Last Chance to See

by Douglas Adams

We went to a restaurant called Crispy Fried Duck for dinner, and walking back through the city centre afterward we came to a square called Tiananmen. I should explain that this was October 1988. I had never heard the name Tiananmen Square, and neither had most of the world. The square is huge. Standing in it at night, you have very little idea of where its boundaries are, they fade into the distance. At one end is the gateway to the Forbidden City, the Tiananmen Gate, from which the great iconic portrait of Chairman Mao gazes out across the vastness of the square, out toward its farthest point, where there stands the mausoleum in which his body lies in state. In between these two, beneath his gaze, the mood was festive. Huge topiary bushes carved into the figures of cartoon animals had been imported into the square to celebrate the Olympics. The square was not full or crowded—it would take many tens or even hundreds of thousands of people to achieve that—but it was busy. Families were out with their children (or more usually, with their single child). They walked around, chatting with friends, milling about easily and freely as if the square were their own garden, letting their children wander off and play with others without an apparent second thought. It would be hard to imagine anything of the kind in any of the great squares of Europe, and inconceivable in America. In fact, I cannot remember any time that I have felt so easy and relaxed in a busy public place, particul...