John and Yoko

After using “Hard Day’s Night” for the title of yesterday’s blog entry, I really thought all of my vague Beatle’s references were behind me. Then I met our Tour Guides. Le Jeun is an employee of EF (Education First.) EF provided this trip to the State of North Carolina to give to the State Principal of the Year. They conduct Professional Development tours as well as student tours. Le Jeun explained that Le is his family name. Unlike Americans, their family names are written before their personal name. Here my name would be Jackson Rob. In their English classes they are encouraged to take an English name. Jeun (pronounced Jew-un) sounded similarly to John and his name was chosen. He lives in Beijing and is a Professional Tour Guide. He met us at the airport and will be with us throughout our trip.

For today’s excursions we had an additional guide, an expert on Chinese History with a major in English. In her University classes she was also encouraged to take an English name and so she chose Yoko. Later she would find out that was a Japanese name, but it had already stuck. So this morning as we boarded the Tour Bus for Tiananmen Square, we found out that we would be spending the day with John and Yoko. It might be a sign that I may have to just keep the Beatles themes going.

My tour mates include 34 educators from across the country. Two are fellow North Carolinians. One is the Dean of Academics for a Multi-Denominational Private School in New Bern, NC. The other works with VIF (Visiting International Faculty) in Raleigh. The group is mainly comprised of teachers from multiple grade levels and subject areas.

John and Yoko spent the bus ride over to Tiananmen Square telling us the history of the Square. Both are native Chinese and I was not surprised to find the events we associate with Tiananmen Square were not mentioned at all. As we approached the square, pedestrian traffic was funneled through a security checkpoint. All persons of Asian descent (including the Chinese) were forced to go through a metal detector and had their bags scanned. Americans were allowed to walk-through a side gate. We were not scanned at all. I found it interesting that this happened on multiple occasions. While I appreciated being able to move quickly through gates, it just struck me that they continued to scan their citizens while waving us right on through.

Tiananmen Square was dominated by the picture of Chairman Mao on one side and by his mausoleum on the other. It is capable of holding 1 million people and is described as the largest urban square in the world. A line stretched all the way around his mausoleum as Chinese people who had traveled from across the country stood in line for the opportunity to pay their respect. In the middle of the square stood a tower marking their version of the Tomb of the Unknown soldiers. Both soldiers and students stood guard over it. Two long digital screens went down one side with pictures from around the country playing on them. They had been installed during the Olympics.

Next on the itinerary was a visit to the Forbidden City. Home to Emperors from two dynasties, the Forbidden City is the largest palace complex in the world. Construction began in 1406 by Emperor Yongle during the Ming Dynasty. It is absolutely awe-inspiring to behold. What was once reserved for only the Emperor now belongs to the people.

Following our stay in the Forbidden City, we dined on traditional Chinese fare. We sat at a large round table, dominated by a glass “Lazy-Susan” that had a 4’ diameter. The servers began bringing dishes and continued to do so for quite a while. We learned that most of the Chinese food that we eat in the United States is more accurately described as Cantonese and is not available here.

Sitting on a man-made island looking at a man-made hill over a man-made lake in The Summer Palace

Our final stop was the Summer Palace. John and Yoko related to us stories of the Dragon Lady, a former low-level concubine who wound up being the power behind the throne for many years as first her son and then a series of nephews became emperors while they were still very young. The Summer Palace is the largest (2.9 million square meters) and best-preserved garden of the Qing Dynasty. While there we took a boat across a large lake that had been hand-dug by workers for the Emperor. The dirt that was removed was piled up in one area to build a hill upon which to build the main structure.

Our dinner featured Peking Duck. It was served in a Tea House. Puppeteers and a musical group playing traditional instruments along with a keyboardist entertained us as we ate. We learned that the Chinese had called the city Peking, but never. Westerners had tried to find a name that was close in sound, but that could be written in English and created the name Peking. The name has since reverted to the actual name of Beijing. The name Peking is still attached to the Peking Opera and the Peking University.

I really enjoyed touring sites of places I have read about, studied, and seen on the news. I am more excited about tomorrow however. We will begin our day in a Chinese High School. We will have the opportunity to visit classrooms and speak with students. This will be the best part of the trip. Following our visit to the school, we will travel out to the Great Wall of China. It is hard to believe that I am here.

Since arriving, I have been unable to access the school’s Facebook page or Twitter account as the government blocks both. I will post pictures from my trip on the school’s Facebook page upon my return home. I hope that you are enjoying a great start to your summer and look forward to updating you more tomorrow.