Talk:Forbidden City/Archive 1

Miscellaneous

Image:Forbidden_City_Beijing.jpg needs to be inserted in Tiananmen Gate when it exists as an article. --Jiang

That image is appropriate here, in addition to the new aerial view. The three tiny semi-circular holes are probably just entrances, like the caption says, and basically part of the wall of the city. The real Tiananmen Gate should be at the front of the square, not attached to the city wall. It's quite tall, made of white stone I think.

The Tiananmen Gate is described already as the second paragraph Tiananmen Square. The only article that links to Tiananmen Gate is this one, so separation may not be necessary. The question is: Is the gate really that separated from the square? If not, we should redirect and remove its reference (being the double, along with Tiananmen Square) from this article. --Menchi 06:11, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Dunno what you are talking about, but the tiananmen gate is not made of white stone and it is certainly attached to the wall. the ramparts are red, the railings are white, and the room is imperial yellow. --Sumple 04:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The article first says the city has over 800 buildings and then says that it has 9,999.5. Which is it?

9,999.5. That's the way I heard it in Beijing. --DF08 13:40, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I heard the same in Beijing too, however how do you have 0.5 room? Surely it is a room in its own right ;)

9,999.5 is a traditional/legendary number. the 0.5 refers to this little storage room/broom cupboard at one end of the imperial library. --Sumple 04:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is it called that

How come there is no explanation of why it is called the forbidden city? --Cchipman 01:16, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I too would like to know this. It seems a pretty obvious question. - furrykef (Talk at me) 06:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I know. Commoners weren't allowed...AND the Mongols didn't allow Chinese in it when they ruled. TheWorld 21:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Started under Yuan dynasty

The Forbidden City was started by the Mongol Yuan dynasty, but this article perpetuates the incorrect notion that the Ming started it. Supposedly, the palace was forbidden to Han Chinese as it was set up as a steppe environment so that the Mongol rulers could live as if they were still in the desert. These facts are from the book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford ISBN 0-609-80964-4. Dyl 18:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Fact? Yes the first palace on this site was built in the Yuan dynasty. However, the entire complex was burnt to the ground at the end of the Yuan, and a new palace was not built there until the Ming capital was moved to Beijing several decades later. The new palace is situated to the south of the Yuan palace (with a part overlapping). However, all surviving layout, buildings, and structures are from the Ming era or later. --Sumple (Talk) 06:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Shouldn't these facts be mentioned on the article? Dyl 23:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll see if I can dig up some references. --Sumple (Talk) 02:46, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Unmatched parens

There is a left parenthesis in the first paragraph of layout, with no matching right parenthesis. I'm not afraid to add one - but I can't really figure out where it should go. ClairSamoht 22:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

done. --Sumple (Talk) 22:58, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

He Fei Castle

Yeah, so I just added a section under Miscellaneous about the forbidden City being similiar to He Fei Castle in Dynasty Warriors 3. I realize it's very much speculation, and isn't really verifiable through experts, but I think it should count as verifiable because all you have to do is look through the stage in the game and look at photos of the castle to see that they are very similar. So... I guess this is just an acknowledgement of possible verifiability problems and a pre-emptive defense. I hope anyone who changes it will read this first :-( Karwynn 21:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, that's a very nice observation of yours. But I feel that because of verifiability issues (i.e. whether the castle is actually based on the Forbidden City) and triviality, the current section is a bit long. I'm editing it to make it a bit shorter and more consistent with the level of significance of this information.

On another note, have you considered adding this information to the Hefei article, to which it is also, if not more, relevant? --Sumple (Talk) 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't think there is an actual Hefei castle. I mean, only the stage is based on it, I doubt (if it exists) the real He Fei castle is based on it. Also, there is no info of a castle in the Battle of Hefei article, so I don't think it was quite the same in the Three Kingdoms novel. I agree that the description needed condensing, but is there an efficient way to re-add some of the other gate similarities? Although I was gonna cut the Tian'manen...enmenananemnen gate similarity, which is doubtful and completely irrelevant, but the others sparked at least my interest. Karwynn 06:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, is there a guide I can read on triviality somewhere so I know what's good and what's not?

