today, and this time walked through Tiananmen itself (Tiananmen
translates to "Gate of Heavenly Peace"; it seems all of the Chinese
names of buildings in the Forbidden City translate to superlatives
like "Hall of Supreme Harmony"). After walking through a few more
large gates and getting a chance to look around, I saw that the place
was packed today – I'm not sure if this is a usual thing or not, but
everywhere along the main paths I had to weave between people (as did
others) to make my way through. Passing through more gates escalating
in grandeur, I finally reached the main courtyard, which contains the
vast Hall of Supreme Harmony on a multi-tiered white marble base. I
continued to explore the main north to south meridian, which contains
all of the big buildings, for most of the morning. There were so many
people that when I tried to approach the entrance of the hall to take
a picture of the throne inside, to move in any direction required
pushing against other people. Taking the picture itself was doubly
hard, not just because of the low lighting but also because I had to
stand still long enough to avoid blurs. It was almost like the crowd
at the front at Spring Fling between N.E.R.D. and Girl Talk, and if
people here were drunk it very well could have been just as bad. The
overall Forbidden City is huge – it would take at least a day to cover
everything, and that's if you went very fast. After the vast spaces
of the outer court, I headed into the narrower alleys of the inner
court, all red-walled and yellow-roofed (with one standout lone yellow
wall whose purpose I didn't discover).
Before getting to the park, I ate lunch, and some Colorado travellers
sat down with me to eat. We talked in English for a while about our
respective travel plans – they plan to go to places like the Longmen
Grottos, Shaolin Temple, and also the east coast, overall taking 3
weeks. We also talked about the street food; though they said they
regularly ate very spicy food, they thought street malatang was too
hot, so I need to check this out – it wasn't that bad when I tried it.
They also had bought some art from an "art student exhibition," which
I've heard is a classic scam front, but they've travelled to Thailand
before, so maybe they bargained for a good deal. Visited the imperial
park in the back after lunch, which had some interesting rock
carvings, unusually-shaped trees, and a pavillion built on top of a
pile of rocks 10m high. I saw one tree (lacebark pine, I think) whose
root was described as looking like a "crouching dragon"; despite being
curved, I didn't catch the resemblance. My theory is that whenever
Chinese people want to hype the beauty of a natural feature, they
liken it to a dragon – it's already been done with the Great Wall.
Afterward, checked out some of the small halls in the inner court to
the right side of the main path. These had been converted into
museums, and I got to see some beautiful examples of bronze, jade, and
gold/silver works; some of the goldwork was particularly fascinating.
After these, I went to a hall containing many highly ornamented and
large clocks; the opulence was stunning, as it was for the gold/silver
works. Some of the clocks in this exhibition had things like moving
figures as well, one clock was even a chariot that moved in a circle
when wound. There was also an ancient Chinese water clock. Near the
back was a small section designed to resemble an imperial living
quarters, where most everything had a clock built into it, down to the
armrests. The plaque said that it would let the imperial
family/concubines know what time it was no matter where they looked,
but I'm inclined to think that ten clocks in ten square feet is
overkill. Also, the plaque said they all made a "sweet sound" at
regular intervals; with so many, I think that would drive me nuts
after a while. Nevertheless, they were all quite well-made.
After this, it was nearly 5. Had initially planned to go to Jingshan
Park to the north, but was tired, so returned home.
No comments:
Post a Comment