Friday 21 August 2009

Moving On

 
One of the most difficult things for me was getting my head around the Chinese attitude to the past. From the immediate evidence: the way that historical buildings are "restored", the buldozing of the shanty towns, the absence of mementos of the past, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Chinese only value the past for what it can give them in the future. This, the Socialist Statue, is one of the only images that hint to the communist background. But then, on the day that Mao's toumb is open, the queue stretches right around the block - and Tiananmen Square is the largest block in the world. Makes you realise, it's all a lot more complicated than it seems at first.

1 comment:

Blue Witch said...

I felt the same about the indigenous people not valuing the past when I was in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is fast disappearing home in tourists' bags because no-one is stopping or supervising them. But, when you look at the problems the people have just to survive, it's unsurprising. Our own working population was just the same 150 years ago.