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Culture Events:
Great Wall
Forbidden City and Hutong Tour
Summer Palace
All there three events are optional for international students.
They must register and pay for these events. We will help
arrange traveling.
Forbidden City
Lying at
the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, called Gu Gong, in
Chinese, was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tiananmen
Square. Rectangular in shape, it is the world's largest palace
complex and covers 74 hectares. Surrounded by a six meter deep moat
and a ten meter high wall are 9,999 buildings. The wall has a gate
on each side. Opposite the Tiananmen Gate, to the north is the Gate
of Devine Might (Shenwumen), which faces Jingshan Park. The
distance between these two gates is 960 meters, while the distance
between the gates in the east and west walls are 750 meters. There
are unique and delicately structured towers on each of the four
corners of the curtain wall. These afford views over both the palace
and the city outside. The Forbidden City is divided into two parts.
The southern section, or the Outer Court was where the emperor
exercised his supreme power over the nation. The northern section,
or the Inner Court was where he lived with his royal family. Until
1924 when the last emperor of China was driven from the Inner Court,
fourteen emperors of the Ming dynasty and ten emperors of the Qing
dynasty had reigned here. Having been the imperial palace for some
five centuries, it houses numerous rare treasures and curiosities.
Listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 1987, the
Palace Museum is now one of the most popular tourist attractions
worldwide
Construction of the palace complex began in 1407, the 5th year of
the Yongle reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty. It was
completed fourteen years later in 1420. It was said that a million
workers including one hundred thousand artisans were driven into the
long-term hard labor. Stone needed was quarried from Fangshan, a
suburb of Beijing. It was said a well was dug every fifty meters
along the road in order to pour water onto the road in winter to
slide huge stones on ice into the city. Huge amounts of timber and
other materials were freighted from faraway provinces. Ancient
Chinese people displayed their very considerable skills in building
the Forbidden City. Take the grand red city wall for example. It has
an 8.6 meters
wide
base reducing to 6.66 meters wide at the top. The angular shape of
the wall totally frustrates attempts to climb it. The bricks were
made from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement is made
from glutinous rice and egg whites. These incredible materials make
the wall extraordinarily strong.
Since
yellow is the symbol of the royal family, it is the dominant color
in the Forbidden City. Roofs are built with yellow glazed tiles;
decorations in the palace are painted yellow; even the bricks on the
ground are made yellow by a special process. However, there is one
exception. Wenyuange, the royal library, has a black roof. The
reason is that it was believed black represented water then and
could extinguish fire.
Nowadays,
the Forbidden City, or the Palace Museum is open to tourists from
home and abroad. Splendid painted decoration on these royal
architectural wonders, the grand and deluxe halls, with their
surprisingly magnificent treasures will certainly satisfy "modern
civilians".
Beijing's Hutong
1.Hutong's History
Why are Beijing's lanes called Hutong? According to historical
records a small-scale city first appeared in the Beijing area about
3,000 years ago. It was not until the Jin dynasty in the 12th
century that Beijing became the capital city for the first time.
At that time, there was no hutong in Beijing, just streets and
roads. The word "hutong" is said to originate from the Mongolian
language, which is one of China's minority languages.
It means passages between rows of siheyuan courtyard
houses. Siheyuan is the traditional residence of Beijingers,
each consisting of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by one-storied
tile-roofed houses, usually one to six meters wide. Hutongs are
where life was going on for the last 700 years since they first
appeared in the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). In the early 13 century,
because of the war, the old city was destroyed. So they had to
rebuild it. In the newly-built city, you can find streets and
hutongs.
Most of the hutongs, which remain today were formed in the Ming
and Qing dynasties. But you can still find some from the Yuan
dynasty. For instance, the Zhuanta Hutong in Xisi on the west side
of the city is a typical example. In the Yuan dramas this hutong was
often mentioned.
The area was also the home of famous playwright Guan Hanqing,
China's Shakespeare of the Yuan dynasty. And over the last 7
centuries with the growth of the city, more and more hutongs
appeared.
In the rich and historical culture of Beijing, the hutong has a
very special and important position. Beijing's hutongs are not only
an appellation for the lane but also a kind of architecture. It
reflects the vicissitude of society.
2.What
is Hutong?
The word "hutong" came from the Mongolian language about 700 years
ago. According to research, it originates from the word "hottog" in
Mongolian meaning "water well". Where there was a spring or well,
there were residents. The word "hottog" became "hutong" after it was
introduced into Beijing.
Hutong means street, lane and alley, and is in fact the passage
formed by lines of siheyuan (a compound with houses around a
courtyard) where most Beijing residents live. One hutong
connects with another, and siheyuan connects with siheyuan, to form
a block, and blocks join with blocks to form the whole city.
