The Gate of Heavenly Peace By Night

So last night, I was in the mood to get out and see some city lights. I had heard that Tian An Men was very beautiful on clear spring nights, so I grabbed AnJie and her roommate and we crammed into the subway.

This week Beijing has been especially crowded, because most people get the week off, due to May 1 being International Labor Day. Many countries, the US of course excepted, celebrate their labor day at this time. So as you can imagine, letting everyone in China have a week off can wreak all kinds of havoc on traffic, the grocery store and most certainly any sightseeing destinations. We have felt the frustration all week as we have had to jam ourselves into all sorts of over-crowded buses and subway cars. Did I mention the weather around here is also starting to get a lot warmer?

In any event, yesterday night we went for a nice stroll through Tian An Men square. It was actually a very interesting experience. I am so glad AnJie's roommate, Cheng Jian, came along with us. She gave us some very enlightening insights into a Chinese person's view of the place. We spent time discussing everything from Mao to the Ming Dynasty. Just fascinating to get her take on everything. She said as a young girl, coming to Tian An Men and the Forbidden City was quite a different experience, mostly other Chinese tourists, nothing built up or protected the way it is now.

We also had fun discussing with her the ambiguity of the Chinese language versus English. Their word for beard and mustache are the same, no differentiation. This is also true for escalators and elevators both called dian ti, directly translated meaning electric stairway. She told us that maybe English had too many words. I am tempted to agree as I have gotten to the point where I will use Chinese over English because it's just more simple.

So we did walking in both Tian An Men Square and the corridor between Tian An Men and the entrance to the Forbidden City. I have to tell you the weather was just perfect and though it was a little more crowded than I would have liked, it wasn't too bad. I think we were some of the only foreigners who ventured out to see the sights, but it was definitely worth the surprised looks that we got from people as we spoke Chinese with Cheng Jian. (The underlying assumption here is that if you are a foreigner you most likely do not speak or understand Chinese).

It was a good night, and the Olympic countdown clock was all the way down to 460 days, the first time I ventured into Tian An Men square it was still at 527 days. I've come a long way...