THE FORBIDDEN CITY
We arrived in Beijing past 7am, took an hour to get to the hotel, another to check-in, shower and have some breakfast... and by 11 am we were off to the Forbidden City. Okay... the first question that is usually asked is 'Why is it called the Forbidden City?'... and the answer is so simple it doesn't even have to be asked (although I did too... hehehe). It's 'forbidden' because during the heyday of the emperors, the common folks cannot go near the palace and it's surrounding buildings and courtyards without getting killed. Why?... because it's forbidden... pretty much like saying, 'The bar will not be open today because it's closed'... *sigh*
Anyway, what's it like? It really is a city, made up of clusters of buildings, courtyards, gardens, walkways and all that. It's got walls surrounding it and probably north, east, south and west gates... I can't really be sure cause when we went, we got in through the entrance, gawked into some of the buildings, walked through the others, puffed and huffed and finally got out through the exit... you wouldn't really care if it's the north, south, east or west. All you know is you got through it.
They seem to have a building for every member of the family, for every purpose that could be thought of, and all the buildings maintain one architectural design... which is, simply put, intricate and ornate. They have a place where the emperor holds court, a courtyard where executions are said to have taken place, where the scholars do their work, where the students hold classes. They've got, of course, living quarters for the emperor, the empress, the concubines and their children and for the servants. They even have a theatre... a three-storey one... three sides enclosed in wall and one side left open for viewing... pretty much like a life-sized doll-house.
If one keeps in mind that construction of these buildings started in the 12th Century BC, one couldn't help but be awed with the architecture. The roofwork alone is so detailed, and repeated so accurately from building to building. No nails were used to keep the roof and walls together... every timber is tied or fitted together... and yet every single structure stands intact to this day. As I've mentioned, we went into some of the buildings. If you look from afar and think the roofwork is intricate, you should see the ceilings. Not an inch of space is left without color and designed... and yes, every detail of the design is repeated in every building in exact sameness. Some columns are left plainly painted red while others are done with the same design as the ceiling. There is nothing outstanding with the walls seen from the inside, at least nothing that has remained in my memory, and the floors were done in tiles... if they were the original floors or if a protective layer has been put over them, I never bothered to ask.
The signature color of the emperor, if we may call it that, was golden yellow. It is said that during the time of the emperor, anybody else who used this color... to paint his house, carriage, furniture... would have been put to death. A lot of the buildings seemed to be delegated as living quarters of the concubines. Some of these quarters hold artifacts dated back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. A lot of them are china, of course... some metals items, obviously pounded and molded repeatedly to serve a different purpose from the previous one, some silk materials, decorative glasses and such. From the number of the concubines' living quarters, one would be able to gauge just how many concubines the emperor had. An interesting story is that it was the empress herself who chose the concubines... and that the concubines would almost always be an unattractive lot. Well, think about it... if you were the wife, and you can't do anything about your husband having mistresses but it was up to you to choose them, wouldn't you have the same choice?
Anyway, we also found an interesting artifact outside one of the buildings, perched on top of a platform... a sundial... a circular structure made of stone with indentations... marks of some sort on its face and a metal pointer (might have been iron) positioned from the edge of the circle to the center. It was facing upwards, towards the sun. It could have been used to tell the time or something... what to do though if it was a cloudy day and the sun didn't quite make it to the hilt?
It's a pity that the buildings, beneath the magnificent designs and resplendent materials used, are now murky and dust-laden. In some buildings, parts would be covered in plastic, usually the roof. Much good it did though... cause the plastic themselves have become dark with dust. One would think, at the time that the buildings were constructed, the people would have used very primitive equipments... relying more on ingenuity than technology. Why then... in this day and age of vacuum cleaners, a whole cornucopia of cleansers, brooms, brushes, power hoses even... couldn't they be bothered to keep the place clean and slick? Poor emperors... must be turning in their graves. First off, the place... for which they killed anybody who came within spitting distance... is now turned into a tourist attraction. And at that, they wouldn't even clean the place up before showing it off. What a shame...
