Beijing, June 29th, 2007
The day after Yu and I completed the field work for the "Imaging Beijing" project I decided to go do some of the tourist things people are supposed to do in Beijing. I had spent the first morning of the trip at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was impressive but I was anxious to get out into the living city. Aside from that I had not been to any tourist site to speak of. I decided to take a subway over to the Old Summer Palace to see the ruins from the Franco Anglo invasion, which the men from the hutong had spoke of, and then walk over to the Summer Palace. I estimate the walk to the Summer Palace to be about five miles. I was walking in the general direction but drifting off the beaten path into the neighborhoods. I might have wandered into a military installation because I found myself surrounded by people in uniforms. I played dumb tourist and pointed to the Summer Palace on my map. They politely pointed the way I had come and I walked back out to the main road. I continued on for about an hour, found a market where I photographed some, and then stopped to take some shots of some old neon signs. All of the sudden, someone grabbed me by the arm and shook it, blurring the shot. I turned to find the same group of uniformed people surrounding me. This time they were not at all polite, instead they seemed quite agitated. When I pulled my map out to point at the Summer Palace, one woman began to push me in that direction. I waved and started to walk. When I reached the street I decided it might be a good time to get a cab. As I was standing there, the group pulled up slowly in their police car. One of them opened the rear door and gestured for me to get in. I smiled and shook my head and continued to try to hail a cab. Then the man insisted that I get in. I honestly did not know whether I was being detained or if they were going to give me a ride to the Summer Palace. I was quite relieved, as you can imagine, when we pulled up at the entrance to the Summer Palace.
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