tofuwatch.com

Chinese official: Size of other squares eclipses Tiananmen, the heart of China

Oh, boy.

On the day that my thoughts turned to Tiananmen Square, in the sense of the vast public space near the Forbidden City and which is so central to China, comes word (in English, too) of an eyebrow-raising news story. It certainly prompts questions as to whether some Chinese people are lost in the new awakening occurring there. Or possibly, is a new push for privacy and freedom emerging?

It involves a former college professor, who in Mandarin would be addressed as “jiao shou.” But as my wife reminded me, some in China have taken to chat rooms to describe this instructor as “jiao shou.”

The pronunciation is the same. The Chinese characters are different. When these other Chinese characters are used, people are calling the person a “shouting animal” – essentially, a wild animal.

I’ll stick to Tiananmen Square and one of the more intriguing possibilities that I thought would never happen – that other public squares are larger in square meters than the symbolic center, or heart, of the People’s Republic of China.

Could it be true?

Mind you, Tiananmen Square covers 440,000 square meters and is the place where leaders – including President Hu Jintao and others – gather each year to mark the beginning of the Chinese Communist Party leading the country.

The large portrait of Mao Zedong looks down on all who pass in the square or those going to and from the Forbidden City. Zhongnanhai, the central headquarters for senior Chinese leaders, is nearby.

Military troops and others march in front of the leaders, nation and thanks to the Internet and television feeds, the world. Last year, Hu stood in a Chinese-made Red Flag limousine and addressed the troops as comrades.

Symbolically, the message was clear about who had the privilege to conduct such a review and the power to call soldiers, sailors, airmen, militia women and others in colorful, traditional garb for a grand review (see the embedded video from photojournalist Dan Chung).

Last year, in March, Chinese lawmaker Zhou Xiaoguang told reporters that Tiananmen Square – which blossomed as a central meeting place after the Communists gained control of the country – was no longer the largest in the country, and by extension, the world, according to a Xinhua article.

The Chinese news agency quoted him as saying:

Even some small townships have created squares 20,000 square meters bigger than the Tian’anmen square.

It appears that China’s race for luxurious, oversized construction apparently has pushed Tiananmen from the No. 1 spot on the list of largest public spaces on Earth.

From the Xinhua dispatch:

After a thorough investigation into the situation, the lawmaker said that a number of medium and small cities and townships have become craze in constructing mammoth government buildings with fairyland-like artificial lakes and squares….In China, there has been a long tradition of constructing oversized architects, such as mausoleums, palaces, dams and great walls, to show off the leaders’ merits.

The news article also identified Zhou as chairman of the Neoglory Group in Zhejiang province.

Zhou also did not list any of the squares that apparently are bigger than Tiananmen. But the news story carried a Xinhua tag to it and it was posted on China.org.cn.

China.org.cn is the authorized portal for China and has the support of the State Council Information Office.

There is no doubt that China can be a competitive place – what with 1.3 billion people or 20 percent of the world’s population and limited opportunities.

But if this is true, it’s fascinating that the competitive edge for the world’s largest square did not come from some other upstart country or mature one. Rather, the competition was internal – from townships and smaller cities.

In the sense of nationalistic pride, one could understand if the world’s largest square sprouted up in Shanghai, presuming the space was there. For years, senior Chinese leaders have favored the city, especially in shaping it as a regional, and possibly global, financial capital.

Keep in mind that Expo 2010 is going on in Shanghai.

For those who need a conversion from the metric system and presuming that my calculation is correct, Tiananmen Square covers 4,736,120 square feet. The China Daily has reported that is equivalent to 63 football fields.

Xinhua reported that it can hold more than 1 million people, meaning every single person in San Francisco could fit. For Seattle residents, the square could hold, in rough terms, two times the city’s population.

And you thought your high school graduating class or company photo had a bunch of people.

The space which is now Tiananmen Square was created in the 15th century as royal space for the Forbidden City, Xinhua noted. The gate itself – or Tiananmen – was built in 1417 during the Ming Dynasty.

Though it was originally a royal space, it became one for the public.

As part of the May Fourth movement in 1919, students arrived to oppose imperialism. They wanted a stronger Chinese government.

In the 1920s, it was an open area where people of various backgrounds could gather, according to political scientist David Strand.

In his book, Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s, he writes on Page 172 (which has footnotes):

During the twenties Beijing was the site of social movements, such as feminism, mass nationalism, and unionism, which gave new political meaning to public spaces like the area outside Tianan Gate. In the 1920s Tiananmen ‘square’ was not yet a square in the formal architectural sense. The local press referred to the spot as the ‘empty space outside Tianan Gate.’ Filling this space periodically with townspeople (shimin) and citizens (gongmin) projected an evocative, albeit fleeting, image of municipal and national solidarity. Since many other ‘public’ settings, like temples, guildhalls, teahouses and parks, were either restricted to private or corporate memberships, charged fees, or required purchases of food or drink, spaces opened up to all by the pressure of social movements were critical to the generation of a truly ‘mass’ politics.

Mao had the area expanded after he took power, which was 60 years ago.

Today, you can stroll through Tiananmen Square and keep in mind all of the historic moments that have happened there in China’s long history.

It’s long been a popular place for kite flyers and a place for visitors to stand for souvenir photographs.

It apparently is so big that people get lost in it and need to contact the police for help, the China Daily reported in 2006.

That year, during the country’s National Day holiday – a popular time for sightseeing – a reported 3,700 people became lost in Tiananmen Square, according to police and cited in the press.

From the China Daily article:

Long queues formed at lost-and-found centres, which broadcasted messages alerting lost people where to meet. Police also provided broadcast and telephone services. Some lost visitors gave up looking for loved ones and police provided public transport information so they could return home. Cleaning workers were kept busy having to remove 113.8 tons of rubbish on the square in the first three days of the holiday, 20 times the usual daily amount, according to the Beijing News. 

My wife and I did a quick search of the Internet to find out what other Chinese squares might be larger than Tiananmen. We found other squares, including Xinghai Square in Dalian.

 

One Dalian tourism site reports that it’s 45,000 square meters and apparently Asia’s largest municipal square.

But using that number, Tiananmen Square is larger at 440,000 square meters.

It’s also unclear as to whether that 45,000 square meters area only covers the yellow star or includes the landscaped portion in the second photo.

That travel site about Dalian notes:

It is almost three times larger than Tiananmen Square.

Whichever square is the largest, Tiananmen will still be central to the People’s Republic of China.

It always will be.

One Chinese man reportedly has more than 20,000 items that relate to Tiananmen Square.

And one Chinese science fiction writer envisions that Tiananmen Square will feature prominently in 2069, which will be the 120th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

How so?

Chinese astronauts, this writer says, will be able to salute Tiananmen Square from the moon.

Stay tuned.