On arrival in Beijing the Project Staff whisked me off to allow me to do some project management research at perhaps the greatest community development project of all time – the Forbidden City (or Imperial Palace Museum). What an amazing place (photos below) – covering a huge area (over 180 acres) the numerous palaces, gardens, squares and statues all tell the story of an amazingly complex stratified society that continues to influence, and attract the people of China.
The city itself is huge. There are images of the forthcoming Olympics everywhere and all kinds of structures are being built or renovated for the purpose. Everything is big – huge buildings, wide roads, (doesn’t make the driving better, just more space to be completely unpredictable).
Following this research I attended dinner meetings and project development consultancies in a traditional South Chinese restaurant – nothing too weird here, (they did want me to try deep fried and spiced chicken cartilage) it was all very nice and washed down with copious amounts of the ever present Chinese tea, (in this case Chrysanthemum tea). I’m getting so good with chopsticks too!
Whilst we ate, outside in the public square groups of people played ‘hacky sack’, little dogs danced, a couple of older men serenaded the passers with Chinese opera, a man fished in the lake, a couple of ‘fortune tellers’ solicited business and an older man told young children stories. It was an amazing picture of community and acceptance (the singers were not good!).
Tomorrow I leave the city to travel about 300km North to Inner Mongolia and my ultimate destination of Xinghe.
