Today we went to visit the Temple of Heaven which is a famous Taoist temple built in 1420 on a site that has historically held important harvest worship festivals. The site is about three times larger than the 44ha of the Forbidden City – 80% of which are lovely garden spaces that are largely used by Beijing’s retiree population for dancing, tai chi, chess, cards, mahjong and matchmaking… yeah.
Matchmaking. It seems the parents and grand parents of young people who work too long stuck in their offices with no time to meet people, get together with official matchmakers in the park to overlook profiles of young available men and women. Their profiles are written on cards and laid out on the floor and list such into as: Age. Height. Clean background. Height. Weight. Apartment. Car. Education. Chinese Horoscope for compatibility. Sometimes there were photo attached. The matchmakers arrange dates for the young people and get paid according to satisfaction and also more generously if they make a ‘good match’ for the young people.
The Chinese horoscope is very serious business when it comes to marriage and some matches are considered far more favorable than others. A chicken married to dog no good, apparently. But a tiger married to mouse/rat is good. Tiger married to tiger is also ok… ‘You can have two tigers on a mountain, so long as one male one female. No two male on one mountain’.
I am a Pig but sort of on the cusp with the Rat – and the description of both is scarily accurate in some ways:
PIG: pig people are kind, honest, generous, and good humoured. They usually love their homes but are generally not very good housekeepers. They like indulging in their pleasure and would rather spend their time buying, preparing and eating good food. They are steadfast, patient, and enduring, good at organizing without being bossy. Pig people are very trusting and very trustworthy. Very sensual lovers and may enjoy love between satin sheets with caviar and champagne nearby.
RAT: outwardly cool but charming and sociable, endowed with intelligence and observant. Rats are quick to grasp a situation, and can easily size up what is going on from everyone’s point of view. This enables them to give good advice to others who are slower to catch on, though rat people may say more than people want to hear.
LOL. So much of both these sounds like me. I had an opportunity to buy a personalized Jade chop with my name and a pig on it. He’s very cute and I have red ink, ‘just like Emperor’. It seems the Emperor chop was with red ink, the Empress in blue ink, and the common people, black ink. 
Mr K is a Water Rabbit which with my Metal Pig make good match, “you make him”.
RABBIT: peace loving rabbits generally like to keep out of arguments and as a result can be very diplomatic and also good at negotiating. The rabbits strength is in observing the game, assessing the situation, and coming up with a solution or innovation when the time is ripe.
But I digress- back to the Temple of Heaven and the beautiful gardens which are predominantly comprised of beautiful shady juniper and pine trees some of which are up to 500 years old.
According to traditional beliefs, the Jade Emperor is the Emperor of Heaven (which is, we remember, round – heaven is round, earth is square). And in his round heaven, the Jade Emperor has a palace of 10,000 rooms to be bigger than the Earth Emperor’s 9,999 room Forbidden City.
At the centre of the Temple of Heaven is the Hall to Pray for the Good Harvest. Again, the building has been created in a large round pagoda shape because heaven is round and earth is square. There are three levels of the pagoda as well as three tiers of marble resting under the pagoda representing: earth, human and heaven. Each tier has 9 steps leading to the next which represent power and longevity.
The roof of the Temple is blue – unlike the Imperial yellow of the Forbidden City – which represents the sky (‘600 years ago, you know, the sky is blue every day, now it is sometimes blue because pollution’). Additionally it has many green and blue decorative accents, the green of which represent the harvest and jade which is the colour of the Emperor of Heaven.
The Chinese people believe that jade is a treasure from the earth, and that jade can protect yourself and your family. So they worship the Jade Emperor but also the jade itself to protect the people and have a good harvest.
Inside the Temple of Heaven pagoda is a throne for the Emperor for when he comes to pray. Also there are 28 tablets inside that symbolize the 28 stars. Further in Taoist temples there are often prominent dragon and Phoenix designs that depict the yin and yang – male and female balance of the universe.
The Emperors of China visited the Temple of Heaven on this site to carry out the rite of worshipping the Jade Emperor from the 26th century BC until the early 20th century AD. While this particular pagoda was built in 1420AD, there has been a Temple of Heaven on this site since 2600BC.
The rites are performed on December 22nd and at Chinese New Year at 4:15am when the Emperor would come to pray before sunrise. The Emperor of Earth made prayers and gave offerings to the Jade Emperor in heaven – offerings of rice, silk, jade, and roast ox, pig etc. He prayed 9 times to protect the country and also offered large animal sacrifices.
Whenever the Emperor went out of the Forbidden City, all the common people would be ordered to stay home, as it was forbidden to look on the emperor. Palace spaces would clean the streets and lay down special clay and water to prepare a smooth royal street for the emperor. If someone did look on the Emperor it might be okay if you were to stay quiet, but if someone disturbed the Emperor he may have them killed so ‘wise not to look at Emperor’.
After the ceremony all the people offer congratulations to Emperor for worshipping the Jade Emperor in the the heavens, and then edicts were issued to proclaim the worship is complete. The rites continued until the last Emperor in 1912.
Buddhism came to China 1800 years ago. Christians came to China 1000 years ago with Marco Polo. Judaism came to China only 500 years ago and Shanghai has a famous synagogue and Jewish Quarter.
In 1942-45… Jewish were forced from Shanghai but the Chinese secretly fed the Jewish people who were detained and 500 babies were born in this period.
So after all this culture and religion we were off to the experience the wonders of China’s billet trains as we head to the ‘small city of Xian, only 8.5 million people, you know’, this afternoon. Bye-bye Kelli Family. We will miss your Happy Rooms in Beijing (the Four Star Happy Rooms that is … not the Two Star ones!).