Eric's Beijing Diary

I think I might be getting tired of going to Tiananmen Square on National Day. Boy, the subways were crowded, especially Line 1! I avoided the Xizhimen interchange by taking Line 10 to Line 5 and heading straight down to Dongdan. But Line 1 was really crazy. I used to feel sorry for sardines. Yesterday I envied them.

People come to Beijing from all over the country, and this year many of them came to see the Bird's nest as well; tickets were 50 kuai just to get a look at the famous place where it all happened. But the Tiananmen Square itself is very big. You can have quite a crowd there, and still have room to move around. If you're a foreigner, you could end up spending a good bit of time posing for pictures. Sometimes it's just a matter of having flashes going off around you--one guy in the subway station kept walking backwards in front of me while he was taking pictures. But other times you have to let everyone in the family take turns standing by you, while Dad takes a portrait of each one. Folks from the countryside want to show the neighbors back home all the strange things they saw in the big city. I try to be good humored about it, because I take pictures, too. But I don't have quite as much nerve as some of the people who take pictures of me. God bless China.