Beijing (History and Personal Experience)

During this post, you will see many pictures of our adventures in Beijing, but in these pictures you will see something that is not usual for Beijing: blue skies. We should thank the One Belt One Road forum that was to take place the day after we left. The One Belt One Road forum is a gathering of Asian countries along the Silk Road. They meet together to discuss the improvement of the trade along the road.The Chinese government shut  down all the factories around Beijing a week before the forum was to take place, in order to improve the air quality. Thankfully, the plan worked out perfectly, and we had blue skies throughout our stay in Beijing. The government wanted to show off even more to the visiting officials, so they planted beautiful flower displays all over the city. It seems as though we were also VIP officials.

Day 1:

Today is our first day exploring Beijing. First, we head to the Summer Palace. Each day the Summer Palace receives 50,000 visitors! The Summer Palace was built by Qian Long in 1750. Qian Long is said to be China’s best emperor. He ruled during the Qing Dynasty for 60 years. By the time the Qing Dynasty ended in 1924, Qian Long had built five gardens and three man-made hills. The Summer Palace was destroyed in 1850 during the Anglo-French war and then rebuilt again later. In 1927 it was opened up to the public and became a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The full name of the Summer Palace is the Chinese Summer Palace. In Chinese it is 颐和园 (yi re yuan) which means “garden, harmony, and cultivate.” As we climb the steps to enter the palace, we see a dragon engraved on the middle of the steps. The dragon represents the Emperor and a phoenix represents the Empress. On either side of the gate there are two lions. A female and a male; Ying and Yang.

The female is holding a baby, and the male is holding the world. Once we enter through the gate we take a look at the map of the palace. The Kunming Lake (which we will visit after) takes up half of the property.

Once in the courtyard past the main entrance, we see many old trees, rocks will interesting formations, and statute of different animals. The Emperor believed that the animal statue could distinguish the bad officials from the good. At the end of the courtyard there is the emperor’s sitting place. This building is not his throne room; it is only for relaxing. There are three statues in front of the relaxing room. The center statue is of a crane, which represents long life, and the other two are of a phoenix. Since we are not allowed inside the relaxing room, we look through the windows. The first thing that we see is the sitting place. It is covered with cushions and silk sheets. Behind the sitting place, there is a mirror. Written on the mirror, there are 144 Chinese characters for long life. Each character looks different because 144 officials wrote on the mirror, and they come from different places, so they have different writing styles.

As we walk behind the relaxing building, we see many flowers along the path. Our guide tells us they are Peony flowers, the national flower of China.

We walk along a corridor to reach the lake. The corridor is 728 meters long built by the son of Empress Dowager as a birthday gift. The 7 in 728 meters represent July, and the 28 represents the 28th day, which means that Empress Dowager’s birthday is on July 28. The lake is a man-made lake. It was dug by one million workers! It is a copy of the West Lake in Hangzhou. The emperor wanted to use the lake to train his navy, but he could only do it during summer because the whole lake(!) freezes in winter! Close to banks of the lake, there is a huge marble boat. The emperor used the boat to relax, eat, and talk with officials. He wanted the country to be stable just like the boat. The water represents the people, the boat represents the government, and the boat driver represents the emperor. Therefore, the people have all the power: the water can overturn the boat or the water can carry the boat.

Next, we went to Empress Dowager’s living quarters. Empress Dowager or the Dragon Lady wasn’t supposed to be the empress. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Dragon Lady was chosen as a concubine for the king. Soon, she had risen to the position of the #2 concubine. When she gave birth to a boy, she was only second to the emperor’s wife. When the emperor passed away, the Dragon Lady’s son became king. The Dragon Lady poisoned the deceased emperor’s wife so she could take over. Technically, Empress Dowager was ruling the country. When her son died, she adopted another son, so she could stay in power. She put her adopted son in house arrest in 1808 for 10 years because he wanted to rule the country. She killed anyone who wanted to reform the country. She ruled for 50 years and died in 1908, and one day later, her adopted son also died.

