Tiananmen
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Heavy smog chokes a third of China’s cities at year’s start The nation burns millions of tons of coal in the north during the winter.
Heavy smog has blanketed a third of China’s cities, including its capital Beijing, with 62 issuing health alerts since Jan. 1, officials said. The hazardous air has forced hundreds of flight cancellations or delays and is forecast to linger into the weekend in some areas. The concentration of PM2.5 particles — which pose the greatest health risks because they can become lodged in the lungs — was 475 micrograms per cubic meter near Tiananmen Square at 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to the municipal air-monitoring website. The World Health Organization recommends PM2.5 exposure of no more than 25 micrograms over a 24-hour period. Pollution was at medium or higher levels in 186 cities Tuesday, according to the latest update issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. About 25 cities, including Shijiazhuang and Baoding in Hebei Province and Jinan and Dezhou in Shandong, have issued red alerts, the highest level pollution warning, prompting vehicle use restrictions and industrial production curbs, the ministry said. In Beijing, city streets are full of pedestrians wearing masks, while many individuals and companies rely on expensive air filters to cut indoor levels of toxic air. Northern China is particularly polluted in winter because of a combination of fog and other weather conditions that trap industrial and auto emissions and those from burning millions of tons of coal used for heating in below-freezing temperatures. Calls for the government to get tough and clear the skies has led to some punishment for companies, but local officials also must balance enforcement actions with the central government’s goals to keep economic growth humming. Heavy pollution could remain until Saturday, officials said. Beijing, Tianjin and 20 other cities have extended their orange alerts, the second-highest level. More than 430 flights were canceled Sunday in Beijing and neighboring Tianjin, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. More than 180 flights have been canceled in Zhengzhou, stranding 1,000 passengers in the capital of Henan, while 164 flights were scrubbed in Hebei’s capital, Shijiazhuang, local media reported. By noon Wednesday, 14 flights had been canceled at Beijing Capital International Airport and average delays had reached 36 minutes, according to Flightaware.com. Beijing environmental officials said Tuesday that overall air quality had improved in 2016, with the total number of “blue sky days” up 12 from 2015 and the average PM2.5 measure dropping 9.9 percent to an average of 73 micrograms.
From Tiananmen to THIS: The new world of Chinese photography
By Wilfred Chan Shanghai, China (CNN) Liu Heung Shing knows how to be at the right place at the right time. In 1989, that was Tiananmen. Then a photographer for AP, he remembers how other journalists went home as the protests dragged on. "I told them not to leave," he says. "They didn't listen." Days later, the tanks rolled in — and Liu became one of a few to document the Tiananmen Square massacre, creating images that stunned the world. Now 65, he's back in China for very different opportunity: An exploding interest in a new wave of contemporary Chinese photography that rides at the art world's cutting edge, while leaving out the politics of the past. The biggest show in town Liu, the founder of the new Shanghai Center of Photography (SCoP), is one of the featured guests at PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai, in its third year already one of China's largest international art fairs. The glitzy gathering attracts top galleries, collectors, and VIPs. Even the city's vice-mayor is there, posing with Liu for a photo-op. Like many things in China, photography has a long history with the Communist Party, which dominated the country's image production for decades. Only in the 80s did a counternarrative emerge, in the form of politically charged art and documentary photography. That was yesterday. Now, as China strives for recognition on the international cultural stage, its contemporary photography has mirrored global trends, focusing less on social reality and more on form. Gone are the black and white, bleeding heart photographs of Liu's generation. What's hot are mixed media works that play with the physical contortion and transformation of images, approaching pure aesthetic. 'A new art form' Championing this movement is PHOTOFAIRS' artistic director Alexander Montague-Sparey. "Photography needs to move away from memory to more abstract practices," he says. "Photography is becoming like painting — we're almost creating a new art form." The British director sees Chinese photo artists as new global trendsetters. "They generally have a maverick approach to the medium," he tells me. "They're not trying to fit in as Western artists are." He praises Wang Ningde, an artist who creates a composite of film negatives sliced and rebuilt into an "unnerving" sculpture-like work, that reveals itself only when light shines through. "I've never seen work like this being done in the West," he says. The work has another advantage: It won't get censored. "Any kind of historical reference to Communism or anything too politically overt has to be controlled," says Montague-Sparey. "That's totally normal." Blank walls For its part, the Chinese government is eager to develop this new photography-art scene. Ten kilometers south of PHOTOFAIRS, Liu Heung Shing's lush, light-filled Shanghai Center of Photography sits on a quiet plot. The museum is one of the pioneering institutions of an ambitious state-backed project called the West Bund — the name of a semi-governmental firm with a tract of land it hopes to transform into China's version of New York's Museum Mile. Like PHOTOFAIRS, SCoP aims to push photography in a new direction. "China's government doesn't care if you want to manipulate photographs and so on," says Liu. "There's much more room to develop for artists doing photography, rather than photographers doing photography in traditional sense." Liu introduces me to the West Bund's general manager, Gan Jin, who says the choice to open a photography center was pragmatic. "It takes time to incubate people's appreciation of art. I thought photography is the