Posts Tagged ‘China’

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Down Memory Lane: The Summer Palace

December 2, 2025

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In 1987 I was one of five professors from our college that spent a summer teaching English to the some of the faculty and staff of our sister college in Tianjin, China.  One day our hosts took us and several of our students to see the Summer Palace in Beijing.

The Summer Palace was an imperial garden during the Qing dynasty, and is a vast collection off lakes, gardens, and palaces.  The architecture was in a traditional Chinese style.

The ornamentation on the roofs of the palace was exquisite.

On of the features of the Summer Palace was the Long Corridor, a covered walkway that contained approximately 14,000 paintings, most of which were derived from classical Chinese literature.

Water makes up three-quarters of the grounds of the Summer Palace.  Kunming Lake is the largest of the bodies of water and provides a beautiful and relaxing sight.

Another outstanding attraction of the palace is the Marble Boat.  In reality it is a tea room, but it was built in the style of ships in the Chinese navy. 

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Terra Cotta Soldiers

July 29, 2025

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One of the high points of my first trip to China in 1987 was a visit to Xian, China, to see the terra cotta soldiers.

Xian was an ancient capital of China, and was the home of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.  The terra cotta soldiers made up an army that was buried with the emperor and was to guard him in his afternoon.  The terra cotta army consisted of at least 8,000 soldiers of all ranks plus horses and chariots.

The soldiers were still being excavated when we were there, but we could see column upon column of soldiers

The facial characteristics of the soldiers were amazing in their detail and variety.  It almost seemed as if soldier represented a unique individual.

The attention to detail also included the uniforms of the soldiers, as can be seen in the archer shown above.

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Down Memory Lane: Xian

April 29, 2025

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I first went to China in 1987 as part of an exchange program between my college and a Chinese university.  As part of the agreement, our hosts arranged for our group to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers.

In order to see the soldiers we had to take an overnight train from Beijing to Xian, the old imperial capitol of China.  We arrived in Xian in the late morning, so we were given a tour of the city before going to see the soldiers the ext day.

One of the landmarks of the city is the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (pictured above).  We were able to go into the pagoda and get a bird’s-eye view of the city.

We also visited the Stone Forest, which is a museum of steele’s going back to the imperial era.  We couldn’t read the inscriptions, but they were still very interesting to see.

Later in the afternoon we visited the old city wall of Xian and walked along it.

While walking along the wall we saw a drum that was used to sound an alarm when needed.  The drum was in a watch tower along the wall.

Since we were in Xian on July 4, our hosts took us, after dark, to a hotel that served foreign tourists.  That hotel had a sidewalk fireworks display in honor of the Fourth of July.  I’ve never been so close to a fireworks display in my like.

If you would like to see more pictures of Xian, click HERE.

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Marble Boat

April 15, 2025

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One of the highlights of the imperial Summer Palace in Beijing is the ‘marble boat’.  It’s not really made of marble, although the superstructure was decorated to look like marble.  The original boat was built in 1755 by Emperor Qinglong, but was destroyed by British forces in 1860.  The current boat was built in 1893 by the Dowager Empress Cixi  Legend says she used funds allocated for the Chinese navy to build this boat at the Summer Palace, but that story has never been proven.  The ‘marble boat’ is a pavilion that was used bu the empress for enjoying the beauty of the Summer Palace while she had her breakfast or dinner. I got this photo of the ‘marble boat’ when I visited the Summer Palace in 1987.

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Down Memory Lane: Kunming Lake

April 1, 2025

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I’ve been fortunate to be able to teach English as a second language in China on four different occasions. My first trip was in the summer of 1987 when I took part in an exchange program with other professors from the college at which I taught.  During the summer the Chinese university took us and some of our students to the imperial Summer Palace near Beijing.  Kunming Lake is the largest lake in the palace grounds.  I captured this peaceful scene while walking along the shore.

