I couldn't resist this one. Joel Martinsen of Danwei.org castigates, illuminates and pulls out some photos from the archives to illustrate past slogans from the Gate of Heavenly Peas.

(Here's a link to the same, if you're blocked by the ornamental firewall.)

"Gross [of online magazine Slate] must have a particularly lousy tour guide. First he can’t manage to find a chocolate bar anywhere in China, and now he’s suggesting that explicit mentions of Marx and Lenin once adorned Tiananmen Gate..."

I loved this pre-revolutionary Tiananmen Gate slogan - apparently a favorite phrase of Sun Yatsen's - taken from the Book of Rites:

“The world belongs to the people” (Tianxia weigong / 天下为公)

A question for our translators: this phrase clearly means that each and every one of us has some share in this world, that even the humblest among us is entitled to some piece of the communal pie. But is there any implication of a corresponding obligation, any sense that those who partake of it should also contribute to "building" the pie? I've often wondered about the range of those two characters weigong / 为公. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.