Day 4: The Forbidden City

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

After another early start, we headed to Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City. We started at the southern edge of the square at Qianmen (literally “Front Gate,” but officially called Zhengyangmen, or “Gate Facing the Sun”). Qianmen used to be part of an inner city wall that surrounded the Forbidden City. That wall (and almost all of the outer city wall) was torn down in the early twentieth century, but Qianmen and an outer gate that used to be linked to it still stand as dramatic reminders of Beijing’s defensive structures.

Even putting Qianmen aside, Tian’anmen Square does not lack in dramatic grandeur. It takes at least 20 minutes to walk its length, and there are plenty of monumental structures to keep you occupied. Some in the group were particularly intrigued (out of curiosity, morbid or otherwise, in Chinese Communist Party hagiography) in visiting Mao’s tomb, otherwise known as Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. A team of busy doctors (morticians? taxidermists?) keep the Chairman’s body spic-and-span for public viewing in the building, a huge structure located smack in the middle of Tian’anmen Square that, fortunately for us on this hot day, is superbly air-conditioned. Given that he has been gone 32 years at this point, the Chairman still looks pretty darn good.

After an aborted stop at an Olympics souvenir shop that appeared largely sold out, we headed on to the Forbidden City. The complex is truly enormous; one would need multiple days to see everything there. They fortunately give you automatic audio guides (well, you have to pay for them, of course) to explain all the details. Running precisely through the center of the Forbidden City is a clearly demarcated marble pathway that was reserved solely for the emperor to travel from building to building. The path in effect marks the central axis of Beijing, a straight line extending through Qianmen to the south and north through Jingshan Park. The Olympic Park, which contains the National Stadium where Aarik competed and the Aquatics Center, is also centered along this north-south axis. Dramatic grandeur appears to be a specialty of th e

Afterwards, we went to Houhai, a large man-made lake to the north and west of the Forbidden City that has a collection of restaurants around the edge. We had lunch at a Vietnamese Restaurant and then headed back to the apartment for some rest.

In the evening, Kirsten, Tony, Grant, and Nisha hung out with Aarik at “Hometown Hopefuls,” a center set up by Bank of America for Olympic athletes and their families. Tia, Ethan, and Luke left the Hopefuls a bit early and headed to a karaoke place for some singing, Chinese style. In China, karaoke is extremely popular, but rather than singing drunk at a bar, people go to huge karaoke palaces, rent out well-equipped rooms with televisions and karaoke systems, and get drunk singing on a couch. At least some things are universal!