The dougong is a system of brackets unique to traditional Chinese architecture. These brackets, arranged like baskets of flowers, are set under the overhanging eaves, adding to the sumptuous magnificence of the buildings.
Thanks to them the ancient Chinese edifices are so graceful with their upturned eaves and at the same time so well constructed and enduring.
The dougong bracket is a structural member found between the top of a column and a cross beam. Each is formed of a double bow-shaped arm (gong), which supports a block of wood (dou) on each side. Fixed layer upon layer, the arrangements bear the load of the root'. Owing to hierarchical restrictions in feudal society, the dougong structure can be found only in the most magnificent buildings such as palace and temple halls. The number of layers of these bracket structures also depended on the importance of the buildings.
The dougong is measured in "piles" which vary greatly in their complexity of structure, from those composed of 106 parts to the most simple made up of five. The number of "tiers" also vary in each "pile". To take the double-eaved Taihedian, the building of the highest grade in the country, as an example. Its lower eaves are supported by dougong brackets of 7 tiers, whereas the higher eaves, 9 tiers. The number of tiers, normally 9, 7, 5 or 3, also represents the extent to which the eaves protrude.
From the point of view of structural mechanics, the dougong structure is highly resistant to earthquakes. It could hold the wood structure together even though brick walls would collapse in the same earthquake. This helped so many ancient buildings to stand intact for hundreds of years.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Dougong Brackets (Guilin Tours, Yangshuo Tours)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Caisson Ceiling (China Travel, China Tour Packages)
Visitors to an ancient Chinese palace hall often have their attention drawn to the centre of the ceiling. The zaojing or caisson ceiling is a distinctive feature of classical Chinese architecture, if not unique to it. It is usually in the form of a sunken coffer bordered in a square, a polygon or a circle, decorated with elaborately carved or painted designs. This architectural decoration dates a long way back for it has been found in tombs of the Han Dynasty 2,000 years ago.
One of the most magnificent zaojing is that of Taihedian (Hall of Supreme Harmony) in the old palace of Beijing. Carved and built with consummate skills, its splendour has remained undiminished by time. The caisson consists of three parts of different depths. The central or deepest part is the round "well (jing)", the middle part is the octagonal "well", and the outermost part, coming down to the same level as the rest of the ceiling, is a square. The whole design symbolizes the ancient Chinese belief that "Heaven is above and the Earth below" and that "Heaven is round and the Earth square." Dominating the centre of the caisson is a coiled dragon looking down into the hall and holding suspended in its mouth a huge silver-white pearl. It vies for glamour with the gilded dragons on the columns, giving the throne hall a colourful yet solemn nobility not to be found elsewhere.
The Chinese name for the caisson ceiling, zaojing, means "aquatic plants" (zao) and "well" (jing), both having to do with water. It was so named because there was constant worry about fire which might destroy the palace buildings. With water from the zaojing, so the ancients believed, the threat of fire would be averted.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Caisson Ceiling (China Travel, China Tour Packages)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
One of the most magnificent zaojing is that of Taihedian (Hall of Supreme Harmony) in the old palace of Beijing. Carved and built with consummate skills, its splendour has remained undiminished by time. The caisson consists of three parts of different depths. The central or deepest part is the round "well (jing)", the middle part is the octagonal "well", and the outermost part, coming down to the same level as the rest of the ceiling, is a square. The whole design symbolizes the ancient Chinese belief that "Heaven is above and the Earth below" and that "Heaven is round and the Earth square." Dominating the centre of the caisson is a coiled dragon looking down into the hall and holding suspended in its mouth a huge silver-white pearl. It vies for glamour with the gilded dragons on the columns, giving the throne hall a colourful yet solemn nobility not to be found elsewhere.
The Chinese name for the caisson ceiling, zaojing, means "aquatic plants" (zao) and "well" (jing), both having to do with water. It was so named because there was constant worry about fire which might destroy the palace buildings. With water from the zaojing, so the ancients believed, the threat of fire would be averted.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Caisson Ceiling (China Travel, China Tour Packages)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Yangshuo tour- "Gold Bricks" (China Travel Agency, China Hotels)
Palace halls and courts have been paved with bricks for 2,000 years since the Spring and Autumn Period, and this has become a distinctive feature of classical architecture. Today one can see brick-paved floors and grounds in the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Ming Tombs and similar places elsewhere. The bricks so used are called jinzhuan ("gold bricks").
Naturally not made of real gold, they are so-called because, when knocked, they produce a metallic sound. Another explanation ion for the name is that they were officially called during the Ming and the Qing dynasties jingzhuan (capital bricks) because bricks of this quality were meant only for the imperial house in the capital, In time, jingzhuan came to be known as jinzhuan or gold bricks. Whatever the reason for the unusual name, they did involve great costs and difficult skills to make and in this sense, the name might not be a great exaggeration.
The area around Suzhou used to be the home of these "gold bricks". Lying close to the Grand Canal, it abounds in a kind of fine clay most suitable as the material for compact bricks. To make those meant for the palace buildings, a strict procedure of manufacture must be adhered to. It included selecting the caly, pugging, setting, moulding, drying in the shade and, finally, firing in the kiln. This last process was the most complicated one. According to The Illustrated Book on the Selection of Bricks, a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) work, (The unburnt bricks) after being put in the kiln, are smoked with smouldering husks for a month, burnt with fire-wood chips for another month, with twigs for a third month and with pine branches for yet another 40 days--totalling 130 days--before they are left to cool down and taken out of the kiln. The cost of a "gold brick" made this way was 0.96 taels of silver, enough to buy in those days one dan* of rice. Another source says that, during the reign of the Ming emperor Jiajing, three years were spent to produce 50,000 bricks of this quality, averaging only 5 bricks per day. All finished "gold bricks" were shipped to the capital by the Hangzhou-Beijing Grand Canal.
The laying of the bricks, like their manufacture, must follow strict prescriptions. A bricklayer assisted by two helpers could only lay five in a day. Every piece must be ground and polished on site in such a way that, when paved, they fitted perfectly with other pieces, leaving no crevices. The bricks must also be soaked with raw tung oil so that they became lustrously dark like black jade.
Worn by several hundred years of time and trodden during the last decades by millions upon millions of sighteers, these bricks have largely remained intact, thanks to their rock-like hardness. Now they are from time to time mopped with a kind of high-quality vegetable oil to get a new layer of protection.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– "Gold Bricks" (China Travel Agency, China Hotels)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Naturally not made of real gold, they are so-called because, when knocked, they produce a metallic sound. Another explanation ion for the name is that they were officially called during the Ming and the Qing dynasties jingzhuan (capital bricks) because bricks of this quality were meant only for the imperial house in the capital, In time, jingzhuan came to be known as jinzhuan or gold bricks. Whatever the reason for the unusual name, they did involve great costs and difficult skills to make and in this sense, the name might not be a great exaggeration.
The area around Suzhou used to be the home of these "gold bricks". Lying close to the Grand Canal, it abounds in a kind of fine clay most suitable as the material for compact bricks. To make those meant for the palace buildings, a strict procedure of manufacture must be adhered to. It included selecting the caly, pugging, setting, moulding, drying in the shade and, finally, firing in the kiln. This last process was the most complicated one. According to The Illustrated Book on the Selection of Bricks, a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) work, (The unburnt bricks) after being put in the kiln, are smoked with smouldering husks for a month, burnt with fire-wood chips for another month, with twigs for a third month and with pine branches for yet another 40 days--totalling 130 days--before they are left to cool down and taken out of the kiln. The cost of a "gold brick" made this way was 0.96 taels of silver, enough to buy in those days one dan* of rice. Another source says that, during the reign of the Ming emperor Jiajing, three years were spent to produce 50,000 bricks of this quality, averaging only 5 bricks per day. All finished "gold bricks" were shipped to the capital by the Hangzhou-Beijing Grand Canal.
The laying of the bricks, like their manufacture, must follow strict prescriptions. A bricklayer assisted by two helpers could only lay five in a day. Every piece must be ground and polished on site in such a way that, when paved, they fitted perfectly with other pieces, leaving no crevices. The bricks must also be soaked with raw tung oil so that they became lustrously dark like black jade.
Worn by several hundred years of time and trodden during the last decades by millions upon millions of sighteers, these bricks have largely remained intact, thanks to their rock-like hardness. Now they are from time to time mopped with a kind of high-quality vegetable oil to get a new layer of protection.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– "Gold Bricks" (China Travel Agency, China Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Patterned Footpaths (China Tours, Guilin Hotels)
On a stroll through a Chinese garden or park, one often finds oneself walking on footpaths of coloured pebbles arranged in patterns--a feature of Chinese landscape gardening.
These patterned paths are not designed by architects, but made by artisans from beginning to end. The paving of pebbles is a complicated job calling for skill and experience. First, lime mortar is spread out as the foundation layer, then the designs are outlined by means of plain and roofing tiles set in the mortar. On this is spread a special putty made of lime, wheat flour and tung oil, on which again are fixed the pebbles of various natural colours--green ones for plant leaves, black ones for animals' eyes, and so on. And the designs include all the usual subjects of traditional Chinese painting: landscapes, figures, flowers, birds, historical and popular legends.
The best of patterned footpaths in China are found in the Imperial Garden in the rear of the Forbidden City. The coloured pebbles there make up pictures under such familiar titles as "Magpie Announcing the Spring", "Dragon and Phoenix", "Cranes in Clouds", "Guan Gong Felling an Enemy", "Two Greybeards Watching a Game of Chess" and so forth, which symbolize good luck, victory, longevity and the like.
On the whole, patterned paths are found more often in parks and private gardens in the southern provinces than in the north. Prominant in this respect are the gardens in Suzhou, where the designs on pebbled paths display a wide range of subjects. Some are just geometric patterns, for instance a square inside a circle like an ancient copper coin, signifying the old belief that "heaven is round and earth square". Others are in the forms of bats and cranes, Chinese symbols for good fortune and long life. Still others are patterned after the fishing net, expressing perhaps the general wish for affluent abundance.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Patterned Footpaths (China Tours, Guilin Hotels)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
These patterned paths are not designed by architects, but made by artisans from beginning to end. The paving of pebbles is a complicated job calling for skill and experience. First, lime mortar is spread out as the foundation layer, then the designs are outlined by means of plain and roofing tiles set in the mortar. On this is spread a special putty made of lime, wheat flour and tung oil, on which again are fixed the pebbles of various natural colours--green ones for plant leaves, black ones for animals' eyes, and so on. And the designs include all the usual subjects of traditional Chinese painting: landscapes, figures, flowers, birds, historical and popular legends.
