Live: A walking tour of the Yingtian Gate in Luoyang

On the last day of this year’s Golden Week Holiday, CGTN takes you to the historic city of Luoyang, central China’s Henan Province. The city served as the capital of China for 13 dynasties and is considered the cradle of Chinese civilization. Suitang Luoyang City National Archeological Site Park is one of the most representative historical and cultural heritages in central China, and Yingtian is the main gate of the palace. Join CGTN’s Chen Lanyou and Christine LaPlaca on this extraordinary journey!

hey guys welcome to cgtn special series of China holiday life which presents you festive scenes from from six popular tourist destinations in China during the go holiday I’m yoyo and I’m here with my colleague Christine hey everyone we’re right here at the captivating in gate in the historic city of L so yeah sit back relax and join us on this extraordinary Journey let’s go let’s go yeah so Christine this is actually my first time here in Lo but you’ve been here before right yeah I came here about 9 years ago um with my mom we were traveling a bit through China and lyang is actually a really important city um in China it’s it was a cultural political and religious Center Buddhism started here um it was the capital of China for 13 dynasties oh yeah and a lot of people consider C and L the two most historic city in China because they have both served as the capital on for like 13 dynasties but some experts say actually Lan is 200 years old older than Shen and in terms of like the time serving as the cou yeah so like you mentioned uh last time you were here was N9 years ago so have you noticed any changes off the city yeah definitely I mean 9 years ago it wasn’t as modern as today the infrastructure is really improved there’s a lot of modern shops that you would see in like the capitol Beijing and they seem to have done a lot with cultural uh protection since I was last here so that’s also great to see um I did notice I mean this morning there’s not too many tourists here but yesterday there was so many uh I guess because it’s the golden week holiday yeah the last day holiday and inate is actually famous for its uh evening views so a lot of people come here um to take pictures pictures in the even yeah yeah and as we’re walking through this gate uh let me tell you Empress Wan actually had her coronation ceremony finished here at in Gig yeah she’s quite a legendary figures in the CH in China’s history she’s the only female Empress in China’s history wow so I guess an empress but we did have a couple Queens um but so it’s quite amazing that actually this woman ruled China oh my God so as we can see um this amazing view yeah this is mown and that’s the taller architecture is tiwn and so mown is basically U more of a center for political activities and tant is more of a spiritual place it’s where the emperor would do like their worships so it’s really critical Point Place in in ancient lyang where the politics and the religion came together and those two buildings we’re seeing right now is actually rebuilt like about um 10 years ago cuz uh unfortunately the buildings got burned down like back in the days but uh they found the relix uh around 80s and they uh repair it like around 10 years ago wow I mean it just shows again how important like cultural preservation is um to protect all these amazing sites here yeah but since we’re here in in let’s focus more on in Gate uh so to give our audience a better understanding of the history of this site uh let’s welcome our guest M jotin uh she’s a tour guide of the park hello J uh hello hello welcome to the Indian gate thank you so could you give us uh a little like basic information like which emperor like uh gave the order to build this inent gate uh okay anent gate gate in the history was first built in the 65 ad uh during the empero Yi of the S Dynasty about 1,000 yes yti and is the name of the emperor in the 1,500 years ago so did Empress Walk Through the state uh yes uh Empress wasan if she want to go into the uh Palace or the going out uh she will work the this this gate but uh now this doorway oh now this doorway uh in the middle if she yes yes in the middle because in the tra traditional culture a middle doorway means the high level oh wow to the EMP so she’s I guess she’s the only one I mean like all the emperor should walk in the middle right uh in the history just the Emeril can work in the middle okay we can go into this way now we can visit our Museum uh we can use the mural use the statues to uh know the more I’m glad we’re all wearing Han fu yeah today yeah to have a more immersive experience so exploring I’ve noticed Han Fu has become really popular uh for people to wear especially at tourist sites yeah especially in Lon I feel like I haven’t seen that many people like wearing hu in Beijing but I mean more yeah the ancient cities people really wear it so um this is actually my first time wearing the Han Fu what about you yoyo oh yeah this is actually my second time cuz and I was really into Chinese historical dramas before so I couldn’t help myself doing one of those handful shootings yeah but I’m glad to see like yeah more and more people start to wear handful and uh we can notice and in each Dynasty the handful has its own style oh wow uh we can guess and uh what dynasty your War