China, day 8: Temple of Heaven Park
Aug. 3rd, 2006 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienOn the Saturday afternoon, after our part of the conference was over, a colleague and I got a cab over to the Temple of Heaven park, yet another spacious complex full of much-reconstructed Ming-style architecture. This is where the Winter Solstice ceremony to pray for good harvests was carried out, with much imperial pomp and animal sacrifice.
We entered at the south end, and at once spotted the Emperor's special path. Following it, we were soon confronted with the airy marble arches and concentric rings of the Circular Mound Altar. On the top tier, the concentric rings of slabs are all in mulitples of nine, and the staircases are all nines as well. There were many familiar motifs -- ramp carvings, marble posts, elaborate tile finials; the tilework ones rendered this time in dark blue.
From there, our path northward was blocked by construction surrounding a small single-tier pagoda-type building with a wall that, according to the guide leaflet, functions as an echo-gallery (like the Whispering Gallery at St Paul's in London, I suppose.) We wandered eastward instead, to the small green-roofed complex where the butchery of the sacrificial animals went on; the main building there housed some palanquin-things labeled 'dragon pavilions' which were used to carry the ritual bits and pieces to and from the city in procession.
Then we retraced our steps west, following the signs for the 'Divine Music Administration'. It turned out to be quite a walk, through a park in the odd Chinese fashion of closely-spaced trees laid out on a rectilinear grid, not quite close enough to form a canopy but too close to grow to be appreciated as specimens. As we drew nearer, we passed a long moat on the other side of which was another scaffolded building, from which came an odd, rhythmic sound like drumming.
The Divine Music Administration, it turned out, was the complex -- just outside the park proper -- where the musicians for the temple ceremonies were trained. After the fall of the Emperors, it fell on hard times and was used for government offices and even storage. Only in recent years has it been restored and proudly opened as a museum of traditional Chinese music. The museum -- with hands-on full-scale models of drums and bells and those strange horizontal harps -- was interesting, though a distressing number of exhibits were dated simply 'Qing Dynasty -- 1645--1911', which isn't terribly informative. There were some ceremonial robes, as well as instruments. The knot of courtyards and cloisters was quite pleasant to wander around, too.
By the time we finally threaded our way back, past the closed off 'Fasting Palace' where the Emperor stayed when he came for the ceremony, to the main part of the complex and the towering 'Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest', it was late in the afternoon and the crowds were thinning out a bit.
The building itself is beautiful, approached up three tiers of marble steps and carved ramps, is an intricate wooden structure with three tiers of blue-tiled roofs and rings of immense wooden pillars, all very freshly painted and gilded and looking quite spectuclar in the slanting light. The present structure was actually rebuilt in the 1890's after a fire, using Oregon timber, but it's still proudly referred to as a fine piece of Ming-period Architecture. There's quite a view of the city from up there, too.
I'm not sure if the ever-present phoenix has the same connotation of rebirth from fire in Chinese mythology as it does in Western, but it seems an appropriate symbol for all these wooden structures of the Empire's glory, burned down over and over and always lovingly rebuilt to the exact fifteenth-century specifications.
We wandered around until they started shutting the gates at 6pm, and then headed for the exit. Part of the way was along a covered passageway where several groups were gathering to sing and play music; one large group, standing around a keyboard-player, were singing what sounded remarkably like hymns. It isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that they were actually Christians, but it was a surprising thing to hear. Further out, in the dusk-gathering woods, were some solo instrumentalists -- not buskers, I think, but just people practicing where they wouldn't disturb the neighbours.
On the way out of the gate, we heard that drumming again. Behind a screen, several workers were pounding, bare-handed or with mallets, on a wet plaster wall.
Pictures here.
We entered at the south end, and at once spotted the Emperor's special path. Following it, we were soon confronted with the airy marble arches and concentric rings of the Circular Mound Altar. On the top tier, the concentric rings of slabs are all in mulitples of nine, and the staircases are all nines as well. There were many familiar motifs -- ramp carvings, marble posts, elaborate tile finials; the tilework ones rendered this time in dark blue.
From there, our path northward was blocked by construction surrounding a small single-tier pagoda-type building with a wall that, according to the guide leaflet, functions as an echo-gallery (like the Whispering Gallery at St Paul's in London, I suppose.) We wandered eastward instead, to the small green-roofed complex where the butchery of the sacrificial animals went on; the main building there housed some palanquin-things labeled 'dragon pavilions' which were used to carry the ritual bits and pieces to and from the city in procession.
Then we retraced our steps west, following the signs for the 'Divine Music Administration'. It turned out to be quite a walk, through a park in the odd Chinese fashion of closely-spaced trees laid out on a rectilinear grid, not quite close enough to form a canopy but too close to grow to be appreciated as specimens. As we drew nearer, we passed a long moat on the other side of which was another scaffolded building, from which came an odd, rhythmic sound like drumming.
The Divine Music Administration, it turned out, was the complex -- just outside the park proper -- where the musicians for the temple ceremonies were trained. After the fall of the Emperors, it fell on hard times and was used for government offices and even storage. Only in recent years has it been restored and proudly opened as a museum of traditional Chinese music. The museum -- with hands-on full-scale models of drums and bells and those strange horizontal harps -- was interesting, though a distressing number of exhibits were dated simply 'Qing Dynasty -- 1645--1911', which isn't terribly informative. There were some ceremonial robes, as well as instruments. The knot of courtyards and cloisters was quite pleasant to wander around, too.
By the time we finally threaded our way back, past the closed off 'Fasting Palace' where the Emperor stayed when he came for the ceremony, to the main part of the complex and the towering 'Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest', it was late in the afternoon and the crowds were thinning out a bit.
The building itself is beautiful, approached up three tiers of marble steps and carved ramps, is an intricate wooden structure with three tiers of blue-tiled roofs and rings of immense wooden pillars, all very freshly painted and gilded and looking quite spectuclar in the slanting light. The present structure was actually rebuilt in the 1890's after a fire, using Oregon timber, but it's still proudly referred to as a fine piece of Ming-period Architecture. There's quite a view of the city from up there, too.
I'm not sure if the ever-present phoenix has the same connotation of rebirth from fire in Chinese mythology as it does in Western, but it seems an appropriate symbol for all these wooden structures of the Empire's glory, burned down over and over and always lovingly rebuilt to the exact fifteenth-century specifications.
We wandered around until they started shutting the gates at 6pm, and then headed for the exit. Part of the way was along a covered passageway where several groups were gathering to sing and play music; one large group, standing around a keyboard-player, were singing what sounded remarkably like hymns. It isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that they were actually Christians, but it was a surprising thing to hear. Further out, in the dusk-gathering woods, were some solo instrumentalists -- not buskers, I think, but just people practicing where they wouldn't disturb the neighbours.
On the way out of the gate, we heard that drumming again. Behind a screen, several workers were pounding, bare-handed or with mallets, on a wet plaster wall.
Pictures here.