The Northern Capital, Part One

Even though we were only in Beijing a couple of days, we did so much that it will take some time to write about here. Here's my attempt at a beginning.

Our entire trip was organized and arranged by Jingsong Zhu, an old student of my father. Jingsong was at Linfield until 1993, when he left for graduate school at USC. After that he appears to have bounced from high-paying job to high-paying job in places like Seattle and Philly, before settling down in Beijing a couple years back. Now he's at The National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing. They've got his bio here, but unfortunately it's only available in Chinese.

Jingsong is currently overseeing two seperate projects at the center, in addition to having recently founded his own company, so he's a busy guy. Since he had to work during the normal workweek, he sent a graduate assistant, Johnsson (photo here), to guide us around. This was a godsend, since my Chinese is limited to "hello", "thank you", "goodbye", and counting to three. Sam's is better, but still not good enough to get us around quickly.

Anyway, Jingsong introduced us to Johnsson (his Western name, I forget how to pronounce his Chinese one - 周经纶) Thursday morning, and the three of us (Sam, Johnsson, me) took a cab to Tien'anmen Square. Pictures don't do it justice at all. In the one I posted down below, we were looking north from about 2/3 of the way up the plaza. Here's one from a little further back:


The above photo is looking north, with perhaps 600 meters of the square in front of us. To the east (right) side is the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (unfortunately closed for renovations until September). When passing the mausoleum, Johnsson quizzed us on our knowledge of Mao. His description was "the father of our country, like our George Washington." Anyway, the square in which the hall rests is over 800 meters north-south, and around 400 east-west. The immensity is reinforced by the equally staggering size of the buildings around it.


The Great Hall of the People seems to take up almost half of the western edge. Over on the east, the National Museum takes up most of the northern side. There's currently a giant clock counting down to the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics out in front of the museum.

In the very center of the square is the obelisk Monument to the People's Heroes. Johnsson kindly took a photo of us in front of it.


The north end of the square borders on the Tien'anmen itself, which in turn leads into the Forbidden City. Here's a view back at the whole plaza, from the north.


The gate itself is partly obscured by the outer wall of the palace. However, it truly is only an outer wall. Only after passing through the Meridian Gate, several hundred meters beyond the Tien'anmen, are you actually inside the City.


The portrait of Mao has hung over the entrance since 1975. The inscriptions on the left side read "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and on the right "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". Samantha and I were both proud of ourselves for being able to read most of the lines, though we could only pronounce them in Japanese. Anyway, we headed right through the central gate (once reserved only for emperors) and on into the Forbidden City, which I'll write about later. This is already too long.