Chapter 7 - Trip to the Emperor's Tombs

On Saturday morning we left at 7 AM and traveled West toward the mountains
to visit the tombs of the emperors.  Since it was Saturday, it was also
market day and all the towns along the way had the main street filled with
fresh food and other items to buy.  It made the traffic slow but added to
the interest of the town by seeing what seemed the entire population out to
market.  The streets were full of bicycles and many trucks an other
vehicles carrying all kinds of materials.  Many passed by full of stones
bro ken to a certain size, another full of sand, another with topsoil,
another with bricks, and we saw construction everywhere.  Once we saw a
truck full of ducks, and another full of pigs, and occasionally trucks with
large bags of grain.  It seemed that everyone had something they could
carry, move, or sell.

Out in the country most of the roads were two lane roads and all the
bicycles and cars and trucks had to accommodate each other.  There were
occasional stretches where the road was less congested and the traffic
flowed along about 50 mph.  As it approaches a town it would slow to 25 or
less and many times we would be stopped waiting for something to cross the
road.  After about 3 hours of traveling, we came to some road work.  We
thought it was something we could get around, but it turned out to be a
comple te r ipping up of the road for several miles.  We were forced to go
onto the service roads in the fields to go around the town.  As we bounced
along we got to see more detail of how they ingeniously irrigate each field
from aqueducts running along the side of the fields.  After a while, a
farmer in his field walked over and rode with us to help us find our way
around the detour.  He took us through the side streets of the town and we
met other busses going the other way, but finally got to the paved road ag
ain.  When they repair a road, they literally dig it up and lay down new
gravel and lime, and then used the big "steam roller" to make it flat
before applying asphalt.  At some places, the men on the bus had to get out
and remove things in the way, and other times they had to escort ducks out
of the way.  It made a very interesting extra 2 hours of our trip.

Finally, we see the roofs of the Tombs building and we know that we have
arrived.  We are in the area of the Eastern Qing Tombs which were built in
1663.  Covering an area of about 6 km by 8 km mostly against the base of
the mountains, there are buried 5 emperors, 15 empresses and 136 imperial
concubines.  We will see the two most famous tombs, the tomb of emperor Yu
Ling (Qianlong) with the underground palace, and the tomb of his third wife
Ding Dong Ling (Cixi).

The area is a tourist attraction and there were people selling color
brochures and wanting to be our guide.  As we entered the Tomb area for the
emperor Qianlong, it was evident that it had once been very beautiful.  Now
the stones that lined the area around the buildings (like a large patio)
were mostly broken and half gone, and we had to carefully walk over it to
reach the entrance without stumbling.  The construction and the motifs of
the stonework were very similar to the Forbidden City and the Summer P ala
ce.  The front buildings were very similar and housed a museum of
artifacts.  Then we came to a large building that contained
paintings/portraits of each of the emperors and empresses in pairs in a
gallery fashion.  They were divided into the chronological time periods
when they lived and it became a rich history lesson to wander through and
see each of them in their royal attire.  We found out that they did not
allow photographs to be taken but we did get some videos of the first 3
emperors before we w ere told to stop.

Leaving this building, we approached the tomb building itself.  The burial
chamber was at least 50 feet underground.  The burial chamber had a vaulted
ceiling that was covered with earth outside.  The passageway leading to the
chamber was long and wide, and the wall were decorated with beautiful stone
carvings.  There were 4 double stone doors to pass through.  Each door was
about 12 feet high by 6 feet wide and at least 1 foot thick piece of solid
stone.  They were hinged by a top and bottom bronze pin the size of my arm
so that they could be opened and closed.  On the inside of each door (so it
was seen when they were all open) was a stone carving of a buddha type of
figure each holding a different object:  one a string instrument, one a
rolled up parchment, one a scepter of authority, and one looks like a vase
of incense.  You had to step over the stone threshold of each doorway to go
in.  The walls of the main burial chamber were covered with writing, maybe
telling of the emperor's accomplishments.  There was an ele ctric light in
each space between the doors and one in the chamber.  It was very cool.
The actual coffin was contained in a wooden box shaped like a house with a
peaked roof.  It was very impressive.

When we left this tomb, we walked to Cixi's tomb and sat on the steps of
one of the buildings and ate our picnic lunch.

Empress Cixi's tomb was very similar to this with the addition of carved
brick mosaics on the walls and the colored motifs on the ceilings are all
decorated with gold leaves.  When Cixi took over the throne when the
emperor died, she was a strong ruler.  She changed the carved stone tablets
of the dragon and the phoenix (representing the emperor and the empress) to
have the phoenix on top of the dragon when she was ruler.  This is seen
everywhere on the buildings that she had built.

On the drive back to Tianjin, we passed through a different countryside and
saw examples of terrace farming on the side of the hills, orchards of
grafted fruit trees, brick processing plants, steel processing plants, and
a saw mill.  The brick plants are very interesting.  When bricks are made,
the are piled up in rows to the left and right side of a 100 foot tall
chimney.  These rows extend out at least 50 feet on each side and are about
10 feet high.  Then, already baked bricks are placed around them like a b
arrel vault with openings every 10 feet on each side.  Then fires are
started in each hole and fuel is fed continually untill the inside
temperature is hot enough, and the bricks are baked until cured.  After the
bricks have cooled, the entire barrel vault structure is removed to get at
the new bricks, and they are moved into storage places around the site and
are covered to protect them from the weather.

Trip Summary

The overall trip proved to be an interesting view of the present day
generations of Chinese people as they struggle to catch up with the
economics of the times.  The newspapers have promising articles of
individual cities and towns that are succeeding at raising the economic
level of their citizens.  The questions about personality and individual
expression still remain because everything seems the same:  the brick or
mud walls have no other colors to accent the buildings.  A few newer
buildings are made out of different materials and they look modern, but
they are mostly white in color.  There is a thin layer of dust everywhere
that will hopefully be controlled by the trees and grass that I see being
planted everywhere.

Today China seems to be in a period of unparalleled growth.  The law that
was passed 8 years ago forbidding families from having more than one child
will go a long way to alleviate the overpopulation problem and also will
give the present working class a chance to grow.  The trips to the Palaces
and Temples showed the colorful heritage of the emperors, and their
lavishness to carve out a luxurious existence apart from the common people.
The trip to the tombs gave me a sense of the history of the people, the ir
oppression and the cultural values they cherish.  It also showed that there
were some wise leaders starting with Ghengis Khan who planned the country's
waterway system that allows China to feed itself today.

There are many different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is China today,
and one of them is that I wonder what the dreams and hopes are that the
people must have for themselves and for their country.