I mentioned in my last post that I was just going to follow the flow. Today was time for me to check out the Hutongs. If you are not familiar with these, they are narrow streets in Beijing and other northern Chinese cities. On each side of the street are courtyard (compound-like) residences where the locals live. There are some hotels in the Hutongs and some mirror the traditional courtyard residences. I booked my stay this morning at the Classic Courtyard Hotel. Getting here from my previous hotel was a little hard. I was advised to take a taxi but I spent about 20 minutes walking and another 30 minutes trying to hail a cab. Finally, I got one. It took about 18 minutes to get here. The fare was 20 yuan (about $3.06). You cannot beat that.

After checking in, I headed down to Tiananmen Square. Taking the subway there was super easy. If you have ridden the Metro in DC (which I have done), you can easily figure the Beijing subway system. The signs are listed both in Mandarin and English, so are the announcements. Plan on doing a lot of walking. Also be very watchful of traffic. Cars, bicycles, scooters, etc rarely stop for you. The cars used the horn a lot here.

Security is high everywhere. You have to go through security when riding the metro and there seems to be the military everywhere. Though Tiananmen Square is a very open space, it was heavily policed. You have to go through security before entering the square. It is clean and beautifully kept with nicely manicured gardens. As I walked through the square, I was reflecting on its history and how you police such a public square. I have always had a fascination with these public squares. While they are meant to be open and liberated spaces, they are often the most policed spaces. Whether it is the National Mall in Washington DC, Taksim Square in Istanbul or Tiananmen square, these places have easily become symbols of government public control. I was at Taksim Square on New Year’s Eve of 2014, they were probably over a 1000 police and military men and women parading the square with their anti-riot gear. At Tiananmen Square, every corner I turned, it seemed like the army or police were present. Such policing is as a result of the citizenry taking their freedom/ liberty beyond the socio-political controls imposed by the state. While the government should monitor places like these for terrorist acts, wouldn’t it serve the governments better if these spaces actually were ‘Free speech Zones?’

They were lots of Chinese tourists in the city. It became obvious how I stood out as a black person. Throughout my visits today, I did not find many black people. I had people staring at me and for a moment, I was even a celebrity at Tiananmen Square. Some young Chinese man wanted to take a picture with me. At first, I thought the staring was because I am very tall and I am being confused with some basketball player. As I was waiting to cross the traffic light, one Chinese young man with his scooter pinched and felt my black skin and started smiling. Not sure what to make of it. I will let humanity scholars who study culture do the analysis for me.

One last thing, FOOD! I only got to eat one meal today. Am not sure how I survived without coffee today. Perhaps, the reason for a headache I am having right now. I found a vegetarian restaurant close to the Beixinqiao subway station. It is called the Vegetarian Diet. It is a brand new restaurant. The interior décor is beautiful. They have several options available. I couldn’t get cold water or ice. They explained that they are still very new and do not have an ice maker yet. The food was reasonably priced. My total meal including a freshly juiced glass of watermelon cost only about 60 Yuan ($9 US). They even gave me a 10% discount on that bill. I am not sure why but I gladly accepted it. Though tipping at restaurants is not the culture in China, I tipped them anyway and they were very grateful. Service was good but servers could barely speak English. They shouldn’t, we should speak their language when we go to their country. Luckily, my sidekick, Google Translate was there to speak on my behalf.

From all the walking I had to do, I am pretty exhaust right now. Not sure how I feel about my mattress. Too hard for my back but I will survive. I head out of this hotel back to a Western-style hotel tomorrow.