ONCE UPON A WEEK IN CHINA
November 21, 2005 | 12:00am
Outside the
Forbidden City
Beijing, China
August 26, 2005
4:00 p.m.
My tourist group of 19 was at the Shenwumen (Gate of Divine Might) gate of the Forbidden City. I mused on the different reasons our guide "Kill" Bill decided to park our bus a kilometer away from the Palace Museum: a) There was no other place to park, b) He wanted us to see and become one with the bustling Beijing sidewalk, or c) He wanted to make sure we were hungry enough for the Peking duck dinner he promised us later on.
During the walk through the busy Beijing sidewalks, we encountered other tourist groups of varied nationalities heading to or coming from the Forbidden City, their guides hoisting their company flags above their heads to make sure they were visible.
The weather was not warm at all, despite the sun beating down on us. That time of day and that time of year I could even stare at the sun with no harm to my eyes. It was as if the clouds (or smog) had created a seamless screen between Beijing and the sun.
Earlier in the afternoon, we left the Great Wall to have lunch at the restaurant in Changping. I almost had too much of a local wine with a very strong kick (stronger than vodka, I daresay). I also purchased a copy of the famous "little red book", Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, to compliment my Red Army cap.
From there it was a 45-minute bus ride to the heart of Beijing.
The Shenwumen is the rear gate of the Forbidden City. I reckon Bill's reason for taking us into the city from this gate was because the Forbidden City had a closing time while Tiananmen Square did not. Taking us around to the front would have been a waste of time.
Shenwumen, which faces the north, has three openings, the central opening is slightly bigger than the other two. All three entrances were secured by red wooden doors decorated evenly with huge brass knobs. The doors of one entrance were open, allowing us a tantalizing glimpse of what waited beyond as Bill arranged to have our party ticket.
Finally! This was another stop in my historic pilgrimage, another childhood dream of mine, to visit the Forbidden City and walk where emperors once tread.
The 72-hectare Forbidden City, the seat of power in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, was built in 1407 and completed 1420.
Called Gu Gong in the ancient days, it boasts of 9,999 rooms and halls. Since the Chinese believed heaven had 10,000 rooms, they thought their emperor should have the next best thing to heaven while he was here on earth.
About a million workers, including 100,000 artisans were said to have been put to hard labor to build the city that eventually housed 24 emperors over a period of 500 years.
The city is divided into two parts: the southern section, or the Outer Court, was where the emperor exercised his bureaucratic functions; while the northern section, also called the Inner Court, was where he lived in comfort.
Most of the buildings in the city are made of wood and painted mainly in red and yellow, the colors of the emperor. Bill said no one else in ancient China was allowed to use these colors. To do so would mean you want to take the emperor's place.
The city is rectangular in shape and is surrounded by a moat and a crenellated wall only passable at four heavily fortified entrances including the Wumen and Shenwumen gates.
After what seemed a while, Bill ushered us past Shenwumen, through a smaller gate called the Gate of Obedience and Purity and into the city itself.
Immediately past the Gate of Obedience and Purity we found ourselves in the Imperial Garden (Yuhuayuan), which was where emperors took strolls to clear their heads and take a breather from running the country. It is a small area compared to the rest of the city, a maze of pavilions, artificial hills, springs, rocks and old trees all put in place to blend into a landscape mean to soothe the soul and senses of the visitor.
In this garden, one can find an octagonal pavilion where the emperor had his tea. There were other important structures such as the low building where the emperor chose his concubines and Yang Xing Zhai (Study of the Cultivation of Nature) Hall where emperors came to rest and read. This is also where China's last emperor Pu Yi learned his lessons from his English teacher Reginald Johnston.
Past an arch leading out of the garden, we turned right into a narrow street hemmed in by walls on both sides. We found, to our amusement, huge bronze vats bigger than bathtubs spaced out evenly along the street.