Ok, back again. I'd like to include more info on this particular tidbit, but I'd like to make it short and sweet, because I agree that my original writing was too long. What if I added this? "The design of the rest of the stage, particularly the placement and purpose of the other gates, is also reminiscent of the Forbidden City, and includes in the innermost Wei stronghold a replica of the Hall of Supreme Harmony set atop an elevated structure." If there's no objection within the next day or so, I'm a-gonna add it. Feedback? kplzthxKarwynn 15:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds alright. I didn't mean to say your observation is trivial. I meant this information is trivia. --Sumple (Talk) 23:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Months later Yeah, turns out this is original research, and you were right, so I nuked it :-) Karwynn (talk) 16:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Palace Museum vs Forbidden City

The current Chinese wiki link points to the page for the "Palace Museum" (the institution) not the "Forbidden City" (the site). Do we need two separate pages on the English wikipedia? If not, which of those pages should the link point to? Discuss. 10 marks. --Sumple (Talk) 06:44, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Starbucks in the Fobidden City?

Can anyone verify that statement? I can't imagine where they'd chuck the starbucks. --Sumple (Talk) 00:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It's true, I saw it there. It's not in the actual palace section; it's more like the courtyard. Heimstern Läufer 21:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The Meridian Gate square? It would be good if we could find an exact location to ascertain whether it is in the actualy [[Forbidden City[[. --Sumple (Talk) 04:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The starbucks is to the east of the Gate of Heavenly Purity in the Nei Ting Entrance Square, I was there enjoying a Frappachino just yesterday!

The funny thing is that the Starbucks building is a symmetric counterpart of the old Grand Council chancellery on the west side of the gate to the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Just think about it, a Grand Concillour sneaking out for a coffee break, just before he has an appointment with his Boss.--Niohe 00:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions

I think it is aboslutely unnecessary to add the Manchu name for the Forbidden City. Someone stressed that the Qing Dynasty was a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic empire, true, but should we also add Mongolian, Cantonese, Wu, other pronunciations of the Forbidden City? No! It's true the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty were ethnic Manchu, and they occupid the Forbidden City for centuries, but they did not change the name of the area now known as Forbidden City! The Manchu pronunciation for the Forbidden City has nothing to do with the name "Forbidden City" or the meaning of its name, so why add it? Wikipedia should stick to the most commonly used prounications, and in this case, its Standard Mandarin. I think just adding the Chinese characters, pinyin... is already enough. --67.2.149.125 21:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with this. More information is usually better than less, and I believe the Manchu version is quite noteworthy given the importance of Manchu in this region. As for the question of whether or not we should include Mongolian, Cantonese etc., I tend to think no, since none of these were, to my knowledge, ever that important in Beijing (but I'm not sure, especially about Mongolian). Heimstern Läufer 22:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Heimstern Läufer. As I have pointed out in Talk:Temple of Heaven, multilingual countries and empires are the norm in human history, not the exception and Wikipedia should reflect this in the case of China as well. Otherwise, I suggest we make a policy change and start changing most entries for the cities and towns of Europe. Is there any way this anonymous user can be blocked? I do think this is vandalism. --Niohe 22:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

