We had the pleasure of attending a local Bar Mitzvah here in Beijing recently, and it was quite an experience! The photos shown here, however, are from the banquet that evening, held at an opera house on the eastern side of the Forbidden City, just north of a beautiful canal park.
To get there, we hopped on the subway at our place and rode it a handful of stops due west, exiting at the Tiananmen East subway station. From there, we entered the park. Given that it is winter, and Beijing is a northern city, this unlit park was pretty shadowy by the time we arrived for the evening's banquet. The stone walkway, however, reflected the meager light available and we were able to make our way along. Soon thereafter, we saw two young Chinese women in traditional red silk dresses, each one holding a paper lantern at the end of a pole. We walked over to ask if they knew where the opera house was, and they gently informed us that they were lantern-bearers for guests of the opera house.
They proceeded to escort us back into a courtyard, over to another pair of lantern-bearers, who then traded off escort duties and walked us to the next set. And so on. Eventually, we found ourselves at the main entrance to the opera house. In the picture at the top of this blog entry, you can see the back of a lantern-bearer, as viewed from an antechamber just inside the main building. On the far side of this young woman was another lantern-bearer. Guests passed between them and climbed the short steps on the left to enter the opera house.
We could drone on and on about the opera house (and we have some more photos, so eventually we will probably post again about this), but we wanted to share with you one of the experiences that made this party unique in our experience. In the photo on the left, you can see our friend Sen eating his New York Cheesecake with chopsticks. As for us, not being quite so civilized, we simply picked the cake up with our fingers and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Yum!
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