have in I have no idea is it t Dynasty because I’ll just say Tong Dynasty Dynasty am I right actually no yes um for dynasty for example uh I wore the town Dynasty but you what the main dynast main Dynasty okay main also main also M main uh because uh our Chinese uh country have more dancing in history each D has it own history own uh as it own culture so their clothes has it Own St so now we’re getting into the museum inside the museum now wow and we can notice in our Museum uh there are many uh people many tourist that were the hand handful and in some special uh holiday special day U if your tourist wor the H hanu uh they can visit the museum for free oh wow oh that’s great to know to know it’s a great way to promote Chinese to promote traditional Chinese culture right yes it it is a way of [Music] to the more about our country so I think the tang and chipa are probably the two uh most famous style for uh Chinese traditional clothing but some experts say uh those are not authentic uh so like the handful the traditional handful uh follows an eight character rules like some of the major one is it has to be flat so it’s one Fabric and no shoulder lines and also it has to be symmetric elal uh and also I think the top layer should be on the right am I right I’m not sure but yeah I think it follows an eight character rules okay now we can uh look at this part now we’re going to the town Dynasty City Dynasty 1,400 years ago uh this group of states will show us the uh design concept of the country at that time oh wow in the 65 ad Emperor Yi upon the great architect Yan Kai is his name to design the whole city uh so we can notice this part I do know what this I actually did a little bit research is that the tunang star map is it and actually it is means the skies in the star oh yeah conation um because in traditional culture there is a palace in each of the five directions uh this Stars used for uh Emeril in the heaven to live uh and we can see this this star it’s big deeper yes yes uh the whole city was built by this traditional concept uh to build the city city definitely uh for example uh big deeper has uh have Seven Stars uh so in the AIS in the city’s axis of the of the capital there are seven building building to so astronomists are definitely some of the people that I admire the most cuz you mean I mean I mean like the sky and un ierse it’s so far away from us and like for people in dtown Dynasty they don’t even have telescope back in the day so it’s quite so it’s quite an incredible accomplishment for them to do like all the star map and all that yeah that’s okay we can see there is a mural for our airs uh actually is a tourist wearing the traditional clothes also wearing H Food yeah and this new shows us the PO City the axis the H parts of the Capal uh we can stand for we can uh firstly we can find a gate this which gate is this uh this gate is not here and this gate is named just in gate so how far away is it from inan gate uh about 6 kilomet 6 kilomet to the South South directions uh if the people want to go into the city we have to firstly go into for this doorway and we can find uh in here this part of the mural we can find a special animal we can take a closer look okay wait are those the camel camels oh yes uh right this is C uh in the 2 and7 years uh the arch just uh first discovery the camel uh means that in the ancient times Lya is the laa is a starting part of the Asian Silk Road Sil Road because actually uh as we know the Silk Road mostly important and famous trade roads in the ancient times and I think loon actually has contributed a lot to the new Silk Road which is the B and row initiatives and because um like couple weeks ago I happened to have the chance to visit the city of IU in toan Province and also U visited the China Euro railway station there wow uh and I was surprised to find out that Lan also has China Euro railway station and a lot of loang made products including like solar power panels on have been sent to Central Asia Russia and Etc yeah and it is the center in the center of China so it’s definitely an important hub for this kind of thing sure okay let’s move on so Asian times La is a commercial center at that time amen businessmen going to here to trade trade goods and we can see this part of the city uh firstly I will give you a brief introduction to the whole city uh because in the uh Song Dynasty L City’s access about uh 19 19 kilomet 19 and the whole city composed of triple circles the first parts of the city is the otter City uh Ed for the uh use for the people to leave also called this part Le part le le City we can find there many people R the street and some special special men do you know who he I’m not sure who is this who two figures uh this figure is religious for Bui Buddha budism Buddhism move on wait is that the um the canel like the great can Canal this is a greatek canal during the Su Anton Dynasty it is the most important TR road yeah that’s why is such an important part of China’s history because it’s really a hub of Transportation I mean not only land transport but also water transport definitely for trade goods link the Beijing yeah to North and area hello hello hello so why do you come to during the golden W holiday capital for 13 dynas and it’s one of the most cities in why do you want to wear hanu to come to this place yeah