This Sunday: From Dynasty to Republic
In only 2 weeks a gigantic portrait will be revealed on the Tiananmen Square, and it is not a painting of a communist leader, but the portrait of the first president of China - Sun Zhongshan, who took office in 1912. Sun Zhongshan has been celebrated like this on both May 1 and Oct 1 ever since the early 1950s.
The legacy of Sun Zhongshan is unique because both the Mainland and Taiwan honor him as a revolutionary hero that paved the way for new China. When the last emperor abdicated he was the one that personified the change. Quite literally he was the first to have his portrait hanging on the Tiananmen gate, and what we often refer to as a Mao-suit, because Mao Zedong constantly wore this kind of clothing, was actually a Chinese suit designed by Sun Zhongshan to replace the official Chinese Changpao.
Just a few hundred meters from the Tiananmen gate there is a park baring Sun Zhongshans name. It opened as the first public park in Beijing in 1913, this former imperial altar ground became a platform for reform in the capital. Intellectuals, high society ladies and revolutionaries would all gather here when the Zhongshan park was at the very center of pretty much any political or social movement in the capital.
The very symbol of how western style modernity reached Beijing is today located in the Zhongshan park
Join us when we will stroll through one hundred years of the Capital’s history in an afternoon, by visiting three of the most defining spaces of modern Beijing: Taimiao, The Zhongshan park and the Tiananmen Square before we land in the Beijing Postcards hutong gallery for a well-deserved drink.
10:00-12:30 Sunday, May 05