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Down Memory Lane: Aberdeen (Hong Kong)

January 21, 2025

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Aberdeen is an area of southwestern Hong Kong Island, and includes Aberdeen Harbor, which is one of nine harbors in Hong Kong.

In 1987 I was a member of a team of professors from Heidelberg College in Ohio who were going to mainline Chine to teach English as a second language.  We flew into Hong Kong, and before going into China we spent several days touring the area.

Back then Aberdeen was known for its floating village and floating restaurants.  We didn’t visit any of the restaurants, but we were able to visit the floating village while touring the harbor on a sampan.  The residents of the village were fishermen, who lived with their families on boats

There were also boat yards in Aberdeen where boats were built and retired.

The area was beginning to change, as there were several high rise buildings around the harbor.

After touring the harbor we visited some of the outlying areas,  We visited Repulse Bay, a beautiful body of water that got it’s name (so a story goes) from a British  warship, HMS Repulse, that anchored there is the mid-nineteenth century.  The bay is beautiful, regardless of how it got it’s name.

To see more pictures from Aberdeen, click HERE

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The Great Wall

May 9, 2023

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I captured this image as a slide when I visited the Great Wall for the first time in 1987. I had climbed along the wall above the gate at Badaling (near Beijing), and was rewarded with the sight of the wall winding along the ridges and mountain tops. It was truly an amazing sight!

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Our World: Aberdeen in Hong Kong

July 22, 2013

1987 -- Aberdeen

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This is my post for the Our World meme.  This meme is a second generation of My World Tuesday created by Klaus Peter and is hosted by five wonderful ladies.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

I found many things to be fascinating on my first visit to Hong Kong way back in 1987.  One of the things that surprised me was learning that there is an area of Hong Kong known as Aberdeen.

Aberdeen is on the southern tip of Hong Kong Island.  At one time in was a pirates’ den, but later became a simple fishing village.  In spite of modernization, there were still hundreds of junks and sampans that serve as floating homes for some of the people.

Aberdeen is the home to a couple of large floating seafood restaurants, which we unfortunately did not get to sample during our visit.

The collage contains images scanned from slides I took during my 1987 visit.  At the top left are some of the sampans used as homes by the fisherman.  On the right is a photo of one of the floating restaurants.  The middle photo is of a boatyard in Aberdeen.  The two photos on the bottom are from Repulse Bay, a beautiful part of Hong Kong Island not far from Aberdeen.

To see larger versions of these pictures and others, click HERE.

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Down Memory Lane: The Great Wall

August 17, 2012

Scenes from a visit to the Great Wall of China in 1987.

I first saw the Great Wall of China in 1987.  I was in China with a group of other professors from our college on an exchange program.  In some ways it’s hard to believe that so many years have passed since then, but the memories are still fresh.  These are just some of the pictures I took on that memorable day.

To see other pictures from the Great Wall, click HERE.

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Down Memory Lane: The Ming Tombs (1987)

April 28, 2011

One of the places I visited on my first trip to China in 1987 was the Ming Tombs, which are about 30 miles northwest of Beijing.  The Ming Tombs refer to the mausoleums of 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644.

The first two Ming emperors ruled from Nanjing in the south of China, but the third emperor, Zhu Di, moved the capital to Beijing.  It was Zhu Di who began building the Forbidden City and who built the first of the Ming Tombs.

One of the most unusual of the thirteen tombs is Dingling, the tomb of Zhu Yijun.  This tomb in an underground palace complete with a throne room for the spirit of the emperor.  I was fortunate enough to be able to tour Dingling.

The tombs are approached along a Spirit Way, also known as the Avenue of the Animals because of the large stone animals and officials who stand guard along the road.

The Ming Tombs are truly fascinating both for the architecture of the structures and for the glimpse they provide of Chinese culture and history.  If you are ever in Beijing, the tombs are well worth a visit.

To see larger versions of these pictures and others, click HERE.

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