the prevalence of hanu in the city of Lan is incredible there’s so many I’ve encountered so many people where hanu uh on my two days here yeah have fun bye bye okay let’s move on yes uh and uh uh stand here we can find two gate before airs we can guess which which gate is this is this Yan gate that we’ve just seen gate this gate is named D gate gate gate uh each part of the city used for different use this part we call this is Imperial part Imperial City of the Lo this part used to officiers to work okay offic and more like politic activities were going on over here did we walk through like those three gates are those the gates we have walked through earlier uh same same to this gate okay okay let’s see the emper can going to in the middle in the middle doorway the officer just can work in the gate in the S doorway this is gate can notice this gate very magnificent very huge yeah it’s much taller than the other Gates show the face of I wonder how long like did it take them to like finish the construction of this gate uh the Emeral and the designer build the whole city we can guess how long time to build we can guess who City gosh I don’t even know I don’t even know like I’ll say a year five year five years five years uh one year five years uh we can build the whole city uh maybe today we we build a city uh maybe we can use a more long time but in the ancient times the who city was buil used 10 10 years 10 wow no no 10 mon 10 Mon oh 10 months 10 months that’s very yeah one year 12 months so this gate uh maybe use uh uh too short time to build this building we can see this is Indian gate uh Indian gate uh in the in the uh later part uh is uh after after the gate this is the co area of the H city named The Palace area a palace area used to uh used for Amro to work to leave so this gate is more important maybe in the ancient times Emil need to declare some important messages she will stand in here like ESS Los and we can just this gate is composed of five parts five parts and now we are staring here it is a all the five parts have different views right uh this uh this part use for empo to declare some messages and the side Towers used to store the foods okay weapons uh if the war took place in luang uh can uh use the weapons from here and this part is most important parts named The Watchtower Cho Watchtower uh we can imagine imagine uh was it used like during the war times War times we can stand here here if the war took place in Lya we can see far away and today if we uh if we stand here we can see we can see the lman GS Lan G see from there uh about SE wait wait but isn’t it like 40 minutes drive from in gate yes um and and this part also composed of five parts the primary Tower secondary Tower and tertiary Tower in the One Directions but we can see this Parts composed of three parts in two directions uh One Directions has uh have uh three parts do you know what mean to the ancient times because I have no idea idea idea in the ancient times in the tong Dynasty if the Watchtower has uh more uh Watchtower means uh more high level rual rual life see um Empress was it must be on the highest floor yeah maybe maybe because in the empress the range this Parts uh have the five parts in and today C City the gates just have three parts so gate it’s much more impressive right all right let’s move on so this is just saw from upstairs right when we were standing up on the balcony yes yes main toown T toown Palace uh this building is main toown Palace used for andess with t to work where the political activities were going on and tent I believe it’s more of a spir spiritual place where like the emperor will do their worships right uh yes uh in the Chinese history uh each dancing has it own Rel religion in Empress 13 uh the country believes the Buddhism so this is actually this is a pooda pooda oh yeah like Christine mentioned that’s why I like Mo yeah such an important place for yeah I mean it’s it’s where like Buddhism was transmitted to the rest of China after it came from India so it’s quite important in ancient times this Buddhas has a huge uh Buddhist buddh uh yeah but unfortunately it got burned down right uh in that time this Bas one figure little figure can hold the 10 people wow so we can huge people stand on one little so this good this Bo is is very very huge so now in the in the reconstructed one do they have a big Buddha there now or but today this Buddhist is not here not there okay not here now we can see the second mirror this mirror is very beautiful she was a five emper in here picture H in one picture wow but I see is that Wan in the middle yes she’s so she’s truly a legendary figure that put her in the middle because in our history uh from the Chin Dynasty to the Chin Dynasty in Beijing is about uh 500 emperor in the history but just tin is the only female female Monarch she’s very very important so she’s very special and very mysterious woman she love to be we we can guess we can guess uh how many age how old how old was she how old is she okay I definitely need to read more history book I have no idea I’ll just guess like um 60 70 70 70 no what about you Chris take a guess when she watch a movie this movie will shows the empress she love to be 82 wow wow it’s PR incredible for people back in the days yeah [Music] exactly it’s a great combination of modern technology and history