Beijing’s Summer Palace has centuries of history behind it. Man-made Kunming Lake and Longevity Hills are synonyms of Chinese ingenuity in architecture and landscape design. They are also symbols of Chinese resilience in facing foreign aggression, as they withstood the Anglo-French attacks of 1860 and the “allied” attack during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.

I was lucky to be invited by my new Chinese friend Zhong, Gang Hua, to visit those grounds. Gang Hua is a retired Chinese Bio-Physicist who, some years ago, visited a few countries, including the United States, as a lecturer and visiting scholar. His English is a bit limited, but he manages to convey his basic ideas rather well.

Gang Hua appears on pictures No. 26 and 56 below. Pictures No. 42, 43, & 44 show a group of Iranian tourists who were singing songs in Farsi as they waited for the boat to take them across Kunming Lake.