The best of patterned footpaths in China are found in the Imperial Garden in the rear of the Forbidden City. The coloured pebbles there make up pictures under such familiar titles as "Magpie Announcing the Spring", "Dragon and Phoenix", "Cranes in Clouds", "Guan Gong Felling an Enemy", "Two Greybeards Watching a Game of Chess" and so forth, which symbolize good luck, victory, longevity and the like.
On the whole, patterned paths are found more often in parks and private gardens in the southern provinces than in the north. Prominant in this respect are the gardens in Suzhou, where the designs on pebbled paths display a wide range of subjects. Some are just geometric patterns, for instance a square inside a circle like an ancient copper coin, signifying the old belief that "heaven is round and earth square". Others are in the forms of bats and cranes, Chinese symbols for good fortune and long life. Still others are patterned after the fishing net, expressing perhaps the general wish for affluent abundance.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Patterned Footpaths (China Tours, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Zoomorphic Ornaments (China Travel Agency, Yangshuo Tours)
Chinese palaces, temples and mansions have on their roofs a special kind of ornaments called wenshou or zoo morphic ornaments, some on the main ridges and some on the sloping and branch ridges.
The monstrous thing at ether end of the main ridge, called chiwen, appears roughly like the tail of a fish. Fierce and formidable, it looks as if it were ready to devour the whole ridge; so it is also know as tunjishou or the ridge-devouring beast. It is, according to Chinese mythology, one of the sons of the Dragon King who rules the seas. It is said to be able to stir up waves and change them into rains. So ancient Chinese put a chiwen at either end of the main ridge for its magic powers to conjure up a downpour to put out any fire that might break out. But for fear that it might gobble up the ridge, they transfixed it on the roof with a sword.
At the end of the sloping and branch ridges there are often a string of smaller animals, their sizes and numbers being decided by the status of the owner of the building in the feudal hierarchy.
The largest number of zoomorphic ornaments is found on the Taihedian Throne Hall or the Hall of Supreme Harmony of the Forbidden City. Leading the flock is a god riding a phoenix, after whom come a dragon, a phoenix, a lion, a heavenly horse, a sea horse and five other mythological animals, all called by unusual names. Quanqinggong (the Palace of Heavenly Purity), which the emperor used as his living quarters and his office for handling daily affairs, being next in status to Taihedian, has a band of nine animal figures. Still next in importance is Kunninggong (the Palace of Female Tranquility), which served as the empress's apartments; it has a group of seven zoomorphic figures. This number is further reduced to five for the twelve halls in side courtyards, that used to house the imperial concubines of different grades. Some of the side halls have only one animal figure each on their roofs.
These small animals were also believed to be capable of putting out fires. While this can be easily dismissed as superstition, they do add to the grandeur and magnificence of the imperial buildings.
The earliest ridge animals so far discovered in the country came to light in 1960 in a suburban area of Shashi, Hubei Province. On the interior wall of a roll tile which served as the body of a ridge animal figure was engraved "first year of Yuanguang", which means the year 134 B.C. It can be seen that installing animal figures on roof-ridges has been an established practice for at least 2,100 years.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Zoomorphic Ornaments (China Travel Agency, Yangshuo Tours)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The monstrous thing at ether end of the main ridge, called chiwen, appears roughly like the tail of a fish. Fierce and formidable, it looks as if it were ready to devour the whole ridge; so it is also know as tunjishou or the ridge-devouring beast. It is, according to Chinese mythology, one of the sons of the Dragon King who rules the seas. It is said to be able to stir up waves and change them into rains. So ancient Chinese put a chiwen at either end of the main ridge for its magic powers to conjure up a downpour to put out any fire that might break out. But for fear that it might gobble up the ridge, they transfixed it on the roof with a sword.
At the end of the sloping and branch ridges there are often a string of smaller animals, their sizes and numbers being decided by the status of the owner of the building in the feudal hierarchy.
The largest number of zoomorphic ornaments is found on the Taihedian Throne Hall or the Hall of Supreme Harmony of the Forbidden City. Leading the flock is a god riding a phoenix, after whom come a dragon, a phoenix, a lion, a heavenly horse, a sea horse and five other mythological animals, all called by unusual names. Quanqinggong (the Palace of Heavenly Purity), which the emperor used as his living quarters and his office for handling daily affairs, being next in status to Taihedian, has a band of nine animal figures. Still next in importance is Kunninggong (the Palace of Female Tranquility), which served as the empress's apartments; it has a group of seven zoomorphic figures. This number is further reduced to five for the twelve halls in side courtyards, that used to house the imperial concubines of different grades. Some of the side halls have only one animal figure each on their roofs.
These small animals were also believed to be capable of putting out fires. While this can be easily dismissed as superstition, they do add to the grandeur and magnificence of the imperial buildings.
The earliest ridge animals so far discovered in the country came to light in 1960 in a suburban area of Shashi, Hubei Province. On the interior wall of a roll tile which served as the body of a ridge animal figure was engraved "first year of Yuanguang", which means the year 134 B.C. It can be seen that installing animal figures on roof-ridges has been an established practice for at least 2,100 years.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Zoomorphic Ornaments (China Travel Agency, Yangshuo Tours)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Roof Crown (China Travel, Guilin Tours)
One of the structural members of traditional Chinese architecture, the baoding (literally, "treasure top") stands at the centre on top of certain types of pavilions, pagodas and towers which have no horizontal main ridges. Normally made of glazed tile, it may be in one of several forms (a gourd-shaped bottle, a vase, a pagoda, etc.), often surrounded by bas-relief carvings of dragons, phoenixes, peonies and the like.
The roof crown is not only an ornament at the top of a building but helps to reinforce the roof itself. Buildings on which baoding crowns are found are all constructed according to a traditional method by which the wooden parts of the roof structure go upward and gradually gather together at the top of a king post in the middle. The king post keeps the roof structure securely balanced rather like the stick of a parasol holding the ribs of its frame together. To give additional strength to the structure, ancient Chinese used glazed material for the crown to protect the king post from weathering and erosion. As the top of a building is most vulnerable to lightning, the king post was named in old times leigongzhu (post of the God of Thunder) in the hope that thunderbolts might keep away.
Many ancient buildings of this type thanks to the king posts and roof crowns, have stood innumerable tests including storms and earthquakes over the ages and remained intact down to this day. Zhonghedian (Hall of Complete Harmony) and Jiaotaidian (Hall of Union and Peace) in the Forbidden City (where the Ming and Qing emperors handled state affairs) have roof crowns completely gilded with gold, in harmony with the sumptuous surroundings and setting them apart from the red-or green-glazed crowns of lesser buildings.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Roof Crown (China Travel, Guilin Tours)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The roof crown is not only an ornament at the top of a building but helps to reinforce the roof itself. Buildings on which baoding crowns are found are all constructed according to a traditional method by which the wooden parts of the roof structure go upward and gradually gather together at the top of a king post in the middle. The king post keeps the roof structure securely balanced rather like the stick of a parasol holding the ribs of its frame together. To give additional strength to the structure, ancient Chinese used glazed material for the crown to protect the king post from weathering and erosion. As the top of a building is most vulnerable to lightning, the king post was named in old times leigongzhu (post of the God of Thunder) in the hope that thunderbolts might keep away.
Many ancient buildings of this type thanks to the king posts and roof crowns, have stood innumerable tests including storms and earthquakes over the ages and remained intact down to this day. Zhonghedian (Hall of Complete Harmony) and Jiaotaidian (Hall of Union and Peace) in the Forbidden City (where the Ming and Qing emperors handled state affairs) have roof crowns completely gilded with gold, in harmony with the sumptuous surroundings and setting them apart from the red-or green-glazed crowns of lesser buildings.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Roof Crown (China Travel, Guilin Tours)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Pavilions (China Tour, Guilin Hotels)
A common sight in the country, the Chinese pavilion (ring, which means also a kiosk) is built normally either of wood or stone or bamboo and may be in any of several plan figures--square, triangle, hexagon, octagon, a five-petal flower, a fan and what not. But all pavilions described as ting have this in common: they have columns to support the roof, but no walls. In parks or at scenic spots, pavilions are built on slopes to command the panorama or on lakeside to create intriguing images in the water. They are not only part of the landscape but also belvederes from which to enjoy it.
Pavilions also serve diverse purposes. The wayside pavilion is called liangting (cooling kiosk) to provide weary wayfarers with a place for a rest and a shelter in summer from the sun. The "stele pavilion" gives a roof to a stone tablet to protect the engraved record of an important event. Pavilions also stand on some bridges or over water-wells. In the latter case, dormer windows are built to allow the sun to cast its rays into the well, as it has been the belief that water untouched by the sun would cause diseases. Occasionally one finds two pavilions stand side by side like twins. In modem times, kiosks (also called ring in Chinese) have been erected in urban areas as postal stalls, newsstands or photographers' sheds for snapshot services.
Rare among pavilions are those built of bronze. The most celebrated of these is Baoyunge (Pavilion of Precious Clouds) in Beijing's Summer Palace. The entire structure including its roof and columns is cast in bronze. Metallic blue in colour, it is 7.5 metres tall and weighs 207 tons. Elegant and dignified, it is popularly known as the "Gold Pavilion".
The largest pavilion in China is also in the Summer Palace. The ancient building, named Kuoruting (the Pavilion of Expanse), has a floor space of 130 square metres. Its roof, converging in a crown on top and resting on three rings of columns (24 round ones and 16 square ones), is octagonal in form and has two eaves. With all its woodwork colourfully painted, the pavilion looks at once poised and majestic, well in harmony with the surrounding open landscape.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Pavilions (China Tour, Guilin Hotels)
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Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Pavilions also serve diverse purposes. The wayside pavilion is called liangting (cooling kiosk) to provide weary wayfarers with a place for a rest and a shelter in summer from the sun. The "stele pavilion" gives a roof to a stone tablet to protect the engraved record of an important event. Pavilions also stand on some bridges or over water-wells. In the latter case, dormer windows are built to allow the sun to cast its rays into the well, as it has been the belief that water untouched by the sun would cause diseases. Occasionally one finds two pavilions stand side by side like twins. In modem times, kiosks (also called ring in Chinese) have been erected in urban areas as postal stalls, newsstands or photographers' sheds for snapshot services.
