After I finished reading this unforgettable novel “Forbidden City”, I think about a lot things happened to Alex who is the most important character in the novel. In my opinion, Alex grows as a person through the novel. Since many things happened to him
when he went to Beijing, China, it seemed like a corner in his life. This corner changed the world which he viewed. Alex became from a boy who like military history, adventure, and admire heroes, to a person who knew truth, responsibility, and meaning of brave.
Before Alex went to Beijing, he simply likes Chinese military. As he stayed in Beijing for few months, he found that there were more differences than he thought. He becomes more mature. Alex is addicted to Chinese military history, and he made many clay soldiers at his own home. When the students’ demonstration happened in Beijing, the government of China used people to against their people. That’s not like what Alex heard the history story, which talked about using enemy’s power to against them (borrow the arrows). When PLAs used tear gas to repress those people who were in the Tiananmen Square, Alex was shocked by what they did. On June 4, 1989, all PlAs were on Tiananmen Square to arrest students, and Alex found that PLAs were not people’s army. He realized that he just found the surface of the truth before.
Before Alex went to Beijing, he likes adventure. As he met with that horrible and bloody massacre, his responsibility was growing. Everything needs to be organized before he wants to do. He felt sorry for Lao-Xu. If Alex didn’t rushed out of hotel at that day, Lao-Xu might not go to Tiananmen Square with him, even death. Alex saw that Lao-Xu felt on the ground with his warm blood. Another thing shows Alex became more and more responsibility, when Alex’s legs were hurt and healing at grandma’s house. He knew that he needed to find his father and he did care about him. At last, before he left grandma’s home to Canada, he smuggled to take tapes out of China. He wanted to help students indeed, and he knew that he had the responsibilities to support and help the students. Even they have different world, life, languages, and colors of skin. They did have a kind heart.
Alex wrote this journal as the soldier Ulysses did, and he admired brave people. However, not everything can be done just with passions. In his mind, three people are brave heroes. First, Lao-xu is a hero, even he just bravely stand in front of PLAs’ guns. Hero may not do a huge thing. Second, Alex regarded Xin-hua as his friend in China, also a lifesaver. Some of the students had a miserable life, and Xin-Hua’s determination showed Alex a different world. In order to protect Alex, Xin-Hua paid her own life to their beliefs. After he was turn to Canada, he boiled those clay soldiers, he knew that they were not heroes, heroes were the ordinary people like Xin-Hua, Lao-Xu, etc.
In summary, Alex understood more and more about the world and society and people. He grows as a person. Alex used his own experiences with those brave people to find his corner to change his life with more mature, responsible. For my generation, people and experience affect us a lot, teaching us how to grow as a person.