Bill would later explain that the vats were once used to store water. Since most of the structures in the city were made of wood, chances of fire were likely. All in all, there are 308 such vats scattered around the city.
We followed Bill as he ducked into a narrow door on the right wall and we found ourselves in a courtyard with a huge vat and what appeared to be a large slab of rock sealed behind a glass case.
There was also a building in the courtyard called Yang Xin Dian Hall, where the emperor would be "serviced" by the concubine/s he had chosen for the night. The glass-encased rock slab was actually a huge crystal to symbolize the purity of the concubine/s chosen.
The windows of the building had been removed and replaced with glass, allowing us an inside look into another world and time.
Behind the glass I could see items the emperor and his concubines might have used: old mirrors, closets, furniture, clothes and even everyday items like combs, eye glasses and chopsticks.
Bill led us through another narrow opening to another courtyard, that of the Hall of Mental Cultivation which was where the emperor met with his officials.
Here, the Empress Dowager dictated to the young emperor state policies and laws while she hid behind a curtain and listened in to all conversations and negotiations. This arrangement gave rise to the expression "the power behind the curtain".
Also here, windows had been removed and replaced with glass to allow us a view of the antiques inside.
It should be mentioned here that the Inner Court has many huge buildings, making the spaces between them so narrow and crowded. These small spaces are made even smaller by narrow openings and gates. Whether this was a miscalculation on the part of the artisans or intended for a defensive purpose, I do not know.
Out of an ornate gate, we found ourselves on a narrow street that led right to a small opening and we again emerged in that narrow vat-filled street. We were later to learn Pu Yi often rode his bicycle along this narrow street.
Note to the traveler: The restrooms can be found at the end of this street. Besides this place I don't know where else you can find them in the Forbidden City.
The street ends in a gate. Beyond the gate is a huge courtyard called the Dragon Pavement that leads to steps up Baohedian (Hall of Preserved Harmony), which is already part of the Outer Court.
It was the first big open space we saw in the city and we could not help but gawk at its immensity. And to think it was small compared to others courtyards we were still to see.
I read somewhere that there is Starbucks Coffee in the Forbidden City. Although I saw a sign near the gate to Dragon Pavement that said "Coffee Shop" and had an arrow pointing to the far end of the square, we did not have time to check it out.
Sigh! After all the plans mom and I had about having coffee in the "Forbidden Starbucks!" (I heard there is now a Starbucks branch in the Great Wall of China).
The steps leading to the Baohedian would be the first of many I would see, carved from white marble and decorated with many intricate designs and figures. Each post was topped by a column carved with dragon or flower figures, the ramps between the wide steps were also covered in marble carvings.
As we made our way up the steps we came upon a group of European tourists making their way down and carrying one of their peers who was in a wheelchair. I could not resist taking a picture.
The latest sport!," one of the carriers - a heavy, bearded man - blurted in good humor as he passed by.
Up the steps and turning right, we encountered another small opening (which was becoming common to us by now) leading to the front of the Baohedian.
The Baohedian is one of the three most important buildings in the city, located on a great three-tiered, hourglass-shaped plaza in the city's center. It is the first one you encounter heading in from Shenwumen.
This building was where the emperor assembled commoners and where he would choose his officials. The commoners were made to take written exams to qualify as officials on three levels: local, national and palace. Those who made the local level were made ministers, the national level governors and the palace level became the imperial advisers.
This was also where the emperor entertained guests and foreign envoys during special occasions like the celebration of the New Year.
The second building in the plaza is Zhonghedian (Hall of Complete Harmony) where the emperor interviewed his ministers from the Ministry of Rites. Rehearsals for ceremonies were also held here.
But the most important building in the plaza and the entire city is the Taihedian (Hall of Supreme Harmony), also called the emperor's audience hall.
This was where the emperor met with his officials every morning to hear their daily reports and where he made and gave decisions that affected China.
Bill told us the importance of a building is reflected in the number of creatures carved on the roof and the number of hairs carved upon them. The more creatures on the roof, the more important the building.
