Forbidden City Posted May 27, 2004 at 12:00 am
When traveling with a large group, a few people will invariably by late. I understand and accept this fact. We’ve spent as much as thirty minutes extra waiting for people at various points on the trip. At this point, we leave after waiting five minutes; I think it’s a good thing.
We devoted the morning to touring the famous, or infamous, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, which is right across the street. Tiananmen is quite modern compared to the other tourist attractions; most of its features were built shortly after the revolution and founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Tiananmen has the mausoleum of Chairman Mao, a large portrait of the Chairman hanging over the red gate leading to the Forbidden City, and a large obelisk commemorating the founding of the PRC.
The Forbidden City is much older at about 600 years old. It has 9,999 rooms, supposedly making it have one less than the Palace of Heaven. I noted a careful use of odd numbers in the layout of the Forbidden City. For example, when you first enter there are five bridges across a stream and most of the stairways come in sets of three. Various guides informed us that odd numbers are traditionally good in Chinese culture and even numbers are bad, particularly 4 and 14. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot to the Forbidden City; just lots and lots of rooms for the emperor and his concubines. Jackie told us that the emperor stayed in a different room each night, and it would take 27 years to stay in them all.
It was difficult to fully enjoy Tiananmen and the Forbidden City due to the sheer volume of tourists you have to compete with for space. There’s also the matter of the peddlers, who will converge upon a group of Westerners like a swarm. It was worst outside the Forbidden City where a dozen or so peddlers were waiting as we got on and off the bus.
As the trip has worn on, some members of our group have grown disinclined to participate in some events, and this trend was evident at lunch, where six tables were left empty by those who chose to forfeit the meal and return to the hotel early. They didn’t miss anything fantastic, but we did celebrate DeLanna’s birthday, which made an otherwise generic meal notable.
We had a couple hours of free time after lunch before our farewell dinner and party. I declined the opportunity to do any more shopping as I’ve given up on finding a nice, ornate Chinese dagger. I spent my free time in my room relaxing and journaling instead.
D.J. inquired as to the meaning of agnosticism and why it was my current philosophy. Religion is certainly not my favorite or most comfortable topic of discussion, but I do think that people need to be able to have rational discussion about their beliefs; this might be wishful thinking on my part. I tried as best I could to be open-minded and considerate. D.J. explained the background behind why he followed Christianity, and he asked me some non-personal questions to illustrate his points. At the end of the conversation, I felt like I had neither gained nor lost ground, but that wasn’t the point, either.
The entire group convened in the lobby at 5 P.M. to depart for the farewell celebration. Before dinner, we had a final group meeting to discuss the last few lectures and discuss how we did or did not accomplish our goals for the trip.
I think I generally accomplished my goals for the trip. There are a couple areas where I felt I could have done better, but they are relatively minor. I made some friends, immersed myself in a foreign culture, and gained a broader perspective of my world because of it. More than that, I just had fun.
I did, however, want more pictures with cute girls and more pictures with people in general. I would also be more satisfied if I had taken more initiative as a leader and taken more risks to try to make more friends and contacts. I didn’t find the one great souvenir that I would have liked for myself. Lastly, I think I need to worry less about others’ opinions and perceptions of me; I feel like I’m holding myself back by worrying about these things.
The second International Mission on Engineering group was originally supposed to join us at some point in the evening, but their flight into Beijing was significantly delayed.
I expected the farewell dinner to be one of our best meals, as it was a special occasion, but I was disappointed terribly in this regard. The only memorable dishes were the creamy mystery soup, with a small egg of unknown origin and other unidentified components that may have been squid, and a shrimp dish featuring extremely large shrimp, complete with heads and tails, served in a special sauce. The shrimp wasn’t bad once all the unwanted components were removed (i.e., head, tail, skin, etc.). We did get free refills on our soft drinks for a change, so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
As the night wore on, it grew apparent that the whole farewell celebration was ill-conceived, at least from a timing standpoint. It created a late night right before an early departure from Beijing tomorrow morning.