PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Population: 1,313,973,000
Area: 9,326,411 sq. km.
Economy: In 2003, China ranked 88th on the UN Human Development Index survey and for 2007 ranked 4th in total GDP, with a per capita GDP of $1,912 (128th worldwide).
Main Language: Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, several regional dialects and languages)
Monkey's Name: Yìzhi Hóuzi (in Mandarin; tones tricky to convey phonetically)
Fun Fact: There are over 60,000 characters in written Chinese, but only about 4,000 are commonly used. College graduates tend to know about 6,000 characters, and only a few people manage to learn more than 15,000.
With the world's largest hydroelectric dam, the highest altitude train, the largest army, 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, 9 of the 20 tallest buildings (counting several in Hong Kong), some 235 living languages, the biggest population (over 19 percent of the world's people!), and, lamentably, the most executions, China is certainly a land of extremes. China is also one of the oldest continuous societies, arguably the leading civilization for 18 of the past 20 centuries (slipping in the 19th and 20th Centuries) and potentially en route to regaining its predominance in the current century. The Monkey was able to take in only a tiny portion of all this during his visits to China, but he plans to go back.
The Monkey's China pages are in development. Please enjoy this teaser page while he prepares the complete update.
Beijing's Tiananmen Square epitomizes the monumentality of several centuries of Chinese regimes, from the imperial splendor of the Forbidden City's outer gates to the monolithic Stalinist structures of the Communists. Here, the Monkey has a look at the Tiananmen Gate—an entrance to the Forbidden City, festooned for years with a famous portrait of revolutionary leader Mao Tsetung—as cyclists whir past.
Just outside Chengdu, the Monkey visited the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, one of two main centers dedicated to breeding the semi-ursine creature that has become synonymous with China. While the Monkey is vegetarian, he was not very excited by bamboo shoots and decided to leave the local delicacy's consumption to these sleepy experts.
Does it even need to be captioned? The Great Wall of China is one of the world's most iconic places. Stretching over 6400 kilometers and visible from space, the Great Wall—built beginning in the 5th Century BCE and refortified repeatedly right through the 16th Century CE—is the longest human-made structure in the world. Here, the Monkey hikes a stretch of the majestic wall between Jinshanling and Simatai, some 110 kilometers north of Beijing. A truly unforgettable experience.
The Monkey enjoyed the serenity of several Buddhist temples while in Asia, including the Wenshu Yuan complex in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Here, he peers upward at a narrow pagoda.
Shanghai is one of the world's most dynamic cities. Though inland, the highly navigable Huangpu River that bisects Shanghai has made it one of Asia's great port cities, and it is here where modern China's peculiar mix of communism and capitalism are most readily apparent. The Pudong district, across the river from the Monkey, is the locus of some of the most frantic highrise construction anywhere on the planet.
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