Top photo: Dark Beijing street with a man pushing a cart of goods.
Bottom photo: Tianammen Square. The Communist red flags are “red flags” that repression is here.
Upon arriving in Beijing on Monday evening, March 24th, I was surprised to find myself in a city that reminded me too much of the former Soviet Union. Despite the super-modern buildings that I admired while stuck in traffic from the airport to my hotel near Tianammen Square, the copycat Soviet look of gray one-story buildings, poorly lit roads, and trolley buses made me think I was in a Chinese version of Russia. The grayness was only broken up by the flashing neon lights of big stores and the colors of the small fruit sellers and flower shops next to small pornographic magazine stores. Oh and the aroma! The odor of the diesel fuel and dust brought me back instantaneously to the land of the first Communist Revolution. I read in my guidebook that Chairman Mao ordered the destruction of the Imperial Walls of the city to make room for wider boulevards mimicking the “communist fashion” of street planning that Stalin baptized as Communist vogue. What was Mao thinking? Why would anyone want to follow the architectural folly of Stalin and destroy centuries of history? I bet the ancient walls of the city looked a lot better than the grey buildings and avenues of Stalin Mode. Maybe Mao was color blind and didn’t notice the drastic difference between ornate red and green Chinese door designs and the plain “equalizing” grayness of his Communist brethren to the east.