Beijing Hutongs

A hutong is an ancient city alley or lane typical in Beijing, where hutongs run into the several thousand. Surrounding the Forbidden City, many were built during the Yuan (1206-1341), Ming(1368-1628) and Qing(1644-1908) dynasties. In the prime of these dynasties the emperors, in order to establish supreme power for themselves, planned the city and arranged the residential areas according to the etiquette systems of the Zhou Dynasty. The center of the city of Beijing was the royal palace -- the Forbidden City.
One kind of hutongs, usually referred to as the regular hutong, was near the palace to the east and west and arranged in orderly fashion along the streets. Most of the residents of these hutongs were imperial kinsmen and aristocrats. Another kind, the simple and crude hutong, was mostly located far to the north and south of the palace. The residents were merchants and other ordinary people.
The main buildings in the hutong were almost all quadrangles--a building complex formed by four houses around a quadrangular courtyard . The quadrangles varied in size and design according to the social status of the residents. The big quadrangles of high- ranking officials and wealthy merchants were specially built with roof beams and pillars all beautifully carved and painted, each with a front yard and back yard. However, the ordinary people's quadrangles were simply built with small gates and low houses. hutongs, in fact, are passageways formed by many closely arranged quadrangles of different sizes. The specially built quadrangles all face the south for better lighting; as a result, a lot of hutongs run from east to west. Between the big hutongs many small ones went north and south for convenient passage

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The Mogao Caves

The Mogao Caves, or Mogao Grottoes (pinyin: mò gāo kū) (also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas and Dunhuang Caves) form a system of 492 temples 25 km (15.5 miles) southeast of the center of Dun huang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. Construction of the Buddhist cave shrines began in 366 AD as places to store scriptures and art.] The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient sculptural sites of China. The caves also have famous wall paintings.
The Mogao Caves are located on the southeastern region of Dunhuang County in the province of Gansu. The Mogao grottoes, considered to be the richest abode of Buddhist art are built on the eastern slopes of the Mingshashan Mountain. These Mogao grottoes are also known as the Thousand Buddha Cave and are one of the largest and famous amongst the three popular grottoes of China.
The Mogao caves were built somewhere around the 4 th century. A Buddhist monk called
Yue Seng carved the first cave of Mongo in 366AD, during the rule of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. His attempt was carried further by the other succeeding dynasties resulting in the beautiful collection of caves.
At present the Mogao caves possesses a collection of 492 caves with 2,100 colored statues and 45,000 square meters of wall painting marked from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries. It is said that if all the wall paintings are united they would encompass a length of 30 kilometers. All the caves at the Mogao grottoes are of different size. The largest caves cover a height of 40 meters whereas the smallest ones are so small that only the head could be moved in. The colored statues symbolize the incredible creation of their creators and vary in size ranging from 33 meters high to a few centimeters only.

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The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City, at the center of the ancient city of Beijing, was home to 24 emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Today, the Forbidden City is a public museum and World Heritage site, attracting millions of tourists from around the world.
In this guide, we open the doors of the Forbidden City and tour inside this beautiful palace with its long 500 year history. The guide includes over 500 photographs of the Forbidden City and describes in detail all the main places of interest. It also presents a useful Forbidden City map.

Now officially renamed as the 'Palace Museum' ('GuGong' in chinese, meaning simply 'old palace'), the extensive grounds of the Forbidden City cover 720,000 square meters (74 hectares). There are 800 buildings that have in total about 9,000 rooms. The Forbidden City is the world's largest palace complex.
Indeed, the Forbidden City is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987.
The Forbidden City is located directly to the north of Tian'AnMen Square and is accessible from the square via Tian'AnMen Gate.

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The Great Wall

The Wall stretches from Shahaiguan Pass on the east coast to Jiayuguan Pass in the Gobi Desert in the west. The project undertaken about 2000 years ago during the Qin Dynasty (211-207 BC) covering a length of 12,000 kilometres, when Emperor Qin Shihuang unified the separated walls of different independent kingdoms to keep out marauding nomads. The effort required hundreds of thousands of workers and estimated 180 million cubic meters of rammed earth was used to form the core of the original wall. The wall never really did perform its function as a defense line to keep invaders out. However, it did work very well as a kind of elevated highway, transporting men and equipment across mountainous terrain. It becomes a tower system, using smoke signals generated by burning wolves’ dung, transmitted news of enemy movements quickly back to the capital.

The Great Wall
One of the most iconic and famous construction mankind ever made in our human history. The great wall was simply build up by thousands of stone alone with thousands of workers for 11 centuries long, it has been build, rebuild, maintained by various successive dynasties during the period.

History Background
The original purpose of building the Great Wall was to protect and defend the invasion of Xiongnu tribe from the northern area of China. The Chinese were familiar with excellent wall building at the time during warring period. From the 5th century BC to 221 BC, dynasties of Qi, Yan and Zhao all contributed to the building of the great wall for the sack of protecting their own border against the outside states. The most extensive and successive contribution to the great wall began at the Qin dynasty. Qin Shi Huang, empire of the dynasty conquered all opposing states and united China in 221 BC. He had ordered the building of a new wall to connect the remaining walls along the empire's new northern border.
The Great Wall concept was conducted again during the Ming Dynasty, due to the fact that Ming army’s defeat by the out-coming enemy, Ming had failed to gain advantage from the battle. Therefore the idea of rebuilding the great wall had come aboard. Towards the end of the Ming Dynasty, the construction of the Great Wall was close to the modern shape of looking, the border of China had extended beyond the Great Wall in the Qing Dynasty, the great wall no longer servers the purpose of defending, therefore the construction and extension of the great wall discontinued.

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