The Forbidden City

[Photos by Big Frank Dickinson]

It has taken Big Frank considerable time to figure out how to get through the Chinese curtain in order to post pictures on his blog (full disclosure at a later time). He is back with pictures. Today Big Frank was permitted (along with perhaps a million Chinese) to visit the forbidden city. Don't let the photos fool you, there were lots and lots of people accompanying Big Frank today.

This palace ground is immense - it's around 70 acres or so in area, has about 1,000 buildings and over 8,000 rooms. Needless to say it's the largest and best preserved palace complex on earth. It was built originally in the 15th century in the Ming dynasty and then more in the Qing dynasty. Then various owners through the ages, but never destroyed, although there were quite a few fires. You can see how scared they were of fires by the huge number of giant copper and brass pots that can be found throughout the complex. These pots had water in them at all times to put out fires.

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Big Frank wandered around, took photos, talked to various Chinese (mostly people looking to make a yuan, and . . . some did. The power and richness of these Chinese kingdoms is evident in this palace complex. And, of course the overwhelming amount of rituals that permeated that time: buildings for ceremonies, and buildings for preparing for ceremonies, and buildings for honoring ancestors, and buildings for dressing etc. etc. Passage ways through gates for those of a certain rank, and passages for those of a lower one, and if you went through the wrong one - you wouldn't do it again. What was life like to live in such a time and place?