Temple of Heaven

Beijing city is layed out like a chess board or grid, if you will. With the Forbidden City/T-Square in the middle with everything else [less] important build around it. The Forbidden City is on a central axis that goes right through the middle of the city and anything else "important" in Beijing is built on that axis - for example, the Bird's Nest is built on the same axis but farther away.

Anyway, in each of the four corners of the city are temples: Temple of Heaven, Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Earth and Temple of the Moon. Each temple had a specific and special meaning at the time of the Emperor's ruling. He would go to the Temple of the Earth and pray for a good crop, etc. Because we had limited time, we only were able to see the Temple of Heaven but that is also the most well known one. We even saw the exact stone the Emporer used to stand on to "talk to the gods."

The three roofs of the Temple each have a different meaning as well. The bottom layer/circle roof represents the earth. The middle layer represents the people and the top layer represents heaven. The temple is also surrounded by a certain number of pillars, stones, etc. that each a have different meanings (4 pillars for the seasons, 12 more for the hours in a day, etc. but I didn't learn too much about those.)

The Chinese culture at large is very superstitious and certain numbers are better than others but everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in Chinese culture is based on numbers. It's quite fascinating but difficult to follow and remember. So, that's the Temple of Heaven. I have many more pictures but they all start to look the same after a while.

Next we moved from our hotel in Beijing to our new accomodations in Tianjin. We went to Tianjin Normal University (TNU) to talk to college students majoring in psychology and education to discuss our teaching modules with them. We got their feedback and it was so fun! They LOVED my dance modules and said it was all very creative. I taught them the cupid shuffle and did some hip hop for them - they just adored it all! We even ended up staying an extra hour to talk and play UNO with them because they were having so much fun with us.

By just hanging out and talking about everyday things with them, we were able to help them with their conversational English. Very fun. They were all so nice and HILARIOUS!