China 2001 - The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace

Okay, so here you are, the emperor of China, the most powerful country in the world, and your predecessors moved the capital from Nanjing ("Southern Capital") to Beijing ("Northern Capital") because the summers were too hot down south, and now it still gets too dang hot for comfort in the forbidden city during July and August. What are you going to do about it?

Hey emperor, how about a 716 acre park surrounding a large man-made lake northwest of town with well ventilated palaces around it to catch the breezes? We can call it the Garden of Perfection and Brightness or the Garden for Cultivating Harmony or something. Foreigners will call it the Summer Palace.

What this plaque by the entrance doesn't have room to say is that the emperor Guangxu attempted to institute some reforms that would have given some power to the people. Cixi (the original dragon lady) had no intention of giving up any of her absolute power over the country, and had Guangxu confined to a room in the summer palace while she had his supporters (and their families) beheaded.

The summer palace, as we see it today, was the final seat of power of the dowager empress as she ruled with an iron hand until her death in 1908. The few reforms allowed were not enough to prevent the end of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911.

The last emperor, Guangxu's young nephew Puyi, has his story told partially in the movie "The Last Emperor." But that's a story from the Forbidden City, not the Summer Palace.

We only have a limited amount of time to visit the Summer Palace, so we aren't going into many of the buildings. The grounds are so large that we only get to see a corner of them.

Our entrance to the Summer Palace is through the east gate to the Hall of Benevolent Longevity. Cixi must have made up that name!

The throne room looks much as it did in imperial times.

The cranes are a symbol of longevity.

Passing through some lovely gardens we reach the shore of Kunming lake.

(Click on this panorama to see it larger (700KB) or click on the individual sights below it to see just them)


South Lake Isle and the Hall of Infinite space	Jade Belt Bridge	Da Tian Pi Gu Pagaoda (a shrine to a monk who served the Empress Dowager.)	Longevity Hill and the Pavilion of Buddhist Incense	Cool breezes down by the lake

The half-mile-long Long Corridor runs along the lakefront. Each bay is painted with a scene from a story. There are 8,000 paintings along here. I'll let somebody else try to get all of them.

At the end, we come to the huge Pavilion of Buddhist Incense and the Marble Boat.

Cixi had the boat built by embezzling funds raised to repair the Chinese Navy. The navy was easily defeated in the Sino-Japanese war. The marble boat endures.

The path continues around the lake over these bridges.

But we take a boat back to the entrance.

Architectural Details