Rare among pavilions are those built of bronze. The most celebrated of these is Baoyunge (Pavilion of Precious Clouds) in Beijing's Summer Palace. The entire structure including its roof and columns is cast in bronze. Metallic blue in colour, it is 7.5 metres tall and weighs 207 tons. Elegant and dignified, it is popularly known as the "Gold Pavilion".
The largest pavilion in China is also in the Summer Palace. The ancient building, named Kuoruting (the Pavilion of Expanse), has a floor space of 130 square metres. Its roof, converging in a crown on top and resting on three rings of columns (24 round ones and 16 square ones), is octagonal in form and has two eaves. With all its woodwork colourfully painted, the pavilion looks at once poised and majestic, well in harmony with the surrounding open landscape.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Pavilions (China Tour, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Yangshuo tour- "Flowing-Cup Pavilion" (China Hotel Booking, Guilin Tours)
This is a pavilion which used to serve as a place of recreation for men of letters. In the stone floor is cut a winding ditch to which water from a spring is channelled. Participants to the "flowing-cup" game would in turn fill a cup with liquor and set it "sailing" down the mini-canal. The man whose cup reached the end of the ditch without spilling would be a winner. On the other hand, a loser would be made to drink or compose a poem as a forfeit.
The game, according to another source, could be played in a different way. Players took their respective positions along the ditch. He, in front of whom the cup stopped, would be made to drink or chant a poem of his composition.
Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799), it is said, was a great enthusiast for this game. The "flowing-cup pavilion" built for the emperor still stands today in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City. Another pavilion of this type in Beijing is found at Tanzhe Temple. Although a poem (praising the pleasures of the game, "especially on a rainy day when there is little else to entertain the visitors with") is still intact on its columns, yet, alas! There is now neither flowing water nor cup. If the pastime should be revived with some modem variations--beer, lemonade or tea instead of spirits, singing or telling a joke as the forfeit if the players are not poets—it would certainly arouse considerable interest.
Another famous "flowing-cup pavilion" is Lanting (Orchid Pavilion) in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, which was a favourite resort of the great 4th-century calligrapher Wang Xizhi (321-379) and his friends, who used to gather there for the game and poem recitals. The little stream which carried the sailing cup is still there to greet modem admirers.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– "Flowing-Cup Pavilion" (China Hotel Booking, Guilin Tours)
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Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The game, according to another source, could be played in a different way. Players took their respective positions along the ditch. He, in front of whom the cup stopped, would be made to drink or chant a poem of his composition.
Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799), it is said, was a great enthusiast for this game. The "flowing-cup pavilion" built for the emperor still stands today in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City. Another pavilion of this type in Beijing is found at Tanzhe Temple. Although a poem (praising the pleasures of the game, "especially on a rainy day when there is little else to entertain the visitors with") is still intact on its columns, yet, alas! There is now neither flowing water nor cup. If the pastime should be revived with some modem variations--beer, lemonade or tea instead of spirits, singing or telling a joke as the forfeit if the players are not poets—it would certainly arouse considerable interest.
Another famous "flowing-cup pavilion" is Lanting (Orchid Pavilion) in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, which was a favourite resort of the great 4th-century calligrapher Wang Xizhi (321-379) and his friends, who used to gather there for the game and poem recitals. The little stream which carried the sailing cup is still there to greet modem admirers.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– "Flowing-Cup Pavilion" (China Hotel Booking, Guilin Tours)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Terrace (Yangshuo Tours, Guilin Hotels)
The tai was an ancient architectural structure, a very much elevated terrace with a fiat top. Generally built of earth and stone and surfaced with brick, it was used as a belvedere from which to look into the distance. In fact, however, many a well-known ancient tai as we know it today is not just a bare platform but has some palatial halls built on top.
A good example in hand is the Round City of the Beihai Park in Beijing. A terrace five metres high, it has, on its top space of 4,500 square metres, a main hall with side corridors.
The tai could be built to serve different practical purposes. It could be used as an observatory, as for instance the one near Jianguomen in Beijing which, with its brass astronomical instruments, dates to the Ming and Qing dynasties. It could also be used militarily, like the beacon towers along the Great Wall, to transmit urgent information with smoke by day and fire by night. Also on the Great Wall, there is a square tai at intervals of every 300 to 400 metres, from which the garrison troops kept watch. On the track of the ancient Silk Road can still be seen, here and there, ruins of the old defence fortifications in the form of earthen terraces.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Terrace (Yangshuo Tours, Guilin Hotels)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
A good example in hand is the Round City of the Beihai Park in Beijing. A terrace five metres high, it has, on its top space of 4,500 square metres, a main hall with side corridors.
The tai could be built to serve different practical purposes. It could be used as an observatory, as for instance the one near Jianguomen in Beijing which, with its brass astronomical instruments, dates to the Ming and Qing dynasties. It could also be used militarily, like the beacon towers along the Great Wall, to transmit urgent information with smoke by day and fire by night. Also on the Great Wall, there is a square tai at intervals of every 300 to 400 metres, from which the garrison troops kept watch. On the track of the ancient Silk Road can still be seen, here and there, ruins of the old defence fortifications in the form of earthen terraces.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Terrace (Yangshuo Tours, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Storeyed Building (Private China Tours, Guilin Hotels)
When the Chinese speak of a lou, they refer to any building of two or more storeys with a horizontal main ridge.
The erection of such buildings began a long time ago in the Period of the Warring States (475-221 B.C.), when chonglou ("layered houses") was mentioned in historical records.
Ancient buildings with more than one storey were meant for a variety of uses. The smaller two-storeyed buildings of private homes generally has the owner's study or bedroom upstairs. The more magnificent ones built in parks or at scenic spots were belvederes from which to enjoy distant scenery. In this case it is sometimes translated as a "tower". A Tang Dynasty poet upon his visit to a famous riverside tower composed a poem, two lines of which are still very much quoted: "To look far into the distance, Go up yet one more storey".
Ancient cities had bell and drum towers (zhonglou and gulou), usually palatial buildings with four-sloped, double-eaved, glazed roofs, all-around verandas and coloured and carved dougong brackets supporting the overhanging eaves. They housed a big bell or drum which were used to announce time, and the local officials would open the city gates at the toll of the bell early in the morning and close them with the strike of the drum in the evening.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties (14th to 20th century), in front of each city gate of Beijing stood an archery tower, forming a barbican as a defence fortification. Two of them can still be seen today, at Qianmen and Deshengmen gates. Also in Beijing, a "corner tower" still remains relatively intact at the southeastern corner of the old Inner City; it is put under state portection as a cultural relic, being the only one left in the ancient capital.
The art of constructing tall buildings was highly developed in China already in ancient times. Many multiple-storeyed towers of complex structure had wholly wood frameworks fixed together with dougong brackets without the use of a single piece of metal. Yueyang Tower in Hunan and Huanghelou (Tower of the Yellow Crane) in Wuchang are masterpieces among anicent towers.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Storeyed Building (Private China Tours, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The erection of such buildings began a long time ago in the Period of the Warring States (475-221 B.C.), when chonglou ("layered houses") was mentioned in historical records.
Ancient buildings with more than one storey were meant for a variety of uses. The smaller two-storeyed buildings of private homes generally has the owner's study or bedroom upstairs. The more magnificent ones built in parks or at scenic spots were belvederes from which to enjoy distant scenery. In this case it is sometimes translated as a "tower". A Tang Dynasty poet upon his visit to a famous riverside tower composed a poem, two lines of which are still very much quoted: "To look far into the distance, Go up yet one more storey".
Ancient cities had bell and drum towers (zhonglou and gulou), usually palatial buildings with four-sloped, double-eaved, glazed roofs, all-around verandas and coloured and carved dougong brackets supporting the overhanging eaves. They housed a big bell or drum which were used to announce time, and the local officials would open the city gates at the toll of the bell early in the morning and close them with the strike of the drum in the evening.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties (14th to 20th century), in front of each city gate of Beijing stood an archery tower, forming a barbican as a defence fortification. Two of them can still be seen today, at Qianmen and Deshengmen gates. Also in Beijing, a "corner tower" still remains relatively intact at the southeastern corner of the old Inner City; it is put under state portection as a cultural relic, being the only one left in the ancient capital.
The art of constructing tall buildings was highly developed in China already in ancient times. Many multiple-storeyed towers of complex structure had wholly wood frameworks fixed together with dougong brackets without the use of a single piece of metal. Yueyang Tower in Hunan and Huanghelou (Tower of the Yellow Crane) in Wuchang are masterpieces among anicent towers.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Storeyed Building (Private China Tours, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Storeyed Pavilion (Discount China Hotels)
The Chinese ge is similar to the lou in that both are of two or more storeys, but the ge has a door and windows only on the front side, with the other three sides all solid walls, and it is usually enclosed by wood balustrades or decorated boards all around.
Such storeyed pailions were used in ancient times for the storage of important articles and documents. Wenyuange, for instance, in the Forbidden City of Beijing was in effect the imperial library. Kuiwenge in the Confucius Temple of Qufu, Shandong Province was devoted to the safekeeping of the books and works of painting and calligraphy bestowed by the courts of various dynasties. Visitors to the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, can still see Tianyige, which houses the greatest private collection of books handed down from the past. Monasteries of a large size normally have their own libraries built in the style of a ge and called cangjingge to keep their collections of Buddhist scriptures. Some of the ge, notably those erected in parks, like other pavilions or towers (ting, tai and lou), were used for enjoying the sights.
