The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace was like something out of a fairy tale. It was just gorgeous. It goes for miles, and is built around an artificial lake. Apparently it was commissioned out of navy funds by Cixi, a dowager empress who was promoted from fifth class concubine to second class, by bearing the emperor a son. When he died, he gave his official seal to his first wife, who yielded it willingly to Cixi, because she wasn't interested in politics.

Cixi was interested. The story goes that she got rid of anyone in her way. Our guide told us that when one of the concubines, who was an excellent dancer, became too appealing to the emperor, Cixi had her arms and legs cut off and stuck her body in a pot with just her head sticking out. Everyone was scared of her, understandably.

The summer palace boasts the longest covered corridor in the world, with about 14000 individual paintings on it, all of which tell interesting stories.

We took a ride on a 'dragon boat' and were very glad we weren't with the tour group who all wore hot pink pants to help find each other. We ate delicious snacks which were incredibly inexpensive, and looked through lots of windows at antiques. The English and the French burnt down much of the Summer Palace in about 1860, but it was rebuilt.

When Cixi was in charge, well, actually, she was never legally in charge. She did what the Chinese call, "taking care of business behind the screen". She had a couple of very young (3 and 6) emperors on the throne at different stages, but was really pulling the strings. When the second one tried to modernise China and introduce changes, it lasted about a hundred days, and she had him arrested, and housebound in the Summer Palace for ten years. He had a beautiful garden and courtyard, but it was still a prison. And he had no concubines for this period...