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Previous: Hong Kong
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Capital:Beijing
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I am finally writing this page on China in 2004, more than thirty years after the fact, because I have just found slides that I thought were lost. I also found some colour prints but they had yellowed and faded so badly that they were useless. For background information on China, let me refer you to the history of the great steppe empires of Asiain spite of which China survived and developed and to the impressions I recorded after my 1997 trip Being invited to participate to this trade mission to China was a great honour for me. |
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We covered the 150 km from Hong Kong to Guangzhou in a comfortable Chinese train with excellent service of tea, beer and cigarettes. The Chinese we met were all avid chain smokers!
This creek marked the border before the establishment of the special economic zone of Shenzen that developed rapidly after liberal legislation was passed to facilitate foreign trade in 1980.
The entrance door to China at the Lo Wu crossing was very narrow in those days.
The worst excesses of the catastrophic Cultural Revolution were over but there were some red guards in the streets and westerners were still called "paper tigers".
It was completely different when I entered China for the second time in 1997, via Macao along with a huge crowd of people (mostly Chinese).
We flew directly to Beijing and visited Guangzhou only three weeks later on our way out. I nonetheless show you now this photo of the group visiting the Zhenhai tower in the Yuexiu Park of Guangzhou (Canton).
We arrived in Beijing very late on that first night. Here is the view over Tiananmen
square from my window in the Beijing Hotel (scanned from a slide).
And the same view by day, (salvaged from one of my badly discoloured prints).
We were superbly received by the Chinese officials and invited to do some sightseeing after the first getting acquainted meetings.
Naturally, the Forbidden City was our first target. Business came later.
The Forbidden City, north of the Tiananmen Square, was the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Measuring 960 by 750 meters, it holds 9 999 buildings making it the world's biggest palace complex.
The Tiananmen Gate shown here leads to Zhongshan Park that must be crossed before reaching the Forbidden City.
The city is surrounded with a 52-meter-long, 6-meter-deep moat and a 10-meter-high,
3,400-meter-long city wall with a gate on each side and a tower on each corner.
The Meridian Gate (Wumen), is the southern entrance of the Forbidden City. It has
five openings and is the largest gate of the Forbidden City. Drums and bells in the
36 meters high Five Phoenix Tower were used to announce emperor's movements.
Here is a plan of the Forbidden City so you can visualise how the following photos fit together. The most important buildings are numbered as follows.
1) Meridian Gate
2) Supreme Harmony Gate
3) Supreme Harmony Hall
4) Central Harmony Hall
5) Preserved Harmony Hall
6) Celestial Purity Gate
7) Celestial Purity Palace
8) Celestial and Terrestrial Union Hall *
9) Terrestrial Tranquility Palace *
10) Imperial Gardens
11) Divine Prowess Gate
* Unfortunately, I have no photos of these two important buildings.
The river is called the Inner Golden River and the bridges called the Inner Golden River Bridges. The central bridge is reserved for emperors exclusively. The two flanking it are reserved for royal family members while the two outside are for ordinary officials. The bridges are well decorated with marble balustrades carved with motifs of dragon and phoenix. The decorative river also serves as a source of water in case of fire.
The Supreme Harmony Gate is the main gate of the Outer Court and fairly grand. The gate is guarded by a couple of bronze lions to show imperial dignity. The east one is male, with its front right paw put on a ball, meaning imperial power extended world-wide. The lioness on the west puts its front left paw on a lion cub, indicating a prosperously growing family.
Here is a closer view of the imperial power lion in front of the Supreme Harmony Gate.
The Supreme Harmony Hall was first built in 1406 and repaired many times later. It was the heart of the Forbidden City where the emperors received high officials and practised their rule over the nation.
Eighteen bronze dings (vessels), along the three-tier terrace stairs represent the 18 provinces of the nation. A bronze crane and a bronze tortoise on the top terrace respectively symbolise everlasting rule and longevity.
