Day 4 (7/29) – Tiananmen Square, Forbidden Palace, + Meeting with Beijing Students

Today, we woke up early once again (this would become a recurring ritual for the next couple of days) in order to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace in the morning. While driving there, it can be noted that many people carried umbrellas with them everywhere they went – the umbrellas were not meant for rain, but rather to prevent UV rays. In Houston, even when you do see people walking on the streets, you rarely see them with umbrellas.

The hot weather was continuing, and this was noticeable through the number of people carrying fans, or on several rather unsightly occasions, men with their shirts halfway on. At Tiananmen Square, there were many people – as usual. I’ve visited the place before, but never cease to be amazed by how big the area really is when you’re standing in it.

We were unable to visit General Mao Zedong’s memorial hall, because the line for it was at least two or  three hours. However, we were given time to venture around the square. Facing Tiananmen Square, the Green Ambassadors, along with our tour guide Amy, took a group picture for two albums that we will be gifting to Green Team America and our sponsors as a thank-you for the trip.

I am in front of Tianamen Square in this picture. Sadly, the smog makes everything look gloomy. : (

Then, we took an underground pass to get to the other side of the road in order to reach the Forbidden Palace. Actually this is another interesting point about large cities in China. I believe since the traffic is so bad and so many people walk across busy intersections, much of the pedestrian traffic is diverted underground shortly so crossing automobile traffic is not slowed down. I’m not sure if this occurs in big pedestrian cities in the US, but this would be a smart idea to implement to prevent extra pollution from cars and trucks stalled in traffic.

As we entered the Forbidden Palace, we had the chance to visit many buildings, the highlight of which was the Emperor’s most important ceremonial chamber. For those that have watched Chinese historical dramas, this is the room that the Emperor meets all his officials and a bunch of kow-towing (or bowing) occurs. We learned from the tour guide that it was forbidden to look the Emperor in the eye unless specifically ordered by the big man himself, and that since 9 was a lucky number in China, the Forbidden Palace allegedly had 9,999 rooms.

 

The Forbidden Palace.

The Emeperor’s Ceremony Room.

Soon after that, we all got on the bus to drive to the New Path Foundation, where we would meet the high school students from Beijing. Most of them had either just graduated from high school or were going into their last year of high school. Unfortunately, the founder of Global Village of Beijing, Ms. Sheri Liao, was away on a business trip and could not meet with us. However, the students gave us a thorough and intriguing presentation about the work Ms. Liao and the Global Village have done. 

After the devastating earthquake in Sichuan a couple years back, Ms. Liao began an intiative to rebuild a village that had been destroyed in the earthquake. Instead of rebuidling the village the same way, Ms. Liao built the village with the concept of an environmentally friendly village in mind, creating a community that is able to give back to the environment. I was not able to get a copy of the students’ powerpoint, but hopefully, Dr. Pei has received some form of it on a USB drive. If not, we luckily got email addresses from most, if not all, of the students as we wanted to establish contact with them in the future.

After the presentation, we split up into mixed groups in order to create different poster presentations about issues that we noticed or cared about. My group consisted of Fitsum, Haotian, Sunyi and Rena, and we talked about the trash system in China versus that in America. We discussed the difference in the public trash cans as I had discussed in my previous post about Day 2. In comparing the pros and cons of the systems in both nations, some pros we pointed out were the recent requirement of bio-degradable bags for Houston garbage and the emerging education in China for recycling. Additionally, we talked about the trash collectors in China who are all very eager to find recyclable materials to sell back for profit.

Of the other groups, many talked about the eco-friendly nature of our hotel rooms, which required you to slide your door key into a slot in order to turn the power in the room on. This prevents lights that people would carelessly leave on, which wastes a lot of energy. Additionally, other groups talked about putting solar panels on top of roofs to boil water with as well as how, in China, many people grow low-maintenance grasses on top of their roofs in order to prevent leakage.

I did not manage to take pictures of the presentations, but I do have a picture of Lucy with one of the Beijing students, Joy. Hopefully, my fellow ambassadors will post some more about their presentations. : )

As the last task of the day, we visited the Bird’s Nest, which was the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. I am attaching this picture as a STRONG testament to just how bad the smog was that day, especially. 

Ruoxi

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