In old China, there was a clear definition for a street or a
lane. A 36-meter-wide road was called a big street. An 18-meter-wide
one was called a small street. And a 9-meter-wide lane was called a
hutong.
The shortest one is just 10 meters' long, and the narrowest
hutong is only about 40 centimeters' wide. Some hutong have more
than 20 turns. Most of the hutongs in Beijing are in east-west or
north-south directions. That has resulted from the need for houses
to face south so as to take in more
3.Hutong's Culture:
From the name of a hutong, one can guess its origin, find its
location, or trace its historical, commercial or cultural
backgrounds. However, the meaning of hutong has extended to have
cultural aspects. Whenever people talk about Beijing, they will
naturally think of hutong.
 Hutongs
are where Beijing people, especially the old Beijing people live, so
they are known as a window onto Beijing folk life. And some people
even consider hutongs as the " encyclopedia of Beijing" or the "
museum of the history and culture of Beijing".
If you want to really know Beijing, to know its people and to know
their life, you'd better go to see a hutong or, if possible, live
among the locals. "Hutong Culture" is part of the culture of
Beijing. Many famous operas and dramas are based on the themes of
the " hutong life".
A visit to hutongs in the daytime and enjoying a drama put on by
the Beijing People's Art Theatre, such as " Teahouse" or " Small
Hutong" in the evening will help you appreciate the fundamental part
the hutong plays in Beijing life.
Beijing's hutong is not a simple architecture. It contains a lot
of human elements. It's a museum of Beijing folk custom and also the
witness of history. Beijing's hutong houses many celebrities.
Laoshe, a well-known playwright is just one of them. Laoshe was
born in a small lane, in the west part of the city. The memory of
his childhood was so dear and impressive that after he'd been away
4.Stories Behind Hutongs
Near the Forbidden City, in the heart of Beijing lies a
hutong called "Girl Weaver", which is named after a fairy from the
Heavenly Kingdom, who descended to the human world and married a
cowherd. Her enraged father, the Celestial Emperor, took the girl
back and separated the couple with the Milky Way.
Symmetrically, on the other side of the Forbidden City, there
used to be a Cowherd Bridge. This arrangement seems to suggest that
feudal emperors living in the Forbidden City are sons of Heaven.
Another example is a bell tower in the north part of Beijing.
The bell in it served as a watch for the city. It told people when
curfew was, or when officials should go to court. The bell was made
of iron in the Ming dynasty about 600 years ago. It didn't sound
loud enough to reach the whole city, so the emperor ordered the
master who was famous for making bells to make a new bronze bell.
The master tried his best, but failed. None of the bells he made was
good enough. However, the deadline was approaching. He had to make a
last attempt. The master's daughter was worried. She knew that if
her father couldn't finish the bell on time, the whole family would
be killed. Having no other alternatives, she threw herself into the
melting bronze. A nice looking, good quality bell was made. Its
sound reached the whole city.
Lao She Teahouse
Founded in 1988, Lao
She Teahouse is named after Mr. Lao She, a famous artist in China,
and Tea House, one of the famous novels he wrote. With service area
of more than 2,600 square meters, the teahouse provides an
antique-flavor, Beijing-styled environment, where you can watch
wonderful performances by celebrities from folk arts and drama on
any given day while enjoying famous teas, palace snacks as well as
traditional Beijing flavor state, numerous celebrities and more than
2 million Chinese and foreign tourists have visited Lao She Teahouse
since it was founded. It has been a window for exhibiting the
national culture and bridge that connects China with the rest of the
world.
Qianmen Courtyard
Teahouse is another entirely new offering the tea culture. It is in
the form of a courtyard house, a kind of ancient, classic
traditional building in Beijing, with the tea art at its core. We’ve
created a graceful, Beijing-unique tea art house that you can only
dream about. Here you feel nothing but leisure, tranquility and
ease. You may listen to melodious music from Chinese zither, watch
wonderful tea art performances and sip fragrant tea and enjoy the
leisure brought by tea.
The Great Wall
UNESCO enlisted the
Great Wall of China, one of the greatest wonders of the world, in
the World Heritage in 1987. Just like a gigantic dragon, the Great
Wall winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and
plateaus stretching approximately 6,700 kilometers (4,163 miles )
from east to west of China. With a history of more than 2000 years,
some of the section of the great wall are now in ruins or even
entirely disappeared. However, it is still one of the most
appealing attractions all around the world owing to its
architectural grandeur and historical significance.
