Eric's Beijing Diary

Took a walk in the park again this morning before taking the bus into town for church. Here's an old stone aquaduct bringing spring water down from the mountain. Not being a hydrogeologist, I am not sure just where this water is coming from, or how the springs are laid out in these mountains, but there are quite a few of them. There are a couple of them up by the old temple ruins, and another one up past the village I stayed in last year, where people come with siphon hoses and bottles to get the fresh mountain water. Behind the pavilion that you see here is a small waterfall, so this water is coming from further up in the hills.

Don't know the year this aquaduct was built,but there is one just like it in Cherry Valley that was built in the winter of 1749, so I assume it was chisled out sometime during that part of the Qing Dynasty. Hard to tell,though, because there were structures here as far back as the Tang Dynasty. Most of that stuff is gone now, though. The Qing Emperor Qian Long figures big in the Western Hills, and he is the emperor before whom Mcartney appeared in 1793 (though that took place in Chengde), so much of what remains in this park dates from that period. I guess you could call it "early American." Remember, the Treaty of Paris, which ended the revolutionary war, was signed just ten years earlier.

As I was coming out of the park, the blind lady standing at the entrance was singing the Chinese version of "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music. I figured that had to be worth something, so I put one kuai in her can. Wait. She said, "Thank-you." Maybe she isn't blind.