Beijing Postcards will present 4 of the most spectacular historical maps of Beijing ever made. The mapmakers were respectively: an emperor, a missionary, a soldier and a German doctor. We will explore the background of the individual map makers and their connection with the city of Beijing, using the maps to create a talk about the last 200 years of Beijing history.
In addition, Ying has created a cocktail based on her favorite spirit - Rum - to refresh people in dire need of connecting the dots of old Beijing.
The Emperor’s Map
In 1935 the Palace Museum made an amazing discovery. On dusty shelves several books were found containing an enormous map of Beijing. It was 13 meters broad and 14 meters high and commissioned by the emperor Qianlong in 1750. The map was made on the scale 1:650 and is believed to include close to all houses of the capital within the city wall, and is still today regarded as one of the most detailed maps of old Beijing ever made.
The Missionary’s Map
Foreign maps of Beijing was for a long time very simplistic, but in 1829 the Russian missionary Hyacinth Bichurin published an impressively detailed plan of the city. Bichurin was an expert of China, but allegedly a terrible missionary. The Orthodox church called him back to Russia and placed him in housearrest because of his utter lack of converts, but the knowledge about China, he brought with him back home, created the foundation of Russian sinology and influenced general knowledge of Beijing far beyond Russia's borders.
The German Doctor's Map
Emil Bretschneider was a doctor of profession, but during his stay in Beijing he concerned himself with maping down Beijing and its outskirts, it was not least his passionate interest in archeology that lead him to this. Bretschneider concerned himself with the very roots of Beijing, and together with his friends Fritsche and Mollendorf he produced the map - Peking and Neighborhood in 1884.
The American Soldier's Map
In 1936, Frank Dorn, a young U.S military attache in Beijing, spent two months creating an illustrated map of Beijing. His cartoon style map conveyed the feeling of old Beijing seen from street level in a way so that you could almost smell the dirty streets of the capital. Frank Dorn's keen eye for details and love for the city he lived in also shone through in his descriptions of Beijing in his diary: "Mad confusion of rickshaws, carts, wagons beggars and peddlers"…"foul-tempered beasts laden down with sacks of coal"..."spitting and kicking their way through seething humanity".
Still today Frank Dorn's map is one of the most popular maps of old Beijing.
Where to meet: Beijing Postcards Gallery, No. 97 Yangmeizhu Byway Dashilar (杨梅竹斜街97号)
Cost: 180RMB per person (incl. cocktail, beer & soft drinks); 80RMB for Zoom talk