Beijing Day Two Part Two: The Forbidden City

This is from day two of Arie's trip to Beijing. You might want to start at day one.

My next stop was the Forbidden City, which is just north of Tiananmen Square. It's called that because during the period when it was in use, 1420 to 1912, it was off limits to all but the Emperor's household and advisors.

When you're white in Beijing, you attract some notice, especially when you're not in a heavily touristed area. Fairly often, people would approach me and strike up conversations. Some were definitely scammers, especially around the tourist sites--fortunately, I knew what was going on ahead of time. A lot of young, cute female "art students" approach travelers and, after talking for a while, ask them if they would like to come see an art exhibit. It always turns out to be a high pressure sales thing. Similarly, tour operators use young people to recruit tourists for various types of tours.

But I also met a bunch of people who seemed like they were just being friendly. While walking to the Forbidden City, two girls introduced themselves and we talked for a bit--turned out they were from Inner Mongolia (part of China, distinct from the nation of Mongolia) and were touring Beijing for a few days. That sort of thing happened fairly often--I think because almost all Chinese students have studied English, talking to westerners is an opportunity to practice. Of all the places I've traveled over the past few months, Beijing has the friendliest people.

To get to the Forbidden City, you must first pass through Tiananmen itself (saying "Tiananmen Gate" is a little like "ATM machine" or "PIN number"--"Tiananmen" means "Gate of Heavenly Peace"). Tiananmen is a gigantic red gatehouse; the original is really old, but the current one was built in 1651. Sort of. It turns out that the government secretly rebuilt it in 1969, but didn't tell anyone until recently (they covered it in scaffolding and curtains and claimed to be renovating). In the center is a large portrait of Chairman Mao; in the Tiananmen riots in 1989, someone dared to throw ink-filled eggs at it, but the crowd seized the guy and handed him over to the police (he was imprisoned for seventeen years and tortured, and was driven insane). The texts to the sides read "Long live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the great unity of the world's people"--like the Forbidden City itself, the phrase "long live" (literally, "ten thousand years") used to be reserved only for the emperors. The gate is surrounded by a moat; when I was there, it was iced over.

When I first approached Tiananmen and saw Israeli flags flying around it, I thought perhaps the cold had gotten to me. Then I thought about political explanations for it, like a state visit or some new treaty (do Israel and China have any aligned strategic interests?). Then I realized it would make a funny photo. No one else seemed confused, so I figured it must not be unusual. I mean, I've never visited Beijing before. Maybe there are always Israeli flags scattered around.

Outside Tiananmen are two large lion statues which were carved in 1420. The one on the left allegedly came to life to protect the city from invaders, and was shot in the stomach for his trouble. Skeptics claim the bullet landed there during the Boxer Rebellion.

I paid a small fee to enter Tiananmen and climb to the top. There's a bit of a museum, but the interesting thing is the view of Tiananmen Square and of the courtyard beyond the gate.

Beyond the courtyard is the Meridian Gate, which controls access to the Forbidden City itself. The Meridian Gate has five arches; the center one could be used only by the Emperor, by the Empress only on the day of her wedding, and the three top scorers on the triennial civil exams, who were permitted to leave the City through the arch. The Meridian Gate today is where you buy tickets for the Forbidden City (in its current incarnation as a museum).

Sadly for me, the central attraction in the Forbidden City, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, was under repair. It was covered in scaffolding and curtains, though the government was kind enough to print a photograph of the Hall on the curtains so we knew what we were missing.

Fortunately, I was not lacking for giant ornate history-filled structures. The Forbidden City is the world's largest palace (178 acres), comprised of eight hundred buildings with 8886 rooms. I spent several hours walking around viewing exhibits such as "the uniforms of the Imperial guard" and "the palace rooms of the Emperor's concubines". I won't go into too much detail, partly because it would get even more boring than this usually is, partly because I just don't remember much of it, and partly because some of it I still don't understand. For instance, the "Gate of Moral Standards"--what is it? what is morally standard about it? The sign explains that the name means, literally, "Gate of Correcting the Law", but that just raises further questions. But besides the confusing names, the Forbidden City is a fascinating place--it's a giant museum, with all sorts of various exhibits about life in the Imperial court. Many of the more impressively decorated rooms have been preserved exactly as they were, and the buildings themselves are in excellent shape.

