I questioned myself in Beijing.

Remember that time I lied about updating my blog in just a few days? Well, most of our parents lied to us for years about Santa Claus and if you forgave them for that then surely you can forgive me for this. 

In my defense, I was very busy in Beijing (as you’ll soon find out) and when we haven’t been on the move since then I’ve been diligently working on curriculum that will enhance the lives of children and be awesome.

You parents, on the other hand, lied to you about a magic person who broke into your house after flying around the world because he wanted to give you presents that had been made by freaking elves. And there was a strong possibility that this man was Tim Allen.

I’m glad you’re over that now.

Alright, so about ten days ago I arrived in Beijing. And right away we went to what one of my colleagues called “Magic Communist Disneyland” but the Chinese call Tiananmen Square.

What you see in the background is the Monument to the People’s Heroes. It’s a very impressive monument to the struggles of the Chinese people against foreign imperial powers and the sacrifices made by those who ushered in the age of the People’s Republic. But, most striking to me, is the lightpost covered in cameras and the several hundred others just like it in the square.

I was really conflicted about Tiananmen Square. The history of the square dates back to the Ming dynasty and it became especially prominent over time because it was in front of the Forbidden City, the imperial palace, which was the center of Chinese authority for years. Even when the Communists took over, they lived outside its walls and established their government buildings near this symbolic set of structures.

But now it is a major tourist attraction and along wth our group there were several large groups of visiting foreigners and Chinese smiling and taking pictures. I recognize that I’ve been doing that throughout China but Tiananmen Square hit me hard because it has become something so at odds with what it once stood for to the Chinese people. “Heavenly peace” is what Tiananmen means but if you know me well then you know the reason for my obsession with this attraction is anything but peaceful.

I had a hard time dealing with the fact that this plaza was intended for the people to gather in but now you had to watch your every move because there were hundreds of cameras scanning you and guards scrutinizing you.

I had a hard time dealing with the fact that there was no recognition of Tiananmen Square’s past as a place for university students to organize, protest, and exercise the inalienable rights that I will always believe we all possess.

I had a hard time dealing with the fact that our guide told us there had once been a protest that was, thankfully, unsuccessful and could have destroyed China if not for the actions of the government.

And, sadly, the best thing I could do to express my discontent was reenact one of my favorite “Kids in the Hall” sketches and crush Mao’s head. How utterly impotent.

I think we’ll have to talk more about this in another post.

We went next to the Forbidden City. As I mentioned before, this was the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. This place is huge and, unfortunately, we were not given much time to stray off the beaten path and independently visit any meaningful percentage of its almost one thousand individual buildings.

I must be growing as an educator or just becoming a history nerd because I was truly fascinated by the art and architecture of the Forbidden City.

You’ll see a lot of lion-dragons in China. They almost always come in pairs and sit in front of a building to protect it from evil. One is always male and one is always female. Can you guess the sex of the one pictured above?

The correct answer is female. The stupid reason that the tour guides always tell you is that when you face them from the building the woman is always right. Hahaha, shoot me. But the real reason is that it is convention and you can tell the difference because the female has a baby under the paw while the male has some type of ball meant to symbolize control over worldly matters.

I also enjoyed the water-draining system used by the palatial engineers of China for their many-tiered platforms. The emperor was much more impressive on top of these platforms when giving speeches and the platform was much more impressive if adorned with dragon heads all over the place. Just drill some holes with a decline and you’ve got yourself some gutters.

We then got rushed through Behai Park which would have been wicked cool if our guide wasn’t a jerk and had let me sit on that really nice rock instead of hurrying to some nasty street to wait over twenty minutes for the bus and get accosted by rickshaw drivers. Here’s a picture anyway.

We had more seminars the next day at Peking University. I can summarize my experience at Peking University through analogy. I was led to believe that this really cool sweatshirt I bought at PU would fit and be awesome and people would think I was great for having a sweatshirt from a foreign university but then it was small enough for a child and it didn’t smell bad or dance around meaningful questions but if it had then this analogy would be perfect.

See that innocent, beautiful man-child? That’s actually me having a really good time at a relatively horrible Chinese dinner after the seminars. I’m holding a piece of something that felt like rubber and tasted like crap but I’m with friends and loving life. How could you ruin that smile?

Easy. Squeal and squeak loudly while banging on pots and pans then call it the Beijing Opera.

The Beijing Opera is incredibly confusing. I spent the entirety of the show trying to tell myself that it was a meaningful cultural experience and that not everyone enjoys the same forms of entertainment that I do. And it is hard to make sense of what could be a great story when it is being translated into broken, incomplete paragraphs of Engrish on a billboard.

But then I found out that the screaching was intentionally annoying and that we were only seeing a snippet of what is a much longer and very convoluted story. I’ll admit that I am interested and was entertained but it is so much more fun to complain about what is different from what you’re accustomed to seeing.

The picture above captures one of several moments of pure skill being demonstrated. The fight scenes are purposely not realistic but only going through the motions but sometimes really intense things happen like the moment above when the enemies of a bank-robbing demoness throw spears at her and she just kicks them back each time. It was like watching someone play hackey sack with spears.

But none of that skill compares to the rugged awesomeness of what I did the next day.

I climbed the Great Wall. And not some low to the ground, flat expanse of brick and deeply buried dead bodies but a steep, climbing up a mountain cruel expanse of brick and deeply buried bodies.

Actually, I wasn’t the only one who decided to brave that incredibly steep stretch of the Great Wall. Stan, Darwin, Laura, and Collin all had to pull my fat behind up with them. And trust me, I almost died multiple times and I complained the entire way.

One thing I really appreciated about the Great Wall is how it really overcomes nature to wind its way through China. The steps vary in size from a few inches and a couple of feet so at times you’re literally climbing the steps.

