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Published: July 27th 2010
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With a third year of teaching overseas, let the much relished tradition of international conferences continue with a trip to the capitol of China: Beijing! Or at least this is the thought that went through my mind as this opportunity came up at my current school in Taiwan. This next conference is one for our school Model United Nations program. In short (and to be explained more in the next entry), there is an international high school program that aims to introduce and develop our current international political system as a means of integrating peaceful methods towards conflict resolution to the current generaion. In other words, students from around the world come together to see if they have what it takes to tackle some of our current global dilemmas under a UN model. How is this connected to me? Well, someone needs to go along with the students and provide some guidance. My collogue John Liu and myself were thus off to Beijing China for around a week with a handful of some of the school’s best students with the mission of being both educated and entertained by China.
By arriving a day early, we had enough time to settle
in to our hotel (5 star quality wasn’t all that bad in this case) and then travel to downtown Beijing. Within this day, we were able to do a very brief walkthrough in the Forbidden City (as this place is rightly called so), a stopover at Tiananmen Square and then a nice Peking Duck meal in a major shopping area. Overall, it was a great introduction to such a major city.
Beijing, also known as Peking, was officially settled around 400 BC and since then has been a major destination for Chinese culture, education and political power. The dynasty’s and era’s this city has seen is quite an immense list, including the: Yan, Qin, Han, Jin, Tang, Later Jin, with a then a Mongol interlude (otherwise known as burning), Yuan, Ming (in which the Forbidden City was built in the 1400’s), Qing and at the end of this dynasty, foreign powers began to invade and have strong influence, roughly in the late 1800’s. These foreign powers were at first European, but a little before and during WW II, Japan began to play the game of imperialization and soon gained a strong influence and control in China. Although Japan was
defeated and forced to leave China, the question of who would rule China was quite a major one. The two main parties disagreeing over this answer included the Communist Party of China, lead by Mao ZeDong, and the Kuomintang (KMT) or Chinese Nationalist Party. With the defeat of the KMT (and their withdrawal to Taiwan under the idea of returning to eventually ‘reclaim’ China), Mao and his party officially gained control of Beijing in 1949 and thus established modern day Communist China.
Within this time, China under Communist rule has had some major changes. While there are some more tragic times, such as the Cultural Revolution, there have also been major stages of economic development. While Beijing established itself in many ways on the global level with the hosting of the Olympic games in 2008, its growth and success is still questionable in many ways. Perhaps one of the more well known issues is that of China’s human rights stance. While China is a major world producer with such low prices, world history has shown that slavery (field hand or sweatshop worker) is often the requirement to make such ‘attractive offers’ to world consumers. Another major issue in China
Night market goodies
Here you can choose from sea horse or scorpion. now is the censoring of the internet (as Google has learned, and at this time of writing, Blackberry is beginning to encounter). In short, the government is working to maintain a strong control of society, while at the same time, opening its doors to the ways of capitalism. This perhaps is best demonstrated by one of my videos, showing the spirit of capitalism in the Forbidden City itself! The current question though, ‘Is China capitalist, or is it communist?’ is perhaps not as important as the question ‘what is going to happen in China?’ Only time will tell.
Walking through the Forbidden City was amazing, as well as exhausting. UNESCO has designated this the world’s largest historical site of wooden architecture. With over 900 buildings, this city served as the Emperor’s capital for nearly 500 years. In 1912, the last Chinese Emperor Puyi left, ending the Imperial rule of China, opening the doors to the modern era (can be wathced with 'The Last Emperor,' great movie). During the Cultural Revolution, a battalion had to be ordered to protect the city from further possible harm. Given its long history, the Forbidden City has become a timeless part of China. While
the Forbidden City is going through its current growing struggles as with the rest of China (evidenced by the introduction of Starbucks to the City in 2000, then its forced removal in 2007), it’s a site I was very happy to walk through and experience. In my personal view, I was simply overwhelmed by what this Palace held. It truly gave me a sense of a Royal lifestyle, despite its age and changes. This Palace is certainly a small city and contains undeniable testaments to what man can accomplish (or at least 1 million man in the span of 15 years). Walking through the Forbidden City gave me a sense of how much culture and history exists at China, and with my 2 hour walk through, I have no doubt I only scratched the surface of China’s heritage.
After taking in so much culture for one day, a night of much simpler pleasures was in store. These included the greatest Peking-Duck I will ever enjoy in my life, shopping through the night markets and personally taking part in international relations. As some of my pictures show, the night markets offered a wide variety of goods and eats. While I
The MUN Crew
Here is my collogue Johny Liu, with our great group of students, getting the trip underway. passed on the various baked bugs and other delectable’s, the selections for noodles, meats and vegetables was great. Shopping for true Chinese clothes was a good time as well (in case you haven’t seen my Chinese Communist hat!) While wearing these clothes and attempting to speak bits of Mandarin to the various people and gaurds of Beijing, more often than not I was greeted with smiles and kind words (usually precedeed by a very brief shocked facial expression). The subway and taxi’s made Beijing very easy to travel through and it seemed the short stay was only packed with good times. While my next entry will finish up with my trip to Beijing, it is very easy for me to close this entry with saying my first day impression of China was very good and I was eager to experience more with my time here.
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shawn
non-member comment
too wordy