紫禁城 故宫博物院英语介绍

The

Forbidden City

Nowadays, when we talk about it, many Chinese people will call it “The Palace Museum”, but in many western countries, almost every brochure which introduces the old palace still use it’s old name “ The Forbidden City”. What the most western people interested in is to explore the mysterious atmosphere of ancient Chinese royal family that was presented in the movie The Last Emperor and oriental feudal autocratic system(封建帝制)

Today, let’s go inside this palace to explore what happened here

3 Key WordsZi The name “Zijin Cheng” is a name with significance on many levels. Zi, or “Purple”, refers to the North Star which in ancient China was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrology(占星术) was the abode of the Celestial Emperor. The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure (紫微垣), was the realm of the Celestial Emperor and his family. The Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart.

“天人合一”

Forbidden The site of the Forbidden City was situated on the Imperial City during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Upon the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered that the Yuan palaces be burnt down. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital back to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City.Since then , for almost five hundred years, it served as the home of 24 emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. This splendid palace is the symbol of

the supreme power and status of the royal family. In that case, this palace was forbidden, no one could enter and leave the palace without the emperor’s permission, the only result of violating is death.

City It is huge than what you can imagine. Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 m2 . It’s a walled city. (城中城).The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is listed by UNESCO(联合国教科文组 织) as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Ancient Chinese people’s wisdom and courage Construction lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers. Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood (楠木) found in the jungles of south-western China. Getting them was a hazardous occupation. It was said there were 1000 men went into these mountains but only 500 went out. Without modern transport machines ,workers made use of the water flow to transfer these huge woods downstream. The journey of a single log took up 4 years.

Each pillar in Taihe Dian is made by one single nanmu.

Suzhou’s contributionsThe floors of major halls in the palace were paved with “golden bricks” (金砖), specially bake

d paving bricks from Suzhou.But this is not made by gold.When you tap the brick, it is a mental sound.There’s still one piece preserved in Canglang Pavilion.

The main designer of this palace is Kuai Xiang(蒯祥) from Xukou,Suzhou.

The Forbidden City is legendary and mysterious. There are a lot of stories about it’s history, construction,antiques and so on—if you want to know more about it, you can visit it one day,or you can browse its website.

/ 故宫博物院

Inside The Forbidden City National Geographic Channel

Thank You