Frenetic Tourism

Backtracking somewhat, I will identify an instance of performative properties in the Forbidden City, which has risen to fame as the pre-eminent landmark of China's cultural and political history. As the facility that once served as the official residence of many emperors of China, the largest standing palatial complex in the world, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the essential center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, comparable only to the Terracotta Warrior complex in Xi'An and the Great Wall, constitutes the most visible and of the most recognizable symbols of historic China. A complex of great architectural splendor and excess, the site draws an annual volume of approximately 8 million tourists, which, in China, is exceeded only by the Great Wall.

During the visit, I witnessed a relative frenzy surrounding very few places within the complex. While exterior photographs offer the primary prescription for tourists, photographs of the interior seem to be of equal importance, but of far greater urgency, as the ability to view the interior of the chambers is largely impeded by extensive enclosures. As visitors can only view the interiors through the central door and one opening to either side, a great crowding occurs about these openings as tourists attempt, often unsuccessfully, to photograph an arrangement of furnishings that do not differ extensively between the six chambers, which are pictured below.


As the exterior forms and structures must attest to some nature of permanence, their appearance does not conjure many serious questions of veracity. However, as the objects that exist in the interior of the chambers could easily be moved or replaced or embellished upon, the verifiability of the exhibits of imperial thrones and podiums falls into great ambiguity. The image that so many tourists have invested intense effort into capturing could very well be a fabrication of unknown origin. And yet, they continue to do so, often raising their cameras over enthused crowds to in haphazard attempts to record the contents of six nearly identical throne-rooms.

As the Forbidden City no longer hosts its original function, its current architectural condition could be described as more or less a physical re-enactment of some now greatly obscured and, arguably, irrelevant cultural insinuation. However, based upon this post-humuously developed significance, the Forbidden City has shaped its internal physical environment into a new cultural landscape that has taken on a new type of dynamism, albeit one driven exclusively by tourism. By this principle, the site is effectively reinvigorated, perpetuating its survival. In effect, the new relationship between the Forbidden City and its inhabitants could be likened to that of the bee and the flower, whose bright colors attract its codependent species to pollinate and complete a complimentary cycle of symbiosis.