To continue the discussion, I think adding Mongol and sometimes even Tibetan names for some :sites in Beijing would be called for; Mongol culture has always had a striong presence in beijing and many official inscriptions in Beijing are in Mongol and sometimes in Tibetan. My Mongol is a bit rusty, though, so I would defer to someone else for the time being. As for vernacular Chinese dialects, I do not think Cantonese pronunciation entries would be necessary for northern Chinese cities likeBeijing or Shenyang. But adding southern Chinese pronuncuations to cities in South China might be a good idea, especially where those pronunciations have influence foreign names. Perhaps it has already been done. --Niohe 00:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Like what I said on the Temple of Heaven Discussion page, the Hungarian name "Bécs" is not included in the first paragraphs of Vienna's main article, even though they both mean the same city, but the Manchu name for every other buildings in Beijing is, why is that? Most of them aren't even built during the Qing Dynasty. Perhaps you could creat something similar like the "Vienna" article, make a template that could add multiple names onto it, including languages that has association with the city. Also, stopping you from adding names to change the article from the way it was should not be considered vandalism.--67.2.149.66 22:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, perhaps I was giving a bad example in the heat of the moment, anonymous. There are several examples of towns and buildings with several names in different languages. Sometimes these names are given by people who did not found the city or erect the building, as if that was the main thing. I think making a new template to add new names to Chinese articles is a great suggestion, it's just that I don't know how to do it. Could you teach me? --Niohe 22:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that Manchu names are a useful addition to Beijing placenames - especially those placenames created or changed in the Qing dynasty. Perhaps we should make it a policy that place names which originate from the Qing dynasty should have Manchu script added, but not those not associated with the Qing dynasty? And I think that Mongol or Tibetan names are indeed relevant if it is a place associated with the Mongols or Tibetans - lamaseries, for example. --Sumple (Talk) 04:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that certain discretion should be used when adding Manchu names, especially when the Manchu name is a transcription of the Chinese. It is not particularly enlightening to find out that Jiangsu province was called Giyangsu in Manchu - except perhaps for purposes of historical linguistics. On the other hand, we should not stare ourselves blind on the fact that some Chinese names originating from the Ming dynasty were kept during the Qing. The Temple of Heaven was built during the Ming dynasty and called Tiantan from very early on. But the temple was expanded during the Qianlong era and most of the structures today date from the Qing. The Qing dynasty also had its own set of rituals and we cannot assume that they were all inherited from the Ming. In other words, the fact the the Temple of Heaven has the same Chinese name during the Ming and the Qing obscures the fact that it was an insitution which evolved over time, hence Abkai mukdehun and Tiantan are both appropriate names for the Temple of Heaven.--Niohe 21:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, speaking in generalities, just because a place has changed (either physically or in terms of usage) after the Ming dynasty does not mean that the Manchu name is automatically relevant.

Consider a tavern founded in the Ming dynasty. During the Qing dynasty, it turned from a tavern into a restaurant. Does that mean what the Manchus called it during the Qing dynasty is automatically relevant to discussions of it? No. Why? Because the changes which occurred are not correlated with the Manchu nature of the Qing dynasty. It may be correlated with the particular macroeconomic conditions and lifestyle changes in the Qing dynasty, but nothing particularly Manchu.

A better criterion would be whether the Manchu nature of the Qing dynasty impacted significantly on the place under discussion.

The temple of heaven is a manifestation of a Han (not Manchu) system of belief -- Heaven worship. Its largest structure, the Hall of Annual Prayer, is the only significant remaining example of a traditional circular hall - again something which is more Han than Manchu. The Qing emperors participated in its rituals in their capacity as the Chinese emperor, not the leader of the Manchus.

cf the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It's listed under its English (of course) name, as well as the Greek and Armenian names. However, it is not listed with its Arabic or Jewish names, because, although the church was in Palestine (and the Ottoman Turkish Empire), and, arguably, is now in Israel, and no doubt many Christian Arabs attend it, it is a Greek or Armenian institution, so the Jewish or Arabic names are irrelevant. --Sumple (Talk) 00:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure I follow you here. Are you talking about any tavern in particular? I am talking about political buildings and sites of worship here, please try to keep this concrete. The fact that the rulers of China were Manchu does make a great difference even to buildings and insitutions that were taken over from the Ming. Yes, the Manchu emperors were portraying themselves as inheritors of the Mandate of Heaven in a Chinese fashion; but why do you assume that their cult of heaven was identical with the preceding Ming state cult instead of proving it? On the other hand, it seems reasonable to me to assume that these state rituals evolved under Manchu rule and recent scholarship on Qing rulership has also focused on these aspects of Manchu rule. The Manchus had their own shamanistic beliefs and their own cult of heaven, which was not necessarily derivative of the Chinese imperial cult. There is a whole literature about that, both in English and Chinese. --Niohe 00:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The tavern is a gedanken, but don't worry about it. As to Shamanism, that's exactly what I'm talking about. The Manchu worship of nature/heaven was segregated from the rituals performed at the Temple of Heaven. They had dedicated shrines and temples to that purpose in the imperial city. The Temple of Heaven was used for the "Chinese" cult of heaven, not the Manchu.

