China Revisited -- 2013 [32]

Splendid China, part 2


Scale is often an issue for a foreigner in China. How does one imagine size and distance, for example?  How does one understand engineering, even with a knowledge of physics, a comprehension of mathematics, and an appreciation for architectural beauty? How does one understand weight and balance, motivation and vision, the costs of human labor?

Splendid China does not answer those questions, of course, but it provided for us a beginning, a point of reference; in short, a way to imagine the unimaginable.

The Great Wall, which runs for hundreds of miles across northern China and is one of the few ancient human structures visible from space, is one illuminating point of reference.  To see it in miniature run for hundreds of yards as a replica frees the imagination, even against the backdrop of modern Shenzhen, which is a product of Deng Xiaoping's vision in the early post-Mao era. One is prompted to think of the Great Wall as "the glory that was China." That is fair enough, but one ought not stop there.

It is necessary and helpful in all of these observations to think in terms of people as well as engineering, to think of citizens as well as emperors, to think of laborers as well as engineers and architects. The little costumed figures on the terraces and stairways allow the tourist to do that; they offer a human dimension that provides perspective both in terms of scale and of human activity.

In this regard, nothing is quite so moving as the model of central Beijing leading from the Temple of Heaven north to the Forbidden City. The actual structures, dating from the early 15th Century, were, among other things, designed to demonstrate physically the Emperor's connection to heaven.

The Temple of Heaven, the largest building in the world dedicated to the offering of sacrifices, lies at the southern end of a north/south axis, with the Forbidden City, home to Emperors from 1406 until 1911, at the northern end. The road linking these two complexes is, or was, roughly 4 miles.  The model in Splendid China, built to scale, runs at least a hundred yards from end to end.  In real life, even centuries ago, it would have been hard to see from end to end.  In miniature, that view is not only possible -- the scope of the endeavor itself gives one pause.

 

Consider also for a moment the fact that the entire route is lined on both sides with people, and not just ordinary people, mind you, important people who were summoned to take their places when the emperor traveled between the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. Judging from the figures in the model, these men are standing roughly an arm's length apart after the fashion of soldiers who space themselves in formation by extending one arm to the shoulder of the next soldier.

 The scale model does not, of course, include extraneous building, which is both good and bad. The fact that there is no way to imagine clearly what Imperial Beijing beyond this axis is a loss. In modern Beijing, too, there are thousands of buildings that clutter this central plan, so the model is deficient in that sense too.

On the other hand, the model allows one to imagine the Imperial grip on Beijing, both in terms of architecture and in terms of power.  Part of the original intention of the first emperor's vision was to create a small model of the cosmos as it was or was intended to be understood. Beijing itself was then built in concentric rings around this central architecture.

What we as Americans know generally of this long complex construction is almost entirely related to what has been preserved of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City with its 30 foot high red walls, its 800 buildings, and its 178 acres is one third the size of the Temple of Heaven.It required, apparently, a million laborers working steadily for 14 years. There are many facts and details that I need not mention here. But the sheer size and complexity of this endeavor is hard to comprehend even viewed in miniature.

The red wall of the Forbidden City, as everyone knows, is now additionally famous for it huge portrait of Chairman Mao.

But for the outsized gestures like this Mao portrait, the human figures are all but lost against this astonishing achievement.  This is indeed what puts the "splendid" in the name, Splendid China. Almost lost, but for me no less splendid, though in a different way, is the massive physical effort, the hidden human cost, that made this magnificent vision possible.