Traipsing through Tianjin

Last week I and my hiking group woke early, took the high-speed train from Beijing to Tianjin and spent a lovely day touring Tianjin's varied architectural landscape.

Tianjin is China's third largest city and an important port for China. Historically, it was the home for various historical figures including the last emperor Pu Yi, the 31st U.S. president Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou, and the Chinese scholar Liang Qichao, a turn-of-the-century reformist, scholar and journalist. Tianjin was also the site of two treaty signings which gave over extraterritoriality and legal, custom and trade rights to foreign countries like England, France, and Germany, including the treaty leasing Hong Kong to the British for 100 years.

Although it took some of us 40 or more minutes to get to Beijing's South Train Station (Nanzhan) from our northeast Beijing suburb, once there the station glistened and gleamed like the new Terminal 3 at the Beijing International Airport. And the train is, indeed, FAST! Our 9:15 train left on time and arrived punctually at 9:45 on the dot; electronic signs on board indicate the highest speed is 331 kph. (See the blog http://cnreviews.com/2008/08/page/4 for complete instructions on how to ride this new train.)

Tianjin reminds me of Boston, Massachusetts. It is full of winding roads, some of whom change names suddenly and twist into oblivion. We were told that Beijing drivers travelling to Tianjin become frustrated and lost because they are accustomed to the grid system of Beijing. The city winds along the Haihe River and the forking old Grand canal (north, to Beijing, and south, to Suzhou) and even more than Shanghai, relishes its various archetectural neighborhoods, the byproduct of the foreign concessions established at the turn of the last century. Our guide Louie Liu is from the Tianjin Cultural Travel Research and Development Center (see http://www.discovertianjin.org/; cell 13502000358) and is an amiable, English-speaking guide with lots of connections. He even chatted with one of our group about Iowa City and points in the midwest US where he has travelled!

For me, highlights of Tianjin:

1) Visiting the home of the last emperor Pu Yi showed us what a renovation without soul can be like. The exteriors and small museum are lovely; the room detailing the steps and methods of renovation were instructive; however, inside Pu Yi's former residence rooms contain a few pieces of non-descript furniture and accessories that barely speak of the lives which once lived within.

2) The glorious and varied styles of homes, from grand Italian villas to row houses or small garden houses were reminiscent of Georgetown in Washington, DC or parts of London, England.

3) The China House is not part of Louie's tour, but our friend Raquel is so struck by the sheer individuality of this place that some of us went for a quick look. Here is an old concession-era home, four levels high and including various balconies, that has been adorned with pottery shards on every square inch of the exterior. The owner, a wealthy man and restauranteur, I'm told, designed the entire facade and interior and filled it with antiques. Gaudi meets Tianjin! You cannot imagine this in China; it is SO unique. Strange, yes. Perhaps even in bad taste? Depends on your tastes. But unique and unusual and bizarre even -- quite definitely.

4) Prince Qing's mansion, built in 1922, is now the Tianjin Bureau of Foreign Affairs. We couldn't take pictures inside and had to be VERY quiet as it was a working day, but the TBFA has wonderful bilingual signs and old photos describing the history and people of the site.

5) The former British Club and race track south of the British concession area. Modern high-rise apartments stand upon the old racetrack site but the ballroom is still original even down to its original wooden spring-form flooring! We were told each afternoon there was ballroom dancing on site with a live band; no pictures allowed! (We surmise that dance partners were not necessarily spouses during this activity!)

6) The Cantonese Guild Hall, now the Tianjin Opera Museum, has ornate wood carvings and a theatre with no pillars to obstruct audience views and a special domed ceiling that acoustically amplified and send sound just like a modern amplification equipment. The theatre is lined with displays of Chinese opera costumes.

7) Finally, the Tianjin History Museum, where Louie also works. This is a small building, originally built in 1918, but I learned so much here! Old photos, old postcards, maps, facts, figures, etc. I learned that Herbert Hoover and his young bride moved to Tianjin to work as an engineer in mining in 1899 and they survived fires and attacks from the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. (A map of Tianjin sketched by Hoover after the rebellion, showing burnt out Chinese and concession areas, is in the permanent records of Cornell U. library.) I learned that all the leather used for seats and berths on the first U.S. transcontinental train was imported from Tianjin. I learned that Eric Liddell, 1924 British Olympian (remember Chariots of Fire?) was born in Tianjin and after winning the gold in Paris, returned to Tianjin for a life of missionary work (he died in 1945 in a Japanese internment camp in China). The house of his father-in-law Dr. Mackensie still stands here at 38 Chongqing Dao, formerly Cambridge Road. I learned that Tianjin is a city of firsts: first telegraph wire in China; first school to introduce Western medicine originated in China; first tramway; first post office AND first set of stamps; first modern university; and more.