Kathy & Paul's Adventures Abroad

We were invited to go visit the Old Summer Palace by Mike and his wife Chenxia. Mike teaches Grade one at the school and is from Wisconsin, USA, and his wife Chenxia is Chinese. They arrived at the gate of the school about 9:00 on Saturday morning and we set off. This park is situated in the northwest of Beijing not that far from the school so we were there in about fifteen minutes, even though there was a fair amount of traffic. It was a beautiful day for a walk in the park with sunny skies and the temperature around 15 degrees, very comfortable for the middle of October.

Mike and Chenxia

To give you a brief history of the Old Summer Palace, it consists of 860 acres and was originally called the Imperial Gardens, where the emperors resided and handled government affairs. Construction started in 1707 and for 150 years was continually enlarged. Hundreds of masterpieces of Chinese art and antiquities were on display in its halls and rooms, making it one of the largest collections in the world.

In 1860 the second Opium war was fought between China and the allied forces of Britain and France, because China refused to legalize the opium trade. On October 18,1860 the British High Commissioner to China, Lord Elgin, ordered the destruction of the Imperial Gardens, and the troops went in, looted and removed most of the priceless artwork and valuables, and then burned the buildings to the ground. The only things that remain today are parts of the buildings which were constructed of stone or marble, mostly left as they fell, and are a symbol to the Chinese people of foreign aggression and the humiliation of China.

Since its destruction local people had moved into the gardens, some using the grounds for farming. In 1980 the Chinese government decided to start the restoration of the Gardens and the people living there were given money to live in apartments. Even though they have been working on this project for almost thirty years, it will take a long time to restore such a site of this size to its former state, if that is even possible.

On a lighter note, we did really enjoy the gardens here, and even the ruins are impressive. We tried to imagine what it was like in the early days when the emperors wandered through the halls and entertained their many guests and government officials.

In the video below we have included mostly the gardens and not too much of the ruins as that would be another video in itself.