Day #86: Pre-telescopic astronomy

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In the early 1600s Jesuit missionaries arrived in China from mainland Europe, bringing with them Enlightenment-era knowledge of astronomy. The Qing rulers put them in charge of the Emperor's Observatory and commissioned Ferdinand Verbiest, a missionary and particularly brilliant astronomer from Flanders, to design a number of instruments (though only after Verbiest had survived not only the dangerous journey from Europe and then imprisonment and exile in China due to his faith, but also a public test, set by the Emperor, against his Chinese counterpart, to decide whether Chinese or European astronomy was superior). The result was a set of beautifully-designed bronze astronomical instruments that are still preserved today on the original observatory platform - as much effort was put into the aesthetics as it was into the mechanics of the instrument design. Pre-telescopes, it was possible to track Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn as well as the stars and the Observatory had an interesting section on aincient Chinese constellations. The Observatory is peaceful and cool (despite being next to a huge intersection) as well as fascinating.

I also visited Yonghe Dong temple, a Tibetan Buddhist lamastry, carefully preserved to show the state's religious tolerance but with little actual worship going on (although there were some worshippers, almost all young women, tourists outnumbered them by far. And the "monks" are clearly attendants whose uniform is the Buddhist robes).

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