The name ge is also used to describe the towers which shelter the colossal statues one finds in some great monasteries. A prominant example in the Guanyinge of Dulesi Temple in Jixian County, Hebei province. Twenty-three metres high and housing the huge idol of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin), it is the oldest exitsing multple-storeyed structure of its kind in China. Built in the Liao Dynasty (907-1125A.D.), it has withstood twenty-eight earthquakes including three of a devastating nature. When all the houses in the area collapsed, it was the only one tha survived the disaster. This goes to show how well its wood frame was structured. Other well-known religious buildings housing Buddhist statues, big or small, include Foxiangge in Beijing's Summer Palace, Dashengge in Chengde's Puningsi Temple and Zhenwuge in Ronxian, Guangdong Province. All of them, tall, graceful and dignified, can be listed as representative works of classical Chinese architecture.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Storeyed Pavilion (Discount China Hotels)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Such storeyed pailions were used in ancient times for the storage of important articles and documents. Wenyuange, for instance, in the Forbidden City of Beijing was in effect the imperial library. Kuiwenge in the Confucius Temple of Qufu, Shandong Province was devoted to the safekeeping of the books and works of painting and calligraphy bestowed by the courts of various dynasties. Visitors to the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, can still see Tianyige, which houses the greatest private collection of books handed down from the past. Monasteries of a large size normally have their own libraries built in the style of a ge and called cangjingge to keep their collections of Buddhist scriptures. Some of the ge, notably those erected in parks, like other pavilions or towers (ting, tai and lou), were used for enjoying the sights.
The name ge is also used to describe the towers which shelter the colossal statues one finds in some great monasteries. A prominant example in the Guanyinge of Dulesi Temple in Jixian County, Hebei province. Twenty-three metres high and housing the huge idol of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin), it is the oldest exitsing multple-storeyed structure of its kind in China. Built in the Liao Dynasty (907-1125A.D.), it has withstood twenty-eight earthquakes including three of a devastating nature. When all the houses in the area collapsed, it was the only one tha survived the disaster. This goes to show how well its wood frame was structured. Other well-known religious buildings housing Buddhist statues, big or small, include Foxiangge in Beijing's Summer Palace, Dashengge in Chengde's Puningsi Temple and Zhenwuge in Ronxian, Guangdong Province. All of them, tall, graceful and dignified, can be listed as representative works of classical Chinese architecture.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour– Storeyed Pavilion (Discount China Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Waterside Pavilion (Hotels in China, Li River)
One of the structures in traditional Chinese landscape gardening is the xie, a special form of pavilion. The earliest xie referred to the wood houses built on high terraces, but with the change of taste it became more and more the fashion in later epochs to build the single-storyed xie on the shore of lakes or ponds.
It is the special feature of the shuixie (waterside pavilion) to be rectangular or near square in plan figure, half erected on land and half over water supported by stone pillars driven into the lake bottom. This structure is walled not with bricks but with wood frames having fancy windows on all sides. The side on the water is bordered with railings and equipped with seats, fixed or movable, to provide visitors with a vantage point to feast their eyes on the scenes of the lake.
A typical example of this structure is the waterside pavilion in Xiequ Garden (Garden of Harmonious Interest) of the Summer Palace, from which Cixi, the all powerful Empress Dowager of the late Qing Dynasty, is said to have enjoyed herself at fishing.
Other well-known buildings of the same style include Furongxie in Zhuozheng Yuan (the Humble Administrator's Garden) of Suzhou, Shuixie in the Zhongshan Park of Beijing and Shuixinxie in the Mountain Resort of Chengde.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour–Waterside Pavilion (Hotels in China, Li River)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
It is the special feature of the shuixie (waterside pavilion) to be rectangular or near square in plan figure, half erected on land and half over water supported by stone pillars driven into the lake bottom. This structure is walled not with bricks but with wood frames having fancy windows on all sides. The side on the water is bordered with railings and equipped with seats, fixed or movable, to provide visitors with a vantage point to feast their eyes on the scenes of the lake.
A typical example of this structure is the waterside pavilion in Xiequ Garden (Garden of Harmonious Interest) of the Summer Palace, from which Cixi, the all powerful Empress Dowager of the late Qing Dynasty, is said to have enjoyed herself at fishing.
Other well-known buildings of the same style include Furongxie in Zhuozheng Yuan (the Humble Administrator's Garden) of Suzhou, Shuixie in the Zhongshan Park of Beijing and Shuixinxie in the Mountain Resort of Chengde.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour–Waterside Pavilion (Hotels in China, Li River)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Yangshuo tour- House of Retreat (China Hotel Booking)
Certain types of Chinese buildings or rooms that provide or promise a quiet retreat for specific purposes are usually called zhai. This is originally a word with religious implication, meaning "purification by ablution and abstinence." From this has been derived the name zhaigong (palace of purification), a special housing complex where the mind and body were "purified" in preparation for sacrifice or other solemn ceremonies.
Such a zhaigong still stands on the precincts of Beijing's Temple of Heaven, inside its western entrance on the right hand side. The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, before they presented themselves at the annual rites of Heaven worship, used to stay there to bathe themselves and observe abstinence from pleasures. During this period of preparation, there would be no banqueting, no music, no drinking; no criminals would be tried or punishments meted out. This palace attached to the temple is of considerable size. In a compound of more than 40,000 square metres stand the main halls, living quarters for the emperor, a drum tower and a number of supporting buildings, totalling over 60 rooms. The magnificent structures, defended by two moats and bordered by a long corridor of 167 bays, make up the largest palace of its kind in the country.
In private houses, the rooms used as studies or for the keeping of books are called shuzhai or "book chambers". All zhai, whether devoted to religious architecture built as a rule in quiet, secluded spots, away from the sightseeing areas, sometimes with enclosure walls of their own. In Beijing's Beihai Park, for instance, there is a "garden within a garden" called Jingxinzhai or the Tranquil Heart Studio. Covering an area of 4,700 square metres, this peaceful place with houses of a distinctively graceful style used to be frequented by Emperor Qianlong when he wanted to do some serious reading or pursue quiet pleasures. Other examples par excellence among buildings described as zhai are Juanqinzhai (Studio of Relaxation) of the Qianlong Garden and Yangxinzhai (Studio of Metal Cultivation) of the Imperial Garden, both in the Forbidden City.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour–House of Retreat (China Hotel Booking)
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Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Such a zhaigong still stands on the precincts of Beijing's Temple of Heaven, inside its western entrance on the right hand side. The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, before they presented themselves at the annual rites of Heaven worship, used to stay there to bathe themselves and observe abstinence from pleasures. During this period of preparation, there would be no banqueting, no music, no drinking; no criminals would be tried or punishments meted out. This palace attached to the temple is of considerable size. In a compound of more than 40,000 square metres stand the main halls, living quarters for the emperor, a drum tower and a number of supporting buildings, totalling over 60 rooms. The magnificent structures, defended by two moats and bordered by a long corridor of 167 bays, make up the largest palace of its kind in the country.
In private houses, the rooms used as studies or for the keeping of books are called shuzhai or "book chambers". All zhai, whether devoted to religious architecture built as a rule in quiet, secluded spots, away from the sightseeing areas, sometimes with enclosure walls of their own. In Beijing's Beihai Park, for instance, there is a "garden within a garden" called Jingxinzhai or the Tranquil Heart Studio. Covering an area of 4,700 square metres, this peaceful place with houses of a distinctively graceful style used to be frequented by Emperor Qianlong when he wanted to do some serious reading or pursue quiet pleasures. Other examples par excellence among buildings described as zhai are Juanqinzhai (Studio of Relaxation) of the Qianlong Garden and Yangxinzhai (Studio of Metal Cultivation) of the Imperial Garden, both in the Forbidden City.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour–House of Retreat (China Hotel Booking)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Studio (Yangshuo Discount Hotels)
This is usually a simple but elegant structure built in parks or gardens to give an embellishing touch to the landscape. It is called xuan after the name of a high-fronted, curtained carriage used in ancient times by people of rank probably because, like the carriage, it is also high in front and airy and spacious inside.
Architecturally, the xuan is rather similar to the ting (pavilion), and both are used to adorn the scenic views either standing on the side of a lake or nestling on the slope of a mountain. The difference between the two is that the xuan is larger in size, more closed and normally rectangular in plan, whereas the smaller ting has always a pointed round roof and no walls; the xuan is simply furnished with some tables and chairs so that people may sit down for a cup of tea, play a game of weiqi or appreciate works of art, whereas the ting is as a whole devoid of furniture.
The word xuan occasionally appears in the name of a teahouse or a restaurant. A well-known example is "Laijinyuxua (Come New Friends Studio) in Beijing's Zhongshan Park. Established in 1914, it operated at the beginning as a teahouse and snackbar. Lu Xun, the great writer used to frequent it to have tea, read newspapers and meet friends. The present Laijinyuxuan is a restaurant specializing in Sichuan and Jiangsu cuisine.
Among other structures repesentative of this style of architecture, imperial or private, one should count Xieqiuxuan (Paint Autumn Studio) in Beijing's Summer Palace and Zhuwaiyizhixuan (Lone Bamboo Outside the Grove) in Suzhou's Wangshiyuan (Master-of-nets Garden).
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour –Studio (Yangshuo Discount Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Architecturally, the xuan is rather similar to the ting (pavilion), and both are used to adorn the scenic views either standing on the side of a lake or nestling on the slope of a mountain. The difference between the two is that the xuan is larger in size, more closed and normally rectangular in plan, whereas the smaller ting has always a pointed round roof and no walls; the xuan is simply furnished with some tables and chairs so that people may sit down for a cup of tea, play a game of weiqi or appreciate works of art, whereas the ting is as a whole devoid of furniture.
The word xuan occasionally appears in the name of a teahouse or a restaurant. A well-known example is "Laijinyuxua (Come New Friends Studio) in Beijing's Zhongshan Park. Established in 1914, it operated at the beginning as a teahouse and snackbar. Lu Xun, the great writer used to frequent it to have tea, read newspapers and meet friends. The present Laijinyuxuan is a restaurant specializing in Sichuan and Jiangsu cuisine.
Among other structures repesentative of this style of architecture, imperial or private, one should count Xieqiuxuan (Paint Autumn Studio) in Beijing's Summer Palace and Zhuwaiyizhixuan (Lone Bamboo Outside the Grove) in Suzhou's Wangshiyuan (Master-of-nets Garden).
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour –Studio (Yangshuo Discount Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Covered Corridor (Yangshuo Guilin Sights)
The covered corridor represents a typical architectural style in Chinese landscape gardening. A long, belt-like structure, it is a roofed walk with low railings or long side benches. Providing people with shade from the sun and protection from the rain, it not only adds beauty to the general scenery but plays a useful role as well.
