The Heart of China -- The Forbidden City


April 24 Tuesday

The next stop in the tour was to go behind the Tiananmen Gate and enter into the Forbidden City, the Imperial Palaces of the Emperors of China! I quickly lost track of how many pavillions and halls there were. Here is just one of many grand structures where the Emperor and the Court lived and worked for many centuries.



The first structures of the Palace were built at the beginning of the 15th Century. In all, 24 Emperors ruled China from here until the fall of the Imperial system in 1911. The Palaces have since been turned into a museum and the buildings repaired and the work of restoring and maintaining them goes on.

On the edge of the roofs are intricate carved figures.



See the holes in the mouths of the dragons? They serve as the drainage system when it rains.



North of the Forbidden City is a beautiful park with a hill with 5 pagodas. We walked up to the highest one and from there you get this view of the Imperial Palace complex. As a photographer, it is my hope to give you a sense of the place and I know that I have failed for these images only hint at the vastness of the Forbidden City.



Isn't it lovely to have parks in the city? A place where one can stop and enjoy the flowers.



For the evening, our tour guides took us to the Chaoyang District where the acrobat troupe performs their incredible blend of routines. Here they are balancing the spinning plates on those sticks!



Impressions:

If Hong Kong is fast, fast, fast then Beijing has to be big, big, big. Tiananmen Square is huge. The Imperial Palace is sprawling and vast. The boulevards wide like our superhighways and are jammed packed with cars, taxis, and bicycles. The physical dimensions of the place diminishes the individual which is the other side of the coin of how Asian culture emphasizes the group identity. In America, I'd introduce myself as Rene, using my first name. My last name is my family name. In Chinese culture, I'm given a 3-part name: my family name is first, then my generational name and lastly my individual name. One gets the feeling that the Emperors who built the Palace and the Square wanted the people to realize just how small they are.

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