MAO ZEDONG MEMORIAL HALL Siobhan and I slept in on the Tuesday morning on which we planned to be the first people in line at the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall in Beijing. The embalmed remains of the Chinese leader have been on display here since shortly after his death in 1976. The hall is currently open from 8 a.m. to noon every day except Monday. Admission is free. By the time we crossed under the underpasses, arrived in Tiananmen Square, passed through the ...

(This is not a photo of the Great Wall of China. Rather, it is of a dragon boat, the likes of which you can ride at the Summer Palace here in Beijing, for a fee. We will post our photos of the Great Wall when we overcome certain technical difficulties...) CLIMBING THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA Following the advice of the great leader, Chairman Mao, who said, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man," we arrive at the Great Wall at ...

MEMORIAL HALL OF THE NANJING MASSACRE The taxi driver required no prodding to take us to the Memorial Hall. He knew the place. Everybody in Nanjing knows the place. And probably everybody in China knows of the place, or, at the very least, of the war crime that happened here. In December of 1937, the Japanese Army attacked Nanjing, then the capital city of China. A great number of soldiers defending the city and civilians trapped inside were killed in th...

SHIJIAZHUANG Sometimes national historic sites can disappoint. I'll give you an example. When precocious little Brendan was only about five or six years old, we took him along to visit the Bell Homestead in Brantford, Ontario, where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. We took the tour, looked at all the exhibits, read the plaques, and were getting ready to go when Brendan piped up to the tour guide and wisecracked (something to the effect of),...

Xi'an The drummers begin their performance with a flourish. Five of them, three men and two women in Tang Dynasty costumes (circa 500-900 AD), begin beating red drums of various sizes and shapes in a very nicely chereographed and arranged percussion piece. We are in the Drum Tower in central downtown Xi'an at 9am sharp. There are two restored ancient Tang Towers: big pagoda-shaped square buildings dating from about 1500 years ago, from which, at dawn and dus...