Great Hall of the People

Today, Michael got a behind-the-scenes tour of China's "Great Hall of the People." The first photo is of the southern entrance to the Forbidden City. Michael stood in the center of Tiananmen Square, braving the mid-morning wintery gusts to take this rare photo of a snow-capped Forbidden City. Directly to Michael's left as he took this photo lies the Great Hall of the People, where China's national congress meets to run the country. The second photo is an interior shot of the main theater hall, shown here to give our readers a sense of the epic proportions of the Great Hall; keep in mind that this theater is just one part of the overall building, which houses a massive banquet hall (which dwarfs the theater in volume, if not in human capacity), at least two other large theaters, and a network of grand halls connecting everything. The design is similar to classic bank architecture, where they used massive architecture to dwarf the people entering the building, as part of a grand scheme of psychological intimidation.

Every province has its own set of rooms within the Great Hall, and the third photo in today's posting comes from the Hong Kong/Macao suite of rooms. In the photo's foreground is a foyer, beyond which you can see part of the general meeting hall. The general meeting hall was a grand open space with a rock pool off to one side and a few structures mimicking the traditional bamboo architecture of the region. Sadly, photos did not do that room justice.

All in all, it was an eye-jiggler of an experience, and while it doesn't really belong on any tourist's top ten list of things to check out in Beijing, Michael found it quite worthwhile. He confesses, however, that his favorite aspect of the tour was that - since it was arranged by one of the teachers at the school - Michael and his fellow students weren't on one of the regular tours. On three separate occasions, they walked right past "no admittance" signs and on a fouth occasion had to move aside some barrier ropes to exit the Hunan Province's suite of rooms. Although tourists should have been able to see most everything Michael and his compatriots saw, it was fun to take a route that the tourists could not follow.