Names: Maarten & Philippe

Ages: 27 & 25

Hometown: Antwerp, Belgium

Beware of Chinese National Day!!

The Chinese celebrate their National Day with great zeal!!!  At this time all 1.6 billion Chinese citizens takes time off of work to head to Beijing to be there for the festivities!!  How is this going to affect your time in Beijing you ask??  Well Philippe and Maarten have the answer!!

As you can see by the picture they are blue eyed, blonde haired Europeans.  What does this mean in China…celebrities!!!  As they were walking around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City with the other 1.6 billion Chinese they were constantly hounded for pictures!!  It came to the point where they stood for ten minutes posing for photos as a “giant mass of Chinese people surrounded us taking photo after photo.”  The waves of photo craving Chinese would not have stopped if Philippe and Maarten had not just turned on their heels and booted it away from the crowd and headed to the safer confines of the hutong, the traditional Chinese neighborhoods of Beijing.

Lesson learned:  If you are a westerner and heading to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City Expect to have many photos taken with you.  Going to be in the Square near a major holiday???  Might as well avoid it outright!!