Soyi­ni Grey

in Chi­na

If based in Bei­jing, there are cer­tain cul­tur­al touch­points you must vis­it when in Chi­na. We’ve al­ready been to the Great Wall; now you need to vis­it the For­bid­den City.

Built in 1406, the For­bid­den City is the per­fect en­cap­su­la­tion of Chi­na in one lo­ca­tion. It is root­ed in his­to­ry and stands as a snap­shot of a piv­otal pe­ri­od in the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment, per­fect­ly pre­served and placed on dis­play.

Its name comes from the fact that the pub­lic was for­bid­den to en­ter it on pain of death. To­day, every­one has ac­cess, though some rooms are not open to the pub­lic.

It’s now so ac­ces­si­ble that it is com­mon to see peo­ple of all ages dressed in tra­di­tion­al wear from the Ming and Qing dy­nas­ties, heav­i­ly made up, hair­pieces and all, cos­play­ing as mem­bers of the no­bil­i­ty, cell phone in hand.

As the home of the Em­per­or, the Im­pe­r­i­al Fam­i­ly and their ser­vants, this or­nate­ly dec­o­rat­ed wood­en palace stood out. All oth­er build­ings in Chi­na were grey. In fact, in the com­mu­ni­ty that sur­rounds the palace, many tra­di­tion­al build­ings from that pe­ri­od re­main.

The palace, how­ev­er, was con­struct­ed with red walls and yel­low roofs. We vis­it­ed on a bright, sun­ny day, which made the roofs look as though they were shim­mer­ing in the sun­light.

It’s a high­ly sym­bol­ic struc­ture. Ac­cord­ing to Feng Shui, no trees could be plant­ed on the com­pound. While trees line the out­er perime­ter, there are none in­side. If vis­it­ing in sum­mer, keep this in mind be­cause it was ex­treme­ly hot when we vis­it­ed and there is lit­tle shade.

Our guide made us take wa­ter for the two-hour tour. It is al­so sug­gest­ed that you wear sun­block, a hat and/or a UV-block­ing um­brel­la (they are ex­treme­ly pop­u­lar in Chi­na) to help with­stand the heat.

Once in­side, look out for drag­on heads carved in­to the stone court­yard, huge bronze wa­ter tanks in case of fire, li­on stat­ues that guard en­try to ma­jor build­ings—male and fe­male, yin and yang, for pro­tec­tion and bal­ance—an ele­phant for pros­per­i­ty, the phoenix to rep­re­sent the Em­press, and the roy­al jade col­lec­tion.

You can vis­it sev­er­al times and not run out of mes­sages to de­ci­pher.

As a col­lec­tion of build­ings with names like the Hall of Supreme Har­mo­ny, Gate of Man­i­fest Virtue and Palace of Heav­en­ly Pu­ri­ty, the For­bid­den City rep­re­sents an­cient Chi­nese ar­chi­tec­ture that speaks to the re­li­gion and phi­los­o­phy of its peo­ple to this day.

It was the home of the em­per­or for over 500 years. How­ev­er, when Em­per­or Puyi ab­di­cat­ed in 1924, it was con­vert­ed in­to the Palace Mu­se­um, its of­fi­cial name, and has re­mained un­oc­cu­pied since, ex­cept for a col­lec­tion of fer­al cats that live on the com­pound.

Staff say they pro­tect the roy­al col­lec­tion, so they are fed and main­tained un­der a catch-neuter-re­lease sys­tem. These cats have be­come part of what vis­i­tors come to see. It’s sug­gest­ed that you look but do not touch them.

As the sec­ond most pop­u­lar tourist site in Bei­jing, vis­i­tors are ad­vised to come ear­ly, al­lo­cat­ing time for the se­cu­ri­ty check up­on en­try. Bags are scanned and fa­cial-recog­ni­tion soft­ware is used. Tourists must car­ry their pass­ports or risk be­ing barred from en­try.

You al­so must vis­it the Palace Mu­se­um web­site at least sev­en days in ad­vance to book your tick­et. They are not trans­fer­able, so take note of the en­try re­quire­ments, which in­clude a strict no-smok­ing, no-lighter pol­i­cy.

Book­ing a tour is ad­vis­able but not nec­es­sary. Guides are full of fun facts and are able to pro­vide on-lo­ca­tion con­text to the ex­hi­bi­tions, such as the fact that the For­bid­den City was vir­tu­al­ly un­liv­able dur­ing the sum­mer months be­cause of the heat. As a re­sult, the en­tire fam­i­ly—the Em­per­or, wives, chil­dren and their many ser­vants—would de­camp to the Sum­mer Palace, al­so in Bei­jing, but by the wa­ter in a cool­er and more com­fort­able lo­ca­tion.

This means the For­bid­den City was al­so known as the Win­ter Palace be­cause that’s when it was used.

It al­so means a vis­it to the Sum­mer Palace should be added to your list of things to do in Bei­jing, es­pe­cial­ly if you are a vis­i­tor who loves con­ti­nu­ity.