Ep. 4 – Beijing, China
A marriage of ancient history and modern civilization. Beijing, the capital of China, is a bustling city today, but it has done well to preserve its culture and storied past. Hear the story of a "Forbidden" Beijing landmark and its impact on Chinese society.
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Transcription:
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Hey there! Welcome to the fourth installment of The Friday Take Five, a podcast where we take just about five or so minutes every Friday to step back from the craziness of life and delve into history and adventure. I’m your host, Mark Moran, and I do my best each week to scratch an itch for travel bugs and history lovers alike. Every episode, we’ll take a look at a new place with a new story, and it’s my hope that you’ll walk away with a renewed appreciation for history and a new travel destination to add to the bucket list. With that, let’s get discovering.
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Our next stop is in a city I haven’t yet had the pleasure of enjoying, but it’s one of the seemingly million places on my bucket list - Beijing. China is one of the most fascinating civilizations on the planet. It has a deep and rich history, a mix of beautiful landscapes and massive cities, a culture that is uniquely different from an American perspective, and it all together just seems like an incredible place to experience! Beijing is a city with over 3,000 years of documented history. It’s roughly 6 times older than New York and has plenty of stories to show for it. Fraught with revolution and war between provinces, Beijing has changed its name roughly 20 times and has both been and not been the capital of China or of a Chinese province roughly 50 times throughout its history. Talk about an identity crisis, I know.
During one of the periods of relative stability, or one of them anyway, and a time at which the city was in fact named Beijing, the Ming Dynasty reigned. The Ming dynasty presided over China from the mid 1300s through the mid 1600s. This period in time brought about an artistic and cultural boom. Private newspapers began during this time along with new forms of prose and poetry. New painting techniques came about and ceramic and porcelain art pieces became commonplace.
Another major contribution of the Ming Dynasty was the Forbidden City, a palace complex within Beijing that still stands and can be visited today.
In 1406, the Yongle emperor of the Ming dynasty, commissioned the Forbidden City to house the royal court. By 1420, it was finally finished and the court moved in. The Forbidden City was aptly named as such because hardly any Chinese subjects were allowed in, and even the family members of the emperor were only allowed access to certain parts of the complex. Which, to be fair, if I were an emperor and I could have a whole city built just because, then I would definitely have parts built where only I could go too, so I’m not even mad.
Throughout its history, the Forbidden City housed 24 different emperors and their families from the Ming through the Qing dynasties. The final inhabitant was the final emperor of Imperial China, who continued to live there even after being removed as a ruler of China in 1911. The new government expelled him but kinda was like… “Eh, you can hang out so long as you don’t cause any problems”. He was officially kicked out 14 years later in 1925 when the government decided to turn the location into a museum.
Though the Forbidden city stopped being the formal seat of government with the Chinese Revolution of 1911, The city itself significantly outlasted its creator, and has continued to outlast multiple dynasties, revolutions, and forms of government. Some buildings were damaged or lost during the 1911 revolution, but much of it has since been restored. In 1987, it was actually named a world heritage site in recognition of the site as a landmark for power in China for over five hundred years.
Today, The Forbidden City is one of the most frequented museums and historical sites in the world, with some reports showing as high as 17 million visitors annually. It’s a center for education and a portal into the past for one of the oldest and most storied civilizations on the planet. The Forbidden City is most definitely one of the reasons Beijing is on my travel bucket list.
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Hey! Thanks for listening to another episode of The Friday Take Five. If you’re looking to join the community and keep in the loop, don’t forget to turn on notifications on your favorite podcast platform and remember to follow us on socials @FridayTakeFive. Got stories of Beijing, feedback or recommendations on places / stories for us to cover? Give us a dm or email at thefridaytakefive@gmail.com. Stay curious, stay adventuring, and have a great weekend!
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