No one
can tell precisely when the building of the Great Wall was started
but it is popularly believed that it originated as a military
fortification against intrusion by tribes on the borders during the
earlier Zhou Dynasty. Late in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC
- 476 BC), the ducal states extended the defence work and built
"great" structures to prevent the attacks from other states. It was
not until the Qin Dynasty that the separate walls, constructed by
the states of Qin, Yan and Zhao kingdoms, were connected to form a
defensive system on the northern border of the country by Emperor
Qin Shi Huang (also called Qin Shi Huangdi by westerners or the
First Emperor). After the emperor unified the country in 214 BC, he
ordered the construction of the wall. It took about ten years to
finish and the wall stretched from Linzhao (in the eastern part of
today's Gansu Province) in the west to Liaodong (in today's Jilin
Province) in the east. The wall not only served as a defence in the
north but also symbolized the power of the emperor.
From the
Qin Dynasty onwards, Xiongnu, an ancient tribe that lived in North
China, frequently harassed the northern border of the country.
During the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu (Han Wu Di), sent three
expeditions to fight against the Xiongnu in 127 BC, 121 BC and 119
BC. The Xiongnu were driven into the far north of the Gobi. To
maintain the safety of the Hexi Corridor (today's Gansu Province),
the emperor ordered the extension of the Great Wall westward into
the Hexi Corridor and Xinjiang region. The ruins of the beacon
towers and debris of the Han Wall are still discernible in Dunhuang,
Yumen and Yangguan. A recent report shows that ruins of the Han Wall
have been discovered near Lopnur in China's Xinjiang region.
Further
construction and extensions were made in the successive Northern Wei,
Northern Qi and Sui dynasties.
The
present Great Wall in Beijing is mainly remains from the Ming
Dynasty (1368 - 1644). During this period, bricks and granite were
used when the workers laid the foundation of the wall and
sophisticated designs and passes were built in the places of
strategic importance. To strengthen the military control of the
northern frontiers, the Ming authorities divided the Great Wall into
nine zones and placed each under the control of a Zhen (garrison
headquarters). The Ming Wall starts from Yalujiang River (in
today's Heilongjiang Province), via today's Liaoning, Hebei, Inner
Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia provinces, to Guansu. The total
length reaches 12,700 li (over 5,000 kilometers). The Shanhaiguan
Pass and the Jiayuguan Pass are two well-preserved passes at either
end.
Today, the Wall has become a must-see for every visitor to China.
Few can help saying 'Wow!' when they stand on top of a beacon tower
and look at this giant dragon. For centuries, the wall served
succeeding dynasties as an efficient military defence. However, it
was only when a dynasty had weakened from within that invaders from
the north were able to advance and conquer. Both the Mongols (Yuan
Dynasty, 1271-1368) and the Manchurians (Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911)
were able take power because of weakness of the government and
poverty of the people but never due to any possibility of weakness
of the Wall.
Summer Palace
Summer Palace lies 20 kilometers northwest of the center of
Beijing. It is the largest imperial garden in existence in China.
The whole Summer Palace covers an area of over 290 hectares
including more than 3,000 buildings, such as halls, pavilions,
towers and so on. Summer Palace used to be called the Garden of
Clear Ripples.
Main
parts of Summer Palace
Summer Palace mainly consists of Kunming lake ,
Longevity Hill and the Long Corridor.
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Longevity Hill, which
can be divided into Front Hill and Rear Hill, is about 60 meters
high.
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Kumming Lake, which
is man-made, is available for boat rides during much of the year,
and ice skates can be performed during the frozen winter months.
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The Long Corridor is
795 yards long and parallels the lake. It is the longest walkway
in the Chinese gardens with altogether over 14,000 traditional
Chinese paintings on the beams and crossbeams.
The garden also can be divided into three parts, administration, residence and scenery browsing area.
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The administration
area, taking Halls of Benevolence and Longevity as its principal
part, is the place where Cixi dealt with state affairs and
received officials.
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Residence area mainly
consists of Hall of Jade Billows, Garden of Virtue and Harmony,
and Hall of Joyful Longevity.
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The Kunming Lake and
Long cordial made up of the scenery browsing area.
Value
The Summer Palace, on one hand, is a testimony to the luxurious
style of the feudal emperor, and on the other hand, represents an
apex in the development of Chinese landscape gardening in terms of
scale, layout, craftsmanship and artistic elegance.
Two entrances of Summer Palace
Summer Palace has two entrances, one is the East Palace Gate and
the other is North Palace Gate. Most visitors enter the garden from
the East Palace Gate.
Kunming Lake covers an area of 220 hectares, or three fourths of the
combined space of this summer resort. This natural lake is more than
3,500 years old.
Notes:
1. the cost for culture events is USD80 per student. This price is
subjected to about 20% change in tourist hot season.
2. The deadline to pay for the culture events is Aug 14, the
registration day. We will not accept culture events registration
after Aug 14.
Pls contact Jackie Qin for detailed information about Culture
Events.
Email: jackiechin@bimba.edu.cn
Tel: 86 10 6275 4886
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