Todd's Travels in China: Day 14: Beijing

Day 14 – Sat. Jan. 11: Got up early to meet our tour guide Lily in the lobby at 7:20 and took an English-speaking speed tour of Beijing with 10 people from Nepal and India. Lily was not nearly as informative or interesting as Fran, the tour felt more like we were simply being shepherded around rather than guided.

We started at the Forbidden City, also known officially as the Imperial Palace Museum (Gugong). Originally constructed by the third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Yong Le, 24 successive emperors once lived there. The palace was built between 1406 and 1420 but was burned down, rebuilt, sacked, and renovated countless times, so most of the architecture seen today dates from the 1700s onwards. The Forbidden City was the seat of imperial power for 500 years and contains 9,999 ½ rooms, numerous palaces, and an imperial garden. A moat surrounds the City. The frozen water provided a lovely view. Although the last Emperor of China, Pu Yi of the Qing Dynasty, abdicated power in 1912, he lived in the Forbidden City until 1924.

Male Lion Guarding the Gate of Supreme Harmony

Hall of Supreme Harmony

The Forbidden City contains an outer court, where grand ceremonies and events took place, and an inner court where the imperial family lived. The inner court follows the layout of the outer court but on a physically smaller scale. The yellow roof tiles used throughout the city were reserved for royalty, as was the blue background of the signs. Other often seen symbols of royalty include the dragon, representing the emperor, and the phoenix, representing the empress. The two are often depicted together. A pair of Chinese lions can often be found guarding royal entrance gates. The female is portrayed with a lion cub under her paw while the male holds a ball (representing the world) under his grasp.

Hall of Preserving Harmony

Detail of unrestored outer structure of the Hall of Middle Harmony

Hall of Mental Cultivation

Hill of Gathered Excellence

The tour included the obligatory shopping stops at a silk factory and a pearl shop followed by a family style Chinese lunch.

Life stages of the silk worm

After lunch, we visited the Temple of Heaven, which used to be a complex of sacrificial buildings for the Ming and Qing Emperors. The largest ancient imperial worship architecture complex in the world and the largest park in Beijing, ancient Emperors prayed for peace and harvest here. The building that most people refer to as the Temple of Heaven is actually called Qinian Dian (The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests). The hall is completely built of wood without using a single nail, and the circular ceiling has a gilded dragon and phoenix at its center. The four central columns, known as the Dragon Well pillars, represent the four seasons. “Temple of Heaven” actually refers to the entire Tian Tan site, and no single structure actually bears that name. Chinese emperors were precluded from building a dwelling for themselves that was greater than the earthly residence dedicated to Heaven; hence, the Temple of Heaven is larger than the Forbidden City. Like the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven was also built by Emperor Yongle when he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1420.

Temple of Heaven (Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests)

Dragon Well pillars and circular ceiling

For our final stop of the day, we traveled outside of Beijing to the Summer Palace (Yiheyuan), the largest and most complete imperial garden in China. It served the Qing Dynasty as a retreat from the stifling summer confines of the Forbidden City and is most closely associated with the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908). Although originally conceived in the 12^th century as a royal garden and retreat, construction of the Summer Palace began under Emperor Qianlong in 1750 to celebrate his mother’s 60^th birthday and took 15 years to complete. The Palace can be divided into three parts according to function: the royal court area, the living area, and the sightseeing area. The major sites we saw here were the Long Corridor (a 728-meter walkway decorated with over 14,000 paintings), the Marble Boat (built by Empress Dowager Cixi with funds intended for the modernization of the Imperial Navy), and Suzhou Street (over-priced tourist shops). The octagonal Tower of Buddhist Incense (Foxiang Ge) was already closed by the time we arrived, so there was no opportunity to visit it, although we did hike up Longevity Hill (Wanshoushan) for a closer look. It was also fun to watch people ice skating on Kumming Lake.

Tower of Buddhist Incense

Chinese Dragon - dragon's head, deer's antlers, bull's body, and fish scales

Dragon and Phoenix

Marble Boat

Long Corridor

Long Corridor Paintings

Suzhou Street

The biggest problem with this tour was that we really didn’t spend enough time at the major sites to see much. We raced through everything. My friend was disappointed that we barely saw the Temple of Heaven Park, her favorite place in Beijing. This kind of tour is really designed for people who want to see a lot in a short time. As a result, it was very unfulfilling - none of the interesting details or anecdotes - only the standard tourist shtick that I could get from any good guidebook. The only consolation was that if I had indeed spent as much time as I would have liked at all of these sites, I wouldn’t have been able to see everything in the time I had. More reason to return again, I guess (in warmer weather, remember). We finally decided to ditch the group at the last stop and take a taxi back to the hotel so that we could spend an extra hour exploring the Summer Palace. Even then, we barely skimmed the surface of things to see & do there.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat at a popular snack shops, we headed across the street from my hotel to the Red Theater to see “The Legend of Kung Fu,” a story told through music, dance, acrobatics, and other performance art. It was kind of like a lite Cirque show. (Cirque would have done it better.) I expected more real Kung Fu and less choreography. It was clearly geared for the tourist crowd. Not really what I expected, but it was still enjoyable, and we had fantastic seats. The show ended before 9:00, so we still had plenty of time to walk one of the pedestrian zones and some of the city before returning to the hotel. This stroll offered a glimpse of Beijing that better matched my expectations of a modern city and capital of a major country.