We kicked off our Beijing sightseeing today with the mother of all sights: The Forbidden City. We woke up early, ate a quick breakfast, and took the subway a few stops, which got us to the Forbidden City just minutes after its 8:30 opening. From the metro station, we headed to the entrance at Tiananmen Gate, the iconic red-walled gate with Mao’s oversized portrait. Due to the media, many of the sights we’ve seen on this trip are instantly recognizable to us, despite the fact that we had never seen them in real life. From the Parthenon to Angkor Wat to Chinese sights now, first setting eyes on the sights doesn’t evoke the same sense of discovery as it once must have for travelers of previous eras. And while the dissemination of information, and in this case photography, is excellent for learning about the world, there is still no substitute for visiting these places. It reminds me of the conversation between Sean and Will in the great movie, Good Will Hunting:

So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I’d ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you.

I’m not trying to be one of those travel snobs and I know we’ve only seen small glimpses of the world, but I feel lucky to have had so many experiences in the past year. Tiananmen Gate is the default photo for countless magazine articles and commentaries on China, but photos cannot capture the atmosphere compared to standing there between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in the midst of thousands of reverent Beijingers, Chinese tourists, and patriotic pilgrims. Seeing the scale and size of it, the atmosphere around it, and experiencing it in the center of Beijing was still rewarding despite its familiar feel.

So I digressed quite a bit…you’ll have to forgive me, as I’m getting pretty reflective this week as we prepare to head home soon. Inside Tiananmen Gate, we walked across huge square with another imposing gate at the other end. There were some trees and souvenir/snack stands, which filled the space and made it feel a bit smaller, but it was still a long walk across. Just outside the massive wall, we bought our tickets and passed through the meters-thick wall and gate. Then another huge square. I started thinking about how it’d probably been over ten minutes since we entered Tiananmen Gate and yet it was just now that we got to “entrance” of the Forbidden City. The square had unbelievably huge buildings on each side, with large and ornately decorated gates near the corners. Massive marble staircases and ramps carved with dragons connected all to the central cobblestone square.

Besides the sheer scale of it all, one of the first things I noticed were the names of everything. Now I see why Chinese movies have all these crazy names for their nouns. Consulting my map, I saw that we’d already passed the Meridian Gate, Inner Golden River Bridges, and the Gate of Loyal Conduct. I was standing near the Pavilion of Spreading Righteousness, with the Gate of Supreme Harmony to my right, the Pavilion of Embodying Benevolence straight ahead and Hall of Supreme Harmony to my left. The next four hours were spent in various halls and palaces with the words eternal, supreme, harmony, heavenly and other ethereal words in their names.

a smart group of tourists

It took us a total of four hours to see all the open parts of the Forbidden City, which is not even half of the whole thing. It got really hot and all the open squares and courtyards didn’t provide much shade. Where there was no shade, Joylani and I scurried across open courtyards and walled alleyways from exhibit to exhibit. After the eviction of the monarchy, the Forbidden City was opened up to the public as both a source of national pride and to show people the opulence that the monarchy indulged and lived in. We saw plenty of imperial artifacts, from porcelain pottery to impressive and priceless gem-studded crowns. Two exhibits that were especially interesting were the ones on the royal concubines and Empress Cixi. Both were pretty skewed in their portrayals of imperial life, with the concubine exhibit focusing on the lavishness and pointlessness of royal life, while Cixi’s exhibit was pretty vilifying. Both, however, reinforced the impression that I got from the massive “city.” That is, the Imperial clan was incredibly powerful. How else could such a massive structure be built. We’ve seen a lot of imperial palaces and stuff on this trip, from Versailles in Paris to the Royal Palace in Bangkok, but the Forbidden City is the most impressive. Sure its super restored, but all these urban symbols of national pride are restored. And while its not the most impressive architecturally or architecturally, the sheer scale is mind-boggling.

This is not to say that its ugly place by any means, as intricate carving, paintings, ponds, and garden litter the place. But its huge thick walls, giant gates, massive statues, and oversized architecture is most impressive and unique. Like I mentioned, it got really hot though too. By the time we finished up, a bit after noon, people were huddled in any shade they could find, with many propped up against shady walls and trees. Getting back out was no easy feat though. From the time we finished seeing all the open courtyards and exhibits, it took us another half hour to walk back to the front entrance. My first and last impressions of the Forbidden City were the same: this place is huge! We had originally planned to see more today, but four hours exploring the Forbidden City in the 100 F heat did us in for the day. It was definitely worth it though.