China Part II - Sex and the Forbidden City

Having discussed the 2008 Olympics and China's air quality problems, I guess I'll get back to our sightseeing.

So, after we walked all the way to the other end of Tianimen Square, we came to the main entrance to the "Forbidden City" this is actually the palace complex of the former Chinese emperors and while it was once forbidden to commoners and non-official people it is now a national monument and tourist attraction. Anyone who has managed to sit through the rather boring but history-laden film "The Last Emperor" has seen the Forbidden City since much of the movie was filmed there.

A short video by Michelle of Tianimen Square seen from the entrance to the Forbidden City. It pans round to the gateway with the ubiquitous picture of Chairman Mao. Apparently Mao is still quite revered in China.

We entered the Forbidden City and spent the rest of the morning there. We probably walked at least 2-3 miles through the palace complex - it was enormous.

The front courtyard of the palace. The building is covered with scaffolding for pre-Olympic renovations.

The palace is actually many buildings which housed thousands of people during the heyday of the emperors. From what I gather they were mostly concubines and eunuchs.

The emperor's bed. Presumably he shared it with one of the many concubines on any given night. The concubines - sort of assistant wives - were chosen from important families throughout the empire and becoming one brought influence and prestige to your family.

One of these women in the late 19th century, who was beautiful, intelligent and apparently quite ruthless, became not only empress (i.e. #1 wife) but for the next forty years or so ruled China as the power behind the throne for a series of puppet emperors, some of whom met mysterious and untimely deaths. She was officially known as the Dowager Empress but behind her back she was called the "Dragon Lady".

This is a huge lump of crystalline quartz which was quarried and carted to the palace at the orders of the Dowager Empress. I think it's supposed to show her power or bring good luck or something - the Chinese people have traditionally been very superstitious about certain objects and symbols bringing good fortune.

One interesting thing we were told concerned the entranceways into traditional Chinese buildings. On palaces, temples etc. the entrance doors always had thresholds on the order of around six inches high. You literally have to step over them to get inside. The purpose of these is to keep out "ghosts" or evil spirits which can bring bad luck, sickness etc. The theory went that the "ghosts" did not have knee joints, so they could not step over the thresholds!

Eventually, we made our way through the Forbidden City and into the gardens at the rear of the complex.

The gardens of the Forbidden City. The rocks with lots of holes in them were brought from some distant part of China where they occur naturally - except for the ones that that area's local peasants drilled holes in when they found out there was a market for them.

A Tea-House in the Gardens

Finally, we made our way out through the rear gate of the Forbidden City and joined up once more with our tour bus which took us to lunch and thence to the Summer Palace.

The exit gate from the Forbidden City. The hill beyond with the pagoda is artificial. It was made centuries ago by hundreds of workmen with wheelbarrows (a Chinese invention). I think the dirt came from the moat around the Forbidden City.

We had a fairly decent lunch that day - all meals were served family style with Lazy Susans on the table to swivel the food around- and I'm proud to say that Michelle and I used chopsticks throughout the trip. Having got to this point in our trip with this posting, I think I will save the Summer Palace and the stone boat for the next posting.

Later.