This query applies equally well to the Northern Capital as residents and visitors stop to wonder: "Where did Beijing go?"

Most individuals ponder the mysteries of time's passage with increased aches and pains plus the outward signs of aging, like wrinkles running deeper and hair going gray or falling away, all of which becomes harder to hide and deny.

In stark contrast, the pains of Beijing are those of rebirth and growth. While we get older, the face of our city is getting younger.

Under different names and dynastic reigns, there has been urbanized habitation in these environs for about 3,050 years. The place we call Beijing has been here since the 1420s. For five centuries until the late 1950s it maintained the classic design of a Chinese city, one defined by walls. Once the protective walls came down and its interior was exposed, Beijing was defenseless against the forces of modernization.

The chai in China's capital continues apace in a twofold process of implosion and explosion. Land use at the city's ancient core implodes as central Beijing completes a transformation from the traditional single story horizontal shape to a contemporary multi-story vertical urban form. Beijing's explosive growth reverberates in ring road expressways as the city spreads into what was once surrounding countryside.

The year 2003 will be remembered as a watershed for Beijing. The final large segments of the hutong (alleyway) street pattern and siheyuan (courtyard house) are in danger of disappearing. Unless something is done soon, the next two to three years will put the final sledgehammer touches on what was once a famed city like no other.

It is still not too late to redress the gross imbalance between myopic quick buck policies of redevelopment against need for sensible, sensitive, and economically sustainable preservation of the historical urban legacy. Old and new can stand together to show the world where Beijing came from, as well as where it is headed in the future.

For the last Around Town page of 2002, we look at two of Beijing's altars -- Shejitan and Shijitan. Comparing ancient and modern forms of this specific architectural expression illustrates the city's cultural continuity with the past and adaptations of meaning made in the present.

Altar to Spirits of Land and Grain

It is important to remember that capital cities, including Beijing, once served as more than simply the political and administrative centers for dynastic empires. Capitals also functioned as a metaphysical conduit between humanity and the universe, usually referred to as heaven.

Heaven embraced the natural (and supposed supernatural) phenomena governing human existence. The emperor, whose absolute rule was based on a "Mandate of Heaven," served as a semi-divine figure called the "Son of Heaven." He acted as the symbolic mediator between the people and all the forces that acted upon them. This role required him to perform a variety of rituals at altars and temples during different times of the year in the belief that these ceremonies maintained order and thus the consent of the governed.

The nucleus of a classic Chinese capital city required three structures: imperial palaces to house the living emperor; a Taimiao, a temple for worship of imperial ancestors within the dynastic lineage; and a Shejitan, an Altar to the Spirits of Land and Grain, the basic foundations of agrarian society.

The Shejitan was built in 1421 during the Yongle period (r.1403-1424) when he finalized moving the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) capital from Nanjing to Beijing. The altar consists of a raised platform with five different colors of soil. The placement of the colored dirt represented the traditional cardinal directions: black for north, red for south, white for west, blue for east and yellow for middle. Rituals took place during the second and eighth lunar months when the emperor offered prayers at the onset of the planting season and gave thanks after the harvest.

Today Shejitan is one of the attractions in Zhongshan Park, located to the west of Tiananmen Gate. Open 6 am-9pm daily. Admittance is 3 yuan (US$0.36) for adults, 1.5 yuan for students. If you speak Chinese, call 6605-4594 for information.

Altar to the Millennium

The Zhonghua Shijitan, or China Millennium Altar, is a monument of modern Beijing. It was designed to commemorate two distinct cultural frameworks symbolizing the passage of recorded time. In addition to being a memorial for the start of the twenty-first century, a new millennium on the Gregorian calendar which originated in the West, the Shijitan celebrates 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

The first use of the solar calendar began on January 1, 1912, and was known as year one of the Republic of China. This was a highly significant event in the evolution of Chinese culture. Until the early part of the twentieth century, the passing of days and months in Chinese time followed the lunar calendar while years were recorded by the length of each individual emperors' reign in dynastic empires of the Middle Kingdom. Adoption of the Western calendar year began on October 1, 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Shijitan was built in 1999 and first used on New Year's Eve that year for China's participation in global celebrations of the millennium change among countries and cultures following the Gregorian calendar.

Instead of superstitious rituals cloaked in secrecy conducted by an emperor, the country's collective leadership stood together on the altar as President Jiang Zemin delivered the keynote address televised nationwide on China entering the twenty-first century.

The other major component of the Millennium Altar highlights the achievements of Chinese civilization over five millennia from remote antiquity to Deng Xiaoping, rendered in a circular stone monument in bas-relief.

The Shijitan is located between the Military Museum and CCTV building on Fuxingmenwai Dajie. Admission is 30 yuan (US$3.60) Hours are 8:30 am-5:30 pm. For more information call 6851-3322.

(Beijing Weekend December 30, 2002)