In Empress Dowager’s living quarter there are five rooms.

The courtyard represents the earth, the family room represents fire, the boys room represents wood, the girls room represents gold, and the matriarch and patriarch’s room represents water. Empress Dowager believed that if the five elements were incorporated in her life, then life would be good. There were four chambers in Empress Dowager’s room: a make-up room, the study room, a room for artifact collection (clothes, silks…), and a bedroom. Empress Dowager always had a big feast for every meal. She would have 48 cold dishes and 128 hot dishes. Of course, she would not even get close to finishing these dishes. One of her meals could feed a family of 10 people for one year! Then, we left the Summer Palace to go to the Hutong Neighborhood.

To get to the Hutong Neighborhood, we rode in a Tuk Tuk!

In Chinese, Hutong means water well. The first inhabitants of the Hutong Neighbourhood were Mongolians. When one family settled down, they would dig a well next to their house. Then, as other families began to arrive, they built their houses around the well. That is why the Hutong Neighbourhoods are one long alley. There used to be more than 5,000 Hutongs in Beijing, but after the Cultural Revolution, there are now only 1,000. There are no toilets or showers in each house, so people use community bathrooms.

We stopped at the Wang family’s house to learn calligraphy. There is a courtyard in the center. Plants, flowers, and trees are growing all around. Red lanterns are hanging on the trees, as a symbol of prosperity. There are little rooms surrounding the courtyard like the family room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, and shops. We went into one of the rooms to learn calligraphy. We learned how to hold the brush, how much ink to use, the stroke order of the characters, when to make the lines thin or thick, and where to place the characters on the page. (Add video of teacher doing calligraphy) We also learned our chinese names. My name is 惠心 pronounced hùi xīn which means wisdom from the heart, since my name (Sophia) in Latin means wisdom. My brother’s name is 阳阳 pronounced yàng yàng which means great, since his name (Max) in Latin means the greatest. Then, we said goodbye to the family and headed back to our hotel.

Tuesday:

Today we will visit the Great Wall of China. Our tour guide takes us to a part of the Great Wall that is not very crowded. The Great Wall was built in 700 B.C., and in 221 B.C. When all of China was unified, Qin Shi Huang standardized the Chinese character and ordered all the parts of the wall to be connected. Now, there were no more threats inside China-- only outside. The Great Wall starts in the Yellow River and stretches all the way to the Gobi Desert in northern Mongolia and southern China.

The wall is 6,000 km long. 20% (20 million people) of the population was involved in building the wall. The wall was built with bricks that were locally made. There was no cement, so the workers used sticky rice to glue the brick together.

As we were walking, our guide told us about the four inventions in ancient China: gunpowder, the compass, paper, and printing. The emperor built another wall a few miles ahead of the actual Great Wall. He did this to stop the Mongolians from riding horses. The emperor needed a lot of people to build the wall, so he sent soldiers to search for men ages 20-40. Many people died building the wall, so the other workers buried them in the wall. There is an ancient story about the Great Wall:

A man named Mr. Fang Xi Liang and a woman named Mrs. Meng Jiang were getting married when soldiers invaded their village and took all their men including the groom. Five years after her husband was taken, Mrs. Meng Jiang went to the Great Wall in order to find him. Her journey took one year, and when she finally arrived, she was told that her husband had died one day before she arrived. She cried for three days and three nights. Due to her crying, one kilometer of the Great Wall collapsed. The emperor was furious with her, and ordered that she be brought to him to be killed. When she arrived at the emperor’s court, he fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. When she refused, the emperor pleaded her and told her she could have anything she wanted if she agreed to marry him. Finally, she agreed to marry him only if he would hold a proper funeral for her husband. Once the funeral was held, she jumped into the ocean to join her husband instead of marrying the emperor.

We walked along the Great Wall for two hours, listening to stories and watching the view. When we came down from the Great Wall, we walked to the car and drove to the Olympic Park.

