Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē 王府井大街
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of North and East of the Imperial City
Constantly remodelled throughout the last century, Běijīng’s once-premier shopping street has lost almost all of its charm, and the malls that replaced smaller-scale shopping are now outshone in size and splendour by shopping further east and west. But its fame survives, and you’ll find it thronged with a mixture of Chinese window-shoppers and foreigners from neighbouring five-star hotels in search of McDonald’s and Starbucks. However, there are several good food courts filled with local people, in addition to the official tourist food alley at the south end on the west side (soon to close). In recent years the street has also sprouted a number of little-known (some deservedly so) special-interest museums.
▶ m Wángfǔ Jǐng (Line 1, Line 8 from 2017 or later) exit A; Dēng Shì Kǒu (Line 4) and walk W; Chinese Museum of Art (N end of street, Line 6); Wángfǔ Jǐng North (Line 8 from 2017 or later). b to 王府井: 10, 41, 59, 90电车内环, 90电车外环, 104快车, 120, 126, 420. 王府井路口北: 专2, 特11, 103电车, 104电车, 104快车, 420. 美术馆 (N end of street): 103电车, 111电车.
Wángfǔ Jǐng Paleolithic Museum 北京王府井古人类文化遗址博物馆
Excavations for what was at the time Běijīng’s largest and most extravagant mall/hotel/office complex turned up hammer stones, anvils, cores, flakes, scrapers, and spear points dating from the Pleistocene, suggesting human residence here around 25,000 years ago.
Construction was halted while a one-room museum was designed around the spot, and what you now get is a small, square area of earth with tiny fragments of relics surrounded by kitsch murals depicting muscular natives killing an animal, and so on. Other than for the most rarefied of specialists this is tedious, and even the attendants look slightly surprised when visitors arrive.
Official enthusiasm is mostly to do with constantly restated politics and personal pride: the ‘we were here once’ argument, and the ‘we did it first’ argument. The one is employed to justify the retention of various bits of territory that would rather go their own way: it was ours at one hand-picked point in history, so it’s ours forever. The other is the modern reflection of the long-held view that China was and is the centre of everything, the only source of culture, and a place to which outside barbarians were and are inescapably drawn.
Archaeological relics are thus useful for self-reassurance, although in China’s Central Asian far northwest, where they consistently show occupation by Caucausians thousands of years before the Chinese first visited the area, remains are sometimes reburied and reporting their discovery is forbidden.
In early 2008 the finding of a skull in central China 80,000–100,000 years old caused great excitement at the prospect of possibly freeing Chinese people from having to put up with emerging from Africa along with the rest of us, although DNA tests show that there were eastwards migrations into China through northern and southern routes. Non-Chinese experts were rather less inclined to speculation on this point.
The museum entrance is passed on the way up from m Wángfǔ Jǐng. If the exhibition proves indigestible there’s always the smart food court and assorted shopping just above it.
▶ Běijīng Wángfǔ Jǐng Gǔrénlèi Wénhuá Yìzhǐ Bówùguǎn, 2nd basement level at the west end of Oriental Plaza, t 8518 6306, 10am–4pm Mon-Fri; 10am–6pm Sat & Sun. ¥10. m & b see above.
The main exit to Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē is to the left as you reach ground level.
East Church 东堂
Further north across the junction with Jīnyú Hútòng (金鱼胡同) on the east side of the street, the East Church, St. Joseph’s, was destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and rebuilt in 1901. Once completely hidden away behind a high wall and ramshackle construction, its cleared forecourt is now is a haven for skateboarders. Open all day, its interior is modest, with mass in Mandarin said early in the mornings.
Lǎo Shě Memorial Hall 老舍纪念馆
灯市口西街丰富胡同19号
A left turn a little further north into Dēng Shì Kǒu Xī Jiē brings you to the most worthwhile of the Wángfǔ Jǐng area museums.
1999 was the centenary of Manchu novelist and playwright Lǎo Shě’s birth, and after substantial renovation this small sìhéyuán, where he lived from 1950 until his death in 1966 (a Cultural Revolution-driven suicide), was opened to the public in spring that year.
Lǎo was from a Manchu bannerman family. His father was killed in 1900 during the Siege of the Legations or the chaos after its relief, and after the collapse of the Qīng in 1912, which reduced subsidies to military families or made them vanish altogether, the family fell on hard times.
The exhibition begins in the right-hand hall of this traditional small courtyard house with details of the boyhood and student days of Lǎo Shě, Photographs of the various places in which he lived include four of London; there’s a photograph of what looks remarkably like Holland Park, and the library at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, where he taught for a while. There are stills from films of his work and copies of texts translated into various languages, some of which were published in English under an Anglicised version of his name — Lau Shaw.
