Wednesday 30 May 2012

the forbidden city


It was known as The Forbidden City because you were not allowed in unless you were part of the imperial family or if you were a court official.  Otherwise you had to either be a concubine or an eunuch.  And then, once you got in, you couldn’t get out.  Even so, 10,000 people lived there in those days.

Construction of the Forbidden City started in 1404 and took 17 years to complete.  You would think it took longer, looking at its size and the details in the carvings and sculptures.  A place of beauty, and yet one shudders to think of the things that could have happened here.




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