Understanding Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Beijing's Central Landscapes Representing China's Capital City

News headlines are awash with stories of democratic protests going on in the central squares of many cities.  From Tahrir square in Cairo, to Independence square in the Ukraine and of course Tiananmen Square in China.  "The Atlantic" published an excellent summary here http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-dictators-guide-to-urban-design/283953/

Me in the Forbidden City

When many people paint a picture in their minds eye of China, they often picture the massive pro-democracy student protests of 1989 also know as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  Of all of the places in the huge country of China, why did the protesters pick this as their place to demonstrate? 

http://theviewspaper.net/

As you can see in the below picture, it looks quite different on an ordinary day.  The name "Tiananmen" actually means "heavenly peace" and is also the name of the gateway you see here to the Forbidden City which was the center of imperial China since about 1400.  

China had long been dominated by other colonial powers since the peak of Imperial China hundreds of years ago.  All nations are said to have centripetal forces supporting a countries unity as well as centrifugal forces which disrupts this unity.  A authoritarian government would seek to foster forces of unity, especially a nation that had only recently come into being as Communist China had.

A closer picture shows a picture above the gateway.

A view of the square from across the street.

One of the more famous things to do in Tiananmen square is actually flying a kite.  We did this for a short time, but we had so many tourists come up and want to not only take pictures of us but they wanted us to stop and stand next to them for the photos which really can ruin your attempt to fly a kite.  I decided to start taking pictures of people who took pictures of us.

 In the center of this picture above you can see the Monument to the People's Heroes in the center of the square.  Any nation or cities central square is a place to make a political statement saying "this is the heartland, the very core of this nation-state" and this is the very same reason others who wish to speak to and for the nation would base their public protests and demonstrations here.

After a long and hard fought civil war, the currently ruling Communist Party constructed the head quarters for the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China and National Museum (Originally called he Museum of the Chinese Revolution) on Tiananmen Square and opposite from the entrance to the Forbidden City.  If we were to interpret the symbolic landscapes for their signs of power and ideology, we can see that this was no accident. The placement here was a way of concretely solidifying the perception and image of the new rulers are being as permanent as the Forbidden City itself.  The construction style was also more of an international modern style rather than the more indigenous Chinese folk architecture plainly on display on the other more historical buildings.  This was again a discursive choice to state that the new China was making a break from it's feudal history and traditions, making way for a new and modern China.

This is Zhengyangmen Gate Tower at the southern and opposite side of Tiananmen Square.

You can see some local modern buildings from the square as well as the always present smog.  

Yes, that's not a mist or rain despite the umbrellas but a thick smog that covers 

Being the symbolic and cultural center of China, although geographically at it's periphery rather than the core, was the logical place for our tour group to meet.  We started to gather here with our local guide.

Here you see people in line for the Mausoleum of the first leader of Communist China, Mao Zedong.  We honestly didn't have time to wait in such a long line which was primarily taken up by local Chinese tourists who did have the time.

Many central squares in more authoritarian leaning nations restrict the movement and assembly of people in their central squares.  As you can see, the enforcement of this can vary.  If you are clearly part of a tour group or standing in a line there are no real police issues.  On the other hand, if any of us decided to take out signs or state our belief that democracy is a preferred form of government, no doubt things would change rapidly.

You see quite a few umbrellas, but it is not because of rain but rather the heat of the sun they were escaping.

Here our guide is describing the Mausoleum and other things nearby that we didn't really have time for.

You can see the "Monument to the Peoples Heroes" better in the background of this photo.  This monument attempts to put the communist revolution into a historical perspective by including several revolutions China has experienced through history making communism seem as if it were one more step in a progression.

I took some very short videos of the scene, but they are only a few seconds long.

As you can see, the square continues to be quite popular with visitors and locals. 

Many of the historical artifacts on display here help in marking this as a central place of China culturally.

Along with these historical artifacts you can see a 20th century image of Mao, the first leader of Communist China.  Again, placing his image so predominately on the square and above the doorway into the Forbidden City is symbolic of perhaps not a new Chinese Empire but definitely a new all powerful leader.

And inside we go.

In this video you can briefly see someone sitting on the ground.  Were were latter to discover that sitting on the ground directly, especially within any place with lots of people was something of a taboo.  This is not because of any political reason, but because spitting was quite the norm in China and anybody sitting directly on the ground has a very good chance of sitting in others fresh spit.

Our guide said that these were the original steps from even before the Forbidden City was constructed.

When I was visiting China in 2003, Western tourists were still something quite new.  Our tour group often found ourselves the focus of wide mouth stares from locals who were tourists themselves but had not seen people who were not Chinese in person.

This is the ornate and historical ceiling we were looking at as others looked at us.

Yellow is the color symbolizing the emperor, and you can also see the imperial throne below.

We continue further and further into the "Imperial City" the heart of the Ming and Quint Dynasties.  You can see in the picture above the "Imperial Gardens" that may look familiar to anybody that has visited a garden in one of the many "China-towns" in the US.

Also a common symbol from ancient China is the dragon, a symbol of the "Yang" part of "Yin and Yang" or in this case the specific power of the Emperor. He probably never imagined a bunch of foreign tourists someday snapping it in their photos much the less blogging about it's significance.

As I mentioned before, there are indeed many rules to follow, but one informal rule was to not sit directly on the ground.  Usually people would just squat down instead and remain on their feet like these women in this photo.

As our day wore on, we became more aggressive in taking the picture of anybody we caught taking a picture of us which ended up getting us some great pictures of the locals.

Again, note the dragon on the top of the bell.

Of course, who could not want to take a photo of this beauty? Yes, this is my wife.

Concepts: Power and Ideology built forms of the cultural landscape. symbolic landscape indigenous culture folk geography popular culture folk culture material culture and non-material culture. vernacular culture region. core periphery.  convergence hypothesis. colonialism.  folk architecture.