Bĕi Hǎi Park 北海公园
Imperial playgound
Part of A Better Guide to Beijing’s coverage of the Imperial City
This is the oldest section of the entire Imperial City. The North Lake was first dug out and the artificial hills created during the Tartar Jīn dynasty in about 1179, and they were remodelled during the Yuán by Khubilai Khan (the white dagoba is mentioned in Marco Polo’s Travels, although it’s doubtful he ever saw it himself). More buildings were added by the Míng Yǒnglè emperor during Běijīng’s overall redesign, and it was further adapted by the Qīng Qiánlóng emperor.
Originally of a piece with the Middle and South Lakes (Zhōng Nán Hǎi), this giant imperial pleasure ground was bisected by a road during the Republic, and the southern section became the home of the president, although all three lakes were later opened to the public in 1925. The southern two have now been separately enclosed as the ‘new Forbidden City’ of the modern emperors, but the Běi Hǎi is a very popular park for local people, with boating activities and radio-controlled model speedboats on the lake. Overall it is not a place for contemplation, although it’s much quieter on the north side. In winter the lake was once guaranteed to freeze (see picture of the Qiánlóng emperor at play in the Běijīng Imperial Art Museum), but this is less common, though early photographs show skating scenes that would have attracted the brush of an oriental Brueghel.
Inside the south entrance and just to the left, the Tuánchéng (团城, Round City), in a mixed state of repair, is a raised circular terrace topped with several small buildings. A pavilion contains an enormous jade urn, claimed to weigh 3500 kilos and carved with sea monsters on the outside and poetry on the inside. Used as a wine jar by Khubilai Khan, it was somehow purged during the Míng and ended up as a pickling vat. Rediscovered and rehabilitated by Qiánlóng, who bought it for 1,000 ounces of silver, it was placed in its present position in 1749. Also worth noting is the Chéngguāng Diàn (承光殿, Hall for Receiving Light), which houses a 1½m-high Buddha statue which originated in Burma and is made from ‘white jade’. Around the building are several cypresses thought to be as much as 800 years old.
The striking white flask-shaped dagoba, visible from across Běijīng on clearer days, was originally built in 1651 by the first Qīng emperor to reign in Běijīng, Shùnzhì, in a style still common to Tibet and Mongolia. It was intended to welcome a visit from Tibet by the Dalai Lama of the day, and stands atop an island, the Qióng Dǎo (琼岛, Jade Island), reached by a bridge from near the south entrance. A steep climb through the halls of the Yǒng’ān Sì (永安寺, Temple of Eternal Peace) leads to the dagoba, which was twice reconstructed following earthquake damage. The temple buildings house bronze and wooden statues of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats, and Panchen and Dalai Lamas, as well as the guardian deity of Běijīng (who clearly hasn’t been doing much of a job), and are said to be partly dedicated to the mythical empress who taught the Chinese sericulture.
Paths down the other side of the hill are confusing and often lead to dead ends, so it’s best to return the way you came and walk around the base to find various other dotted pavilions and a stele with Qiánlóng’s calligraphy from 1751 identifying this as one of his ‘Eight Scenic Spots’. A long corridor around the north side, said to have been beloved of Cíxǐ, passes the avoidable, tour-group-oriented Fǎng Shàn (‘copy meals’) restaurant, which has been supposedly reproducing banquets from the Imperial kitchens since 1964. The proletariat ate at the park’s own branch of KFC on the south side of the island until it was ejected in 2002 and replaced with a more Chinese option.
Most visits end here, but the north shore of the lake has more to see, and the walk up its east side is pleasant. You may see people using the flagstones as squared paper is sometimes used for calligraphy, wielding giant brushes to fill each space with a single character before stepping back to do the next, using water rather than ink.
The north shore has several series of halls of different purposes and dates. As you approach from the east, the first is the Jìngxīn Zhāi (静心斋, Studio of the Quiet Heart), a favourite hall of Qiánlóng’s with pools in front and behind. It now contains exhibitions of period furniture and ceramics. A gallery at the rear runs behind and above a decorative rockery, giving views down to Píng’ān Dà Dào below, a highway smashed through old housing in the late ’90s, and further lakes to the north. You can connect directly to a striking Míng unpainted two-storey cedarwood hall on a marble plinth, the Xiǎo Xī Tiān (小西天, Little Western Heaven), with a yellow-trimmed black roof; it contains three Buddhas and 18 bronze arhats. Further west still, a magnificent double-sided Nine Dragon Screen (九龙壁, Jiǔ Lóng Bì), worth coming to see in itself, once guarded the entrance of a temple which has disappeared. Beyond a labyrinth of more halls and galleries.
Just behind the easternmost of the five fishing pavilions at the water’s edge stands the Yuán dynasty Tiěyǐng Bì (铁影壁, Iron Shadow Screen), a kind of igneous rock 3.5m long and carved with strange creatures. Until modern times was it was kept in a small hútòng named after it.
Once, the most substantial structure here was the 10,000 Buddha Tower, whose destruction is blamed on foreign troops but which was in fact set on fire in 1917 by palace officials to hide the theft of its contents. The site still has very large and fine tiled páilou. The Dà Xī Tiān (大西天, Great Western Heaven), an unusual, high-ceilinged square building containing a golden dragon towering over a garish hill of several layers covered in plaster figures of Buddhist saints, is reached by bridges over a dry moat.
▶ Běi Hǎi Gōngyuán, just E of Jǐng Shān Park, opposite NW corner of Forbidden City, www.beihaipark.com.cn, t 6403 3225, Apr–Oct, 6.30am– 8.30pm; otherwise 8pm; halls and temples 9am–4pm. ¥20; ¥15 in winter; ¥5 park only. m Běi Hǎi North (Line 6) is near the north gate. b to 北海 (south main entrance): 101电车, 103电车, 109电车, 124电车, 685; 北海北门 (north gate): 13, 42, 90电车内环, 90电车外环, 107电车, 111电车, 118电车, 609, 612, 623, 701; 西华门 (east gate): 5.
There’s also an east entrance in Jǐng Shān Xī Jiē, a west entrance on the south side just across the bridge from the main entrance, and a north entrance from Píng’ān Dà Dào (m Běi Hǎi North). At all entrances avoid the pestering hútòng trip rickshaw men — simply use your feet to wander where you please or to follow one of the routes given in this book.
Leaving via the north gate and crossing Píng’ān Dà Dào, you’ll reach the Back Lakes, which were outside the Imperial City, and a short walk around their west side will bring you to Prince Gōng’s Mansion and neighbouring sights. There are still some pleasant daytime walks in hútòng around the lakes, although much of the area has now been invaded by a bedlam of tacky bars and souvenir shops, and pestering rickshaw men. See also the In Search of the Ice Houses walk.
Next in Imperial City: In Search of the Ice Houses (walk)
Previous: Běijīng Planning Exhibition Hall
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