A Whirlwind Tour of Beijing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square is directly south of the Forbidden City; the gate leading north to the palace is called the Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peacemaking. As much a building as a gate, the Tiananmen (first built in 1420) stands some 66 meters wide and 32 meters high, with five arched passages through. The central passage -- the one through which, in ages past, only the emperor could pass -- is now topped by a large portrait of the late Mao Tse-Tung, first leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

On the western side of the Square stands the Great Hall of the People, the parliament building; at the eastern edge is the National Museum of China. The Qianmen (Front Gate), once a part of the city wall, marks its southern boundary. In between are a statue memorializing two centuries' worth of Chinese revolutionary martyrs, and the mausoleum of Chairman Mao -- where long lines of people wait solemnly to pay their respects to his embalmed remains. To those who remember seeing the famous footage, the Square also brings to mind the ill-fated student protests held here in 1989. Demanding democracy through demonstrations and hunger strikes, the protestors eventually fell to a military assault that cleared the square. Estimates of civilian deaths range from one or two hundred (according to the government) to several thousand (according to the Chinese Red Cross.)

Answer: Taipei, Taiwan

Completed in 1420, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Forbidden City was home to emperors and their entourages for almost 500 years. Now a museum, major tourist site, and popular backdrop for martial arts movies, the palace is no longer forbidden (at least, not to anyone able to pay the admissions fee). Its stunning buildings house numerous collections that by themselves make a visit worthwhile, from Qing-era armor and weaponry to a vast collection of clocks.

These collections, however, are incomplete -- a sore point with the museum's curators. Almost 1.2 million artifacts were kept in the Forbidden City in the 1920s, but, in a Herculean effort, most of them were hidden in advance of the Japanese invasion. The end of the Second World War, however, heralded a renewal of China's civil war between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communist Party, and nearly 3,000 boxes' worth of the most precious artifacts were taken to Taiwan by the fleeing leaders of the Nationalist government. There are two Palace Museums now, one in Beijing and one in Taipei, each regarding the other with wariness.

Answer: A lake

The lake in Beihai Park ("Beihai" means "northern sea") is actually not, strictly speaking, a geological formation. It was excavated and filled with water by order of the Jin emperors, a few hundred years into the park's thousand-year history, and the soil was used to build artificial hills and islands. One of these islands is now home to the White Dagoba, a Buddhist reliquary that has been a beloved symbol of Beijing since its construction in 1651. The gardens were once forbidden to all but the emperors and their entourages, but opened to the public in 1925; the southern end of the park, Zhongnanhai, is still a walled compound, housing the most important leaders and institutions of China's government.

Take a little while to stroll through Beihai. On a warm day, you might find elderly couples waltzing to music from a boombox. Early mornings see crowds performing the motions of tai chi to the sunrise; in the evenings, migrant workers gather by the lakeside to sing songs of the provinces in which they spent their childhoods. Pay close attention to the calligraphers practicing their brushwork on the pavement: they use water for their ink, so that the first lines of their poetry are vanishing by the time the last lines are written.

Answer: The Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven was built in the early 1400s by the Ming Emperor Yong-le, the same impressive man who brought the imperial capital to Beijing and who built the Forbidden City. Emperors of this period were regarded as having the Mandate of Heaven, a divine blessing on their rule, and were thus entitled to intercede with the gods for the benefit of their people. The imperial rites at the Temple of Heaven were therefore of crucial importance: if an emperor's prayer for good harvests was answered with a famine, it was a sign that his Mandate -- the legitimacy of his rule -- might have been revoked.

The Temple's beautiful wooden buildings are vested with deep layers of symbolism. The imperial number nine appears everywhere, notably in the 9 stepped tiers (each composed of a multiple of nine plates) that ring the Circular Mound Altar. Major buildings and altars are circular (representing the dome of heaven), rising above rectangular grounds (representing the flatness of the Earth). And if it's a sunny day, prepare to be impressed by the deep blue of temple roof tiles, chosen to recall the color of the heavens.

Answer: As a palace -- first for court eunuchs, then for the Crown Prince

A project of the Qing Dynasty, work on the eunuchs' court at what is now Yonghegong began at the close of the 1600s, but it was not long before it became a palace court for Prince Yong -- who had impressed his father with his fair handling of the aftermath of a flood in the south of China. When the Prince ascended to the throne, becoming Emperor Yongzheng in 1722, he ordered that part of his palace be converted into a monastery, and its religious evolution began.

As we travel north through the temple complex, you'll notice that this is far more active a place of worship than the Temple of Heaven. Monks and laypeople alike turn prayer wheels and burn incense offerings before statues of the bodhisattvas, holy people who have postponed their own enlightenment in order to help those further behind on the path. At the far north is Wanfuge, the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses, which houses a truly impressive piece of religious art: a 60-foot (18-meter) statue of a standing Buddha, carved from a single sandalwood tree.

