Meeting Mr. Mao - On the Roots of PRC

In 1949 a man named Mao Zedong was standing on a balcony at the Tiananmen Square and proclaimed that time of PRC (Peoples Republic of China) has begun. The whole Tiananmen Square itself is strictly guarded area and no matter which direction you enter there, you have to access through metal detector and your bags will be scanned. For Chinese people, police even scans their ID cards before they are allowed enter (guess to check are they suitable or not) but for tourists that doesn’t happen all the time but passport check is possible but not likely, mine was checked once. But after all it is the parade sight of PRC for show off its greatness and power, a place where nothing ever happened… or how was it?

Now about 65 years later same nation is still standing and has become one of the world most powerful nations. The same man, Mao is lying in his mausoleum at the square. I have visited in Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow but it was tiny compared to this one. And the security to get in there: You have to have your own passport with you, you can’t carry any kind of bags or cameras or you will be pulled out from queue and told to take them a locker before visiting, and go to the end of the queue which can be annoying because during public holidays / tourist seasons etc. you might need to queue hours to get in the mausoleum. Before entering you have to walk through metal detector plus you will be scanned also manually if it beeps which often happens because of belt for example. Visit in Mausoleum itself don't take more than max. 10 minutes because it is not allowed to stop inside. First hall has a big white marble statue of Mao and place where people could leave white roses (and there were lots of them), in second hall was Mao himself lying in a crystal coffin with two honour guards standing in a uniforms 24/7 beside the coffin, and third hall had some writings and revolutionary paintings on the walls.

Other buildings on East and West sides of the square are National Museum of China and the Great Hall of People. The Great Hall of People is the place where the National People’s Congress (“parliament”) is gathering for its meetings and many other national and international events. The main hall where meetings are held looked more like a theatre than actual parliament, which is probably because of red colour but I still see it slightly ironic. Besides that hall there are many smaller meeting rooms for each province to have their own which is of course decorated on provinces own style. That is the idea I l really liked because it kind of illustrates the diversity of PRC. The picture shows view of the Shanghai Hall.

National Museum of China is also possibly one of the biggest museums where I have visited, I wish that I would have hat the step meter to count how much I walked just inside the museum. In the museum there were some changing exhibitions and some permanent exhibitions, I was more interested in permanent ones because they were connected to China’s history in various ways. Buddhist sculptures, China’s money, Ancient China Bronze or Jade art… The two exhibitions I would recommend everyone to see is “Ancient China”, which allows visitor to walkthrough all way Chinas history from pre-historic age, through all the dynasties and “The Road of Rejuvenation” which starts tells the history of PRC all way until modern days. Those two exhibitions gives a good overlook and understanding of China.

 Oh, and then there was idea of exhibition that I haven’t ever seen, which was really cool! It was about gifts given to China from other nations/organizations important politicians etc. Obviously on those kind of gifts every nation wants to highlight its own national proudness and cultural heritage so it was interesting to look what kind gifts were given from different parts of worlds. Some of them were easy to spot from distance where the gift was from, I even found gifts given from Finland to China – three different pieces.