Forbidding night
(View into the Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square: Beijing, China)
It feels like today may have been one of the longest days I have ever experienced. It began in a sleeper train somewhere in central Eastern China and has ended at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This shot was taken tonight as we took a post dinner stroll along the edge of the square, just in front of the towering walls of the Forbidden City. Other tourists (all of them Chinese at that point in the evening) were calling “Hello! Hello! Picture!” to us and waving cameras in our faces – the novelty of being pale celebrities is finally wearing thin for my family. Before I bad mouth the Chinese tourists too much, we were treated excellently by a local this morning who spotted me delving into a guidebook. He came over and asked if we needed help – we were actually looking for a spot of lunch. He whisked us into a nearby restaurant, much to our slight panic, and without discussion ordered four dishes for us (dumplings and salad), told us the price and skipped off out of our lives. It was unbelievable luck and I was just delighted, especially as just yesterday I had been telling my family how kind and considerate everyone had been to me during my time in Asia.
I’m sure many of you will have seen an image like this before, but the difference is that I took this one and I was really there. I can’t believe it. I have always found that arriving in places of such unadulterated scale and fame leave me with strange feelings. Even being in Tiananmen Square, I was aware at that moment that I was in an incredibly important place, an area I have seen so many times from an illuminated box of moving images in my home, but I never ever dreamed I would see it with my own eyes. The feelings are odd, a curious blend of wonder, a kind of false familiarity and slight anticlimax. It isn’t that the square is not amazing, more that I imagined it differently, just like I’ve done with the Mona Lisa or Texas. These things are not really better or worse than my projected imaginings, just different and it feels weird every single time it happens. When I look back at this experience, even in a few days I’m sure I will gaze at my images in disbelief that I was actually here.
Back to our day; pre dinner, we watched the sundown flag lowering in the square – auntie Jane and I hoped to go and see it raised tomorrow morning but we’ve checked and the sun rises at 5:29am, so we might forgo the raising of the flag this time. It would require a raising of the body from the bed at approximately 5am so I just don’t think we can contemplate it anymore. We rose very early on the train today, well before 7am so I’m looking forward to closing the lids on my rather fizzy eyes very soon.
Wow…well done, comrade!
Great shot!!! Did you use a tripod?
I love the way you tell the storys, go on!!