Programme Location

Shanghai, China

The name Shanghai either means ‘up to the sea’, ‘by the sea’, or ‘over the sea’. Shanghai has been inhabited for over 2000 years, but for most of its history it was a small fishing village. In the 16th century, a protective wall was erected around the wharf to provide a safe haven from Japanese pirates. With this added security, the village grew to around 20,000 people and became a textile center as well as a fishing town. It remained that way until 1842 when the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing ended the first Opium War and allowed foreigners the right to settlements in various port cities of China.

Modern Shanghai was born. To explore Shanghai is to explore history unfolding in front of your eyes. Nowhere else is the miracle of the new China better seen than in Shanghai. A walk along Nanjing Lu, one of Shanghai’s main commercial strips, reveals numerous ultra modern ten story shopping malls and department. And all around brand new skyscrapers of glass and steel rearrange Shanghai’s skyline on a seemingly daily basis. In the former French Concession, you will find a lot of fine shops and cafes as well as nice, European-style restaurants.

Across the Huangpu River is Pudong, an area of swampland a decade ago. If built as planned, it will display a skyline as impressive as that of New York or Hong Kong – and by the year 2020 become one of the major financial hubs worldwide.

Beijing, China

The excursion to Beijing will also allow some sightseeing besides the planned lectures and meetings with company managers and attorneys-at-law. During your stay in China’s capital city, you will visit the famous Tian’anmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall.

Tian’anmen Square is located at the heart of Beijing. In the south of this public plaza, you will find the entrance to the Forbidden City, while in the north you will see the Tian’anmen Gate, which means means “the Gate of Heavenly Peace”. The Square was created in 1417, and originally had dimensions of 880 metres north-south and 500 metres east-west. In the Qing and Ming eras, the Tian’anmen was not a public square – instead the area was occupied by the offices of imperial ministries. During the Boxer Rebellion, these buildings were damaged beyond repair, and so the area was cleared again. This was the beginning of the Tian’anmen Square you will find today. In 1949, the square was enlarged to 100 acres and its openness is interrupted only by the 100-foot high Monument to the People’s Heroes and Mao Zedong’s mausoleum.

Not far away from the Tian’anmen Square, just to the south of the plaza in fact, you will find the Forbidden City. Today, it is called the Palace Museum, but it was the home of the Emperor and his household for almost five centuries. For all that time it served as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Built between 1406 and 1420, the Forbidden City consists of 980 buildings with 8,707 rooms, and covers 720,000 square meters. On your way through the outer and inner city of the palace museum, you will see traditional Chinese palatial architecture. Furthermore, the palace museum holds an extensive collection of artwork and artifacts, that derive from the Ming and Qing dynasties. In 1987, the Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site, and it is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

The next sight to see on your tour through Beijing and its hinterland will be the Great Wall. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Its original name was “the long wall of 10,000 li”. It was built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. The current wall is the world’s longest man-made structure, stretching over approximately 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) from Shanghaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly marks the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. It is also the largest man-made structure ever built in terms of both surface area and mass. As you will see on your visit, the steps are very steep and high in some parts, and so tourists are easily exhausted trying to climb it.

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