Chinese covered corridors fall into many varieties, but roughly they may be divided into youlang which links two or more buildings, qulang (the zigzag corridor), huilang (the winding corridor), hualang which is used for the display of potted flowers, and shuilang which borders on lakes or goes over ponds.
It is the general consensus that at the top of all classical corridors must be listed by any standards the Long Corridor in Beijing's Summer Palace, a unique treasure in the art of gardening arrangement. An exquisite winding structure of 728 metres, it stretches its 273 bays* between the hill and the lake, broken at intervals by four double-eaved, octagonal pavilions, which represent the four seasons of the year. All its beams are painted with coloured pictures of landscapes, human figures, flowers, birds and scenes of historical and popular stories. These paintings total more than 40,000 in number, and the visitor would need eight hours just to linger two seconds before each picture.
The Long Corridor, it is said, was built by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty in order that his mother might safely enjoy the scenes of rain or snow over the lake. In effect it is a piece of ingenious engineering which at once divides and links up the hill and the lake of the Summer Palace. Whether one looks at the lake from the hill or at the hill from the lake, the Long Corridor is always there, not only a pretty frame border for a nice picture but a colourful belt to bind the two parts together.
Famous private Chinese gardens, located mostly in the southern provinces, likewise, are often ornamented with corridors. In Suzhou's Zhuozhengyuan (The Humble Adminitrator's Garden), part of the winding corridor is erected over a pond and has been described as a "rainbow over water". With its reflection in the water, sometimes ruffled by a breeze, it is a favourite spot for visitors to take snap-shots of themselves. In Liuyuan (Garden to Linger In), another well-known garden of Suzhou, the buildings--pavilion, terrace, hall, tower, etc.--break, and at the same time are linked by, a 600-metre-long corridor. Its walls have fancy cut-through windows which reveal scences on the other side, and they are also inset with 300 stone-engravings of calligraphical works and poems by famous masters; both the windows and the engravings are regarded as masterpieces of their respective kinds. Visitors come here either to feast their eyes on the natural views or on the works of art and poetry, all at their choice.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour –Covered Corridor (Yangshuo Guilin Sights)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Chinese covered corridors fall into many varieties, but roughly they may be divided into youlang which links two or more buildings, qulang (the zigzag corridor), huilang (the winding corridor), hualang which is used for the display of potted flowers, and shuilang which borders on lakes or goes over ponds.
It is the general consensus that at the top of all classical corridors must be listed by any standards the Long Corridor in Beijing's Summer Palace, a unique treasure in the art of gardening arrangement. An exquisite winding structure of 728 metres, it stretches its 273 bays* between the hill and the lake, broken at intervals by four double-eaved, octagonal pavilions, which represent the four seasons of the year. All its beams are painted with coloured pictures of landscapes, human figures, flowers, birds and scenes of historical and popular stories. These paintings total more than 40,000 in number, and the visitor would need eight hours just to linger two seconds before each picture.
The Long Corridor, it is said, was built by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty in order that his mother might safely enjoy the scenes of rain or snow over the lake. In effect it is a piece of ingenious engineering which at once divides and links up the hill and the lake of the Summer Palace. Whether one looks at the lake from the hill or at the hill from the lake, the Long Corridor is always there, not only a pretty frame border for a nice picture but a colourful belt to bind the two parts together.
Famous private Chinese gardens, located mostly in the southern provinces, likewise, are often ornamented with corridors. In Suzhou's Zhuozhengyuan (The Humble Adminitrator's Garden), part of the winding corridor is erected over a pond and has been described as a "rainbow over water". With its reflection in the water, sometimes ruffled by a breeze, it is a favourite spot for visitors to take snap-shots of themselves. In Liuyuan (Garden to Linger In), another well-known garden of Suzhou, the buildings--pavilion, terrace, hall, tower, etc.--break, and at the same time are linked by, a 600-metre-long corridor. Its walls have fancy cut-through windows which reveal scences on the other side, and they are also inset with 300 stone-engravings of calligraphical works and poems by famous masters; both the windows and the engravings are regarded as masterpieces of their respective kinds. Visitors come here either to feast their eyes on the natural views or on the works of art and poetry, all at their choice.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour –Covered Corridor (Yangshuo Guilin Sights)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Altar (Yangshuo Guilin Sightseeing)
The Chinese tan is an altar where ancient rulers used to offer sacrifices to Heaven or the gods, and architecturally it refers to a special type of terrace-like building. Several ancient tan in Beijing, mostly dating from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, have remained in name if not in fact. A number of Beijing's parks, for instance, still have the word tan in their names: Tiantan (Temple of Heaven), Yuetan (Altar to the Moon), Ditan (Altar to the Earth), Ritan (Altar to the Sun), and Xiannongtan (Altar to the God of Agriculture).
All five were first built in the Ming Dynasty for the worship of such gods as indicated in their names. On the grounds of what have become parks stood the altars of worship, either round terraces of three tiers (as in the Temple of Heaven) or square ones of one or two tiers.
The most celebrated altar in China is Huanqiutan (or the Circular Mound Altar) in Beijing's Temple of Heaven, religiously the most important temple construction. Built in 1530 under the Ming, the all marble terrace is five metres high and consists of three tiers, respectively 30, 40 and 70 metres across. The terrace is circular, in keeping with the ancient Chinese belief that Heaven was round. The number of the stones used for the surfaces of the terrace and on the steps and the number of the balusters for each tier are all nine (the highest masculine figure or its multiples. The terrace is devoid of any other structure and it was to this bare altar that the Ming or Qing emperor came to offer sacrifices to Heaven. In a ceremony called open-air rite", obeisance was made to Heaven, unobstructed by anything overhead.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour –Altar (Yangshuo Guilin Sightseeing)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
All five were first built in the Ming Dynasty for the worship of such gods as indicated in their names. On the grounds of what have become parks stood the altars of worship, either round terraces of three tiers (as in the Temple of Heaven) or square ones of one or two tiers.
The most celebrated altar in China is Huanqiutan (or the Circular Mound Altar) in Beijing's Temple of Heaven, religiously the most important temple construction. Built in 1530 under the Ming, the all marble terrace is five metres high and consists of three tiers, respectively 30, 40 and 70 metres across. The terrace is circular, in keeping with the ancient Chinese belief that Heaven was round. The number of the stones used for the surfaces of the terrace and on the steps and the number of the balusters for each tier are all nine (the highest masculine figure or its multiples. The terrace is devoid of any other structure and it was to this bare altar that the Ming or Qing emperor came to offer sacrifices to Heaven. In a ceremony called open-air rite", obeisance was made to Heaven, unobstructed by anything overhead.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour –Altar (Yangshuo Guilin Sightseeing)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Yangshuo tour-Altar of the Land and Grain (Guilin China Attraction Guide)
In the the Zhongshan Park in centural Beijing lies a terrace filled and surfaced with earth of five different colours. This is Shejitan (the Altar of the Land and Grain), popularly known as Wusetu (Five-Coloured Earth).
The classical sense of the word she means the God of the Land or Soil, while ji refers to the (God of Grain. Shejitan was the site where ancient emperors held rites of worship and offered sacrifices to the Gods of Land and Grain and prayed for good harvests.
The terrace is an elevated square bordered with three tiers of low walls of white marble. The surface earth shows five patches of different colours with nuclear demarcation--green to the east, red to the south, white to the west, black to the north and yellow in the middle. The arrangement symbolizes the ancient principle that "all earth under the sky belongs to the emperor".
The five colours of the altar, some say, are also intended to represent the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth) which ancient Chinese philosophy held to compose the physical universe.
According to others, the altar could be taken as a rough model showing the distribution of different types of soil in China as the various colours of the earth on the terrace point approximately to the same directions in which soils of similar types actually lie in the country.
What is noteworthy is that the altar gives prominance to the yellow colour by putting yellow earth in the middle. Yellow was held in high esteem in old China because it is the colour of the Yellow River, the once-supposed only cradle of the Chinese civilization. And for the same reason, all Chinese still call themselves the descendants of the Yellow Emperor, a legendary leader in prehistoric China.
Besides, yellow is also the colour of the ripe grain, whose god was the object of worship at Shejitan. The land and the grain, both yellow in colour, made up the material foundation of the imperial power, and therefore yellow became the imperial colour in China. This was another reason for putting yellow earth in the middle.
Originally a square stone column stood at the centre of the altar to symbolize the rock-like solidarity of the empire, it was removed in 1950.
The Altar of the Land and Grain was built in A.D.1421 in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Since then, sacrifices had been offered by the emperors of different generations twice a year in spring and autumn until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour - Altar of the Land and Grain (Guilin China Attraction Guide)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The classical sense of the word she means the God of the Land or Soil, while ji refers to the (God of Grain. Shejitan was the site where ancient emperors held rites of worship and offered sacrifices to the Gods of Land and Grain and prayed for good harvests.
The terrace is an elevated square bordered with three tiers of low walls of white marble. The surface earth shows five patches of different colours with nuclear demarcation--green to the east, red to the south, white to the west, black to the north and yellow in the middle. The arrangement symbolizes the ancient principle that "all earth under the sky belongs to the emperor".
The five colours of the altar, some say, are also intended to represent the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth) which ancient Chinese philosophy held to compose the physical universe.
According to others, the altar could be taken as a rough model showing the distribution of different types of soil in China as the various colours of the earth on the terrace point approximately to the same directions in which soils of similar types actually lie in the country.
What is noteworthy is that the altar gives prominance to the yellow colour by putting yellow earth in the middle. Yellow was held in high esteem in old China because it is the colour of the Yellow River, the once-supposed only cradle of the Chinese civilization. And for the same reason, all Chinese still call themselves the descendants of the Yellow Emperor, a legendary leader in prehistoric China.
Besides, yellow is also the colour of the ripe grain, whose god was the object of worship at Shejitan. The land and the grain, both yellow in colour, made up the material foundation of the imperial power, and therefore yellow became the imperial colour in China. This was another reason for putting yellow earth in the middle.
Originally a square stone column stood at the centre of the altar to symbolize the rock-like solidarity of the empire, it was removed in 1950.
