My travel to China (1)
My first stop was Beijing or
This is a huge city with more than 11 millions inhabitants. When I first landed on a sunny but freezing day of early December 1997, I had only a little idea of what I would encounter there in this legendry city. Surprisingly the first image I had was a wide and very crowed freeway just like in any Western country. But little by little, I could smell a more Eastern Asian flavor...
I got the chance to find out about this beautiful and crowed city within the following days I spent there. I did not have to follow a local tour guide and, with my friend, I could explore on foot the "hutongs" (very narrow old streets) so typical of Beijing but which, unfortunately, are disappearing making way for modern constructions. As a matter of fact, you can't get lost in Beijing - at least in the ancient city - as the city was built following a geometrical plan. An ancient description of the city distinguishes four different cities, which were all surrounded by defensive walls:
"Zijing cheng", the Purple City or Forbidden City: the most
spectacular one, in my opinion. The most famous also ! So many superlatives to describe
this unique place ! In the heart of the Imperial City, the Forbidden City had been playing
the role of the centre of the capital city and the centre of the Chinese empire for 5
centuries. In the old times, the Emperor, his wifes, concubines and servants were living
there in a totally closed world. It is also called the "Purple City" as the
purple color was, for ancient Chinese, a symbol of joy and happiness.
The Forbidden City: the Purple City
"Huang cheng",
the Imperial City: surrounding the Forbidden City and had four huge doors. There,
you could find beautiful parks, elegant water holes as well as the hugepalaces in which
blue blood princes and administrators lived luxuriously. For further details, please click
on "More about the Forbidden City".
"Nei cheng",
the interior city or Tatar City: enclosing the two previously stated cities and
equiped with nine doors. This was the biggest and the magnificent of all cities. At the
beginning of the Qing dynasty, it was emptied of all its Chinese inhabitants who had to
move to the Southern City. So that only the Manchu and Mongolian aristocracy could enjoy
life in this protected and luxurious area.
"Nan cheng",
the Chinese City or Southern City: joint to the Tatar City. Tian Tan temple - which
I will describe later on this page - is part of the Chinese city.
During the past 30 years, the anarchic development of Beijing has contributed to deeply modify the aspect of these four ancient cities and their limits have almost totally disappeared - physically. The walls surrounding the Tatar City and the Chinese City were destroyed and unfortunately their monumental doors are just a memory, except one, Qian Men. However, nowadays, past is still present in the language to indicate specific spots, as you are still entering Beijing thru Hatamen ("men" meaning "door" in Mandarin Chinese) and you are going out thru Dongzhimen. Just give a glance at any Beijing map and you will understand...
Another famous monument of Beijing not to be missed is or the Temple of Heaven. Here it is :
"The hall of the Prayer for a Good Harvest"
Tian Tan is the biggest temple in China and is located in the South part of Beijing. You can't miss it because it is one of the mandatory stops for all visitors to Beijing ! To give you a bit of historical background, the temple was built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (around 1368); emperors were organizing big ceremonies there to offer sacrifices to their gods in order to get plentiful crops. It was used for this specific purpose until 1911. Every year, three ceremonies were taking place:
1st one: at
the Winter solstice, the emperor reported to Heaven on all recently held events and on his
management ("jiatian" in Chinese)
2nd one: at
the first moon of the year, he had to honor Heaven which was in return renewing his
mandate.
3rd one:
finally, when spring was ending, he was praying Heaven to get enough rain and rich
harvests ("da yu" in Chinese).
The main and most photographed monuments is the Hall of Prayer for a Good Harvest (which you can see on the picture above). It is 38 metres high and 30 metres in diameter, and is quite impressive with its beautiful enamelled navy blue tiles which represent Heaven. The Hall is made up of one circular room with 3 white marble terraces in front. As you know, ancient Chinese were very attached to numbers so the number of paving stones, steps and balustrades is symbolic: either 9 or a multiple number of 9 (as 9 means "strength of the yang"). Basically the monument has 3 levels and is supported by 28 wooden pilars - by the way, an amazing feature is that no nails are used in the construction. Moreover, east pillar has a specific meaning: the 4 pillars in the center represent the four seasons; the next 12 pillars in the center, the 12 months of the year, and finally, the 12 other pillars outside, the 12 wakeful nights which were traditionally dividing the day.
I propose to continue our guided tour of Beijing together with another marvelous monument which I have heard about first thru a text at my Chinese class. Let's go and take a walk to the Summer Palace or Yi He Yuan in Chinese...
