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Culture on Demand: From Dawn to Dusk
Beijing likes a public spectacle
By STAN STALNAKER
August
26, 2000
Web posted at 1:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 1:30 a.m. EDT
Sometimes, it's the simple things that matter most. Sunsets and stars matter a lot -- even though the majority of Asia seldom sees either through the urban haze that hangs over our megacities. And in some places, like Beijing, ceremony matters a lot, which is a good thing, since no one in Beijing has seen the sunset in quite a long time.
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The thick soupy air in Beijing sits on the city like a quilt, an oppressive mix of coal, exhaust and dust that blows from the northwest, off the Gobi Desert and plateau, and into the valley that shelters China's capital. Here, the air rests, collecting weight like a sumo wrestler collects pounds. Finally, it descends, silt on sidewalks and fine coal across cars. It makes it very difficult for the new establishment to keep their new Mercedes clean, and cycling during rush hour, well, let's just not think about that one.
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But
something else descends daily in Beijing, and it's a very interesting
public spectacle. If you happen to live there, you no doubt know that
traffic in front of Tiananmen Square is stopped, and at dusk soldiers
march perfectly from the Gate of Heavenly Peace to lower China's flag,
her emblem, from the giant pole standing resolute at the head of the
square.
The ceremony lasts about 15 minutes and is a study in precision. Just
as the sun sets, the police emerge to push aside the crowds, followed
by the soldiers, who lower the flag from the pole and return with
their emblem resting high upon a leading military shoulder. The flag
is knotted and twisted with razor sharp movements -- the moment is
a unique Chinese expression of power, quite unlike the quiet fold
seen in other countries.
Equally interesting are the crowds -- about 3,000 on any given day
-- that turn out to watch the spectacle. The event is marked with
anxiety and curiosity, as dusk falls with no setting sun, and the
only thing to mark the passage of the day becomes not the disappearance
of the sun, but the appearance of the soldiers, from the east, not
the west.
It's
hard to stand on Tiananmen without thinking of the incidents, both
distant and recent, which have shaped China. There was the 1989
crackdown, of course, which lends a certain fatalism to the space,
and there is a realization that this square has symbolized the hopes
and aspirations of many. It also makes you a bit philosophical --
"where am I?," one ponders, when the setting sun is lost in smoke,
replaced in your heart and mind with the setting of a symbol? At
the end of the day, maybe nationalism reigns after all.
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