The Altar of the Land and Grain was built in A.D.1421 in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Since then, sacrifices had been offered by the emperors of different generations twice a year in spring and autumn until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour - Altar of the Land and Grain (Guilin China Attraction Guide)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Archway (Yangshuo China Attraction Guide)
The pailou, also known as paifang, is an archway of a memorial or decorative nature. It could be made of wood, brick or stone, with or without glazed tiles, often carrying some inscriptions on the middle beam. The normal places where such arch- ways stood were thoroughfare crossroads, shrines and temples, government offices, bridges, parks, tombs and mausoleumns, and they generally carried inscriptions to propagate certain moral principles or to extol government achievements. The pailou could also serve as the facade of a shop to prettify its entrance and attract customers. Many a pailou was erected to praise the "lofty virtues" of certain individuals in the locality. Fettered by the feudal ethical code, many widowed women refrained from remarriage just in the hope to have "pailou of chastity" built for them when they reached a ripe old age.
According to relevant records, there used to be some 57 archways in old Beijing. Among the well-known ones were one each at the crossroads of Dongdan and Xidan, four each at Dongsi and Xisi, one at Qianmen and a couple standing astride Chang'anjie, the main street running eastwest in front of Tian'anmen. Nearly all of these have been taken apart or moved elsewhere.
A well-preserved pailou is the one in front of the main entrance to the Summer Palace Park. Built 200 years ago, it is composed of four columns forming three arches and carrying on top seven roofed ornamental units. Inscribed in front and at the back are two Chinese classical characters each, succinctly summing up the beauty of the hill and the lake in the park. Painted on it amidst rich colour are 176 golden dragons and 36 golden phoenixes, giving the visitor a foretaste of the sumptuous splendour that he is going to witness.
Among the pailou of imperial mausoleums, the best-known is the great archway standing at the southern end of the grounds of Beijing's Ming Tombs, the first structure that the visitor will see. A pailou of 6 columns, 5 arches and 11 superstructures, it is built entirely of white marble, and its stone columns are engraved with dragons, lions, unicorns and other mythical animals to display the power and dignity of the imperial house. Majestic and simple, it measures 28.86 metres wide and stands 14 metres high in the middle, one of the greatest of its kind in the country.
In the city proper of Beijing, a few other ancient archways have survived down to this day. There is a glaze-tiled pailou of 3 arches and 7 superstructures in Shenlujie Street, Chaoyang District. Not far from the Lama Temple (Yonghegong), in the side street of the ancient Imperial College (Guozijian), two pailou have been renovated recently and are shining with new lustre.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Archway (Yangshuo China Attraction Guide)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
According to relevant records, there used to be some 57 archways in old Beijing. Among the well-known ones were one each at the crossroads of Dongdan and Xidan, four each at Dongsi and Xisi, one at Qianmen and a couple standing astride Chang'anjie, the main street running eastwest in front of Tian'anmen. Nearly all of these have been taken apart or moved elsewhere.
A well-preserved pailou is the one in front of the main entrance to the Summer Palace Park. Built 200 years ago, it is composed of four columns forming three arches and carrying on top seven roofed ornamental units. Inscribed in front and at the back are two Chinese classical characters each, succinctly summing up the beauty of the hill and the lake in the park. Painted on it amidst rich colour are 176 golden dragons and 36 golden phoenixes, giving the visitor a foretaste of the sumptuous splendour that he is going to witness.
Among the pailou of imperial mausoleums, the best-known is the great archway standing at the southern end of the grounds of Beijing's Ming Tombs, the first structure that the visitor will see. A pailou of 6 columns, 5 arches and 11 superstructures, it is built entirely of white marble, and its stone columns are engraved with dragons, lions, unicorns and other mythical animals to display the power and dignity of the imperial house. Majestic and simple, it measures 28.86 metres wide and stands 14 metres high in the middle, one of the greatest of its kind in the country.
In the city proper of Beijing, a few other ancient archways have survived down to this day. There is a glaze-tiled pailou of 3 arches and 7 superstructures in Shenlujie Street, Chaoyang District. Not far from the Lama Temple (Yonghegong), in the side street of the ancient Imperial College (Guozijian), two pailou have been renovated recently and are shining with new lustre.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Archway (Yangshuo China Attraction Guide)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Marble Boat (China Hotels, Guilin Hotels)
An ornamental structure in classical Chinese landscaping, shifang(marble boat)is also popularly known as shichuan (which means the same thing) or, in southern China, hanchuan (land boat). A marble boat usually has its underwater base and its body built of stone and its on-deck cabins of wood in the form of a pavilion (xuan, xie or lou--see previous articles); it may also have a cabin at the bow and at the stern, just like a model of the "official boat" of ancient times. Normally built near the shore, it is accessible by means of a stone bridge. Sightseers go aboard to appreciate the surrounding scenery, feeling as if they were gently water-borne on a real boat.
The largest existing marble boat in China is the one of 36 metres in the Summer Palace of Beijing. Popularly known as the Marble Boat, its official name Qingyanfang has long fallen into oblivion. First built in A.D. 1755 completely of white stones during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, it was meant to be a water-surface belvedere for the imperial family as well as a symbol of the rockfirm solidarity of the imperial power. The original wood cabin-house was burnt down by British and French troops in 1860. The present structure, rebuilt in 1893 during the reign of Guangxu, was supposed to be patterned after the cabin-house on a Western vessel, the windows paned with stained glass and the floor paved with enamelled tiles. It is generally believed that the powerful Empress Dowager Cixi watched from the Marble Boat the exercise of naval units on the lake. It is now one of the tourist attactions in the park.
Similar stone boats but of smaller sizes can be seen in the royal palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) in Nanjing, in three private gardens of Suzhou and on Lake Shouxihu (Slender West Lake) of Yangzhou.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Marble Boat (China Hotels, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The largest existing marble boat in China is the one of 36 metres in the Summer Palace of Beijing. Popularly known as the Marble Boat, its official name Qingyanfang has long fallen into oblivion. First built in A.D. 1755 completely of white stones during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, it was meant to be a water-surface belvedere for the imperial family as well as a symbol of the rockfirm solidarity of the imperial power. The original wood cabin-house was burnt down by British and French troops in 1860. The present structure, rebuilt in 1893 during the reign of Guangxu, was supposed to be patterned after the cabin-house on a Western vessel, the windows paned with stained glass and the floor paved with enamelled tiles. It is generally believed that the powerful Empress Dowager Cixi watched from the Marble Boat the exercise of naval units on the lake. It is now one of the tourist attactions in the park.
Similar stone boats but of smaller sizes can be seen in the royal palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) in Nanjing, in three private gardens of Suzhou and on Lake Shouxihu (Slender West Lake) of Yangzhou.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Marble Boat (China Hotels, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Scenic Openings (Li River, Guilin Tours)
Jingdong or the "scenic opening" is the general term for fancy gates and windows, another feature of the national art of Chinese architecture. Usually found in parks and private gardens, they make part of the landscape or provide picture frames, as it were, to natural scenes while serving their proper practical purposes.
The fancy gate (jingmen) may be of any form--round, square, oval, a polygon, a vase, a crescent, a bay leaf, a lotus petal, a garland and what not. On either side of such a gate are usually planted bamboos, flowering plants and grass and occationally also rockeries. Leading to and through the gate is sometimes a pebbled pathway with flowery patterns. Thus beautiful scenes are created with the fancy gate as the focus.
Fancy windows (jingchuang), likwise, may be built in various shapes--round, oval, a drum, a crescent, a polygon, an open book, a bay leaf, a flower... And as a rule they are fixed on fancy or corridor walls in pleasure gardens and, through them as picture frames, sighteers may view scenes on the other side, which change as they walk on.
Noteworthy is the type of scenic windows called louchuang or "hollowed windows". They may be constructed of tiles or bricks, wood or stone carvings, leaving openings of geometric patterns and decorated with carved-through human or animal figures. Strollers, through the openings of such windows, will get fragmentary and changing glimpses of the views across the wall. The idea of the louchuang, probably an artistic conception unique to Chinese architecture, has recently been extensively adopted for modern buildings such as theatres, art galleries, cultural centres, exhibition halls, art shops and certain high-class residences. They help ventilation and interior lighting, and create pleasing sights as well.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Scenic Openings (Li River, Guilin Tours)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The fancy gate (jingmen) may be of any form--round, square, oval, a polygon, a vase, a crescent, a bay leaf, a lotus petal, a garland and what not. On either side of such a gate are usually planted bamboos, flowering plants and grass and occationally also rockeries. Leading to and through the gate is sometimes a pebbled pathway with flowery patterns. Thus beautiful scenes are created with the fancy gate as the focus.
Fancy windows (jingchuang), likwise, may be built in various shapes--round, oval, a drum, a crescent, a polygon, an open book, a bay leaf, a flower... And as a rule they are fixed on fancy or corridor walls in pleasure gardens and, through them as picture frames, sighteers may view scenes on the other side, which change as they walk on.
Noteworthy is the type of scenic windows called louchuang or "hollowed windows". They may be constructed of tiles or bricks, wood or stone carvings, leaving openings of geometric patterns and decorated with carved-through human or animal figures. Strollers, through the openings of such windows, will get fragmentary and changing glimpses of the views across the wall. The idea of the louchuang, probably an artistic conception unique to Chinese architecture, has recently been extensively adopted for modern buildings such as theatres, art galleries, cultural centres, exhibition halls, art shops and certain high-class residences. They help ventilation and interior lighting, and create pleasing sights as well.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Scenic Openings (Li River, Guilin Tours)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Taihu Rockery (China Hotels, Yangshuo China)
Grotesque rockeries are often seen in Chinese parks and gardens. They range from a little over a metre to 5 or 6 metres in height. Some stand on the roadside, others are planted in the middle of ponds. They are as a rule grown with exotic flowers and rare plants, making scenic attractions. More often than not they are made from "Taihu rocks" produced at Lake Taihu in Jiangsu Province.
The said lake area is rich in carbonate limestone rocks and enjoys abundant rainfalls. Constant weathering and rainwater erosion over the ages bore through the rocks, turning them into exquisite nature wrought pieces of art, characterized by special features of their own. They are slender and elegant in shape, marked with clear veins, riddled with holes, rich in curves and lines on the surface, and porous in substance so that water may be passed up or down for an even distribution of moisture. For these reasons, they are favourite with Chinese painters and landscape architects.
