The Forbidden City

Thursday (05/04/2012)

a) Vocabulary Flashcards.
l As usual, we recapped words that we have learnt. New words including: bricks,
sand, stones, clay, binocular, Emperor, army, spring roll.

b) The Popular Chinese Palace.
l It is popularly known as “The Forbidden City”. China is famous for its big and
longest Great Wall, biggest number of population, the biggest number of towers
in future. It also has a big number of factories and it also has the biggest
Emperor palace in the world.
l It
was built by almost a million of people and is located in Beijing. It served the homes of emperors for
almost 500 years. It took about 14 years to be constructed. It has almost 9,999
rooms. The wall is a s high as Great Wall and the walls are well built with
watch towers as well as Canon proof…..wow! Today, it is opened for tourist and
other ceremonies. In the past, only royals and armies could be in the palace.
The citizens are forbidden.
l We
then watched a video clip on “The Forbidden City”.

c) A Storybook: The Chinese Palace.
l During
the Emperors’ years, the palace accommodates many singers and dancers. They
performed for special ceremonies such as Emperors’ birthday. The palace became
popular under the governance of the 3rd Emperor. He was a good army,
he taught his armies good military skills, he wrote lots of books and thus, had
encouraged written ideas.
l Its
palace was built with total balance. Example: if there are 5 halls on the left,
the same goes on the right! The Chinese related that balancing is very
important because an ox cart cannot move with a wheel. If we looked at the
palace structure, it was built similar to a human’s skeleton.
l Emperor
is believed to be the Heaven’s God. Everyone respects him dearly. In the place
some rooms were used as courts. Some as schools, some as antique rooms, some as
meeting rooms, some as guest rooms and some as ceremony rooms. Today, modern
Chinese can rent f the rooms for their wedding celebration.
l An
Emperor gets married to many wives. Many beautiful village girls who were poor would
dressed up beautifully and sit for exams before being qualified as his wives! (We
later discussed that modern society disagreed with this culture as it creates
family problems. Alisa said that they would be the stepmother nobody in the
class love the idea too!)
l Ancient
armies are always in the Forbidden City to
protect his Emperor! Forbidden City has been
an amazing palace and even builders today are learning from its beautiful
architectures.