The Most Memorable Parts of The Forbidden City

On day 4 of our program, we took a trip to The Forbidden City (故宫). Being one of the great wonders of the world, The Forbidden City is a destination that foreign as well as Chinese travelers are eager to explore. Although many people visit The Forbidden City each day, not all visitors have the opportunity to learn about its history and cultural value from the eyes of a local Beijinger. After a tour led by the interim director of CIEE in Beijing, Yuke Jiang, I caught up with students to see what they had learned and remembered most about The Forbidden City.

"What I found the most interesting is that there are two different types of lion statues. At the main gate, you will see two lions with pointed ears. Those lions are the original ones that are used all around China in important places or in places where they want to add more value. The ones with the pointed ears symbolized how the emperor could hear everything to have control all over Beijing. The lions on the inside closest to the emperor and where he lived had their ears down instead of up to show that they were not able to hear everything. This symbolized that all of his important issues were kept among his own supervisors and himself and were not spread around to the other people in the palace or Beijing. It also showed that the emperor's personal life was meant to be private and not heard by everyone." – Roberto

"I learned that The Forbidden City was one of the first parts of Beijing as far as Beijing being a big city goes and that before the capital was moved here and The Forbidden City was built, Beijing was not a big deal on its own. Basically, the emperor decided to create this giant city that’s now one of the biggest cities in the whole world, and I think that’s pretty insane." – Cory

"I learned that there are male and female lions outside of The Forbidden City and other important places. The ball that the male lion stands on is a globe, which represents power over the world and everything. The female lion has a lion cub under her paw, which represents life and longevity. There are male and female lions because of the Chinese belief of yin and yang, which means that you need to have both in order to have a happy life." – Keagan

"I learned that back then they had their own kind of firefighting system. They had all these big metal containers around the palace that used to have water in them. If things caught on fire, they would just fill up buckets from the metal containers and throw the water on the fire. It just showed that they wanted to keep the palace safe however they could." – Dominic

"I learned that the middle path that goes throughout The Forbidden City could only be walked on by the emperor, his wife, and the three top students in the country who took the scholar exam. I also remember that big open square in the middle of the whole Forbidden City where the emperor would sit on his throne inside and just look out at all the people and command them. All his workers would just be in that square waiting for him and he would just tell them what to do. That’s just so much power for one person to have." – Lucas

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"For me, it’s not so much what I learned but what I saw. I was overwhelmed by the amazing architecture and the work that was put into it. Also, the dragons and creatures on the end of the roof that were made of gold just show much strength and power the emperor had, which is really cool. I also never knew that when the emperor’s wife came into the palace, she could never go back out. She had to stay inside the palace with the emperor for the rest of her life, which is crazy." – Sean

"My favorite part was when we climbed the hill across the street from The Forbidden City. I was just really hot and tired after walking all around the palace, but finally getting to the top of the hill and looking out over everything was so amazing. I couldn’t really see all of The Forbidden City when we were walking through it because you could only really see the individual houses and not really understand the greatness of it. You knew that it was great, but you couldn’t really conceptualize the greatness of the whole thing. When we got up there and saw the whole thing, I couldn't believe that place was real." – Aaron 

As you can see, students took a lot away from our trip to The Forbidden City. They discovered the historical origins of Beijing's most famous cultural site and discussed why it is still important in modern Chinese society. After learning that China as a country claims 5,000 years of history, the students realized how much pride Chinese people take in their ancient and modern historical and cultural tradition. They observed that, in China, the old and the new are constantly being blended together, and even amidst modernization and globalization, China still makes efforts to incorporate and preserve their traditional culture.