Taihu rocks are not works of nature alone. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279) masons on the shores of Lake Taihu have been engaged in the quarrying of rocks on the mountains. On the basis of their natural forms and sizes and according to the requirements of landscape gardening, they chisel the rocks and improve on their shapes and then place them in the lake to be washed and sculpted by the moving water. Left thus they become well-polished and smooth in a few years' time. A good example for rockeries made of such rocks can be seen in the Yuyuan Garden of Shanghai under the appropriate Chinese name of "Yulinglong" (literally, "Jade Exquisiteness").
Rocks have been used to make artificial miniature hills in pleasure gardens. Well-known among these one can list the rock hill named Duixiu ("Heaped Elegance") in the Imperial Garden of Beijing's Forbidden City and another hill in Suzhou, named Shizilin ("Forest of Lions") because it is made up of rocks that resemble as many lions in myriad postures. An artificial hill in the Summer Palace, lying to the east of Xijialou Pavilion, is also built of Taihu rocks and in imitation of Suzhou's Forest of Lions just mentioned.
In the old days, to glue the rocks together into rockeries or hills, a cementing material made of lime and glutinous rice gruel was used. Today the work is made easier by the use of cement. Large rockeries and artificial rock hills often contain man made caves which wind through them left and right, up and down, now lighted through openings, now completely dark, forming labyrinths to provide sightseers with delightful surprises. The hills are normally grown with trees and plants on their slopes and crowned with pavilions on top where visitors may linger to take in the panorama. Such arrangements often engender an illusion of space bigger than the reality, while partitioning a compound into secluded sections, tranquil from the noise of the outside world.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Taihu Rockery (China Hotels, Yangshuo China)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
The said lake area is rich in carbonate limestone rocks and enjoys abundant rainfalls. Constant weathering and rainwater erosion over the ages bore through the rocks, turning them into exquisite nature wrought pieces of art, characterized by special features of their own. They are slender and elegant in shape, marked with clear veins, riddled with holes, rich in curves and lines on the surface, and porous in substance so that water may be passed up or down for an even distribution of moisture. For these reasons, they are favourite with Chinese painters and landscape architects.
Taihu rocks are not works of nature alone. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279) masons on the shores of Lake Taihu have been engaged in the quarrying of rocks on the mountains. On the basis of their natural forms and sizes and according to the requirements of landscape gardening, they chisel the rocks and improve on their shapes and then place them in the lake to be washed and sculpted by the moving water. Left thus they become well-polished and smooth in a few years' time. A good example for rockeries made of such rocks can be seen in the Yuyuan Garden of Shanghai under the appropriate Chinese name of "Yulinglong" (literally, "Jade Exquisiteness").
Rocks have been used to make artificial miniature hills in pleasure gardens. Well-known among these one can list the rock hill named Duixiu ("Heaped Elegance") in the Imperial Garden of Beijing's Forbidden City and another hill in Suzhou, named Shizilin ("Forest of Lions") because it is made up of rocks that resemble as many lions in myriad postures. An artificial hill in the Summer Palace, lying to the east of Xijialou Pavilion, is also built of Taihu rocks and in imitation of Suzhou's Forest of Lions just mentioned.
In the old days, to glue the rocks together into rockeries or hills, a cementing material made of lime and glutinous rice gruel was used. Today the work is made easier by the use of cement. Large rockeries and artificial rock hills often contain man made caves which wind through them left and right, up and down, now lighted through openings, now completely dark, forming labyrinths to provide sightseers with delightful surprises. The hills are normally grown with trees and plants on their slopes and crowned with pavilions on top where visitors may linger to take in the panorama. Such arrangements often engender an illusion of space bigger than the reality, while partitioning a compound into secluded sections, tranquil from the noise of the outside world.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Taihu Rockery (China Hotels, Yangshuo China)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Yangshuo tour- The Chinese Quadrangle (China Travel, Li River)
Traditionally most urban Chinese used to live in quadrangles called siheyuan or "four-side enclosed courtyards". These courts, as the name implies, are formed by inward-facing houses on four sides, closed in by enclosure walls.
A small or medium-sized siheyuan usually has its main or only entrance gate built at the southeastern corner of the quadrangle with a screen wall just inside to prevent outsiders from peeping in.
Such a residence offers space, comfort and quiet privacy. It is also good for security as well as protection against dust and storms. Grown with plants and flowers, the court is also a sort of garden.
All the quadrangles, as products of feudal society, were built in accordance with a strict set of rules. From their size and style one could tell whether they belonged to private individuals or the powerful and rich. The simple house of an ordinary person has only one courtyard with the main building on the north facing, across the court, the southern building with rooms of northern exposure and flanked on the sides by the buildings of eastern and western chambers. The mansion of a titled or very rich family would have two or more courtyards, one behind another, with the main building separated from the view of the southern building by a wall with a fancy gate or by a guoting (walk-through pavilion). Behind the main building there would be a lesser house in the rear and, connected with the main quadrangle, small "corner courtyards".
The lord and lady of the house lived in the sunny main building and their children in the side chambers. The southern row on the opposite side, those nearest to the entrance gate, were generally used as the study, the reception room, the manservants' dwelling or for sundry purposes.
Not only residences but ancient palaces, government offices, temples and monasteries were built basically on the pattern of the siheyuan, a common feature of traditional Chinese architecture.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- The Chinese Quadrangle (China Travel, Li River)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
A small or medium-sized siheyuan usually has its main or only entrance gate built at the southeastern corner of the quadrangle with a screen wall just inside to prevent outsiders from peeping in.
Such a residence offers space, comfort and quiet privacy. It is also good for security as well as protection against dust and storms. Grown with plants and flowers, the court is also a sort of garden.
All the quadrangles, as products of feudal society, were built in accordance with a strict set of rules. From their size and style one could tell whether they belonged to private individuals or the powerful and rich. The simple house of an ordinary person has only one courtyard with the main building on the north facing, across the court, the southern building with rooms of northern exposure and flanked on the sides by the buildings of eastern and western chambers. The mansion of a titled or very rich family would have two or more courtyards, one behind another, with the main building separated from the view of the southern building by a wall with a fancy gate or by a guoting (walk-through pavilion). Behind the main building there would be a lesser house in the rear and, connected with the main quadrangle, small "corner courtyards".
The lord and lady of the house lived in the sunny main building and their children in the side chambers. The southern row on the opposite side, those nearest to the entrance gate, were generally used as the study, the reception room, the manservants' dwelling or for sundry purposes.
Not only residences but ancient palaces, government offices, temples and monasteries were built basically on the pattern of the siheyuan, a common feature of traditional Chinese architecture.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- The Chinese Quadrangle (China Travel, Li River)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Bridges (Guilin China, Yangshuo China)
Chinese bridges from ancient times, highly varied in material and form, are an important legacy with national characteristics, occupying an important position in the world history of bridge building.
China, a country with such a long history, has inherited from her past bridges without number: there are, it is said, four milion of them if one counts the stone arch bridges alone. In the southern regions of rivers and lakes, the landscape is dotted with bridges of various sized and descriptions, which make it all the more picturesque.
The Stone Arch Bridge
The stone arch bridge is the most common type of bridges one sees in China. According to historical records, the first stone arch bridge named Lurenqiao (Wayfarers' Bridge) was built in A.D. 282 near the ancient Luoyang Palace. That was more than 1,700 years ago. Then, in a Luoyang tomb dating back to the early Zhou Dynasty, archaeologists found the gate to the burial chamber to be of arch structure, showing that the stone arch existed in China already in about 250 B.C. at the latest.
Anji Bridge is the most famous stone arch bridge in China. It spans the Jiaohe River in Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province, and is better known as Zhaozhou Bridge after the ancient name of the county. Built during the years 591-599 A.D. by the mason Li Chun, it is still being used as a bridge, so is one of the bridges with the longest service life in the world. It is 9 metres wide and stretches all its 50.82 metres on a single arch spanning 37.4 metres of the river. On each of the "shoulder" of the main arch, there are two spandrel or minor arches. They not only improve the general look of the bridge but help to reduce its weight and thus lighten the load on its foundations. In times of flood water, the minor arches join the main one to facilitate the passage of the current, weakening its impact on the body of the bridge. A masterpiece of bridge construction, this old stone structure has been taken in subsequent ages as the model for stone arch bridges.
On wide rivers and lakes, multiple arch bridges were erected of stone. One of them is Lugouqiao (better known to Westerners as Marco Polo Bridge). Built in 1189-1192 in the southern vicinity of Beijing, it is 265 metres long and lies on 11 arches which range in their span from 16 to 20 metres. The tops of the 280 stone balusters flanking the bridge are carved in the form of squatting lions. It is therefore also called popularly as Shiziqiao (Lions Bridge), making it one of the scenic spots around Beijing.
The bridge with the largest number of stone arches is Baodaiqiao (Treasure Belt Bridge) on the Grand Canal in Suzhou. Winding 317 metres long, it is formed of 53 arches, three of which are higher than the others to allow the passage of boats sailing on the main channel. The floor of the bridge is level and smooth, making it easier for the boat-trackers of the old days to trudge on. It is said that the bridge was built with money realized from a precious belt donated by Wang Zhongshu, Governor of Suzhou in the Tang Dynasty (618-907A.D.), hence its name. It has become one of the local sightseeing attractions.
The stone arch bridge is strong and sturdy but capable of being built in a great variety of shapes. It has long been used as a landscaping structure in China. A splendid example is Yudaiqiao (Jade Belt Bridge) in Beijing's Summer Palace. A stone bridge of a single span, it has a high arched back rather like the hump of a camel. Flanked by finely-carved white marble balustrades, it is a picturesque decoration to the lake.
But the typical example of landscape bridges is the Seventeen-arch Bridge in the same palace. Built in 1750, the 150-metre-long bridge has often been compared to a rainbow spanning the lake between the eastern shore and the Nanhu Island. Adorning the stone balustrades on the sides are 554 lively lions exquisitely carved out of marble.