The Taihedian has 11 figures at each corner of the roof.
Here we were lucky to have arrived when we did, I barely got to see the throne room in Taihedian before the building was closed for the day. Others were not so lucky.
It was 5 p.m., time for the Forbidden City to "close shop".
From somewhere unseen, a chime sounded and people started moving to the closest gate.
It's not easy to shoo thousands of tourists away from a 72-hectare attraction filled with narrow passages, dead ends and nice-looking buildings. So it took some time before we even moved down the steps from Taihedian.
Bill still had time to arrange for us to have our group photo taken in the middle of the Sea of Flagstones (also called the Court of the Imperial Palace) between the Taihedian and Taihemen (Gate of Supreme Harmony) the gateway to Taihedian.
The Sea of Flagstones was the biggest courtyard in the city.
Steps led up to and down from Taihemen. Coming down the steps from Taihemen we came upon another courtyard almost as big as the Sea of Flagstones. This courtyard was marked by five marble bridges running over a small stream that ran away from the moat.
Past the bridges at the end of the courtyard was the Wumen Gate. And the courtyard past this was utter chaos.
This courtyard was a tourist trap alive with vendors, stalls and gift shops. I was stopped more than once by someone trying to sell me water, maps to the city or something I did not know.
There was also a building that appeared to be a barracks. All of a sudden, a crowd of tourists scampered aside to make way for a platoon of conscripts marching in drill. They let loose a startling yell as they marched past.
I noticed some people turning to look up at something behind me and I saw actors dressed up as Chinese royalty in the Wumen Gate, so high up they almost looked like ants from where I was standing. I waved and they waved back.
By now I was really lagging behind my tour group and could barely see Bill's white flag. I rushed past the slower crowd, brushing more than one slowpoke aside, afraid of being lost among a thousand people who could not understand a word of English.
I went past the Duanmen (Upright Gate) and through another courtyard (I told you this place was huge) before I got to Tiananmen.
There lay the last set of red doors decorated with brass knobs. In search of my group, I nearly ran into a brown sign that read: "Visit is over. If you want to visit you have to buy tickets again."
I finally caught up with them outside Tiananmen, but not before taking a final picture of the gate.
We turned left as we headed out of Tiananmen and down an underpass running under Dongchang'an Jie Street. When we came back up to street level we were already in Tiananmen Square.
The beginning of Tiananmen Square, the largest in the world, goes back to 1417 during the Ming dynasty. Back then, this area was occupied by buildings of imperial ministries.
These buildings were later destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and the area was again cleared, paving the way for the present Tiananmen Square.
Enlarged to its present size of 44 hectares in 1949, the square is surrounded by the Monument for the People's Heroes to the south, the National Museum to the east and the Great Hall of the People to the west.
The square itself is bare except for a 38-meter-high monument. It has lamp posts installed with video cameras and is monitored all the time by policemen both in uniform and plainclothes.
The view from here is amazing; you can see the skyline for miles around, even huge buildings will be a tad hard to spot from here. It's like being right smack in the middle of a big yawning emptiness - nothing between you and the sky.
Bill said it can hold as much as a million people at once, for gatherings and events.
Of all the things Bill said about the square, there was one thing he did not mention - what happened here during the dark days of the Tiananmen Square protests of June 1989.
No one knows how many students, soldiers and civilians died when the government put down demonstrators clamoring for change in China. The Chinese government still forbids an actual tally of the dead.
Looking around Tiananmen Square I could not help but feel overwhelmed by the plight of those who had come here in hopes of attaining democracy that day; in this big emptiness, they had nowhere to run from the soldiers, nowhere to hide from the tanks. It was just them with the earth and the sky.
It became clear to me what the ancient Chinese were going for in making places like the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square humongous.