Answer: Bell Tower and Drum Tower

Beijing has had a Bell Tower (Zhonglou) and a Drum Tower (Gulou) since the reign of Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century, but it wasn't until 1420 that the towers moved to their present locations. (The Bell Tower had to be rebuilt in the 1740s after burning down; it's now made of gray stone rather than the original wood.) Standing two stories above the street, the towers' sound -- from a 16-tonne bronze bell and a collection of 24 drums -- could be heard for miles. Using some ingenious mechanical contraptions, the Drum Tower's drums could even be beaten automatically, based on the timekeeping of the Tower's four clepsydrae (water clocks).

We'll pause here for several minutes, so feel free to climb the steep stairs of the towers and admire the phenomenal view of the surrounding hutongs and distant skyscrapers. If the timing is right, you may even get to enjoy one of the Drum Tower's regular performances!

Answer: Cixi

Little is known of Empress Dowager Cixi's family -- in fact, we don't even know with certainty the name that they gave her -- but, as a beautiful girl of about sixteen, she became a low-ranking concubine of Emperor Xianfeng in 1851. Five years later, her position improved dramatically when she gave birth to a child named Zaichun, the only one of the Emperor's sons to survive childhood. When the Emperor died in 1861, she was quick to consolidate her power, and ruled "from behind the curtains" (to borrow a Chinese phrase) until she died in 1908.

The Summer Palace had been ransacked in the Second Opium War, just before the death of Xianfeng. It was rebuilt in its present form in the 1870s, as part of an effort by the new Emperor to get his mother out of the Forbidden City and off his throne. Cixi, however, took the blame for its reconstruction and constant refurbishments; popularly accused of using naval funds to build the palace, she is said to have mocked her advisers by commissioning a boat made entirely of marble.

Take your time walking along Kunming Lake, from pavilion to pavilion and bridge to bride. Be sure to admire the Long Corridor, a 728-meter (2390 feet) hallway adorned with more than 14,000 paintings; its most martial scenes contrast strikingly with the tranquility of the lake and surrounding hills.

Answer: The Cultural Revolution

In the 1950s, a cadre of scholars received permission from the Chinese government to excavate Ding Ling. One of the largest of the Ming tombs, it was thought that it would make an excellent practice run for the largest tomb, Chang Ling, which belonged to a more historically significant emperor. The dig was a success, but -- unfortunately for the world -- its aftermath was a disaster. Under great political pressure to finish quickly, archaeologists were unable to keep proper records or protect the artifacts they'd uncovered from the elements -- and their work was stopped entirely by the arrival of the Cultural Revolution, a tragic ten-year period of anti-intellectual purges and anti-religious violence, and general terror that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives (that's an optimistic estimate). The centuries-old remains of Emperor Wan Li and his concubines seem to have been among its victims; so were some of the archaeologists who had brought them to light.

The Ming Tombs are peaceful now, tucked away on a tranquil mountainside and sheltered from the northern winds. To visit the tombs, we'll follow the Sacred Way, built as the emperors' pathway to heaven and guarded by intricately carved guardians, from courtiers to horses to qilin (mythical creatures much like unicorns). Feel free to wander, but don't be late returning to the bus: we aren't finished yet!

Answer: No

The Wall may be long (although time and disrepair have ensured that it is no longer one uninterrupted stretch), but it is also narrow. At its widest point it's only about 9 meters (30 feet) wide -- narrower than three lanes of traffic -- and, having been built of local stones and clay, its color blends in with the land around it. Urban legend may claim that it's "the only man-made structure visible from the Moon," but in reality it's difficult even to make out the continents from there -- the Earth appears surprisingly small, and is shrouded in clouds.

It may not quite live up to urban legend, but it's still an impressive achievement. Starting around 2500 years ago, one dynasty after another constructed a "Great Wall" across northern China to stave off invasion. Its location changed from age to age, but a few things stayed constant. Building the wall came at tremendous cost, both financial and human; without modern sanitation and medicine, laborers were appallingly vulnerable to disease, accident, and exposure. And it did not always protect the emperors who invested so much in it: the Ming dynasty, which built the wall we see today, fell when a disgruntled general opened the gates to allow the Manchu invasion in.

If you're wearing comfortable shoes, be sure to hike a bit along the top of the wall, between the watchtowers; you can escape the worst of the tourist crush and take some stunning photographs.

Answer: The Jing has an elaborately painted face.

In Beijing opera -- an art renowned for its stylization and symbolism -- the characters themselves fall into four broad types: the Sheng, or main male role; the Dan, or female role (once played by men, when women were banned from performing in Beijing); the Jing, or painted-face male role; and the Chou, or clown.

These characters could play major or minor roles in the opera (with the Chou generally serving in a minor capacity), and their costumes, face paint and movements all serve to symbolize their situations, motivations and actions.

In particular, the paint on the face of a Jing is packed with meaning, from its color (a particularly loyal character might have red on his face, for example) to its personality-evoking arrangement of lines. We hope you'll enjoy "Wreaking Havoc in Heaven," a venerable and beloved tale of a monkey king disgruntled with the gods.