Bring out your Dead / Ming Tombs

  Shisan Ling, China
Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sacred Way

Inspite of my visit to the Temple of Heaven and the fact that I was able to find a Catholic Mass in a godless country, God decided to make it rain on Sunday.  On the bright side I hoped the rain will lessen the crowd at the sites, today.  First indications, it looked like this might be the case.  Our first stop was the Chang Ling Sacred Way, located about 45 km from Beijing in Shendao.  Sacred Way is the official causeway used by the funeral procession on their way to bury a Ming dynasty emperor.  The court officials are required to leave their horses at the gate and precede by walking to the tomb 7 km away.  I am sure the less popular emperors were left at the side of the road.

Lined along the road are 18 sets of stone statues (2xlion, 2xXiezhi, 2xcamel, 2xelephant, 2xKylin, 2xhorse, 2xmilitary officer, 2xcivil official, and 2xhonored official).  The reason there are two sets of each creature is to represent that one half is on duty while the other half is resting.  The poses of the statues would have an at rest

Lion on duty

pose and an on duty pose, except for the officials...at least I could not determine a noticeable difference.  I guess the officials are at the emperors beg and call 24/7.  Due to the fact there was hardly anybody there, the place was rather creepy...I swear I saw one of the statues change poses.

My hope was shattered when we arrived at the Chang Ling tomb and saw lots of buses & throngs of "red hats".  Oh well, I guess I will have to figure out a way to get some alone time with my guide.  There are actually 13 burial sites and Chang Ling was one of three open to the public (the other two are Ding Ling and Zhao Ling).  If I had my choice I would have gone to Ding Ling because according to the "Lonely Planet" guide, you are allowed to enter the underground vault and see marble door that sealed the burial chamber.  When I asked my guide if we could go there, she said no because...you guessed it...it was being renovated.

Hall of Eminent Favor

However I was still quite happy with what I saw at this site.  As the typical design, there are 3 gates leading to the burial mound.  In between the 2nd and 3rd gate is the Hall of Eminent Favor.  Inside the hall is a giant statue of Emperor Yongle and some objects belonging to the royal family.  The display cases are arranged along the wall and to be different we went in the opposite direction to traffic.  We seemed to do this quite often.  I do not know whether my guide is doing this on purpose or if she like myself is confused with the randomness of whether you are to view the displays in a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion.  The pieces I liked the most was the different headware and crowns of the royal family.  There were no display of this nature at the Shanghai museum but there plenty of bronze, porcelain and jade objects of which the Shanghai collection was more impressive.

Emperor's crown

Empress headgear

As I am crossing the third gate, Ling Xing Gate (Gate on the Threshold of Stars), my guide yanked me back.  She told me that the gate seperated the world of the living and the dead.  It was bad luck to cross under the gate, so we walked around.  At the top of the hill is the Soul Tower and behind it the burial mound.  My guide informed me that the Emperor, Empress and all is concubines were buried there.  I wonder how many unwillingly went with him to the great beyond.  On our way back, we are allowed to cross under the gate.  My guide taught me a Chinese expression meaning "I am back", which we yelled as we crossed.  Some of the other foreign tour groups did not have such kind guides because they were allowed to cross under the gate in the wrong direction.  I did notice that their guides slyly manuevered around the gate.  I know my guide was not blowing smoke up my *** because the "red hats" all crossed under the gate yelling the same expression.
Onward to the whole reason for this trip, the Great Wall.