The fact that every official who had to visit the emperor had to abandon his sedan or horse at Tiananmen Gate and walk the last mile alone on foot amid such huge buildings and structures had been to reduce his stature to "motedom", the state of feeling so small and insignificant in the wider scope of things.
I was first introduced to the concept of "motedom" by science-fiction writer Frank Herbert in his book "Dune Messiah" years ago, but I was only grasping it now, feeling like a mote in this big place.
True, I did feel like a mote, but a mote whose perspective was broadened a few more horizons -a happy mote who could now see further.
And speaking of huge, broad spaces, I felt there was a huge, broad space in my stomach after all that climbing and walking and running. I happily followed Bill as he led us off Tiananmen Square to my first Peking duck dinner.
Forbidden City
Beijing, China
August 26, 2005
4:00 p.m.
During the walk through the busy Beijing sidewalks, we encountered other tourist groups of varied nationalities heading to or coming from the Forbidden City, their guides hoisting their company flags above their heads to make sure they were visible.
The weather was not warm at all, despite the sun beating down on us. That time of day and that time of year I could even stare at the sun with no harm to my eyes. It was as if the clouds (or smog) had created a seamless screen between Beijing and the sun.
Earlier in the afternoon, we left the Great Wall to have lunch at the restaurant in Changping. I almost had too much of a local wine with a very strong kick (stronger than vodka, I daresay). I also purchased a copy of the famous "little red book", Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, to compliment my Red Army cap.
From there it was a 45-minute bus ride to the heart of Beijing.
The Shenwumen is the rear gate of the Forbidden City. I reckon Bill's reason for taking us into the city from this gate was because the Forbidden City had a closing time while Tiananmen Square did not. Taking us around to the front would have been a waste of time.
Shenwumen, which faces the north, has three openings, the central opening is slightly bigger than the other two. All three entrances were secured by red wooden doors decorated evenly with huge brass knobs. The doors of one entrance were open, allowing us a tantalizing glimpse of what waited beyond as Bill arranged to have our party ticket.
Finally! This was another stop in my historic pilgrimage, another childhood dream of mine, to visit the Forbidden City and walk where emperors once tread.
Called Gu Gong in the ancient days, it boasts of 9,999 rooms and halls. Since the Chinese believed heaven had 10,000 rooms, they thought their emperor should have the next best thing to heaven while he was here on earth.
About a million workers, including 100,000 artisans were said to have been put to hard labor to build the city that eventually housed 24 emperors over a period of 500 years.
The city is divided into two parts: the southern section, or the Outer Court, was where the emperor exercised his bureaucratic functions; while the northern section, also called the Inner Court, was where he lived in comfort.
Most of the buildings in the city are made of wood and painted mainly in red and yellow, the colors of the emperor. Bill said no one else in ancient China was allowed to use these colors. To do so would mean you want to take the emperor's place.
The city is rectangular in shape and is surrounded by a moat and a crenellated wall only passable at four heavily fortified entrances including the Wumen and Shenwumen gates.
Immediately past the Gate of Obedience and Purity we found ourselves in the Imperial Garden (Yuhuayuan), which was where emperors took strolls to clear their heads and take a breather from running the country. It is a small area compared to the rest of the city, a maze of pavilions, artificial hills, springs, rocks and old trees all put in place to blend into a landscape mean to soothe the soul and senses of the visitor.
In this garden, one can find an octagonal pavilion where the emperor had his tea. There were other important structures such as the low building where the emperor chose his concubines and Yang Xing Zhai (Study of the Cultivation of Nature) Hall where emperors came to rest and read. This is also where China's last emperor Pu Yi learned his lessons from his English teacher Reginald Johnston.
Past an arch leading out of the garden, we turned right into a narrow street hemmed in by walls on both sides. We found, to our amusement, huge bronze vats bigger than bathtubs spaced out evenly along the street.
Bill would later explain that the vats were once used to store water. Since most of the structures in the city were made of wood, chances of fire were likely. All in all, there are 308 such vats scattered around the city.
