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Renovation begins for heritage sites
Multi-million-dollar repairs on Beijing's 700-year-old Confucian Temple and the adjacent Imperial College have started with the aim of restoring their original glory. The repairs form part of renovations going on across the city on more than 20 cultural heritage sites as Beijing gears up for the 2008 Olympic Games. However, more than 2,000 other heritage buildings are still being improperly used by households and work units. Renovations on the temple and college -which together made the highest state educational institute in ancient China - will cost at least 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) and take around two years to complete. The buildings are State-protected cultural heritage sites, said Mei Ninghua, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage. Built during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), the two buildings demonstrate the typical design of a high state school in the imperial era. The school is a north-to-south structure and the Confucian temple is to the east. Confucianism was the moral foundation of China's feudal society, and was the standard for the Imperial Civil Service Examination system that came into being in the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618) and lasted for more than 1,300 years. Mei said the renovations are the most thorough and complete for more than half a century. Almost all the ancient structures of the two compounds, including gates, halls, towers and enclosing walls will receive a facelift and hopefully end up looking as they originally did, said Mei. Scaffolds were put up outside some key buildings yesterday such as the Jade Disk Hall in the Imperial College. There the emperor, sitting on a dragon chair, gave lectures and explained the Confucian classics to civil and military officials. The Confucian Temple and the Imperial College are really one complex, and together were the highest educational institution of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. The institution trained numerous Chinese intellectuals and also a number of foreign students from Japan, Russia and Korea. However, after the People's Republic of China was founded, the Imperial College and the Confucian Temple were separately administered by two different government departments. As a result, the former became the Capital Library and the latter the Capital Museum. Only simple maintenance and minor repairs have been carried out on the two compounds in the past fifty years. The two compounds will become one again after the renovation. Around 60 per cent of the city's 3,500 heritage sites are occupied and not properly used by residents and work units. In another development, repair work on the Summer Palace, a World Heritage Site in southwest Beijing, is in full swing, said Li Kun, an official with the palace administration. The project, with an investment of 50 million yuan (US$6 million), is focusing on the refurbishment of Foxiangge (Pavilion of Buddhist Fragrance) and Paiyundian (Cloud Dispersing Hall), two symbolic spots on the 58-metre-high Wanshoushan (Longevity Hill), said Li. Tasks will mainly include repairing broken eaves, replacing the pavement with gray bricks, protecting all stone sections from the weather and rehabilitating damaged paintings, Li added. At least another 20 cultural heritage sites will also be repaired this year, including world famous ones such as the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) and the Great Wall, said Mei.
(China Daily 04/08/2005 page3) |
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