The Hall of Supreme Harmony was the highest structure in the land during the Ming and Qing dynasties. No other buildings could be built higher.
Here is a view of the north side of the Supreme Harmony Gate seen from the top terrace of the Supreme Harmony Hall.
The Chinese Minister of Fuels and Chemical Industries Tang Ke, accompanied our group. Here he is with the longevity Turtle on the top terrace of the Supreme Harmony Hall.
Nearby, on the top terrace of the Supreme Harmony Hall, was the crane of everlasting rule.
The Hall of Middle Harmony (Zhonghedian), was originally built in 1420 and restored
in 1627 and again 1765. It is smaller and square rather than rectangular like the
other two in the Outer Court.
The third structure of the outer court, the Preserved Harmony Hall, was first built
in 1420, rebuilt in 1625 and renovated in 1765. It is similar in style but a bit smaller
than the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Some translations refer to the hall of "protective
harmony", a somewhat different meaning than "preserved harmony".
Whatever the exact meaning of its name, the interesting aspect of that hall is the huge piece of marble carved with nine dragons playing with pearls in the center of the middle stairway on the north side of the building.
It was originally sculpted in the Ming dynasty and re-sculpted in the Qing dynasty. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, anyone who was caught touching this holy stone would be punished by death penalty!
The huge stone, 16.57 meters long, 3.07 meters wide and 1.7 meters thick and weighing 250 tons, was hauled into the palace from Fangshan, about 70 kilometres away. It took about a month and 20,000 men and thousands mules and horses to do it in winter on a frozen roadway.
The Gate of Celestial Purity (Qianqingmen), is the main gate of the Inner Court. The 200 m by 30 m square in front of the gate separates the Outer Court from the Inner Court.
Outside of the gate, against the red wall are ten huge gilded bronze vats that served not only as decorations but more importantly as reservoirs in case of fire. There are 308 such vats in the city, each holding 4 cubic meters of water.
The gilded male and female dragons in front of the of the Gate of Celestial Purity represent imperial power and family prosperity like the bronze lions in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony.
The Palace of Celestial Purity in the inner court is the smaller twin of the Hall of Supreme Harmony located in the outer court. Built in 1420 and rebuilt in 1798, Ming emperors and the first two Qing emperors lived in this palace and attended to daily state affairs until Emperor Yongzheng moved his living quarters to the Palace of Mental Development located directly west of here.
Here is one of the many streets in the Forbidden City. This one leads to six palaces in the north east quadrant of the city. These, and another six in the north west quadrant used to shelter the emperor's numerous concubines. They are now used as museums and art galleries.
Here is my group entering the Imperial Garden (Yuhuayuan), built in 1417 by the Ming dynasty. The rectangular garden covers an area of about 12,000 square meters and was the private garden of the imperial family. It was a typical Chinese garden with some 20 structures of different styles.
These 400 years old consort pines woven together symbolise harmony between the emperor and the empress.
Behind the trees can be seen the 15th century Hall of Imperial Peace (Qin'andian), the main structure of the garden, where the God of Water (Zhenwudadi), was worshiped to protect the Forbidden City from fire.
In the four corners of the garden are small pavilions symbolising the four seasons..
The Pavilion of Myriad Springs is the most famous one and lies in the north-east corner
of the garden. It was built in 1535 and restored during the Qing dynasty.
It is astonishing how so many structures can keep harmony with trees, rockeries, flowerbeds and bronze incense burners in such a small space.
Below, more structures of the imperial garden.
It is said that the Forbidden City holds 9 999 buildings!
Here are a some minor palaces I could not identify.
If any of you can document the identity of these structures for the benefit of other viewers of this page, please let me know.
This view from a porch is not bad but it would be much better if I could locate it on the map and say something interesting about it!
Finally, here is the Gate of Divine Might through the northern wall of the Forbidden City seen from across the surrounding moat.
