Treasures Go Underground

by Wu Yunmei
photos by Wang Huiming

The Forbidden City is the biggest attraction in Beijing. Visitors flood through the ancient gate of the imperial palace every day. Stunned by its supreme beauty, they eagerly reach for their cameras. "Cheese!" "Smile!" A nice souvenir is made. And each time, a little more damage is done.

Flashlight can damage the ancient paint, but this is only a minute menace compared to several others. Few people realize there are threats lurking among the majestic palaces, especially when they themselves are one of them. The Forbidden City receives more than six million visitors every year, and every one adds to the wear and tear that is apparent in many places. Regular repairs are carried out, but not all things are repairable.

The three outer court halls - the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Complete Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony - were closed to visitors back in the 1980s. The special technique used to produce the flooring bricks inside these halls has been lost. Each of the irreplaceable bricks is said to be worth its weight in gold. Nowadays, people can only peer into the halls from behind the fences at the doors.

Many other halls and rooms do not even have their doors opened for the benefit of visitors. It is common to see people pressing their noses against the windows to try to get a clear sight of the things inside. Natural light is the only source of illumination for these "exhibition rooms." All the same, the objects inside are losing their original colors and falling into decay as time and direct exposure to the air do their inevitable damage.

"Preserving the ancient architecture and modernizing the exhibition conditions have always been in conflict," said Tan Bin, deputy director of the Palace Museum. "Most of the buildings are wood constructions. The electricity load is very limited. It is difficult to add thermostats, humidistats, or other equipment to match the requirements of modern exhibitions. This conflict has troubled the Forbidden City for nearly half a century."

The Palace Museum has nearly one million precious items in its collection. Ninety-nine percent of them are kept in store. Only about 8,000 pieces are on display at present, all "durable" ones scattered through ten different exhibition rooms, which makes it inconvenient for visitors to see them all.

However, the museum's administration has finally come up with a solution - to construct a modern underground exhibition hall over the next three years. Shang Si Yuan is the chosen site for the exhibition hall. The area was occupied by government offices in the Qing Dynasty, but the buildings have since all fallen down to leave an open space of 10,900 square meters, the largest in the palace complex.

According to the tentative plan, the underground exhibition hall will have two floors: one for painting, calligraphy, bronze ware, porcelain, and jade ware; another for precious treasures rarely on display for reasons of security. The exhibition hall will be constructed in traditional Chinese style, echoing that of the palaces above ground. Modern equipment will be installed to show off the treasures while keeping them in good condition.

The biggest treasure of all - the sublime architecture of the Forbidden City itself - is not being forgotten in the museum's plans. "Each year 10 million yuan (US$1,200,000) is spent on the regular repairs of the ancient buildings," said an official of the Palace Museum.

The Forbidden City's moat is also being given a thorough clean-up. Many flats were built along the 3.5-kilometer moat in the 1950s, and their residents together with the millions of tourists littered the water so badly that its stink made a mockery of its nickname of "the crystal necklace of the Imperial Palace."

"All the flats are to be torn down and the residents moved into new houses," said the official. "The walls along the moat will be reconstructed." The water has already been drawn away and workers are busy cleaning the moat's bed. The project will be completed by next October, returning the moat to its former glistening glory in time for the 50th anniversary of New China.