Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 14 - Beijing Forbidden City

The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City (to Westerns) or Gugong (in Chinese), which means the "Former Palace", was started in 1406 and is now a museum called the "Palace Museum". It was the imperial palace for almost 500 years, from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It was just around the corner from our hotel so it was quite convenient to get to. It is HUGE! It is the world's largest surviving palace complex and covers 178 acres. There are 980 buildings with 8,707 "rooms". The audio guide said that 9's are lucky for the emperors and the emperors were attempting to get to 9,999 rooms.

These are pictures as you come up to the South entrance of the Forbidden City, The Tian'anmen or Gate of Heavenly Peace. As you can see, they were doing some renovations, but you can definitely see the large picture of Chairman Mao. This gate is the entrance to the Imperial City, which then contains the Forbidden City. There are some pictures of us in front ... Tom has this fascination with Chairman Mao, I'm thinking of getting him a chairman Mao watch before we leave.

Inside of the Imperial City, there is a large square from where you can see the Meridian Gate, which is the main entrance to the Forbidden City.

Once inside the Forbidden City itself, you come to another large square with a river running through it, called the Jade Robbon River. There are 5 marble bridge that cross this river.

Throughout the Forbidden City, we find lots of Lion statues in pairs, most of them bronze. They normally are in pairs and are a male and female lion. Below the first is the female lion with the claw on top of a cub, which is a symbol of the thriving offspring and perpetual imperial succession. The second is the male, playing with a ball under his paw, symbolizing imperial power and state unity.

This is the Gate of Supreme Harmony. Each building in the Forbidden City (and really throughout China it seems) has a "ranking" which is indicated by the number of little animals on the roof (shown in the 2nd picture). The one with the most little animals is the highest ranking. The inside of the roof (pictures 3 & 4) is very colorful and detailed.

Susan in front of one of the smaller buildings.

These interesting staircases are on all the major temples or gates. According to the audioguide, these were special stairs for the emperor only .... everyone else used stairs to either side. The stone in the middle normally shows mountains, water, clouds, and dragons.

This bronze incense burner is one of 18 of them, used to burn sandlewood and pine branches during grand ceremonies. Supposedly the smoke added an air of mystery and implied the stability and security of the state. Supposedly only the emperor was allowed to handle time, so the sundial was placed inside of the palace. The large caldrons held water that was used to fight any fires that came up.

More pictures of the various buildings and architecture.

Another couple examples of these great staircases for the emperors, which clearly shows the lovely details.

This is a great screen that we saw with very intricat detail.

This is the Imperial Garden, which is in the North end of the Forbidden City.

The 9 dragon screen is over in another section of the Forbidden City (also with its' own price tag). It was built in 1773 and is over 20 meters long. It is made from 270 glazed pieces of porcelein that includes nine dragons, mountains, clouds, and seas. This is one of 3 9-dragon screens that exist in China.

Another set of lions.

This is a set of bells that were created in 1791 and contains 16 bells. They are all the same size, but the different thicknesses of the walls produces different pitches.

Back behind the Forbidden City you can see these other nice buildings on the hill (3 of them) but I still do not know what they exactly are.





Continue to Tian'an men Square