees meet to do their morning exercises such as waltzing and playing “Jianzi.” It’s like the American game hacky sack, but instead of bean bags, they use weighted feather shuttlecocks.

We got to try our hand at Tai Chi! Of course, we didn’t have swords to use, so Rodney used his pen. His reasoning was—“the pen is mightier than the sword”!!

Another morning exercise was basically human ring toss! The rings seem to be made of felt-like material.

And, of course, there’s kung fu. Sunny told us this guy was 80 years old!! It was probably in the 40s and this guy was out there in no shirt and at one point he was hitting himself on the back with a bundle of bamboo sticks!! Not actually the highlight of my trip, I must admit.

This little piece of our morning, on the other hand, WAS a highlight! In this section of the park, among the mass of retirees was this cute little man!! He walked up to our group, reached into his bag, and pulled out his treasured photo album. It seemed some pictures were maybe of his personal family, but his most treasured seemed to be those of Chairman Mao and HIS family!! Through his conversation with Sunny, we learned that as a member of the Chinese Army, he was stationed in North Korea for five years during the Korean War!!

Now, about that mass of retirees…. With China’s population being about 1.5 billion people, retirement is mandatory and comes a bit earlier than in the states. With the exception of lawyers and doctors, women retire at 55 and men at 60 making about 200 million senior citizens right now!! So, those still very healthy, active adults have to do something to remain healthy and active…. Like go exercise and hang out with their friends at the park every morning! This particular group was doing a little extra---- they were playing matchmaker--- for their grown, unwed children!! Those grown children are working so hard and all the time, they don’t have time to get out and meet a potential spouse, so the parents go to an area like this with their child’s bio in hand and find a good match for them!! A big selling point is if the child owns their own home (apartment). They are expected to pay half their salary on a house payment!! And if they’re only renting?? Forget it--- NOT considered successful!! (In some areas, a 1,000 square foot, 2 bedroom apartment would sell for about $1 million US dollars!!!)

Even though they say it is arranged marriages, it’s not mandatory in all cases. Some parents are willing to allow the children to meet and go out, but if the children say it’s just not going to work, they “shake hands and walk away.” Although, I bet it’s more of a bow than a handshake

But, if on the other hand, the match works and the couple get married and have their one “allowed by law” child, the grandparents become the care providers while the parents are at work. Who knows, maybe they’ll have enough money to pay for it and their child will make it to the top of the 30,000 name waiting list for private Pre-K. If not, they’ll babysit until the child is old enough to begin their compulsory 1^st through 9^th grade education career.

An interesting tidbit about the birth of those grandbabies--- China has the highest C-section rate! They plan the delivery for a special day, or to start school at 6 instead of 7 which would them make the child finish compulsory school and ready for work a year earlier!