China Day 8
The Chinese teachers had the day off today. Thus, the American teachers did as well. We decided to head out to Tian’anmen Square for the flag raising ceremony. Unfortunately for me, this occurs at sunrise. That meant a 3 a.m. alarm. That translated to a very short night.
The ceremony was somewhat underwhelming. There wasn’t a lot of pomp or circumstance. Pretty much, it was a flag that was raised. However, there was a pretty big crowd. It was interesting to watch the crowd. The crowd quickly became a sea of technology raised in the air to record the moment. I watched as a very young child, I’m going to guess about two years old, was handed a phone whilst the child was on the shoulders of a man. The child aimed the phone and clicked the record button.
We had to wait around for a while for a restaurant to open so that we could have breakfast. Then our tour guide met us. We were taken on a tour of Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Our tour guide seemed to be very knowledgable about the concubines. We got lots of information about them. The Forbidden City is very pretty and impressive, but very touristy at this point. There are lots of things that you can’t actually see. Still, it was impressive to experience. It was nice to share an experience with the other American teachers.
Next we went to Pearl Market to do some shopping. Haggling takes a lot out of me. I know that that is the way that the game is played, but I personally find it tiring.
Leave a Reply