14 replies to this topic

[Ghost_of_Han]

I remember hearing that there were no trees in the Forbidden City, for 3 reasons.

1. There could be nothing taller then the emperor’s glory.
2. There is some Chinese symbol, I think its death or something, but basically it’s a bad symbol that is written with the radical tree inside a box. Well Chinese are superstitious and the Forbidden City is a rectangle. So if a tree was in there, it would be like some big character for death.
3.?

I can't remember the third can someone help?

[Gweilo]

Hmmm....when I visited it a few years ago, there is a huge garden at the back end (still inside the the moat). It was the emperor's private garden; I forget its official name. There were many trees in it.

Are you sure about your information?

[General_Zhaoyun]

well.. I never really noticed it when I visited Forbidden city. I didn't realise that there is no tree. Perhaps there are short bushes.

[yehzhaofeng]

There are trees in the Forbiddin City. Like Gweilo pointed out, there are Imperial gardens and there are trees in there.

[Ghost_of_Han]

Well I am positive that for some reason there can't be tree in some areas. I did forget about the garden but I am positive on this thought.

. There is some Chinese symbol, I think its death or something, but basically it’s a bad symbol that is written with the radical tree inside a box. Well Chinese are superstitious and the Forbidden City is a rectangle. So if a tree was in there, it would be like some big character for death.

GZ, do you know what character I mean?

[General_Zhaoyun]

Well no.. I don't really know what character you mean. If you can show me the chinese character, I might be able to understand it.

I check the photos of the forbidden city palace ..there are indeed no trees in the main building and arena , but there are trees in the garden.

I guess, it's somehow related to chinese geomancy (fengshui) that there are no trees in the arena. Having trees might bring in more negative (yang) forces and there needs to be a balance of ying (positive) and yang (negative) forces in the palace building.

I have quite a number of books that explained the Forbidden city's architecture, how it was constructed and organised. However they are not 'specialised books' on forbidden city so I can't really find information on your 'tree question'. I'm sure the answer can be found in more specialised book about forbidden city.

[yau]

han, I think you're looking for another story.

In Yunan province, the south-west of china, there's a UN World heritage site called "LiJiang Old City", ruled by a famous minority nationality Naxi (納西族) from Yuan Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. Unlike other anicent cities, there was no rampart. The legend told that the "Tu-Si" (土司), an ancient official name for leaders in Lijiang, was surnamed "木" (literaly means: wood). 木 will look like a character with negative meaning 困 if it's surrounded by a rampart. 困 means predicament, difficulties and be surrounded by ememy.

See more information about Lijiang, my most favourite historical site in china. http://whc.unesco.or...=31&id_site=811

Well, it's obviously untrue that there was no tree in the Forbidden City. Historical records showed that there was a fire in the city during the invasion of Li ZiCheng in 17th Century, and tall big trees was fired and destroyed. Few hundred years later, there's also another notorious fire disaster in 1920s, that hundreds of jewels and relics were stolen and some "reaching the sky" (chinese word for "Very very tall") old trees was fired. It proved that there were tall trees in the city in different period of time.

However, in the city, there's really no tree along the path from the Front Door to the "Bao He Hall" (保和殿), where the grand royal examination was taken in the ancient days. It's not for the reason of superstition, but it's said that the architects intended to remove all trees, left only the high and thick wall, to show the stateliness of the palace. (you can imagine the psycological effect to make frightened officials more panic)

[Ghost_of_Han]

han, I think you're looking for another story.

Well I do love a good story, but that was no the purpose of my post. :P

[yehzhaofeng]

I asked my teacher and he said a similiar thing about feng shui and about forming the word 困. He then said that it is stupid because since the forbidden city represents a box, then there is people inside right? Write a box and put the word ren inside, what does it say? Inprisonment.. ;)

He believes it's a safety hazard because trees can easily hide assasins. :blink:

[General_Zhaoyun]

2. There is some Chinese symbol, I think its death or something, but basically it’s a bad symbol that is written with the radical tree inside a box. Well Chinese are superstitious and the Forbidden City is a rectangle. So if a tree was in there, it would be like some big character for death.

The chinese character/symbol is actually called "Kun" (困), which means "trapped". It has a sub-characer "Mu" (木) (meaning woods or trees) , placed within an enclosure/surrounding 口 . The chinese were superstitious.. that is to say, if there is a tree placed within an enclosure, it would form the character of "Kun", which means trapped . This will bring misfortune, and for this reason, there are no trees within the imperial palace.

But as Andrew Yip mentioned, there are also people ("ren" 人) within the palace enclosure (口), and if you put the people within the enclosure, it forms the character "qiu" ( 囚), which means imprisoned. So, it's really silly.

[General_Zhaoyun]

When we visited the Forbidden City in 85 our tour guide told us that there were no trees in or around the walls of the Forbidden City because they were very paranoid about assassins. They supposedly built the stone flooring of the Forbidden City with multiple layers of stone to prevent assassins from digging tunnels into the city. Anyway this is what was told to us.

That's also the same reason about having uneven floors and no trees in the palace for the Seoul's palace...which I visited 3 weeks ago. I guess, it's to prevent Assassins.

[General_Zhaoyun]

The floors on the ground towards the palace are not even and smooth. This is to prevent assassin from running or escaping away easily. Many of the floors have stone slabs stagged unevenly so that when one runs, it will make a sound.