Back from Beijing

I was lucky to have four days of professional development in Beijing last week.  It was full on, learning about the MYP (Middle Years Program) for Science.  The training was at Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) and I did get to see a lot of the highways to and from the hotel and the school.

 

However I had some free time on Wednesday afternoon and visited the Summer Palace.  It is the largest preserved Imperial Garden in China. The gardens were beautiful and the buildings historical and interesting.  The Tower of The Fragrance of the Buddha is one main  buildings in the 290 hectare complex of gardens, buildings and lakes.

My main impetus for visiting was that I have just been reading about the Dowager Empress Cixi in Jung Chang's biography.  She escaped from the Summer Palace with her husband the Emperor when Lord Elgin set fire to it in 1860 as French and English troops took over Beijing.  She later returned to live there and use it as a base from which to reign over and modernise China.  It's a great story and relevant today. Cixi was an amazing ruler, but still has a poor reputation in China today.  Information panels in the Summer Palace presented a contrary view on her legacy to that described in Chang's book.