DK Travel : Beijing : History & Culture

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Seismometer

A ball fell from one of four dragon’s mouths to indicate the direction of the quake.
Sheng

There are four main role types in Beijing Opera: sheng (male), dan (female), jing (painted face), and chou (clown). Sheng are divided into laosheng, who wear beards and represent old men, xiaosheng who are young men, and wusheng, who are the acrobats and whose roles are typically those of warriors.
Sports

Football’s big in Beijing. The local boys are Beijing Hyundai Guo’an, who play at the Workers’ Stadium. Getting tickets is rarely a problem: you can just show up at the stadium on game day. Second in popularity is basketball. Top team are Aoshen who play at the Beijing Guang’an Gymnasium (Baiguang Lu; map C6).
Spring in a Small Town

(Fei Mu; 1948) A man returns home to find his childhood sweetheart married. Voted best Chinese film of all time.
Teahouses

You shouldn’t leave Beijing without visiting a teahouse. Tea is served with great ceremony, complete with smellings and recitations of Confucian sayings and poetry. The price of the tea varies greatly according to quality. For venues, see Top 10 Teahouses.
Theater

Beijing is home to several excellent theaters, where a few established troupes perform regularly. Canonical works such as Lao She’s “Teahouse” are increasingly supplemented by big-budget Western musicals such as “Rent” and “Aladdin on Ice”. See the English-language press for what’s on.
Tian Qiao Happy Teahouse

Old Beijing variety shows Mon–Fri.
To Live

(Zhang Yimou; 1994) Tragedy and black humor in the tale of one family from the 1940s to the 1980s.
Yellow Earth

(Chen Kaige; 1984) A Red Army soldier is posted to a desolate province to collect folk songs and finds misery.
Zheng Yi Temple Theater

Daily two-hour performances.