April 4 Beijing
Imperial Palace a.k.a. Forbidden City
Today
the sky is clear with a few thin wisps of cloud, temperature about 15 C. The
predicted particle count was 60; if you looked into distance of a long street,
there was a bit of a haze. Our group, we are calling ourselves Gao’s cousins, was
on the bus at 8 a.m. for a short drive to Tian an men Square to start today’s
walking tour of the Imperial Palace Museum.
Only 80,000 visitors are allowed each day.
The
Chinese name for their country means Middle Kingdom, as in Heaven, Earth and
Underworld. China was believed to be the
center of the world.
Tian an
men Square is large enough to accommodate one million people. We needed to go
through two security check points to enter the square. There were thousands of
people already visiting the square and a long line had formed for viewing the
embalmed body of Mao Zedong in his mausoleum. There was lots of room to walk
and take pictures. Our group traversed the square photographing the surrounding
buildings, including the Great Hall of the People and the Chinese Revolution History Museum. In
the center of the square is the granite Monument to the People’s Heroes commemorating
the heroes from 1840, when China opened up after the first Opium War, to 1949, the
year of the creation of the People’s Republic of China. Tian an men Square
covers 100 acres, making it the world’s largest public square. In the time of
the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was much smaller and led up to the main gate, the
southern Meridian Gate (Wu men) and considered to be the “front door” of the
Forbidden City.
We continued toward the Forbidden City, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since 1925 it has been known as the Imperial Palace
Museum. It is the world’s largest
palace complex, covering 720,000 square meters, all of it protected by a
20-foot moat and a 32-foot wall, with 9,999 rooms. The Forbidden City was the
Ming and Qing Dynasties’ imperial palace, built between 1406 and 1420,
containing many gardens, the largest one in the concubines’ compound.
The Forbidden
City imperial palace was occupied by the reigning emperor and his families
until 1911, when the Sung Revolution forced an end to the dynasties. The young emperor, not yet five years old,
was forced to abdicate, but allowed to live in the complex, but not leave it.
Then in 1924, another revolt occurred and he was forced from his home. The Imperial Palace Museum was opened in
1925. To learn a bit more about this
period and the last emperor’s life, the Hollywood movie, “The Last Emperor”,
will give you an idea. Also the books
“Twilight in the Forbidden City”, written by the emperor’s English teacher, and
“Emperor to Citizen” are recommended for more insight.
The
emperors believed that the Forbidden City was a replica of the palace in heaven
which had 10,000 rooms. Common people
were not allowed into the Forbidden City and officials of the government were
only allowed in certain areas depending on their rank. It has 9,999 rooms with a portico space measuring
1 metre by 4 metres between exterior columns counting as a “room”. The nearly
1,000 buildings are made of marble; wood with either mortise and tenon joints
or dove tailed joints, but no nails; or hand-made bricks which the maker had to
date and make his mark on the back or stones (the mortar between bricks or
stones was sticky rice juice, as used in the Terra Cotta warriors). If the brick maker’s product was not up to
the standard he was punished. There was
an earthquake in 1976 registering 7.8 with the epicenter close to Beijing and
the thick walled (over 10 meters) buildings were not damaged, but the marble
banisters in some areas cracked.
The group approached the gates of the outer
court where the Dynasty officials conducted the affairs of state. The imperial
colours are yellow and red and the common people were not allowed to use those
colours. Yellow stands for Earth while Red stands for happiness.
Just
before the next gate was the ticket office, so the group filed through another
security check and passed through the Meridian Gate into the outer
courtyard. The roofs are ornamented with
dragon heads and smaller mythical sons of dragon. The greater number of small mythical dragon’s
sons, the more important the building with the Hall of Benevolence having 10
sons of dragon. It was the throne room. Behind the Hall of Benevolence is the Hall of
Complete Harmony where the emperor stopped before appearing in the throne room
in order to receive his “briefing notes” of the day’s events. The staircase
from here going further into the complex is the residence of the family and the
huge triple staircase is made from one slab of local marble. The third building, Hall of Preserving
Harmony was where the examination for officials was held every three years with
the emperor presiding. In this area, there are drains which are shaped like
dragon’s heads and the mouth spews water when it rains, draining the flat
surfaces. Around the complex are huge 50
and 100 liters vats to hold water in case of fire. The water in the garden and
the moat could also be used for ancient fire fighting. Next we toured the concubine complex, where
the women lived and could not leave.
There was some original furniture.
More of the imperial furnishing can be found in the Taiwan Museum. They were evacuated from mainland China in
1949 by Chaing Kaichek. The garden
adjoining the residence was the last area we toured before leaving. It contains trees that are between 200 and
500 years old that have coloured tags attached to their trunks telling their
age.
As we
walked out of the complex at the northern Gate of Spiritual Valor (Shenwu men) and
across the moat, we had walked three miles in just over three hours. A hill rose in front of us created from the
earth dug for the moats, there is a building at the crest. In the past the hill was part of the
Forbidden City land.
By noon, the temperature has risen to a comfortable
18 and no thicker haze. We had a
traditional Chinese set menu 10 course lunch at a restaurant on central
Beijing’s restaurant street. The fish selection was a whole fish, head, tail
and bones included in a tasty peanut sauce. Some of the other platters were a
broccoli plate, beef, deep fried shrimp, deep fried chicken nuggets, steamed bok choy and steamed rice The fruit platter served at the end of the
meal contained orange slices, watermelon slices and honeydew melon slices. In China, fortune cookies may appear at
Chinese New Year but not likely at any other time.
We
returned to the hotel about 2 and completed the tour evaluation form before
going out for a little exploring. We
took about 30 minutes to walk to the Imperial Palace Museum area and pause to
admire a lake which was the start of the Grand Canal, a man made waterway
extending from Beijing to south of Shanghai. WE passed many small shops and
several bakeries displaying tempting pastries. The walk added another three
miles to the daily count. Back at the
hotel we caught up on emailed and wrote part of the blog before joining Bill
and Marianne for dinner in the hotel café.
The buffet
was a bountiful buffet of Chinese, Japanese and western food. There was a separate corner for desserts
including a selection of fruit slices, but also a mouth-watering selection of
slices, cakes and cookies as well as crème brulé and tiramisu. When we were finished we said our farewells
and returned to our rooms to prepare to leave in the morning.
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