Beijing Hutong
original meaning of Hutong should be ‘a place wherepeople gather and live.’ Another explanation says that during the Yuan Dynasty, about 13th century, residential areas in the city were divided into many divisions.
Between the smaller divisions were passageways for people to travel through. And those passageways also functioned as isolation belts against fire risks. In
Mongolian language, passageways of this kind werecalled Hutong. But no matter what Hutong exactly means, one thing is for sure, that is, Hutong first
appeared in Beijing during the Yuan Dynasty.
In the early 13th century, a Mongolian tribe from the north became very strong. Led by Genghis Khan,the Mongolian occupied Beijing, the capital of the Jin Dynasty. In the year 1271, Kubla Khan, the grandson of
Genghis Khan, ounded Yuan Dynasty and set Beijing as the capital city in the following year. Unfortunately, the old city was completely destroyed during the war. So they had to rebuild it. In old China, all the structures and roads were required to be symmetrical. So the city was well designed. First, they had to find a center, and then built a regular square city. The layout of the city was very much like a chessboard. About 50 residential areas were constructed, with straight roads and Hutongs in between. At the time, there was a clear definition for avenue, street and Hutong. A 37-metre-wide road was called an avenue, an 18-metre-wide one was called a street, and a 9-metre-wide lane was called a Hutong.Most of today’s Hutong were formed during the Ming and Qing Dynasties that followed. Nobody knows exactly how many Hutongs there are in nowadays Beijing. But one thing is for sure, if we connected all the
Hutongs together, their total length would even be longer than the famous Great wall, which is about 4000 miles longer. Or to make it clear, it could build a highway from Seattle to Boston, all across America!
were first built, usually one Siheyuan was owned by only one family, but nowadays, with the growth of the population, most Siheyuans are shared by 4 to 10 families.
Chinese people used to try to protect their privacy from being intruded by strangers. So the gate building, in old times,
was a symbol to show the position of each house owner. You don’t have to go inside the courtyard.
Just look at the gate building, you can already tell whether it’s an influential family or not.
Now let’s see the doorway. Almost every doorway has a threshold, that high step over there. Remember we saw some yesterday in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace? For what reason they put a big step at the door? You know Chinese people believe all the evil spirits are short. They can not jump over high steps. So the threshold is actually for warding off evil spirits.
These two pieces of stone by the threshold are also decorations for the gate building. Like these two, shaped like drums. They are called drum stones. On the top are carved reclining lions, and on the front, right and left sides are carved a bat holding an ancient coin in its mouth. You know Chinese people like bats very much, because bat in our language shares the same pronunciation with ‘fortune’. So this pattern means good fortune is right before you. Some gate pillows are rectangular in shape, which means they are younger than the drum stones. They were only built in the recent 100 years, mainly for small-and-medium-scale courtyards. And
their patterns are usually flowers and mascots.
very important role in Hutong life. They wandered from lane to lane selling various goods or
providing all kind of services. People could judge the goods or services from their peddling or the
sounds of their special instruments. The food they sold usually include baked pancakes, seasoned
millet mush, or Youzhaguo, a kind of deep-fried twisted dough sticks, and all kinds of vegetables.
Jackson’s songs, it’s hard for people to hear the traditional melodious hawking.Look at the crowd sitting over there! What do you think they are doing? Talking about Vic Tanny? Oprah’s? Or just gossiping? Any ideas? Let’s go and see!
Oh, they are building a new Great Wall. But their bricks are Chinese Mahjong! A very popular pastime among the
Hutong people, especially among the senior citizens who have retired.
You probably wonder why some senior citizens over there are wearing red-colored armbands. They are actually the voluntary neighborhood watch. And their armbands say “On Dutyâ€. If you think they are too old to
be a professional
security guard, you are wrong. Believe me, just because of these lovely Grandmas, this area has been a peaceful and safe place for many years. And if you don’t believe it, you’d better not test them!
living in one courtyard play together and grow up together like one big family. So now our government is trying to preserve such Hutong area in Beijing. Without permission, nobody is allowed to tear down old houses to build high-rise
apartments. We want to save it as a treasure to show our later generations what Beijing used to be
like.
