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Published: December 20th 2006
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Qingdongling
View from Empress Cixi's funeral palace Sam showed up at my hotel with our hired taxi at 7:10 AM (one hour later than yesterday) and we departed together to pick Liz up at her hotel. Driving to the tombs site in the northern Hebei province took us a couple of hours, mostly over highways but within a few kilometers from the site, we actually passed through the town of Zunhua, which according to Sam, is actually considered a suburb of Beijing.
As we went through the town, it was so “surreal” to see a variety of 3-wheel vehicles of all sizes on the road. The lightest ones are actually powered by human pedaling and are used for both cargo and passengers. I had seen this “light” kind in Beijing where they are still very common. The ones that seemed odd to me were the mid-size 3-wheel trucks used to carry large loads and smaller trucks and passenger vehicles resembling small European micro Smart cars. Their motors made a noise similar to tug boat engines as they cruised at a noticeable slower pace than standard 4-wheel trucks and cars. Our Chinese driver did not have much patience with their slow speed and did whatever necessary (even almost
driving onto incoming traffic more than a couple of times) to leave them in the dust (literally).
After we left the town behind, our driver was able to make fast progress towards our destination. As we entered the site, an old pedestrian path lined with white-marble statues of people and animals at regular intervals flanked the road. The path ended at a multi-section ornate gate that the modern road circled. We looked for road signs to take us to one of the most famous tombs in the site; the one belonging to Empress Dowager Cixi who ruled china for 45 years without actually ascending to the throne.
An outer wall surrounds every tomb in the complex and blocks access to the outer and inner courtyard structures. One of the halls in the outer area of Empress Cixi’s tomb has been commissioned as a ticket counter. After paying our respective RMB 120 (around US$15.60). We received a ticket that would give us access to all the tombs in the entire complex.
Every structure that we visited shared the same general organization and architecture. After crossing the first access gate, we gained access to a courtyard with a large
hall directly in front of the access gate (towards the north), and two smaller halls (the eastern and western halls). The large hall in this area of each funeral complex was originally used for delivering offerings to the emperor, empress, or imperial concubines buried in the particular tomb. In the present, these halls showcase items documenting the life of the person or persons buried on each tomb and in the case of a couple of the tombs, the entire Qing Dynasty history. The smaller halls were originally used to prepare offerings or even to house Buddhist monks performing specific ceremonies for the dead emperor from time to time. These halls are now used to house smaller displays or even as shops (such as is the case with the eastern hall in Dowager Cixi’s funeral complex). Behind the large hall in each complex there is another wall with a three-section gate providing access to the actual tomb structure.
The inner courtyard was organized basically the same as the outer courtyard, except that the north hall was replaced with a more solid building consisting of a square stone structure crowned by a smaller square structure on top. To the back of
the main structure, there was a round wall surrounding a dirt mound, which in many cases had trees and other vegetation growing on it. The underground tomb was generally located under the mound, but in every case the entrance shaft was originally concealed in a different way to discourage tomb robbers. Several of the underground tombs are now open, and visitors can appreciate the amazing structures underground.
As it was the case with ancient Egyptian pharaohs, I do not believe that these Qing Dynasty emperors ever considered that their majestic final resting places would ever become tourist attractions and be open to the public some day.
After we spent several hours visiting every open funeral compound in Qingdongling, I wished I had done more research into Chinese history before visiting the site. I may have appreciated our visit even more. There was plenty of information provided in English and there was even more in Chinese. Fortunately for Liz and me, our colleague Sam is an avid fan of Chinese history and he was always giving us great insight about the history and customs of the period. He made the entire trip much more interesting for both of us.
From a photographic perspective, Liz also made a very important contribution by wearing her bright red coat, which provided great human interest and scale to several of my images. I understand why National Geographic photographers used to carry with them red garments of all sorts to include in their images in the early days of that publication.
I will leave it here for now. I have a full week of business ahead of me in Beijing and very little time for blogging.
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