Monday, September 13, 2004

The Forbidden City & its Emperors

-=[13th September 2004, Monday]=-
Feeling: Drowsy; Venue: At home (zZzZzZz...)

Had a brief watch on Discovery Channel some 8 days ago. It was featuring the 'Forbidden City' over at China, where the all supreme Emperors of the ancient Ming and Qing dynasty ruled and lived in. It was their Imperial Palace. WaW!!! the information was simply fascinating for this pea brain of mine. It caught my interest and I did a mini search on it. The information I got from this site, Beijing Forbidden City was an eye-opener and simply over whelming for me.

The palace was built from 1407, the 5th year of the YongLe reign, of the 3rd emporer of the Ming dynasty, and was completed 14yrs later in 1420. The mega-huge structure and vast land used for it. Even while just viewing through the pictures and reading the words made me feel that the area is simple tooooooooooooooo HUGE. By looking at the pictures alone, already made me mentally tired as i visualise myself walking through all the halls and walkways (it seems like every walkway will be several hundred metres long). If one were to conquer it on foot only, by when will he/she be able to complete walking through the entire palace? A few days I presume (based on the assumption that the person will start from 6.00am and end at 6.00pm, without taking any breaks in be-tween at all)? The amazing skills and intelligence of the artisans that had the decorations, carving on the marbles, sculptures, and structures of the building; right from the basic drainage system to the very structure of all the. Can you imagine the millions of workers and artisans being driven around into hard work, coming up with a a tangible product that spurred out of ONE single man? Geesh... I feel for them. All their sweat and blood. Doesn't this simply remind us of what fortunate good times we are having now?

An emperor holds all mighty power over all people. He is looked upon as some sons of heaven and should live on the center of the earth. An emperor always has this entourage of advisors and eunuches following him around to wherever he goes to. He is the ONLY ONE who gets to walk through the main gate, the exclusively long main bridge. Sheesh! Emperors have about 6 rooms to choose to sleep in every night, where nobody except his very close and trusted advisor will know exactly where he sleeps in that night. This is done so as to prevent assassins from assasinating him.

An emporer eats alone. For every meal, he will have 100 over dish to choose from, but they will only nibble from the few dishes. Apparently the Imperial kitchen is always cooking away constantly so that the Emperor will be able to eat at anytime and anywhere of the palace. Upon his orders, food will be presented to him almost instantly. After that, the leftovers will be bestowed to his ministers and other councils. Before the Emperor takes his meal of any dishes, a servant had to taste it 1st and to insert some kind of silver needle into the food. The needle must not discolour. This is done so as to ensure that the food is not poisoned.

Oh, an Emporer is supposed to be a polygamist, with LOTs of concubines. The muslim law only allowed 4 wives the max, with equal treatment and love to all 4, but an Emperor is rumoured to have 3000 wives! (cheap joke). None of his consorts/concubines/empresses are allowed to spend the entire night with him. Apparently, only upon summon, then a concubine will be brought over and placed naked at the foot of his bed by the eunuches. This is again to prevemt her from having any weapons hidden on her. After some time of companionship she will then be sent away. But she is not allowed to return to her own abode at that time, thus she will just take her rest at this side room near to the Emperor's, while he gets to spend the entire night away ALONE.

Question of the day: Though he can get all the women that he lusts for in the world, but alas how many of the woman truly loves him?
1) None?
2) Zero?
3) Negative 5?
4) His mother?

Ok I was just being sarcastic here. I GUESS that most of them will not love him as who he is. Let's think of the background. Who will wanna marry somebody and get dumped after 2-3 days, and had to live in solace and cut off from the rest of the world till the day they die? Who will wanna marry someone who she doesn't love? Oh I forgot, there are such a group of women around. The greedy ones who only go for MONEY. Most of them just just eyeing his riches. I guess also can't blame them. They do know that once the emporer had “conquered” them, he will almost lose interest immediately. Thus the riches also fill up the emptines inside them, the feeling of having to be loved and able to return the love. BUT AGAIN, an emperor can lead a pretty lonely life. He may have alot of people surrounding him in his life but how many of them really 'love' him? The need for Love, Affection and belongingness of the 3rd level of Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. He has to eat alone, sleep alone, move about with so many other people, his concubines and empress may not really love him. Then behind his back, the women of his life will be plotting against each other. Especially the one in the 'Emperor's List' will most probably be the 1st woman to go missing. What kind of a family warmth is there in this?


Geesh what's with power and money? What's the point of having power and money if eventually we are gonna die with no real love in our life, no happy warm family and probably die lonely... with that gap in our mind and heart forever?

xia0miLk scribbled at 8:38 pm.