北京：一条七点八公里的线

I only had one day in Beijing.

My friend asked me: what do you want to see?

I said: I want to see the Beijing of the past, and the Beijing of today.

She said: then let's walk one line.

In the morning, we started at the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is big — seven hundred and twenty thousand square metres.

Inside there are still nine hundred and eighty buildings.

There are more than eight thousand seven hundred rooms in total.

I said: over eight thousand seven hundred?

She said: yes.

She said: construction started in 1406 and finished in 1420.

After that, twenty-four emperors in total lived here.

Fourteen in the Ming dynasty, ten in the Qing.

I said: for how many years?

She said: nearly five hundred.

After 1912, there were no more emperors.

On 10 October 1925, this place became a museum.

I said: so a place you couldn't enter before, you can now walk into with a ticket.

She said: yes.

We went in through the Meridian Gate on the south side.

Behind one gate there was another gate.

Behind one courtyard there was another courtyard.

All the big halls were on that line down the middle.

My friend said: the important things are all in the middle — did you notice?

I said: I noticed.

After midday, we came out through the Gate of Divine Prowess on the north.

Outside the gate there's a hill, called Jingshan.

Jingshan is forty-five point seven metres high.

I said: was this hill always here?

She said: no.

She said: in 1420, when they were building Beijing, workers dug the moat around the Forbidden City.

The earth they dug out, plus rubble from demolishing the Yuan-dynasty palace, was piled up into this hill.

I said: so the hill I'm about to climb is the earth from the hole beside the Forbidden City?

She said: you could put it that way.

We climbed to the top.

There's a pavilion up there, called the Wanchun Pavilion.

Looking down from here, the whole Forbidden City is at your feet.

All those gates and courtyards I walked through in the morning now line up straight.

My friend said: this line keeps going south, and keeps going north.

She said: it's seven point eight kilometres long.

She said: this line is called the Beijing Central Axis.

She said: in July 2024, it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site.

I said: a road can be a World Heritage Site?

She said: there are fifteen places on this line — the Bell and Drum Towers, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen and the Temple of Heaven are all on it.

I looked at this line.

Suddenly I understood that the ground I was standing on is also part of the Forbidden City.

It was just dug out and piled up next door.

In the afternoon we came down and walked into a hutong.

The hutong was narrow, with grey houses on both sides.

Someone was washing vegetables in a doorway; someone came out wheeling a bicycle.

An old man sat on a low stool in the sun.

My friend said: the Forbidden City is the centre of a line.

She said: the hutong is the daily life on either side of that line.

I said: those two are very different.

She said: but they're on the same line.

In the evening, I went back to the foot of Jingshan.

In one day I had looked at 1406, 1420, 1925 and 2024.

And also at someone washing vegetables in a hutong today.

When you come to Beijing, would you rather stand at the highest point and see the whole city, or sit in a hutong for an afternoon?