We arrived in Beijing past 7am, took an hour to get to the hotel, another to check-in, shower and have some breakfast... and by 11 am we were off to the Forbidden City. Okay... the first question that is usually asked is 'Why is it called the Forbidden City?'... and the answer is so simple it doesn't even have to be asked (although I did too... hehehe). It's 'forbidden' because during the heyday of the emperors, the common folks cannot go near the palace and it's surrounding buildings and courtyards without getting killed. Why?... because it's forbidden... pretty much like saying, 'The bar will not be open today because it's closed'... *sigh*
Anyway, what's it like? It really is a city, made up of clusters of buildings, courtyards, gardens, walkways and all that. It's got walls surrounding it and probably north, east, south and west gates... I can't really be sure cause when we went, we got in through the entrance, gawked into some of the buildings, walked through the others, puffed and huffed and finally got out through the exit... you wouldn't really care if it's the north, south, east or west. All you know is you got through it.
They seem to have a building for every member of the family, for every purpose that could be thought of, and all the buildings maintain one architectural design... which is, simply put, intricate and ornate. They have a place where the emperor holds court, a courtyard where executions are said to have taken place, where the scholars do their work, where the students hold classes. They've got, of course, living quarters for the emperor, the empress, the concubines and their children and for the servants. They even have a theatre... a three-storey one... three sides enclosed in wall and one side left open for viewing... pretty much like a life-sized doll-house.
If one keeps in mind that construction of these buildings started in the 12th Century BC, one couldn't help but be awed with the architecture. The roofwork alone is so detailed, and repeated so accurately from building to building. No nails were used to keep the roof and walls together... every timber is tied or fitted together... and yet every single structure stands intact to this day. As I've mentioned, we went into some of the buildings. If you look from afar and think the roofwork is intricate, you should see the ceilings. Not an inch of space is left without color and designed... and yes, every detail of the design is repeated in every building in exact sameness. Some columns are left plainly painted red while others are done with the same design as the ceiling. There is nothing outstanding with the walls seen from the inside, at least nothing that has remained in my memory, and the floors were done in tiles... if they were the original floors or if a protective layer has been put over them, I never bothered to ask.
The signature color of the emperor, if we may call it that, was golden yellow. It is said that during the time of the emperor, anybody else who used this color... to paint his house, carriage, furniture... would have been put to death. A lot of the buildings seemed to be delegated as living quarters of the concubines. Some of these quarters hold artifacts dated back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. A lot of them are china, of course... some metals items, obviously pounded and molded repeatedly to serve a different purpose from the previous one, some silk materials, decorative glasses and such. From the number of the concubines' living quarters, one would be able to gauge just how many concubines the emperor had. An interesting story is that it was the empress herself who chose the concubines... and that the concubines would almost always be an unattractive lot. Well, think about it... if you were the wife, and you can't do anything about your husband having mistresses but it was up to you to choose them, wouldn't you have the same choice?
Anyway, we also found an interesting artifact outside one of the buildings, perched on top of a platform... a sundial... a circular structure made of stone with indentations... marks of some sort on its face and a metal pointer (might have been iron) positioned from the edge of the circle to the center. It was facing upwards, towards the sun. It could have been used to tell the time or something... what to do though if it was a cloudy day and the sun didn't quite make it to the hilt?
It's a pity that the buildings, beneath the magnificent designs and resplendent materials used, are now murky and dust-laden. In some buildings, parts would be covered in plastic, usually the roof. Much good it did though... cause the plastic themselves have become dark with dust. One would think, at the time that the buildings were constructed, the people would have used very primitive equipments... relying more on ingenuity than technology. Why then... in this day and age of vacuum cleaners, a whole cornucopia of cleansers, brooms, brushes, power hoses even... couldn't they be bothered to keep the place clean and slick? Poor emperors... must be turning in their graves. First off, the place... for which they killed anybody who came within spitting distance... is now turned into a tourist attraction. And at that, they wouldn't even clean the place up before showing it off. What a shame...
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