A day in the Forbidden City

It shouldn’t have been strange. And yet it was. For the first time in her life she was surrounded by people that looked like her. Asiatic faces with slanting black eyes, black hair and skin of varying yellow hues. A lack of self-consciousness and no pronounced fashion flair or self awareness of any kind, it seemed. For the first time she felt truly invisible and anonymous, swallowed by the immensity of the scale of the city and the fact that she looked so like every other person.

Outside, serried lanes of traffic inched past in a haze of pollution. Already the freshness of the morning air was fading into a slight stickiness as the temperature increased. Tiananmen Square, and its vast emptiness, was bathed in a weak, sickly sunlight. What had happened to the waves of cyclists that used to flood the streets of Beijing?

The human-sized palaces and chambers of the Forbidden City were strangely empty and desolate, aware of their lost grandeur and plundered treasures. Tourists, snapping away in sunshine and in shadow could not fill its empty spaces. Time seemed to stand still as she wandered aimlessly in the heat from palace to palace. Strange shapes, ridged outlines of sloping roofs were mounted by dragons and phoenixes; circular doorways opened up upon small courtyards, gilded lions guarded the stone steps to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity, still tranquil despite foreign intruders.

Alone, in the gift shop, she was relieved to find that she was not the only one reduced to persona non grata when it became apparent that she didn’t speak the language.  Other strangers were summarily ignored, but travelling in large groups, they could reassure themselves that they did, indeed, exist. Really, it was better not to attempt to speak, to avoid the shutters coming down over the inscrutable Oriental visage when she did. The turning away of the head. The complete lack of interest in her non-person. It was a sobering experience.

That was China, May, 2007.

Since then, her conception of China has changed. The Beijing Olympics brought the glamour of sport, and sporting success, sophisticated and innovative new buildings, re-invented the city, and presented China with a new image of global credibility. China has turned her face to the West. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has ushered in new everything: a new consumerism, new self-awareness, new pride in everything Chinese, and now, she too, has learnt to love being Chinese.

© Su Yin Chan 22/02/2014