Scenes from the Forbidden City

The big Chinese monuments are just fascinating to visit because they embody so much rich, mysterious (for Westerners), and varied history, and also because you come to realize these places are living spaces where contemporary society lives, plays, and celebrates. 

(Video above: Locals and visitors gathered in several spots in the outer courtyards to sing nationalistic songs from Mao's era.) 

We visited the Forbidden Palace on Labor Day weekend--a famous shopping and vacationing weekend for the Chinese each May 1st weekend. 

(Photo above: Inner courtyard of the Forbidden Palace with its archetypal Han Dynasty roof lines, large squares for Imperial functions, and tiered marble steps and galleries where high ranking officials would attend ceremonies for the Emperor.) 

(Photo above: This couple did not appear to be from Beijing. They were authentically dressed in farmer's "Sunday" clothes, and their color and features struck me as being more Western Chinese. They were very handsome, and very honored and proud to visit this Forbidden place. 

(Photo above: Two lions typically adorn doorways is high palaces, a female on the left and a male on the right. You can tell them apart because the female is holding down her lion cub--a symbol of her familial and relationship powers. The male always has his large paw pinning down a golden globe, they symbol of Imperial ad absolute power.) 

(Photo above: One of the beasts that protects the Emperor. Every household should have one of these.)