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Reflections on a Wandering Life.....
Sunday, March 30, 2008
"This edifice, as enormous as a city, had been built by the centuries, for whom? For the peoples. For the work of time belongs to man." --Victor Hugo
This afternoon after church we took a stroll up past the West Gate of Peking University, and over across the top side to the South Gate of the Old Summer Palace (圓明園). The Old Summer Palace was the place where the emperor actually lived during the 19th Century. I am not sure if that just means the summer time, or even during other parts of the year. But it really is a beautiful park. Sad, though, because the grand palace itself was sacked by the British and the French in 1860 at the end of the Second Opium War. There has been talk of rebuilding the massive palace, but the government has decided to let the ruins remain as a reminder of China's shame in relation to the Western countries during the Nineteenth Century. I concur. It is a sad chapter in China's painful relationship with the West that should not be forgotten. But the pathos of it all does sorta dim one's spirits, even on a bright, sunny spring day.
Click for larger image.
The Western powers who carved up China during the Nineteenth Century were not really motivated by a need for increased territory, such as was the case of Japan during the years before World War II. They just wanted to make money and have their share of the pie, so to speak. In a way, though, they are all partly responsible for Japan's actions, because it was Japan's desire to get part of the wealth from this colonization that precipitated the gruesome atrocities we all now associate with the Japanese invasion. But if the Western powers were not primarily interested in land, they were interested in China's wealth, and they raped this country shamelessly in the years during and after the two Opium Wars. In 1860, an Anglo-French force entered Beijing, and was ordered to completely destroy the Summer Palace. They did, but they looted it first, taking the treasures of China with them back to England and France. Thus, the competition for empire between England and France which had played a role in the French and Indian War, and the American Revolutionary War, found another victim. The Exhibition Hall includes a scathing letter by Victor Hugo condemning the violence.
This afternoon after church we took a stroll up past the West Gate of Peking University, and over across the top side to the South Gate of the Old Summer Palace (圓明園). The Old Summer Palace was the place where the emperor actually lived during the 19th Century. I am not sure if that just means the summer time, or even during other parts of the year. But it really is a beautiful park. Sad, though, because the grand palace itself was sacked by the British and the French in 1860 at the end of the Second Opium War. There has been talk of rebuilding the massive palace, but the government has decided to let the ruins remain as a reminder of China's shame in relation to the Western countries during the Nineteenth Century. I concur. It is a sad chapter in China's painful relationship with the West that should not be forgotten. But the pathos of it all does sorta dim one's spirits, even on a bright, sunny spring day.
Click for larger image.
The Western powers who carved up China during the Nineteenth Century were not really motivated by a need for increased territory, such as was the case of Japan during the years before World War II. They just wanted to make money and have their share of the pie, so to speak. In a way, though, they are all partly responsible for Japan's actions, because it was Japan's desire to get part of the wealth from this colonization that precipitated the gruesome atrocities we all now associate with the Japanese invasion. But if the Western powers were not primarily interested in land, they were interested in China's wealth, and they raped this country shamelessly in the years during and after the two Opium Wars. In 1860, an Anglo-French force entered Beijing, and was ordered to completely destroy the Summer Palace. They did, but they looted it first, taking the treasures of China with them back to England and France. Thus, the competition for empire between England and France which had played a role in the French and Indian War, and the American Revolutionary War, found another victim. The Exhibition Hall includes a scathing letter by Victor Hugo condemning the violence.