most blunt, fastest way. People don't have the patience for traditional mediums." The suggestion is photography can jump-start the buying of art by China's new middle class — flush with cash and hungry for cultural entrée. Liu says it's "an obvious opportunity... people have so much private property. But you go into their houses and they still have blank walls with silly calendars." The challenge is convincing people to buck up thousands for a photograph. Montague-Sparey is still trying to educate cautious new buyers about editioning. PHOTOFAIRS does not exhibit any photo with an edition greater 25, guaranteeing each print's value. But it'll take time to "create and enforce the rules." Meanwhile, foreign collectors are learning how to place Chinese photography into a tradition that's been dominated by Westerners. Montague-Sparey says he exhibits "canonical" works next to Chinese works to show a "progression." For example, the photos of Robert Mapplethorpe next to the sensual art of Yang Fudong. 'Absurdity, difficulty' As the market has changed, so has the art. Mimi Chun, the director of Hong Kong's Blindspot Gallery, has noticed a shift in China's scene from what she terms "export art" in the 90s, which heavily referenced Chinese culture for an outside audience, to new work using a "very universal" language. "I don't think you necessarily have to understand anything about China or Chinese to understand these works. Which is very different from the work that was made in the 90s. "I'm not saying whether that's good or bad," she adds. "Just trying to draw a defining line about what's changed." One of Blindspot's represented artists is Cai Dongdong, featured prominently at PHOTOFAIRS. Years ago a photographer known for making charged black and white images, Cai now uses physical objects like mirrors to transform preexisting photographs, a reflection of his discomfort with putting new images into the world. "It is now very difficult to distinguish Western and Chinese audiences," Cai tells CNN Style. "I have withdrawn the role of image-making to start thinking from the perspective of the audience, and to contemplate the absurdity and difficulty of accepting an image." It's reflective of an important shift in China's visual culture — once revered, the straight photograph has lost much of its social meaning. That may be because some images are still forbidden to be seen. Naturally absent from PHOTOFAIRS and SCoP are any trace of Liu's famous Tiananmen pictures — records of the past that remain the most elusive and unspeakable of all.
Tiananmen Square
Located at the center of Beijing City and the midpoint of Chang'an Avenue is the remarkable Tiananmen Square, where you can visit the Tiananmen Tower, Monument to the People's Heroes, Great Hall of the People, Chairman Mao Zedong Memorial Hall and see the national flag raising ceremony. Thousands of people come to the Square every day. It is the must place to visit in Beijing City. Tiananmen Tower At the north end of the Square is Tiananmen Tower. Initially built in 1417 during the Ming Dynasty (1368 A.D.- 1644 A.D.), the Square was the front door of the Forbidden City. The most important use of it in the past was to declare in a big ceremony to the common people who became the emperor and who became the empress. Until 1911 when the last feudal kingdom was over, no one could enter the Tower except for the royal family and aristocrats. Monument to People's Heroes The granite Monument to the People's Heroes is just at the center of the square. Built in 1952, it is the largest monument in China's history. ' The People's Heroes are Immortal' written by Chairman Mao is engraved on the monument. Eight unusually large relief sculptures show to the people the development of Chinese modern history. Two rows of white marble railings enclose the monument, simple and beautiful. Great Hall of the People West of the Square is the Great Hall of the People. This building, erected in 1959, is the site of the China National People's Congress meetings and provides an impressive site for other political and diplomatic activities.Twelve marble posts are infront of the Hall which has three parts--the Central Hall, the Great Auditorium and a Banqueting Hall.The floor of the Central Hall is paved with marble and crystal lamps hang from the ceiling. The Great Auditorium behind the Central Hall seats 10,000. The Banqueting Hall is a huge hall with 5,000 seats. Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao is at the south side of the Square. This Hall is divided into three halls and our dear Chairman Mao's body lies in a crystal coffin in one of the halls surrounded by fresh bouquets of various famous flowers and grasses. National Museum of China Another important place for the tourist to visit is the China National Museum at the east side of the Square. It just came into existence in 2003 and is a combination of Chinese History Museum and Chinese Revolutionary Museum. This National Museum faces the Great Hall of the People. Inside the Chinese Revolutionary Museum are a lot of material objects, pictures, books and models to present the development of modern China. The Chinese History Museum shows a large number of cultural relics illustrating the long history and glorious culture of China from 1,700,000 years ago to 1921 when the last emperor left the throne. Flag-Raising Ceremony Five Star Red Flag-the Chinese national flag, flies high in the sky above the Square. To see the guard of honor raise the Flag is a must for the tourist visiting Beijing City. You have to get up very early and arrive at the Square before sunrise. Only by doing so can you see the ceremony clearly as there are crowds of people attending the ceremony every day. The reviewing stands flanking Tiananmen Tower on the west and east sides were opened up free on the first day of 2012 to the public to watch the flag rising ceremony. It is now available to group reservations for the opening day on the first day of each month.
Knowledge Graph
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1 The Tiananmen is a famous monument in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China.
2 Tiananmen is widely used as a national symbol. First built during the Ming dynasty in 1420, Tiananmen is often referred to as the front entrance to the Forbidden City.
3 Tiananmen is located to the north of Tiananmen Square, separated from the plaza by Chang'an Avenue.