Sure, the complex and its rituals may have changed under the Qing dynasty, but they were evolutions of a cult and set of rituatls which remained essentially Han, not a Manchu-isation of a Han ritual. --Sumple (Talk) 01:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Essentially Han? So that is what it is all about? What is essentially Han? If you talk like that in Europe you're in trouble. --Niohe 01:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

... the rituals. Tell me, what's Manchu about the rituals at the Temple of Heaven, apart from, perhaps, the Sounding of the Whips?

As I am unfamiliar with Europe, I do not appreciate the meaning of your cryptic remark. Please explain? --Sumple (Talk) 02:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Right, I see what's happening here. Accusing others of racism is a really cheap way to argue, you know. As you are no longer interested in a good faith discussion of the issue at hand, I shall leave you to it. --Sumple (Talk) 02:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I stepped out for a while and then things seem to go out of hand. (Whose comment about whips was inserted between ours, by the way?) First, I was trying to elicit repsonse from you about Essentialism and it bounced the wrong way when I mentioned Europe. OK, bad move. I was wondering why you are so preoccuppied with what is "essentially" Han Chinese and what is not. I haven't tried to post multilingual entries to articles beyond my field of expertise, so I don't know if this is a general phenomenon, but I do get troubled by the fact that I almost have to apologize for talking about the contributions of non-Han peoples to China. Contributors can pepper China related articles with Chinese characters without translation, without anyone objecting, but the moment you actually add relevant content in what was once one of China's official languages (and now is an ailing minority language) all of a sudden you get into an edit war or you have to go into lengthy justifications. Apparently I am saying something tremendously orginal when I point out that China was and still is a multinational country and that it mattered. Can you explain that to me?

Second, keep your head cool. You are the one who is talking about racism, not me. Where did that come from?--Niohe 03:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I apologise for my earlier comments. Because we are talking about races and ethnicities, I took your comment to be an accusation of racism on my part.

I totally agree with you about the non-Chinese people thing. To many so-called Chinese nationalists, non-Han people aren't Chinese and the contributions of non-Han people should simply be wiped off. A common rhetoric from those quarters, relating to the Qing dynasty, is that 1) the Manchus "stole" China from the Han, and 2) instead of keeping it safe they stuffed it up. I think such arguments are preposterous - the Ming emperors were Han, look at how "well" they did.

Anyway, I assure you I am not against inserting Manchu names into Qing-related articles. Our argument, essentially, is under what circumstances the Manchu name is relevant or irrelevant. My viewpoint is that it is only relevant to suitably Manchu (culturally, etc) places and institutions, whereas your viewpoint is that the Manchu name is relevant to any place or institution suitably identified with the Qing regime. Correct?

When I referred to the institution or rituals as "essentially Han", (I think) I wasn't referring to the Essentialism sense of the word. My view is that Manchu names are relevant only to things which are Manchu because of a cultural, religious, or demographical reason. As you said, it doesn't make sense to talk about the Manchu name for Jiangsu. In the same way, it doesn't make sense to talk about the Manchu name of an institution if it is not Manchu.

Let's backtrack a bit and forget the disagreement over the Temple of Heaven in particular. Let's say, the shrine to Confucius in Beijing. I would argue that the Manchu name is irrelevant because the worship of Confucius is a Han-Chinese thing, and even if the Qing emperor led or participated in these rituals, it bears no links to the Manchu. --Sumple (Talk) 04:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, glad that we are on the same page. See my response below, which I think addresses most of your points.--Niohe 14:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I feel I need to butt in here a bit, but out of necessity. This discussion has gone on too long, and most of them are not particularly relevant - as none is actually about the Forbidden City itself. I think it is best to create templates that would add other Chinese-related pronunciations in it, so the article wouldn't look awkward or confusing. Another thing, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven are both considered to be Ming Dynasty-style architectures, at least that is what their UNESCO World Heritage descriptions noted, no need to get into heated debates here. --67.2.149.111 04:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, one thing should be mentioned is that the Chinese architectures of the Qing Dynasty is not much different than the architectures of the Ming Dynasty, as the Manchu has already integrated with the Chinese cultures even before the establishment of Qing Dynasty, and the Mukden Palace in shenyang was originally built to resemble the Forbidden City. I think you guys are also overstating the racial tension thing a bit, regarding Manchu and Han Chinese. I highly doubt most Han Chinese has any negative feelings towards today's Manchu and vice versa, as most of them couldn't tell the difference anyway because of the cultural and lingual assimilation and other factors. --67.2.149.111 04:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do think this discussion is relevant, both for the Forbidden City and for the Temple of Heaven, so let's keep it here for a little while. I don't think we are bothering anyone. To begin with the World Heritage Status of Tiantan, UNESCO cites it as an example of Ming-Qing architecture,[1] so you have gotten that wrong.

