China Travel Guide

The Summer Palace(Chinese: 颐和园) is located on the western edge of Beijing, between the fourth and fifth ring roads, close to the western hills, 12km from central Beijing. It is not expensive to get there by taxi and does not take long. Use a map to tell the driver you want to be taken to the north gate if you would like to follow our suggested route through the park, or ask your hotel receptionist to add 'north gate' to 'Summer Palace' written in chinese script on a piece of paper to show the taxi driver.

The Summer Palace is the largest and best-preserved imperial garden in China. Its chinese name, YiHeYuan, translates as 'Garden of Nurtured Harmony' or 'Garden for Maintaining Health and Harmony'.

As its name implies, the Summer Palace was used as a summer residence by China's imperial rulers - as a retreat from the main imperial palace now known as the Palace Museum (or 'Forbidden City') - a pleasureground in the countryside, yet near to the city.

The Summer Palace is virtually a museum of traditional Chinese gardening that uses rocks, plants, pavilions, ponds, cobble paths and other garden styles to create a poetic effect between different scenes. When you stroll around the Summer Palace, you will constantly find the area changing.

The gardens that became the Summer Palace date from the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). In 1750, Emperor QianLong (1736-1796) of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) added substantially to the gardens of the Summer Palace. His appointed designers reproduced the styles of various palaces and gardens from around China. KunMing Lake was extended to imitate the West Lake in HangZhou.

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Forbidden City or Palace Museum (Chinese: 紫荆城 or 故宫) , at the center of the ancient city of Beijing, was home to 24 emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Today, the Forbidden City is a public museum and World Heritage site, attracting millions of tourists from around the world.

In the early 1400s, the third Ming Emperor, YongLe, moved the capital of China to Beijing. In 1406, he began construction of a new 'Forbidden City' that would include the imperial palace complex.

The Forbidden City, located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing, was the home and center of power for 24 emperors during the mid to latter Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Forbidden City is an extremely formal place. It is almost symmetrical and hierarchically arranged so that all the important buildings run down the center, north-south. In keeping with geomancy, the main gate is in the south and the northern side is "protected" by the artificial Coal Hill. The palace contained many diversions and beautiful women, but in the summer months the emperors gladly retired to summer palaces north of Beijing—perhaps visiting the Fragrant Hills.

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The Imperial Ancestral Temple, Ancestral Hall, Working People's Cultural Palace or Taimiao (Chinese: 太庙) of Beijing, is a historic site in the heart of city, just outside the Forbidden City, where during both the Ming and Qing Dynasties, sacrificial ceremonies were held on the most important festival occasions in honor of the imperial family's ancestors.

The compound is laid out parallel to north-south axis of the Forbidden City. Its principle buildings consist of three main halls, two gates, two subsidiary shrines, and various accompanying buildings.

A visitor to the site first enters through the Glazed Gate at the south, then finds himself in a narrow courtyard with ponds covered by arched bridges. The next gate is called the Halberd gate and is an original Ming dynasty construction from 1420. In the courtyard beyond the gate is the two-tiered Hall for Worship of Ancestors. It was also built in 1420 but was frequently repaired. It contains seats and beds for the tablets of emperors and empresses, as well as incense burners and offerings. On the occasion of large-scale ceremonies for worship of ancestors, such as the "Shi Xiang" (held in the first months of the four seasons), the "Xia Ji" (end-of-year ceremony) and "Gao Ji" (national events ceremonies) the Qing emperor would come here to participate.

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Tiananmen Square( the Gate of Heavenly Peace), is located in the center of Beijing. It was first built in 1417 and named Chengtianmen( the Gate of Heavenly Succession). At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it was seriously damaged by war. When it was rebuilt under the Qing in 1651, it was renamed Tiananmen Square, and served as the main entrance to the Imperial City, the administrative and residential quarters for court officials and retainers. The southern sections of the Imperial City wall still stand on both sides of the Gate. The tower at the top of the gate is nine-room wide and five –room deep. According to the Book of Changes, the two numbers nine and five, when combined, symbolize the supreme status of a sovereign.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Tiananmen Square was the place where state ceremonies took place. The most important one of them was the issuing of imperial edicts, which followed these steps:
1) The Minister of Rites would receive the edict in Taihedian( Hall of Supreme Harmony), where the Emperor was holding his court. The minister would then carry the decree on a yunpan( tray of cloud), and withdraw from the hall via Taihemen( Gate of supreme Harmony)
2) The Minister would put the tray in a miniature longting( dragon pavilion). Beneath a yellow umbrella and carry it via Wumen( Meridian Gate), to Tiananmen Square Gate tower.
3) A courtier would be invested to proclaim the edict. The civil and military officials lining both sides of the gateway beneath the tower would prostrate themselves in the direction of the emperor in waiting for the decree to the proclaimed.

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What do a tiger, a rat, a bell and a drum share in common? No idea? Well, the answer is time – or, to be precise, telling the time. These two animals, along with the dog, the ox and the pig, were time periods in the night for Chinese in days of old, and the drum and the bell were struck to let people know whether it was the hour of the pig, the tiger, or whatever.

If you would like to learn more about time-telling in olden days you should make a trek out to Beijing's Drum Tower and Bell Tower. These two sites, which are situated near to each other, are a popular sightseeing spot with tourists.

Not only do the towers offer fascinating examples of architecture, but you can get sweeping views of the city from the top of both of them. You may even get the opportunity to see a drum performance if you arrive at the designated time. Drum performances start at 9:30 a.m. and then run pretty well every hour, on the half hour, throughout the day, with the last performance at 4:50 p.m.

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