Legend says the Forbidden City contains 9999½ rooms. While that number may be a (slight) exaggeration, the vast spaces and myriad nested courtyards do make the Forbidden City one of the most daunting – and fascinating – sites in China’s capital. Home to 24 emperors between 1420 and 1924, the Forbidden City—known as the Palace Museum—offers discerning travelers an opportunity to plunge headlong into imperial power and symbolism. During this three-hour walking tour with a trained sinologist (historian of China) we will provide a basic overview of this immense and complicated site, while allowing for time to strategically dig deeper into a few themes of imperial history.
Our tour begins at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square, built in 1420 as part of the original palace design envisioned by the Ming Emperor Zhu Di. Here we encounter one of main themes of our walk: How successive emperors dealt with the vast, multiethnic Chinese empire. In this case, we'll consider the Manchus w
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Legend says the Forbidden City contains 9999½ rooms. While that number may be a (slight) exaggeration, the vast spaces and myriad nested courtyards do make the Forbidden City one of the most daunting – and fascinating – sites in China’s capital. Home to 24 emperors between 1420 and 1924, the Forbidden City—known as the Palace Museum—offers discerning travelers an opportunity to plunge headlong into imperial power and symbolism. During this three-hour walking tour with a trained sinologist (historian of China) we will provide a basic overview of this immense and complicated site, while allowing for time to strategically dig deeper into a few themes of imperial history.
Our tour begins at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square, built in 1420 as part of the original palace design envisioned by the Ming Emperor Zhu Di. Here we encounter one of main themes of our walk: How successive emperors dealt with the vast, multiethnic Chinese empire. In this case, we'll consider the Manchus who gave the gate its name, but which translates more accurately from the Manchu as "Gate of Heavenly Pacification,” suggestive of how the Manchus considered “China” to be just one, albeit very large, part of their continental empire.
From here we'll dive into the Forbidden City properly. Much of our time will focus on the sequence of courtyards and pavilions, each carefully located and designed to connote imperial power. We'll envision how many of these pavilions, now empty and shuttered, would have housed the offices of busy and harried scholars and bureaucrats shuttling paper and orders between their desks and the “Great Within,” each keenly aware of the distance between the door of their office and the seat of power was reflective of the relative influence of their ministry or department.
Depending on the interests of the group, we'll discuss the symbolism of architecture and orientation, paying particular attention to how the courtyards are arranged around the all-important North-South Axis which ran from the imperial throne through the succession of gates and yards and finally out through the southernmost gate of the city and into the emperor’s realm. It is the same axis which, extended north, meets the Drum and Bell Tower a few thousand meters away from the back gate of the Palace complex and, as of 2002, continues even further northward through the middle of the Olympic Green, site of the 2008 Summer Games, and blending Olympic tradition with the symbolic power of imperial geomancy.
Our walk will eventually take us through the Gate of Supreme Harmony and into the massive courtyard where the emperor’s civilian and military officials would line up according to rank and position facing the main throne room, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the largest structure in the Forbidden City that sits atop at 21-foot raised platform. Remodeled in 2008 using plans drawn by the Kangxi Emperor in the 17th century, this is the centerpiece of the Palace complex and provides a sounding board for discussing the role of the emperor through successive dynasties. While the interior requires the imagination to envision the lustrous textiles, wreaths of incense smoke, and opulent décor, all sadly gone, the structure itself with its intricate carvings, exquisite hand painted ceilings and walls, is marvel of imperial architecture and design. Though seldom used except for the highest of state occasions, few structures in Beijing give one the same sense of imperial grandeur and power.
Depending on time, our seminar may include either or both of the “Outer Palaces,” The Hall of Middle Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the latter a banquet hall used for the final round of the imperial civil service examinations that provide us good place to talk about social structures and how the promise of possible elevation into the civil service corps served to incentivize subjects and dissuade revolt. Our visit may also include the famous Cinnabar Stone Staircase as well as the quieter courtyards of the Eastern Palaces and recently renovated Ningshou Palace, taking us off the well-trod tourist path for chance to see a side of the Forbidden City often overlooked.
Before leaving we'll visit the Inner Palaces, where the Ming Emperors resided, and Hall of Mental Cultivation, where the last several generations of Manchu rulers – including the notorious Empress Dowager Cixi – lived, worked, and held court. These chambers, cozier and on a much more ‘human’ scale than the great pavilions of the Inner Palace, also still house the furnishings and day-to-day household objects of the last emperor and empresses. While the style could be described as “Manchu Frumpy,” given the dearth of other authentic recreations of palace material culture, this glimpse into the past is something not to be missed. It also provides an opportunity to speak a bit about how the Qing Empire was run in the last century or so of imperial rule, with the Grand Council, the emperor’s ‘kitchen cabinet, comprised of the three or four highest and most trusted officials, worked just outside the gate in a low rise, relatively unobtrusive dwelling with the yawn-inducing moniker of “Office of Military Finance” attempting to obscure the all-important functions of those who worked there. While Cixi has been demonized for decades, we can also talk about how this rather remarkable–albeit ruthless–woman orchestrated her nearly half-century hold on power.
By the time we exit out the backdoor of the Palace we'll emerge with a strong understanding of how imperial rule worked historically in China and the role of the Forbbiden City in solidifying that rule. We'll know how to distinguish the most important dynasties and have some understanding of the historical context that underlay the Communist revolution of the 20th century.
