Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Běijīng, you can picture them speedily targeting the NCPA, sometimes also known as the
National Grand Theatre, which rises like some huge reflective mushroom nosing up from
the ground. Stand between the Great Hall of the People and the NCPA and measure, sym-
bolically at least, how far China has come in the past 50 years. Despite protestations from
designers that its round and square elements pay obeisance to traditional Chinese aesthet-
ics, they're not fooling anyone: the NCPA is designed to embody the transglobal (trans-
galactic, perhaps) aspirations of contemporary China. While modernists love it to bits, tra-
ditionalists see it as a further kick in the teeth for 'old Peking'.
Examine the bulbous interior, including the titanic steel ribbing of interior bolsters
(each of the 148 bolsters weighs 8 tonnes). Inside, you can tour the three halls, although
individual ones are occasionally shut.
GREAT HALL OF THE PEOPLE
( Rénmín Dàhuìtáng; adult ¥30, bag deposit ¥2-5; 8.30am-3pm (times vary); Tian'anmen West)
On the
western side of Tiān'ānmén Square, on a site previously occupied by Taichang Temple,
the Jinyiwei (Ming-dynasty secret service) and the Ministry of Justice, the Great Hall of
the People is the venue of the legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC). The
1959 architecture is monolithic and intimidating, and a fitting symbol of China's remark-
able political inertia. The tour parades visitors past a choice of 29 of its lifeless rooms
named after the provinces of the Chinese universe. Also here is the banquet room where
US president Richard Nixon dined in 1972, and the 10,000-seat auditorium with the famil-
iar red star embedded in a galaxy of ceiling lights. The Great Hall of the People is closed
to the public when the NPC is in session. The ticket office is down the south side of the
building. Bags must be checked in but cameras are admitted.
|PARLIAMENT
CHINA NUMISMATIC MUSEUM
|MUSEUM
( Zhōngguó Qiánbì Bówùguǎn; 6608 4178; 17 Xijiaomin Xiang; admission ¥10; 9am-4pm Tue-Sun, closed
when NPC in session; Tian'anmen West)
This intriguing three-floor museum follows the techno-
logy of money production in China, from the spade-shaped coins of the Spring and Au-
tumn period to the coinage and paper currency of the modern day. Of particular interest
are the top-floor samples of modern Chinese paper
renminbi
, from the pragmatic illustra-
tions of the first series to the far more idealistic third series (1962) and the fourth series
dating from 1987, still adorned with Mao's head.
|MUSEUM
CAPITAL MUSEUM
