Forbidden Crowds

China is home to 1.4 billion people, 20%, of the world and Beijing alone houses 20 million of those people which doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of tourist (mostly Chinese) in the city on any given day! This can only partially explain the crowds of people we encountered at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City early Sunday morning. Imagine living in a country where you are 1 in a billion, personal space is slim to none and nobody is going to help you find your way through the crowd. Pushing and shoving your way to the top, I mean front, is a way of life. Sorry, excusing me, opps, or pardon me do not exist in China, not in English definitely and although I don’t speak Chinese I’m certain not in Chinese either.

This is something I swear I will never ever be able to get used to as a Westerner. I can get past the food and the traffic (sometimes) and the clothing and the language (with some struggle) but the pushing and shoving, the standing right up against me and cutting in line will always be foreign to me. It’s amazing how much I learn about my own culture by visiting other cultures. Often I think about what amazing cultural history the countries have that I have visited and find myself thinking how cultureless America seems at times. But as I have immersed myself into these 3rd world, culture rich, countries over the past two years I have come to realize and understand that America is rich in culture, although it may not exist through sights like temples and statues it does exist in the people and how we interact with one another, we have so much social culture. Yes there are the exceptions, there are always exceptions to every generalization but as a whole I find we are friendly to each other, give each other space when walking through the streets or lining up, wait our turn, and say our pleases and thank yous.

Inside the Forbidden City

Now that I’ve ventured much further from my original topic then intended I regress back to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Mimi and I planned to arrive at the Forbidden City at 8:30am, opening time, to avoid what we were certain would be mass amounts of crowds. Well we weren’t the only ones with this plan. It seemed that half of China was thinking the same thing! The only comparison I can closely relate the crowds to is the starting line of the sold out New York Marathon. I’m sure everyone has seen the Chinese tourist groups in the US and other places with the tour guide carrying the flag and everyone on the tour in their matching hats or shirts, well multiply this times 1000 and you have sight seeing in China! It was un real!

I wish I could say that things got better once inside and we got to spread out and enjoy the sights of the Forbidden city quietly. Although the crowds continued throughout our time inside the Forbidden city it wasn’t unbearable. The sights and sounds were refreshingly new and unique to anything we’ve seen on any of our trips in the past two years. Everything was so uniquely China and designed just how you would expect it to be. As we walked around the Forbidden city and the streets of China we realize more and more that China towns at home aren’t quite as hokey as we had thought, it’s really how it is!

Front of Forbidden City

Next up the Great Wall… it was stunning more than I had imagined!