Please let go of the idea that cultural interaction with Han Chinese culture or "Sinicization" is always a one-way street. This is not a question of "either-or", but of "both-and". What looks like Sinicization from a "Chinese" point of view, looks like the opposite from the non-Chinese point of view. In China, we talk about the Sinicization of Japan when they adopted Confucianism, but in Japan they talk about the Japanization of Confucianism. In India, they regard the adoption of Buddhism in China as an example of the Indian cultural impact on China, whereas in China people are preoccupied with discussing the Siniczation of Buddhism. Of course both perspectives are "right."

There actually was such a thing as Manjurification during the Qing dynasty, the most obvious example being Qing dress and Qing hairstyle and the Qing emperors forced all Chinese males to wear Manchu dress as well. You only need to compare an official portait of the Yongle emperor with the Yongzheng emperor to see the marked contrast. Do you think that the Qing emperors just tore off their Qing dress and donned Ming robes when they enter buildings of state sacrifice, just because those buildings happened to have been built during the Ming.

To sum up, we should stop thinking of things Chinese as essentially Han or essentially non-Han, stop thinking that one perspective necessarily excludes another.

--Niohe 14:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I can see what you are saying re bilateral cultural interaction. But what, then, is your proposed rule on when Manchu names are relevant and when they are irrelevant? Surely it can't be anything that existed during the Qing dynasty? --Sumple (Talk) 03:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Again I don't really understand where you want to go with this. It is not like we have legions of Manchu language freaks ready to pepper Wikipedia with Manchu entries, right? I will soon have no time for this hobby of mine, so don't worry. Why lay down a fool-proof rule for Manchu names only, when Wikipedia seems to manage without that for other languages? I mean, what is the relevance of listing any given Chinese name in simplified characters, traditional characters, pinyin, Wade-Giles, IPA, etc? You delete traditional in favor of simplified characters on a prominent article (or the other way around), and you will soon have an edit war. The way people can worked up about these things must appear ludicrous to people who care less about things Chinese and China than you and me. And yet this is the English language Wikipedia.

To answer you question, I think it is better to be inclusive than exclusive. If I decided alone, then I would try to enter Manchu names for most places, persons, concepts and institutions that were important to Qing rule and the Qing state, to the extent that those can be found. To make a hypotehical rule of thumb for buildings, for instance, would be that if there was a bilingual Manchu-Chinese sign, then I would enter the Manchu name. A lot of temples and taverns would be excluded under this rule, but quite a few city gates and cult sites would be included. Perhaps, we should include the Manchu name of Jiangsu after all, because that province was created by the Manchus. But if I entered the Manchu names of the provinces the Manchus created, I think I would start another edit war. Recent events on the Internet have shown that you be careful what you say about China, before you know it you may have a cyber lynch mob running after you.

The problem, of course, is that nationalists in the early republican days went a long way to eradicate any Manchu appearance in Beijing and many of these signs have been removed. The "re-Sinicization" of China has had a termendous impact and thwe effects continues even today. Just look at the way Manchu have been made invisible in popular culture. You can watch a full hour of a Qing historical drama on Chinese TV without seeing a single Manchu character. You tell people that Heshen was a Manchu, and that his surname was not "He" and you get an empty stare. It is like some Americans who think that the Bible was written in English!--Niohe 14:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)