Tiananmen Square 天安门广场 and Lama Temple 雍和宫
星期一, 五月 01, 2006
Waiting for the flag to be raised, early morning in Tiananmen Square
The flag of the People's Republic of China proudly flutters atop a flagpole in the middle of Beijing's city center, 天安门广场 Tian'anmen Square. Everyday at sunrise, the flag is raised with much pomp and circumstance. Traffic is completely stopped around the area, the army is marched in to secure the square (and presumably to squash any riff-raff), and the flag is hoisted to the sound of a military band playing the Chinese national anthem. The entire rigamore is repeated again at sunset.
Since we heard that this quite a sight, we decided to attend the flag raising this morning. Which was a great idea until the alarm clock rang at 3:40am - the painfully early time we needed to wake up in order to get to Tian'anmen Square in time for the 5:15am sunrise. We knew the ceremony was popular, even more so today since it was May Day, but we were surprised by the throngs of people gathering in the square. I also didn't expect to see so many army and police personnel, but when there are over 40,000 people in the attendance, you probably want plenty of crowd control in the area.
The crowd buzzed with anticipation(and in my case, coffee jitters) which only grew over the 40 minutes it took for the sky to change from black-indigo to pale blue. Cheers and camera flashes broke out as the first strains of China's national anthem rang across the square and the flag slowly ascended the flagpole.
An aside: I really like the chinese national anthem. It's short, catchy, and inspirational. Everything a national anthem should be....
Chris, commenting after the ceremony: "Wow, I feel really patriotic"
Me: "Uh Chris, you're American"
Anyway when the flag reached half-mast, all this excitement was suddenly punctuated with Craig shouting "哎！小偷儿!" Since he a) is the only white guy in the area and b) basically shouted "Hey! Thief!", Chris, myself, and about 40 other people in the immediate area turned to see Craig crouching on the ground with his wallet tossed about a foot away.
Turns out that as Craig was taking photos, he felt a hand reach into his pocket and pull his wallet out! He reached down and grabbed the wrist of the thief, a middle aged man, who realizing he was caught, quickly slid the wallet away before picking it back up and returning it to Craig. The kicker is that the guy did this while chuckling and loudly proclaiming "Oh, haha! He scared me by shouting so loudly! He said someone stole his wallet!" Bet he was surprised that the foreigner knew Chinese. Rumour is that theft in Tian'anmen Square incurs the death penalty so no wonder the pickpocket was quick to absolve himself of responsibility.
The flag was flying and the ceremony was over by 5:30am. We hung around to see the army march out of the square in formation before hailing a cab home and going back to bed.
Inside the grounds of Lama Temple
Eight hours later, we were oot and aboot again, this time heading for 雍和宫 Yong He Gong aka Lama Temple, one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world outside Tibet. It was very peaceful and relaxing to wander around the grounds, breathe in the scent of incense, and watch people pray in front of various statues of Buddha, the most impressive being a huge 26 meter high statue carved entirely out of a single tree. We were shooed out at closing time and wandered around 胡同 hutongs in the surrounding in the early evening before dragging our very tired feet back home.
Tian'anmen photos are here and Lama Temple ones are here.
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