China: Beijing, Day 3

After spending two days in Beijing, I had wondered why people would want to live in such a heavily populated, loud, dirty, smoggy place. It just didn't seem appealing. Maybe it's what some people had ever known and didn't know any different. Or maybe they longed for something else, but didn't have the money or other means to make it happen. Well, on this day, I received my answer. From a distance, a lot of the hutongs looked very run-down and dirty. But, we were taken to one of the neighborhoods where I could see the appeal. First, we rode two by two on rickshaws to the neighborhood, which I had never done before. That was one of my favorite parts of Beijing. It was a quieter place right next to a river. Everything one needs is within walking distance, including grocery stores, so they don't have to compete with driving in the city in heavy traffic. According to our tour guide for the day, the area is still heavily populated, but you can't tell quite as much. We had the amazing privilege of visiting with a very nice woman inside her home. She lives in a tiny quad-style home with a small courtyard in the middle, with each house in the quad occupied by a family member. I believe there are three generations living in the quad that they have owned for many generations. They are lucky, since about 70% of the homes are owned by the government and they control who lives there. Apparently, they can even force you to live with someone you don't know. But, when I saw the way our host lived in close proximity to her extended family members in a renovated home within walking distance to everything she needs across from a beautiful river, I started to see how one would enjoy continuing to live in a home that had been lived-in by generations of ancestors. I am very grateful for the opportunity to see not only the touristy parts of the giant city, but a brief glance at a resident's personal life, which really touched my heart. After our lovely visit, we stopped by Quianmen Street for a picture scavenger hunt. Mostly, we just window shopped. I tried a sugar-coated fruit stick, something I had seen several times on the trip and seemed very popular. It was delicious! While we, as Americans, use tomatoes as vegetables (such as in a salad), the Chinese use it as a fruit. Go figure! So, my very first bite of the yummy fruit stick was a tomato and it squirted all over my shirt. Luckily, the hotel was our next stop. We had another buffet lunch at the hotel, changed into our concert black and then headed over to the Forbidden City Concert Hall for a sound check, where we pretty much ran through almost the entire repertoire, had Subway sandwiches for dinner backstage and then had a bit of time before the start of the concert to explore the stunning gardens around the hall. We ended the day with our very first concert in China. The audience was very respectful and receptive, something I noticed at all the concerts we performed. Our soloist on Rhapsody in Blue for this concert was Chinese–born Dr. Xun Pan. Since we had three different soloists for the duration of the tour, we made it a priority to rehearse beforehand with each soloist. Dr. Pan was very good, with the fastest tempos of all. As an encore for each concert, we played an arrangement of Dahai, a beautiful song that the Chinese people learn as children. The composer was at this particular concert and I got to meet him afterward and get his autograph. The best part of the concert for me was seeing all the children in the audience. I actually teared up at the end when a child walked up to the stage with his father and handed flowers to our conductor. I think we could learn a lot from the Chinese culture about how we raise our children. My heart was full after a successful first concert and our last night in Beijing.