Daily Life in the Forbidden City

by WAN YI, Wang Shuqing, Lu Yanzhen

The Forbidden City in Beijing with its Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties has been the political centre of the Chinese Empire for over 500 years. Remarkably, many of the elements of everyday life in the Forbidden City have been preserved over the centuries - furniture, artifacts, costumes, paintings, implements and documents, and from them it is possible to reconstruct a picture of what life was like for the inhabitants of the palaces. The daily events of the imperial household are illustrated with photographs, and brought to life by modern-day reconstructions - imperial ceremonies, political and military events, inspection tours, hunting trips, recreational activities, life at the resort palaces outside Beijing, costume and living conditions.

328 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1989

Reviews

[Melissa Addey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book - although I love to read fiction because of researching for writing my own novels I find myself reading a lot of non-fiction and this one was fascinating (some can be a bit dry!). I loved the huge and rare photos throughout (it is physically a very large book) as well as the 'real' daily life such as photos of chamber pots hand so on, not just rituals and formalities (although it has all of those as well). It also has other rare items such as children's toys and a very large piece on medicines. If you want to know more about the Forbidden City, read this and if you're researching anything around this era and place then it's a must.

[Pedro Enguita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really sorry for giving it only three stars but there's a good reason.

Well, the book is big (physically). Not a problem at all but I wanted to warn you.

It shows you a very large set of photographs about every aspect of the Forbidden City. Perhaps too much about the rich and powerful but that's the way historical books do. It's just spectacular, WOW!

Unfortunately (here it comes) it gives you very little information about the "daily life in the Forbidden City". It should have been better called "a photographic tour on the Forbidden City".