Drunk Expats Seen Climbing On Bronze Landmark in Andingmen
Even in the worst possible of situations, a teachable moment may be found.
Early Monday morning, a group of expats lived up to their worst impulses and were photographed climbing on top of the bronze cauldron landmark in the Beijing expat enclave of Andingmen. According to online accounts, the two unidentified male expats were joined by their Chinese lady acquaintance after having enjoyed the libations at nearby taverns, only to be told to get off the landmark by distraught locals.
With the online backlash against these foreign ne'er-do-wells as one-sided as they are predictable, there's not much need to report upon a bunch of angry comments that run the usual slurs and abuse against Beijing's expat community. However, as to further sensational poor behavior, it remains that the story of Andingmen's bronze cauldron may not be well known to locals of the trendy neighborhood and beyond.
What is it? What does it mean? Why is it in the middle of the road?
To begin, this bronze cauldron is part of Beijing's history as a center of power and is considered a local landmark. Located atop a brick pedestal at the north gate of Andingmen Neidajie (Gate of Anding North Boulevard), the three-legged cauldron is marked with a sign that marks its location ("Anding") and represents the former location of the city wall that was torn down in the '60s.
Bronze cauldrons (called 鼎 dǐng in Chinese) like the one in Andinmen were used for ceremonies to hold sacrificial offerings of food and incense, but their significance comes from their symbolism of power rather than any religious meaning. During China's feudal era, the importance of a person was denoted by how many bronze vessels they owned; a layperson had none, while the emperor had the most. The correlation between bronze vessels and power is so complete in China that the word is often incorporated into Chinese terms about power, such as the phrase 大名鼎鼎 (dàmíng dǐngdǐng, which means "infamous").
Unfortunately, many of the specific details behind Andingmen's ding have been lost to popular wisdom. Most people don't know to whom the bronze vessel belonged, or why it was left in the middle of the road; a commonly-held belief circulating online is that the ding is too big to move, so authorities decided to leave it there.
However, we were able to find some facts about Andingmen itself. According to a Weibo article about this unattributed museum display, Andingmen served as a "victory arch" for triumphant Ming and Qing armies returning home underneath the gate that literally means "peace under Heaven." And while that may be a point of honor for locals that currently call Andingmen home, the next sentence of the display reveals that Andingmen also happened to be the location of old Beijing's largest manure stockpile. From its place next to the Temple of Earth (Ditan Park), Andingmen would be the normal entrance for most of old Beijing's dung carts.
Putting bronze vessels atop brick pedestals in the middle of traffic intersections is a wholly modern phenomenon and, from what we can tell, Andingmen's bronze cauldron has only experienced one documented case of inebriated shenanigan. But, if the old is anything like the new, and no matter how much symbols of power and authority may collapse, Andingmen will continue to be the place where bullsh*t gets put out to pasture.
Images: Weibo.com, Orderpic, Sina Blog
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