Bu Yao!
11/25: The words of the day were: "bu yao" which means "don't want!" We started our day of sightseeing at Tiananmen Square -- the minute we got there we were surrounded by vendors of every sort wanting to sell us something! It is a little disconcerting to be constantly saying "bu yao" but after you have been accosted for the 20th time with postcards, it comes quite naturally! The square itself is huge and is surrounded by Congress Hall, Mao's tomb, the Forbidden City and the Natural History Museum. Interestingly, when we asked our guide about the student-tank stand-off, she simply said: "I did not live in Beijing then." End of discussion!
The Forbidden City was next -- for you movie fans, it was used in the movie the Last Emperor. For you history fans, this was the home of the Ming and Ching emperors. It was built in 1406 when the capital was moved from Nanjing to Peking. The palace has 9,999 rooms -- even I think that would be enough space! We are fortunate to be able to visit the palace because before 1925 commoners such as ourselves would have been executed for going into the Forbidden City. The Ching dynasty collapsed in 1911, but as we know from the movie, the emperor was a boy and was allowed to stay in the Forbidden City until 1925. Thank goodness for Hollywood otherwise how would we Americans learn our history?
The Forbidden City is absolutely immense. Words cannot describe its size. The frustrating part of this trip is that we are pretty much rushed through everything because we have so little time. We were disappointed we could not wander at our lesiure and we easily could have spent a day just getting lost in the corridors and byways of the Forbidden City.
On next to lunch, which was - yep, you guessed it, Chinese food! Very, very good Chinese food -- so far though, it is not that different from American Chinese food.
We then went to a silk factory and learned about making silk and then had the hard sell to buy silk goods. However, the picture of George Bush in one of the shirts from the factory was all the deterrent that we needed!
The afternoon ended at the Summer Palace which is where the Emperor went from May through October. Apparently the Forbidden City was not big enough because the Summer Palace is three times the size of the Forbidden City! Although the Summer Palace is only about 30 minutes from the Forbidden City, it is on a lake and so was cooler in the summer. We walked along the lake and it is an incredibly beautiful place! I had my first celebrity moment when I realized that a woman was inching closer and closer to me to have her picture taken with the blonde American -- the papparazzi can be so exhausting!
To close for the day, just some random thoughts: we cannot log onto US news from the internet here - our first experience with censorship. Beijing is HUGE - 13 million people live here and the city goes on and on and on. As Rich says "it is massive." It is interesting to be a minority - we are known as "big noses." We have seen lots of crane statues here - apparently they symbolize longevity for women. There are 56 Chinese nationalities in China - the Han population makes up 92% of the population. Beijing has been the capital for 600 years, but has been here as a city for 3000 years -- though, in many ways you would never know it because all you can really see are modern highrises! And, Beijing has two IKEA stores . . . which probably means the end of a great civilization is near! |