The rear hall has rooms supposedly preserved as at the time of his death, including his working desk, a Míng-era bed, and a sofa shrouded in plastic. Either he was enjoying a game of patience at the time of his death, or that’s just the fúwùyuán killing time not spent tending to the hostas in the courtyard. Lǎo Shě is more genuinely loved than the communist-picked icons, and even before the house was open, many came to try and see round it.
His best known novel, Camel Xiángzi (骆驼祥子, Luòtuo Xiángzi) of 1936, more commonly known in the West as Rickshaw or Rickshaw Boy, is the bitterly comic story of the life of a hard-working, good-hearted, but simple-minded rickshaw puller called Happy Boy. It’s set in Běijīng shortly after the downfall of the Qīng, with the city itself as a central character, and a cast of extras including looting soldiers, political conspirators, idealistic students, and girls sold into prostitution as an escape from poverty. Be sure to read a modern translation rather than the unauthorised US one of 1945, which introduced new characters and (unbelievably) a happy ending, although that helped it become a bestseller there.
When the communists took power in 1949, Lǎo Shě returned to China from a period in the US, accepted various political and politicised arts positions, and produced rather leaden propaganda-laden work, including a play about the Boxer Rebellion stressing the patriotism of the Boxers and the blood-lust of the foreign invaders. He was criticised by the Party for the lack of hope in Camel Xiángzi, and revised the Chinese text until it became part of the official canon of politically acceptable literature. His 1957 play Teahouse (茶馆, Cháguǎn) is genuinely popular, perhaps because of its ambiguous ending, and is still staged regularly. It’s a repetitive cultural export (see Theatre Museum of Běijīng People’s Art Theatre, below).
After the overthrow and imprisonment of the Gang of Four who ran the Cultural Revolution Lǎo was rehabilitated, which is no doubt a comfort when you’re dead.
A tiny bookstore just west of the Fēngfù Hútòng turning has some Lǎo Shě translations, other hútòng-related books, and a contented cat called Pàngzi (胖子, Fatty). Continuing to the west of Dēng Shì Kǒu Xī Jiē and turning left (south) down the green strip of the Huáng Chéng Gēn Yìzhǐ Gōngyuán will bring you to the hútòng walk described in Forward to the Past.
Back to Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē and a little further north on the right is the Běijīng People’s Art Theatre, which also has connections to Lǎo Shě.
▶ Lǎo Shě Jìniànguǎn, Fēngfù Hútòng 19, N off Dēng Shì Kǒu Xī Jiē, which is W off Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē, t 6514 2612, www.bjlsjng.com, 9am–4pm, Tue–Sun. Free.
Theatre Museum of Běijīng People’s Art Theatre 北京人艺戏剧博物馆
王府井大街22号
The ticket office is in the courtyard on the north side of the building. Continue to the door straight ahead of you and take the lift to the fourth floor.
The luvvies of the Běijīng People’s Art Theatre are very much in love with themselves, and this large exhibition is full of politicised self-praise (‘What verve!’) and plenty of humbug. An English-language leaflet is provided as you enter but there’s little in English throughout the exhibition. Most interesting for the non-specialist visitor are displays of costumes and props from past performances, including Molière’s L’Avare and of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which was directed by the playwright himself, an experience later described in his book Salesman in Beijing. The more technically minded may be interested in performance scripts covered in spidery directions.
Chinese modern theatre’s first trip outside its territory was a tour of a production of Lǎo Shě’s Teahouse to Western Europe in 1980, and the last section of the display covers ‘exchanges with peers at home and abroad’. Teahouse has apparently also been performed in ‘China’s Hong Kong, Macau, and Táiwān’. There’s no escaping the politics.
Coincidentally, in early 1989 the author of this guidebook was working at London’s National Theatre and was invited to the Chinese Embassy to view a film of the play and to discuss whether the People’s Art Theatre production might visit the British capital. Events later that year in Běijīng rendered such a visit undesirable.
▶ Běijīngrén Rényì Xì Jù Bówùguǎn, Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē 22, t 8512 0005, www.bjry.com, 10.30am–7pm, Tue–Sun. Free. m Dōng Sì (Lines 5 & 6).
At the top of Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē there’s the National Art Museum of China on the northwest side of the junction.
Next in North and East of the Imperial City: National Art Museum of China
Previously: Introduction to North and East of the Imperial City
Main Index of A Better Guide to Beijing.
For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.
