Beijing(Peking)北京市(Centrally administered municipality)

Published by qlewa, at 19:03, 2009, under Mainstream

May

Beijing Daxue, 北京大学 Bejing University, Peking University

Qinghua Daxue, 清华大学 Qinghua University, Tsinghua.University

Some travelers will certainly get the chance to visit one of Beijing's universities. The city's largest are Beijing Daxue(Beida) and Qinghua Daxue(Qinghua).

Today Beijing Daxue is the biggest university for humanities in the country. It has a student body and staff of 20,000. It was established in 1989 with American assistance and was called Yanjing Daxue at that time. in those days, the campus was close to Jingshan. Yanjing University soon became the meeting place of progressive young people. thoughts and ideas were developed here that students voiced in public during the may 4th Movement of 1919. New forces were constantly recruited from this university that advanced anti-Japanese resistance and the revolution. In 1953, the university was moved to the present campus grounds. This complex is the former Qianlong Emperor. In the meantime, many new building and dormitories have been added.

Chinese universities resemble small towns, where one lives, teaches and studies. Small stores supply teachers and students with all they university again became the center of confrontation with new thoughts.

There is a lake on campus. On its south shore lies the grave of Edgar Snow, an American journalist. Half of his ashes were buried here, the other half in Switzerland. Snow gained renown with his reports about scenes of the Chhinese Revolution, his book Red Star over China and his friendly relations to Mao Zedong. In 1972, Mao Zedong authorized Snow to give the American President Richard Nixon a signal that China was willing to discuss meetings with the USA.

Qinghua Daxue is the biggest university for the natural sciences and technology. There are more than 10,000 professors and students in 13 departments.

At the time of the Cultural Revolution, conditions at both schools were chaotic. Many professors, lecturers and employees were attacked politically and persecuted. In fact, almost all classes had to be cancelled. After the fall of the Gang of Four, the governing body of the university was reorganized. Teachers who had been persecuted unjustly were rehabilitated and reinstated in their old positions.

Yihe Yuan, The Summer Palace 颐和园
Open 7:00 am to 6:00 pm.
The Summer Palace, Yihe Yuan, Garden of Harmonious Unity, lies in a northwestern suburb of Beijing. This is one of the largest and best preserved Imperial Chinese gardens; it is an outstanding example of classical Chinese garden landscaping. Man-made Kunming Lake, Longevity Hill, the man-made hills as well as halls, pavilions and teemples blend harmoniously inspite of their individual styles. The method of 'borrowing', common to Chinese garden landscaping, was put into practice.