The Forbidden city 2

The lion, a symbol of strength.

The throng of people visiting the Forbidden city, it was called Forbidden because no ordinary people was allowed in there only the Royal family and their workers. Not only that, during the reign of the last Emperor, because the Royal family were pure Manchus, only people of Manchurian descent were allowed in.

The yellow roof tiles, that Henry Pu Yi wrote about in his memoir.

For a long time I was baffled, where was Manchuria? The area just to the North and East of Beijing was Manchuria and the people from there were Manchurians. Manchuria does not exists anymore. Their people were sinicized years ago, they adopted the Chinese language and culture and therefore became indistinguishable from the the Han Chinese. In those days the Manchurian men wore a pigtail and they imposed this on the Han Chinese when they ruled over them. So when the Chinese men started to dispersed all over the world, they still wore their pigtails. My grandfather wore his pigtail when he landed in Borneo. He always told us, he brought his chain with him, the chain that bounded him in China, he brought to the new world.