Summer Palace
Gorgeous gardens!The Summer Palace is one of my favorite places to visit in Beijing. Just as you cannot be too rich or too thin, you can never visit the Summer Palace enough times!
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Summer Palace is described as Beijing’s most beautiful gardens. It is indeed beautiful with its carefully tended landscaping. One of the things I like about the Summer Palace is Longevity Hill, though I don’t necessarily like climbing all the stairs to the top of the temple, even though the views are stupendous once I get there. I also like the Long Corridor (see photo above) because it is so colorful with its exquisitely painted beams on the ceiling. And Kunming Lake is so gorgeous. If you have time, escape the crowds at the north end of the lake and walk around the lake. It provides an entirely different perspective on the Summer Palace. If you like to shop, finish your visit to the Summer Palace at Suzhou Street, which is set up as an 18th century shopping street in Suzhou, a city near Shanghai that is famous |
for its silks. An emperor had it built for his concubine who was from Suzhou.
|
Empress Dowager Cixi and the Marble Boat
The controversial Marble Boat
The Marble Boat is a top must-see for visitors at the Summer Palace. Unlike its name, this boat neither sailed nor was it made of marble.
Controversy surrounds the boat because of its renovation in the late 19th century. The Marble Boat was originally built in 1755 by Emperor Qianlong when he undertook a massive reconstruction project of the Summer Palace, which had been an imperial garden since the mid-12th century.
Marble Boat destroyed in 1860
Foreign armies destroyed not only the Marble Boat but the most of the Summer Palace in 1860 when they invaded China during the Second Opium War. It remained in that condition until 1888 when Empress Dowager Cixi decided it should be refurbished for her 60th birthday. Whatever Cixi wanted, Cixi got. The empress began life as a slave, then became the favorite concubine to the emperor. Following his death, beginning with her regency for their son Guangxu, Cixi ruled China with an iron hand. She was a tyrant, running a kingdom that was rife with political intrigue.
The controversy arose over how Cixi chose to pay for the renovations to the Marble Boat. Emperor Guangxu didn’t have the money to pay for this, but the Chinese navy, in the midst of a fundraising campaign to improve the navy, did. So the Empress Dowager took the money from them. The move was unpopular at the time and became increasingly so a few years later when Japan defeated the Chinese navy in a war. Many Chinese believed if the money had gone as intended to beef up the navy, the war’s outcome would have been different. But, as M.A. Aldrich pointed out in The Search for a Vanishing Beijing,” if Cixi hadn’t taken the funds, the money would have been used to build a boat that would have just been sunk in this war anyway.
Marble Boat became “The Chinese Naval Academy”
In the meantime, the Chinese navy erected a sign calling the Marble Boat a “Chinese Naval Academy” and even conducted training exercises in the man-made Kunming Lake, where the Marble Boat rests.
The Marble Boat never was marble. Its base was made of huge stones and all parts visible above the waterline were made of wood painted to look like marble. Cixi’s renovation added paddle wheels to the side, styled after the sternwheelers that used to ply the Mississippi. Cixi added expensive ornate decorations to the boat, which she used as a tea room.
Cixi reportedly diverted 30 million taels of silver to pay for restoration of the Marble Boat and expansion of the Summer Palace, particularly around Longevity Hill which overlooks Kinming Lake. At that time in China, a tael was a unit of money that weighed about 1.3 ounces.
As it turned out, the Marble Boat was destroyed again less than 10 years after it was refurbished. Foreign armies again invaded China, destroying the Marble Boat and the Summer Palace in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
Controversy surrounds the boat because of its renovation in the late 19th century. The Marble Boat was originally built in 1755 by Emperor Qianlong when he undertook a massive reconstruction project of the Summer Palace, which had been an imperial garden since the mid-12th century.
Marble Boat destroyed in 1860
Foreign armies destroyed not only the Marble Boat but the most of the Summer Palace in 1860 when they invaded China during the Second Opium War. It remained in that condition until 1888 when Empress Dowager Cixi decided it should be refurbished for her 60th birthday. Whatever Cixi wanted, Cixi got. The empress began life as a slave, then became the favorite concubine to the emperor. Following his death, beginning with her regency for their son Guangxu, Cixi ruled China with an iron hand. She was a tyrant, running a kingdom that was rife with political intrigue.
The controversy arose over how Cixi chose to pay for the renovations to the Marble Boat. Emperor Guangxu didn’t have the money to pay for this, but the Chinese navy, in the midst of a fundraising campaign to improve the navy, did. So the Empress Dowager took the money from them. The move was unpopular at the time and became increasingly so a few years later when Japan defeated the Chinese navy in a war. Many Chinese believed if the money had gone as intended to beef up the navy, the war’s outcome would have been different. But, as M.A. Aldrich pointed out in The Search for a Vanishing Beijing,” if Cixi hadn’t taken the funds, the money would have been used to build a boat that would have just been sunk in this war anyway.
Marble Boat became “The Chinese Naval Academy”
In the meantime, the Chinese navy erected a sign calling the Marble Boat a “Chinese Naval Academy” and even conducted training exercises in the man-made Kunming Lake, where the Marble Boat rests.
The Marble Boat never was marble. Its base was made of huge stones and all parts visible above the waterline were made of wood painted to look like marble. Cixi’s renovation added paddle wheels to the side, styled after the sternwheelers that used to ply the Mississippi. Cixi added expensive ornate decorations to the boat, which she used as a tea room.
Cixi reportedly diverted 30 million taels of silver to pay for restoration of the Marble Boat and expansion of the Summer Palace, particularly around Longevity Hill which overlooks Kinming Lake. At that time in China, a tael was a unit of money that weighed about 1.3 ounces.
As it turned out, the Marble Boat was destroyed again less than 10 years after it was refurbished. Foreign armies again invaded China, destroying the Marble Boat and the Summer Palace in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
Contact Cheryl
Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Probst. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Probst. All rights reserved.