exactly so pretty this animal is Phoenix Phoenix is very Ines history uh Emeril uh often use the organ means the means the power but just the female can use the Phoenix me the woman [Music] power is is this the coronation ceremony seems like they’ve combined the constellation this movie shows the history of the City uh shows the stting dynasty this is a map of the city this is a sha Dynasty in history our city used to the capital for certain Dynasty the first first dynasty s Dynasty is in here and the Shan Dynasty Western Jo Dynasty Eastern Jo Dynasty this is a h in the hind Dynasty we have the first temple in China is sp temp oh yeah the White Horse Temple yeah I’ve heard it’s it’s very very important for Buddhism did you go there last time you were here last time I was here I visited it’s very very beautiful so today in the China we have the eight eight uh City historical city is has the most Dynasty and the longest Dynasty also CN right cuz I know CN and loon both serve as a capital for 13 dynasties but yeah I heard some experts say Lo actually is uh around 200 years or older in terms of like the time serving as the [Music] capital yeah the time is a little bit controversy but yeah they’re both really important historical cities in China both the important historico city okay this is finish wow very beautiful very beautiful shows the empress in 690 ad Empress tin is 67 years old 67 years old she coming to luang and be the Emeril H the only Empress Emperor she she didn’t become the emperor Empress until she was 67 uh yes 67 and this is officers and some officers uh um is very special uh because maybe they’re going to loang from all the world so loang was really a place where all the people came together spreading all the culture all the history uh commercial or the uh politics uh Center yeah so are there any other famous figures in this pictures besides the Emperors okay notice this part of the miral uh he the Emeril uh is the most famous emperor in the town Dynasty there are 21 emperor in the town Dan history Le as is the most important figure was he famous for anything specific let me think um in his um in his perod the economy is the highest level of the and I think Tong Dynasty in general right very yeah very important in Chinese culture a lot of we’re on to the next site and now we can see the intian gate ruins today so this is actually the original original site okay okay so in gate is actually on the reparation work of the government right so the inate we see today is not the actual ancient buildings right yes uh in 1960 the the ruins was first to discover uh discover so uh today our museum is built in 2016 yeah I think the government has really done a great job in the reparation work yeah and actually one of my friends told me and when she when he visited the Lan gratos on um like the Lan gratos was in reparation and she he told me like uh it happened every 50 years my dress is a bit too long yeah I mean protecting these ancient cultural sites is really important um the long m grados is has so many Buddhist statues cultural significance so it’s really important they keep protect ruins so which part of the ruins is this uh this ruins is the most important part of the who ruins it is the Watchtower oh like we saw downstairs right yes uh just me just mention now we can notice this part is the Watchtower the first part uh primary Tower set and uh secondary tertiary part uh the Watchtower in each directions has the three parts it is a most a higher level so so besides like the use on during the war times what other use of like the watch watchtowers so yeah if there’s no war did they just use the Watchtower [Music] for what I mean what was it used for then preserve the city Okay Okay g City okay let’s move on this way we can go to see the next movie next movie to shows the AIS of the city so today our Museum was built in the 2016 2016 to preserve the culture prevent the ruins for further damage 2016 2016 so only you didn’t have the chance to visit here no this Museum was not here when I visited lyang in the past so it’s really great see here today so what are those Springs you here oh sorry you go you go first and we can find the picture oh there’s pictures on the on the walls is this like oh there’s I’m not sure if you can see it through the camera it’s really faint very important traffic to the toong people this a religious full Buddhism I saw screen over there what is this screen used for theame oh oh it looks like a Lego Christine do you want to try I can try so so it’s basically a Lego for G where let me try yeah you try o ah so this is the main the base the we have these the signal is a bit offing here but anyways could oh so that’s the History part this doorway doorways in middle so those are like the three doorways we walked through um earlier today and we can guess if you want to go into the palace to face to the empress which doorway will you go in the middle I’m guessing no only the middle only reserved for the empress if you work in the middle you will be DED so we’re common people we have to walk in the side can work the middle if you work the middle you will be times okay okay should we go downstairs so it’s really amazing care see dress you know the original sight because I almost got TR I mean we’ve seen you know the reconstructed one but I always really