There was also a building in the courtyard called Yang Xin Dian Hall, where the emperor would be "serviced" by the concubine/s he had chosen for the night. The glass-encased rock slab was actually a huge crystal to symbolize the purity of the concubine/s chosen.
The windows of the building had been removed and replaced with glass, allowing us an inside look into another world and time.
Behind the glass I could see items the emperor and his concubines might have used: old mirrors, closets, furniture, clothes and even everyday items like combs, eye glasses and chopsticks.
Bill led us through another narrow opening to another courtyard, that of the Hall of Mental Cultivation which was where the emperor met with his officials.
Here, the Empress Dowager dictated to the young emperor state policies and laws while she hid behind a curtain and listened in to all conversations and negotiations. This arrangement gave rise to the expression "the power behind the curtain".
Also here, windows had been removed and replaced with glass to allow us a view of the antiques inside.
It should be mentioned here that the Inner Court has many huge buildings, making the spaces between them so narrow and crowded. These small spaces are made even smaller by narrow openings and gates. Whether this was a miscalculation on the part of the artisans or intended for a defensive purpose, I do not know.
Out of an ornate gate, we found ourselves on a narrow street that led right to a small opening and we again emerged in that narrow vat-filled street. We were later to learn Pu Yi often rode his bicycle along this narrow street.
Note to the traveler: The restrooms can be found at the end of this street. Besides this place I don't know where else you can find them in the Forbidden City.
The street ends in a gate. Beyond the gate is a huge courtyard called the Dragon Pavement that leads to steps up Baohedian (Hall of Preserved Harmony), which is already part of the Outer Court.
It was the first big open space we saw in the city and we could not help but gawk at its immensity. And to think it was small compared to others courtyards we were still to see.
I read somewhere that there is Starbucks Coffee in the Forbidden City. Although I saw a sign near the gate to Dragon Pavement that said "Coffee Shop" and had an arrow pointing to the far end of the square, we did not have time to check it out.
Sigh! After all the plans mom and I had about having coffee in the "Forbidden Starbucks!" (I heard there is now a Starbucks branch in the Great Wall of China).
The steps leading to the Baohedian would be the first of many I would see, carved from white marble and decorated with many intricate designs and figures. Each post was topped by a column carved with dragon or flower figures, the ramps between the wide steps were also covered in marble carvings.
As we made our way up the steps we came upon a group of European tourists making their way down and carrying one of their peers who was in a wheelchair. I could not resist taking a picture.
The latest sport!," one of the carriers - a heavy, bearded man - blurted in good humor as he passed by.
The Baohedian is one of the three most important buildings in the city, located on a great three-tiered, hourglass-shaped plaza in the city's center. It is the first one you encounter heading in from Shenwumen.
This building was where the emperor assembled commoners and where he would choose his officials. The commoners were made to take written exams to qualify as officials on three levels: local, national and palace. Those who made the local level were made ministers, the national level governors and the palace level became the imperial advisers.
This was also where the emperor entertained guests and foreign envoys during special occasions like the celebration of the New Year.
The second building in the plaza is Zhonghedian (Hall of Complete Harmony) where the emperor interviewed his ministers from the Ministry of Rites. Rehearsals for ceremonies were also held here.
But the most important building in the plaza and the entire city is the Taihedian (Hall of Supreme Harmony), also called the emperor's audience hall.
This was where the emperor met with his officials every morning to hear their daily reports and where he made and gave decisions that affected China.
Bill told us the importance of a building is reflected in the number of creatures carved on the roof and the number of hairs carved upon them. The more creatures on the roof, the more important the building.
The Taihedian has 11 figures at each corner of the roof.
Here we were lucky to have arrived when we did, I barely got to see the throne room in Taihedian before the building was closed for the day. Others were not so lucky.
From somewhere unseen, a chime sounded and people started moving to the closest gate.