Technical improvements have been made since the founding of New China. In 1966 a single-span stone bridge with minor arches was built at Yixiantian on the Chengdu-Kunming Railways. It is the largest of its kind, being 63.2 metres long, 26 metres high, with the main arch spanning 54 metres. Again in 1971, a stone bridge was constructed at Jiuxigou in Fengdu County, Sichuan Province. Straddling 116 meters on a single span, it is the largest single-arch stone bridge in China up to date.
Stone arch bridges are highly resistant to weathering and can be very beautiful and dignified. Their material is often available locally. For these reasons, they still have a great future even though other bridges are being built with more modem techniques.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Bridges (Guilin China, Yangshuo China)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
China, a country with such a long history, has inherited from her past bridges without number: there are, it is said, four milion of them if one counts the stone arch bridges alone. In the southern regions of rivers and lakes, the landscape is dotted with bridges of various sized and descriptions, which make it all the more picturesque.
The Stone Arch Bridge
The stone arch bridge is the most common type of bridges one sees in China. According to historical records, the first stone arch bridge named Lurenqiao (Wayfarers' Bridge) was built in A.D. 282 near the ancient Luoyang Palace. That was more than 1,700 years ago. Then, in a Luoyang tomb dating back to the early Zhou Dynasty, archaeologists found the gate to the burial chamber to be of arch structure, showing that the stone arch existed in China already in about 250 B.C. at the latest.
Anji Bridge is the most famous stone arch bridge in China. It spans the Jiaohe River in Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province, and is better known as Zhaozhou Bridge after the ancient name of the county. Built during the years 591-599 A.D. by the mason Li Chun, it is still being used as a bridge, so is one of the bridges with the longest service life in the world. It is 9 metres wide and stretches all its 50.82 metres on a single arch spanning 37.4 metres of the river. On each of the "shoulder" of the main arch, there are two spandrel or minor arches. They not only improve the general look of the bridge but help to reduce its weight and thus lighten the load on its foundations. In times of flood water, the minor arches join the main one to facilitate the passage of the current, weakening its impact on the body of the bridge. A masterpiece of bridge construction, this old stone structure has been taken in subsequent ages as the model for stone arch bridges.
On wide rivers and lakes, multiple arch bridges were erected of stone. One of them is Lugouqiao (better known to Westerners as Marco Polo Bridge). Built in 1189-1192 in the southern vicinity of Beijing, it is 265 metres long and lies on 11 arches which range in their span from 16 to 20 metres. The tops of the 280 stone balusters flanking the bridge are carved in the form of squatting lions. It is therefore also called popularly as Shiziqiao (Lions Bridge), making it one of the scenic spots around Beijing.
The bridge with the largest number of stone arches is Baodaiqiao (Treasure Belt Bridge) on the Grand Canal in Suzhou. Winding 317 metres long, it is formed of 53 arches, three of which are higher than the others to allow the passage of boats sailing on the main channel. The floor of the bridge is level and smooth, making it easier for the boat-trackers of the old days to trudge on. It is said that the bridge was built with money realized from a precious belt donated by Wang Zhongshu, Governor of Suzhou in the Tang Dynasty (618-907A.D.), hence its name. It has become one of the local sightseeing attractions.
The stone arch bridge is strong and sturdy but capable of being built in a great variety of shapes. It has long been used as a landscaping structure in China. A splendid example is Yudaiqiao (Jade Belt Bridge) in Beijing's Summer Palace. A stone bridge of a single span, it has a high arched back rather like the hump of a camel. Flanked by finely-carved white marble balustrades, it is a picturesque decoration to the lake.
But the typical example of landscape bridges is the Seventeen-arch Bridge in the same palace. Built in 1750, the 150-metre-long bridge has often been compared to a rainbow spanning the lake between the eastern shore and the Nanhu Island. Adorning the stone balustrades on the sides are 554 lively lions exquisitely carved out of marble.
Technical improvements have been made since the founding of New China. In 1966 a single-span stone bridge with minor arches was built at Yixiantian on the Chengdu-Kunming Railways. It is the largest of its kind, being 63.2 metres long, 26 metres high, with the main arch spanning 54 metres. Again in 1971, a stone bridge was constructed at Jiuxigou in Fengdu County, Sichuan Province. Straddling 116 meters on a single span, it is the largest single-arch stone bridge in China up to date.
Stone arch bridges are highly resistant to weathering and can be very beautiful and dignified. Their material is often available locally. For these reasons, they still have a great future even though other bridges are being built with more modem techniques.
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Bridges (Guilin China, Yangshuo China)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Yangshuo tour- Underground Irrigation Tunnels (Guilin Tours, Guilin Hotels)
In the Hami and Turpan areas of Xinjiang, there is an unusual kind of irrigation system formed by underground tunnels and wells. A system worked out by the people in the light of local climate and topography, it has a history of over 2,000 years.
These areas are extremely arid. The Turpan area, for instance, has an annual precipitation of 16 mm only but a rate of evaporation of 3,000 mm. Given such conditions, surface irrigation is evidently out of the question. Fortunately Turpan is a basin surrounded by snow-covered mountains, which prove to be sources of abundant underground water. Making use of the land inclination, the local people succeeded in building such kan'erjing systems. Though simple in construction, the tunnels and wells represent gigantic engineering work. First many perpendicular wells are sunk at inervals of one or several dozen metres. Then underground tunnels are dug, linking up the bottoms of the wells. The sand and gravel thus excavated are usually piled around the mouths of the wells, making them look like miniature volcano crater.
The depths of the wells vary from those on high ground, which are as deep as 60-70 metres, to those close to the outlet of the water, which are only a few metres.
The underground water, following the sloping tunnels, flows in a steady stream to the oases, where it is guided into open channels and finally farmlands, making an ideal system of irrigation by gravity flow.
The tunnels are generally about three kilometres long, but can be more than ten kilometres in some exceptional cases. According to a recent count, there are in the Turpan area alone 300 underground irrigation channels. In the whole of Xinjiang, the total length of all kan'er jing is estimated at 3,000 kilometres, forming a great underground canal system. The Xinjiang kan'erjing, also known as "karez", is thought to have been introduced from ancient Persia. Historical sources suggest, however, it may have been developed in China proper. According to the Book on Rivers and Channels of Sima Qian's Historical Record (completed in about 90B.C.), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (140-87 B.C.) ordered 10,000 troops to build a canal in what was today's Shaanxi Province. But the earth in these parts was loose, landslides were frequent, so wells were sunk, some as much as 40 zhang", deep, and they were linked up from below to allow the water to flow..." It was thus obvious that a karez was built in China as early as 2,000 years ago. Wang Guowei (1877-1927), a scholar on the history of Xinjiang, in his Channel-Building in the Northwest, offered the theory that it was people from the Han Empire who came to Xinjiang after relations were established and taught the local people how to construct underground tunnels through the soft, sandy and collapsible ground.
Visitors to Turpan as a rule wish to try the local grapes and inspect a kan 'erjing irrigation system. They are fight in menttioning these two things in the same breath, for without underground irrigation how could the "Land of Flames" produce grapes so sweet and tasty?
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Underground Irrigation Tunnels (Guilin Tours, Guilin Hotels)
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These areas are extremely arid. The Turpan area, for instance, has an annual precipitation of 16 mm only but a rate of evaporation of 3,000 mm. Given such conditions, surface irrigation is evidently out of the question. Fortunately Turpan is a basin surrounded by snow-covered mountains, which prove to be sources of abundant underground water. Making use of the land inclination, the local people succeeded in building such kan'erjing systems. Though simple in construction, the tunnels and wells represent gigantic engineering work. First many perpendicular wells are sunk at inervals of one or several dozen metres. Then underground tunnels are dug, linking up the bottoms of the wells. The sand and gravel thus excavated are usually piled around the mouths of the wells, making them look like miniature volcano crater.
The depths of the wells vary from those on high ground, which are as deep as 60-70 metres, to those close to the outlet of the water, which are only a few metres.
The underground water, following the sloping tunnels, flows in a steady stream to the oases, where it is guided into open channels and finally farmlands, making an ideal system of irrigation by gravity flow.
The tunnels are generally about three kilometres long, but can be more than ten kilometres in some exceptional cases. According to a recent count, there are in the Turpan area alone 300 underground irrigation channels. In the whole of Xinjiang, the total length of all kan'er jing is estimated at 3,000 kilometres, forming a great underground canal system. The Xinjiang kan'erjing, also known as "karez", is thought to have been introduced from ancient Persia. Historical sources suggest, however, it may have been developed in China proper. According to the Book on Rivers and Channels of Sima Qian's Historical Record (completed in about 90B.C.), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (140-87 B.C.) ordered 10,000 troops to build a canal in what was today's Shaanxi Province. But the earth in these parts was loose, landslides were frequent, so wells were sunk, some as much as 40 zhang", deep, and they were linked up from below to allow the water to flow..." It was thus obvious that a karez was built in China as early as 2,000 years ago. Wang Guowei (1877-1927), a scholar on the history of Xinjiang, in his Channel-Building in the Northwest, offered the theory that it was people from the Han Empire who came to Xinjiang after relations were established and taught the local people how to construct underground tunnels through the soft, sandy and collapsible ground.
Visitors to Turpan as a rule wish to try the local grapes and inspect a kan 'erjing irrigation system. They are fight in menttioning these two things in the same breath, for without underground irrigation how could the "Land of Flames" produce grapes so sweet and tasty?
Source: China tour, yangshuo tour- Underground Irrigation Tunnels (Guilin Tours, Guilin Hotels)
China tours website will lead you to discover symbolized Silk Road Tours, unique ice-covered Tibet Tours, magnificent Yangtze River Tours…It will introduce the famous traveling city Guilin and Yangshuo which the scenery is second to none in guilin. China has rich culture and history.
Luxurious Guilin Hotels, Holiday Villages, folk travel will cater the foreigners many ideal accommodations. As well as Yangshuo China Travel Guide information: the world fairyland; Chinese culture, with a long history. Yangshuo Attraction, Guilin Attraction guide, China Attraction guide, Chinese history and culture exhibition, all beautiful China hills and water, and Yangshuo China Hotels.
Guilin not only has beautiful scenery and human sites, but also has diversity of folk culture. It will show you rich Yangshuo Tour Packages, furthermore, provide Chinese medicine, kongfu and paintings and other Guilin Tours for the foreign friends who love the Chinese culture.
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