The Bell and Drum Towers, the Northern Lakes district, Soong Qing Ling

The Great Drum Tower and The Great Bell Tower face each other, in dilapidated splendour, in memory of the days when time and measurement were communicated to the land via their resounding music. We climbed the steep towers in horrendous pollution--our Chinese fellow tourists stopped frequently on the stairs up. The city below us was murky gray.

The Drum Tower dates back to the days of Kublai Khan, 13th c. We inspected the gigantic drums which would later be played with magnificent focus and intensity by small frowning young men.

But most interesting were the timekeeping instruments of the Ming, instruments of falling copper balls, flowing water, burning incense and candles, all iconic of the precision and brilliance and also obsessive limitations of the "ancients."

View from the towers

The opposite, equally steep, Bell Tower had Emperor Yongle's (beginning of the Ming dynasty, 13th) beautiful Ancestor of Bells, a giant bronze prototype for the bells of dynasties to come. It is surrounded by the myth of the bell-maker's daughter, who hurled herself into the furnace that the bell might be cast. We chatted briefly with a Caribbean American who had historical questions for the young woman trying to sell us tea by performing a "tea ceremony" --questions which she didn't understand. We tasted a ginseng oolong and a green jasmine, but they weren't better than what I buy in Paris. In the grounds below a shop was advertised as "Chriatian-owned" and had some unappealing jade dragons in the window. When I went to see them the woman seemed severe and aggressive and I turned to leave, no matter how many times she said "God bless you,"

Northern Lakes district

Then we began to wander toward the lake - actually walking in a circle which was perhaps why construction workers atop low-rise scaffolding watched us and laughed. It is a beautiful lively fringe at the Northern lakes' edge, like an Asian Amsterdam, cafe's had generous sofas, and people knew each other. A crippled boy sang beautifully on the walkway by the Northernmost lake, lined with edgy lounges and coffeee shops, rickshaws, couples strolling, weeping willows.

Buddhist Monastery

We detoured to a Buddhist temple complex, that had once been a retreat for palace eunuchs, low and sprawling like a sleepy village. At the gate cripples begged, one singing, one chanting "money money money", one laughing. Inside were lounging monks, their laundry and sleeping pallets, and visitors bowing before the closed doors of temples with their fruit, sometimes plastic, offerings and flea bitten cats gentle to the touch. Many ladies entered a shrine near the entrance - was it a fortune teller? Other ladies were playing cards in a room within the labyrinth.

Then we wandered back out to the lake under a pale sun that seared through the smog, while the lake, veiled in gray, seemed distant with drifting boats. Men swam in the dirty water along with ducks and boats, or play cards.

Courtesy Soong Qing Ling Foundation

But we glimpsed a green park further inland, dripping with willows and entered it for the most interesting visit of the day. It had been the last home of Soong Qing Ling, the nicest of the rich and famous Soong sisters. The three American-educated women had all married well: one of her sisters had married Chiang Kai Shek and another a rich banker.

Everyone loves the yoghurt!

When Qing Ling had returned to China from Wesleyan College she married her father's old friend, Sun Yat Sen, before his 1911 revolution. She translated his works, but she also led men in battle against the Japanese. She was a faithful propagator of her husband's word and, at his death, forged on, fighting for orphans and the needy, inserting herself everywhere she could use her considerable clout to help. She petitioned the Nazis on behalf of Shanghai's Jews. She outdid Eleanor Roosevelt in her incessant fight for the welfare of Chinese under the chaos of that period, as the Communists came to power. Apparently they exiled her for awhile in Hong Kong, then invited her back to tremendous honor. She was made an honorary Chair of the Communist Party, but never joined the Party till two weeks before her death. She rode the waves of the international movements and China's voyage into modernity, prominent at the young United Nations, appearing everywhere for her causes. A revolutionary, then a humanitarian, she became a woman of 20th c. internationalism. Smiley girls in matching track suits questioned me for a marketing survey.

And then I sat by the lake on a capacious armchair on the terrace of an empty café and watched a mother snap photos of her pudgy sons on a 3-seater bike. Another boy walked by with a sweatshirt that read, "Imagination is more powerful than money." Someone was sleeping on another couch of the café. Old men sat on the other side of a marble ballustrade, fishing in the lake's thick foliage, at this northern edge. Boats drifted in the smog. Across the road that was filled with bicycles (1, 2 and 3 seaters) a couple of picnic tables sold yoghurt and snacks. Many empty yoghurt jars indicated they had been busy. A relentless reed instrument tunelessly droned.