It's not easy to shoo thousands of tourists away from a 72-hectare attraction filled with narrow passages, dead ends and nice-looking buildings. So it took some time before we even moved down the steps from Taihedian.
Bill still had time to arrange for us to have our group photo taken in the middle of the Sea of Flagstones (also called the Court of the Imperial Palace) between the Taihedian and Taihemen (Gate of Supreme Harmony) the gateway to Taihedian.
The Sea of Flagstones was the biggest courtyard in the city.
Steps led up to and down from Taihemen. Coming down the steps from Taihemen we came upon another courtyard almost as big as the Sea of Flagstones. This courtyard was marked by five marble bridges running over a small stream that ran away from the moat.
Past the bridges at the end of the courtyard was the Wumen Gate. And the courtyard past this was utter chaos.
This courtyard was a tourist trap alive with vendors, stalls and gift shops. I was stopped more than once by someone trying to sell me water, maps to the city or something I did not know.
There was also a building that appeared to be a barracks. All of a sudden, a crowd of tourists scampered aside to make way for a platoon of conscripts marching in drill. They let loose a startling yell as they marched past.
I noticed some people turning to look up at something behind me and I saw actors dressed up as Chinese royalty in the Wumen Gate, so high up they almost looked like ants from where I was standing. I waved and they waved back.
By now I was really lagging behind my tour group and could barely see Bill's white flag. I rushed past the slower crowd, brushing more than one slowpoke aside, afraid of being lost among a thousand people who could not understand a word of English.
I went past the Duanmen (Upright Gate) and through another courtyard (I told you this place was huge) before I got to Tiananmen.
There lay the last set of red doors decorated with brass knobs. In search of my group, I nearly ran into a brown sign that read: "Visit is over. If you want to visit you have to buy tickets again."
I finally caught up with them outside Tiananmen, but not before taking a final picture of the gate.
We turned left as we headed out of Tiananmen and down an underpass running under Dongchang'an Jie Street. When we came back up to street level we were already in Tiananmen Square.
These buildings were later destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and the area was again cleared, paving the way for the present Tiananmen Square.
Enlarged to its present size of 44 hectares in 1949, the square is surrounded by the Monument for the People's Heroes to the south, the National Museum to the east and the Great Hall of the People to the west.
The square itself is bare except for a 38-meter-high monument. It has lamp posts installed with video cameras and is monitored all the time by policemen both in uniform and plainclothes.
The view from here is amazing; you can see the skyline for miles around, even huge buildings will be a tad hard to spot from here. It's like being right smack in the middle of a big yawning emptiness - nothing between you and the sky.
Bill said it can hold as much as a million people at once, for gatherings and events.
Of all the things Bill said about the square, there was one thing he did not mention - what happened here during the dark days of the Tiananmen Square protests of June 1989.
No one knows how many students, soldiers and civilians died when the government put down demonstrators clamoring for change in China. The Chinese government still forbids an actual tally of the dead.
Looking around Tiananmen Square I could not help but feel overwhelmed by the plight of those who had come here in hopes of attaining democracy that day; in this big emptiness, they had nowhere to run from the soldiers, nowhere to hide from the tanks. It was just them with the earth and the sky.
The fact that every official who had to visit the emperor had to abandon his sedan or horse at Tiananmen Gate and walk the last mile alone on foot amid such huge buildings and structures had been to reduce his stature to "motedom", the state of feeling so small and insignificant in the wider scope of things.
I was first introduced to the concept of "motedom" by science-fiction writer Frank Herbert in his book "Dune Messiah" years ago, but I was only grasping it now, feeling like a mote in this big place.
True, I did feel like a mote, but a mote whose perspective was broadened a few more horizons -a happy mote who could now see further.
And speaking of huge, broad spaces, I felt there was a huge, broad space in my stomach after all that climbing and walking and running. I happily followed Bill as he led us off Tiananmen Square to my first Peking duck dinner.
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