The Forbidden City was packed with tourists. Most of them were Chinese, and many of them hadn't seen Westerners before. Some of them took photos of our tour group, as if we were more of a tourist attraction than Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (our tour guide called it "holy ground," reminding me of an excellent viewpoint I read about visiting China).
In a way, the Chinese tourists helped us get a scale of how many people live in China. The day we visited was just a random hot Friday, but there were still many Chinese who had never seen Westerners before. It must be like that every day. One of our tour group said, "Have you ever even seen this many people before in one place? This place is huge, and it's packed." I tried to think. At the Olympics? Maybe at Lollapalooza, or SummerFest?
Pictured: Trying to get as far away from the tourists as I can while sitting in the Forbidden City
Reminds me of the Chinese tourists taking our photo in HK.
ReplyDeleteI had a few moments like when you were walking down the steps of St Paul's in Macau, wanting to knock people out of the way :)
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