temple of heaven 天壇 (beijing, china)

Posted by timothy sullivan (Tokyo, Japan) on 29 January 2009 in Architecture.

As my friends and I continued down the path toward the heart of the temple complex, a drizzle started in; I recall that there was something so beautiful about the reflections of umbrellas in the ancient stone underfoot, and as I stood still for a few moments I realized what had held my gaze: thoughts of carp.
At Japanese temples, colorful koi (carp) swim about about the streams and ponds within and surrounding the temples; these rainbow reflections of umbrellas reminded me of the fish. Though the cultures were quite different between Japan and China, I saw quite a bit of similarity in terms of architecture and layout, and symbols used. (It seems to me that the Japanese ideas on what to build were merely limited by their landscape--the broad, flat Chinese land was extremely well-suited to building on an expansive scale the Japanese could only dream of. But what the Japanese lacked in terms of dimension, they made up for in style. But I digress.)
But what of fish? Sadly, no colorful fish--only greyish catfish were to be found in the ponds and moat around these grounds.
Nevertheless, I was in for a delightful surprise. The Imperial Vault of Heaven is known not only for its design (which, admittedly, is a little plain) but for the wall that surrounds it--a wall quite appropriately known as the "Echo Wall" or "The Whispering Wall". This wall is another one of the marvels of the ancient world: it is built in a nearly perfect circle. As such, a person facing the wall can speak at the wall, and converse with another person standing on the opposite side (which is a delight to try!). Thus while walking along the perimeter of the wall, it truly does whisper--often in many different languages (given the assortment of tour groups).

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