Beijing Part II: Tiananmen and the Forbidden City

Many of China's landmarks familiar to Americans are located within, or very near, to the city of Beijing.  We, as a whole, have not heard of the beautiful mountains in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park or the rivers and "Dr. Seuss Mountains" of Guilin.  We have heard of the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and of course, we have heard of Tiananmen Square.

The names of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen generate simultaneous images of opulent royalty and the brutality of a nation in the grip of change.  The reality of this bustling center of Beijing is quite different from both of those images.  Personally, I love being in the center of Tiananmen Square.  In addition to being surrounded by a number of things to see and do, it is also one of the few wide-open, spaces in the middle of the city.

Panorama of Tiananmen in October, 2012

Tiananmen square is a giant rectangle in the middle of the city with a mausoleum on one end, entombing Chairman Mao, next to an ancient city gate, a statue to the People in the center, and the Forbidden City looming in the distance at the far end of the square.  Along the length of the square are government buildings and museums.  Chinese flags abound from all the buildings in the square, and in along a low wall 2/3rds of the way down the square is a giant LCD screen that highlights China's historic landmarks.  In the center of the square walk tourists, both foreign and domestic, taking pictures of the center of the capital city.

There is quite a bit to see and do in Tiananmen Square, even before you get to the Forbidden City.  The first being to tomb of Chairman Mao.  This is no ordinary tomb; Chairman Mao is not buried, but rather displayed in a hermetically sealed, glass-topped coffin, on display to the public throughout the year.  I tried to go see Chairman Mao on my first three visits to Beijing, but I was thwarted, twice by him being closed to the public, and once by mistakenly trying to see him on National Holiday (never go to Beijing on National Holiday, its packed).  Needless to say, by my final visit in December I was itching to get in and see him. Mostly because I had been thwarted previous times, but also for the novelty; there are not too many places where you can seen the bodies of long dead political leaders.

Shots of Tiananmen, and all the way to the right, a shot of the gate at the far end (opposite of the Forbidden City) of the square. 

Seeing Chairman Mao is quite the process; you must have sleeves and shoes that cover your feet (no tank-tops and flip flops) as this is disrespectful.  You are not allowed to bring any of your personal belongings into the tomb with you, but there is a building off of the square where you can rent lockers in which to place your belongings.  You cannot bring a cell phone or camera into the tomb with you, and as you approach the tomb, you go through security; they scan you, pat you down, and ask you repeatedly in several languages whether or not you have a phone or camera.   You show them your passport or ID and are then allowed to go through, you are asked to be quiet and to make no loud or disrespectful sounds.  You enter into the building into a wide hall where you can deposit flowers, you then walk around the flowers and into a narrower chamber.  Across a barrier is the glass topped coffin with Chairman Mao.  For someone who has been dead for quite some time, he is looking pretty good.  I do not have any pictures of him, of course, because it was not allowed, but I did buy a necklace with his profile on it.  And yes, I wear it.

Left: The building in the background is also on the 100Y.  Middle: Becky outside of Chairman Mao's tomb.  Right: Liv in the center of the square, with the Statue to the People in the background

After seeing Chairman Mao, you can stroll through the square and take in the government buildings and the statue in the center, making your way towards the Forbidden City.  These not really a leisurely stroll, as there are typically a zillion people taking in the sites with you, unless you go during the middle of off season--January, which is cold and miserable.  Also, there are tour guides who approach you, fluent in several languages, trying to get you to book them for various tours.  I do not recommend a tour guide for anything in the city of Beijing; their are automated self-guides in dozens of languages at all of these locations, and all the signs are in English as well as Chinese.  So your best bet, is to firmly say "no, thank you" and keep up a brisk pace.

Left: Center of Tiananmen Square from across the street.  Middle: Liv and the Chinese Flag, National  Holiday, 2012.  Right: Mom at the far end of the Square with the Forbidden City in the background in March, 2012. 

You can see a giant photo of Chairman Mao on the outside of the Forbidden City (also called the People's Museum), which from the square just looks like a massive expanse of red wall, topped in gold tile.  Now, there is a very good reason it is called a City, and not a town, village, or hamlet.  It's huge.  If you want to fully explore this site, do not plan on doing more than seeing the Forbidden City that day.  Now, each Garden of Tranquility and Square of Illuminating Inquiry all start to look the same after about four hours, so it is possible, even recommended, to simply wander around until you have seen enough and then leave.  If you do this, you can get in and out of the Forbidden City in a couple of hours.  However, if you want the full experience of the Forbidden City, it can take you from the time it opens at 9:00 am until it closes at 4:00 pm.  It is literally a maze of halls, squares, and gardens, not to mention the inside museum sections, which feature relics from various eras.  And believe or not, the whole thing is not even open to the public!

Exterior of Forbidden City; you have to walk through about three gates until you are actually inside. 

My favorite part of the Forbidden City is the architecture; I am not a huge fan of the red walls and gold roofs, but I love the stone staircases, bridges, and archways.  The stone is all carved, with detail work on the railings and newel posts.  In between the staircases are also elaborately carved murals of dragons and clouds. Occasionally the tiles on the floors are also intricately carved. I also love the detail work near the ceilings; the arches and windows are all painted, along with many of the ceiling tiles.  Perhaps my favorite part of the City is the Empress Cixi's garden; there are these enormous rocks, tumbling through the garden, trees, and painted pagodas.

Some of that architecture that I love, the stone work above.  More architecture and the gardens below. 

