One interesting thing about China is the way that old and new are blended together. It isn't uncommon to have something that's 500, 700, 1500 years old right in the middle of a bustling city. In fact, it's extremely common. And things are pretty much either brand new or exceedingly old, rarely in between. You don't see much from say the 1920s or the Mao years.
This is a view from the Wild Goose pagoda in Xi'an. The traditional buildings you see down there are recreations, but the tower itself is original and built in the 600s. Each side of the pagoda has a view of city, it's not on the outskirts. The skyscrapers in the background (or most of them) have all been built within the past 15 or 20 years. The Chinese tend to knock down buildings when they get older than that. There's a demolition site in Tianjin and from the looks of the rubble the building has to be from the 90s. Unfortunately these are low resolution pictures, but you can see one construction crane in the bottom left corner... I counted 15 when we were there today.
This is shot from the Temple of Great Compassion in Tianjin. It dates back to the 1600s and is also surrounded by shiny new glass buildings. In the Xi'an pic it had rained the day before which equals blue skies, in this the view is obscured by the ever ubiquitous smog.
This is a piece of furniture from the (Song?) dynasty. It's in a room full of furniture valued at roughly $2 million US. The room is in a restaurant and entrees are about $15 US. They act like it ain't no thang. Take this one with a grain of salt though. The Chinese love to lie about little things. We were told a certain infamous square is 100 acres which is total BS.
On the city wall in Xi'an. A massive embattlement that once ringed the capital of China proper until the eastern Zhou dynasty moved it due to instability, the wall now rings the city center. If I were to pan to the left... you guessed it, glistening new skyscrapers and steel skeletons which will soon become glistening new skyscrapers.
This is the smog choked view (the skyline continues much further) from...
...this. The south gate of the Forbidden City which is actually part of a certain square. The centuries old Forbidden City is at the heart of Beijing. It should be noted though that the arrow gate (the one pictured) has been rebuilt multiple times, and is in no way original.
One sad fact of life related, or possibly due to this interesting juxtaposition is that people don't seem to care as much about these historical sites. At another temple we were at, upon looking over the side there was a sizable pile of trash carelessly thrown by tourists (most of the tourists at these places are actually Chinese).
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