The Olympic Park is located in the center of Beijing. It was built for the 2008 Summer Olympics. We walked through the park, and entered the Bird’s Nest Stadium. There our guide told us the symbolism of the Chinese flag. The red represents the many people that died fighting for China’s independence. The largest of the four golden stars stands for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the four smaller stars represent the people (intellectuals, soldiers, farmers, and workers). Then, we left the Olympic Park, completing our second day in China!

Wednesday:

First, we go to the Temple of Harvest or Temple of Heaven. In Chinese the name is _________ which means prayer, harvest, and hall. This temple was built in __________.  It was used during the Ming and Quing dynasties. In 1530 and 1750 it was destroyed by lightning and was rebuilt. No cement or nails were used in its construction. In total there were 28 columns supporting the building, representing the 28 constellations. The four interior columns symbolized the four seasons, the 12 central columns represented the 12 months of the year, and the 12 outer columns symbolized the 12 hours in the day (back then, two hours were equal to one hour). The temple has three roofs, which means that it is the home of a heavenly body. Two roofs means that it is the home of an emperor, and one roof means that it is the home of a commoner. The ball on the top of the temple represents the North Star. Surrounding the temple,, there is an echo wall. When one person would speak into the wall, a person on the opposite side could hear them.

The emperor used this building every Chinese New Year which begins at the end of January and ends at the beginning of February. The emperor also came on the summer solstice and winter solstice. This temple was used during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The emperors would come three days before the ceremony began to purify themselves through fasting. Once the ceremony began, only the emperor was allowed inside the temple. To represent the heavens, the emperor had a tablet engraved with the writings of the gods. He would offer incense, silk, and dead animals to the tablet. There are three other temples close to this one: the temples of the moon, sun, and earth. Since the emperor always wanted to be the center of everything, he built the Forbidden City in the center of these four temples. This temple is the symbol of Beijing, and the Great Wall is the symbol of China.

We walked down a very long walkway to reach the platform which held the Heavenly Center Stone. The stone was located in the center of the platform. The marble slabs that were placed around the stone were placed in a certain order. Every row had nine times the number of marble slabs than the row before it. This is because the number nine is a number of power. Also, there were two levels of stairs that we climbed to reach the top. The first level was a square, and the second level was a circle. This represented Ying and Yang.

Next, we went to Tiananmen Square. In Chinese, the name means Gate of Heavenly Peace. The layout of the square is a copy of the Red Square in Moscow. It was first built in 1420 during the Ming dynasty, and it was shaped like a T. After the Ming dynasty collapsed, Tiananmen Square was used a s a trash collecting place. From south to north it is 700 meters long, and from east to west it is 450 meters long. If you tried to fit as many people as you could side by side in the square, how many people do you think could fit? One million people! Since Tiananmen Square is in the center of the city, it is surrounded by many important buildings. On its left is the Great Hall of the People which was built in 1958, the auditorium (reception center) which holds 9,000 people, and the banquet chamber which can fit 5,000 people. On its right is the National Museum of China. It is 200,000 sq meters, and its area is the largest of any museum in the world! Behind the square is the memorial hall which holds Chairman Mao’s body in a crystal tomb. Every morning, the tomb is brought up from the ground for the tourists to see. Then, at night it is lifted back down.

Important Fact:

Before the 2008 student massacre, the floor of the square was made of dirt, but after the massacre, the blood stayed in the ground which discouraged many people from visiting the square. Therefore, the Chinese government covered the entire square with granite blocks! The Chinese government prohibits anyone from talking about the 3 T’s (Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen). Therefore, our tour guide could not tell us much about the student massacre. Many students were protesting for more rights. They camped out in Tiananmen Square for a few nights. Finally, the government sent soldiers and tanks to send the students away. They ended up killing many of the protesters.

Fun Fact:

On October 1 (the national independence day) 30 million tourists visit Beijing! Chairman Mao founded the Chinese Communist Party on October 1, 1949, which is why this day is celebrated.

