Last night I got my first bout of homesickness, which I credit to the fact that I have only spent 6 days at home since I got back from Pitt and my culinary exhaustion from eating the same Chinese food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nonetheless, I slept fairly well. For breakfast, I avoided the types of food I knew I would be eating for the rest of the day, and focused on Western staples like toast to vary my palate and comfort my stomach. After breakfast, we boarded a bus and went off to Tienanmen Square. Right after getting off, we spotted a 3 story KFC restaurant. It seems that the Chinese love KFCs, there is at least one in almost every large clump of shops, I guess the Chinese prefer their chicken over Western burger joints. We crossed over to the square and were immediately immersed into the huge crowds that would be swarming around us for the rest of the day. I saw some SWAT officers riding their motorcycles around the square, but otherwise the security of the square seemed to be much less than I expected. I suppose the extensive camera networks would alert a much larger dormant force, that the government did not want to be seen as smothering the square. As we walked across the square and towards the Forbidden City, we encountered more and more insistent hawkers. Many were peddling Mao Watches, which were simple watches with the great leader as the background and a saluting arm counting off the seconds. Sometimes the peddlers would walk right into our group as we posed for a group picture to sell their wares. We passed by a long line for Mao's Mausoleum (Maosoleum) which looked to be several hours long.
We then entered the Forbidden City, which was even more densely crowded than the square. At least a hundred different tour groups, with accompanying rally flags, gathered in choke points throughout the city. It felt like a gigantic tourist trap, since I had already seen many of the buildings in pictures, and so many people were standing around snapping pictures. But witnessing the huge scale of the buildings and the space between them was worth the slog through the crowds. The gigantic, flat walls topped with large ornate buildings was very impressive, especially considering how long ago they were constructed. Every time that we paused for a group photo, several Chinese tourists gathered around to take pictures of us as well. Later on an entire group individually posed with one our group members. I suppose that seeing a real live white person may be special to Chinese from other, less densely populated areas.
Afterwards, we went to a large mall in a fashionable shopping district for a late lunch and shopping. But merely walking a couple of hundred meters, it was surprising how you could go from a ridiculously overpriced Nike outlet to a tourist trap "magic Chinese rings" peddling open market. I suppose the shopping district must cater to both the hoity toity and the gullible. I was disgusted to find and smell what the vendors in the open market would put on stick and try to sell. Raw tentacles, seahorses, tarantulas, live scorpions and starfish were all on display, though I was somewhat relieved to see that no one else seemed to be interested in buying them either. I was surprised by the aggressiveness of the vendors there, one who grabbed me by the arm and refused to let go until I had to push them off with my free hand. When we headed to an expensive trinket shop later on, we were followed around by store clerks who would stand no less than two feet away. I think that this is a pretty uncomfortable shopping experience to most Westerners, which I think owes to our stronger need for privacy when shopping or eating in public. Not only do vendors keep a much closer watch on customers, but the multi-course meals of Chinese restaurants seem to create an environment where staff are constantly circulating in and out of your personal space, which I find somewhat disconcerting.
I noticed this yesterday but forgot to mention it. It seems that there is a sizable portion of the working public whose role is solely to be human ornaments. Security guards who do nothing but march around and text on their phones, and doormen who are three to an automatic door seem to serve no purpose other than to improve the image of a business. The same goes for the groups of 3-4 uniformed women who seem to of no purpose other than to stand in a line and smile.