Beijing - Tiananmen Square

Event date: 4th December 2006

An airport clearance a day before was pretty smooth. Lily was already there waiting with a comfy coach to take us to the bus. We stayed at the same hotel for few nights. The first stop of our visit on the 1st day was to Tiananmen Square. We took a family photo (again) here.

Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, named after the Tiananmen Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the 3rd largest city square in the world, 440,000 m², 880m x 500m. It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history including a 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 death of several hundred or possibly thousands of civilians.

The Tiananmen Gate (seen in below photo) to the Forbidden City was built in 1415 during the Ming Dynasty. Towards the demise of the Ming Dynasty, heavy fighting between Li Zicheng and the early Qing emperors damaged (or perhaps destroyed) the gate. Li Zicheng was a Chinese rebel leader who overthrew the Ming Dynasty and ruled over China briefly as emperor of the short-lived Shun Dynasty(1 year from 1644 to 1645). The Tiananmen square was first designed and built in 1651. It has now being enlarged four times its original size in the 1950s.

In the early 1950s, the Gate of China seated on the site was demolished, allowing for the enlargement of the square. In November 1958 a major expansion of Tiananmen Square started, which was completed after only 11 months, in August 1959. This followed the vision of Mao Zedong to make the square the largest and most spectacular in the world, of he intended to hold over 500,000 people. In that process, a large number of residential buildings and other structures have been demolished.

As part of the 10 Great Buildings constructed between 1958-59 to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the Great Hall of the People and the Revolutionary National Museum of China (seen behind the monument in below photo) were erected on the western and eastern sides of the square. Upon Mao Zedong's death in 1976, a Mausoleum was built near the site of the former "Gate of China". Thus, the square was further increased at its present size to become fully rectangular and being able to accommodate 600,000 persons.

The Square, located in the center of the city, is readily accessible by public transportation. Line 1 of the Beijing Subway has stops at Tiananmen West and Tiananmen East, respectively, to the northwest and northeast of the Square on Chang'an Avenue. Line 2's Qianmen Station is directly south of the Square. There are many city buses no. 1, 4, 10, 22, 37, 52, 59, 120, 125, 126, 203, 205, 210, 728 and 802 stop north of the Square. Buses 2, 5, 7, 9, 17, 20, 44, 48, 53, 54, 59, 110, 120, 120, 309, 337, 703, 726, 729, 742, 744, 744, 803, 808, 819, 820, 821, 826, 848, 859, 922 stop to the south of the Square.

The Monument to the People's Heroes is a ten-story obelisk (in below photo) was erected as a national monument of the People's Republic of China to the martyrs of revolutionary struggle during the 19th and 20th centuries. The monument was built in accordance with a resolution of the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference adopted on 30 November 1949, constructed between August 1952 to May 1958. The architect of the monument was Liang Sicheng, with some elements designed by his wife, Lin Huiyin. Behind the monument is the National Museum.

Beautiful lamp post surrounding the square.

Again, we posed for another family photo before headed to the next pit stop, Forbidden City.

Our group photo with Tiananmen Gate to the Forbidden City as a background photo. There were 15 adults and 9 children's altogether.