Hello All,
Well, I survived the grind of summer classes. At the end of the summer term I had a few days off and took a short trip to Beijing. I was only there for three full days, but it was a great experience. I traveled by myself on this trip, since none of the other foreign teachers had the same days off as I did, but Beijing is a very easy city to visit for English speakers.
While Shanghai is considered the financial and economic center of China, Beijing is clearly the center of political power. The whole city is designed to showcase the might and power of China, and more specifically, the Communist Party. The government buildings are all huge structures of stone with red trappings.
There are police and military personnel everywhere. Everything is orderly. Unlike other Chinese cities, traffic is strictly controlled. To prevent people from walking in the streets, there are fences between the sidewalks and the roads. At major intersections there are stairs and tunnels for pedestrians to cross. Unlike most place that I've been in China, rules and laws aren't treated as merely suggestions; they are actually enforced.
I stayed in a hotel just off of Qianmen Street. Qianmen Street is a pedestrian shopping street that leads right up to Tiananmen Square. I could walk to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and a subway station.
Lama Temple
On my first day in Beijing I took the subway to the Lama Temple. The temple was amazing! It was built in 1694 and it has many separate buildings. The temple is a Tibetan Buddhist temple and monastery.
Each building had stands for lighting incense sticks and praying, and the temple gave bundles of incense sticks to all visitors.
Each building was dedicated to a different area of Buddhist prayer or study. However, photography was not allowed inside any of the halls.
The halls were filled with many beautiful pieces of Buddhist art. There were many statues, jade carving, and paintings. The most impressive was an enormous statue of the Maitreya Buddha in the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses (pictured below). It is 26 meters tall, and it was carved entirely from a single white sandalwood tree. It extends through all the stories of the building.
Tiananmen Square
After going to the Lama Temple, I went to visit Tiananmen Square in the evening. There were a lot of people there, even though it was late in the day. The whole city of Beijing seems to be designed to be a monument to China and the power of the Communist party and its ideals. But Tiananmen square, and the area around it, brings this to a whole new level. Everything is huge. Everything is orderly. And everything is design to personify the ideals of the People's Republic of China. It's hard to describe what it felt like to stand in the middle of all of it.
There was a lot of security at the square. Everyone has to pass through a security check point with x-ray machines and metal detectors. Also, there were police and military guards throughout the area. Some were clearly more ceremonial, like this guard in front of Mao's Mausoleum.
I didn't go into Mao's Mausoleum. It's only open for 4 hours every morning; the lines are crazy long; and you can't bring anything in (water, bag, camera). Here are some pictures of the monuments outside of the building.
In the center of the square, just north of the mausoleum, is the Monument to the People's Heroes. In this picture, you can see the National Museum of China behind it. The museum borders the square on the east side.
This picture shows the mausoleum in the background.
On the west side of the square is the Great Hall of the People. This is China's capital building. It houses the National People's Congress. During the day, you can see both military personnel and party members marching around the building. It's huge. This is only the front door.
I did get a chance to see the flag lowering ceremony. I mostly saw the backs of people's heads, cameras, and cellphones.
However, since I'm taller than the majority of Chinese people, I did manage to see a bit of the ceremony. In the background you can see the Tiananmen Gate, with its portrait of Mao, which is the north gate into the square. During the flag lowering, the soldiers are saluting the portrait of Mao instead of the flag.
The ceremony was at sunset. Here's a picture of the gate as I was leaving the square.
Here is a closer shot of the gate. I took this during the day when I was going to the Forbidden City. You pass through the gate to get to the Forbidden City. The walks were lined with alternating soldiers and men in white shirts, who I believe are Party members.
Finally, this is the Zhengyangmen Gate. It is the south gate to the square. It was the entrance to the inner city until the Beijing city walls were torn down.
I know that this was a long post (and there are two more to come), but Beijing was just such an interesting city with so much to see. The next two posts shouldn't be quite as big. I hope you all enjoy the pictures.
Here's a preview of my upcoming posts (I'll try to get them up over the next few days):
Day 2: The Great Wall and a great microbrewery that I found.
Day 3: The Forbidden City
