Talk:Great Hall of the People

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Contents 1 A proposed move 2 Who was the architect(s)? 3 Neutrality 4 Other problems 5 Political aspects

[edit] A proposed move

Considering the name of the country is People's Republic of China, and the monument outside is the Monument to the People's Heroes, the conference held inside now is the National People's Congress, perhaps this page should be re-named as People's Great Hall instead of Great Hall of the People. The link People's Great Hall is red, so this should be an easy move. Shall we move ? Comments, anyone ? -- PFHLai 05:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

use common names? "Great Hall of the People" seems more common and sounds better, while "Chinese Republic of the People" would be awkward--Jiang 08:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's an idea. There was a documentary that was aired on PBS a while ago about Luciano Pavarotti, invited by Hu Yaobang, giving a concert at the Great Hall of the People, as pretty much the first Westerner to ever give a concert in China. I suggest that this fact should be mentioned - of course, with a reference mentioned. What do you think? -Daniel Blanchette 04:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who was the architect(s)?

This article gives no information on who designed the building. Lumos3 11:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I was just doing research on this building to start the article on the Ten Great Buildings—of which the Great Hall of the People is a part. One of the references: Peter G. Rowe, Seng Kuan. Architectural Encounters With Essence and Form in Modern China. MIT Press. 2002. ISBN 026268151X says that Zhang Bo designed the building, so I added mention of that in the article.D. Recorder 19:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

I don't feel that the tone of this article is particularly neutral. In fact I feel that it reads like it is straight from a tourism booklet or worse, like a PROC propaganda bulletin. The part that bothers me most about the tone and choice of words in the article is the mention of the "volunteers." Compare the tone of this article with the United States Capitol article, especially about the construction.

The Capitol was built and later expanded in the 1850s using the labor of slaves "who cut the logs, laid the stones and baked the bricks."[18] The original plan was to use workers brought in from Europe; however, there was a poor response to recruitment efforts, and African Americans—free and slave—composed the majority of the work force.

The point is the "volunteers" during the great leap forward were not quite likely to have actually volunteered to build the Great Hall and other structures.

Yes, it looks like this was written to "boast". KyuuA4 15:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, just because the US used slave labor doesn't mean the PRC did. Can you provide evidence, by way of reliable sources, that it was built other than by volunteers? If you do not provide evidence of this in a day or so, I'm going to remove the POV tag. This is a very dry and factual article, you are somehow seeing opinion that isn't there. Where does it "boast"? Other than the title, "Great" is part of its name. Can you provide any examples of non-neutral language? Please provide them so they can be remedied. Your reading of it seems more informed by your perception and imagination than by the text that is here.D. Recorder 01:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You have to keep in mind that "volunteers" can be used in many different ways. For example, military troops on "volunteer" missions get paid, and junior members in political the youth wings of political parties put in volunteer hours on various projects. There is a posibility in the case of the PRC, that these volunteers were party youth hoping to work their ways up. Of course, they may have been nearly slave labor, as the initiator here suggested, but that would need substantiation and wouldn't be a fair assumption. 207.47.162.154 22:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC) Jeff MacDonald

Yes but one must always be cautious, are you suggesting it may have not been voluntary simply because it's China? That's a bias in itself. Not accusing, just offering the other vantage point SGGH ^speak! 14:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other problems

The whole tone of the article reads like an advertisement. It needs a substantial rewrite for neutrality and another source would also help greatly. I could help is starting thaT since I don't read Chinese, nor am an expert in Maoist China.

Cheers 14:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC) (fixed spelling removed extra bulletin. V. Joe 14:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political aspects

It should be worth linking to pages discussing the current state of the Chinese Government. The meetings held here are rubber stamp sessions, which has significance when considering how grandiose the building is. In psychological terms, the behaviour being exhbited is something along the lines of "if the building is really, really, REALLY impressive then it means it MUST be okay", which is a way of trying to handle what you actually know and wish wasn't true but aren't prepated to change; that you are running a dictatorship. Toby Douglass 15:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)