Tiananmen

Many people think of this as Tiananmen Square but if you take a taxi and ask for Tiananmen square you will simply confuse the taxi driver. Tiananmen is a well-known district within Beijing. In the area is the “Great Hall of the People” the equivalent of the British Parliament building. Close at hand are the Forbidden City and much of the downtown Beijing shopping.

The square at Tiananmen is huge as it is 440,000 square meters. If you are a sports fan then you can probably drop the field that your sport is played on into the square and lose it. There is Mao's mausoleum if you want to walk past the body of the first communist leader of China. There is always a queue to visit the mausoleum. I often wonder if the changes to a market economy would have been to his liking.

Tiananmen can look very different depending on what state functions are being planed. I have been there when the whole area is covered in flowers and floral displays ready for a holiday. I have been there at other times when the whole area is just bare paving slabs.

On one side of the square is a clock showing the countdown to the Beijing Olympics. There is less than a year to go. I wonder if it will be used afterwards or just taken away.

At one end of the square is a McDonald's restaurant. You may hate the brand and want better food for your children and yourself but it has good toilets and is a good place for a drink. The air is always very dry in Beijing even when it is raining and everyone needs to keep up their fluid intake.

Be prepared to take your time walking around Tiananmen as the crowds of Chinese will not rush. They are used to the weather and they will not hurry unless absolutely necessary. It is only by walking around that you begin to realize the enormous scale of the place. You may have seen it on Television or on someone else's photographs but it will never prepare you for the tremendous size of the place. Unless you are a quantity surveyor you will probably not appreciate the statistics about the size of the square but you will begin to take it in as you walk around.
Be careful as the Chinese police (P.S.B. or Public Security Bureau) are very sensitive about Tiananmen as it is so close to the Great Hall of the People.