Beijing Sights

This is my last Beijing tourist recounting of sights and sounds. We have just returned from a day at the Great Wall and an afternoon at the Summer Palace of the Emperors. Yesterday we walked through what felt like most of Tiananmen Square and then visited the Forbidden City. 

Chairman Mao and Me

Tiananmen Square

In the Square, a long line of people waited to view Chairman Mao in his mausoleum. There were rows upon rows of red Chinese flags and many, many security cameras covering every possible angle of the area, with

uniformed guards marching about and "guarding."  But it was a very good snapshot view of the Chinese population. There were families with small children and grandparents, young couples, school groups--a bird's eye view of the social system. Think of a Memphis in May crowd milling about with snacks and cold drinks and you have the general picture. Even when we were in the Beijing train station, I didn't get a sense of the crowd potential until we walked through this square. Picture acres of concrete with the widest roadway in the world (12 lanes I think it is) on one side. It was on that roadway that the students and tanks faced off some years ago in June. (I just had to get my bearings in regard to those famous photos.) It was both a festive and solemn setting--flags, memorial statues, guards, and then the family photo opportunity to mark a visit, and the stunning landscaping. The flowers made the gardener in me snap not only Mao photos but pictures of petunias and marigolds. 

Forbidden City

The Forbidden City was straight out of the movie The Last Emperor. Oh, wait a minute. Make that--the movie set was a dead ringer for the real thing. Vast, regal, vast, and impossible to capture the small details with my camera. Everyone has noticed, I'm sure, that I did the tourist-thing, photos with me in front of the scenic stops--yes, to prove I really was there. 








I particularly love the children playing in the Forbidden City--maybe like the little emperor would have liked to do. Even Barbie and the Walt Disney princesses are now in the Forbidden City (which was in its glory forbidden to all but the select few in the emperor's entourage). 

The Great Wall...goes on and on... and up and up

On Beijing, Day Two, the Great Wall was GREAT, but there was not a trolley/tram option. Our tour guide was fleet of
foot and thought nothing of climbing, scrambling, and walking for a "quick" 30 minutes to the next venue. So, she announced as we were making hairpin turns in the bus inching our way up the mountain that we were not going to the tram landing, but to a walking point. After disembarking from the bus (yes, we all wore sturdy shoes) we had a "quick" 15 minute walk to the entrance and then began climbing. To say the incline was 45 degrees would be an understatement. There were not so many steps (what there were are very old and uneven--think back to a start in the 7th century BC. Anyway, we went through narrow passages and peered out of slits used to protect archers. Three of us in my little trekking group made it to the first outpost (20 minutes+ of climbing, huffing, and puffing) and then headed down. I did not feel like I could in good faith buy a " climbed the Great Wall tee-shirt, but I did get my photo taken (tourist style) on the wall and I'm proud of it. The red shoes came out at the Great Wall and even made the Buddha laugh.

The trip to the Summer Palace was also wonderful. Our tour guide told a long story of the Emperor's concubine who had the baby boy who became the emperor, but she ruled behind the scenes and eventually put her own son under house arrest. We got to see the quarters where they all lived and the grounds where they walked and the lake and.. and .. and... Spectacular.

The Kylin (Qilin) bronze statue at the Summer Palace. This mythical creature is supposed to punish evil and repel the wicked. It has a dragon head, a lion's tail, ox hooves, and the antlers of a deer. The body is covered with scales (dragon-like). I especially liked the lake, longevity hill, and the Hall of Joyful Longevity. 

I am compiling a reading list of Chinese history books for this next year's educational reading. Now that I've seen where they lived and walked and fought, I want to have a better picture of the when and how it all happened.