Peking University
Peking University, in northwestern Beijing and on part of the former Summer Palace, is generally regarded as being the top university in China, although Nanjing University is rising rapidly and sometimes lays claim to that title. We spent one day at Peking University visiting the Center for Environmental Sciences. Here are some photos of what we saw, particularly the beautiful grounds.
The first floor of this building is the dining hall for foreign students. We had lunch there. Pretty classy! The building on the right is part of the dormitory for foreign students.
Leaving the dining hall. Tennis, anyone?
More tennis courts; lots of construction work around the university.
Kelly and our colleague from CES beginning our walk around the campus after lunch.
Believe it or not, folks, this IS a university campus!
Guoshun, Kelly, and our colleague from CES.
The same, but with yours truly out from behind the camera.
Peking University's famous gate. On the left is an animal the Chinese call a lion, guarding the gate as a symbol of good luck. These animals always are set out in pairs. You can tell which are male and which are female by seeing what is under the left paw. If it's a baby animal, it's a female. If it's the world, it's a male. This one is a female. We were all happy about these animals until one day when Kelly called her mother and was told that, no, they are DOGS, not lions. Then ensued a great debate that lasted the rest of the trip. I would say "lion"; she would say "dog." Our Chinese friends just laughed at us for even considering that it they could be dogs. Four things eventually semi-settled it: (1) there are no lions in Asia; (2) the creatures always wore little bells around their necks, and we knew of no one who would be crazy enough to tie a bell around a lion's neck; (3) dogs really do guard houses, but lions don't; and (4) we finally saw a couple Chinese statues of lions, and they don't look anything like these guys! But we are left with 1.6 billion Chinese convinced that they are lions. Two of us versus 1.6 billion of them is no contest. When in China, they are lions! (You can get a closer view of one of them in the next picture.)
Kelly with her new friend the male lion. Note how he is holding the earth under his right paw.
The entrance to the "Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University," a classy little museum on local archaeology that we visited after lunch.
What a nice place to spend a lazy noontime, as the guy lying on the bench has already discovered.
Believe it or not, this is just an administrative building. The yellow sign says "Graduate School." My graduate school was never like this!
I know it's hard to believe that those are just university buildings in the background, but it's true.
Pagodas around every turn in the path—what a country, and what a way to end our brief tour of Peking University!