- best-of
A sea of photographers stood atop Jingshan Hill, tripods planted against the wind.
They faced south. Waiting.
Someone beside me checked the time.
Another adjusted a neutral-density filter.
Nobody spoke much.
We all looked down toward the Forbidden City, waiting for sunset—waiting for the palace lights to come on.
~
From above, I could almost trace our footsteps.
Temple of Heaven Park; the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest.
The paths were full of people. Men sat at stone tables, women gathered beneath the trees, and groups had claimed patches of open ground for their morning activities. We followed the paths into the park, with the hall’s roof rising above the trees ahead of us.
Dani and I took the paths through the trees, kicking through fallen leaves as we went. The Ginkgo leaves covered the walkways. The wind sent them spinning across the paths in yellow swirls.
Dani scooped them up and threw them at me while I tried to take photographs. I ducked, she laughed, and the camera kept coming up.
Women moved through the greenery, picking up fallen ginkgo fruit. Nearby, a group practiced martial arts. Another practiced ballroom dancing. A few men worked through sword movements. Somewhere across the park, a bullwhip cracked. Along the stone walls, birdcages hung in a row. I couldn’t work out why they were there.
At last, we’d reached the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest where hundreds of older men sat at stone tables and along the railings, playing mahjong. The tiles were thick porcelain, clacking against the tabletops as the men arranged their hands. The men held their tiles like dominoes, sorting them in their hands.
We’d threaded our way past the tables, keeping our voices down, then bought tickets and entered the temple grounds.
The courtyard was square, its white marble paving laid out beneath the open sky. At the center stood the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, round and tiered, with its blue conical roof.
The contrast was hard to miss.
Square courtyard. Circular building.
The emperors came here to pray for good harvests. They offered sacrifices of animals and silk, asking Heaven to provide for the kingdom. The emperor ruled from the rectangular walls of the Forbidden City, but here, beneath the circular roof, he performed the ceremonies that connected his rule to Heaven.
We’d headed north after that, moving to Tiananmen, trying underground passages first.
One staircase took us into a metro station. We followed signs, came back up, and found ourselves on the wrong corner.
Another passage led somewhere else.
We came back out.
A police officer stopped us at a turn that looked open on the map.
We backed up.
Dani eventually found a side passage inside one of the metro stations. It led through to another street.
We followed the sidewalk north and found a line at a folding table.
Bags opened.
Passports handed over.
Questions asked in quick, flat tones.
The officer looked at me.
“Why are you here?”
I wasn’t sure whether he meant Tiananmen Square or China.
I nodded anyway.
He kept looking at me.
I stood there for another second before realizing he was waiting for me to move.
Inside, the square became enormous.
Concrete stretched in every direction.
Flags moved in the distance.
Buildings sat beyond the edges.
People filled the space in loose clusters, walking, stopping, taking pictures, then moving again.
For a minute, neither of us said anything.
Then another minute.
I looked around.
There were no timelines.
No photographs.
No signs explaining what had happened here.
Instead there were barricades bolted to the pavement, narrow lanes forcing people toward checkpoints, and military police walking through the crowd with megaphones.
A voice came over one of them.
I couldn’t understand the words.
I kept thinking about the photograph.
The man in the white shirt.
The tanks.
I looked across the square.
There was nothing in front of me that looked like the photograph.
Just the concrete.
The people.
The barricades.
The police.
Dani touched my arm.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
We walked back toward the checkpoint.
Across the road, we found the Gate of Heavenly Peace beneath Mao’s portrait.
Somewhere beyond it lay the security checkpoint where we’d once again emptied our bags and handed over our passports.
Beyond that stretched the Palace courtyards we’d crossed one after another until they blurred together.
From up here, the palace looked whole.
Inside, it hadn’t.
Dani’s and my audio guides had drifted out of sync—each telling different stories despite our standing a mere twenty feet apart.
We’d wandered into side buildings that turned out to be gift shops disguised as galleries.
We’d found a hole sections of the complex hiding behind additional ticket gates.
The guidebook promised nearly ten thousand rooms.
We mostly found courtyards, locked doors, and souvenir stores.
From here, the missing pieces disappeared.
The roofs rolled away in perfect rows. Each ridge lined with tiny ceramic figures marching toward the corners.
The courtyards formed a rhythm impossible to see while standing inside them.
Only now, looking down from Jingshan Hill, could I understand the size of the place we’d spent the afternoon walking.
~
The photographers shifted on the hill.
Cameras clicked.
Dani shivered
The wind moved through us, carrying incense, pine, and the faint smell of ginkgo from the temple below.
I put my camera down and wrapped my arms around her.
The sun dropped lower.
Below us, warm light spread across the palace roofs until they glowed like hammered gold.
The walls deepened toward red.
Shadows pooled between the halls.
Someone near me muttered.
Nothing happened.
No floodlights flickered on.
No walls illuminated.
The palace slowly disappeared into the evening while the city beyond came alive instead.
Office towers dissolved into neon.
Giant video screens bloomed through the smog.
Headlights stitched bright lines through Beijing.
One by one, the photographers packed their tripods and disappeared into the darkness.
The Forbidden City faded into silhouette.
The golden roofs surrendered to shades of blue.
The blue tiles stayed