Walking around in the Forbidden City was interesting because everywhere in Southeast Asia has construction that mimics the structures in the Forbidden City. The architectural style that we think of as distinctively Chinese is based on the construction of buildings from the era when the city was built, and most of these structures are the originals from that time. After seeing replicas all over the world, it was an experience to see the original inspirations. As expected, the replicas were generally more impressive.

There were a lot of soldiers in the Forbidden City. Most of them were just standing around, presumably guarding things, but some were marching around in lines. There were also large metal vats, which were apparently kept full of water for fire-fighting. The sign notes that "Each of the Ming Dynasty vats has two iron rings, ancient, simple and natural."

One highlight was the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the largest of the halls of the Inner Court. The Hall of Supreme Harmony was the official throne room, but the Palace of Heavenly Purity was used for the daily affairs of government and was where the Emperor met with his cabinet. A board above the throne reads "Justice and Honor".

It was really cold out, and so I was very happy to see a sign saying, "Lounge for Foreign Guests--Heating available. Rest here, no charge." It was, of course, a gift shop with a little restaurant, but it was very welcome. I read recently that there's a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, but I didn't see it--apparently due to controversy, they removed most of their signs. Actually, I may have been inside it and not noticed.

I then walked to the northern end of the Forbidden City, which held the Imperial Garden ("Yu Hua Yuan"). It was built in 1420, during the Ming Dynasty. Many of the plants have important symbolic meanings, and several of them are centuries old. The garden is where the Qing Dynasty selected girls for the imperial harem.

Like everything else in the Forbidden City, the plants of the garden have symbolic meaning. The last emperor, Pu Yi, had his photo taken with his empress after their wedding in front of cypress trees that had become entangled to show that they wished to be together in heaven and on earth.

The gardens also had what I understand are traditional rock sculptures, including one, called the Hill of Accumulated Elegance, that was large enough to have a built-in cave. There are signs which urge visitors not to damage the hill by climbing on it ("A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty").

Moving on, I visited the Palace of Gathering Excellence (Chu Xiu Gong), built in 1420 to be the residence of the Empress and the imperial concubines. It had an exhibit on Ci Xi, a recent figure in Chinese history. At the age of 16, in 1851, she was selected to be a concubine for the Xianfeng Emperor. In 1856, she gave birth to a boy, the Xianfeng Emperor's only male heir, and so was elevated to the rank of Noble Consort, second only to the Empress. On the Xianfeng Emperor's deathbed, he directed Yi and his Empress to help his son rule, and named his eight favorite ministers as regents.

The Empress and Ci Xi acted quickly to marginalize the regents, and were able to have them arrested (as a mark of mercy, they were permitted to commit suicide rather than face execution by "slow slicing", known in the west as death by a thousand cuts). The new Emperor was soon married off, although Ci Xi didn't approve of his wife and separated them. The Emperor began to visit prostitutes, and he caught syphilis and died. Ci Xi had her three-year-old nephew named Emperor, and continued to control the country in cooperation with the Empress until the Empress's sudden death in 1881. The new Emperor also proved unacceptable because of his interest in modernization, and Ci Xi had him exiled and ruled in his name. Ci Xi ruled China for forty-seven years, until her death in 1908. She was buried in an incredibly lavish tomb that she had had built.

The mainstream view is that throughout her reign, Cixi was basically a tyrannical leader who had no idea how to run a country. It's possible that Cixi gets a bad rap, and wasn't as homicidal and foolish as history tends to believe. But it is clear that Cixi was not what China needed at the turn of the 20th century. While Japan was urgently modernizing in an effort to improve its position vis-à-vis Europe, Cixi's extremely conservative principles and her lack of faith in political, social, and military modernization set the stage for the dislocations and chaos that characterized the first half of the 20th century in China. Historians generally agree that her ineptitude was in part responsible for the end of the imperial system (which collapsed four years after the end of her reign).

I figured I was more or less done with the Forbidden City at that point, and tried to wander back to the Meridian Gate. However, a bunch of soldiers suddenly walked in, closed all the doors, and stood in front of them. A crowd of slightly disturbed tourists quickly assembled, and we were told that the President of Israel had arrived and wanted to see the Forbidden City, so we had to stay out of his way. A-ha. Anyway, he would only be a little while, and we should try to be quiet. A few minutes later, he let us out and I walked out of the City. Next stop: Beihai Park.

More of day two coming soon.