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December 16, 2017
It was very very very cold and windy. The day seemed longer than usual. For our first cultural site trip, we visited the Forbidden City in the morning and the Summer palace in the afternoon. The Forbidden city was the imperial palace that served the Chinese government and the emperors for half a century, from Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. The Palace Museum is inside the Forbidden city. I was told that we were going to the Palace Museum, I had imagined it to be an indoor but it turned out to be an outdoor museum. We walked through many gates and each hall was used for different purposes. Similarly to many Chinese traditional architecture, the Forbidden City emphasized on the color red. Furthermore, there are many animal statues within the palace as well. These animals are not only decoration but are also very symbolic. For example, the dragon-shaped statues on top of some palaces were built to ensure the safety and harmony of the palace and to protect it from the evil spirits. There are other animals such as phoenixes, lions, turtles and cranes inside the palace as well.
The summer palace was built as a present for the emperor, Qianlong’s mother’s 60th birthday. Later, the summer palace was used for by other people and for different purposes. It served as prison for two people within the royal family. The summer palace is right next to the Kunming lake. Similarly to the Forbidden City, at the entrance of the palace, there’s a big statue of kylin right in the center. Kylin is an imaginary animal that combines the physical attributes of five different animals. Furthermore, there’s a phoenix and a dragon behind the kylin. Since Empress Cixi was so powerful that time, she placed the phoenix in front of the dragon. Besides these statues, there are traditional boats and bridges within the palace. The windows are clear but painted with flowers, plants and you can see the lake through them. There are many paintings on the architecture. One of the stories we learned was about a goddess falling in love with a man, then she was caught for breaking the heaven rules, but she could meet up with her lover once a day every year. This day which became the Chinese Valentine’s day. Although the summer palace was built for good intentions and it’s very beautiful but spending so much time, money and resources is not very sustainable. Furthermore, when Empress Cixi built a marble boat that couldn’t be use is also something unsustainable. The stone known as the bankruptcy stone is another example of unsustainability. It was a present for the emperor’s mother but she didn’t like it. However, the emperor still spent lots of money and effort to transport it. This relates to one of our class lectures on sustainable practices for gifts exchange. How sustainable it is to wrap our presents and box them up? How a heavy stone travelled so far to reach the destination as a present is unsustainable?
Overall, I liked the summer palace more because it feels more like relaxed than
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the formal Forbidden city. The trips would have been more enjoyable if it wasn’t as cold.
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