   The Drum Tower was first built in 1272 during the reign of Kublai Khan (the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty), and reconstructed in 1420 when the Ming Dynasty established its capital in Beijing. It rises from a brick podium with a tower pierced by six gates and topped by a roof of soaring eaves.
   To the north is the Bell Tower, first constructed in 1420 and rebuilt of bricks in 1747 during the reign of Emperor Qianlong. The original iron bell was replaced by a great bronze bell, which was rung at seven o’clock evening until 1924.
   The mansion is the most exquisitely decorated and best preserved among the princes’ mansions in Beijing, and beside the residence there is also a large garden.
   The mansion consists of two parts: living quarters and the garden, covering 56,000 square meters. The living quarters run along three axes – central, eastern and western, altogether having 1,000 rooms. People can imagine the grandeur from its green glazed- tile roofs.
   The garden of Prince Gong’s Mansion covers 25,000 square meters, with artificial rockeries, covered corridors and pavilions. It is said the Grand View Garden described in the novel “A Dream of Red Mansions” was modelled after this garden.
   The lake is a broad expanse of water surrounded by willows, locust trees and poplars – a lovely scene. People can have a boat ride there in summer and skate in winter.
Panda Zoo
The Panda zoo lies in Beijing Zoo which was built in 1906 and opened to the public in 1908 with an area of about 10 hectares and a few humble pavilions to house the animals. At that time only several dozens of species were shown. such as lions, tigers, leopards and monkeys. Now the Beijing Zoo covers an area of about 50 hectares. The animal houses and enclosures, with a total floor space of 40,000 square metres, include those for pandas, elephants, brown and polar bears, tigers, hippopotami, rhinoceros, antelopes, giraffes and reptiles. More than 6,000 animals of over 500 species are on show. Among them are giant pandas, golden monkeys, addaxes, tigers from Northeast China, elks, yaks, precious birds and gold fish. Also on show ale rare animals from various continents, such as hippopotami, zebras, giraffes. Chimpanzees, lions and antelopes from Africa, parrots from South America, birds and kangeroos from Australia, polar bears from the Arctic, bisons from Europe and Asian apes.
One of the most famous mammals in the world, the giant panda is meek and looks like a bear. With the exception of its shoulders, its limbs and the rims of its ears and eyes which are black, this lovable animal is white all over. Statistics show that China now has only approximately l,000 giant pandas living in the wild, in some remote mountain areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.
Zoological research has proved that giant panda came into existence 600,000 to 700,000
years ago. Subsequent drastic changes in the climate resulted in deforestation which threatened its existence. The panda used to be a ferocious carnivore, but with environmental changes, it gradually became accustomed to a diet of mainly bamboo. As its natural habitation shrank, its numbers decreased, and the panda itself became docile.
To protect this rare animal, the Chinese Government has established 10 nature reserves in places where pandas are found: eight in Sichuan, one in Gansu and another in Shaanxi
In 1955, giant pandas were exhibited in the Beijing Zoo. In 1978, by artificial insemination, the female giant panda Juanjuan gave birth to twins, one of which survived. Chinese pandas now symbolize the friendship between the Chinese people and the people of other countries. They have been sent to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, the United States, France, Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, Spain, Mexico and other countries.
Giant pandas live in humid and dense bamboo groves in mountainous areas at altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 metres. They are afraid of living in extreme weather conditions and make their lairs in tree holes or mountain caves. They seldom live in groups and eat bamboo leaves, sprouts and shoots. They mostly mate in April and May and give birth in autumn, with one or two cubs in each litter and occasionally three.Â
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Lama(yonghe) Temple
   Several renovations?have been carried out since 1949.The temple has taken on a new look and was reopened to the public in 1981.It is now not only a functional lama temple， but also a tourist attraction.
   Of interest to visitors in the Lama Temple are the 18-metre-high Maitreya statue engraved from a 26-metre-long white sandal-wood log， “the Five hundred Arhats Hill” made of gold， silver， copper， iron and tin， and the niche carved out of nanmu (this kind of Phoebe nanmu can give off a unusual scent reputed to repel mosquitoes in summer). These three objects are accredited as the three matchless masterpieces in the Lama Temple.
