In a nutshell, don't go when we did. Not that IT's resident Canuck didn't have a blast during her recent week in Beijing, but she could have planned it a little better, timing-wise.
She made two mistakes. First, by arranging to visit during her English-teaching friend's vacation, Jessie unwittingly arrived during one of China's three "golden weeks", nationally observed seven-day holidays that occur around the Chinese New Year (in January or February), International Workers' Day (May 1st), and China's National Day (October 1st). All students, all teachers, and most workers get these weeks off, and many of them take the opportunity to travel.
So, the Forbidden City? Not so forbidden. Mao's mausoleum? Closed! The Summer Palace
(whose Chinese name, Yiheyuan, is often translated as "Garden of Peace
and Harmony")? Probably more peaceful when there aren't thousands upon
thousands of rubber-neckers crossing the 17-Arch Bridge and moseying
down the Long Corridor.
Or, at least, the sections of the Long
Corridor not covered in scaffolding. Which brings us to Jessie's second
piece of bad timing: not waiting until after Beijing's 2008 Olympics.
In anticipation of the quickly approaching Games, China is sprucing up
many of its most celebrated historic sites. In Beijing alone, major
sections of the Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and Yonghegong Lamasery
are hidden behind screens of bamboo scaffolding, and will presumably
remain so until the hordes of the sports-mad descend in two years. And
while they may require some restoration again after the hordes withdraw, we suspect it won't happen all at once, so you'll get more Confucius, less construction.
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