China Fun Fact: President Hu Jintao is said to be a fantastic dancer. While he studied at Tsinghua University, he was part of a dance troupe that traveled the country.
I must admit I am terrible of keeping you up to date on the places I have gone during my time in China. 对不起。 （I am sorry.) Anyways, a few weeks ago my study abroad group ventured to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City sits adjacent to Tianamen Square, and I was ecstatic to visit it. Thick walls and a large mote separated us from the city. As we walked across the bridge our entire group started to get very excited and when we went through the gate we saw a huge courtyard with ornate buildings, several statues....and oddly a mini basketball court which we were later informed was set up for when Yao Ming was on “display” a few weeks ago. Anyways, the courtyard was huge. You could have probably fit tens of thousands of people in it and still have plenty of room.
We kept walking through the courtyard and soon found... another courtyard with a palace in the middle. My friends and I were thoroughly enjoying ourselves and took a LOT of pictures...of anything and everything. When we reached the end of that courtyard we found... yet another courtyard. Now, I know we should have excited just be by in the Forbidden City, but the truth is that as we walked through courtyard after courtyard (that looked quite like the courtyard we just left) the thrill began to wear off. We began to realize how cold were were and that we were no where near the end of the Forbidden City. We started to take everything around us for granted.
By the time we reached the end, we had trekked through several gardens and countless courtyards. As we neared the exit, some people from the program wanted to walk through the park across from the Forbidden City and climb the mountain (ok..it was more like a big hill but I was tired and it looked daunting at the time so we are going to call it a mountain) that looked over all of Beijing. So a few of my friends and I decided to brave the “mountain” to check out the view.
This may have been my favorite part of the day. As you might be able to tell from the picture I posted a few weeks ago, the view was incredible. It was only then that we saw how huge the Forbidden City was. We probably only saw a tenth of it.
It was only then that I took a step back and truly appreciated this man-made marvel. I felt like that is the trap you can get sucked into while you are studying abroad. You begin to go through the motions and forget how incredible it is to be living in a city like Beijing, and you begin to take everything for granted. Its hard not to, and I think that everyone -regardless if they are living abroad or at home - goes through this. Sometimes, I have to take a step back and think amazing it is to be living in Beijing, studying at Peking University, and just having this experience.
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