Trivia I suppose…

January of 2019 has me concurrently working on several projects which include an effort to update the three-video series “Learning Chinese Provinces”,  a new video about provincial capitals, and posts to my Pere’s Ramblings blog to include photos and accounts of both my 2017 and 2018 visits to China.

In the course of my work, as I research and attempt to create accurate works that disseminate information about China, I am confronted with clumsy inaccuracies in published materials. And sometimes I make my own mistakes!

This is NOT the “Forbidden City”!

In the middle of Beijing, just north of Tiananmin Square, visitors have a view of this impressive structure with the famous portrait of Mao Zedong. Thanks to numerous mislabeled photos and misguided web sites across the internet, it is easy to believe that this is the “Forbidden City”. It is not. Well, then what is it?

Hold onto you hat, this is (drum roll) “Tiananmen” 天安门, or in English “The Gate of Heavenly Peace”.
Chairman Mao’s portrait hangs there to commemorate his proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in October, 1949.

And the real entrance to the Forbidden City? Continue another quarter mile north and you can enter the Forbidden City through the “Meridian Gate”. Well, all that bad online information had me confused as well. 🙂

While we are in the neighborhood, let’s take a look at another Internet misrepresentation. This one is from a web page that advertises itself as the definitive guide to 50 “must see” places in China. The page presents this photo with the caption “Tiananmen Tower is one of several highlights of the Tiananmen Square area”. The author goes on to claim that it is 600 years old and that you can pay a small fee to climb this “tower”.
The stone monument is not 600 years old. It was erected in 1958 and is actually the “Monument to the People’s Heroes”. Don’t try to climb it!
(I noted a disproportionate number of errors on that particular site, considering its limited scope. )

OK, continuing in Beijing:

Temple of Heaven?

This beautiful and iconic temple is often labeled as “The Temple of Heaven”. Is it? Well, perhaps this is an issue of semantics. This building is indeed to be found within the Temple of Heaven park and is one of several buildings that make up the Temple of Heaven complex. This particular building is called the “Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests” (祈年殿).