But I do have to dispel a myth. The Great Wall is impressive for its size and the obvious effort it took to construct it. However, it is certainly not visible from space. That’s a common story that many Chinese still believe as well even though Chinese astronauts have described being unable to see the structure.

Our next stop was the Summer Palace. An empress of the Qing dynasty spent most of her time at this location and spent a great deal of government money on its maintenance. Again, I’m blown away by Chinese architecture. Each of those pillars and columns is painted and carved with ornate decorations and they often tell stories. Beautiful to behold and awe-inspiring when considering the creativity embedded in their design.

Another interesting investment of that particular empress was a large stone boat that rests in the lake of the Summer Palace. The stories claim that she had it constructed using money that was intended for the navy. What a slap in the face.

Afterwards, we visited the Olympic Village of the 2008 Beijing event. It was honestly pretty boring. Maybe it’s just me but large areas of cement with structures that are rarely used just don’t excite me. But, of course, there are a few interesting things to consider.

For example, the kites that a Chinese foreign exchange student gave to our World History teachers were on sale all over the place. I got a great shot of them as we entered the park.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t truly enjoy the spectacle of the kites because Beijing is filled with smog on a daily basis. People were worried about smog during the Olympics but China made a huge effort to reduce it before the event. Your neighborhood could be mandated to shut off all electricity or if you had a certain number in your license plate then you couldn’t drive on particular days. But that was two years ago and the smog is back and worse than ever.

It is also very interesting to see the rot left behind by the Olympics. The Chinese have no use for the structures built for the competitions. There are essentially no national sporting leagues and there is very little interest in them. I was really excited about Team China for the World Cup until I realized they couldn’t even put together a team because of rampant corruption that leads to a lack of interest from the Chinese in their own footballers.

The next day was interesting for me. The title scratches the surface of the questioning I did of myself in Beijing. It started in on our first day in Tiananmen Square and on our fourth day it started once again in that curious plaza.

I decided to make sure Mao was really dead.

What you see is one of several statues in front of Mao’s tomb. Of course, that’s pretty much all I saw as well. The line was huge. Imagine standing in line for your favorite Cedar Point or Disneyworld ride and now multiply that by a factor of ten and add a culture that doesn’t believe in lining up without at least a little elbowing and shoving to the front.

I literally got to the security checkpoint and had to dip out so that I could make it back to the hotel before our bus left. And I spent the entire time in that line wondering why I was only one of a few in my group who saw real value in visiting Mao’s tomb.

What did he do to deserve my visit? Mao supported the murder of thousands, crushed individualism, and sponsored radicals who tried to obliterate culture and meaningful education. But he also enacted real change, spoke brilliantly with no formal education, and I believe he really loved his people and country. How very different Mao was from our own politicians when you consider his positive traits and yet strikingly similar when considering the terrifying steps he took to leave behind any of those positive parts of his legacy.

The day got more interesting when we went to the Temple of Heaven. This destination was once a site for ritual sacrifice and worship. It was beautiful and intriguing and for some reason it seemed like a good idea to get out my frisbee.

This is the main thrust of my reflection in Beijing. At the time, it did not seem to me or Stan or Collin that there was any problem with throwing a disc in this large open space as we waited for our group to move on. It seemed like most people were amused and it turned out the Chinese don’t have frisbees so they weren’t entirely sure what we were doing.

Then there was a throw that shouldn’t have happened or that I should have been quicker and caught. A woman walked out of a crowd, through our path, and was struck in the arm. To be fair, she hammed it up. I’ve taken frisbees to every sensitive area of the body and never acted like I had been stabbed. And you can’t play the age card because my grandma took a baseball to the face and never said boo. But it happened and it shouldn’t have so I have to deal with what it means.

First, I felt guilty about the fact that someone was hit. I tried to apologize but I was freaking out and trying to remember which part was “I’m sorry” and which part was “but I’m leaving” and I’m not sure which I ended up saying.

Second, I started thinking about how this reflected on me as a professional and as an American. I regret having to admit that I had fallen into the trap of becoming a tourist and nothing more. We had been so overloaded with new sites and attractions each day that things had started blurring together for me. This was probably the tenth temple, not considering specific associations like Buddhist or Daoist, that we had visited during our trip. In many ways, this was just one more site that looked like many others and if you’ve seen it once then you start moving more quickly and thinking about something unique you can do rather than reflecting on the cultural meaning of what you are experiencing. I got sloppy and I had to wonder how these people would view Americans after they saw a few of us hit a woman with a frisbee in a temple. How was I misrepresenting my profession and school by acting in a way that some saw as immature?

Finally, I was now being confronted with criticism from my group and leader. They had felt throwing a frisbee at this temple was inappropriate and disrespectful but that had never occurred to me. I had to juggle the idea that I would never do such a thing at one of the Buddhist temples we visited but hadn’t considered the religious influence at this particular structure. I was upset at first that the handful who disagreed with our actions had not said anything earlier. Then I was upset with myself for not having recognized or even considered the connotations of my actions and what this site could mean to others. I’m still trying to deal with the idea of when is this type of behavior appropriate and when is it not. Machu Picchu? The Acropolis of Athens? The National Mall?

I’ve been told by some that I’m being to hard on myself and overthinking all of this but I’m not sure that I can ever just move on from something like “frisbee-gate”. I’m confused about whether I made a serious misstep, just acted foolishly, or did nothing wrong at all.

I think I’ll end this post here. I’ve already written a great deal and I really don’t need to talk about everything I did in Beijing in just one post. I also think that this is an appropriate place to stop because hopefully you have some food for thought. I would absolutely appreciate comments on my actions at the Temple of Heaven and your own thoughts on our role as a representative of our country, people, profession, or whatever when visiting other nations.