2002-05-18

Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City

This was a busy day! We visited Tian An Men Square, the Forbidden City, the imperial palace, a ceramics factory and saw acrobats perform.

It also set something of a personal record for me with 642 digital pictures taken. Don't worry, this page will only contain a small fraction of them!

The photo is a statue in Tian An Men square. The man in front is holding Mao's red book.

Mao Zedong died in 1976 and despite his wishes to be cremated he was, like Lenin, preserved and put on public display in a mausoleum in Tian An Men square. His body rests in a sarcophagus of crystal which is raised by machine out of a freezer for a few hours every day. No cameras and no speaking is permitted in the viewing chamber. The line to view him stretches on for two hours so we did not see him today.

Entrance to the Forbidden City.

An old woman selling flags and souvenirs.

Resting in the shade of the courtyard wall.

Interesting fact: There are a total of 308 bronze and iron vats placed around the Forbidden City. The vats were used to hold water in case of fire. In wintertime they were covered with lids and kept warm with a small fire beneath each one to keep them from freezing.

This photo begins to give a sense of the scale of the Forbidden City but this is only one courtyard of many!

Roof lines were decorated with all manner of fantastic creatures.

Not just for decoration, these dragon heads serve as water spouts for drainage.

Lunch is always 'family style' with the dishes served on a turntable. We kept the turntable spinning most of the time. In the foregound are bottles of Yanjing beer and Coca Cola.

Scene from a wall-screen. Two ladies playing Go?

The urn in front of the Buddha statue is for placing incense sticks and praying.

So beautiful and peaceful I could wander the grounds all day. But then I heard the sound of a single violin somewhere in the distance and decided to investigate.

I found this man, absorbed in his music, playing among the trees.

He did not mind my presence. He scarcely even noticed me. I sat down to listen to him for a while. I stayed as long as I could and regretted having to leave.

Our next stop was the imperial palace.

There is a covered walkway from the palace to the river which must be at least half a mile long. The roof is decorated with paintings for its entire length. There were thousands of these paintings and some of them contained Go themes.

This one and the next are essentially the same scene rendered with slightly different details. It makes me wonder if the scene is from an old Chinese fable.

An act of treachery. The general suddenly senses the presence of the assasins outside his tent.

Three women with umbrellas. Sunlight changes its shade as it passes through her pink umbrella.

I asked him, "Is that a real Rolex?" He smiled and promised, "Real Rolex! Real Rolex!"

They offer a guarantee that lasts for a lifetime or until the seller is out of sight; whichever comes first. One of our group bought one and, no kidding, it stopped working less than five minutes after the sale. The watch peddler was nowhere to be seen.

Our next stop was a ceramics factory. Helge told us news of fires that are burning across Siberia. It's been a dry spring and there are many large fires burning out of control directly in out path. We hope they will be gone by the time we pass through.

A wall-screen showing The Four Virtues. These are the skills that were considered essential to an educated person in classical times: music, Go, literature and art.

Scene from another wall-screen. Two ladies playing Go.

That evening we went to watch the acrobats perform. We were left awestruck by their skill. Look at the photo to the right. She has just tossed the dishes from her right foot and catches them on her head. Incredible!