Forbidden City:

As we were entering the Forbidden City, there were two guards that stood in the sweltering sun in their full uniform for two hours! The Forbidden City was designed by the architect Lei Fa Da and built during the Ming dynasty. In total, 24 emperors lived here-- 14 from the Ming dynasty and 10 from the Qing dynasty. The first emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Di, moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing. The second emperor’s uncle wanted to be the emperor, so the uncle killed his nephew and took the throne. The last emperor killed his whole family when the Farmer’s Rebellion took place, and then he hung himself. In 1644, the Qing dynasty (Manchurians) took over the last dynasty (Han dynasty). Therefore, the last emperor (Puyi) of the Han dynasty fled the Forbidden City, and went to Manchuria, then to Japan, and then back to the Forbidden City to work as a gardener! The Forbidden City became a museum in 1925. I recommend a movie about the last emperor of China called The Last Emperor, which depicts this story.

Past the entrance gate, there is a huge garden with displays of rocks, ancient trees, and beautiful flowers. Along the sides, there used to be waiting lounges for the emperor’s officials. Near the exit of the garden, there are five gates. The central one is for the emperor and the empress, but she can only go through it on her wedding day. The side gates are for the ministers, and the outer gates are for the low-ranking officials. There are two towers on the sides of the gates: the drum tower and the bell tower. They are used on special occasions. We go through the center gate and enter the Forbidden City!

The Forbidden City is 960 meters by 750 meters. There are over 800 buildings in the Forbidden City. From a bird’s eye view, it looks like a rectangle. The moat surrounding the Forbidden City is 3,500 meters long, 52 meters wide, and 10 meters deep! The Forbidden City is divided into three parts: the political section, the garden, and the living quarters. First we go to the political section and see a huge building with a beautiful and colorful roof. This building is called the Central Building, where the emperor would stand to receive the military generals and present the new lunar calendar to the people. To get to the Central Building, there are five bridges. They work the same way the gates do; people with higher ranks go through the central one, and people with lower ranks go through the outer ones. The five bridges represent benevolence, fidelity, filial piety, rituals, and hard work. There are no trees in the whole Forbidden City because the emperor thought his enemies could use them as hiding places. Beneath the stone floor, the emperor had placed 14 layers of stone to prevent people from digging tunnels. On the far end of the courtyard, there were two huge pots of water. They held water that would be used to put out fires.

We cross the bridges and get to the Central Building. In the building, there is a throne made of sandal wood and gilded in gold. Next to the throne, there are two jars engraved with elephants that used to hold rice. The elephant represents peace and harmony, and the rice represents a good harvest. Next the the jars, there are two statues of a crane, which symbolizes the empress. There is also a statue of a Ho (a mythical Chinese animal that runs very fast), because the emperor wanted to be as strong as him. The floor of the building is made of bricks, but they are made to look like marble. Silk carpets with beautiful designs cover the whole floor. The four columns are gilded in gold. We exit the central building, and go to the next!

The next building is the emperor’s living chamber. In his bedroom, there are four beds. He sleeps in one, and in the other three beds he puts dummies because if his enemies came to kill him, they wouldn’t know which bed he was in! In the emperor’s closet, he had a box with the name of his successor on a piece on paper. When he died, the officials would open the box and declare the new emperor. All the emperor’s clothes are made from gold thread, and his toilet is a gold bucket.

Next, we went to the wedding chamber. In the chamber, there is a bed with a silk cover. On the silk cover, “double happiness” is written for the dragon (king) and the phoenix (queen) in chinese characters. Then, we went to the garden. The first thing we see are two trees connected to form a heart shape. Then, we walk around and visit four pavilions that represent the four seasons. Unfortunately, it was time for us to leave the Forbidden City and Beijing!! We said goodbye to our tour guide who told us so much about China and its culture. Then, we went back to the hotel and prepared to leave the next day to Pingyao!