Today was cold, but when only spending ten days in China the
weather won’t be much of an obstacle. Visiting the Forbidden City and the
Summer Palace were great ways to learn about Chinese culture and connect it
back to what we have learned about sustainability. The Forbidden City is full
of beautiful architecture and rich history, but it takes up so much space that I
began to wonder if there could have been a more efficient way to build the city.
Additionally, I was glad to be able to apply some of the material that I have
learned in other classes to today’s cultural field trip. In my JSIS 200 class
we learned about the Qing Dynasty and its ability to expand China’s borders and
now being able to see the Forbidden City, I can see how powerful they were and
why they were able to do so.
The Summer Palace even in winter is breath taking. I was amazed
when our tour guide told us that the Forbidden City took 14 years to construct because
of its amazing size, but then to find out that the Summer Palace is four times
as large made me wonder how long it took to construct. Our tour guide also
mentioned that when a new emperor took over in China, he would have a new
palace constructed or buildings constructed as gifts. This made me wonder about
how sustainable this practice is, especially when done with a lot of trees. I
don’t think that the cultural practice of giving a mother a gift of a building
or palace is economically or environmentally sustainable when there is already
a perfectly good palace that could be used – even if not built for that one
particular person.
Out of both trips that we did, I would have to say that the
Summer Palace was my favorite, 1) because it wasn’t as cold as it was in the
morning and 2) because the water made everything much more beautiful. If the
palace is beautiful now, I can only imagine what it must look like in the
summer when all the flowers are out and the water isn’t frozen over.
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