DCCC and Beijing Postcards: Crash Course to the Forbidden City, September 2nd

The DCCC is happy to once again invite members and friends to join us for a walk with Beijing Postcards. We offer a very good member price for this fascinating walk that will change your view on the Forbidden City forever.

Have you ever walked through the Forbidden City and come out on the other side feeling utterly bored? Your Aunt Hilda and Uncle Paul, who are visiting, look clueless, and your kids have been dragging their feet along continuously asking “Are we there yet?” This is now about to change! From now on you will all come to love it! Even your teenage kids!

Beijing Postcards will take you on the ultimate tour of the purple Forbidden City from the magnificent Tiananmen Gate with Mao’s iconic portrait to the top of Coal Hill looking back down on the world’s largest palace so full of hidden stories that it would take a lifetime to know them all. Do you know why Chinese parents of new born children travel from far away regions to stand on the Tiananmen Gate? What was everyday life really like for an emperor, his empress, numerous concubines and thousands of eunuchs? Where are the toilets and kitchens? How did you become a eunuch and why did the younger eunuchs have an extra layer of leather on their buttocks? Why did the concubines of the Jiajing emperor try to strangle him? Was the Dragon Lady, Empress Dowager Cixi, really so evil? What was the real reason why the boy emperor Puyi became impotent?

Stories of pretty tiny lily feet, stunning fragrant concubines and jealous empresses, lonely emperors and opium fumes, sneaky and corrupt eunuchs. All this and much much more all set in the most splendid piece of architecture set right in the middle of Beijing.

Event Details:
Time: 11:00 am -14:30 pm, September 2nd
Price: 200 RMB for members (includes entrance ticket), 300 RMB for non-members
Language: English
Venue: Meeting point is Tian'anmen West Subway Exit B

Please register in advance for this event. We need your passport number, which you can fill in upon signing up or send us separately.