One of the advantages of being hosted abroad is that visits to world-renowned sites are already pre-arranged and can fit into a tightly scheduled programme.
As well as opportunities to meet with individuals and organizations with interests in and connections to the Pacific, our press delegation in the space of two days, has visited and photographed diverse places viewed in print or on television.
It was over 24 hours of amazing and historical sights; each one more awe-inspiring than the previous.
And it was not hard for our delegation to stay alert as the temperatures dropped to somewhere way below nine degrees and layers were added.
Included in our tours was a drive-by photo opportunity of the unique ‘Birds Nest’ built for the China Olympic Games. While it was closed so we were unable to go inside, the size and architecture viewed from outside couple with the facts that it can host over half of Samoa’s population at any one time was mind-boggling.
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The design, which originated from the study of Chinese ceramics, implemented steel beams in order to hide supports for the retractable roof; giving the stadium the appearance of a bird’s nest.
This was followed by a visit to the aptly lit Red Theatre where we were treated to a spectacular, Friday evening performance of ‘The Story of Kung Fu’. This was a visual spectacle of colour, costume, dance and song with computerized special effects.
Then it was an early start on Saturday morning to travel out of Beijing city to walk on the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. As the only man-made structure on earth visible from space Mutianyu is one of the best-preserved parts of the Great Wall, It historically served as the northern barrier defending the capital and the imperial tombs.
We opted for a combination of walking and cable car or gondola over the 4,000+ steps as we joined hundreds at this mainly granite barrier which was started in the sixth century. Our particular cable car had apparently transported the United State’s President’s wife, Michelle Obama, which we hoped meant it was doubly safe as we sped up the steepest part of the mountainside to the biggest watchtower on the wall. This section of the Great Wall is surrounded by forest and streams although with winter fast approaching, everything looked bare and brown.
Numerous photographs later and an equally speedy trip down the mountainside, we were taken to a nearby model village and shown around an American-Chinese project. A former brickworks and school building have retained their outer facades and been refurbished to offer ultra-comfortable accommodation for tourists and Chinese looking for a chance to get away from the city for weekends or holidays.
To top off a memory-filled day, we returned in the late afternoon to stroll with thousands of locals and tourists in Tian’anmen Square where we were dwarfed and surrounded by imposing, buildings, statues and decorations and a sense of historical events learned from text books and the news.
The square (more of a rectangle), is named after the Tiananmen gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) and was built in 1415 during the Ming Dynasty. It was the site of several important events in Chinese history but outside China, it is best known in recent memory as the focal point of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, a pro-democracy movement which ended on 4 June 1989 with the declaration of martial law in Beijing by the government and the shooting of several hundred or possibly thousands of civilians by soldiers.
The year after the death of their revered leader Mao in 1976, a Mausoleum was built near the site of the former Gate of China and the square was further increased in size to accommodate 600,000. With temperatures fast dropping to below 9 degrees, but warmed by the sights we had seen, we returned to our hotel.
*The Samoa Observer Newspaper Group’s Coordinator of Newspaper in Education (N.I.E), Marj Moore, is in China. She is part of a Pacific Islands joint Press Delegation to China.
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