President Xi Jinping has pushed “cultural
self-confidence” as a signature policy, and one of the beneficiaries has been
the former home of emperors, neglected no longer.
By
Ian Johnson
 |
|
Visitors
now throng the Forbidden City in Beijing. Credit Yan Cong
for
The New York Times
|
BEIJING — For much of the past century, the
Forbidden City has been an imposing void in the otherwise bustling heart of
Beijing.
The 180-acre compound, where emperors and
their advisers plotted China’s course for centuries, was stripped of its
purpose when the last emperor abdicated in 1912. Since then, the palace grounds
have at times lain empty or been treated as a perfunctory museum, with most of
the halls closed to the public and the few that were open crammed with tourists
on package tours.
But as the Forbidden City approaches its
600th birthday next year, a dramatic change has been taking place, with even
dark and dusty corners of the palace restored to their former glories for all
to see.
As recently as 2012, only 30 percent of the
vast complex was open to the public. Now, 80 percent is accessible — quickly
filling with exhibition spaces, stylish restaurants and cafes, bookstores, and
highly profitable gift stores, as well as quiet walkways, shady stands of trees
and odd nooks that invite contemplation of bygone dynasties.
The revitalization of the Forbidden City has
coincided with a broader push in China to protect and project the country’s
cultural heritage — an about-face for a Communist Party that came to power
vowing to overturn the past and build a new, socialist utopia on the Soviet
model.
President Xi Jinping, who has lauded
traditional teachings like Confucianism, has pushed “cultural self-confidence”
as one of his signature policies. His government has pumped money into reviving
traditional cultural practices, and in 2014 Mr. Xi called on the Palace Museum
to better showcase its holdings.
The changes have paid off. The Forbidden City
is growing increasingly popular. There were a record 17 million visitors in
2018.
“We never used to come here because there
wasn’t really too much to see,” said Zhao Li, a 44-year-old software engineer
visiting recently with his 12-year-old daughter. “But now we can walk around
and see new exhibitions. It makes it easier for younger people or children to
grasp the past.”
While the complex’s collection is still
impressive, many of the most legendary artworks on display when the museum
opened in 1925 are now gone.
Successive emperors had collected some of the
best and most iconic artifacts of Chinese culture, especially the monumental
landscapes and calligraphy that are among the most highly prized cultural
products of Chinese civilization.
But in 1933, the Nationalist Party, or
Kuomintang, under the command of Chiang Kai-shek, moved most of the holdings to
the south for safekeeping. The prized pieces followed the Nationalists to
Taiwan, where they now form the backbone of one of the world’s great museums,
the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Those tumultuous postwar years left the
Forbidden City a setting with no jewels.
Its decline seemed cemented when Mao Zedong
and his peasant army won China’s civil war in 1949, moving the seat of
government into the Zhongnanhai gardens next door to the Forbidden City.
Mao’s Communist government debated tearing
down the complex, or creating a vast Soviet-style wedding cake palace opposite
it. In the end the turmoil of that era spared the palace, but it was often
closed, its staff members at times tortured during political campaigns.
A few years after the Cultural Revolution
ended in 1976, the complex was in a sad state. Its mostly wooden buildings were
cracked, crumbling and peeling into an ugly grayness.
Only a narrow corridor of the vast,
rectangular grounds was open, and renovation work was so shoddy that it seemed
like the set of a movie — acceptable at a distance but cheap and makeshift up
close.
Improvements began to get more serious in the
run-up to the 2008 Olympics, held in Beijing. The main imperial throne room,
the Hall of Supreme Harmony, was rebuilt and a few shops were opened, including
Starbucks. The coffee chain left, though, in 2007, after a concerted media
campaign complaining about an American icon on the palace grounds.
The most striking aspect of the Forbidden
City today is that the great walls around it are now mostly open to the public
as spectacular walkways, allowing a drone-like view of the grounds. Only the
very western wall, which overlooks Zhongnanhai, the equivalent of China’s White
House, is off limits.
Also surprising is that government bodies —
including the military — have vacated most of the halls they once occupied.
These departures have allowed a new Furniture
Gallery to open, displaying the many thrones that emperors used, which had been
stored away for decades in warehouses.
Next door is the imperial temple, once one of
the most important structures in the complex, which is now being restored.
But even all that new space is not nearly
enough to showcase the treasures collected over the centuries by the Sons of
Heaven during their imperial reigns. Currently, the Forbidden City can display
only about 30,000 objects at a time, or 2 percent of its total.
By 2022, a new campus in the university
district of Haidian, about 18 miles to the northwest, is scheduled to open to
the public, a 153-acre facility that will have room to show imperial carriages,
carpets and regalia.
The museum staff members have also become
more creative in using the space. During a recent visit, there was a show on
how the imperial family celebrated the Chinese New Year, including
reproductions of auspicious New Year’s couplets written by the emperor Kangxi,
whose six-decade rule ended in 1722.
The new gift stores, which generated $220
million in sales in 2017, have also lifted their offerings. They once featured
little more than key chains and ugly dolls of eunuchs; now, they have
historically accurate reproductions of porcelain, textiles and even furniture.
Lisa Tan, a 38-year-old editor at a Beijing
publishing house, said the new shops were especially attractive because they
offered traditional porcelain or cloisonné made by government-recognized
masters using traditional methods.
“It’s good that the Forbidden City is taking
a lead in keeping these traditional practices alive,” Ms. Tan said. “Their gift
store has even become fashionable in some circles.”
And some of the more kitschy commercial
activities are being curtailed, including photo studios where people can dress
up like an emperor or empress.
Most visitors are still part of package tours
that quickly funnel people through the central part of the complex. But taking
a slower, more meandering path through the Forbidden City is a better way to
soak up the history and discover some of its secrets.
For a visitor willing to take some time, the
most notable and pleasant spots are the wings of the palaces and the courtyards
that are now open and where one can sit, drink a tea and watch the vermilion
walls shimmer in the summer sun.
Ian Johnson, a Beijing-based writer, has
lived in China for more than 20 years and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his
coverage of the country. @iandenisjohnson • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on
Aug. 4, 2019, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline:
