We got our first view of the Forbidden City from across the street in Tian’anmen Square –  the site of the infamous 1989 student/police clash.  The City is a complex of palaces, halls, gardens, towers, and gates that form the world’s largest surviving palace.  It has 9,999 rooms and was completed in 1420 and served 24 emperors for 500 years.  No commoner saw the inside until the the last Dynasty (Qing Dynasty) fell in 1911.

John and I spent about three hours wandering the halls and courtyards.  It is immense, and they say it would take you 27 years to go into every single room.  We were in the outer courtyard when some American students told us that McCain had conceded and Obama had been declared the next president.  What a surreal moment that was there in the Imperial City to get that news.

Like everywhere we’ve been in China, the Forbidden City was full of crowds.  There’s always pushing and shoving and jockeying for position.  Let me give you two illustrations from today’s experience.  In the ladies’ rooms, women in the U.S. typically line up and the first in line gets the next available stall.  But in China you line up in front of each stall.  Today there was a western toilet among all the squatty potty stalls, so I stood with my nose to the stall door.  If I had been back a few paces, ladies would have just cut right in front of me.  I watched a few foreigners. who thought they were in line, look in amazement as Chinese ladies walked right past them and queued up in front of stalls further inside the room.

John has experienced a phenomena quite a few times over the past two weeks; today being no exception.  For some reason, the older women are particularly aggressive with him.  He gets literally pushed and bumped.

As we were wading through the crowds in front of the Palace of Harmony, a little old grandma elbowed him right in the side.  There was actually plenty of room for her to get by but she purposely jabbed him.  It’s happened so many times that it’s now amusing.  No one has done that to me.  I certainly get cut in front of and pushed a bit, but no kung fu jabs.