The Forbidden City is totally worth the visit if you are in Beijing, but there are some things you should watch out for.  The first is the tourist scams that exist in certain parts of the site.  Now, of course everything is going to be over priced, and if you feel like bartering, you can purchase identical merchandise for much less elsewhere in the city.  If this is not a concern for you, than just snatch up your Forbidden City swag in the gift shops.  Now, there is one gift shop that will likely have a woman outside of it, asking you to come inside and look at some student art work.  She will take you inside of a perfectly legitimate souvenir store, and into a room to the side of the counter.  Inside are paintings, and there is a good chance that they will not let you leave this art closet until you purchase one of these highly overpriced paintings.

When it's time to leave the Forbidden City, I highly recommend walking back to the beginning and exiting out the east exit, near the entrance.  If you leave out the back entrance, you are several city blocks away from Tiananmen Square, and the subway.  It is a long walk, or a highly overpriced rickshaw ride; if you have to walk all that way, you might as well walk back through the major historical site, snap some more pictures, buy a few more souvenirs, and maybe hit up one more Corridor of Everlasting Effervescence.  Because, hey, when are you going to see the Forbidden City again?

When you finally find your way out of the Forbidden City, you can explore the buildings around the square, which include many museums.  Or you do my favorite thing, which is just to walk around the square, people watch, and marvel at all.

R.

Cross Cultural Reading IV: Book Talk

As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, I really love reading.  When I got the chance to teach a cross cultural reading class, I was pretty excited.  One of the projects that I knew I wanted to include in this course was a book talk.  I wanted this project for two reasons.  The first reason is that it would further expose my students to western literature as well as English.  My second motive was for having the opportunity to speak with them one-to-one about their reading and this course.

I told my students that I did not care what they read so long as it was written in English (meaning they could not go find the Chinese version of this text), it was written by an author from an English-Speaking country, and it was not either Twilight or Harry Potter.  The final reason was simply because the popularity of both those series made reading the books unnecessary; they could just say they read them, and be more than familiar with the plot from either having seen the movies, having read the Chinese version previously.   And I did not want to sit through 25 book talks about Bella and Edward. I also encouraged my students to read contemporary books, as opposed to the classics for two reasons.  One, the classics tend to be boring.  I am not saying they are not worth the read, if you've got the time and stamina, but they do tend to be somewhat dry.  The second reason is that the language in many of the classics is difficult to get through; from syntax, sentence structure, and vocabulary.  Remember, these are second language learners; I did not want them get frustrated or be disappointed with their selection simply because the book's language was too complex.

I included this assignment in the syllabus:

You will have an independent project: Book Talk.  You can choose any book you want, so long as it is written in English, and you will read this book.  You will then meet with me at a separate time to have a conversation about this book and how it relates to our theme of identity.  I want you to think of these questions as you are reading this book.  Which character do you identify with? Why?  Who is this character? How did they get their identity?  What has made them into the person they are? I will ask you further questions about this character in our meeting.  I will have meetings once a month on.  We will sign up for these meetings on our 2^nd class.  

I did not go into a great deal of detail on the first day of class about this assignment, as I had a lot to get through, with the syllabus and getting underway with the content of the class.  On the second class, I went into detail on this assignment and asked my students to sign up for a date for the book talk.  The earliest possible book talk wasn't for over a month, so I did not feel too bad about making them sign up so early in the semester.  For one week each month I was available on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays to meet with students to discuss their books.  If they could not make any of these dates, they contacted me via email and set up an alternative time.  My students panicked (despite my reassurances) at the idea of reading another whole book in English, and I started nervously counting down the days until our first book talk.  

I was concerned that maybe they would not read the book...I mean, we've all been students, and we have all faced (and sometimes given into) the temptation of just looking the book up on the internet.  And these were all English majors, they had a lot of work to do, and this was only worth 10% of their final grade.  I was afraid I was going to have 25 book talks where they were unable to fully answer all the questions, because they hadn't read the book.  But it turns out that I needn't have worried.  While some of my students did struggle to answer these questions, indicating that they either didn't read it, or perhaps had read it a long time ago and were working from memory, the majority of them demonstrated in our talks that they had read the book.  Not only had they read it, but they seemed, overall to have enjoyed the reading.  

I learned that they were also anxious about the book talk.  They were concerned that, despite going over my expectations for the assignment, I was going to ask them specific plot questions...kind of like a test. While I regret this anxiety, I do believe it is likely the reason they had read the books so thoroughly and were able to discuss what they'd read in detail.  So, it turns out we were both needlessly nervous. 

I met my students one-on-one in my office during my free time during the week, for half hour intervals. I did not want to get right into the "important questions" when they arrived, because they were all visibly nervous. So I asked them first if they'd enjoyed the book and why; many of them told me that they'd liked it, and were able to describe characteristics about the characters or the story line.  The few who were open about not enjoying the book they'd selected were equally as able to point out specific reasons for their dislike. 

I then asked them the following questions: Give me a brief summary of you story (this was largely for my benefit, for the books with which I was unfamiliar). What character did you identify with? Why?  What about that character 'spoke' to you?  What is the character that you least 'identified' with?  Why do you think you did not identify with that character?  If you could change anything about the story, what would you change and why?  What did you learn from this book?  

I was very pleased with the depth of their answers.  They were able to pull apart the characters, compare their own lives and experiences and cultures with that of the characters.  They had some creative ideas about how the story should have been different (or in one student's case, why it was perfect just the way it was), and they were able to articulate why they felt that way.  I asked them further questions about why they wanted those changes specifically, and many of them were able to reference certain personal or cultural influences behind those changes. 

I would certainly do this assignment again; it allowed me to focus on my students in an individual setting, allowing me to get to know my students a little better.  It also allowed me to explore their understanding of our focus on the theme of identity on an individual basis, and allowed them to further explore this theme through a self selected book.  It also further exposed students to English books without taking time away from the books we were exploring in our class each week.  And I got to talk about books; an all around win