enjoy going to so many cultural sites in China because they’ve tried to preserve them so well to keep the history Yeah so basically they do reparation work like uh regularly oh what is this part we can what are those little boxes here little box is the community community community today in the ancient times the people live in this box Community we see like there’s like different names of the communities yes what are they Nam after ah it’s a good question question and maybe it’s the most famous people live in this community this community so are there any like famous figures uh in the town Dynasty live in one of those boxes many many famous people lived in this city and uh could you give us few examples um do do you know some famous T Dynasty figure in the history I mean The Poets like Le does he live here Lei is the most famous poet poem poets in the history uh but he not live in L but uh he oh I think also d by they’re also from the tong Dynasty right and we can notice this part uh this box means named L is name and and the B is lived in this part so who is is a famous famous poets in the ton dynasties and we can see this part is also another famous poet yes no he’s not the poet he’s like um how do you say it General oh yeah famous General wow and uh this part Jing uh live in the empress ‘s daughter oh so so her daughter doesn’t live in the palace but in one of those communities um because the daughter as son of Emperor lived in the community just the Emeril can live in the area in that time wow I didn’t know that if they if they was teenager teenager they are going to this part to Imperial Garden to to study okay so once they grow grow up they will they can join move out of the palace and here isanan is EMP living here wait but doesn’t the emperor live in the palace because um is um grandson of w so she’s a just a okay so when he was younger he lived in that Community but once he became the emperor he moved to the Palace right yes please are two ancient soldiers right yes okay so we can going to see some memory specialty yeah loang has a lot of famous things I mean yoyo do you know any famous food in Loy I’ve heard about the water mat but I’m not sure what exactly it is is it like some like super oh my God I got trapped a few times in really long Dr be careful guys yeah I’ve also heard of that but I’m not entirely sure what it is oh I also heard about uh L is famous for H right some sort of lamb noodle dishes it’s h perin specialty but not exactly in yes yes inang uh um we actually to eat the soup in the daytime oh yeah like the beef soup and lamb soup something like that wow there’s so many snacks here a lot of snacks and actually this is the this is the peie flower oh yeah lyang is super famous for that I know everything use the pi wow as we can see there’s so many pies in the stores hisory p is um important medicine so we can use the pi to the cake so I know every every year lyang has a festival in the springtime for the pies as well tracks thousands and thousands of visitors a beautiful wow so this is not the season for peie right right now it’s not no I think the the festival should be in May and April and May wait but don’t you guys smell like can you guys smell like the aroma in the air I feel like I have definitely smell something in the air when we’re walking outside there’s some very very favorite flower like some type of flowers not PE yeah probably OS uh osthus osthus flower the pi is very big so means in his in history of means rich ride yellow oh and there’s some blind boxes a really famous recently M yeah I kind of want to try the flower cake yeah let’s see if we can can we try one try one okay let’s try this one right here wow taste test time yeah uni flower cake so what is the name of this type of cake it’s not a it’s not a moon cake it’s a I don’t know like some kind of traditional pastries pastry so mango and flowers it’s um kind of similar with like the Yan flower cake right I know they like the famous rose cakes a lot I’m going to should we try cheers y wow very good really good it’s sweet but not too sweet right just like crispy on the outside and sweet and soft s on the inside really good I think this is a perfect souvenir to take back yeah probably grab a few boxes later okay what else do we have here wow more peon flowers I noticed when we were walking outside earlier the PE flowers everywhere yeah if you use the p in the town dancing means you rich oh because this flower is very big Pi flowers and yes oh my God so I think that’s it for our journey today thank you so much m Joe for yeah for guiding us through I had a lot of fun I’m so glad we came here it’s a very very interesting City bye bye thank you so much bye bye well I’m so glad we came here super informative and really fun Journey today Ian what was your favorite thing that we saw today or learned today well definitely the pi flower cake because I’m I love foodie yeah I guess my favorite thing was probably seeing the ancient ruins I really like to see these kind of historical sites I definitely want to read more history books when I go back to Beijing yeah all right I think that’s it for our journey today thank you guys for watching China holiday live uh our last episode of this year so byebye for now and I think we’re going to go grab some lab noodles today lunch thank you for watching bye bye bye