The Temple of Heaven
he Temple of Heaven is located in southern Beijing. It is included in the UNESCO world heritage list in 1998. With an area of 2.7 million square meters, it is the largest of its kind in the country. Built in 1420, the 18th year of the reign of Ming Emperor Yongle, the temple was where emperors went to worship heaven for good harvests.
The temple consists of two parts–the inner altar and outer altar. The main buildings are in the inner altar, on the north-south axis. At the southern end are the Imperial Vault of Heaven(1) and the Circular Mound Altar(2). On the northern end are the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests(3) and the Hall of Imperial Zenith(4). The structures at both ends are connected by a 360-meter-long walk. There is also the Hall of Abstinence(5) inside the West Heavenly Gate in which the emperor fasted for three days and bathed before prayer.
The temple’’s main building is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, where the emperor prayed for good harvests. The round hall, 38 meters high and 30 meters in diameter, has triple eaves and a cone-shaped deep blue tile roof crowned with a gilded knob. Surrounding the hall is a six-meter-high spacious circular stone terrace on three levels, each edged by a balustrade of carved white marble.
The Circular Mound Altar is one of the more important buildings and is a three-tier white stone terrace enclosed by two walls. Geometrically designed, the altar has a taiji rock at the center of the top terrace. If you stand on the rock and speak in a normal voice, your voice will sound louder and more resonant to yourself than to others around you, because the sound waves reflected by the balustrades are bounced back to the center by the round wall .
The Imperial Vault of Heaven, the place to lay the memorial tablets to the heaven is to the north of the Circular Mound Altar. It is very similar in structure to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests but is smaller. The Vault, made of brick and timber, is 19 meters high and 15.6 meters in diameter. It is surrounded by a circular wall of polished brick with an opening to the south. This is known as the Echo Wall(6) and is 3.72 meters high, 61.5 meters in diameter and 193 meters in circumference. If a person whispers close to the wall at any point, his voice can be heard distinctly at any other point along the wall.
Around the Hall of Abstinence are two imperial ditches and they are circled by a 163-bay walkway. The Abstinence Bronze Man Pavilion and Time and Memorial Tablets Pavilion are at he Celestial Terrace of the main hall. To add the solemnity of the occasion, the bells in the two bell towers at the northeast end were struck when the emperor prayed for good harvests.
Notes:
1. the Imperial Vault of Heaven 皇穹宇
2. the Circular Mound Altar 圜丘å›
3. the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests 祈年殿
4. the Hall of Imperial Zenith 皇乾殿
5. the Hall of Abstinence 斋宫
6. the Echo Wall 回音å£
Ming Tomb
Ming Dynasty Tombs
Standing in the Spirit Way at the Ming Tombs looking back towards the entry gate.The Ming Dynasty Tombs (Chinese: 明æœå三陵; pinyin: MÃng cháo shà sÄn lÃng; lit. Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty) are located some 50 kilometers due North of Beijing at an especially selected site. The site was chosen by the third Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle (1402 – 1424), who moved the Capital City of China from Nanjing to the present location of Beijing. He is credited with envisioning the layout of the ancient city of Beijing as well as a number of landmarks and monuments located therein. After the construction of the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City) in 1420, the Yongle Emperor selected his burial site and creating his own mausoleum.
From the Yongle Emperor onwards, 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors were buried in this area. The tombs of the first two Ming Emperors are located near Nanjing (the capital city during their reigns). Emperor Jingtai was also not buried here as the Emperor Tianshun had denied Jingtai an imperial burial but was instead buried west of Beijing. The last Emperor Chongzhen who hung himself in April, 1644 was the last to be buried here, named Si Ling by the Qing emperor but on a much smaller scale than his predecessors.
During the Ming dynasty, the tombs were off limits to commoners but in 1644 Li Zicheng’s army ransacked and set many of the tombs on fire before advancing and capturing Beijing in April of that year.