Forbidden No More

Forbidden City is a Fascinating Look at China's History

Fred and I went to Tienanmen Square to see the Forbidden.  Having been there once before, it was Fred's second time so he had some background about the history.  As you walk into the Forbidden City, the size of the city becomes apparent.  It was a city from the 14th century onward and Beijing grew up around it.  The many leaders and Emperors reigned there.   You might remember a movie about the Forbidden City and its youngest Emperor, Pu Yi, in the movie the Last Emperor.  There is much history here about the situation dramatized in that movie.  I don't recall everything about it, but I do recall that Pu Yi didn't reign for long before Sun Yat Sen and the new republic brought revolution and ushered in a new government.  The Dowager Empress pretty much ran the country into the ground and the Qing Dynasty was hopelessly shattered.  Pu Yi became just a cog in the Communist system.  Of course the reality is that any time there has been famine in the land as with the end of the Qing Dynasty there has been a change of government.

Just Outside of the Forbidden City

 The architecture inside is as you would expect of Chinese architecture, but you have no idea how large this area is as it goes for at least several miles.  The parks inside are very nice.  It took more than 1 million workers to build this city and 24 emperors reigned there.  The capitol city has mostly been in Beijing, but it was my host city for the Executive Service Corps, Nanjing, at one point.  When the Forbidden City was built in the Ming Dynasty, it was moved from Nanjing to Beijing and the City was built on the site of the former Imperial Palaces that were burnt to the ground at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

There is much to see and do here, but mostly this is the museum of Chinese history and a must see if you want to understand the rich 5000 year history of China.  I'll have more pictures to share that I will upload to Picasa as there are just too many pictures to insert here in this blog.  My next post will talk of my shopping experience in Beijing and a first in my life!