Today we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Since we had had a brief lesson yesterday about the cultural and historical significance of these two famous landmarks, it was neat to see everything first hand.
Within ten minutes of arriving in Tiananmen Square, a women came up and asked (in Chinese) one of our students to take a picture with her. It was a strange request, but Mary decided she didn’t mind. A few seconds later we noticed another man attempting to take a picture of our group and there was a girl posed in front of us for her parents to snap a shot with us in the background. As we continued through the incredibly large square, another man walked by our group pointed his phone in our direction, apparently taking a video of us walking. It was amazing to us that we seemed to be such a novelty, little did we know that this would continue throughout the entire day. By the end of the day, we probably had our picture taken by at least 15 different strangers.
It is known that Tiananmen Square is the largest city square in the world, but because it is not closed and it is broken up by buildings and monuments, when you are there, it doesn’t seem that vast. Sure it is large, but no so far that you can’t see to the other side. I had also expected there would be more of an emphasis on the infamous riots, but it seems as though only the western world associates the name “Tiananmen Square” with the 1989 pro-democracy riot. Claudia did mention in our lecture the famous picture of the student standing in front of an advancing tank, but she didn’t speak any more on the city square’s many fatal riots.
Walking through Tiananmen Square, we could see the Forbidden City high upon the walls surrounding us. I imagine it would have been quite intimidating when the city was occupied by the emperor and his concubines, slaves and eunuchs, to look up and see this exclusive city staring down at you. We could tell before even entering that the architecture was amazing. When we entered, Claudia told us that all the structures were made completed of wood, but no nails were used. This form of architecture is now unable to be duplicated and is a contributor to the reason it is so difficult to restore the buildings.
There were a few more things that happened today to show small cultural differences. The first was observed in the Forbidden City. When trying to see the throne, or other such displays, we had to push our way up to the front of a group of people. Everyone around us was pushing and shoving and at first it was very uncomfortable. This happened quite often in the Forbidden City; people would push their way to wherever they needed to go. It made it difficult to get pictures and really take in the scenery, because we had to be constantly on the move in order to keep up with the group.
The second cultural difference was observed during lunch. Again, they brought out small dishes of food and everyone helped themselves to whatever they were interested in trying. They served fish soup, and the soup included a whole fish. Many of our group members were turned off by the whole fish. I did not find the presentation disturbing and would have tried a piece had I liked fish even with the head and bones already removed.
After dinner we went shopping on Wangfujing Street, which seems to be like a mini Times Square. Many of the stores were American, like KFC and Nike, but we found a small street in back which had a little market selling “touristy” stuff. It was very crowded and we were singled out by most vendors, telling us they would make it “cheaper for you.” For the most part we just wandered by, feeling intimidated by the need to barter with people who cannot speak English. Some of the vendors sold food, but not ordinary food. They offered specialties such as, live scorpion on a stick, and fried pigeon. None of us were bold enough to try any of the outrageous food.