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Saturday, December 20, 2008
Reflection [Tze Hui] Firstly, from the sites that I have visited, I noticed that Beijing is a city that has both traditional and modern culture blended in their architectures. Buildings such as Forbidden City, Dongyue Temple, Ming tombs, Temple of Heaven, Hutongs, Summer Palace and Prince Gong’s Palace showed us how traditional Chinese culture had influenced the way buildings are structured. For example, the way buildings are placed along a centre line in the middle of city, the colour of the buildings (blue represent heaven, yellow represents emperor, green represents commoners), the emphasis on hierarchy – that emperor takes a different path from others, the importance of fengshui in the structures illustrate the respect the people have for their culture and that people were really superstitious in the past. I also realized that the people in China are very proud of their culture and defensive of it. In addition, the magnificent and grand buildings of China make me think that the Chinese were really glorious in the past but the money were not really spent on the people but rather spent to show the wealth of the royalties. The extent of the extravagance is horrifying when you make a comparison between the Forbidden City and a siheyuan in the hutongs. For the part on modern culture, it can be seen in buildings such as capital museum and bird nest stadium. Although those buildings may not be designed by Chinese, the fact that they can be build in China and become an icon of China shows that China is becoming more and more open to western ideas. Thus, I think China is quite successful in balancing their traditional Chinese culture and western culture. With the threat of westernization and diminishing sense of identity and culture, China is able to make use of the space it has to both preserve its own culture and also introduce western culture into the country.
In addition, been in Beijing allowed me to experience a lot of theories such as the respect the Chinese have for their leader, Mao and the population problem in China. For the respect for Mao, it was quite surprising for me as people were very serious about Mao and many treated him like god by worshipping him with flowers. I was quite taken back by the scene as I did not expect the amount of respect Mao can gained from the people to be so great after the failure of his policies such as the culture revolution. Thus, I consider this as an eye-opener and an experience that cannot be gained via textbooks. On top of that, I also see for myself in Beijing the population problem in China. The streets are filled with lots of people and the traffic congestion can be really horrible. A ride of 10 minutes can be delayed by around half an hour due to traffic congestion. After been through this, I realize the urgency of the China’s government in controlling the population and also the rationale behind the one-child policy and the car policy.
In conclusion, the trip has been very meaningful as it has widened my knowledge and also understanding of China’s history and culture. In addition, it has reaffirmed my thought of China being a potential leading power in the future.