The day was still young so my cousin, Yongbe, decided to show me around the neighborhood. Stepping out into the courtyard 15 stories below, I realized I want to be taking a shower immediately upon returning home.
“”’A’ Marks the spot of ‘The Gate of Heavenly Peace’ a.k.a. Tiananmen.”
Located in the Chongwen district of central Beijing, Yongbe’s penthouse residence is 15 minutes away from Tiananmen Square and government buildings by foot, in the vicinity of other unexpectedly interesting sights as well.
“On your marks. Get set. GO! Bicycles and mopeds are the primary means of transportation for many people in China.”
“Nice, clean, with a touch of surveillance.”
Streets are clean and cared for for the most part on the way to Tiananmen, kept so to accommodate the teaming groups of tourists that swarm by at any given second, and to fuel the positive image of a beautiful China. This is, after all, one of its hallmark places. Like many tourists (including me) and locals find alike, police presence can be unnerving. You can expect to find an officer in a green top and khaki pants, standing as straight as a statue, with head and eyeballs panning slowly from left to right and then back, stationed every few hundred meters in the area. They will silently observe you as you walk past them and deliberate, according to state laws and perhaps intuition, whether to call you over for questioning, arrest you, or let you continue walking. Usually, and thankfully so, its the latter of the three. Usually. The picture above really sums things up. You have the tourist groups defined by their travel company flags, the police on the lookout, and the street of spic n’ span.
“Chatting in front of Heaven’s Door.”
Being a busy Thursday evening on a work day, the square was considered not crowded, even for Canadian standards. Most of the people there arranged in circular congregations were locals socializing with each other, a popular activity enjoyed for the discussion of latest happenings in the news or gossip, exchanged above a nice game of cards. Tiananmen itself is closed to visitors due to security concerns and construction, so sadly we weren’t allowed to take a tour inside.
“Fluttering. Proudly Chinese”
One of the highlights for tourists is the ritualized lowering of the flag every evening, so I’m told. At around 19:30 (7:30PM) of each day, the officers stationed beside the pole will proceed to lower the flag in a militaristic style exercise and carry it across the adjacent XiChang’an Street and into Tiananmen where it will be kept until it is risen again at 7:30AM the following morning.
“XiChang’an Street – Toronto’s Yonge Street times three+”
An interesting fact about XiChang’an（西长安）Street that I learned during dinner later in the evening with Yongbe and my uncle, Guangyuan, was that the street was also constructed to be an emergency runway for aircrafts in case of war or the breach of national security, presumably so that provisions and reinforcements could be flown into the city’s center immediately. I could not remember exactly since I was pretty tired from the flight, but I think that there were at least 12 vehicle lanes to XiChang’an in total, making it extremely wide. “Chang’an 长安” means “long and peaceful” while “Xi 西” is its prefix which denotes west. I thought it was an rather generic name without suspect until I heard this story, and then I found it to be an immensely fitting name.
“Subtle, and a part of your life if you live in China.”
Tourists may be snapping pictures left, right, and center, but there are just as many cameras snapping back at them, as well as anyone who walks by unknowingly. Then again, you don’t have much of a choice.
“We’re watching you…”
You can expect three or more on every streetlamp. This specimen here has five. Look sharp!
“Interesting logo.”
After another 15 minutes of walking, we arrived at Yongbe’s high school from which she is graduating this year.
“The main benefactor is the centerpiece of the courtyard.”
After making an excuse of “we forgot our notebooks in class!” to the guard stationed at the entrance who was initially adamant on preventing our entrance, we managed to weasel our way into the courtyard (he gave up and got bored of trying to stop us). The school consisted of two buildings, one for the administration, and another which housed the cafeteria and classrooms.
“Undeniably bare, yet strangely beautiful.”
Upon entering one of the classrooms, there was a feeling of nostalgia. I have certainly never attended school in China before, but the classrooms really did look like that from movies. Who knew the real thing looked so real? Desks were quite small and were arranged in seven columns, with 8 rows each, seating a total of 56 students. An elevated teacher’s desk rested a short distance in front of the green chalkboard that was covered with scribbles of homework and quick handiworks of doodle. I was totally not ready for the smell though, because one would have reason to believe that everyone who studied here probably smelled of fish, had fish for lunch, or had fish locked away in their lockers at the back of the room. My cousin shrugged and said it always smelled like this. However, this smell was nothing compared to the toilets a short distance down the hall. Oh boy.
“A humble home.”
Leaving the school, we took a detour using the smaller streets and alleyways that lead to a bigger street from which we took a taxi home. Despite a very clean and modern elegance to Tiananmen and the surrounding area, all of which were the result of restoration for tourism in recent years, much of the old city is hidden behind tall brick walls and remain unseen without a little exploration. The above photo is a common residence for the poor living in the area, usually an one story makeshift brick house with rippled tin roofing. There is certainly more to Beijing than meets the eye, in culture and in tradition, and in the dynamics of the rich and poor.
Off to the showers! The Great Wall of China, tomorrow.