Day 2: Beijing is Big...Tom in Tiananmen Square

Wow. These folks don’t mess around. 1.35 billion people, philosophy, politics, cuisine and culture that span thousands of years. With this as a backdrop, maybe it is not surprising that the new building in the city is breathtaking. A building boom before and since Olympics. The amazing thing is not only that there are so many shiny, funkily-designed, spanking new buildings, it is that they are all 30 stories high, 50 offices wide, and lined up one after another every half mile you go. These folks do not mess around when talking about economic growth. An unprecedented 20 years of 10% GNP is evident on the streets of the capitol.

Comments I jotted down while driving all around city: very clean, no homeless people, people well dressed and healthy looking, no pollution and blue sky, little honking for busy traffic, people pretty friendly and mellow, everyone going somewhere, few foreigners.

Met with US Embassy people this AM. Discussed education in China and study abroad for Chinese students in US. Very interesting and informative.

Went to Tiannamon Square and then to the Forbidden City. The square is enormous, and the imperial grounds were built beginning in 1400s. Literature stated that besides the Emperor, only select family members, concubines and eunuchs were allowed in the sprawling compound. If that was not restricted enough, in the eastern and western palaces the emperor was the only non-castrated male allowed in them so that any children born there were sure to be his. Let’s psychoanalyze that one.

The college fairs begin tomorrow. Will check in later. Till then, warmest regards to all. Cheers, Tom

Professor Redden stands in the famous plaza near the center of Beijing, named after the Tiananmen (literally, the Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City, seen in the background. Note the huge portrait of Mao at the entrance to the emperor’s historic closed palace.